We'll make another post Wednesday as a reminder. See you then!
Come join us this Wednesday night at 9PM EST, 6PM PST. If you don't have the game yet, it's pretty cheap on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/13210/
We'll make another post Wednesday as a reminder. See you then!
We joke that there are only two seasons up here: winter and construction. Maybe it's not really a joke... Anyway, summer is usually our best month. I mean season. No, I do mean month. The last few summers have been supremely lame, so we're due a good one this year. For a lot of us, I think, who have migrated from the south, it's the best part of being here. Beautiful environment and endless sunlight to enjoy it. It's over all too quickly, though. My favorite part of the year follows shortly after, the crisp chill of autumn. The changing leaves don't last very long, but the sunsets linger. The stars start to come back, and everything feels sort of magical.
The downside? A distinct separation from the rest of the world, and unless you have the funds to leave on a regular basis, you can find yourself feeling caged in. Anchorage has mountains on one side and water on the other, an almost literal bowl, with one road going out, which caters to some of the worst drivers in the world. Most of us suffer from severe vitamin D deficiency. There isn't much in the way of variety or opportunity here, either, unless you are into certain things.
"Space Qube is a voxel based retro shooting game which is going to hit iTunes store soon. The game is basically composed of two parts, game and workshop."
I love the idea of a rich iOS game that allows the ability to share your creations with others. For a time, I too enjoyed Words with Friends because it was a really interesting shared experience. Space Qube also shipping for free? Pretty much a must play for me.
"Space Qube is a voxel based retro shooting game which is going to hit iTunes store soon. The game is basically composed of two parts, game and workshop."
I love the idea of a rich iOS game that allows the ability to share your creations with others. For a time, I too enjoyed Words with Friends because it was a really interesting shared experience. Space Qube also shipping for free? Pretty much a must play for me.
It's a fine looking game, Owen! I hope you're successful with it. And, seriously, that model editor is quite cool :)
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 03/09/2013 at 08:48pm
Hey @fallingcat thanks for stopping by!
I am really looking forward to the final game and plan on doing a much more in-depth post on it when I can get my hands on it! Good luck on the penis filter :D
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I've been playing Bit.Trip Runner 2 for the past few days, and the charm is thick with this game. It's narrated by the voice of Mario himself, Charles Martinet, it starts off with a fake ad for things like Milk Brine, and you run into characters like Reverse Merman here.
I plan on writing more about this as I progress, but if you're looking for a bizarre perpetual running platformer crossed with a rhythm game, this is your jam. These games are frustrating, to be sure, but much like Super Meat Boy there's no better gaming feeling than acing a level.
I've been playing Bit.Trip Runner 2 for the past few days, and the charm is thick with this game. It's narrated by the voice of Mario himself, Charles Martinet, it starts off with a fake ad for things like Milk Brine, and you run into characters like Reverse Merman here.
I plan on writing more about this as I progress, but if you're looking for a bizarre perpetual running platformer crossed with a rhythm game, this is your jam. These games are frustrating, to be sure, but much like Super Meat Boy there's no better gaming feeling than acing a level.
Ubisoft has been incapable of keeping this one under wraps. This trailer leaked yesterday, was taken down, but now it's back. So if this disappears, that's why.
The new game in the series has you playing as the grandfather of AC3 protagonist, Connor. The sailing mechanics of the last game return, which is good news for anyone who loved those as much as I did.
It looks like this is releasing later this year. I'll be buying it, for sure. Even... Read All
Hey, that rhymed!
Ubisoft has been incapable of keeping this one under wraps. This trailer leaked yesterday, was taken down, but now it's back. So if this disappears, that's why.
The new game in the series has you playing as the grandfather of AC3 protagonist, Connor. The sailing mechanics of the last game return, which is good news for anyone who loved those as much as I did.
It looks like this is releasing later this year. I'll be buying it, for sure. Even though the series has gone downhill, it's still greatly entertaining. I understood people's problems with AC3, but I loved it.
