Category Archives: Video Games

Is There Money To Be Made In Indie Game Dev?

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These numbers make it really obvious to me why most indie (and, in some cases non-indie) business models exist, and why they produce the games they produce. To be successful, you need to be in one of a few situations:

*A single developer that makes a good title (Petri, for example) *A single or set of developers with short release cycles to keep multiple games relevant over short periods of time. (Almost all iPhone developers). *A developer that has an already popular game and is able to get on one of the more visible services like XBLA, PSN, or WiiWare (That Game Company, the Behemoth, 2D boy, Number None)

via Is There Money To Be Made? – Jeff On Games.

It’s interesting to note that Xbox takes the same cut as the Apple for their Xbox Live Indie Games store. The number isn’t as wildly publicized as the iPhone’s 30%.

The entire section on Alternative Funding Models is begging for an entrepreneur to come on and figure out. With a couple of lawyers armed at his or her side.

This is why indie games experiment the way they do. Shorten the dev cycle, concentrate on mechanics and prototypes, keep art resources and requirements low, release lots of games quickly. I feel like there needs to be more available. I’m sure there are indies out there that want to experiment with things that take longer dev cycles, (weird dynamics, involved dynamic art styles, or, god fobid, strange narative structure), but can’t for survivability reasons, and that’s a damn shame.

it’s these limits that make Independent Games much more satisfying, when designed and implemented correctly. It’s kind of a reason why I’ve been meaning to start the Indie Gamer Podcast for spme time… Maybe I should ride this wave of productivity to that point.

New DSi 1.4 firmware update blocks flashcarts, adds Facebook support

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via Tiny Cartridge.

Nintendo releasing firmware blocking flash cartridges isn’t really all that interesting. It’s the Facebook integration.

Is Nintendo actually becoming a tiny bit, for a lack of a better phrase, Web 2.0? Wait, no, I got a better phrase: Are they opening up a tiny bit in terms of integration with existing platforms and networks? We’ve got Xbox 360 shooting for Twitter and Facebook integration before the year’s end, but they’ve already got a very vibrant (and… I’m sorry, annoying) user base on Xbox Live.

Nintendo has mostly lagged in terms of obvious innovations; Think optical media, friend codes, and HD-ness. That’s not to say that they don’t innovate: Think analog stick, rumble pak, wiimote… the list goes on.

EVE Online: The Butterfly Effect

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YouTube – EVE Online: The Butterfly Effect.

I’ve always been interested in EVE Online.

This video only makes me want to play even more.

I’ve always found realms to be an unfortunate side effect of creating content at a certain scale. For a space sim, this probably isn’t that big of an issue.

And since it’s in space… Oh, hey, look, it’s for Mac, too. When did this happen?

Beyond Good And Evil: Yet Another Terrific Game I Didn't Know About

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Bge-win-cover

I can’t really pinpoint when or where I heard of this game. I remember a game magazine had a feature of it, and I remember seeing the green lipped heroine, Jade, as well as the pig sidekick, Pey’J. It was probably during high school. I also remember seeing something about this game on an episode of X-Play. (yes, I still like this show… Sessler is the man.)

Recently, it was the game of the month by the people at the Vintage Game Club. It was also $9.99 on Steam. This was also around the time I was thinking more and more about PC gaming again, and so it all fit fairly perfectly.

I finished it yesterday night, with a crash just before the credits (which I saw on YouTube: link for those that have the same problem).

So without reading the other reviews of those at Vintage Game Club, here goes. (Which reminds me, I need to go read some of them.)

Quick Review

If I still had my tablet, I would draw a graph of awesomeness as a function of time. But since I don’t, I’ll try to use words instead. Basically, it’s an upward curve, with a few valleys along the way, ending with a plateau.

Aside from the frustrating time I had trying to get the game to run properly (read Technical Issues), I remember just gobbling up the experience left and right at the beginning of the game. From the uses of the camera to the inventory system, all felt like a slight play on previous games I’ve played, and at the same time, completely refreshing.

