Cheerful Ghost: An Awesome Community For Gamers

A Link To My Past

This cartoon totally nails how I felt going to Toys R Us to get a Nintendo game. Walking down the aisle, looking at all the boxes and picking that one game I obsessed over until my next birthday.

Thanks Mom!

Image from Zac Gormans Blog:
http://tmblr.co/ZyT1fxZ9x9_j

Hurray?!?

Hi CG members,

Finally today Steam support just replied to my email regarding the Scammed Revoked Torchlight 2..
n they decided to return it to me =) Unbelieveable.. I thought of it as pretty much gone!

So yeah, my entry here is cancelled.. Thanks for the Fantaboulous opportunity though..
Another great giveaway that I will miss =( Last time was Borderlands 2 n now this..

So yeah, have a great day everyone.. I'm looking forward for another awesome giveaway =P

Game Shop: Minecraft Mayhem

In this episode of that wacky Game Shop, the gang play a game very similar to Minecraft together. It uses a pretty cool four player split-screen that works really well for the episode.

Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition: Free on GoG

"Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition, the legendary FPS in which the Earth's greatest hero provides a steady flow of bullets and badass one-liners, is available on GOG.com, for the low price of one smile, for the next 48 hours. That's not all. For the first time in history, this supreme space-alien slaughter simulation is also available on Mac!"

Duke Nukem 3D Free and now on Mac? Awesome. Best head over to GoG and nab this game before the clock runs out. Never played any Duke games personally so here is my chance to redeem myself!

http://www.gog.com/gamecard/duke_nukem_3d_atomic_edition

Dat Firehose: Diablo 3, Scaling League of Legends

Looks like Blizzard is experimenting with Diablo 3 on consoles. No official plans yet they are getting it working.

http://www.polygon.com/2012/12/10/3752536/diablo-3-running-on-consoles-still-not-an-official-blizzard-project

Riot Games, the makers of League of Legends is now dealing with "big data" and how to scale that to millions of users. As a programmer I find this sort of thing interesting.

http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/12/08/207248/for-league-of-legends-creator-riot-games-big-data-is-serious-business

Valve wants to get DoTA 2 running on tablets but it looks like the current offerings are not hefty enough to power DoTA 2.

... Read All

Thoughts After Finishing Braid

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EfhR_jDjesY/Te8B-_eYniI/AAAAAAAAA-E/vVQPvdNabko/s1600/Screenshot-1.png

Having just completed Braid for my blog (www.backlogkiller.com), I thought I would transfer some of my comments over here to Cheerful Ghost. If you haven’t finished the game and don’t want to have anything ruined, I guess you should skip this post. Although, there’s really not that much to ruin since the entire game is mechanics and puzzle driven.

Braid, the brainchild of the (in)famous indie game designer Jonathan Blow, is a puzzle platformer that uses time manipulation as its primary mechanic in addition to the standard running and jumping. By pressing a single button, the player can reverse time to avert death, manipulate entities in the world, and experiment with... Read All Having just completed Braid for my blog (www.backlogkiller.com), I thought I would transfer some of my comments over here to Cheerful Ghost. If you haven’t finished the game and don’t want to have anything ruined, I guess you should skip this post. Although, there’s really not that much to ruin since the entire game is mechanics and puzzle driven.

Braid, the brainchild of the (in)famous indie game designer Jonathan Blow, is a puzzle platformer that uses time manipulation as its primary mechanic in addition to the standard running and jumping. By pressing a single button, the player can reverse time to avert death, manipulate entities in the world, and experiment with different solutions. Although this sounds simple, the introduction of new elements such as monsters or objects immune to time control complicates things greatly. Using time reversal and properties unique to each world, the player must control the main character (Tim) to collect puzzle pieces and rescue the enigmatic princess that was lost in the past.

