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Showing posts with label gaming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gaming. Show all posts

Thursday, 1 June 2017

6 Creepy and Crazy Gaming Easter Eggs

June 01, 2017 0
For almost as long as games have been made, developers would slip in hidden bits and pieces of code, areas and surprises. And, for just as long, players have spent hours trying to find these “Easter Eggs”. More often than not, they’re fun or brilliant, or offering something that’s as exciting as it is unexpected. Then there are those other times… times when the Easter eggs are almost impossible to find, bone chillingly creepy or, worst of all, more disappointing than Duke Nukem Forever. Here are:

6 Creepy and Crazy Gaming Easter Eggs



1. 13 Years and The One Ring; Final Fantasy IX

The Final Fantasy game franchise has come a long way, and boasts a massive fan base – a fan base that has come to expect Easter eggs and surprises in every game. Considering how many side-quests the games tend to have, it’s only logical that not all of the Easter eggs would be easy to find. But when it came to FFIX it took a grand total of 13 years for the very last one to be discovered.

So how do you find this Easter egg? Well, one of the side-quests that you get in the game involved talking to one of the Nero Brothers – apparently a sibling is missing. All too eager to help, you go out and beat the boss… but instead of going on with your life and your oodles of other quests, you’ve got to walk back and talk to them again. This time another sibling is missing. Back to the boss! Then back to the siblingss, back to the boss, back to- Well, you get the idea. After a ridiculous amount of rinse and repeat, all the siblings are finally safe and back home – and you can, finally, go inside and loot the house.

For all that effort, you’d expect something pretty fantastic, right? Maybe some kind of legendary weapon? If only. No, your reward for this extensive rescue mission is a ring. A tiny, insignificant little piffling Protect Ring. So is it worth it? Unless you’re determined as all bloody hell to complete every damn quest in the game, this trek through the annals of disappointment is one to skip.


2. Feel Honoured by My Name; Donkey Kong, Atari 400

Look, we get it. You’re a developer, and you spent five months pouring your heart and soul into the conversion of a game from one platform to another. You feel entitled to some kind of recognition. So, naturally, you stick your initials into the game – hidden, of course, until somebody finds a way to unlock them. And eventually somebody did… 26 years later.

Why did it take so long? Landon M. Dyer – the developer – buried the code to unlock the egg so deep that the only reason someone went looking for it was because Dyer mentioned its existence. So why didn’t he just tell someone how to get to it sooner? After all, why stick the code in there if you don’t want it to be discovered in the first place? As it turns out, even he forgot how to unlock it.

But the world is full of people who have too much time on their hands, and one of these people finally decided to just go through the code and figure it out. Step 1 – achieve a ridiculously specific high score. Step 2 – Lose all your lives but one. Step 3 – Commit suicide by fall with your last life. Step 4 – Reset the system to level 4 difficulty. Reward - Go to Main Screen and look at three tiny letters at the bottom.

Congratulations – most disappointing reward ever.


3. Is That…Luigi?; Luigi’s Mansion

When it comes to anything Mario related, the general expectation is for something light-hearted and funny. And why wouldn’t you expect that from their Easter eggs? For years, Super Mario has been about silly fun – or frustrated rants, if you’ve ever played any Ross levels on Super Mario Maker. Occasionally the Mario-verse does wander into the more sinister, but never has ‘creepy as hell’ been something you’d associated with the jumping Italian Brothers.

And then there’s Luigi’s Mansion. The game has its flaws, sure, but there’s no denying that it’s another Mario franchise classic. Unlike most of the games, though, Luigi’s Mansion has a definite darker edge – and nowhere is that seen more clearly than a rather creepy Easter egg hidden in the loft. There are a lot of people who ascribe the chilling scene to a glitch, but Nintendo themselves have never confirmed or denied the true nature of that shadow.

