Posts Tagged ‘feature’
Let's talk about Stella
By Brendan Caldwell on February 8th, 2012.
We tasked young master Caldwell with exploring the dungeons of Fortune Summoners: Secret of the Elemental Stone, the latest translated Japanese indie title from Recettear Anglifiers Carpe Fulgur. He returned with these words.
As the son of a shopkeeper in real life I know for a fact that helping out in the storeroom is not a magical experience. So Recettear, while jovial in spirit and generally compelling, didn’t appeal to me in the same way as it did others. In the storerooms of the non-digital world there are lots of cardboard boxes to tear apart and smelly bins to stand on in an effort to crush rubbish and make space. Once, there was a fist-sized hole torn in the wall by an errant RPG of a completely different nature. It was dreadful and there was rubble in the 10p mix-ups. But that’s Northern Ireland for you, and another story altogether.
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carpe fulgur, feature, Fortune Summoners: Secret of the Elemental Stone, Lizsoft, wot i think.
Crude strategy
By Alec Meer on February 8th, 2012.
I started playing Unigine’s seabound strategy game Oil Rush a fortnight ago. Then I got distracted by a shard of light in the corner of the room, and before I knew it a fortnight had passed and I still hadn’t written up my thoughts on it. I’ve finally woken up again, and I am indeed ready to tell you what I think.
Tower defence meets Galcon would be the hard sell; intense mini-map based node-capturing strategy would be the softer one. With conventional RTS having a bit of a slumber in recent months (unless, of course, you’re deep in StarCraft II leaderboards), Oil Rush finds itself in a faintly privileged situation. Not too much sci-fi build’n'bash competition out there, so this quiet little contender potters into the ring and raises its fists. What to expect from this rank outsider?
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feature, Oil Rush, review, Unigine, wot i think.
Talk The Line
By Adam Smith on February 8th, 2012.
Drawing inspiration from Joseph Conrad as much as the series that it seeks to reinvent, Spec Ops: The Line is a brutal, plot-driven third person shooter. After playing a few chapters of the game, I sat down with senior designer Shawn Frison to talk about Dubai, war stories, and the tension between horror and entertainment.
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2K, feature, interview, Shawn Frison, Spec Ops: The Line, yager.
The Holey Grail
By Tim Stone on February 8th, 2012.
When The Hivemind asked me if I had any experience of pulling swords from stones and I replied “None, but I’ve removed quite a few splinters, thorns, and bee stings from T. Stone.” everyone in the room collapsed into helpless laughter. It was the subtle kind of helpless laughter, the kind where the laughers don’t make any sounds, or show any outward signs of being amused, but I could tell my little word-play had gone down well because moments later I was being asked to provide a joke-free (they were most insistent on that point) Wot I Think on Neocore’s latest Arthurian epic.
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feature, King Arthur 2, neocore, Paradox, review, wot i think.
CoCo&Co does the chat
By Alec Meer on February 8th, 2012.
Today in our series of chats with (almost) all the PC and Mac-based finalists at this year’s Independent Games Festival, it’s indie collective CoCo&Co’s fascinating, dialogue-free co-op puzzle-platformer WAY. The game is nominated for the Nuovo award, and was also a winner at this year’s IGF Student Showcase. Here, the team talk about their impressive games industry origins, the concept of playing games with an anonymous partner, how games can form emotional connections with their players, breaking down the barriers that so often separate gamers who don’t speak the same language, and their answer to the most important question of all.
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CoCo&CO, feature, igf, thatgamecompany, WAY. IGF Factor 2012.
Amanita Design does the chat
By Alec Meer on February 7th, 2012.
Next up in our series of chats with (almost) all the PC/Mac-based finalists, it’s the near-legendary Jakub Dvorský from Amanita Design, creators of Machinarium, Samorost and, soon, Botanicula – which is up for the Excellence In Visual Art and Excellence In Audio awards. Here, Jakub talks indie, experimentation and his answer to the most important question of all.
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amanita design, Botanicula, feature, igf, IGF Factor 2012, Jakub Dvorský.
The only 4 graphics cards you need to even consider buying
By Jeremy Laird on February 7th, 2012.
Hello, good morrow and, well, graphics. After my début – and let’s be honest, definitive – dissertation on PC processors last month, this time around we’re talking pixel pumpers. The bad news is that this instalment won’t be nearly as neat as the first. With CPUs, I can point at the Intel Core i5 2500K and bark, “buy it”. Job done. Things are a lot more fluid and complex when it comes to GPUs – but even so, when it comes down to it you only need to trouble yourself with four cards today. The buying decision remains rather easy.
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ati, feature, graphics cards, hard choices, Hardware, NVIDIA.
Gallagher need not apply.
By John Walker on February 7th, 2012.
Developed by one-man team RichMakeGame – aka Rich Edwards – Pineapple Smash Crew is an indie take on top-down action shooters that was the winner of our Indie Games Arcade award, and has recently arrived on Steam. I’ve played it through to the end, which makes me Space Captain Walker and able to tell you Wot I Think.
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feature, pineapple smash crew, review, RichMakeGame, wot i think.
Are you lazy? Let us know!
By Brendan Caldwell on February 6th, 2012.
I woke up on Friday morning in shock. My body told me that I must have been in some kind of plane crash and I went immediately scrambling around for the black box recorder. But all my phone could tell me was that I’d been to what they call a Rumpus. Some kind of Wild Rumpus. Pisshead Airlines flight 343 to Cape Hangover had reached its destination after all. But I was only here to get a transfer. So I quickly hopped on the bus to a Bit of Alright.
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Bit Of Alright, feature.
Some hold it, some walk it...
By Adam Smith on February 6th, 2012.
As I sat in 2K’s lobby waiting to play Spec Ops: The Line, a man played The Darkness II on a nearby consolebox. If I were to estimate, I’d say 84% of his time was spent eviscerating people, tearing them limb from limb, punching gaping holes through their most precious parts and lopping off their screaming faces with a twitch of his tentacles. It truly was one of the most gruesome displays I’ve ever been witness to. That man was Shawn Frison, senior designer at Yager Games. In Spec Ops, he has helped create something far more brutal than the comic book killfest of The Darkness.
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2K games, feature, preview, Spec Ops: The Line, yager.
thechineseroom does the chat
By Alec Meer on February 6th, 2012.
Hauntingly beautiful, exploration-based first-person ghost story Dear Esther (a lavish remake of the mod of the same name) is up for the Excellence In Visual Art, Excellence In Audio, Nuovo Award and Seamus McNally Grand Prize at this year’s Independent Games Festival. As part of our series chatting to the creators of (almost) all the PC and Mac-based finalists, today we talk to Robert Briscoe, lead artist on Dear Esther, about Stalker, Mirror’s Edge, making in-game exploration satisfying, why indie development should be taught in universities and his answer to the most important question of all.
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Dear Esther, feature, igf, IGF Factor 2012, Robert Briscoe, thechineseroom.