I think the cycle is too fast on this, but I still think it will be a solid game. What cracks me up is that everyone was like, "Oh my god the ship battles were the absolute best part of AC3! We want more!" Then they announce this and everyone goes, "What? A pirate? Who wants more ship battles?"
Legend of Zelda Sundial of Shadows is a VERY unique fanimation set in the Zelda universe. They totally nail the feel of Zelda for me and each frame evokes dat nostalgia. That said, if you are turned off by more art house or Anime, then this isn't your jam.
Episode 2 is a nice continuation of Episode 1 but doesn't spend time following the events of episode 1, it takes a step backward and provides a bit more back story. It reveals little, but allows the viewer to see a bit more of the universe it so eloquently builds. I like the style of this series quite a bit and can't wait to see it unfold a little bit at a time.
I recommend you watch episode one: ... Read All
Legend of Zelda Sundial of Shadows is a VERY unique fanimation set in the Zelda universe. They totally nail the feel of Zelda for me and each frame evokes dat nostalgia. That said, if you are turned off by more art house or Anime, then this isn't your jam.
Episode 2 is a nice continuation of Episode 1 but doesn't spend time following the events of episode 1, it takes a step backward and provides a bit more back story. It reveals little, but allows the viewer to see a bit more of the universe it so eloquently builds. I like the style of this series quite a bit and can't wait to see it unfold a little bit at a time.
Street Fighter X Mega Man is one of those games that leaves me between a head scratch and a high five. One awesome thing about this games is that it is getting a deluxe physical release on a sweet USB drive.
The chances I pick this deluxe version up and VERY high and if I do, ill let you know how it turns out. If you are interested in what comes with the deluxe USB release for $19.95:
* 8GB Mega Buster USB stick * Mega Man #1~4 (Digital Comic Book) * Mega Man Tribute Art Book (Digital) * Mega Man X Complete Works (Digital) * Street Fighter X Mega Man soundtrack (via A_Rival) * SFxMM Wallpapers (Originally posted on Unity) * Quick link to SFxMM game (in case you somehow don't... Read All
Street Fighter X Mega Man is one of those games that leaves me between a head scratch and a high five. One awesome thing about this games is that it is getting a deluxe physical release on a sweet USB drive.
The chances I pick this deluxe version up and VERY high and if I do, ill let you know how it turns out. If you are interested in what comes with the deluxe USB release for $19.95:
* 8GB Mega Buster USB stick * Mega Man #1~4 (Digital Comic Book) * Mega Man Tribute Art Book (Digital) * Mega Man X Complete Works (Digital) * Street Fighter X Mega Man soundtrack (via A_Rival) * SFxMM Wallpapers (Originally posted on Unity) * Quick link to SFxMM game (in case you somehow don't have it)
It's waaaay tougher than any of the cannon Mega-Men, or even 9 or 10. Enemies respawn way too frequently. It's a game balance thing that's pretty broken.
It took me three months of busting my ass to beat Street Fighter x Mega Man (most of it on stream too, which was embarassing) but it was worth it. Megaman was probably my favorite franchise and they did it faithful. Also, I'm buying the living shit out of this megabuster.
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I am really excited to bring you guys a few new features today and as such wanted to talk a bit about them. So here goes...
Interviews: Interviews are becoming a big part of Cheerful Ghost and some people were having a hard time finding them. I added the interviews to the menu to give them more visibility and showcase more of what we do.
Anyone on the site can add "Interviews" to their list and contact a person or company in gaming to post. When I started the site I had never given an interview before and after a few, was able to make them great. So if you had an inclination to do an interview with someone about your favourite game or game company, I urge you to go for... Read All
I am really excited to bring you guys a few new features today and as such wanted to talk a bit about them. So here goes...
Interviews: Interviews are becoming a big part of Cheerful Ghost and some people were having a hard time finding them. I added the interviews to the menu to give them more visibility and showcase more of what we do.
Anyone on the site can add "Interviews" to their list and contact a person or company in gaming to post. When I started the site I had never given an interview before and after a few, was able to make them great. So if you had an inclination to do an interview with someone about your favourite game or game company, I urge you to go for it. If you need some advice, drop me a line as I am happy to give you suggestions or help you out in any way I can!
