Cheerful Ghost: An Awesome Community For Gamers

Been playing a brand new iPhone game called Jurrasic Park

Been playing a brand new iPhone game called Jurrasic Park Builder. Its essentially a My Town 2 or Farmville type freemium game. It follows the same freemium tropes in that you have limited resources, things take time to build and you wait. Like many freemium games you can pay if things progress too slowly.

I picked up the game because I have a special place in my heart for Jurassic Park. In the end the game is fun, but like all other freemium games it won't hold my fancy for long. That said this game is a bit different as it is much faster paced. For instance, I can collect the money from my Dinosaur exhibits much faster and have more than other freemium games(see... Read All Been playing a brand new iPhone game called Jurrasic Park Builder. Its essentially a My Town 2 or Farmville type freemium game. It follows the same freemium tropes in that you have limited resources, things take time to build and you wait. Like many freemium games you can pay if things progress too slowly.

I picked up the game because I have a special place in my heart for Jurassic Park. In the end the game is fun, but like all other freemium games it won't hold my fancy for long. That said this game is a bit different as it is much faster paced. For instance, I can collect the money from my Dinosaur exhibits much faster and have more than other freemium games(see screenshot above for my accumulated game wealth). I guess I could spend it all on shrubs and decorations but I want more Dinosaur exhibits. To that end the game does limit you on getting one exhibit per level so if you want to unlock more you need to grind time or pay.

This game seems to pull a play right out of all the other "freemium waiting games" in that roads seem to be something they want you to think you need, but you don't. For instance, I have a road leading into my park(because I just haven't demolished it yet) but haven't built any others. Many of my exhibits don't have a road, yet the game doesn't penalize me for it. On the flipside, Simcity would p0wn me for such a mis-step.

They just added a new feature that you can use once a day where the "Dinosaurs go Wild!" and they can possibly escape(its the red Jurassic Park logo button in the bottom left). Essentially they just put a count down over the cages and you have to tap it before it fills up. The longer you wait on the timer the more money you get. Haven't seen what happens if I let on of my Dinosaurs escape. "Oh, yeah. Oooh, ahhh, that's how it always starts. Then later there's running and screaming."

That all said, the game is fun and its free. If you have an iPhone and want to build up a Dinosaur park, get it. Well that and it helps me check off a bucket list item of raising a pet Triceratops.

Disney released Fix-it Felix Jr. today for free on iOS.

Disney released Fix-it Felix Jr. today for free on iOS. Fix-it Felix Jr. is the feux movie game from the new Disney movie "Wreck it Ralph." Awesome they are releasing this for free as a movie tie in. Typically, video game movies are senseless tie ins to cash in on the movie craze but this is more fun than that.

The sounds and graphics are retro and the premise is awesomely familiar to Donkey Kong. That said, after I heard about it I downloaded it immediately and its quite fun. Unfortunately its iPhone only at this point so Androids are out of luck. But look on the upside you can still watch the video!

As I was on YouTube finding the clip to put on this post I read a... Read All

Skyrim Exploits & The Flying Mammoth

As I was playing Skyrim for a bit last night I found some Giants. After dying twice by a giant clubbing to the head(apparently they don't like it if you shoot them with arrows) I decided to just explore the countryside. As I was exploring, a Mammoth dropped from the sky and died. It was an odd sight to behold. I wonder if skydiving was the Mammoth's dream and it forgot to wear a parachute? Maybe it was being ejected from an Alien spaceship? Perhaps it was catapulted by Giants?

Either case it was awesome and random. Oh and I found a cart on a road with cabbages spilled everywhere.

What kinds of strangeness or general awesomery have you experience in Skryim? Catapulting... Read All

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 08/01/2012 at 03:33pm

I thought the missile turned into a whale, not a mammoth.

But dude, that's crazy, and rad.

Timogorgon Member wrote on 08/01/2012 at 05:08pm

A mammoth falling from the sky might be the greatest, most random bug I've ever heard of. This should become a feature of the game, lol.