When the power blacks out, go answer the ringing phone on the third floor - the one in the middle - and wait. Soon enough the lightning strike, and that strike will wreck your childhood as it casts a shadow on the wall. A shadow that eerily resembles Luigi, hung from the rafters.

Well, there goes whatever childhood innocence I had left.


4. I Am the Master Mind; Silent Hill 2

As far as terrifying games go, Silent Hill needs no introduction. Over the years this franchise has given us some of the most horrific experiences and disturbing imagery. The best advice I was ever given about this series was to avoid playing it in the dark. I didn’t listen, but that’s a story for a different time. The point here is that the Silent Hill games are about as creepy and twisted as it gets to begin with – but somehow the secret ending of Silent Hill 2 just makes the whole thing worse.

To unlock the ending, you need to play the game at least twice. Somewhere during your second run you might just manage to get your hands on a bone-shaped key. A weird thing to find, but alright. That bone-key opens a secret room, and inside you find the mastermind, the monster behind all the horror that you’ve been experiencing…

… a dog sitting in front of a control panel. Coincidence? Nope. The game itself quite bluntly says that the fluffy little bugger is responsible for all the trauma the protagonist has experienced. It also claims that everything now makes sense, so...

Naturally the protagonist falls to his knees at the revelation that a dog is responsible for his nightmare. Said dog trots right over to hand out sympathetic licks – which is completely unfair, by the way. How are we supposed to stay angry at an affectionate pup?!


5. Message from A Killer; California Speed

As mentioned before, Easter eggs are supposed to be exciting or, at least, just a little bit of fun. But if they can be neither, well, then they might as well be the kind of Easter egg that has no place being there except to freak you the hell out. Enter California Speed, an old school racing game. The game has no story, no plot, nada. The only point of the game is to drive your car as fast as you can and hope to cross the finish line first. That’s it. The end. Basically, not the kind of game you’d expect any kind of Easter egg from to begin with.

And yet…

While you’re driving in circles like a maniac, you might get random glimpses of sign boards all along the road. Most of them don’t mean much – they’re just there to add a little something to the game. With the… crap graphics of the time, there’s not much to expect from these signs. Not really. But if you look closely, you might spot one that’s not like the others. That particular sign has a rather disturbing message for our racers:

“Sometimes... God takes mommies and puppies away... And sometimes... Just sometimes... I do.”

Well, shit.


6. Singing in Obscurity; Portal 2

This is, by far, my favourite Easter egg. Portal 2 is a lot of fun to play, whether in single player or in co-op mode. The puzzles are challenging and entertaining, but it’s the different machines in the game, and their personalities, that add a little something extra to it. Especially the little turrets… They’re not your friends. They’re not supposed to be your friends. And yet they’re adorable (if your little heart didn’t break at the first poor cries of “I’m on fire!”, you’re a monster).

Portal 2 also comes filled with fun Easter eggs. For example – and beware spoilers here if you didn’t know this already – those adorable little turrets? They were made to protect baby cribs. That’s right – they’re tiny, red-eyed babysitters.

Now if you like exploring things thoroughly you might just discover four little turrets standing together. Not too unexpected… until the four of them break out into a melancholy little song. The song, as it turns out, is called "The Turret Wife Serenade". But who are they serenading? Why? How is it that these four lonely turrets (and the one fat turret opposite them) came to be here, singing all by their lonesome selves?Honestly, we don’t know – but that hasn’t stopped the fan community coming up with their own reasons and theories. A particularly heart-wrenching theory is presented by a fan called RedSquidz:

“They'd experienced a rather unusual suffering. Not a suffering from lasers. Not a suffering from being knocked over, or a suffering from being smashed away with weighted cubes. No, they suffered from something unconventional. They suffered from silence. From days, months, perhaps years of inactivity; water slowly eroding the testing chambers around them; iron rotting away from oxidation; power cells slowly corroding and depleting. There was nothing there to keep them stimulated - nothing to shoot at, nothing to trigger them into activation. And so, with their lights beginning to dim, they cried out. They sang, sang against the heavy quiet, sang out to find fulfillment and purpose and meaning, sang to fill the empty world around them - to keep their very souls alive and from slipping into the silence themselves.”

