No, seriously. Name your price. A small group of independent game developers, fronted by Wolfire, have banded together to offer five games for whatever you feel they are worth. They call this the Humble Indie Bundle, and they guarantee that whatever money you pay will go straight to the developers, and to two charities: The Electronic Frontier Foundation, those super-nerds who fight for our Internet freedom, and Child’s Play, a charity that donates toys, games, books, and funds for sick kids all over North America and the world. So, not only are you buying games for yourself, you are also helping small game developers, entertaining sick children, and fighting for freedom! That’s quite an accomplishment with just a few mouse clicks.

So, what do you get? Well, I purchased the bundle myself so that I could tell you just that. As you can see from the picture above, you get five games: World of Goo by 2D Boy, Aquaria by Bit-Blot, Gish by Cryptic Sea, Lugaru by Wolfire, and the first chapter of a three-part game called Penumbra by Frictional Games. I’ll try to give you my first impressions of these games to give you a better idea of what you will be getting for your money. Oh, and did I forget to mention? All the games are cross-platform (Mac, Windows, and Linux), and DRM-free, which means you can download them as many times as you wish and install them on all your various computers.

Building a bridge of Goo...

World of Goo

This game has you creating structures in a Tinker Toy like fashion using the Goo Balls as points that are connected by strands of…goo, I guess. You grab a Goo Ball, stretch it out, release, and your structure grows accordingly. World of Goo uses a physics engine to determine the balance of the structure, and your goal is to use just enough Goo Balls to build the needed structure – usually something to enable the remaining balls to navigate past an obstacle and make it to a pipe. With amusing sound effects and graphics, and I’m sure some more gameplay elements to come, this looks like a promising puzzle game.

2D Boy says, “World of Goo is a physics based puzzle / construction game. The millions of Goo Balls who live in the beautiful World of Goo don’t know that they are in a game, or that they are extremely delicious.”

I haven’t tasted any of them, but I’m sure that last cryptic phrase will become clear in time.

Just hanging out with the jellies.

Aquaria

There is much to explore in this game. In my initial brief swim in the waters of Aquaria I played with jellyfish, opened various plants to find food and recipes for making helpful treats, sang a song of shielding to protect me from the more aggressive wildlife. The story so far is very mellow, and more based on exploration and navigating the underwater tunnels. There have been the occasional dream-sequences that have hinted at possibly darker aspects to this tale, but I don’t want to give too much away.

Here is what Bit_Blot says about their game: “A massive ocean world, teeming with life and filled with ancient secrets. Join Naija, a lone underwater dweller in search of her family, as she explores the depths of Aquaria. She’ll travel from hidden caves, shrouded in darkness, to beautiful, sunlit oases, all lovingly handcrafted by its two creators.”

My daughter enjoyed testing this game with me. We both liked how Naija’s singing blended so well with the ambient background music.

What in tarnation are those spikes doing there?

Gish

It’s a Mario-esque storyline, with the stolen girlfriend and all (why does a ball of tar have a girlfriend?). But the physics of this sidescroller are the fun part. As a ball of tar, you can squish down through pipes, stick to surfaces, even bounce up and down, building up the power for a jump. The controls take a little getting used to, and there are quick transitions where you have to go from jumping to sticking to sliding and so on. But the squishy dynamics are a fresh take on an old genre.

Cryptic Sea says, “Gish is a one of a kind 2d sidescroller with a twist you play as a totally physics based ball of tar. Find out why the media has been calling Gish the independent game of the year!”

I tested this on my Mac, and I had to install Rosetta which was a little annoying. However, it was a small download and was located automatically, so it wasn’t all that bad. I was up and playing in mere minutes.

It's like being the Easter Bunny on steroids!

Lugaru

This game started up nicely, and was very similar to WOW in controls for movement – WASD for movement, mouse for view, space bar for jump. It got a bit trickier with the combat, but that could be because I’m mentally-challenged. Going through the tutorial had me befuddled fairly quickly, trying to remember when to hit the space bar to jump. when to hit Shift to crouch, and when to click the mouse to attack. Various combinations of these controls, plus movement, all create different styles of attack. When weapons were introduced I could tell that I needed much more practice.

