Lock's Quest

Another game that I must finish but not using my own DS - need Dave's better touch screen.

Very addictive - it's like a tower defense game mashed together with an RPG. Starts off with very simple missions and keeps you moving forward without a lot of failure involved. The missions flow into each other very quickly because it feels like you must keep playing or else the Clockworks (evil machine robots) will take over and plus, you'll never find Lock's poor sister!

Maybe I am about 20% through this? I think I read there are 100 missions.

Soul Bubbles

I was playing this game in December during Christmas break and plan to pick it back up again to finish it eventually (maybe I am 3/4 of the way through).
The game is very relaxing and somewhat challenging in later levels at the same time. I was getting to a point where I needed to fire projectiles at enemies, and my gimpy touchscreen was failing me there.
If I keep going I'd probably use Dave's DS.
Best things:
* the tutorial and the level design - at least for the intro levels where a new mechanic is being introduced - they do it very seamlessly. Half the time when something new is presented, I got it from the context - but there is always also a little tutorial help icon to click on later on in the level, in case I didn't get it completely.
* the music and overall environment - very well done graphically and aurally.

I think this game got panned a bit by the hardcore reviewers. If we pushed it to a casual audience (even ported it to PC) it would probably sell a lot more. Hmmm...
it doesn't need to be DS, exactly...

Gamasutra just posted a list of the top 20 breakthrough developers.

I'm happy to say that one of them, Wadjet Eye Games, is currently working on a game for PlayFirst, and that I helped PlayFirst sign them up (via meeting him at GDC in 2007, introduced by my cousin Chris Dahlen).

Also I was really happy to see how many of the games published by these developers, are the games I play and love.

Here's a summary:

1. 2D Boy (Page 2) - developers of World of Goo. I have not played World of Goo, but one of the co-founders (Kyle Gabler) was an intern or similarly junior engineer when I was at Maxis/EA, although I don't know him.
2. 5TH Cell (Page 3) - Developers of the DS game Drawn to Life, which I have wanted to play but have not. Also developers of Lock's Quest, which I have played - see later post.
3. Area/Code (Page 4) - Developers of the wildly addictive Facebook game Parking Wars, which I do play!
4. Atlus (Page 5) - developers of the Trauma Center series (which I love) and the Persona series, which we did recently buy. Also publishers of Steambot Chronicles, which I want to buy, and they bring all kinds of Japanese games over to t
5. The Behemoth (Page 6) - Alien Hominid, which I haven't played and not that high on the list, but they look interesting, and the art is cool.
6. Certain Affinity (Page 7) - apparently they did a Halo 2 map pack and are coming out later this year with what looks like a pretty fun pirate game called Age of Booty.
7. Double Fine (Page 8) - Dave and I both love Psychonauts, although we still need to finish it!

They are working on this game which is going to be voiced by Jack Black, it looks pretty fun:

"Though its publishing status is currently in question as of this writing, Brütal Legend is expected this fall; the game is an action-adventure journey tracing the adventures of metal band roadie Eddie Riggs as he makes his way through a fantasy world that fuses metal rock with Nordic legend."

8. Grasshopper Manufacture (Page 9) - OMG! No More Heroes! I rented it and played it obsessively, and almost finished it (got to last boss and got a bit frustrated dying). For me it was like Pulp Fiction. I didn't think I was going to like it before I went, and then I loved it!
9. Gearbox Software (Page 10) - the Brothers in Arms series which I haven't paid much attention to, but also a version of Samba de Amigo for the Wii coming out!
10. Hothead Games (Page 11) - Penny Arcade Adventures with the help of Ron Gilbert of LucasArts fame. Both Gilberts in da house on this list - see our friend Dave Gilbert (sometimes confused with Ron Gilbert at industry events) at #20.

11. Infinite Interactive (Page 12) - Puzzle Quest - played first on PC at work, got captivated, Dave and I started playing on DS!

12. Level-5 (Page 13) - I just found out about this company this year (and late last year) and have played a lot of games they've released: Dragon Quest VIII, Rogue Galaxy (which was a Xmas present I still haven't finished, but i'd like to), and Professor Layton and the Curious Village.

And then they're also doing Dragon Quest IX on the DS!

13. Media Molecule (Page 14) - LittleBigPlanet, which is a PS3 exclusive, but one of the only PS3 titles that I might get excited about if we had a PS3.

14: Metanet (Page 15) = 2D platformer N+ which is on XBLA now and coming out on DS soon.
15. PlatinumGames (Page 16) - includes two alumni from Clover, which developed the awesome Okami! They are working on a game called "MadWorld" for the Wii.
16. Q-Games (Page 17)
17. Thatgamecompany (Page 18)
18: Treasure (Page 19)
19. Valve South (formerly Turtle Rock) (Page 20)
20. Wadjet Eye Games (Page 21)

Each entry is followed by a short write-up.

Final Fantasy IV

I was playing this in the summer but I think I stopped because I got stuck in a long dungeon, and because Vy and Alexei started talking about The World Ends With You again so I picked that up and started on the Secret Reports.

I think I liked FF III more than FF IV because of the job system - I liked being able to choose different jobs for different characters as the game went on.
However - I like the Active Battle system in FF IV much more than the standard turn-based play in FF IV.

Also the storyline is good here but apparently it has not been enough for me to jump up and keep pushing forward in the dungeon of my save file.

The World Ends With You

Sometimes I feel that in 2008 I have been singlehandedly supporting Square Enix!