Timogorgon Member wrote on 08/01/2012 at 05:12pm

Then again, there is a logical explanation for the flying animals...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ8jGqdE2iw

Travis Admin wrote on 08/01/2012 at 11:40pm

The falling mammoth happened to me as well. Such an odd bug but one I my favorites.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 08/02/2012 at 12:04am

So far, my favourite.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 01/25/2014 at 01:06am

This reminds me of a video I saw on YouTube about various interesting Skyrim bugs, including dragon skeletons that appear to grow from the ground.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 01/25/2014 at 04:25pm

Yeah, the bugs in Skyrim are better than most as they tend to be very strange and interesting.

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Spright Art in Our First Terraria Server

Tungsten recently mined out the ground under the new user house in our Cheerful Ghost Terraria game. WhiteboySlim, panickedthumb and I are marveling at its awesomeness.

Check it out for yourself, in the caverns under the newb house. Thanks Tungsten, its rad.

For more information on how you can play Terraria with us:

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/421

Happy Retro Tuesday!

It took longer than two weeks, but it looks like starting in

http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/i-DF5xBvt/0/L/i-DF5xBvt-L.jpg

It took longer than two weeks, but it looks like starting in November Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO is going the free-to-play route. According to the article, free players will be able to play through all the class story lines but be limited on what flashpoints (think instances or raids) they can do and have limited access to the auction house.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/175042/After_less_than_a_year_The_Old_Republic_is_going_free_to_play.php

Warsow is a free Open Source shooter that has been in

Warsow is a free Open Source shooter that has been in development for 7 years and recently just released 1.0. It boats a hefty selection of features and looks incredible. I am going to check it out, but I wanted to let everyone know it went 1.0 so you can check it out.

Oh right, did I mention it is free?

http://www.warsow.net/

Tungsten wrote on 07/31/2012 at 08:37pm

Looks like the old Unreal Tournaments, but faster. I'm downloading it right now. Let me know when you want me to splatter your brain against the wall.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 08/01/2012 at 12:04am

Hmm. Downloading it now, so soon perhaps :)

Travis Admin wrote on 08/01/2012 at 12:28am

Wow. It's like the original Unreal Tournament + Quake 3 + LSD and cocaine.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 08/01/2012 at 12:35am

Yeah and extra LSD because it was glitching on me. Reinstalling my video driver, hopefully that takes care of it.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 08/01/2012 at 12:39am

Ok much less Ghosty after the update.

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A few Skyrim news bits I thought were worth sharing. Looks

A few Skyrim news bits I thought were worth sharing. Looks like Bethesda is starting to move its 1.7 update patch through the works. It will be released on XBox 360, PS3 and Steam and contains a few notable bits including stability fixes, general optimizations, bug fixes and updates the the dragon shouts via Kinect.

Also looks like later this week Bethesda will be talking about the release date for Dawnguard on PS3 and Steam. Looks like the XBox 360 exclusive lockout window is over and my guess is they will talk about it when they show next week at Quakecon. Well, not entirely my guess a few have speculated about it.

Oh and do phone solicitors bother you? Respond as a... Read All

Any of you guys ever found the Development Hell level? Just

http://thecontrolleronline.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Diablo-3-Development-Hell.jpg

Any of you guys ever found the Development Hell level? Just a fun little easter egg I stumbled onto the other day.

As a conversation starter then, what are the best easter eggs you can think of? Did you find them yourself or did you use a guide?

jdodson Admin wrote on 07/30/2012 at 04:36am

Some cool easter eggs I found recently were the ones in Rage. I saw videos online and sort of figured out the rest.

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/183

The Legend of Zelda Link to the Past I found an easter egg. Well or a bug, I don't know. I was able to do it a few times and my cousin was able to do it on his system as well.

What you did was go through the game normal and get the sword tempered. Then save the game and quit and start a new game. Go up in the rain to the left and talk to the guards blocking the exit. They will reveal mostly all the text that everyone says in the game. They will just keep feeding it to you, its kind of neat. Didn't know if that was an easter egg or a bug. Either way, it was awesome.

jdodson Admin wrote on 07/30/2012 at 04:36am

Oh and is development hell in hell mode?

Tungsten Post Author wrote on 07/30/2012 at 06:17am

It's random, but apparently it shows up more often in the higher difficulties. I found this in nightmare.
BTW: that is not my screenshot. I tried to take some, but was unable to recover them.

Tungsten Post Author wrote on 07/30/2012 at 01:52pm

You know when you are looking for the royal crypts? If you ever see four doors open instead of three, one of them is "Development Hell". It's really just a normal crypt but all the zombies have the names and titles of the real people that worked on the game and the Lead Designer is an Elite.