Here’s what Wolfire had to say: “Lugaru (pronounced Loo-GAH-roo) is the predecessor to Overgrowth. It is a DRM-free, third-person action game available for Mac, Windows, and Linux. The main character, Turner, is an anthropomorphic rebel bunny rabbit with impressive combat skills. In his quest to find those responsible for slaughtering his village, he uncovers a far-reaching conspiracy involving the corrupt leaders of the rabbit republic and the starving wolves from a nearby den. Turner takes it upon himself to fight against their plot and save his fellow rabbits from slavery.”

Hopping right into the campaign, I could tell that this was much more than I could burrow into at a single sitting. I have a hutch I’ll be nibbling on this for days to come. (Rabbit puns FTW!)

I've got a bad feeling about this...

Penumbra

After getting through the initial story introduction, I found myself on a ship. With a little experimentation and some hints from the game I was able to figure out the controls to pick up objects, add them to my inventory, and so on. I picked up a few things – a flashlight, some extra batteries, and a notebook, and left the ship. I found myself in a snowy ravine. In-game hints prompted me to pick up a rock and throw it, so I did this for a while. Then, on a wild hunch that this information was not given to me at random, I carried a rock along with me. Sure enough, I came to a port door set into the ground, and the wheel to open it had been frozen shut. I threw my rock, the ice shattered, and I was able to open the door and climb through. Unfortunately I promptly fell to the bottom of a shaft. Not sure if that was due to some mistake of my own, or if that was an intended part of the plot. But whatever the case, there was no way back up. I found myself in a small system of caves, with mine-like supports and doors. One door was stuck shut and would be the puzzle that I would eventually give up on for lack of time. This was a promising beginning for what appears to be a much longer game.

Frictional Games says, “Penumbra is a first person horror adventure focussing on story, immersion and puzzle solving. Violence and combat is hardly an option – the player has to use wits to guide Philip through his final test, and this makes the series unique in offering a truly dangerous and terrifying experience.”

I like that this isn’t just another first-person shooter. I’m looking forward to spending some time playing this, though I have to figure out how to open that door first!

So that’s it for my quick glimpse of the games in this bundle. If you want to get them at this fantastic price (whatever you want to pay) you need to act quickly. As of the day I’m writing this, May 5th 2010, there are only about 6 more days left on this offer, after which you would need to buy them at their original prices.

Cool as a cucumber, the Fool writes to meet his deadline.

A few weeks ago Jeff asked me to take a look at an online game called “CoverGuess” and to write something about it on my Fool’s Manifesto. I clicked on the link, not knowing what to expect, and it brought me to a website called “LibraryThing” – a clumsy name for a website apparently devoted to the written word. I was also not very impressed with the site itself. It was plain and primitive – stark, and difficult to navigate. To my annoyance I discovered that I had to create a profile in order to play the game. I don’t like signing up for Spam, but this site did not require my email address so I grudgingly acquiesced. This was not a good start, and I was not in the mood to be charitable.

I wasn’t charitable.

I wrote a reply to Jeff’s email. “My initial reaction to this “game” is fairly negative. The game, in my opinion, is nothing more than a company’s transparent attempt to get people to tag images to build their database. They even address that complaint in their help file, which should be a warning sign to them. The game is boring.” I went on to complain about various aspects of the game, why I didn’t really consider it a game, blah, blah, blah. I expressed my concern about writing a review for  a game that I obviously didn’t like. I have nothing against writing a negative review; but I didn’t feel right about dumping on this pathetic game on this pathetic website. It felt more like abuse…like kicking a puppy. Jeff just told me to be honest and write what I thought. That didn’t help. The game was a dud, and apparently I was the designated hit man. Luckily, other work got in the way and I was given more time to think about it.

Time gradually gave me perspective and I came to realize that my initial reaction was not born only out of the game itself. I am used to writing about topics that stir some sort of passion in my heart. And I am used to playing games that I choose. If I don’t like a game, I don’t play it. If I like a game – really like it – then I am driven to tell others about it. And I am certainly driven to play it, often to the point of obsession. But when Jeff pointed me to the link to CoverGuess and asked me to write a review, it was not a game at that point – it was a job. And that, I think, is where the trouble started. I was looking for a game, and I found work, and my initial reaction was born out of the contrast between my expectation and the reality.