This is probably the best game I have played all of 2008 (and Persona 4 counts for 2009).
It's just fun - fun to collect, fun to work through the story, dialogue is funny - we even had lunchtime pin trades at work, with Vy showing up to trade pins with us across everyone's DS. Selling and buying and leveling up, oh my!
I finished this game and am almost through the "secret reports" bonus chapters.
A great way to reuse the content in each chapter, to give you a set of additional goals to complete using the same content on your 2nd playthrough.
Also this is great for the original story and modern setting. It's caused a lot of people to get excited about visiting or learning about Shibuya as well.

Interesting Gamasutra article about D&D thievery

Not on stealing things in D&D, but on stealing things from D&D...especially in the new 4.0 version.

Link here.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness

I can't remember when exactly I finished this, but I remember I was trying to finish it so I could play something else.
Sadly I bought it just before our wedding and wound up playing it now and then at Pt Reyes on the honeymoon.
I named my partner Pokemon that was with me for much of the game - "PokeDave". This was very touching at various points, as PokeDave told me how much he needed me to keep going, and so on.
The storyline of the game itself actually wasn't too bad, and I was having fun capturing pokemon and naming them after people -- there was also a Birk, and a Jim, etc.
After finishing all of Pokemon Diamond, it was nice to use all this random knowledge for something.
it's kind of like playing multiple Dragon Quest games and not having to learn about all the enemies again. But I guess this kind of knowledge for someone who's 34, is a little bit odd.

at WisCon reading GameSetWatch...

I am at WisCon and unfortunately starting to get spacey and coming down with a cold.

Taking a break in my room I checked out my Google Reader which is of course seeded with gaming blogs.

So I see a post about this Flash-based side-scrolling WoW-like RPG called "WTF?!".

Apparently this is by Robert Nideffer and Alex Szeto. Nideffer, googling him quickly, is apparently a professor at the UC-Irvine Game Lab.
He worked on a game called DinoQuest Online, which according to the pdfs I looked at, seems pretty boring. Szeto worked on this too.

For the WTF?! game - it's only in demo version now but they are releasing their engine for free...
let me go play it...
The gameplay is pretty boring so far - I killed 8 pigs and then didn't really get a new quest but i see some Karl Marx converts down the road.

It's a pretty good proof of concept of being able to do WoW quality graphics in Flash. But it's not multiplayer and not that fun right now...
And it's also pretty much anti-feminist since you are killing followers of Mary Daly, who actually looks quite cool. And the people you attack say things like "I smell testicles!"

So, huh, actually not that interesting in content, but as a technical proof of concept, maybe. Let's see them do this as a true multiplayer game though.
Also ForumWarz is a lot more fun...

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates

I really loved this game - not exactly sure why.
It was just challenging enough to be fun but not frustrating. I liked the story. I like the cute characters.
It's an action battle scheme - no turn based battles. Hack and slash and use magicite to cast spells and/or L/R button to use tribal abilities.
Also a nice mix of platforming and puzzle solving along with the slashing.
And even crafting - finding ingredients dropped from enemies and then making them at shops.

This sucked me in enough to start a new playthrough, since there was lots of new items to make and buy and equip on the new playthrough. Even with no other added content, this seemed to be enough.

Finished Prof. Layton

I got all 135 puzzles on Prof. Layton, but used the faq for a few, and used the in-game hints quite liberally...why not use the hint coins if there are so many of them!

I enjoyed it quite a bit...

Mabinogi!

This is the Campfire - you can chop wood and sit around the Campfire, sharing food and playing musical instruments!

There is a composer utility on their site:


Launch page for Mabinogi Open Beta....

The Making of Japan's First RPGs...

An article from Next Generation about Henk Rogers...

Hard to imagine a time when you'd need to sell the concept of an RPG game to Japan!

"As well as introducing the RPG genre to Japan, Rogers’ game (Black Onyx) was responsible for launching some heavyweight videogame careers. Hisashi Suzuki, a Keio University student and part-timer at Bullet-Proof Software, wrote the manual. Suzuki would later go on to become president of Square Enix."

Prof. Layton and the Curious Village

Prof. Layton and his cronies were running around GDC giving out puzzles on cards.

I took one, all smiling, and heard the guy behind me on the street yell out "I love this game!!!"

I love this game, too! It saved me last weekend in the airport when my flight was canceled...

It's cute, it's intelligent, and it's fun!

And it's by Level-5, who also developed another game that has sucked up my time - Rogue Galaxy. And also Dragon Quest 8 (and the upcoming Dragon Quest 9 for DS).

Combines various kinds of puzzles (logic, simple math, riddles) with a point and click adventure and a forgiving hint system, which I haven't had to use as much as I thought I would.

"Every puzzle has an answer!" as Layton's VO sometimes remarks when you finish a puzzle.
Not yet finished yet, but this is quite fun.

No More Heroes

I rented this game from Blockbuster and almost finished it in a little over a week...it was good. People compare it to Kill Bill due to the assassin subject matter and nutso storyline, but it actually made me remember how I felt before I went to see Pulp Fiction (and also the Matrix).

Both times, I thought I would not like either movie, but voila, I went and I loved them.
Same thing here. It's just fun to slash at enemies with your beam katana (A button on the Wiimote) and then do a motion at the end for a finishing wrestling move.
And lots of blood all over.

I did not beat the final boss at the very end, but I made it to assassin rank #1!

I know people at work would think this sounds crazy - but it's even "casual" in some ways.

* It's organized into pretty small chunks that can be satisfyingly finished in an evening (save up money for entry fee to attack the next assassin, train up at the gym, and then go beat each boss)

* Gameplay itself is not frustratingly hard - I played at the easiest difficulty and it wasn't completely cake but also was forgiving enough that I wound up almost finishing. And I'm not good at combat games.

* The story is fun and pulls you along from segment to segment - creative to save "on the toilet"...


It's not a big open world like GTA but then, it doesn't really need to be...