I made a joke on Twitter a while ago to the creator of To the Moon that the only thing that Inception had over his game was more upside-down gun fights. In response, he created this:
Very funny and there’s some good news too – it turns out that the developer is actually working on a spiritual successor to To the Moon called A Bird Story. You can read all about it here.
Cryamore – $187k. 3 days left.
Asylum - $99k ($100k goal). 5 days left.
Dreamfall Chapters – $1 mil. 15 days left.
At the Gates – $68k. 13 days left.
Worlds of Wonder – $44k ($400k goal). 7 days left.
ROAM – $87k. 2 days left.
Death Inc. – £70k (£300k goal). 12 days left.
Delver’s Drop – $39k ($75k goal). 18 days left.
Throw Trucks With Your Mind – $16k ($40k goal). 19 days left.
Genocide Dolphins – £517 (£5k goal). 5 days left.
First up for this week, we have a new Adventure/RPG hybrid called Mage’s Initiation. Developed by the team responsible for the King’s Quest 1-3 & Quest for Glory 2 remakes, Mage’s Initiation looks to be heavily inspired by the Quest for Glory series. That means multiple character classes, traditional Sierra Online style puzzles, alternate routes of success, and RPG stats. They’re off to a strong start with $39k of their $65k goal raised with 28 days left to go.
Next, we have There Came an Echo – a voice-controlled strategy game by the studio that brought us Sequence. It’s an intriguing idea and looks far more ambitious than the previous game, although I will admit that I thought they handled their launch poorly – launching on a holiday (when all the media is on vacation or busy covering Bungie’s announcement) and with no prior attempts at raising awareness. However, it’s bounced back from a rough start (no doubt thanks to having star Wil Wheaton attached to the project) and is at $42k raised of their $90k goal with 26 days left to go.
Finally, I thought the Death Boulder Bones game project sounded interesting. An endless runner where instead of controlling the runner you control the environment that he runs in, Death Boulder Bones looks like it’d make for a very fun little mobile game. It’s only at $1k of its $28k goal so it definitely needs a push if it wants to make it.
Before 2012, I pretty much played whatever I felt like. Sure, I’d try to stay clear from the really bad stuff like GTA & God of War but that’s about it. That changed in 2012 with two particular games.
One of those games was The Walking Dead adventure game series by Telltale. I had heard so much about it being this amazing story experience so when the first two episodes were offered for free to PS+ members, I thought I’d give it a try even though I didn’t watch the TV series. After about 30 minutes of intermittent bouts of heavy swearing, I deleted the game from the hard drive.
The other game was Resident Evil 6. Unlike the vast majority of the Internet, I actually liked what I played of the game. Yeah, it was rough around the corners but there were some awesome moments and the actual gunplay was quite fun once you settled into its peculiar rhythm. However, then there was the violence (and nudity and language but mostly the violence). And what bothered me most wasn’t that the violence bothered me but was on how little the violence bothered me. When Resident Evil 4 came out, it was a lot more violent than previous games in the series and it bothered me but I ignored those feelings because the game was so well done otherwise. Had I become so desensitized that Resident Evil 6 wasn’t bothering me even though the content was much more objectionable than the stuff that was in RE4? This worried me and so I made a vow to more closely monitor what I play in 2013.
I greatly enjoyed Devil May Cry 3 when it came out way back when but I won’t be trying out the new DMC game. A quick comparison of the ESRB descriptors is instructive – DMC3 lists “Blood, Suggestive Themes, Violence” whereas the new DMC list “Blood and Gore, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Nudity, Sexual Content, Strong Language.” DMC3 was so over-the-top that it verged on a cartoonish parody. The new DMC appears to be playing everything straight but with much more violence, swearing, and sexual content. I’ve heard the game itself is well designed but I’ll be skipping it.
The Last of Us & Tomb Raider are two other big examples of games I’ll probably be skipping in 2013. I’ve enjoyed the various installments of Uncharted (The Last of Us’s spiritual predecessor) & Tomb Raider to various degrees but from the sound of things, The Last of Us and the new Tomb Raider game are going to be drastically more violent than previous games. Shame since other than the violence, Tomb Raider in particular sounds fantastic.
I don’t think that violent video games transform people into homicidal maniacs or anything like that. However, I do think what we play has an influence on us, however subtle. Playing an extremely violent game may not turn us into killers but it might make us a little less likely to be empathetic or a little more likely to be testy or pessimistic. And when multiplied by dozens of games over thousands of hours, even a subtle effect can turn into a major consequence. Games should uplift and inspire. At the very least, they should do no harm. I’m afraid that extremely violent games or games filled with other questionable material may not be “doing no harm” even in those cases where the violence or objectionable content is used to denounce the same.
Elite – £1.57 million. Finished.