This is what I have been pondering lately – the division between play and work, diversion and drudgery. What creates our reactions to those two constant elements in our lives? Is it something that we can control? Manipulate? It is hardly an original thought (Hello, I’m the Fool, remember?) but it is certainly worth pondering. We all feel victim to the drudgery in our lives now and then, and we all long to play in whatever way we can. But the division between the two is not so easy to define. It blurs and shifts. It is subjective to our whims and our moods, and yet sometimes feels out of our control.

I love playing with my daughter. She has the unfettered imagination of a child, but is now old enough to really communicate her ideas. Our best games are the ones that happen spontaneously, with jumps and shrieks and giggles. But like a child – like anyone, actually – she likes to try to recreate those moments of play that she remembers fondly. They bring her comfort, and if I forget a detail or deviate the slightest bit from the script written on her memory, I am quickly brought back into line by her stern reprimand: “Daddy, that’s not how it goes!” It ceases to be a game. It’s a job – a ritual performed for an audience of two. I will admit, to my shame, that there are days when I am so tired that I am not up for these rituals, when I greet a cry of “Let’s play pirates!” with a groan and a promise of “Later!” (I’m hearing Harry Chapin singing “Cat’s in the Cradle” as I write this) I’m glad to say that those times are rare. As I said, I love playing with her. My point is that, sometimes, the play becomes work and ceases to be fun for me.

I love the MMORPG genre. I am lucky that these games were not around when I was a kid or I would have flunked out of high school. I’ve played World of Warcraft, Dungeons and Dragons Online, and Lord of the Rings Online to name a few. I love to create characters and watch them grow, to explore the lands and interact with other players. But at some point, each of those games stopped being fun for me. I would find myself running from place to place trying to mine metal to increase my Blacksmithing craft, or battling the same group of trolls over and over again in the hopes that one of them would drop the special rare weapon that I wanted. Or I would just be grinding away at some task or another. Logging on would become like clocking in at a job, and eventually I would simply stop playing. Again, the game has become work, and the enjoyment is gone.

It works the other way, however. I’m sure most of you are familiar with the scene in Mary Poppins where she sings to the Banks children about how a “spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down” as they clean up the nursery. Of course, cleaning would be much more fun if we could snap our fingers and make our clothes march into the hamper. Snow White also sang about how if you just “whistle while you work” then it will make your job much easier. Again, having a group of woodland creatures helping out doesn’t hurt either. (Part of me has always wondered if those upbeat ladies would so chipper if they didn’t have animals or magic to help them!) But the point is a good one – work becomes easier if you can even pretend that you are having fun.

I used to go to a Summer camp when I was younger. Part of what made the camp affordable is that all the work was done by the campers. We cooked, we cleaned, we all worked hard. It doesn’t sound like a fun time when I put it that way, but it was great. One of my favorite chores was washing the dishes. My friends and I would put on aprons, and we would sing as we washed. We sang as loud as we could, whatever songs came into our minds, and it was even a little disappointing when the washing was finished. Hey, what do you know? Snow White was on to something there.

So what makes a job a game?

And what makes playing a game into a chore? Is it just our attitude? That conclusion seems dangerously simplistic to me. I don’t believe that a spoonful of sugar is guaranteed to make anything and everything palatable. But I also don’t think that the dividing line between work and fun is entirely out of our control, either. I don’t have any answers. It is something that each person must explore on his or her own. But it is certainly worth thinking about. Especially when you are faced with your next dreaded chore.

I went back to LibraryThing this morning. I added a few beloved books to my library. I uploaded my photo. My username is “wylkyn” if anyone wants to look me up. And I played CoverGuess again. I was annoyed at a few gameplay aspects that I thought should be changed to make the game better: if you are the first one to tag a cover you only get one point no matter how many tags you create; and if only one person has tagged a cover with an inappropriate tag that you fail to match, it doesn’t matter how many great tags you think up – you get zero points. But I found myself tagging cover after cover, and looking forward to seeing how my tags matched those who had played before me. I was suddenly having fun, and what had seemed a chore before was suddenly a game.

Go figure.

And we’ve felt for a long, long time that games and learning were meant for each other. Our first training games were launched back in 1998 as part of a collaboration with AdOut. They were called “Monster Commands” and “Key Commando” and they taught the important key commands that made the AdOut production artists some of the most productive in the industry. They were a huge success. The employees loved them and within an hour, they had mastered key commands for programs like Photoshop, Quark and Illustrator that would otherwise have taken weeks or months to learn.