Throughout the game, the player is fed small bits of story through strange blocks of text that hint at the identity of the Princess Tim is looking for. This enhances the somber mood of the levels and adds enormous gravity to the metaphor the mechanics of time manipulation work to build. The concept of going back to correct your mistakes and take another path through life is universal and lies in everyone. As a way to represent the desire to recapture a lost love, career, or youth, Braid is very effective and quite touching in my opinion. Unfortunately, the game squanders this chance by making a baffling narrative choice I cannot even begin to understand.

Spoilers Below:

The ‘Princess’ in Braid is actually the secret of nuclear weapons. Tim is a scientist who worked on the Manhattan Project that brought about the age of nuclear bombs and the cold war. Even though the metaphor of time makes sense in terms of the desire to put that genie back in the bottle, it is absolutely ridiculous (in my opinion) when slapped on the game. What could have been a poignant and relatable concept is blown out of the water by the torpedo of grandiosity. I don’t understand why this was done other than to say ‘video games can be important’. Importance can take all shapes and sizes. I cannot relate to developing of a weapon of mass destruction, but I sure as heck can relate to wanting to recapture something I’ve lost in my own life.

It is easy to see why Jonathan Blow is such a controversial designer. The brilliant game design makes me very hopeful for his new project, The Witness, but it also worries me about what direction it will take. Many great stories have dealt with personal conflicts that give them an even greater impact which may have helped Braid. Despite this, I enjoyed the game and was only mildly let down by the ending since it was such a pleasure to play.

Read my full thoughts here: http://www.backlogkiller.com/2012/11/36-braid-game-myth-legend.html

jdodson Admin wrote on 12/12/2012 at 03:39am

One thing you can do with games is make statements. I am glad you spoiled the game here so I could find out what the reveal in Braid is, thanks for that. Does the reveal for Tim's character make sense with the style of Braid? Perhaps not.

I found the gravity of a nuclear assault on life and the landscape to be fairly poignant in Fallout. Just existing in an environment can clue you in to what a designer is trying to say.

That said, starting with a known concept like a Princess and then flipping that over to have the Princess be undoing something they believe is evil is interesting.

Did he start the player out with some regret and baggage or did the reveal just kind of come out of nowhere?

Will_Owens Post Author wrote on 12/12/2012 at 03:53am

The block text kind of hints at regret, but personifies the Princess in a way that makes it almost explicit that it's an actual person. I may have been assuming too much, but it really just came out of nowhere. I think Fallout works as a commentary on nuclear war because it takes concepts we are all familiar with such as anger, violence, and other base emotions and pasts them on a recognizable backdrop. Braid uses a fantasy inspired theme (although there are hints in the artwork) that doesn't really support that kind of left turn at all. I don't usually like to say stuff like this, but it felt like it totally M. Night Shyamalan'ed at the end.

Travis Admin wrote on 12/12/2012 at 04:30am

Seems you either love or hate that story reveal. I was torn. It was interesting, compelling, and poignant, yet considering the game it was a part of, it didn't quite work. I think had it been done a little differently or on a different kind of game or with a different setting, it would have been awesome.

jdodson Admin wrote on 12/12/2012 at 05:35am

That makes sense.

@Will do you mean a later M. Night film, because I felt the reveals in his first couple up including Lady in the Water were pretty awesome. (my taste)

Will_Owens Post Author wrote on 12/12/2012 at 06:07am

I haven't seen any of his movies since Signs to be honest.

jdodson Admin wrote on 12/12/2012 at 06:27am

No problem, but I get what you mean, total switcheroo but wasn't stylistically earned.

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More Time with the Wii U

This weekend I made my way to the Mall for a bit of Holiday gift retrieval. As I made my way through the morass of Holiday Shopping Victims I noticed a Wii U Kiosk. I navigated my way through the Horde and spent some time watching kids play and asked the attendants some questions about some of the games.

One thing I took away from checking out the Wii U is that the games are very pretty. The New Super Mario Brothers Wii U & Scribblenauts HD look stunning.

