Cheerful Ghost: An Awesome Community For Gamers

Contra History & Top 5 Games

RetroLiberty posted a great video covering history of the classic NES game Contra and the top games in the series. Contra is a very tough game, but I never viewed it as on of the hardest games on the NES. Ninja Turtles, Blaster Master and Little Nemo were all _much_ harder than Contra.

That said, the game was difficult and ... you know maybe I did play each and every game starting with the Konami code. No regrets, had fun.

Happy Thanksgiving

https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/D8R0XXK6577B1385580049552.jpg

I want to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving(if you celebrate it) and wish you a very video game playing holiday. And, if you are lucky enough to be, what games you will be playing?

Super Turbo Turkey Puncher 3 does count!

Dropsy: Live The Life Of a Misunderstood Clown

Back this on Kickstarter!

"Dropsy is a clown. A very, um, not nice looking clown. I think I love him. He has a puppy and he draws his own, poorly painted face on everything – including said loyal canine companion. TV and my nightmares tell me that ours is a world full of sad clowns just trying to get by/devour my heart with crooked, yellow teeth, but Dropsy is an irrepressibly joyful clown in a sad situation. His family’s circus has been burnt to the ground, and he’s gone from local, animal-whispering hero to scrap-collecting outcast. His game, then, is a point-and-click adventure that wields sorrow in one hand and gut-busting humor in another, with a fascinating open-world structure gluing... Read All

Starbound Beta Will Drop Dec 4th

I have been eagerly anticipating the Starbound Beta for quite some time and it looks like we got some word on when the beta will drop from Tiy.

"Starbound beta release is looking to be around dec 4th. Assuming arrangements go through with steam."

I created a Cheerful Ghost event for this, so join it if you want to add it to your calendar and chat about it!

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/events/45
https://twitter.com/Tiyuri/status/405292961044234240

Interview -w Seth Able Robinson Creator of LORD & Growtopia!

If I were to create a list of my top video games of all time, Legend of the Red Dragon would be on the list. Legend of the Red Dragon is a DOS based BBS Door Game that dominated the scene back in the 90's. If you had a BBS and didn't run LORD, it wasn't a BBS worth spending time on. Legend of the Red Dragon was edgy, dark, fantastical and irreverent. Plus it was a hell of a lot of fun. Seth Able Robinson is the creator of Legend of the Red Dragon as well as other BBS classics such as Planets: The Exploration of Space & LORD 2. Not to have his best work end in the 90's, Seth has gone on to create Dink Smallwood, Dungeon Scroll, Funeral Quest, Tanked &... Read All

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 11/26/2013 at 04:41am

This might be the best interview you've done! Mostly because Seth seems like a really cool, down to earth, funny, brilliant guy. I think I might have a slight crush on him.

I loved LORD back in the day, and need to go try Growtopia it sounds like!

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/26/2013 at 07:01pm

I think this is one of the coolest interviews i've done and yeah, it helps when the person on the other end is awesome :D

RovSpy wrote on 11/28/2013 at 11:12am

This interview is liquid amazing. I liked how I could learn a little more of Seth's background in gaming life, and of the games I've only played around once... except Growtopia, I play that a lot...

Looking further to see more interviews with Seth!

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/28/2013 at 07:46pm

We do interviews with all manner of folk in gaming.

http://cheerfulghost.com/interviews

That said, Seth was exceptionally notable. Maybe in a bit I will do a follow up interview.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 09/01/2014 at 04:56am

Hey Abi, Seth won't see your comments on the thread. Your have to contact him through the normal Growtopia channels.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 09/01/2014 at 02:43pm

Check the Growtopia website? I am not really sure.

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What is Mew-Genics?

Since Team Meat announced they were working on Mew-Genics many people have wondered what kind of game it will be. Some kind of cat breeding simulator is a good start, but not many details have surfaced. Over the weekend Edmund McMillen has loosed a few more bits of Mew-Genics .. WITH PICTURES!

I seriously recommend you check it out by clicking the link below.

http://mewgenics.com/147/Its_Caturday_again_/#b

"as the weeks inch closer to our release, sometime next year ill be dropping in little tidbits of info, filling in all the rest of the gaps and maybe even posting some gameplay!
all in all mewgenics is currently the biggest project Tommy and I have ever worked on, and... Read All

More Information Surfaces about Steam Home Streaming

Valve keeps the firehose of rad directly aimed at all our collective faces as they drop even more details about the new Steam in Home Streaming. Serving up the details in a handy Q&A format, the company Gaben built proves that they can keep things accessible yet informative without falling back to using spreadsheets.

"Q: Is this like other game streaming services I've heard about?
A: No, you are in complete control over the hardware on both ends and the network between them. There is no data center, no subscription, and it's completely free!