In 2003, we attempted to turn our game creation experience into a training solution for corporations. We created Motus Learning Systems with a couple of other partners to give it a focus. Motus built several demo games for different companies, and we even created a kids game to teach mousing skills. The initial illustrations for that kids game are shown above. And although this proved to be a short-lived venture for many reasons, it didn’t alter our belief that games are simply the best way to learn things that require repetition to master.

This past week, Gist launched their own training game. And I really like it.

Stated very clearly on the front page of their site, “Gist helps you build stronger relationships by connecting the inbox to the web to provide business-critical information about the people and companies that matter most.” Others, like Dustin Luther, have written about how Gist is helping them manage the many online relationships they’ve fostered. I like it too, but I really like their newest feature, a game called,  “Learn That Name.” And it does exactly what the name implies… it helps you learn the names and companies of the people you follow on social networks.

It’s a simple game, as most good training games are. You’re presented with a person’s avatar and you get points for guessing their name correctly. The faster you guess, the more points you get. Get it wrong and you lose 50 points. Each round is five people. For my taste, it’s just the right number. In my first round I achieved the “Super Socialite” level, though I was lucky to get five people I know pretty well. The second round labeled me a “Casual Networker.” I think the game could do a better job of sensing the sex of a contact. If I didn’t know that was Geoff Livingston, it would be a lot harder to figure out if all four names were male oriented.

The game strips off choices as the time clicks by and the points drop. So, if you don’t know who someone is, it helps you. If you don’t get the name right, you don’t get the option of the bonus question, which is “Where does <first name> work?” I wasn’t sure who this next guy was, so the game gave me some help.

I haven’t used Gist much since I loaded it, but I’ll be using it more now. I think they did a great job with the game. I can see lots of potential for categorizing contacts based on upcoming events, recent additions, high school classmates, etc. In fact, I’d download this app JUST to play this game. After just a few rounds, I’ve already become more familiar with some folks I’ve been trying to get to know over the past year. And I was surprised by some of the faces I recognized and how hard it was to place their name.

Kudos to Gist. Well done.

They are already among us!

Down through history, people have battled technology, and more often than not it seems that technology usually wins out. Whether it’s your mom’s inability to program the clock on the VCR or humankind being made into Duracell batteries in The Matrix, we seem to be barraged by constant reminders that computers will inevitably screw us over. Where did this fear begin? Was John Henry’s battle with the steam hammer the start? Yeah, sure…he won the race. But then he died. I’m sure the steam hammer shed a few fake tears at John Henry’s grave while it comforted his widow. Then there was HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The machines in the Terminator series. The list goes on and on.

And let’s face it: in many ways, machines are our masters. They can be far stronger and tougher. Their brains can calculate more quickly and remember more accurately. We depend on them for everything, from transportation to entertainment. What can we do in the face of that kind of domination? We could lash out, like the Luddites. Or just run away, like the Amish.

Or we can rise up and say, “We created you, and it is time you remember who your work for, bitches!”

That’s what one man said back in 1999. Omar Syed, a computer engineer, was trying to teach his 4-year-old son, Aamir, how to play chess. As he was coming up with more simple versions of this complex game to help his son grasp the rules, he was reminded of two years earlier when Garry Kasparov, Russian chess grandmaster, was humiliated by his defeat at the cold, steel claws of the nefarious computer opponent, Deep Blue (Editor’s Note: Deep Blue may not have had claws). Omar suddenly stood, spilling chess pieces to the floor, and in a voice that chilled the blood in Aamar’s veins, he said, “I will invent a game that humans may use to humiliate computers forever!” (Editor’s Note: The author may be taking liberty with historical events for dramatic purposes.) Because if there’s one thing that makes humans better than computers, it’s the fact that if we can’t win at something, we’ll find some way to tilt the balance back in our favor.

That is how Arimaa was born, sprung from the head of this brilliant man as Athena sprang from the head of Zeus. After he had taken some aspirin (Omar, not Zeus), he set the rules down on paper. Then he began play testing. Then, he put the game away for a while and forgot about it. Then he remembered it and was inspired. And then he gave up again. But then he found the files on his computer and started to…oh, hell. Now it becomes obvious why computers kick our asses so often. But long story short, he eventually tweaked the game until he got it to its current form in 2001 (Co-incidence? Or a subtle “F*** You” to HAL 9000 and his metal buddies?). He released the game in 2002.

