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Saturday, September 28, 2013

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Lefties: Far Better Gamers Than Righties

According to lead researcher Dr. Nick Cherbuin in an interview with AM ABC, the results support the anatomical observation that the major "connection between the left brain and the right brain" is "somewhat larger and better connected in left-handers."

Good job, Science! Continue reinforcing my superiority complex!

And now that we've confirmed that there is a true gamer master race, could we please start having FPS games with an option to put the gun on the left side of the screen?



Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Animation Test: Walk Cycle



I'm working on something very high-resolution, and I've found that instead of screwing up and redrawing the legs over and over (because I never get it right the first time), it's better just to do a low-res mockup where erasing and redrawing is much, much easier.


This character is about 32x32. 12 frames. Ignore the arms. I certainly did.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Magicians and Looters: Phoenix Art Museum

Morgopolis Studios was at the Phoenix Art Museum yesterday showing off our Magicians & Looters game along with virtually every indie dev in the entire metro area. The turnout was great, the people were fun, and I got to watch a lot of randoms walk up and play M&L cold turkey.

They had a Minecraft exhibit (A.K.A. LAN party) at the other end of the main exhibit hall, so there were about a million Minecraft-addicted millennials who trotted over to get a small fix of something else before returning to their voxels, and they were definitely the best crowd to have in front of the game.

I saw a seven-year-old master the dodging mechanic within seconds of picking up the controller and timed all of her attacks to the frame.

I saw another kid who was waging an inner struggle between playing video games and taking a piss. He spent the whole time dancing in front of the game, jerking the controller in every direction, leaning against the table and doing everything but sitting in the chair. I was worried he was going to knock over the TV, but then in the middle of a morg minion fight he dropped the controller and bolted out of the room.

I saw this one kid who was just terrible at the game, but his ineptitude was equally matched by his persistence. There was this one jump he absolutely could not make, but he kept climbing up and trying it, over and over and over. His poor mother just sat there and watched her son fail this one jump for about fifteen minutes with a blank look on her face.
On a related note, virtually all of the kids preferred the analog stick over the d-pad, which explained a lot of the difficulty some of them had with the jumps. Their stubby thumbs can't shift directions as easily, and fine-tuning their falls is almost impossible.

When you begin a new game in M&L, it asks for you to input your name. Some of my favorites that I found when looking through the files:

g dog
xebo
veryloopy
krookidile

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Nowhere: Somewhere Between Batshit and Brilliant



Writing a little blurb underneath this video to try and explain the game is impossible. I recommend watching the pitch and seeing Nowhere with your own eyes. Whether or not playing the game itself interests you is irrelevant. The project's scope and the imagination it took to conceive are the real stars of the show.

Friday, September 20, 2013

Volgarr the Viking: I Won!



Dear Crazy Viking Studios: Please make more games.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Windforge: Somewhere Between Resourceful and Psychotic




Also, check out the crazy localized destructible flesh collision physics. It's so freaking weird to watch, like this is the uncanny valley equivalent of game mechanics.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

SimCity: Screaming Beard



Aaron Linde wrote a piece about the final days of his SimCity town, Screaming Beard. Actually, he wrote it in March, but whatever. If you like reading about simulated environments doing a very poor job of simulating environments and the vain attempts of the human element to rationalize a series of bizarre fucking phenomena that's supposed to resemble a digital town, then do I have an article for you!

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Magicians and Looters: Fruit Metal





"Fruit Power" remix. Further proof that Ryan's head is a fairytale land of unicorns and goblins where the mundane simply does not exist.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Volgarr the Viking: I Battled the Shark King Dude



I reached the level 2 boss!!!!!
This is the equivalent of speedrunning Very Hard mode on ANY OTHER GAME, so yes, I'm very proud.

Actually, I reached the level 2 boss about five times. Holy crap, he's hard.

I like how Volgarr claims to be old school hard, because it's a flat-out lie. I've never played an 8-bit game that was even half as difficult as Volgarr. It might take a few months, but I'm going to beat this son of a bitch, and then I'm going to place my PC on a viking longship, push it out to sea and set it ablaze.

Then I'll get a new PC, reinstall, and start speedrunning.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Kickstarter: Hyper Light Drifter




Damn, that's pretty.

Yet another sprite-based game that looks absolutely amazing. Why are all these great kickstarters being announced at the same time?! I can't back you all (but I'll certainly back this one).

Monday, September 9, 2013

Kickstarter: River City Ransom: Underground



A lot of this pitch is Bannon, the artist, charming the camera; but if you want the money shot then jump to 0:45. It's amazing how faithful this game is to River City Ransom, yet it looks soooo much better.

This isn't a knock-off brand. Conatus has the rights to make an official sequel to River City Ransom.


At this point, I think I've spent more money this year kickstarting games than I have buying finished products; and I have yet to regret any of it.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013