Cheerful Ghost: An Awesome Community For Gamers

Watch The Recent Chucklefish Stardew Valley Stream

As WhiteboySlim mentioned in the latest roundtable, ConcernedApe is nearing the release of Stardew Valley. He says it should be out sometime this year and as such Chucklefish streamed the game for an hour. Personally I want to wait to experience the game fresh, but I don't fault you for peeking early. I'll clip out a bit from a recent blog post on the matter:

"The game is very close to being finished. I don’t have a set release date yet, but it will certainly be out this year. Single player is 99% finished, but needs a more polishing and debugging. Multiplayer still needs some work, and I am looking into possibly switching to MonoGame, which would allow for a Mac and... Read All

The Humble Bundle Gets Netflix Like Subscription In "Humble Monthly Bundle"

"A highly curated bundle of our favorite games at one fixed price. Includes everything from recent hits to hidden gems to timeless classics - every month. Receive a bundle every month. Simply sign up, and let the games roll in. Discover games that haven't been featured in other bundles. Help worthwhile causes — 5% of each month's proceeds support charity."

If one of the problems in your life is not having enough games to play, The Humble folks are on the scene with The Humble Monthly Bundle. You pay a monthly subscription of $12 a month and you get a bundle delivered to you each month. New subscribers get Legend of Grimrock 2 and you can cancel anytime. What I like... Read All

Click And Tap Your Way To Virtual Riches In AdVenture Capitalist

I thought it would be fun to talk about AdVenture Capitalist on the day we drop traditional web advertising from Cheerful Ghost. AdVenture Capitalist is a free to play game by Hippo Games that takes the cookie clicker formula, simplifies it and is styled after a 1920's era Capitalist Utopia. You start the game by selling lemonade and can upgrade to a newspaper route, car wash, pizza delivery all the way to running your own oil company. Since clicking each time you want to sell something is tedious and not very Capitalist the game allows you to hire managers to do the clicking for you. If you get Managers running all your companies you can step away and come back to... Read All

Why We Dropped Traditional Web Advertising From Cheerful Ghost

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When I launched Cheerful Ghost more than three years ago I wanted to build an amazing video game community that was funded by its users. Initially I had three ideas for ways to make enough money to keep things going and one was using traditional web banner advertising. I didn't plan on this making us much money, but felt it was a good compromise to make a few bucks to offset some of our traffic costs. In a perfect world, I don't actually mind this model as it mirrors much of how traditional forms of radio and television use to fund the programs we love. With that, there have been some very interesting conversations recently about web advertising, privacy and respect... Read All

Never Gonna Give You Up, Mario

*Had a longer post written before my browser crashed*

At first I saw Super Mario Maker as just a fancier Mario Paint, but I've been watching some Let's Plays and have seen it been used super creatively. I've seen a Sonic Green Hill Zone Act 1 recreation (https://youtu.be/zmnzh0BHM6w), a level with flying super mushrooms that you're actually avoiding like enemies because you need to be small to continue through the level, and many others.

It looks really great. I will probably pick this up now when it's on sale around Christmas :)

Fallout Anthology - One More Collectable Before The End Of The World

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"For the first time in the history of the award-winning franchise, all the Fallout games you know and love – or need to catch up on – are available in one explosive PC collection. Fallout Anthology features five critically acclaimed games and official add-ons in a premium collectible set – neatly packaged inside a Fat Man mini-nuke!"

I was just going to pickup Fallout 4 but now.... this is really great and I have a place on my new shelf for it. I also don't own Fallout 3 on PC yet as I played it on PS3 originally and want to come back and replay it.

Are you going to pick this up? It's not a bad deal for all 5 games and comes with a neat nuke collectable too.

... Read All

New Legacy of The Void Video "Reclamation" - Everyone Dies For Auir

Blizzard has released a new video called "Reclamation" that goes into history of the Protoss as they get ready for the new Legacy of the Void game.... errrr as they get ready to invade the Zerg infested Auir. As with many things there is a completely coherent idea that war can be avoided and that the Protoss should find a new homeworld to avoid the massive loss of life that would result in an all out war with the Zerg. Good thing Artanis completely rational ideas are immediately discarded as if they went with it after you started the game you'd see Artanis hanging out on the current Protoss homeworld knocking back a cold one saying "good thing we didn't do that war... Read All

Hideo Kojima Reviews Hideo Kojima a Hideo Kojima Game

Jack and Rich review Metal Gear V and like all of their reviews I found it amusing and fun. Like Rich, the last Metal Gear game I played was on the NES and I wasn't really drawn to the rest. Many people loved the later Playstation games and there is an incredibly loyal fanbase for them. So much so that this review seems to have caused some Metal Gear fans to take shots at Jack in the comments. Video Game controversy isn't new but I often find it strange as people are essentially getting upset someone has an opinion about a game they don't share. Sure Jack and Rich are snarky as is the Red Letter Media way, but I didn't find it grossly offensive or insulting.