Elephants and camels and horses! Oh my!

So if Arimaa is too hard for computers, how the hell am I supposed to learn it?

The game is actually fairly simple to play. You can even use a standard chess board and pieces. The concept is this. You have a variety of animals of varying strength. If you are using standard chess pieces, the King is the Elephant. This is the strongest piece, of course. This is followed by the Camel – the Queen (maybe because of her humps? Not sure about that one). The next strongest animal are the two Horses, which can be substituted with the Rooks. The Bishops are the Dogs. Not sure if that is a religious slur or if it’s because “dog” is “god” spelled backwards. Maybe I’m reading too much into this. Anyway, the Knights are the Cats. Yes, I know they look like horses. Stay focused, people. Lastly, the weakest animal, the Rabbits, can be substituted with the Pawns. There are eight of these.

Still with me? The simplicity comes with the set-up and movement of the pieces. Gold (white in Chess) sets up first. He can put his pieces in any order he likes in the first two rows. Then Silver (black) sets up. Each piece can move horizontally and vertically – side to side, forward and back, except the Rabbit which can not move backwards. Simple, right? No more diagonal or “L” shaped moves to clutter up your head. Forward, back, side, side. And the goal is even more simple: Just get one rabbit to the other end of the board.

Each player takes a turn, starting with the Gold player. In your turn, you can move your pieces a total of four steps. You can move one piece four squares, or you can move four pieces one square, or any combination thereof. You don’t have to take all four steps, but you do have to take at least one step in your turn. Then you pass on to your opponent and he takes his four steps, and so on.

Okay, here’s where the animals’ relative strength comes into play.

A piece that is stronger than another piece gets to do a few things to that piece. If the weaker piece is next to an opponent’s stronger piece, and it has no allies next to it, it is considered “frozen.” It can’t move. Like a game of freeze tag, it has to wait until either the stronger piece moves away from it, or until one of its own pieces stands next to it. So if a Gold Dog moves next to a Silver Cat, for example, that Cat can’t move. If Silver moved a Rabbit next to the Cat (or any piece) then the Cat would be free to move. The piece you use to unfreeze another piece doesn’t have to be stronger.

A stronger piece can also pull or push a weaker piece. This takes two steps to accomplish. For a pull, you use one step to move away from the weaker piece, and then another step to move the opponent’s piece into the square you just vacated. For a push, it is similar. You use one step to move the opponent’s weaker piece in any direction, and another step to move your stronger piece into the vacated square. You may not use the same piece to pull and push at the same time. The Arimaa Game Piece Union frowns on this abuse of their members, and you may find your game pieces on strike. They also won’t push or pull more than one piece at a time, and they require at least a 15 minute break every 4 hours, and a half hour for lunch.

There are four “trap” squares on the board. They are the slightly reddish squares in the screenshot above. The rule for these squares is simple as well. If any piece is on one of these trap squares without an allied piece next to it, it is destroyed. One of your goals is to try to maneuver your opponent’s pieces onto these trap squares to pull them out of the game.

And that’s all there is to it!

The game is remarkably simple in concept, and yet it allows for a huge complexity of game play. The multiple steps per turn and the ambiguous set-up makes it very difficult for computers to predict outcomes. Computers generally play games by examining all the possible moves and picking the best one. The average number of moves a player has in a turn of Chess is around 35. For Arimaa it comes out to more than 17,000.

There are a number of versions of Arimaa online for download, and you can register to play on the Arimaa website against various levels of computer AI or against real people. Or take out your old Chess set, put a coin on each Trap square, and play Arimaa with your four-year-old. But I recommend that you beat the computers while you can! And then raise a toast to Omar Syed – a John Henry of our time! An engineering giant! A living legend who stuck his thumb in the glowing red eye of our silicon step-child!

Take that, Deep Blue!

Photo Credit: atp_tyresius

Someone sent me a link to this video the other day, and I got to wondering: do people still feel this way about Dungeons & Dragons?

I realize there is still a stigma attached. It is still always portrayed in the media as the penchant of the pimply outcast. I feel that it has become more mainstream over the nearly 30 years that I have been playing. But has it really?

I’m pretty open about my love for the game, but my wife isn’t.

