Cheerful Ghost: An Awesome Community For Gamers

The Lord of Terror Reviews Diablo III

"For the last 15 years, as I served as the constant whipping post for thousands...nay, MILLIONS of pathetic worms who have plundered my depths and banished me and my brothers to the soulstones time and time again! NO LONGER! On May 15 in the year of the Panda, 2012, my plan to claim victory over the Nine Hells and the High Heavens has come to fruition! Behold, the chronicle of my journey thus far!"

This might be known to some of you already, but I just found "Diablo's" review of Diablo III on Amazon. Its really funny and sums up the initial problems with the game.

"Day 1: Millions of hapless insects gathered with their gold in hand and their steel drawn as they prepared... Read All

Gamers jobs being taken by machines!

This guy has developed a program that can play games. It analyzes a memory snapshot each second and decides what qualifies as progress, and then tries things until it figures it out. That's a very simplistic way to put it, but he explains it all in the video.

I was personally most amused by Tetris. It didn't *technically* fail.

The 80s Are Dead, Long Live the 80s

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. This is pretty much how I thought the world would end up by 2007. I mean, it's what we were lead to believe, anyway. Since it didn't, it's nice to know that the good kids over at Ubisoft Montreal have given us a portal into such a world. A totally radical world. Totally.

http://fc3blooddragon.uk.ubi.com/index.php

$14.99, and doesn't require the purchase of the original Far Cry 3. May 1st release, on all the usual suspects.

My Let's Play: Legend of Dungeon: Miners Hat

I nabbed The Legend of Dungeon off the humble store and have been playing it a bit over the last few days. Its a really fun hack-n-slash roguelike with a really beautiful pixel-art tone. I am not amazing yet, as seen in this video but its a pretty good walkthrough of how the game plays and how awesome it looks.

Like most roguelikes you can spend a few minutes playing or hours, its really up to you how many times you want to keep playing.

http://www.robotloveskitty.com/LoD/
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=108895757

Jedi Outcast Linux Port in the Works

http://linuxgamecast.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Jcast.png

Last week, after the reveal that LucasArts was shutting down, Raven Software released some of their code to the world: Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy. Jochen Leopold is working on a port of (at least) Jedi Outcast.

This is one of my favorite games in the world, and I look forward to being able to play it on another platform. There are still some major bugs (he's just five days in) but he has the game running!

https://plus.google.com/110109595966784702846/posts

scrypt Supporter wrote on 04/11/2013 at 03:21am

This really is awesome news! I, too, spent a lot of quality game time with this one. Did you do much with the multiplayer dueling?

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 04/11/2013 at 03:50am

I never did any multiplayer dueling. None of my friends had it and I was on really bad dial-up at the time, so I didn't really look at the multiplayer.

vdogmr25 wrote on 04/11/2013 at 09:37pm

In that case, anyone up for a Cheerful Ghost event around this or around Academy? Maybe in the future?

scrypt Supporter wrote on 04/11/2013 at 11:44pm

Yes, please!

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 04/12/2013 at 01:08am

Dudes, yes.

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Legend of Dungeon on Steam Greenlight

"You and up to three companions are looking for treasure and glory in a dark flickering dungeon full of deadly. Legend has it there is a massive treasure all the way down on the 26th floor. Your quest: get the treasure, and make it back alive. Which you won't, you'll die...
...the game is about dying, and treasure!"

After being successfully Kickstarted, The Legend of Dungeon needs a few Greenlight votes to make it to Steam. This game looks like a really awesome retro roguelike that has an really interesting dark pixel style.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=108895757

You can also pick the game up for $10 on Robot Loves Kitty website which gets you the... Read All

Interview with FTL Designer Matthew Davis

FTL is one of the most unique games I've played in the last few years. Many gamers started following the game since its successful Kickstarter till now. Being a huge fan of the game myself, I contacted the FTL folks to ask them a few questions about the game and how things have gone since launching it. I want to thank Matthew Davis and the FTL team for taking time to talk to me and for also making such an awesome game.

Thanks to @scrypt & @CapnCurry for adding questions to the interview!

jdodson: FTL was successfully Kickstarted, has been reviewed very well by gamers and recently you guys won an award at GDC. How as all the attention been and what has been the one... Read All

Not a fan of this week's Humble Bundle

It's hard for me to gripe about a "pay what you want" game package, but I kinda feel like Blendo is playing fast & loose with what constitutes a game here.