With the camera, I kept thinking of Pokemon Snap, a rails-”shooter” where you take pictures of Pokemon. But this wasn’t just about taking pictures of animals. Without giving much more about the game, just know that it had more uses than just taking pictures of animals.

The vehicles were great, although I blame the lack of a controller to my slight annoyances that occurred at certain points of the game. The combat was simple, but as in the good kind of simple. I actually didn’t understand how simple it was until I had to look it up: Really, it’s just swing, swing towards a certain direction, or dodge. There are some neat things you have to do with your partner in certain parts of the game that add to the flavor of the combat.

This is where my first big valley of vexation comes into play: there’s a part around the mid-game where it might get a bit tedious. You really have just one type of enemy you have to fight, and they’re disarmed in the same fashion. Over and over and over again. Some might find this tedium faster than me, but luckily, it turns out that as soon as I felt the boring set in, it became all awesome again.

Oh, and how can I forget; the story and the characters. I’m not going to say anything more than that I felt really connected with the characters. Very wonderfully voice-acted with a beautiful soundtrack. Everything is amazing in this department, except… I read somewhere that this was supposed to be the first part in a trilogy. The ending really didn’t tie up the loose ends, but opened it up to another game that would follow (which, thankfully, seems like it’s coming for this generation of consoles). I was left with wanting a lot more, not only in the gameplay hours, but with the story.

Since I’m a UI nerd, I have a comment on some of the interfaces Jade would have to interact with. I guess this really isn’t a spoiler, but the “gears” switches that were used a couple times in the beginning of the game and once nearer to the end just seemed really out of place. I don’t know how else I would have implemented it, but it just didn’t mesh with the rest of the world. There are a couple more of these one-offs that I found to be just a tiny bit out of the blue, most of them were brilliantly done. (I remember this one part where I had to take a picture of something, and I was so amazed, I sat there for a couple seconds wondering what had just happened.)

The inventory and the password system both rely on the mouse (but it definitely seems like it was created for an analog stick). It just felt so right using it with my trackball (yes, I’m weird… or am I just that awesome?). More games need to be designed for the trackball… (this is an idea of mine… did someone say Super Monkey Ball with an actual ball interface?)

Technical Issues

If you’re rocking the unibody MacBook Pros (late 2008), you might run into issues running this game. Make sure to set the Affinity of the BGE.exe process to just one of the cores. If you don’t do this, you will have issues with the game running much faster than normal. (Actually, I use this to get through the beginning credits faster.) Just ctrl+alt+delete your way out of the game, right click on the process, and set the affinity to either CPU 0 or CPU 1.

Also, make sure not to pump out all the graphics. This causes some hilarious glitches with Jade missing her torso. I was playing it at everything max, except for anti-aliasing set to mid (I think you could set it higher, but this worked for me).

I had a minor problem with some of the later cutscenes having the audio be a little bit faster than what was happening on the screen. It wasn’t a huge deal, and at that point, I was so engrossed in the game, I didn’t want to restart it.

Conclusion

I can’t believe I waited this long to play this game. Heck, it was on the GameCube, even, and I had that console for a while. I genuinely feel like I missed something as a gamer before playing this game. It was the same kind of feeling I got when I played Braid for the first and second and maybe the third time.

At face value, it just seems like another action-adventure. But it’s much more: In comparison to Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, BGE stands fairly close, but doesn’t match at all to the length of Zelda. (I think is more or less a statement of my weariness of the series than anything else… don’t trust me on this sentence). My goodness this game is short. Less than 10 hours, easy, and I was fairly anal about the whole thing, taking pictures of almost all animals (I believe I’m missing two) and collecting almost all the pearls (except for the Looter’s Cavern 3 and 4 and some random pearls).

But even taking into account the length, some minor annoyances, and a less-than satisfying ending, this game is well worth the time and money. Highly recommended from me.

Sidenote: I keep saying “animals”, but I think it’s generally most living things. I don’t know the specific wording used in the game, but this was faster to type.

Buy Fallout 3 NOW

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Okay, so the blog has gone silent. It’s probably because of video games, and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to get any better in the coming weeks, so I better just make some kind of statement here.