When I met my wife she had never played D&D before, and now she has two characters in two different games. I remember one night a while back when we were fixing dinner, and she was complaining about how wimpy her paladin was. That’s when I knew she had been truly geekified (love can do terrible things to people). But I’m pretty sure that nobody in her own family knows that she plays. And she certainly hasn’t told anyone at the K-8 school where she is the principal that she is an elven cleric of Tethryn Veralde. I can’t say that I blame her. Like it or not, many people still have a fairly negative opinion about the game, and I doubt many parents would want an elven cleric to be running their school. My step-daughter and her fiance also play D&D, but I have no idea if any of their friends or coworkers know that. I wonder how many other D&D players out there have yet to “come out of the dungeon,” so to speak.

I said I was open about my love for D&D, but to be honest, I am only open about it with friends and family, and fellow geeks. If I went to a party where I knew very few people, I know that I would be reluctant to discuss it with a stranger, unless he was wearing a Gandalf T-shirt or something. And why is that? It is just a game, after all. It’s no more diabolical than Monopoly or Chess, and it certainly requires more imagination. My wife and I play D&D with a group of friends every month or so. We sit around the table, share stories, eat food and drink beer, and play a game that we have played together for more than 10 years now. Our friends are all successful adults who lead fairly normal lives. Some have children, they all have jobs, and none of them live in their parents’ basement. If you met any of them on the street, it would not occur to you that they spend one evening every few weeks rolling dice and slaying dragons.

If you would like to join us, just be sure to bring a bottle of wine. And some dice.

Photo by Moroboshi

Stop squinting and click on the image already!

Bats flitter overhead as you stomp over arched stone bridges spanning mist-shrouded depths. Your faithful dog trots at your heel, sometimes running ahead to scout, but never far from your side. You hear a distant music thrumming in your head. Or is that just the wind? Broken tiles crunch under your boots as you step out onto a ruined platform. Suddenly, the floor shatters as skeletal warriors erupt from below, eager to strip the flesh from your bones and drag you down to join their ghastly horde. You grip your axes tightly. Here we go again…

Forget Diablo

I could begin this review by pointing out Torchlight‘s obvious connections to the highly successful Diablo series. Hell, every other reviewer is. And it makes sense, seeing that Torchlight’s creators are the ones who designed the first two Diablo games. But I’m not going to tell you that. Oh, shoot…I just did. Okay, but I’m not going to elaborate on it. Because if you care about Diablo, you probably already know. And if not, then what’s the point in going on about it?

My Computer is So Old

How old is it? Well, it’s so old that the hard drive consists of a small pterodactyl writing on a clay tablet. That’s pretty damned old. And until I can pony up the dough for a sparkling new computer, I am stuck playing whatever old games will work on my antique PC. That is, until Runic Games‘ Torchlight came along. There are many things I love about this game, but near the top of my list is the fact that the system requirements for Torchlight are lower than you would expect. They managed to make a game with wonderful graphics and sound, and yet it plays on my Neanderthal 2000. They even included a “Netbook Mode” that will enable this to run on your laptop. Now that’s considerate!

I call them Shooty, Stompy, and Zappy

No Class? Here’s Three.

Torchlight gives you three character classes to choose from. The Destroyer is the guy you wouldn’t want working in your china shop. He is a brute melee fighter type, and likes to get his big, meaty hands dirty. The Vanquisher likes to shoot stuff with either a bow or a gun, so you probably wouldn’t want her in your china shop either. She also uses traps to mess with the enemies. Your basic range rogue class. The Alchemist is a spell caster. He zaps things with his spells, and he summons friends to break your china so he doesn’t have to get his pale, dainty hands dirty. Each of these classes has a different set of skills you can choose as they gain in experience and power. My only beef with the game is that there is not a whole lot of variance to the skills, so there is a limit to how you can customize your character. But it’s not a huge gripe, and it is vastly overwhelmed by the other aspects of the game. For example, you get to choose a pet. You can have a dog or a cat, and your pet will follow you around, fight with you, carry loot, and even run it back to town and sell it for you. Now that’s a good pet!

What "loot" might look like...