If that lonely Easter egg scene wasn’t sad before, you can bet your arse that it is now. You’re welcome.




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Friday, 26 May 2017

6 More Retro Games That Are Still Fun and Worth Playing

May 26, 2017 0
A couple of weeks ago we talked about Six Retro Games that we would still sit down and play for hours. But, like several gamers pointed out – and quite correctly so – that there are way more than just six of these older games still out in the world. A few even went so far as to suggest a couple of additions, and we have enough games on our lists now to keep us busy for months! Thanks to everyone for their suggestions – and remember to leave a few suggestions of your own. I can’t do all the work around here. Now, without further ado, here are:


6 More Retro Games That Are Still Fun and Worth Playing



1. Dune Series, Westwood & Various (1992 – 2001)

Yes, I went there, and right on the very first game on this list, too – and with good reason. Dune, Dune II, Dune 2000 and Emperor: Battle for Dune all belong on this list. Each one has something that makes them different from the others, and the little unique elements and common that still make them fun to play, without losing the amazing story.

It was the game that originally got me into RTS games, and one which I lost a lot of my youth too – with no regrets whatsoever.

While the first Dune almost has a little bit of an RPG feel to it, Dune II and all the sequels are strictly real time strategy and resource management. As the series continued to grow, the stories became more elaborate, and short cut scenes turned into full-fledged filmed sequences. The controls have also improved over the years, but without losing the things that really make Dune, Dune.

There is no denying that these games are still fun to play – if you fancy yourself a real-time strategy player, and you haven’t played any of the Dune games yet… you’ve got a serious problem. Go. Now. Before I glue you to a screen with nothing but Dune to play


2. Diablo 1 & 2, Blizzard (1996, 2000)

I have a confession to make… I was always hooked on PC games, ever since I received my first copy of Dune – but, for some reason, I just never could get into RPG games. Because of that, it was a long time before I actually started playing the Diablo games. Once I did, though, it was very easy to see why people loved them so much, and why Blizzard is still releasing patches for these older games.

Most people are driven back to older games because the newer versions just don’t live up expectations. Diablo 3 almost fell into this trap, but thankfully Reaper of Souls was released, and fixed a lot of the problems. So… what keeps making people go back to the older Diablo games, then?

They’re fun. They’re dark and grungy and have enough loot to keep you going forever. It’s a hack and slash RPG that defines the genre. Better yet, it actually has a storyline – something that a lot of hack n’ slash RPG’s and dungeon crawlers just skip right over. The quality of the games still hold true – so yes, it’s perfectly alright to take the occasional break from DIII, and head back to the older, classic versions. It’s a decision you just can’t regret.


3. Tetris, Spectrum Holobyte (1984)

It is undeniable; you just need to hear the first few notes of the theme song, and you’ll immediately be whisked away into fond memories of hours lost to a never-ending wave of falling shapes. Match up those tiles and clear the screen, because when they reach the top, you’re through. That is Tetris, and for a game that’s so simple, it is absolutely timeless.

There have been so many different reiterations of Tetris over the years that it’s hard to believe it all started in 1984 in Russia – that’s over three decades ago, just in case you were wondering. Yet, even with how old it is, we still know the tunes, and we still spend hours trying to match up blocks with no clear end goal. And there isn’t one, either – it’s just clearing matches upon clearing matches as the falling blocks come faster and faster.

By the way, did you know that psychologists at Plymouth University did a study that said playing Tetris reduces food cravings? You can just see the advertisements now: “See the secret that makes diet companies hate him!”. Hours of fun, and healthy. A winning combination if there ever was one, and one we just can’t help but keep coming back too.


4. Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri, Electronic Arts (1999)

When it comes to turn-based games, the Civilization games pretty much set the standard, and they’ve been doing it for years. There are few things quite as easy as losing yourself to the little turning hourglass as you attempt global domination – whether peacefully and via diplomacy, or blowing the crap out of anything that moves. And, in the end, there was just one way to make Sid Meier’s Civilization series better – taking it to space.

You know you’ve got an unbeatable classic on your hands when the ‘new and improved’ spiritual predecessor falls flat on its face – and that’s exactly what Civilization: Beyond Earth did. It’s no wonder that millions of fans dropped the game to head right back to Alpha Centauri – which is, some would argue, the greatest turn based game ever made.

With enemies, alien life forms, good mechanics, and what is actually a really good story, Alpha Centauri is probably not going anywhere. It offers great quality for a game it’s age, and one that most turn-based fans will keep going back too – no matter how many times they try to create better ‘spiritual successors’.


5. StarCraft, Blizzard (1998)

Up until 2010 and the release of StarCraft II, it would have been pointless to tell anyone to go back and play StarCraft – they were still playing it anyway. As an avid strategy gamer, StarCraft was always one of my personal favourite games and one I would frequently go back to playing. I wouldn’t be the only person either; it’s a game that’s just so good and so much fun, you can’t help but go back to it.

The StarCraft stories were fun to play, and the single player campaigns held a whole new world of challenges. After playing through them the first time, it was just as entertaining to go back and see if you couldn’t find another, more creative solution to the problems they presented. Some people might even say that SCI is more challenging than SCII, and a game in which saving frequently wasn’t optional, it was a must.

Even with StarCraft II out in the world, the original and its expansion is still worth the play – especially if you’re new to the series and want to catch up on the story. In fact, for a lot of players – and me personally – the story was one of the things that made this game such an excellent and addictive favourite. And with a fan community as dedicated as it has, I’m pretty confident when I say that it will be a long time before this game falls off the radar – especially with the prospect of an upcoming overhauled version!


6. Populous 1 & 2, Bullfrog & Electronic Arts (1989, 1991)

Personally, I got on the Populous train a little late. Thankfully, the retro-train has a habit of making frequent stops and never quite running out of steam. After discovering the latest version of Populous, I went back to look at the original games – and it was clear why people still love them.

The Populous games are some of the best god-games available to play – that might either say a lot about the games, or about the current state of the god-game market. You decide. Whichever point of view you take, it has to be said that both Populous 1 & 2 are as addicting now as they were upon their initial release.

For the time, the games were both fun and challenging – and they still are, for that matter. There’s nothing quite like the rush of power you feel when you obliterate an entire civilization. In your name, of course.

If you don’t mind dealing with the graphics of the time, then Populous – and especially Populous 2 – are very high on the recommendation list. Go forth and impress your will on the people. Trust me, they’ll worship you for it.



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Friday, 12 May 2017

6 Retro Games That Are Still Fun and Worth Playing

May 12, 2017 4
For those of us who have been playing games since before Windows and Consoles were things, it’s often hard to remember that a lot of games that we used to play are now decades old. But just because they’re old, it doesn’t mean they’re outdated or no longer fun – that’s why they’re now called ‘Retro’. There are a lot of them that are still heaps of fun to play, and completely worth the time, whether you’ve played them before or not – and there are a lot of them. Here are:

6 Retro Games That Are Still Fun and Worth Playing



1. The Secret of Monkey Island, LucasArts (1990) 

“Hi! My name is Guybrush Threepwood, and I want to be a pirate!” These are the very first words ‘spoken’ in the first game in the Monkey Island series, and they set the tone of the entire game. What follows the brief intro is several hours of puzzle-solving, comical swashbuckling fun.

Monkey Island is a point-and-click adventure game, and it has a lot going for it. For its time, Monkey island was considered to have astounding graphics and sound effects. Death is almost impossible – Guybrush can only hold his breath for 10 minutes, after all - unlike other adventure games at the time, and something that made it easier to just enjoy the silly-pun-filled game. Regardless of the humorous tone, the puzzles were fun and the story was oddly addictive. It was also one of the first games to introduce a dialogue tree.