Memberships: This is a really exciting new feature for the site because it enables quite a lot of awesome. First off, it allows people the ability to donate to the site if they wish. The second thing it allows is for people to back Cheerful Ghost as Members. If you decide to back the site as a Member you get a whole pack of awesome stuff and over time will get even more! I don't want to talk too much about what's coming next, but suffice it to say your membership will get sweeter over time.
What you get now is pretty epic and I wanted to talk a bit about that. First off, if you donate or back the site as a Member you are supporting Cheerful Ghost in a way that will keep the site going for a long time to come. If you donate or back the site as a Member you also get a special trophy for your awesomeness, but we take it a step further as each person that backs the site is featured in the new section called "The Hall of Awesome."
The Hall of Awesome is a new site feature that will showcase people that donated or backed the site as a Member until the end of time(or nuclear apocalypse, I can't keep the site up during a nuclear event). You are listed under the year you donate or become a Member and will always be listed under that year. As a special bonus for Members we allow them a much larger Hall of Awesome mention and the ability to customize it with whatever you wish to say. Forever immortalize your wit for future generations of Cheerful Ghost fans!
For people that donate or back the site as a Member we will also upgrade your user titles to Haunt and Ghost respectively. We are also allowing Members the ability to customize their tagline to 140 characters, up from 80.
Oh right and everyone that becomes a full member will have all the site ads removed as well. There are also a few more features available, but you can read all about them in the Membership section:
I am excited to see these new features drop and am happy they are out because I can focus on the next set of awesome stuff we are doing in March. I don't want to spoil the next big move, but its quite a lot of stuff you guys have been asking for and will love.
I want to thank everyone for hanging out on Cheerful Ghost and talking about awesome games. Working on the site has been one of the coolest things I have done and it wouldn't be awesome without you!
If you have any questions, drop me a line in the comments!
We're glad you did, scrypt! Awesome members like you make the site as great as it is.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 03/02/2013 at 07:50pm
scrypt you are awesome, thanks for you support! I have also really enjoyed our conversations on the site as well. Here's to more of the rad!
beansmyname Supporter
wrote on 03/02/2013 at 10:12pm
I'm with scrypt. Glad I stumbled on the site. I just need to start making more time each day to visit, add Android & Linux titles to the list.
Also, big thumbs up to giving the interviews their own category. There have been several wonderful interviews here that have no parallel at other sites. They're down-to-earth, very open discussions with people who haven't yet lost their passion for making fun games.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 03/02/2013 at 10:13pm
@beanismyname I totally agree, some of the interviews are super cool and I do want to give a bit more life to them.
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After jdodsonâs interview with the developers of Hammerwatch, we got to take a beta for a spin. We recorded a lets play of us playing Survival (in which Jon is awesome, by the way), which you can watch above as well as our first impressions below. Read on for our thoughts on this early build of the game, as well as some follow-up questions that came out of our test.
Let me just say, this game is amazing. It starts off tricky, and the difficulty curve continues at about the same pace as your upgrades, so be prepared to stay alert.
Hammerwatch is heavily inspired by Gauntlet but takes the genre a few steps forward in very unique ways. Choosing one of the four classes... Read AllAfter jdodsonâs interview with the developers of Hammerwatch, we got to take a beta for a spin. We recorded a lets play of us playing Survival (in which Jon is awesome, by the way), which you can watch above as well as our first impressions below. Read on for our thoughts on this early build of the game, as well as some follow-up questions that came out of our test.
Let me just say, this game is amazing. It starts off tricky, and the difficulty curve continues at about the same pace as your upgrades, so be prepared to stay alert.
Hammerwatch is heavily inspired by Gauntlet but takes the genre a few steps forward in very unique ways. Choosing one of the four classes players take on the foes of Castle Hammerwatch, and can choose from Paladin, Wizard, Ranger, or Warlock (currently unavailable in the beta). For most of the night, I was a Paladin and Jon was a Wizard. Each class requires an entirely different playstyle, so the replay value is high.
