Heroica: The Minecraft Saga, Part 1
Posted in Gaming by Lithobolos | Tags: Gaming, Minecraft, PC
Minecraft has been an on-again off-again pastime for lunarskye and myself. As of right now however, ITS ON!
When we first started the world, it was pretty simple due to the fact that we were playing the Alpha version. Since then of course, with recurring Beta updates, things like biomes and cave structures have become much more varied and complex.
We took on our first projects with the help of our friend Xemo. We made a pretty sweet network of forts connected by a wire controlled rail system and mined like crazy into this one mountain. We built a cool fort with automated iron doors and connected everything underground so you never have to put yourself in danger trekking over the surface at night.
It took awhile for the portals to start working on multiplayer servers, so we were forced to continue our epic journey on foot, mainly in search of our first snow/tundra biome. Along the way, we began construction of a canal system by which we would travel to and from our snow castle. It was incredibly time consuming and difficult, and sadly now that the portals actually work, we have absolutely no use for the canal or any of the paths cleared.
Most recently, I took a long journey in to the Nether to build a new portal. I ended up creating a log cabin, a cliff fortress, and discovered my first “abandoned mine” and NPC (no spawned NPCs however) village. The mine was scary, and I actually like the little village, which I’m adding onto.
Check out some screenshots from our adventures after the jump. Read more »
Minecraft Coming to iOS and Android By Year’s End
Posted in Gaming by lunarskye | Tags: Android, Gaming, Indie Games, iOS, Minecraft
Minecraft in the palm of your hand? The addictive, cubist, world building game’s creator, Markus “Notch” Persson, says yes. Persson revealed to Gamasutra that Mojang, specifically a new team member named Aron Neiminen, is working on official ports to iOS and Android platforms this year.
This announcement is met with both excitement and a little bit of caution. The thought of being able to craft on the go is great, but at the same time, given that Minecraft itself, which is still in Beta, is a surprisingly taxing application and consistently melts laptops’ faces (including my own) with it’s memory usage, it makes us wonder how it will look and run on a more limited platform. That said, we are very interested and hopeful that Mojang can bring the same success they have seen with the PC release to their mobile endeavor.
Persson did relay that the mobile release will not contain the same updates as the original browser or download versions, but they will include features that “make sense” in relation to the touch-screen nature of the platform.
Elements of Game Design
Posted in Gaming by BookReader | Tags: Game Design, Gaming
We have long passed making children’s toys and now can concentrate on serious business.
It was once said that video games by their nature cannot be art. Now that Flower has done away with that prejudice and the Citizen Kane of video games, Portal, is extant, we can collectively look at the art form critically.
To view video games critically is a new approach, but only because video games themselves are so very new. From the beginning the the critical frame work was setup in the form of reviews in many gaming magazines (most now represented by online counterparts) and now they are judged in the same way movies and books are.
The primary benefit of video games to other forms of art is that they let the player be other people. To finally take the second person “you” and incorporate it into a story. Literature has long struggled with this, there are a few stories written in the second person, but they’re gimmicky and often come across as an insecure first person narration. Video games, however, have many more second person narratives than first. In video games, first and third (I and him) are really just you and you alone. All video games except for RTS and god games are you games (and a strong case can be made for RTS and god-view games being second person as well). This ability to place a person in a foreign personal space is very great. The novel perhaps surpasses the video game in empathizing with characters, but the level of removal from the subject is unavoidable because the reader is never in direct control of the protagonist. I do not wish to say that video games are better than novels, or paintings, or any other art form, only that they like all art have their own unique strengths and weaknesses.
Like all art, video games have both good and bad examples. The below is inspired by two things. One is a particularly bad game that I played recently, itself violating rules 7, 24, and 25. The other is The Elements of Style, a work whose influence is plain in the following.
The following are either rules governing playability, player irritation, or bad form and are in their respective sections. Read more »
The Humble Indie Bundle #2 Passes 1 Million in Contributions
Posted in Gaming by lunarskye | Tags: Gaming, Indie Games, PC
The Humble Indie Bundle #2, hosted once again by Wolfire Games, has pushed past the 1 million dollar benchmark, and with 2 days left, it looks to likely surpass the $$1,273,613 raised over the first Humble Indie Bundle.
The format is the same: pay what you want and divvy up the contribution how you want between the games, EFF, Child’s Play, and a newly added tip for the Humble Bundle team to continue their project.
Funny enough, the spread between Windows/Mac/Linux users is the same as last time as well, with Linux users well in the lead in average contributions.
Don’t forget to go contribute yourself! There’s plenty of time left, and they’re great games for great causes.
Check after the jump for the list of included games, which are DRM free and now redeemable on Steam and Desura. Read more »
Last Day for The Humble Indie Bundle!
Posted in Gaming by lunarskye | Tags: Gaming, Indie Games, PC
Don’t you just <3 indie game devs? So nice of them to give us the option to pay what we want AND give to charitable causes?!?!
If you have some funds to giveth and don’t mind getting 6 quality games in return, hurry up and hit up The Humble Indie Bundle hosted by indie devs Wolfire Games. The hours are ticking down…
As you can see in the top image, the following games are included in the package:
You can also opt to donate all or some of your monies to two charities:
- Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) – proponents for digital rights
- Child’s Play – collects and donates video games, toys, and other entertainment for needy children in hosipitals across the country and beyond.
It’s a win win any way you slice it. I really think it’s a slick idea as well as a slick implementation in terms of the actual site. It’s also fun to see real time stats, which currently show Linux users are comfortably in the lead when it comes to average contributions, with Mac in 2nd, and PC in last (come on PC users! we’re not that cheap… right? 
).
Wha? There’s Reason to Step Foot in Kmart: FFXIII, Bayonetta, AvsP, MW2, Darksiders, Metro 2033 for $29.99 – Nier for $44.99
Posted in Gaming by lunarskye | Tags: Gaming, Kmart, PS3, Sales, Xbox 360
Ya, that store.
I don’t know about you, but I haven’t been inside of a Kmart in years, even though there is one right down the street from me. For whatever reason, it fades back in to a hazy fog in the shopping center, and I continually ignore it. Not today however!
The often overlooked department store put up a game sale yesterday, which runs from 5/4 – 5/10. There are some pretty noteworthy games included, and discounts are valid both in-store as well as online. Check out the full list after the jump. Read more »