Jack and... Read All

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 09/29/2015 at 07:23pm

I've not played any of the modern MG games and only had limited experience with the original NES game (although it seems really awesome at the time).

I enjoyed Rich and Jack's review of the game, and the backlash of MG fan comments seems to boil down to "You don't understand Metal Gear games."

Which then brings up the question "When playing a game(or reading a book, or watching a movie), should you be able to enjoy the game on its own, or because each sequel builds upon the previous games(or books or movies), to really review the game, you should go back to the beginning to fully understand the current game?" (That was a long and convoluted question, I know)

I generally think each game should be able to stand on its own, but I can understand being frustrated with someone who doesn't "get it." I'd be annoyed with someone if they started watching Game of Thrones starting with Season 5 and then tearing it apart for not making sense, or not understanding how the previous seasons built up to it. But of course tv shows are different than movies/books/games that are usually self-contained stories.

Any thoughts?

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/01/2015 at 01:19am

There is no such thing as an "objective review." Our perspective paints everything we review and as such I am not sure how I can remove myself from myself on any piece of art. The only kind of objective review I can think of is one that simply lists facts because saying the game was "great" or "immersive" is all subjective. So when someone says they don't like something I love it's not a huge deal to me. I think people often intertwine themselves in the art they love and take all criticism as aimed at themselves or as they would a close family member. I think this covers more than gaming though.

"When playing a game(or reading a book, or watching a movie), should you be able to enjoy the game on its own, or because each sequel builds upon the previous games(or books or movies), to really review the game, you should go back to the beginning to fully understand the current game?"

Depends on the intent I suppose. If this is meant for new gamers to the franchise then sure, if it's meant for diehard fans then maybe not. In this instance I, most likely, won't pick it up for that reason and a few others.

Travis Admin wrote on 10/01/2015 at 01:32am

This just helps support the view that reviews, and even aggregate review scores like Metacritic, aren't necessarily helpful to you. You can get some information from it to help decide if you'll like it, but don't be a slave to the score. In this case especially, you're going to appreciate the game more when you have the lore from the previous games.

SHOULD games stand on their own? That's up to the developers to decide. If you think of games as art (and with Metal Gear Solid, it's definitely more art than many other games-- 45 minute cutscenes, anyone?) then the artist paints with his or her own brush. Art is meant to be enjoyed, for the most part, but it is meant to be an expression of the artist.

So basically what Jon said. :D

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/02/2015 at 02:59am

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Come Hear Our Starship Rubicon Talk And See Our Booth At This Years IndieGame Con

Greetings human. Wick and I will be giving a co-talk at this years Eugene IndieGame Con about Starship Rubicon from it's early stages to eventual Steam launch. We talk about the games humble beginnings, Kickstarter and also discuss the age old question "why make another indie game?" Spoiler alert, we ain't rich but we can hopefully convince you we had fun and learned... something. Oh and come by and check out our all new Cheerful Ghost / Starship Rubicon booth. We will have some surprises for people so come check it out.

IndieGame Con is happening October 2nd-3rd and we will be boothing and give our talk October 3rd. For more information about IndieGame con, ticket... Read All

Alien Isolation Coming To Mac & Linux on Steam September 29th

I've heard it said that in space no one can hear you scream with glee that so many sweet games are being ported to Mac and Linux. Or is that line shorter? 2014's chest-bursting hit Alien: Isolation is coming to Mac and Linux on Steam next week and I am very excited. It seems that some publishers are releasing a game initially then when the game has been out for sometime, drop it on Mac and Linux. I think this is a good strategy to pump some life in a games release cycle. This news also comes about a couple months away from Steam Machines launching so it might be related to that too.

Now watch the original 1979 trailer for a piece of cinematic history and the movie that... Read All