An overhauled special edition was released in 2009, introducing a lot more detail in the graphics, as well as a new soundtrack and voice acting. Despite this, most die-hard fans of the game – such as yours truly – still prefer the original over the new edition.

The secret of its success can probably be attributed to many different factors. Regardless, The Secret of Monkey Island is a winning combination of fun, humour and out-of-the-box puzzles that make it one of the most enjoyable and timeless adventure games ever released. What kind of person passes on a chance to indulge in some good old Insult Sword-fighting?


2. Lemmings, Psygnosis (1991)

If you have ever played Lemmings, it should come as no surprise that the game is on this list. Lemmings was one of the best received games of its era, and it became so popular that various remakes, sequels and spin offs were made, including a Christmas version.

The concept itself is ridiculously simple – the aim of the game is to save adorable little green-haired creatures and lead them through increasingly complicated scenarios. They drop in from a hatch located at one end of the map and, using a limited amount of eight available skills (such as floating umbrellas, stair builders or tunnelling, for example) you need to safely guide your Lemmings past obstacles and towards the exit.

Unless given a specific task, the Lemmings will just continue with their carefree bobbing walk, even if it means walking off a cliff or into a pool of lava. Often it is nearly impossible to complete a level without losing a few Lemmings, but the aim is to save as many as possible and make your survival quota.

Despite its age and basic graphics, Lemmings is still one of the most enjoyable and addictive puzzle games to play – a must for any person who wants a fun, brain-teasing retro game. Be forewarned: addiction to the game may result in inexplicably losing several hours of your life.


3. Myst, Brøderbund (1993)

Myst – it’s a name that has become iconic in the point-and-click adventure genre, and one that, for many players, has become synonymous with “that beautiful and addictive but damn near unsolvable game”… or with a variety of curse words. For those players familiar with role-playing games, Myst has become to point-and-click puzzle adventure what Dark Souls has become to RPG. That being said, Myst was ahead of its time. It offered an interactive experience and a whole new level of immersion. It was such a hit that it was the best-selling PC game for nine years, before it was finally dethroned by The Sims in 2002.

In Myst the player, known as The Stranger, has to solve puzzles while travelling to various dimensions and worlds called ‘Ages’. These Ages reveal the backstory of the characters in the game as you progress through them. An interesting feature to note is that Myst was one of the first games to offering several different endings to the narrative, depending on the choices you make while playing the game.

Although well known for its beautiful world and brilliant narrative, the game itself offers very little information on how to progress, and clues in the environment are rare. It challenges even the best of puzzle solvers, and the focus required pulls the player so completely into the game that its easy to forget that there’s a real world around you. It’s that difficulty that makes whatever rewards you receive for solving a puzzle that much more meaningful.

Other than several more chapters to the story released in the franchise, three remakes were released. One of the remakes, realMyst, adds a free-roaming mechanism to the game. Although well received by some, the original creators as well as a lot of players didn’t like this new overhauled version – it was very taxing on computers at the time, and Robyn Miller (the original designer and not involved in the remake) said that ". As a remake, it was a lapse of reason and directionless; overt merchandising of the original Myst. It definitely wasn't how we originally envisioned Myst, as was promoted."

Now, Myst might not be on the same level as new games when it comes to gameplay, but it is still one of the most challenging, beautiful and enjoyable puzzle solvers – and, for any self-respecting adventure gamer, definitely still worth it.


4. Loom, LucasArts (1990)

Like The Secret of Monkey Island, Loom was also released by LucasArts around the same time and is also a point-and-click puzzle adventure – but that’s where the similarity ends.

You play Bobbin Threadbare, a young member of the Weaver’s guild – a group of magic-like people who can read the threads of fate and weave magical musical drafts. The introduction of the game leaves you smack in the middle of the mystery with a lot of questions and very little instructions – luckily the game isn’t very hard to figure out.

