78 views Feb 3, 2010 0
Here are the Prince’s top picks of the month, these are the best of the best from January of 2010.
1.) Alice is Dead: Chapter 2 – The incredibly popular point and click adventure delivers its second chapter with even more sketchy fairy-tale goodness.
94 views Dec 20, 2009 0
I’ve talked before about the kids virtual world called WebbliWorld that myself and the Aardman Digital team built. Well it’s been an extremely busy 4th quarter for us as we’ve been releasing hundreds of in-world updates, as well as producing a really excellent racing game called WebbliRacers:
272 views Dec 16, 2009 0
I read a comment on Gamasutra that mentioned the game Soul Bubbles by French developer Mekensleep and how its lack of definite genre and audience limited it to an order-only title exclusive at the Toys R Us stores. I did some Googling to find some interviews and interesting stuff.
I also found this great GameSetWatch interview where the creative director Oliver Lejade discusses how the game came to be. From starting off as a PC tech demo, to becoming an innovative title making extraordinary use of the DS’s capabilities. Here’s a quote on why they had a hard time selling the game to distributers.
You’re saying, “Oh, this is a game about little girls, pink ponies, and you know that little girls are going to buy this,” it’s X number of units are going to go, it’s an easy sell. But when you come in with an original game, that they don’t have any clear reference to the gameplay of something that has been done recently, that has no license, then it’s a very hard sell. And if you have only five minutes? I can’t explain Soul Bubbles in five minutes. It’s not doable — and I made the game.
You can read the interview here:
One of the things that he discussed is that many reviewers gave the game a low score in spite of how great the game was otherwise. They said it was too easy, as the game offers hint bubbles to help you out if you get stuck. The developers wanted casual gamers, which are the majority of DS audience, to be able to enjoy the game and make it to the end. So everyone could enjoy it. The point that the developer makes is that the clues are only user initiated, so if you don’t activate the help you don’t get any. Which allows the more hardcore gamers to figure it out themselves.
I found that developer video page on a GameFAQs.com forum post, where someone posted this in response…
“Thanks for posting that. I was curious about the game from an article in NP, but then they gave it a low review. I was not going to buy it until I came here and saw that video. I just picked it up from Toys R Us and brought it home. I’ll post more after I’ve played it.”
It definitely sold me on the game, I’ll have to hunt down a copy of it. The art looks fantastic and the effects looks great too. I’ll reserve my judgment till I play it, which may be a while as I work through a mountain of Xbox games, but it’s apparent that it’s well beyond the shovelware the DS is known for. I’m glad they took the risk and are able to continue making DS games.
105 views Nov 6, 2009 0
So, picture this. You’re lounging on the beach, wearing your special lounging overalls, thinking about how great it is that nobody has rammed an enormous ship into your island recently… when some jerk rams his enormous ship into the island! As if that weren’t bad enough, the hull cracks open and before you know it, you’re elbow-deep in smiling pineapples, green-legs-and-ham, and screaming… blue… mole… things! Clearly, this will not do, and the king demands that you saddle up to defend the land! It’s a game of reflexes and good old fashioned arcade action in Super Sloth Bomber!
Oh, did we not mention you’re a sloth? We thought that would have been obvious.
Control your trusty balloon with the [arrow] or [WASD] keys and drop bombs with the [spacebar]. If an enemy is close enough, you’ll blow them to that great big dancing ham graveyard in the sky. Some enemies require more than one bomb to destroy, while others appear on a timer or move in a unique pattern. You can keep track of them with the onscreen radar. Not only will you have to be quick to catch them all, you’ll have to keep an eye on your time and the number of bombs you have left. Run out of either and you’ll be one sad little sloth, and all the eucalyptus in the world won’t be enough to lift your spirits.
210 views Nov 5, 2009 0
Telegraph is one of the most popular sites in the United Kingdom and ranked 279 worldwide according to Alexa (better than USA Today), so we can say it’s a quite an authority.
Some days ago it published an article about the best 20 Flash internet games.
Do you expect another chart seeing Bloons at the top? Big surprise, it isn’t in the list.
Let’s see what British casual gamers like:
1 – Doom Triple Pack
This should bring back some good memories from the original Doom, Hexen, and Heretic games. Doom Triple pack is a direct port of the original games using Adobe Alchemy to convert the C code to actionscript.
I should give a try to Alchemy… any open source C game around there?
97 views Nov 3, 2009 0
“Welcome subject 7.” With those chilling words begins a new room escape adventure series by talented Portuguese designer Fausto Fonseca. Welcome to the Light Asylum! At least, welcome to the first two rooms.
You are (apparently) a mental patient in a rather odd facility who would rather be, well, anywhere but there. A disembodied voice will inform you — via text — that you must escape five rooms, starting with this one. Oh, and failure means death. No pressure there. But, the voice goes on to reassure you, this is the easy room. Oh, goody. Of course then you have to worry about the next room.
Navigation through the space is easily accomplished with arrows appearing around the edges of the screen. There is no changing cursor, so you will have to click around some to find the hotspots for close ups. Find objects that will help you solve the logic puzzle that allows you to… well, not escape, but move on to the next room.
198 views Nov 2, 2009 0
59 views Oct 28, 2009 0
COLONY FLASH GAME – Not a relatively new game, but wow, this flash endeavor is one of those games that push the frontier. It was released in July, but the commotion over the game still hasn’t quite died yet.
Created by Krin of ArmorGames, one of the developers behind the hit game Sonny 2. Colony obviously derives its inspiration from the likes of starcraft, especially in its art and design.
Colony also plays in the style of games like Age of War (MaxGames) and WarFare 1944 (ArmorGames) and is reminiscent of mainstream RTS games such as Command and Conquer. Graphics are superbly and clean, and action can get very frantic when alot of objects are on screen.