Q: Can someone use my computer while I’m streaming a game from it?
A: No, your computer is dedicated to running the game and... Read All

Minecraft: The Story of Mojang is Available on YouTube

"Minecraft: The Story of Mojang is a feature-length documentary that follows the young company over the course of its first year as their profile expanded across the world stage and into the homes of millions of gamers. Featuring insights from industry icons (Peter Molyneux, Tim Schafer), journalists (Geoff Keighley, Stephen Totilo), tastemakers (Gabe & Tycho of Penny Arcade), and players profoundly impacted by the game (Yogscast, The Shaft, Minecraft Teacher), the film serves as a time capsule for one of this generation's most unorthodox success stories."

Minecraft: The Story of Mojang is a great documentary that showcases a snapshot of the company and people that... Read All

Age of Empires Online Will Close in 2014

In a recent sling of bad news, Age of Empires Online will be closing shop in 2014.

"I announced in January of this year that AOEO had entered its support phase, meaning that no new content would be added to the game. Then, last month, we mentioned in the forums that AOEO had an end date. That information should have come clearly from me, with a clear and specific itemization of what that means to you, the players. So let’s fix that.

Age of Empires Online will close on July 1, 2014. On that day, the service will cease to function, and no further games can be played. The servers will be taken offline, and no features of the game or the game service will work without the... Read All In a recent sling of bad news, Age of Empires Online will be closing shop in 2014.

"I announced in January of this year that AOEO had entered its support phase, meaning that no new content would be added to the game. Then, last month, we mentioned in the forums that AOEO had an end date. That information should have come clearly from me, with a clear and specific itemization of what that means to you, the players. So let’s fix that.

Age of Empires Online will close on July 1, 2014. On that day, the service will cease to function, and no further games can be played. The servers will be taken offline, and no features of the game or the game service will work without the servers. Until that date, the game will continue to fully function just as it does now. You can quest, raid, chat and trade as much as you like until then."

Age of Empires Online was a freemium MMO-ish RTS I quite liked. Whereas I didn't pay for any of its content, it existed in the void Age of Empires II left when you could no longer play it on modern hardware. As Age of Empires II HD was released on Steam, my time on Age of Empires Online evaporated. That said, the Age of Empires Online experience was quite good and it's a shame it's going away.

The wasn't perfect though as the game UI was often confusing and figuring out what zone to go do to do stuff wasn't intuitive. The game suffered from some lag issues from time to time when I played it and I never really saw the incentive to advance my in game MMO level. It was also tied to Games for Windows Live which required way too many steps to get working in a sane manner.

That said, the actual in game RTS aspect of the game was a love letter to the original Age of Empires and it worked great. What I wish Age of Empires Online was, was the basic Age of Empires gameplay with modern graphics ported to modern systems without the MMO bits. In the end, Age of Empires II HD gave me what I wanted so Age of Empires Online fell between the cracks.

That said, it's sad to see this game go and I hope Microsoft can rip out the core gameplay bits and release it as a standalone product that doesn't require you to be always online.

It's also worth noting that because of it's freemium nature a popular way to unlock more races an in game items was by paying for them. So what do people that love this game have to show for the time and effort they put into it? It's not an awesome prospect to consider.

That said its not all bad news and dead Unicorns as if you already have an Age of Empires Online account, you will get a bit of a bonus for the remaining time the game has left on this earth.

"All purchases have been disabled. This means that you cannot buy more Empire Points, which is the way you pay for additional content, like new civilizations. You can still earn EP through regular gameplay, just like always, and the stores still function normally, to buy civilizations, vanity items, consumables and more. But you cannot spend real money on more EP.

That creates a problem for some of the newest players, however. If you have just started to play AOEO, but not bought any EP, you may be ‘stuck’ in that it will take a long time to build up enough EP to buy a premium civilization. To help all the newest players, as well as give a gift of thanks to our grizzled veterans, on Tuesday, September 17, we will grant 1000 EP to all existing players. This is enough to purchase a full civilization, with a little left over for some fun. That should be a sufficient boost to let new players jump into the game fully and earn more EP over the next several months."

John Carmack leaves id Software

John Carmack, co-founder of id Software, has stepped down from the company. This is presumably to focus more on his work at Oculus, where he took on the position of CTO earlier in the year.

Tim Willits at id reached out to IGN to share the news. According to him, no active projects should be affected-- Carmack has finished the work on id Tech 5 and won't be leaving anything hanging.

I was afraid this would happen at the time, but it's sad to see. Carmack is responsible for so much of the fun I've had gaming over the years. It won't be the same without him.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/11/22/doom-creator-john-carmack-officially-leaves-id-software