Fallout 3. Amazing. Such a refreshing breath of air (insert pun about some radioactive clouds looming above). Well, I think this game only was made better by my failure in finishing Fallout 1 and 2 before 3. I got a bit into 1, and not at all with 2, but it got me interested enough in the world of Fallout to buy 3. Knowing what I knew of the Fallout Canon, and having played through it (and seen two of the supposed “over 200 endings”, I tried something different just after the auto save), I can safely walk away from this post apocalyptic wasteland with just amazement. And sadness that it’s all over.

Of course, there are plenty of side quests. The main story arc was fascinating and interesting, but the pockets of civilization (or lack thereof) that had been created in the world of post-apocalyptia was even more intriguing. I won’t spoil it, but there’s much exploring to be done… now that I am armed and ready with what I think is to be the best of the best, I should be safe from harm. I think.

As a sidenote, third person view in this game is retarded. I used it for all of 30 seconds until I decided to never hit the right bumper again (yes, I played it on the 360… so sue me… heh). It’s not really a bug, but it sure is useless except for when you want to see how you look.

In terms of stepping out of the shoes of the Vault 101 dweller, there were only a few bugs that I encountered, which made the experience that much more enjoyable. I had a couple of times where the HUD would tell me that I had my cursor pointed at an enemy when he was obviously nowhere near the cursor (not even through the wall, but just completely nonexistent).

IMG_0043 1

Clipping, too. Only twice if I remember.

IMG_0044 1

I noticed one huge graphic bug, but just for a second, when the sky glitched up and formed up with the ground in one single color plane (it’s really hard to describe). Oh, and one bug with not being able to get out of a conversation. I was stuck, and I had to redo from a previous auto save. Which reminds me, ALWAYS SAVE.

IMG_0047 1

VATS was hot (the Bloody Mess perk is almost required to fully enjoy this). Storylines were well crafted and executed in the same Fallout fashion (as in, things happening in the world without your intervention). The Pip Boy was well crafted, and the UI was just awesome. The level of detail on that thing was amazing.

I think I played this game at least 40 hours, and I still feel like I rushed it. I may have to play it again, but for now, I’m okay with having experienced one of the best games of my life.

Delayed Ion Drum Rockers From Amazon

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I was sad to find out that my order of the sweet Rock Band drum set has been delayed this morning. /cry.

They were supposed to get here today, but it looks like their estimation has moved to the 23rd.

This really puts a damper on my weekend rocking plans. I guess it just means I have to go rock out somewhere else. Through sweet code.

Face-melting solo? Check.

Small posts feel so weird. It’s like in that land between Twitterville and Essaytropolis. It’s like I’m on the highway, with a blown tire, not knowing if you walk one way or the other.

EDIT: Looks like there is some discrepancy as to how Amazon figures out the priority for shipping these things. I ordered mine on the 20th of August, and by the looks of it, no one else on the Rock Band forum had ordered these before me… but yet, these people are getting it earlier. Called Amazon, and they’ll be getting stuff in stock on Friday. This is still garbage though. I should call again and ask for a discount.

Rock Band 2 Is Going To Eat Me Alive

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Harmonix, you brilliant purveyor of delicious time “occupying” goodness.

You guessed it, it came. Even though I read all these horror stories about Amazon being bad on game pre-orders, I knew my Store In The Clouds would provide.

I’ve been able to tear myself from this amazing gaming development feat to bring you this quick review of the whole shebang.

