From Horror, With Love

With 1.3 million copies sold, Amnesia: The Dark Descent ushered in a new genre for indie games: Horror. Soon, the market flooded with chilling features like Deep Sleep and Hide. But there's something eerily different between indie games and the mainstream titles we love. Indie game developers have more leeway in terms of what they can and can't do in their games. This means more opinions, more vulgarity, and most importantly, more gore. Even pixelated games like They Bleed Pixels don't skip out on the guts. That's not to say that indie games are bloodier than mainstream games, but they can forgo a narrative and only leave a world...

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The Great Gatsby- From Novel to NES

A couple of days ago, I stumbled across this hidden gem: The Great Gatsby for NES Apparently found at a yard sale and bought for 50 cents, this original NES game had nothing more than a funky old game booklet that somehow linked it to "an unreleased localization of a Japanese cart called 'Doki Doki Toshokan: Gatsby No Monogatari.'" A martini a day keeps the doctor away. You get to play as the narrator of the famous book, Nick Carraway, and fight your way through hordes of butlers, flappers, and "tommyguns." Your weapon of choice--a stylish hat! And if you happen to get hit by an enemy and lose a health point, a martini's all you need to...

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You Should Read This #2

Have you played the Binding of Issac yet? Probably one of the most disturbing indie games you can torture yourself with this month. If you haven't, maybe this comic by Huw Davies will change your mind. ...

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Nintendo's Strange Intentions

Urban Dictionary defines the gamer as: 1.)Someone who plays video games when bored...usually very good at it 2.) Someone who plays video games as a hobby  However, in the recent Nintendo commercials, you can play video games but not be a gamer. The two commercials showcase two women happily tapping away at their Nintendo DS, either as an artist or as a coin collector but surprisingly, not as a gamer. Now, something tells me that Nintendo was just trying to reach a wider audience and this was just one attempt at influencing those of the non-gaming variety, but they way it came across... ...Not nice, Nintendo. The term "gamer"...

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Posted in: children,commercials,gamer,gaming,mario,mountain dew,nintendo,stereotypes,women

Indie Game: The Movie--Review

From what began as a Kickstarter project, Canadian producers Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky followed the lives of three indie game developers, highlighting their struggle, successes, and deepest desires. As the first documentary on indie games, a lot was expected from this film, but I'm here to tell you that it delivers, even if not how many hoped it would. The film follows the game designers behind the extremely popular indie games Super Meat Boy, Fez, and Braid. Jonathan Blow, creator of Braid, is probably the lesser focus of the three, but is instead intended as an example of success in the indie world, coming in and out of the film in...

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Posted in: braid,developers,edward mcmillen,fez,film,film culture,game design,games,indie game: the movie,indie games,jonathan blow,PAX,super meat boy,tommy refenes,video games

For Whom the Game Tolls

Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls, It tolls not for thee. Okay, so I may have done a little editing there, but it's true--modern game characters don't really ever die. Think back to the days of Mario, when losing a life could be the difference between losing an hour of your own life and having the time of your life. No worries though. You can always start over. The concept of lives and Game Over screens are a vestigial aspect of arcade games, long before home consoles were created. People became accustomed to the idea and so, it stuck. But as the industry progressed, so too did the role of death. Instead of players suspending...

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Posted in: braid,creativity,death,game design,game mechanics,immortality,indie games,narrative,prince of persia,super meat boy,video games