The premium title of the bundle (the one you have to beat the average donation to get) is Thirty Flights of Loving. Now, I went into this knowing it wasn't a game, so much as it was an "artfully told story." Mm-hm. Nope. Nope, it's just that between the story and the gameplay, the story *almost* exists and the gameplay does not at all. If you'd like a story-told-in-game-format, I'd like to recommend To The Moon, Portal 2, Final Fantasy 6, Myst... gee, it's almost like we had the story-told-as-game thing down for... Read All It's hard for me to gripe about a "pay what you want" game package, but I kinda feel like Blendo is playing fast & loose with what constitutes a game here.

The premium title of the bundle (the one you have to beat the average donation to get) is Thirty Flights of Loving. Now, I went into this knowing it wasn't a game, so much as it was an "artfully told story." Mm-hm. Nope. Nope, it's just that between the story and the gameplay, the story *almost* exists and the gameplay does not at all. If you'd like a story-told-in-game-format, I'd like to recommend To The Moon, Portal 2, Final Fantasy 6, Myst... gee, it's almost like we had the story-told-as-game thing down for a couple decades before this was released, isn't it?

Next up, Air Forte. This is actually a kids' game. Seeing this lined up next to Flotilla, I thought I'd be in for an aerial combat romp. Nope, I'm in for practicing my basic multiplication and geography skills. Now, I'm not meaning to complain about kids games or edutainment, but there's a context here that's simply being ignored. When I was very young, I found a copy of "Tax Planner" sitting in the games caddy for the family's Atari 2600. I *thought* was in for a sim game. To my credit, I only "played" it for about fifteen minutes before I realized I was trying to beat a utility program. This time around, it only took me a minute and a half to figure out that characters asking me to find their "multiples of 2" was not some cutesy way of telling me their twin siblings had been kidnapped. So personal growth +1, videogame funtimes - 100.

Atom Zombie Smasher is a reasonably interesting idea. Now that I'm out of nice things to say I'll proceed with the review. In software development, we have a mantra: "What is the dumbest thing that could possibly X", where X is either "work", "be recognized as a feature", or something similar. It's basically how we decide where to draw milestones and how to divide work into manageable chunks. Atom Zombie Smasher feels like someone reached the Dumbest Thing that could Possibly Be a Zombie Game, then published it. It's playable. There's even a little bit of strategy involved. But it feels like this one got published long before it got polished. Most of your flash games on Kongregate (Rebuild comes to mind) will outpace this for depth, easily.

I'd love to review Flotilla for you. I really would. But I can't get the damn thing to run on my system. I've followed all of the three-year-old troubleshooting tips, uninstalled, reinstalled, did the usual Windows mamba. It simply does not run. Perhaps not surprising; there are no maintenance patches newer than 2010.

So, there you have it. One story that would fit on a pamphlet, one "game" for your eight-year-old nephew, one zombie game released before its prime, and one thing that purports to be a game but is actually a shrug and a fart noise. Honestly, I can't recommend the Humble Bundle purchase even at name-your-own prices. If you're really curious about one or two of these, go for it - it's not your dollar, but your gaming hour that I'm afraid will be wasted.

scrypt Supporter wrote on 04/10/2013 at 04:30am

Harsh!

Travis Admin wrote on 04/10/2013 at 01:34pm

So what's the bottom line Capn? Should we buy this one? :D

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/10/2013 at 02:12pm

This weeks Bundle is interesting for sure. I decided to skip it because it didn't look interesting to me and now because of Cap's review.

The Humble Bundle is now moving to selling all the time. So they go from weekly bundles -> bundles -> weekly bundles now. When it was spread over months you could always count on something being awesome in a bundle. I think that's mostly true now anyway but not always.

Like Cap, I look forward to the next bundle with some text file choose your own adventure stories and some Microsoft Paint bitmaps and directions on how to program in C. /rimshot

Too soon? :D

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/10/2013 at 02:12pm

PS I love everyone.

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/10/2013 at 02:13pm

Except the Spider Planet in FTL.

BR Supporter wrote on 04/11/2013 at 04:25pm

I personally really enjoyed atom zombie smasher. It could be a flash, I'll give you that, but that doesn't mean its not fun. Specially if you are only paying $1 for it. Not saying you should only pay $1 but its your choice if you want to pay more. I personally payed, I think, around $5 for it when it was on a Steam sale and I think it was worth it.

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ZZT: An Epic DOS ANSI Adventure

To celebrate today's retro Tuesday I decided to dust off a DOS classic, ZZT. ZZT isn't one of those classic retro DOS games that garners a ton of critical acclaim like Commander Keen, Warcraft or Doom but that doesn't mean I don't look back on it fondly. As most DOS games at the time were moving on to CGA, EGA and the super-ultra-deluxe-epic VGA graphics, ZZT games lived entirely in ANSI. When ZZT came out, it wasn't entirely original as the ANSI style was pioneered in other games like The Kingdom of Kroz and others. I really enjoyed Kroz, but the quirky nature of the ZZT kept me coming back to it. Well that and they were all available as some form of shareware.