The level design was my favorite part. Youâll frequently walk past locked doors that require a key you donât have, or an obvious path you want to take thatâs blocked by spikes. At one point we came upon a big letter âAâ and had no clue how to get to the room containing it, or what it even does. Occasionally youâll walk straight through a wall and find something awesome waiting for you on the other side. These design choices keep the game flowing, pushing you on toward more exploration.
The enemies are varied, and as you progress through the floors of the castle, you get harder variants of each enemy type. The different attacks each enemy has makes them better suited for players in different classes, so at launch I imagine a well-rounded team with each class represented will be the best way to play, though Iâm sure quad-Paladin and quad-Wizard games will hit youtube showing off their badassery.
The 16-bit-inspired graphics are charming, and the sprites are well-designed. This will remind you of the SNES RPGs you grew up with, but with more definition and depth.
The music does a very good job at setting the mood and making you feel like youâre on an epic quest. It doesnât get tired but occasionally the tracks donât blend into each other perfectly, showing off a bit of the early beta stripes.
The game we played was an early beta, but if it was sold as it is now with just a few tweaks, weâd be happy. As it stands now the game shines in single-player and co-op and we have no doubt that by launch this game will be stellar.
After playing the beta we had a few questions for Jochum and Niklas we didnât know to ask in the first interview, and we thank them for taking the time to talk to us and let us in on the Hammerwatch beta.
jdodson: First off the game is fantastic so congratulations on that! As Travis and I were playing multiplayer I couldnât stop playing! I just had to progress a bit more, it was quite a lot of fun!
Thank you! We're really glad you like it.
Travis: Saving isnât implemented yet, but how will it work when thatâs complete? Will your game autosave when you walk over a checkpoint? In addition, will you be able to bring any character into a multiplayer game?
We might change it if it doesn't work well, but yeah, right now we're thinking that we should just autosave when stepping on the checkpoints and maybe when walking between levels. Moving characters between saves (like between a singleplayer and multiplayer save) will probably not be allowed since there are balance issues with what upgrades have been bought and how much money you have. We also probably won't allow moving characters beween different level scenarios (like the campaign and suyrvival scenario) because of the same issue.
jdodson: The Warlock isnât included in the Beta-- in what way you are changing this class so he will be included back into the game?
We're not sure how the warlock will end up yet. In our first implementation of him he summoned monsters that would fight for him, but that just wasn't very fun so we will have to think of something else.
jdodson: Travis and I played multiplayer as a Paladin and Wizard respectively. What are your strategies for the Paladin to keep him protected during battles? As the tank he takes quite a bit of punishment but can often go down faster because he is always at the front line of the battle.
In the first few levels the paladin can be a bit tricky since you need to move around more with him than the other characters, but later on you get the shield upgrade which protects him from incoming projectiles so that he can easily take out ranged enemies. He also gets a heal spell which heals him and the rest of the party which should help with his survivability.
Travis: The level design in Hammerwatch is very compelling and complex. Having things just out of reach that you donât unlock until later entices the player to keep at it. When designing the castle, how did you keep the design moving such that the player was led forward by revisiting familiar locations.
We try to always show some kind of goal for the player, so something like being able to see a key on the minimap or a checkpoint on the other side of a wall. The levels used to be a bit more open than they are now, but even with the minimap it got too confusing, so now we're directing the player a little more, at least in the beginning of the game.
Travis: We noticed you decided to use OpenAL for audio support in Hammerwatch and since we are both Open Source fans, really like this choice. In the final version, will this automatically installed for us?
We're not entirely happy with OpenAL right now because of this installation issue, but if we do keep on using it then yes, we will make sure it's installed on your computer so that the sound works properly.
Travis: As jdodson and I were playing we were both playing with joy2key. We are both wondering if controller support will ship native for all players in Hammerwatch?
It will, yes. Even the beta you have actually comes with gamepad support for player 2 if you play it in local multiplayer, we just haven't been able to add control remapping in yet.
jdodson: We both loved playing Survival. How many rounds can this go until the end or can it go to the end of time, assuming you survive that long?
