Road Safety as an MMO

GameSetWatch has written about a new road safety MMO for kids. I really hope it does well. It'd be great to see educational games become more viable. The concept sounds interesting and I'd love to see how it's implemented. Hopefully they'll post some statistics in coming years about its effectiveness.

6 degrees of AWESOME

Best achievement ever, Six Degrees of Schafer in Brutal Legend. To get the achievement you have to play with or against someone who already has it. And I'm guessing Tim Schafer's account is Patient Zero. I think that's bloody brilliant because they would have had to do some finagling with Microsoft to get that set up properly because I've never seen anything like that in a game before.

So far, I'm really loving the game.Yeah the game play is a bit unresponsive at time and I can't drive worth shit. But I can't remember ever laughing so much at a game before. Truly entertaining.

I was wowed by the demo because I got a complete flashback to my dad's old hard rock album covers from the 70s. The open world part hasn't wowed me quite nearly as much as the demo had, but the spider's den was gorgeous.

I've tried a few side missions but couldn't even last 30 seconds in them. And it's not too clear what I did wrong.

Despite its flaws, it's a must just for the soundtrack and cameos. Jack Black is perfect as Eddie Riggs!

Dungeon Hunter iPhone - The Gameplay Trailer!

So this is the project I've been working on for the last...um...9 months I guess. We're super proud of it and we love playing it ourselves. It's a lot of fun. It should be out soon so keep your eyes open!

Silent Conversations

I am in love with this game, Silent Conversations. It is simple and beautiful. Gregory Weir (of Ludus Novus) always makes beautiful thoughtful and though-provoking games, but I think this is my favourite.

It could just be I'm in the headspace for it right now since my bookclub is currently reading Alice in Wonderland and the Annotated Martin Gardner has a lovely look into the Mouse's Tail poem along with all the other fantastic poetry.

I played through Lovecraft and the way he put in the moon, the sandstorm, the cave, the cliffs, you're playing the shape of the words but also the shape of the pictures that the words paint.

Check it out, it's really worth it.

EA fails at making gamers lust for Dante's Inferno

So during Comic-con EA ran a contest where they asked gamers to commit "acts of lust" in a photo with a booth babe and submit the photos to win prizes. Attendees and the interwebs cried out with a huge "WTF!?!!?!" And the even was dubbed #EAFail. To add to the already mind-boggling PR stunts for the game (remember their faux-Christian protest?) they also added in a photo to their finalists that wasn't even taken at Comic-con , just so that they could have a token gay included. His response is hilarious:)

Again, while I am grateful that you have chosen my submission as a runner-up, I feel I must decline your free t-shirt and $240 gift certificate to the EA Store. Instead of giving that $240 away, I would prefer the money to be used in the following ways:

1) A new sexual-harassment training video/seminar
2) Another PR team to try to spin this whole debacle of a contest into a positive light
3) A direct phone line to EA's legal depart to use before you try anymore PR stunts
4) Six copies of your game when it releases, since I know you've lost at least that many fans with this stunt
5) Or the next time you go to Hooters (for the wings, of course), leave a $240 tip for your waitress in a karmic way of balancing out what has been done to the booth babes of SDCC due to this contest

Well, at least EA is getting more column inches than they ever could have hoped for after this debacle. Let's hope that the old adage, any publicity is good publicity, holds true for EA.

Sex and Viloence in Games

Video Games from MUSCLEBEAVER on Vimeo.

[via Bruce On Games]

Yes, the wedding is over, but hey just to keep things interesting and at a certain level of stress, we bought a house! We move in 2 weeks:) He's especially excited for the basement because he's got all sorts of terrain ideas for his Warhammer 40k game that he plays with his buddies.

Also, crazy time at work. They bumped up a deadline by a few weeks so we've been crunching hard. Game is looking AMAZING though. Will post info on it when it's announced:)

"

Video Games | Left 4 Dead 2 | E3 09: Teaser

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

squee! Can't wait! Chainsaws and frying pans:) RPS has a great article previewing everything, from the new special infected to the new characters.

PuzzleQuest Galactrix

Wow, I'm impressed by just how much more difficult the new version of PuzzleQuest is. Not always in a good, challenging kind of way wither. There are a few questionable design choices that make the game just plain frustrating at times too (at least on the DS version).

The buttons have a really small area to hit. Miss the button by just a few pixels and you're floating off into space, waiting to make the round trip to get back to your original location once again. It wouldn't have been that difficult to widen the buttons by that much. Or, my second major peeve with the game, allow the player to navigate using the buttons, it doesn't have to be 100% touchscreen. Menus especially. There's no reason that up, down and A to confirm shouldn't work...just like it does for almost every other game out there.

Thankfully, you don't require a lot of speed/accuracy to play the game, so while these points are endlessly frustrating, the game still remains addictively fun. And it's really nice to be able to play it in bite-sized pieces while travelling back-and-forth to work on the metro. All in all, I can foresee myself playing it just as long as I've played the original (still playing the expansion currently:)

Legends of Zork

(March was INSANE! But I'm back, tanned and married, ready for gaming once again.)

This morning, I started playing Legends of Zork, which, while taking place in the Zork universe is a whole lot more like ye ol'BBS door game, Legend of the Red Dragon. That's not a strike against it, mind you. I LOVED that game and beat it several times.

I can see myself enjoying it, when I remember to play it. It's easy enough to bang out a turn in about 15 mins. Not enough of a Zork experience for you? Then you can buy credits for more Action Points (turns) with their microtransaction/sponsor-based system. I think that getting additional turns is a bit more motivation for purchasing than buying special clothes like you can in some other free-to-play games. At least you get something worthwhile rather than just superficial.

I hope LoZ has the lasting power that LotR did. It looks like they've added some neat systems, like with the cards which I don't fully understand yet, though I did find one in my adventuring this morning already.

Want to friend me in the lands of Zork? I'm NilPixelCount, as always.

Blogging Around

While I haven't had much time to write my own rants and essays lately, I have still been busy posting on the interwebs. You can find me posting niche-news to 3 different IGDA sites.

• IGDA Montreal Chapter - Here I post the reports (which I write on ocassion too) along with local industry news. I also serve on the Advisory Board for the chapter, which has been a great experience so far.
• Women In Games SIG - Given that the focus of the Special Interest Group (SIG) is pretty obvious, guess what kind of news items I share here?
• Game Design SIG - This SIG just launched recently, so if you're a Designer or are interested in game design, join in! You don't need to be a member of the IGDA to participate. You can check the blog for regular game design news that I post.

So check in on those sites if you're interested in the topics! :)