I... Read All To celebrate today's retro Tuesday I decided to dust off a DOS classic, ZZT. ZZT isn't one of those classic retro DOS games that garners a ton of critical acclaim like Commander Keen, Warcraft or Doom but that doesn't mean I don't look back on it fondly. As most DOS games at the time were moving on to CGA, EGA and the super-ultra-deluxe-epic VGA graphics, ZZT games lived entirely in ANSI. When ZZT came out, it wasn't entirely original as the ANSI style was pioneered in other games like The Kingdom of Kroz and others. I really enjoyed Kroz, but the quirky nature of the ZZT kept me coming back to it. Well that and they were all available as some form of shareware.

I heavily played the original ZZT and Super ZZT the most. As they were both Shareware, I never did actually beat them but played the hell out of what the shareware versions did include. I always dreamt about making my own levels in the "for pay" version but never had the money to actually spring for it.

I think one of the reasons I love MUDS, ANSI adventure games like ZZT and the like and find more modern incarnations in games like Dwarf Fortress is because of the imagination you have to bring to the game. When the player is a simple smile on a screen the epicness of what you are doing lies in your mind. Another reason these games are awesome is because they are often simple to play.

One awesome trival-bit about ZZT is that it was made by Tim Sweeney and a very early Epic MegaGames. Yes, ZZT was made by THAT Tim Sweeney and THAT Epic Games... the folks that brought us Gears of War and Unreal Tournament. Kind of awesome to see how far the company came from making ANSI based adventure games to writing the tech that powers the majority of triple A games in the industry.

To many ZZT wasn't a huge footnote in gaming for them, but for me it was a pretty large DOS staple back in the day. If you could download it off a BBS in an hour or less I played it and ZZT was one of those games I played the hell out of.

CapnCurry Supporter wrote on 04/10/2013 at 05:22pm

I played a little ZZT back in the day. I had a hard time getting past the graphics, I'll admit, and that probably kept my relationship with the game shorter than it could have been.

You know what blows me away, though? "Shareware." That word conjures up images of Windows 3.1 and 3 1/2" floppy disks. I can't remember the last time I tweaked my system clock so that I'd have a few extra days of "free play" time. We still have free demos of games that you can distribute, then you pay to "unlock" the whole thing - when did we stop calling that "shareware"? Was it when we got comfortable enough with digital delivery and the Internet that we no longer rely on customers to "share" the demos? The mind boggles. :)

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 04/10/2013 at 07:16pm

Yeah for sure. Shareware -> Demos was an odd thing for me too. I remember when disks were too small to transmit shareware so I started moving to game downloads on a site called Happy Puppy. It had "demos" and it was strange to hear that at first for certain.

Its seems demo's are pretty rare on PC and fairly common on the consoles. Well at least for triple A titles it seems that they are. I wonder if its that the price point is more reasonable or, since I have a job its not as much of a problem. Not to say I haven't played a demo then picked up the full meal deal, I did that with TL2 for certain.

But yeah, it used to be that all games would have a Shareware/demo copy and now... not so much.

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Giving an Interview: A Few Steps To Rad

Since launching the site I realize the stuff I do might seem a bit out of reach to some. Over the last bit I have improved as a write and I am getting better at sharing content that people want to read. One thing that I started doing over the course of the site was to send interviews to people in gaming I respected. I was really nervous giving the first couple, but after that it got easier.

If you have been considering sending out a gaming related interview, I recommend you do so and as such want to help the process for you. I have a few thoughts that might things a bit easier so you can publish your first interview.

whom to talk to?

First off you might have an idea of... Read All

Travis Admin wrote on 04/10/2013 at 01:38pm

You've done more of these than I have, but one thing I would recommend is-- know what you want to ask before you ask for an interview. For example, I'd absolutely love to talk to Todd Howard, but I have no clue what I'd actually ask him in an interview that he hasn't already answered a thousand times.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 04/10/2013 at 01:47pm

jdodson: Bbbb buuut why are you SO Awesome? Might sound great in your head but... Yeah I agree Travis, start with an idea for sure! :D

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 04/10/2013 at 07:19pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpHVOSYlOv0

The proper way to interview.

Travis Admin wrote on 04/10/2013 at 09:10pm

Adym, I knew what that was going to be before clicking on it. I was never a fan of Chris Farley really, but those interviews were incredible.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 04/10/2013 at 09:24pm

@Travis +1

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