Tungsten Post Author wrote on 07/30/2012 at 01:54pm

Were you ever able to get into the secret room in link to the past that was made for the contest? Know what I'm talking about? It's named after the kid who won the contest and you have to do some ridiculous dash to get into it. (I never was able to pull it off, so I'm no help there."

jdodson Admin wrote on 07/30/2012 at 02:11pm

I did find that one, yeah. I think I read about it in Nintendo Power back in the day and eventually pulled it off.

Timogorgon Member wrote on 07/30/2012 at 05:33pm

I was able to get to the secret room in Link to the Past as well. There wasn't really anything in there but some rupees, but it was a cool easter egg. Here's some other fun easter eggs:
In Mega Man X you can learn Ryu/Ken's hadoken. :)
In Fallout 3 you can find a vault 77 jumpsuit, which is a reference to the Penny Arcade comic about the Puppet Man.
In Dungeon Siege there is a secret chicken level, which is a spoof of Diablo's cow level.
In Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross, if you beat the final boss immediately after starting a new game + you get the developers ending, where you can talk to NPC's based on the developers.

jdodson Admin wrote on 07/31/2012 at 03:43am

Chicken level in Dungeon Siege? Awesome, have to check that out.

Tungsten Post Author wrote on 07/31/2012 at 06:15am

I did the Megaman Haduken thing. That was fun. What about Max (of Sam and Max) in Star Wars Jedi... damn what was that called? Forgot it.

hardeyez wrote on 08/01/2012 at 03:07pm

One of the games I worked on Dr. Muto had several easter eggs/secret characters. I.e. the artists had fun modelling each other, the programmers, and other fun stuff. (here's a somewhat complete list I quickly found http://www.neoseeker.com/Games/cheats/PS2/dr_muto.html although I'm pretty sure we also had MADDOG which was the initial lead programmer)

Usually there's lots of extra bits we throw into a game, but most get yanked out before shipping as they aren't appropriate to the age level of the game (another game I worked on Looney Tunes Racing had some really funny carts making fun of me that the artists created, but they were definitely not appropriate for the games rating... so they didn't ship with the game)

jdodson Admin wrote on 08/02/2012 at 12:04am

Ha, thats awesome.

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This morning I read a really interesting article about the

This morning I read a really interesting article about the rise and fall of Curt Shillings 38 studios. A few things I learned from the Article:

1. 38 Studios bought Big Huge Games. Big Huge Games created Rise of Nations and Kingdom of Amalur.
2. The studio got a loan of about 50 million dollars from Rhode Island government by moving headquarters.

I wonder if this means the state of Rhode Island owns Rise of Nations, Kingdoms of Alamlur and the other 38 studios IP?

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/articles/2012/07/38-studios-end-game/print/

Recently read a cool article on Mashable about 10 awesome

Recently read a cool article on Mashable about 10 awesome additions to Borderlands 2.

http://mashable.com/2012/07/20/borderlands-2-improvements/

A few things that caught my eye?

The Stash Is Persistent
Customize Your Character (shown in image above)
Beautiful Aurora Borealis in Pandora's Frozen Tundra (I enjoy awesome environments that immerse you in the game.

Some people felt the enemies in Borderlands were easy so 2K made them much more difficult. A recent article on Joystiq draws a picture of how much harder they can be.

Snip:

"New baddies include Threshers and Foreman's personal favorite, the Goliath. Goliath is a monstrous enemy with the singular focus to kill you.... Read All

Tungsten wrote on 07/30/2012 at 12:09am

Hmmmm.... starting to get the feeling that I will need to buy this.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 07/30/2012 at 04:32am

:) If you do, let me know the platform. I pre-ordered it on PS3.

Timogorgon Member wrote on 07/30/2012 at 05:34pm

I'm going to be getting this on PS3 as well. Can't wait to adventure on Pandora again! Although I still need to go back and finish the last two expansions for the first Borderlands :P

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 07/31/2012 at 03:44am

I need to beat any expansion, just never had the time. Can't play it now as my friend is borrowing it. That said, ill prob go back and play them some day.

Tungsten wrote on 07/31/2012 at 06:16am

Bought it on steam sale, only put about 2 hours into it, but it's nice to know its there.

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