  • While I had owned and played through the Wii version of the game, I don’t really have a good reference point to compare it with its first revision, since the Wii dropped a lot of features. The lack of DLC as well as character creation/editing might have really angered some Wii owners, but it didn’t mind me.
    • DLC: I was fine with getting them in disc form. Heck, I could just rent them using Gamefly anyway. And besides, I love sightreading songs: It gives me quite the rush. (I guess I could have somehow threw in some pun with Rush, but I refrained.)
    • Character Creation: Funner than I imagined. I just like to play the songs, but being able to play dress up… but most importantly the guitars. I might find this more fun because I’m currently in the market for my first electric guitar, though.
  • The UI is slick. I love the revamped song selection screen. I might estimate that you can now see twice as many songs or more, with even more information on difficulty of the song across all instruments. Having the album art also helps to identify the song. If I feel nerdy enough, I’ll tear through this UI.
  • HOPOs (Hammer On’s and Pull Off’s) seem much more responsive than Rock Band “1″. But I feel this way about Guitar Hero 3′s ease of HOPOing vs GH1 and GH2′s near impossibility of it. I kinda prefer more ridiculous fretboarding than strumming: Makes me feel more like a rock star.
  • Song Selection: I like. I feel like there were more contemporary songs that I knew in RB2 than RB1. And with DLC, I’ll be able to pick and choose. As always, a couple songs will piss me off, but that’s expected.
  • Nintpicking, do you actually gain a tiny tiny bit of Overdrive as you whammy through a sustained white note while already being in Overdrive?? I don’t think this was the case in Rock Band 1, where your Overdrive bar would not increase or decrease.

Okay, that’s that. I hope to not touch this game until my drums arrive. I haven’t said a word about playing Rock Band 1, though… time to go unlock some Achievements.

What An Achievement Whore.

I know. And I just found out today Stack Overflow has badges, rewarding users for active usage of the system. So very interesting. Feels a little gimmicky, but hey, still a cool idea. Does anyone know if Atwood and Spolsky explained the reasoning behind this feature on their podcast? Can someone point me to it?

Okay, Back To The Verk Verk.

ION Drum Rocker on Amazon

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Finally, they’re shipping on Amazon. I’m getting one, I guess… there goes $300.

I’ve been waiting for this to be on Amazon ever since I heard of such a set existing. Sure, you could have preordered from the official site, but that would have cost you $50 on shipping. If you’re an Amazon Prime user like me (and even if you’re not, this works on the Free Super Saver shipping) and having been waiting for this… there’s no reason to buy it from anywhere else. No tax, FTW.

$300? Yeah, it’s a bit much. Finally, with some news on Kotaku about the Drum Trainer, I’m happy with this purchase. I just hope I can directly map the set to Guitar Hero: World Tour, but I might be asking for too much.

And yes, a new blog idea is foming. Who knows how far I’ll take this music gaming news stuff…?

Screw It, Here It Goes

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Hello? What the heck? Who is this?

Yeah, I know. It’s been a while.

While I have been developing a backlog of things to write about here on this blog, I’ve also been occupied with… okay, I won’t lie: Video Games.

A Three-pronged Attack on My Free Time

Across three “systems” (Wii, Mac, and PC), the attacks are as follows:

For the Wii, it’s been Rock Band. Horribly gimped. Definitely not worth the $180, in respect to the downloadable content-laden and better graphic’ed Xbox 360 and PS3 versions. (I would have bought it for cheaper gladly. Instead, I just bought it with lots of bitterness.) I still ended up going for the full set, because I know for a fact I’ll be selling it as soon as I master the drums in this game. I had a feeling it’ll sell better as a full set. Plus, I kinda wanted people to play with me anyway. Oh, and thirdly, I want to sing and play a plastic instrument at the same time. I feel like that’ll be yet another extreme and exciting challenge, let alone, hilarious for the onlookers. (Yes, I even bought a microphone stand. Yes, I’m insane.) I’m probably going to get Guitar Hero World Tour anyway, if I keep the Wii, that is.

On the Mac, it was Fallout. This game, my goodness, is amazing. Who would have thunk a post-apocalyptic world would be so much fun? I cannot believe I missed out on it during my middle school years. I guess back then, my life was too consumed with StarCraft to be messing with other games.

I ended up installing Boot Camp for one single purpose: Orange Box. Specifically, Team Fortress 2. It has consumed any free time I’ve had in the past couple of weeks. Steam will tell the truth. I think reaching a Steam rating of 10 – EAGLES SCREAM! means someting… 36.6 HOURS? Expect this number to go up as I play through Half Life 2. With TF2, going through enough achievements to get to all the new weapon upgrades was very enjoyable.