Most of the games from this genre at the time involved interacting with various things in the world while using items in your inventory. The only item in your inventory you have to interact with is your distaff. Using it while clicking on objects in the world allows you to find out or perform four-chord magical spells – everything from simple opening spells to illusion spells and even the good old straw to gold trick. It’s up to you to figure out how to use your limited spells to get through various mazes, puzzles and situations.

The story itself is actually very interesting for a game of this kind, creating an amazing fantasy world to explore as you, the mysterious Loom-Child, figure out why chaos is consuming your world.


5. Theme Hospital, Bullfrog Productions & Electronic Arts (1997)

Theme hospital is a business simulation game – you are a hospital supervisor slash owner, and it’s your job to build your hospital, hire employees and do research. All of this leads you through various missions to make money and progress to more challenging levels.

What makes Theme Hospital so much fun is the humorous tone of the entire game. Aside from pretty standard rooms like a GP’s office, psychiatry and pharmacy, there are also strange rooms to cure even stranger diseases. You could find yourself dealing with a relatively normal case of the uncommon cold, to a horrible case of bloaty head or slack tongue – or a timed emergency of several patients with spare ribs…

You also have to watch your staff. Many of them have very specific skills or personality traits that can benefit you or drag your hospital down. While you’re watching your staff and making sure you don’t kill any patients (whom Death comes to retrieve himself) you also need to keep all your machines working, the hospital clean, money coming in and the VIP’s impressed.

In essence, the game is really simple. Build, diagnose, cure instead of kill and move on. But the entire atmosphere – created by the rhythmic sound of popping heads over cheery music and witty, comical commentary by the receptionist – is unexpectedly addictive, and a great way to lose a few hours.


6. Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee, Oddworld Inhabitants, Digital Dialect, GT Interactive (1997)

Oddworld is a platforming game that was praised for having innovative gameplay, great graphics for the time, and interesting cut scenes to advance the story. It did have a bit of a steep learning curve, but it was the fact that you could only save at certain checkpoints that made the game really challenging.

You play a strange little creature called Abe, a Mudokon. Mudokons are slaves to the tyrannical Glukkons who run Rupture Farms – a giant corporation that slaughters Scrabs and Paramites (and the now extinct Meeches) for pastries and pies. But Abe, being a little snoop, inadvertently discovers a plot by the Glukkons to raise profits by turning Mudokons into their next tasty treat! It falls to you to escape the factory, saving as many slaves as you can - and if you miss too many of them, beware the ending that awaits you!

The gameplay is a lot more fun than you’d expect from a platforming game, with lots of different areas to explore, puzzles to solve and enemies to overcome and outsmart. Even the story has some wonderful twists and turns, and the multiple endings makes the game worth playing at least twice.




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Wednesday, 10 May 2017

6 Painful Challenges Of Indie Game Development

May 10, 2017 0
Indie game development has become quite the ‘thing’ in the last few years. It’s a big buzzword, slapped onto so many games that it sometimes becomes a bit hard to distinguish Indie from Not-So-Indie. The actual definition is this: “An independent video game (commonly referred to as an indie game) is a video game that is created without the financial support of a publisher. Indie games often focus on innovation and rely on digital distribution.” Those few lines reveal a lot more challenges than you might think. Here are:

6 Painful Challenges Of Indie Game Development



1. The Desert of the Abandoned

With the help of crowdfunding and… a few other culprits, there’s a giant misconception that Independent development is a lot easier than it is – and for those who know how to exploit the system, that might very well be true. Unfortunately this results in a lot of games that either go to market without being fully developed or there’s a lot of generated hype for a game that’s never finished.

It gives IndieDev a bad reputation – not only does it make it harder to reach an audience (that’s been burned a few times), but to stand out from the many unfinished or sub-par games that flood the market.