In the beta there are only 5 waves, but in the final version of the game there will be a lot more. We will also lock on the one life modifier when playing survival so that you can't just respawn to keep trying.
That was an epic survival match and for a bit there wasn't sure we were gonna make it out winning. I dig the Ranger for survival and want to try him out for the regular campaign.
Recently the Starbound folks have released The Starbound Chronicle: Issue 1 that highlights some of the recent activities in how the game is progressing. In this issue they talk a bit about how in game Armor mods work:
"The effect of armor mods varies hugely. From armor that glows in the dark, to armor with a built in defib that activates if your energy bar is full when you die, shocking you back to life."
The game seems to be taking a turn to allow the game world a bit more depth by allowing... Read All
Starbound is a really exciting looking upcoming open ended sandbox in space. You can read some of my thoughts about it here as a primer:
Recently the Starbound folks have released The Starbound Chronicle: Issue 1 that highlights some of the recent activities in how the game is progressing. In this issue they talk a bit about how in game Armor mods work:
"The effect of armor mods varies hugely. From armor that glows in the dark, to armor with a built in defib that activates if your energy bar is full when you die, shocking you back to life."
The game seems to be taking a turn to allow the game world a bit more depth by allowing the in game races quote a bit of back story.
"Another area of the game we've been focusing on recently is fleshing out the history of each race in Starbound and building a deep and compelling lore.
Starbounds lore is presented to the player through books, logs, papers and other materials found in the game world, as well as conversations with NPCs who will change what they say based on your race."
They end the Chronicle with a few emails from the community and drop news on a in John McCain race. At least its not something to do with cats I suppose.
Very excited for Starbound to drop and as soon as they post anything about release dates you will be the first to know.
I signed up for the newsletter right when they released it. And I've been following the Starbound development for a while now! That game looks amazing and I can't wait until it comes out!
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 03/02/2013 at 01:52am
I totally agree. Supposed to be this year, so heres for something soon!
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After seeing some really cool 8 bit bead creations at a the Portland Retro Game Expo this summer, I decided the world needed a Cheerful Ghost. Spending a bit of time on it here and there I created a process to build the Ghost magnets and I think they turned out pretty well. Right now I am testing my latest magnet adhesive strategy on my fridge and these particular prototype revisions are holding up well.
Stay tuned over the next month for information on how you can put one of these awesome Ghosts on your fridge!
After seeing some really cool 8 bit bead creations at a the Portland Retro Game Expo this summer, I decided the world needed a Cheerful Ghost. Spending a bit of time on it here and there I created a process to build the Ghost magnets and I think they turned out pretty well. Right now I am testing my latest magnet adhesive strategy on my fridge and these particular prototype revisions are holding up well.
Stay tuned over the next month for information on how you can put one of these awesome Ghosts on your fridge!
See you all then!
I'll straggle in late, as I won't be home until an hour after you guys start. Stupid Alaska...
Alaska! Awesome. I want to visit Alaska some day. Preferably in the summer.
Me too. Ill be on still, fear not :D
We joke that there are only two seasons up here: winter and construction. Maybe it's not really a joke... Anyway, summer is usually our best month. I mean season. No, I do mean month. The last few summers have been supremely lame, so we're due a good one this year. For a lot of us, I think, who have migrated from the south, it's the best part of being here. Beautiful environment and endless sunlight to enjoy it. It's over all too quickly, though. My favorite part of the year follows shortly after, the crisp chill of autumn. The changing leaves don't last very long, but the sunsets linger. The stars start to come back, and everything feels sort of magical.
The downside? A distinct separation from the rest of the world, and unless you have the funds to leave on a regular basis, you can find yourself feeling caged in. Anchorage has mountains on one side and water on the other, an almost literal bowl, with one road going out, which caters to some of the worst drivers in the world. Most of us suffer from severe vitamin D deficiency. There isn't much in the way of variety or opportunity here, either, unless you are into certain things.
It's a unique place, that's for sure :)
Yeah for sure. Total beauty and isolation.
Hoping to head up there some day for sure.