Of course, installing Windows opens myself up to all these games that I didn’t even think about playing. Also, it opens myself up to wanting better hardware to run everything oh-so pretty. Too bad the iMac isn’t really up to the challenge in this area… (even if I go up to the 24″)

Sidenote: Where did my Air go? Sold it. Long story short: I didn’t see the value in being mobile anymore.

The State of the Blog Address Post

I’ve been experimenting with a little app called Chyrp. For awhile, Twitter filled my desire of posting short status updates and other interesting links. However, plagued by downtimes and other issues, I decided to start looking for some distributed or self-hosted alternatives. While I will continue to use Twitter to follow the heavy hitters and as a tool to supplement the blogging insanity, I have a feeling my traffic will die down. Actually, It’s been happening.

Twitter Stats

As I started to use Chyrp more and more this weekend, I feel as though it’s got a lot of potential. I just don’t see myself fiddling with any blogging platform for too much: I want the darn thing to work out of the box, as advertised, with very little, if not, no programming intervention. Is this too hard to ask? Yes, I’m a lazy programmer who’d rather be just a little bit less lazy about his own projects.

A New Deadline?

I kinda had a feeling this was going to happen this weekend. I took off the day on Monday due to a possible trip to Philly. After that got cancelled, I had four days ahead of me to create The World’s Next Best Thing (TWNBT, as some refer to it). However, not a whole lot happened. A LOT OF FREAKING GAMES happened.

But somehow, I found enough time between the TF2 and the Rock Band to write this slightly coherent update. Oh, there’s even more I could write about.

Status of Health

Quickie, because I don’t want to seem weak to everyone when I freaking have to go through my condition.

  • Weird sleeping issues
    • I’ve woken up in the middle of the night twice, at around 6:30. Randomly. I still don’t know why this happened.
    • These days, I feel really really tired. Could it be the lack of exercise? Could it be something even worse?
    • Takeaway: Start exercising to see if it’s some other problem.
  • Excruciating eye soreness
    • This started very recently. I might need to see a doctor, but chances are, it’s the 36.6 hours of gaming after the day job I do in front of a monitor. It might be the TV shows/Movies I see on the iMac.
    • I need to pick a day and not use the computer at all.
    • Okay, maybe a bit extreme. More on this later in the goal making section.
  • Wrists
    • Overuse? Maybe. A month ago, I was given a set of harder braces to use. Kinda hurts more to use while I type because it restricts the natural way I use my pinky and ring finger to type. Also, I was told to take Alleve twice a day… really didn’t do much.
    • Once again, I need to start taking huge breaks. HUGE breaks. I’m not sure what I can do that doesn’t require the wrists… I guess I could start back up on the Korean Hanja/Japanese insanity.
    • This is probably reason #2 as to why I don’t blog as much anymore.
  • Ribs (Fibromyalgia)
    • No doctor has figured this out. The soreness/tenderness all across my lower rib cage. Some thought enlarged liver after the sonogram, but after the CT scan, some idiot lab technician was found wrong. I had a MRI of the brain to see if all of this could maybe possible be caused by MS. Came back negative.
    • I guess this is good news, although still no one knows what’s wrong with me…
  • Ankles
    • Feels a lot better. Physical Therapy worked. There’s still some residual pain on the outside of the soles and ankles, but it might be from actively correcting my gait. Hope I don’t have to see the podiatrist anymore. I’ll give it a week for my ankles to be awesome again.

Overall Takeaway From My Health Issues and EVERYTHING else in the past couple months AKA Goals

I’ve miss making goals. I’ve gotten weaker in character, not being able to follow through with a whole lot of things I’ve been wanting to accomplish. I’ve let past (uh oh, this is where it gets kinda dramatic. RUN. RUN! He’s opening the “past” folder) things muck up the present. Actually, it really hasn’t. You know what, now that I think about it, I look to the past mistakes as awesome. Or wait, am I just soothing myself?

And…. Scene.

That kind of thinking gets me nowhere. I feel like my gift of memorizing things is quickly fading. Sometimes, two people will tell me I’ve said something that I completely do not remember saying. This has almost never happened before.