2. Garage Indie vs. ‘BIG’ Indie

After the hype that IndieDev generated, a lot of larger companies wanted in on the action – and who could blame them? This is a two pronged problem. First off, this creates a market that always expects all Indie games to be on that level. Whether it’s developed with the backing of a large company or in someone’s garage, gamers expect the same level of gaming experience.

The other side of this problem is that, although some of these picked up games go on to do really well, others don’t live up to their advertising. This compounds our first problem – because if ‘big’ indie games are a disappointment it just makes it that much harder for the small guys to find a market.


3. Where are the resources?

There’s a giant misconception about how easy it is to create games. Let me rephrase – there’s a giant misconception about how easy it is to create good games. It’s easy enough to create a basic little game and drop it in the market (sensing a pattern here?). But, for many developers, it’s a lot harder than you might think – and one of the biggest problem is access to help from engines. In case you don’t know, the ‘engine’ is the base that the game is built on – like Unity and Unreal Engine. Unfortunately, these engines aren't always perfect. But when a team runs into bugs or problems, communicating with the support teams for these engines aren’t all that easy. It slows down development as the teams either wait for help, or try to figure out a solution on their own.


4. Mission Impossible: The Target Market

While big companies can draw on massive amounts of user data and statistics, that’s not the case with small indie teams. They have to work on hunches, on public user feedback, forum comments, tweets… Basically, they have very little information available about their market, and not a lot of it is really all that reliable. But, with that limited amount of information, they need to try and glean enough information about their market to make a game that would appeal to people.

Remember how we mentioned how ‘burned’ the gaming community felt by a lot of indie games? That just makes this problem worse – these guys need the feedback of the gaming community to help them improve their game. But getting these dedicated and supportive followers is so hard that it’s pretty much considered a ‘rare happiest case scenario’.


5. This isn’t CHEAP!

A lot of indie games find their funding on Kickstarter – we mentioned that, remember? – or other crowdfunding platforms. But that doesn’t solve all their problems. A few years ago a very promising indie game not only made their target, but far exceeded it. There was a lot of excitement when that happened… until everyone started taking their cut. Lawyers, Kickstarter, equipment, registration, tax AND all the pledge prizes they had to give out. In the end, the team had about 10% of their raised amount actually available to use on the game.

Yes, you say, but they should have planned their finances better. Keep in mind, buddy, that these are small teams of developers. They’re not chartered accountants, just people who love making games. Yes, crowdfunding can be very successful – but it’s not as easy as money=game.


6. I’m done. I’m exhausted. No more.

Another thing gamers need to keep in mind is that a lot of indie teams are really small – so they don’t have a lot of people to create everything. They have just enough people to spread the work around. So, more often than not, you end up with a ton of pressure on these guys to perform. And they do their best at it, too.

But let’s face facts – more often than not there’s just one person on the team trying to make everything. For hours on end. Every day. Some Frustration Allowed.

It gets worse - if there’s only one person dedicated to doing the kind of work that big companies delegate to entire teams, there’s going to be a point where it just becomes too much. Burnout is a real risk for these small developers and, in a market that’s not all too tolerant of delays, that can be a real game killer. Not to mention the long term detrimental effects it has on a person’s health.




Thanks to the CompliKATed team as well as all the other developers who took the time to have a chat with me about this piece.

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Tuesday, 2 May 2017

6 Dumb Ways to Die: Gamer Edition

May 02, 2017 0
Everyone knows the silly song, “Dumb Ways to Die”. Unfortunately, countless moronic deaths happen across the world almost every day. Some have the privilege of passing quietly into the night, their embarrassments hidden away forever. For many others, their idiotic deaths will provide the internet with laughter for years to come. Here are:

6 Dumb Ways to Die: Gamer Edition



1. Intense Gaming + 50 Hours = Game Over; StarCraft

Professional gamers can win quite the pretty penny for winning in the big leagues and, in South Korea, gaming is a really big deal. StarCraft is one of the big games and since winnings can amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars for winners of the annual SC Tournament, it’s also very competitive. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that some gamers might take their ‘practice’ a little bit too seriously.

