A disturbing thought occurred to me a couple of nights ago as I was slowly but surely falling in the domain of sleep: Could it be true that many indie games are seriously harmed by their designers thinking too much about the profit gain logics?

I’ve played web-based MMO rpgs and strategy games occasionally, usually in streaks. The other night I started a campaign of Imperia Online. The game is very basic turn-based (or time-based) strategy / kingdom management game, with lots of optimizing, number-crunching and prioriting to do. Basically you build resource building facilities to be able to produce your fighting forces and keep the production up as going to war is gonna eat a lot of those forces. So, in a few words, lots of fun for your war-monging geeky engineer type, right?

Despite the appealing (if not so much innovative) concept I gave up the game pretty quickly. The reason was Read the rest of this entry »

I think that the FunMotion blog entry about this game started it. The Hammerfall v0.21 demo posted on a Russian GameNow.ru forum by a user with nickname GKosh has raised interest and inspired numerous blog post among indie game bloggers recently. I dl’d the demo and now it’s official: I’m joining the bandwagon. Hammerfall is indeed a very promising and innovative action game demo for Windows machines.

Steampunk Action

The player controls a stempunk-style flying copter thingy which drags a massive rock on a chain behind it. The basic idea is to swat at enemies by swinging this rock-in-a-chain. The copter is controlled with the mouse; the rock follows behind following the laws of physics (yes, this game uses physics engine, too). The player can swing the rock into action with a circular flying motion. Read the rest of this entry »

In this feature I’ll introduce a couple of games that would not merit a feature on their own just yet on my count. But here’s a few words on PlayDetective: HeartBreakers ja Storked!. Read the rest of this entry »

Interaction Design is different for games than for other types of software. In regular software it is the ease of use, the path with minimum hurdles on the way to the end, that is the goal for interaction designers. In games, the goal is not necessarily to get to the end result in as short time as possible, but keep the player’s interaction with the game (and other players) as enjoyable as possible throughout the whole experience. This requires a different approach and therefore the traditional guidelines for software usability apply only marginally.

As a result there have been many attempts to list, categorize and capture the rules for game usability. One such effort is Interaction Design Patterns, an on-going project of Eelke Folmer, assistant Professor at the Univ. of Nevada and a game and software engineering scholar. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday I posted a Game Link on Fragile Ball. One thing that I’ve been thinking of adding to these game link posts is a list of links related to the game, namely blog posts, reviews, videos etc. When I was looking for these on Bloglines the only results were found on download sites and torrent sites. This was a bit of a surprise to me.

Not the download sites, mind you. It is just the fact that a game that has not really garnered enough interest (yet, I’m sure it will pick up from this) that anyone would have written reviews or even small features about it is already cracked and available on a dozen or so torrent sites. These are really diligent and active types, these warez dudez. With a lot of free time to boot.

And for a game that has a free demo and a really competitive price ($9.95). That sucks. That just sucks. I’m not saying that the availability of the pirated version would necessarily effect the amount of purchases of the game (that is too complex a subject to tackle right now in this space), but the other side of this coin as well. If someone has time to crack a game, I would hope that someone else would have time to give the game a little spotlight on some of these indie game sites or blogs or somewhere. Just to keep the world in balance and in good karma

Rant off.

Fragile Ball is a simple but exciting game.
All you have to do is to rotate the stage and lead the ball to the goal.
But don’t forget to handle the ball carefully! (From the Fragile Ball website)

Fragile Ball is a puzzle game for Windows machines developed by Hirofumi Hattori of Bimboosoft. You can download a five-level demo from the game’s web site. The idea of the game is simple: You have to guide the fragile ball to the end of the level, but instead of controlling the ball you can only tilt the rest of the level to let the ball roll towards the exit. Read the rest of this entry »

(via TIG Source) The list of entrants to the 2008 Independent Games Festival competition has been published and boy, there sure are a many of them. The count is 173 and there naturally are some games that we all know in that list. Ti name a few, Understanding Games -flash-games about game design (which I wrote an entry on my reserach blog “All in the Game” a while ago), The Night Journey, which was presented by guys from USC in DiGRA2007, the multiplayer FPS Penguins Arena of which I wrote a short feature on, as I did on the 3D CRPG Esenthel and on the isometric strategic action RPG Depths of Peril as well as many titles that I’ve planned to write a feature or a review on, such as:

• Fez,
• Gish 2,
• Global Conflicts: Palestine,
• Penumbra: Overture,
• Schizoid,
• Virtual Villagers 2 and
• Vox Imperium to name a few.

So it is going to be a very busy Autumn, in a good kind of way: I will be introducing the IGF2008 entrants all Autumn while continuing my series of IGF2007 finalist reviews. Stay tuned is all I can say. BTW, the IGF2008 entrant list is so huge that I cannot imagine to be able to pick out every interesting item on there, so if you see anything interesting, let me know by posting a comment and I’ll write a feature about the game.

Depths of Peril is a single player computer rpg game for Windows machines developed by Soldak Entertainment. The players takes on the role of a clan chief and tries to war and intrique his way to be the sole leader of the city Jorvik. Depths of Peril is an interesting mixture of an isometric action role-playing game in the Diablo vein and inter-clan diplomacy reminiscent of the Civilization franchise. Read the rest of this entry »

Penguin Arena is a multiplayer FPS in which 4 clans of penguins fight for the ownership of ice floats. The game is fast paced and action-packed, containing nothing more than simple multiplayer king of the hill scenarios. The audiovisual outlook of the game is comic and stylish and fits well with the style of the gameplay. Read the rest of this entry »

Once in a while you have to take a break off your routine and what a better day to do it on than a day off. This blog discusses indie games, meaning the games that do not get published by the major global entertainment game publishers out there (you know who). With this post I’ll make an exception when I briefly recount my first experiences on EA’s Fifa 08 football game on Nintendo Wii. I may continue this trend on some occasion on other renditions of this Day Off feature. Read the rest of this entry »