Is there an eraser in my head? (For those of you that got this reference, have a cookie.)

But really: I’m kinda sick and tired of old-me. New-me kinda wants to kick old-me in the face with the Awesomedary Boots.

One Small Sidenote: Becoming Someone Else Who I’m Not

It’s kinda hard to define who you are. Do you do it with respect to others? Or do you not care at all about what people think, and just make you you?

For some reason, I’m like an electron (fermions) in the Pauli Exclusion Principle. Like a 0 or a 1 (dang it, I keep thinking about the Gary Winston speech from Anti-Trust), I cannot have that widely- and socially-accepted view on this matter.

Actually, let’s bust out the Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle. Actually, let’s not. I’m boring myself, even.

Back to the point of this sidenote: I’m in the state of not caring about anyone else. Or at least, a very few people very very passionately. Much more so than any stage of my life, I bet if I let one extremely respectable and legendary person into my life, I could end up doing their bidding. And because I said this publicly, I’m going to end up going the opposite way.

The JK way is to always keep them surprised: I cannot stress how much I have to continue to innovate myself. I cannot be. I have to keep moving. If I am just existing, I might as well not exist. I have to create.

I have to punch someone in the face. I have to love someone to death.

With all these lists, “How To” guides, and massive trivia in my head, I hope to live life and experience something new each and everyday. I say this, but I have a feeling none of my past experiences will amount to jack squat in the future. I say that, but I have a feeling it’ll all come together and make sense in the end.

DANG IT, STOP IT WITH YOUR CIRCLES.

And… Scene.

I’m totally not editing that last section. I’m not even going to look at it anymore.

Yeah. That last section was the insanity that’s brewing in my head every freaking single day.

I feel like occupying my CPU with actual work is better than all having all those JMPs muck up the pipelines. Which leads into one of the many goals I’m going to be making.

  • GOAL: Stay off the information firehose that is the Internet.
    • AIM. Twitter. Even Feeds. (Phone? Heck, I rarely use that crap these days.) These sources of constant communication just eats up my time. No: I am not a freaking processor: I do not multitask.
    • I will set a block of time to do all of this. Which means… I will probably be behind on the news.
    • SIDENOTE: Need to talk about how I get offended if people bring me news I already know or link me to something I’ve already read and how this offense is completely retarded on my part but how I can’t deal with it.
  • GOAL: Back to 145-ish lbs.
    • You won’t believe the gut that I’m currently sporting. I took a picture of it, so that when I become awesome again, I’ll be able to use it as a reminder to never ever go on fast-food laden WoW binges again. I don’t blame WoW, but I blame the eating out.
    • Back to cooking, a lot. I enjoy it, and it’s an art form I’d like to master. It’ll be another way to rest my aching body.
    • Will need to go grocery shopping weekly. I mean, weekly. And probably will have to up my equipment a bit.
    • The gym daily? Maybe pushing it, but starting today, the routine begins again. Biking sucks, but ankles will have to get better.

SIDENOTE: Wow, I feel like I’m in the zone again. You know, that zone I was in when I had my last blogging explosion. Gotta keep going. Bawls, keep me awake and my cornea blood vessels enlarge so it doesn’t hurt as much.

  • GOAL: TWNBT announced on the 8th. Probably gadgetget. Maybe not.
    • Come on. You’re supposedly not going to Business School. Make sure of this by making the doubt about making the right choice nonexistent.
    • Will require only a couple of hours each night.
    • DO NOT GO EXTREME. Or even, think about going extreme. Extremeness will come with awesomeness.
    • Extremeness in moderation? Is this a T-shirt?
    • Need to start chronicling this. Blog? What am I doing with WordPress?

That’s all: Stop Multitasking. Focus on Health. Go Be Awesome.

  • GOAL: And blog all of it. ALL OF IT. Keep yourself accountable to the world. Or at least, for the poor people that read this mess.
    • Seriously, what are you still doing here? Hehe.

Thanks for taking the time to read through this ridiculously long post. I guess I’m posting this on the 6th of July CST. This date means nothing to me.

And so, it begins. The Legend of Josh Kim.