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Monday, July 30, 2012

Double Dome





I did a gamejam and made an entire game in forty-eight hours! The best part is that I never felt like I was making a product, so I never felt any pressure to include marketable content or design a playable game.

Double Dome is the story of a dude with a head inside of his head. On a train.

I uploaded the game onto Gamejolt, if you'd like to try it out yourself.
Even if you don't want to play the game, head on over to Gamejolt anyways, just for the game's description. I had a weird amount of fun containing the game within words.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Dollies of Grimrock



I've got this issue with Grimrock.
Here, watch a few seconds of this:



You play the game from a first-person perspective in which you can strafe, rotate, step backwards, and generally travel at a good pace.

But you're not a single character. You're in control of a four-person party.

How are they so synchronized?!?!



Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Why Haven't I Beaten This Game?



The writing is some of the best I’ve ever seen. The music is so catchy I could easily hum every song on the soundtrack. The animations were all lovingly crafted. The gameplay is creative. It’s one of the most critically acclaimed DS games ever made.


So why the hell haven’t I beaten Mario and Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story?



Tuesday, July 17, 2012

I Love Legend of Grimrock



Seriously. That's it. I love the game. There's nothing else I have to contribute.

I've always enjoyed the concept of the first-person tile-by-tile dungeon-crawler with its small party of heroes and secret passages and all that crap. Wizardry and Eye of the Beholder. I'd play those games and I loved the mechanics that drove them, but none of them ever won me over entirely. I'd play for a few days and then find something else.

But Grimrock is different. This is the alpha and omega of dungeon crawlers. I don't know how they did it, but the game feels good to play. UI, controls, menus. Everything about this game is better than its predecessors. I've never had so much fun being chased by giant spiders.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Final Fantasy 3 (Not the good one. The other FF3)



Some dark force took control of me and I shoved the FF3(JP#) remake into my 3DS. It took thirty minutes until the fog cleared and I got my act together, but I was left asking myself, "Why does this game exist?"

You start out with one guy, you have one basic attack, and right off the bat there's a dungeon full of random encounters. Even FF1 doesn't pull this crap on you.

This is an RPG. Your dexterity is not a factor here. Games like these should revel in making the player feel clever. Give them some way to get past the enemy's defenses and deal critical damage. Casting an ice spell on a fire elemental is the most basic example I can think of. Why not give me something like this right from the start? Why not let me have fun right away? Within my thirty minutes of playing, I still had one guy, and I was still a vanilla-class Adventurer with no special attributes, and my only spell was for poison removal.



I just played a bit of FF7 recently and I didn't have any of these problems. Right away I'm casting bolt on enemies weak to electricity and saving up limit breaks for a boss with special attack patterns. (Also: The dialogue! Why don't I remember it being so bad?)




The part that really bothers me about all of this is that I was playing a remake of FF3, not a port. They have talented developers on their payroll. Didn't any of them say, "Wow, this really sucks compared to the stuff we make now."?

And the story sucks. I'll take angsty ex-SOLDIER dickheads over giant, talking destiny crystals any day of the week.