Pathfinder Online – $739k ($1 million goal). 3 days left.
The Red Queen of Oz – $6k ($40k goal). 13 days left.
Full Bore – $16k. 10 hours left.
Radio the Universe – $57k. 19 days left.
Akaneiro: Demon Hunters – $59k ($200k goal). 22 days.
DREADLINE – $15k ($167k goal). 20 days left.
Tornado Maker – $75k. Finished.
Really quite weak. Only thing of note I noticed was the GameStick – a new console similar to the Ouya in that it lets you play Android games on your TV with a traditional video game controller. Gamestick was taken down briefly due to a copyright problem (their video included a game that they didn’t have the rights for) but it’s back up now and at $330k ($100k goal) with 20 days left. When you see stuff like GameStick and Ouya raising hundreds of thousands or even million dollars, it’s easy to think that they’ll be big success but for perspective, many people think the Vita is bombing and Sony has sold well over a million Vitas worldwide. If it’s hard to get serious developers to take the Vita seriously, it’s going to be even harder to get them to want to develop for systems like the Ouya that probably will never even reach a million systems sold.
Radiangames Crossfire II is out! 80 MS points.
Download the game here.
Also, according to the Radiangames development blog, sales of Radiangames Crossfire II are going to play a big part in deciding his plans for next year and whether or not he makes a sequel to Inferno, so if you like Radiangames’ work (and you should), be sure to support them by purchasing Crossfire II!
2 more games from the Indie Games Winter Uprising have been released. Break Limit & the Hypership Out of Control update (which adds a new mode among other things). 80 MS points a piece.
Soulcaster II and Ubergridder are both in the review queue, so if no bugs are discovered, they should be coming out soon.
As for Cthulhu Saves the World, I have the next 3 days free to dedicate to working on it so by Saturday, I ought to have a really good idea of when it will come out. In any case, we’re getting really close.
My goal is to get Cthulhu Saves the World ready for playtesting by Saturday. Wish us luck!
I was originally going to implement a Save Coin system (similar to the one used in Wild Arms 3), but you know what? Forget that! One of the biggest complaints that people have about RPGs is the inability to save whenever you like. Developers usually counter by saying that forced save spots are essential to challenge and balance and all that. You know what I think? I think games should be fun and I think a large part of having fun is doing things your way. If you’re overly cautious and want to save every 5 mins, why should I stand in the way of you playing the game the way you want to? The people who are more daring and want more of a challenge can always limit their saves and take advantage of stuff like the Hard mode and Score Attack modes. Plus schedules aren’t always condusive to long play sessions – sometimes you only have a few minutes to play or something comes up suddenly.
Save anywhere functionality is already in the code (I use it when I’m debugging things) so it’s not like it’s a new feature I have to add. If anything, it’s easier to do it this way.
To go with the ability to save anywhere (outside of combat & conversation, of course), Cthulhu Saves the World will also let you teleport back to towns whenever you like as well. Besides being convenient, this should ensure that you can’t save yourself into an unwinnable state in the middle of a dungeon.
As we near the end of Cthulhu Saves the World’s development, I figured it would be a good idea to make it easy for people to find out when it comes out so I present to you, the Zeboyd Games mailing list! Just email me at rdespair@gmail.com with the Subject: “Zeboyd Games mailing list” and your email address (if it’s different than the one you sent me an email from) and I’ll be sure to send you a message when Cthulhu Saves the World is out on the Live Dashboard, ready to purchase. Plus at no extra charge, you’ll receive additional messages whenever we send out an official press release (generally for new game announcements, game releases, and game trailers).
Of course, we’ll still put up big announcements here at zeboyd.com, but this way, you can find out ASAP even if you only check the site every few days.
And if you’re on twitter, feel free to add me (Username: werezompire) and Bill (bill_at_zeboyd). I try to always twitter whenever the website is updated, plus you’ll get random thoughts from us and the occasional development tidbit.
We’re almost done with the soundtrack to Cthulhu Saves the World. We just have 2 more songs to go, plus a little polishing here and there and it’s done. From the look of things, there will be 21 songs in the finished game, totaling over 1 hour of music. Contrast that with Breath of Death VII: The Beginning where we only had 11 songs for around 25 mins and you can see that’s a huge difference. Not only is there a ton more music this time around, but I think the overall quality is noticeably higher as well.
We’re going to release the entire soundtrack around the time that Cthulhu Saves the World comes out (hopefully in just a few more weeks, guys!), but in the meantime, here are a few more songs from the game for your listening pleasure.
World Map Theme
Volcano Theme
Big City Theme
Oh and the actual soundtrack release will have more interesting names. How’s ‘Across the Crescent Moon, the Weeping Monster Sighs Once More (Victory Theme)’ sound? Pretentious enough? 