One game stood out to me as a pretty fun example of the new Wii U tablet style controller was Nintendo Land. Nintendo Land is essentially a set of Wii style party games similar in tone to Wii Play & Wii Sports.... Read All

Travis Admin wrote on 12/11/2012 at 02:01pm

It really does look unique, interesting, and fun. But so did the Wii, and with the exception of first-party titles, I barely ever touched it. There were a few good ones, like MadWorld and No More Heroes, but it's been collecting dust since Super Mario Galaxy 2. Nintendo made something amazing, but the lagging graphics and tons of shovelware kinda pushed out third-party developers.

Hopefully the Wii U is different, but I worry that once the new round of consoles that MS and Sony release will push it to the same spot as the Wii.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 12/11/2012 at 05:20pm

The last game I played seriously on the Wii was Super Mario Galaxy. My wife and I still pull out the Wii for the Just Dance games at parties. We just picked up Just Dance 4. I have a soft spot for the Wii, but like you it mostly goes unplayed. In the end, my Playstation 3 did more so hopefully the Wii U can fill that void.

I am wondering what Microsoft and Sony are doing next, so far I have no idea what that is but I will hold off until I know more for sure.

Timogorgon Member wrote on 12/11/2012 at 06:22pm

I'll admit that up until a couple weeks ago, everything I heard about the Wii U had been kind of underwhelming. But now that the system is out and people are getting some hands on experience with it, I'm seeing a lot of really positive reviews. Hopefully this enthusiasm will stick better with the Wii U than it did with the Wii.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 12/11/2012 at 09:37pm

I think the Wii U made some choices to give it lets over the next generation better than the Wii. A few reasons:

The Wii U is compatible with all your old Wii Stuff.

The Wii U is essentially a PS3 or XBox 360 horsepower wise. I believe this is important because the PS3 and XBox 360 will be supported well into the next generation. Whereas the PS4 and XBox 720 might look better, I believe publishers will still make PS3 and 360 ports well into the next generation.

Its $300. This is a good price to start at as it starts reasonably and will drop over time.

That said, for me the most exciting platforms are the PC, Steam in your Living Room and Apple TV with apps.

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Happy Holidays with Minecraft!

Like many of you, when my Holiday time off comes around I plan on playing some games. Minecraft will no doubt be played and it seems that Mojang will be updating it so you can ring in the New Year Minecraft Style.... Minecraft Style.... OP, OP, OP!

From the Mojangs mouth:

"What’s this? This doesn’t sound like a redstone update at all!”, you say. “Indeed,” we say. Thing is, we* suddenly decided we wanted to make sure that you have fireworks for New Year’s Eve, so we’re working in several parallel branches of the code now. One is for the 1.5 “Redstone Update,” and one is now for a 1.4.6 patch update. This update will be out before Christmas, and 1.5 will wait until January... Read All

Mew-Genics Title Music

Just adding another post to the continuing trail of cat parts littering the road to the launch of Mew-Genics.

"So we really splurged with the soundtrack for Mew-genics, the game will feature a full album of over 20 studio recorded songs, with more than half of them with lyrics! we really wanted to make the games music feature extended themes of the game or small stories within each song, kind of how Katamari did it in a way, except all our songs are about cats!"

I really dig the title track and am really looking forward for this release.

http://supermeatboy.com/129/Mew_Genics_Teaser_week_7/#b

gogonlinux: Games from GOG in Linux made easier

A community of GOG fans has released the first beta of gogonlinux, a tool to make playing your GOG games easier in Linux.

http://www.gogonlinux.com/about/

Installing it requires a few steps (you can read up on them on the "Getting Started" page) but using the software seems straight-forward. Just log into your GOG account, and it handles downloading and installing the games for you.

There are currently only a few games present. It isn't currently using Linux ports, but things like Wine, Dosbox, and Scummvm to run games with the most compatible configuration.

Hopefully with Steam's Linux client looking toward release, and Desura's presence for some time now, GOG will do... Read All