Whichever character class you wind up choosing, your hero starts in the tiny town of Torchlight and is immediately sent on a quest to explore the mines below the town. Seems that the magic mineral called ember is causing some sort of problems, and there’s some guy named Alric who has disappeared or something. To be honest, I didn’t pay all that much attention to the story because the actual game itself was so much fun, and reading makes my head feel funny. But there is always an excuse or three to go down into the dungeons below and kick some monster ass. And collect loot. Lots and lots of loot. There are magic items galore, from common to rare to unique items, and even sets of items. Collect them all! But wait! There’s more! Call now and you can get fabulous gems that you can fit into socketed items to make them even better! Long story short: there is an endless amount of crap to collect.

It’s All About the Atmosphere

Of course, the atmosphere might contain balls of fire. Just sayin'...

This game falls into the Action RPG genre, which means that there is going to be a lot of clicking of the mouse and tapping of the hotkeys. But when you are not rabidly clicking, you will find yourself enthralled by the level of detail the designers packed into this game. The music is fantastic – sort of Pink Floyd meets Brian Eno – and the sound effects bring you right into the moment, whether it’s the explosion of a fireball or the rattle of your dog’s collar. There are plenty of stunning visual effects as well. Torches flicker and smolder. Water ripples and splashes. Bats flit by, and tapestries wave. Between battles, as you run along corridors, or over rickety wooden bridges past pools of lava, you will want to just stop and look. It’s all just so pretty.

Little Things Mean So Much

See that lavender beetle? That's my dog.

Do you like surprises? I’ll tell you a few, but I don’t want to spoil the fun of discovering them for yourself. Like to fish? Find a fishing hole and there’s a mini-game where you can fish for…well…fish. Feed the fish to your pet and watch him change! You can also find some other items when you fish, including magic items. So there’s a certain slot-machine quality to this mini-game that is surprisingly addictive. I also really like the various portals that pop up to other “hidden” dungeons. You can even buy maps from a vendor that create a portal to a randomly generated dungeon. Another special touch is the swarms of monsters that occasionally boil out of some hidden doorway, or jump down on top of you from a balcony. This game is full of such special little touches, and that really shows how much the designers care about their audience. It is obvious from the start that this is a game that was made by people who like to play games. And that is what makes the difference.

No Fooling, This Game Rocks

Okay, I think you get the picture. You can download a demo and see more pictures and information at the official website. It is only available for the PC, but there are plans to release a Mac version in 2010, I believe. There is also a level editor for the PC, though I don’t believe there are plans to make an editor for the Mac. And there is talk of a multiplayer version yet to come. There are so many good things I could say about this game, but I think the last and best thing to say is that the game only costs $19.95! That’s right. One of the best games to come out this year, and it costs about a third of what you would pay for a boxed game from the store. So don’t waste your time reading this blog entry anymore! Go! Download the demo and play it! I guarantee, you’ll find it more than worth the 20 bucks to buy a license for the full version.

Cloudy, with a chance of lightning...and giant spiders.

I have to admit, I never really gave it much thought beyond the simple joy I received from playing pinball. I wasn’t a wizard, by any stretch of the imagination. My oldest brother could play a machine for 40 days and 40 nights on just one quarter. I was lucky if my game went for 5 minutes. But I was young then, and every arcade had at least 2 machines it seemed, usually more. Whether I was in a shopping mall or a Shakey’s Pizza, I would much rather plunk my quarter into a pinball machine than into one of the various Pong clones that were sprouting up everywhere. It never entered into my young mind that there were devious and tricky pinball machine designers lurking behind the scenes, trying to tweak the games in an effort to suck all the quarters from my pocket. What a fool I was.

Even later, when the arcades were filled with Joust, Q-bert, and Tron games, I would still go back to the pinball corner and play those dusty old machines. They often cost less to play than the newer games, and they were still some of the best around. Something visceral about the steel ball impacting the flippers, the mechanical “thunk” of the targets and bumpers, resonated deeper in me than the digital images on the video screens. Don’t get me wrong, I love video games. Always have. But pinball is what got that love rolling.

With that in mind, this is an interesting article about the Economics of Pinball and the decline of the pinball machine. The author reveals some of the interesting tricks that pinball machine designers used to try to separate fools like me from our pocket change. I found it via BoingBoing, one of my favorite websites for off-the-beaten-trail news and interesting tidbits.

Photo by Kapungo

The Backyard Sports Series consists 7 original Flash games that Zeek Interactive designed and executed. We took each game from concept to completion. The games are highly interactive and include a web-based high score board to motivate play.

We’re very proud of the results.