Sunday, February 17, 2008
Things I learned from videogames #4
It is unwise to store your valuables in prominently displayed, extremely fragile earthenware vessels.
Out there having fun, in the warm California sun
Tomorrow morning, I'm off to the Games Developers Conference in San Francisco. As usual, I've not begun packing until the last minute, choosing instead to play Mercury Meltdown Revolution and Zendoku.
I don't get to attend any of the talks at the conference as I'm stuck in meetings all day every day, but I was intrigued by the following rumour on Surfer Girl Reviews Star Wars regarding an announcement by Kyle Gray regarding the new original DS title he is working on. Kyle Gray is the founder of The Experimental Gameplay Project so he knows his gameplay onions. He now works for EA Tiburon in Florida.
Surfer Girl wrote the following:
"The title Kyle Gray is toiling on over at Tiburon is not just good, is not just addictive and utterly intoxicating, it is a sublime experience that is the best DS game coming out this year. Maybe he'll say something about it next week, maybe Tuesday, maybe between 10 and 11 AM. "
Always good to see more original titles for DS. Speaking of which, I'll be picking up Professor Layton and the Curious Village as soon as I arrive in SF.
I don't get to attend any of the talks at the conference as I'm stuck in meetings all day every day, but I was intrigued by the following rumour on Surfer Girl Reviews Star Wars regarding an announcement by Kyle Gray regarding the new original DS title he is working on. Kyle Gray is the founder of The Experimental Gameplay Project so he knows his gameplay onions. He now works for EA Tiburon in Florida.
Surfer Girl wrote the following:
"The title Kyle Gray is toiling on over at Tiburon is not just good, is not just addictive and utterly intoxicating, it is a sublime experience that is the best DS game coming out this year. Maybe he'll say something about it next week, maybe Tuesday, maybe between 10 and 11 AM. "
Always good to see more original titles for DS. Speaking of which, I'll be picking up Professor Layton and the Curious Village as soon as I arrive in SF.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
The best four letter word
Yes, I'm talking about beer, my other hobby. I spent the second half of the week attending the 18th Battersea beer festival, sampling more than 50 different real ales from around the UK and beyond. I had a great time, due to excellent beer and excellent company but I'm certainly going to be taking it easy for a while after consuming a prodigious quantity of the lovely stuff.
Expect to see more posts regarding beer in the future, but for the moment, if you're interested in what I've been drinking, have a look at my Ratebeer page, which can be found here. Ratebeer is an excellent resource for keeping track of beers you've drunk, finding interesting new beers to drink and interesting places to drink them in. I heartily recommend it.
One of the hot topics in the real ale world is "beer matching" which means partnering certain styles of beer with certain types of food, in the same way that different wines are paired up with different dishes. I think it's a great initiative as it will help people realise that there is as a great a variety of beer as there is of wine and that beer is perfectly good alternative to drink with a meal.
It also got me thinking as to whether the concept of beer matching could be extended to games. I regularly enjoy a glass or two of a good ale whilst I game and I think there's potential to recommend certain styles to go with certain game genres. A rich old ale to be drunk slowly while contemplating your turn in a strategy game, a hoppy pale ale to be quaffed between rounds of a FPS and perhaps a mild for sipping during the lengthy cutscenes of a Japanese RPG. Cheers!
Expect to see more posts regarding beer in the future, but for the moment, if you're interested in what I've been drinking, have a look at my Ratebeer page, which can be found here. Ratebeer is an excellent resource for keeping track of beers you've drunk, finding interesting new beers to drink and interesting places to drink them in. I heartily recommend it.
One of the hot topics in the real ale world is "beer matching" which means partnering certain styles of beer with certain types of food, in the same way that different wines are paired up with different dishes. I think it's a great initiative as it will help people realise that there is as a great a variety of beer as there is of wine and that beer is perfectly good alternative to drink with a meal.
It also got me thinking as to whether the concept of beer matching could be extended to games. I regularly enjoy a glass or two of a good ale whilst I game and I think there's potential to recommend certain styles to go with certain game genres. A rich old ale to be drunk slowly while contemplating your turn in a strategy game, a hoppy pale ale to be quaffed between rounds of a FPS and perhaps a mild for sipping during the lengthy cutscenes of a Japanese RPG. Cheers!
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Things I learned from videogames #2
Castles are like pockets. The thing you are looking for is never in the first one you look in.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
War? It's good for targeted advertising.
Over the last few days I've been enjoying Warbook - a little kingdom sim on Facebook. You try and grow your kingdom by conquest, building an army to invade other kingdoms and steal their land and gold (and presumably put their villages to fire and of course, the sword) which leads to retaliation against your kingdom, which in turn suffers the same fate.
Balancing the various building types on your land is key to success. You can build mines for cash, forts for defence, training grounds for attack, barracks to reduce unit costs and amplifiers and barriers to improve magical attack and defence; BUT the bonuses are based on the percentage of your land devoted to that building type, so it is a constant balancing act. Likewise, your army (with various unit types) is expensive to keep - have too big a standing army and you will be secure, but your treasury will be so empty you won't be worth robbing anyway. On the other hand, keep too small a garrison, and while you will earn lots of cash, much of it will be stolen from you regularly.
You can also choose from a variety of starting classes that give you bonuses to some skills and different elite units. I'm playing as a Magician, so I can magic gold out of thin air into my coffers and hurl fireballs at my opponents' armies. Sweet.
As a Facebook (and Bebo) app, the game is free to play, but features ads on some screens. I'd probably be prepared to pay a couple of pounds for an ad-free version, simply because I don't want to see yet another video banner for Adam Sandler's latest opus. I can live with the rest.
Balancing the various building types on your land is key to success. You can build mines for cash, forts for defence, training grounds for attack, barracks to reduce unit costs and amplifiers and barriers to improve magical attack and defence; BUT the bonuses are based on the percentage of your land devoted to that building type, so it is a constant balancing act. Likewise, your army (with various unit types) is expensive to keep - have too big a standing army and you will be secure, but your treasury will be so empty you won't be worth robbing anyway. On the other hand, keep too small a garrison, and while you will earn lots of cash, much of it will be stolen from you regularly.
You can also choose from a variety of starting classes that give you bonuses to some skills and different elite units. I'm playing as a Magician, so I can magic gold out of thin air into my coffers and hurl fireballs at my opponents' armies. Sweet.
As a Facebook (and Bebo) app, the game is free to play, but features ads on some screens. I'd probably be prepared to pay a couple of pounds for an ad-free version, simply because I don't want to see yet another video banner for Adam Sandler's latest opus. I can live with the rest.
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