One man, identified only as Lee, went to an internet café in Daegu to play. He spent the next three days practically glued to the chair – apparently the only way to get him off the chair was for very quick toilet breaks or snap-naps.

Unfortunately for Lee, the human body isn’t quite as hardy as a StarCraft marine’s. After fifty hours of intense gaming, Lee’s family finally found him at the café. Several pleas later, and he finally agreed to go home – as soon as he finished one last game.

It proved to be one game to many.

A few minutes later, Lee keeled over – his heart had failed from dehydration and exhaustion. That’s one Game Over he’s not coming back from.


2. I’m Fine, Really; World of Warcraft

Not too long ago, Blizzard made it possible to buy subscriptions for World of Warcraft by using in-game gold. As one can expect, that drove a few players to push just a little harder – and one particular gamer to push too hard.

The player, Wu Tai, went to an internet café to play World of Warcraft. He sat down and didn’t stop playing for nineteen hours straight. His marathon was interrupted by a coughing fit, and his buddies saw him dabbing away blood from his mouth. They told him to go to a hospital, he told them he was fine and went right back to gaming.

Despite his objection, they called the ambulance anyway. It didn’t get there in time – before the ambulance could get there, Wu Tai died. Unfortunately for him, he doesn’t get to reload and do the smart thing – like going to the hospital instead of playing himself to death.


3. Going to Gaming Heaven; Warcraft III

This one is a bit of a sad story, and at least partially to blame on the ingenuity of parents who would buy a T-13 game for an 11-year-old boy. Two years later, a now thirteen-year-old Zhang Xiaoyi played a 36-hour marathon of Warcraft III.

Not that this is anything too remarkable. There are many young gamers in the world – and some are ridiculously good at what they do. But young Xiaoyi was a little too into the game; he adored Lungdian, the Angel of Revenge, and the Sentinel.

For Xiaoyi, real life soon began to pale against in-game life. Far better to become one of his heroes in the game world. So, in 2004, Xiaoyi went up a tall building and jumped off. His suicide note told his parents that he was off to join the “heroes he worshipped” in gaming heaven.

A scholar of internet addiction has gathered several families, including Xiaoyi’s, to sue Blizzard for the deaths of their children – because, naturally, you can’t blame the parents for not noticing their son believes the afterlife is Warcraft.


4. Look Both Ways; Google Ingress

If you’re not familiar with the app-gaming sensation that is Pokemon GO, you’ve been living under a rock. If you don’t know about Google Ingress… well, that’s not too surprising. It began as an invitation only game that now has millions of players. One of those players was Gabriel Cavalcante Carneiro Leao.

The 16-year-old Leao was playing Ingress on his phone – a game that involves claiming portals to have your faction control the world. To get to these portals you have to walk around and find them in real life.

The day after Leao got the game, he was having a brief chat with his mother when he picked up on a portal close by. He was so excited he cut the conversation short, and set off. So excited, in fact, that he rushed right across the road. The game failed to take into account the oncoming bus, giving young Gabriel the final Game over.

When they finally got his body out from under the bus, he still had the phone in his hand – portal unclaimed.


5. Double Down Death; DotA

Boredom is a terrible thing; when you’ve got a leg broken, there’s not much you can do, lack of mobility taken into account. One 17-year-old kid, known as Rustam, found himself in just that situation – broken leg and bored out of his skull. So, to get rid of his boredom, he started playing his favourite game, Defence of the Ancients.

For the next twenty-two days, barring brief – and blissfully silent – naps in between, Rustam did nothing but play DotA. His parents were constantly aware of him banging away on his keyboard, until he fell suspiciously silent.

Turns out that Rustam didn’t move at all. His lack of movement resulted in Thrombosis – the formation of a blood clot. The combination of lack of movement, as well as the existing injury caused the clot - and the death that followed.

The time of death is estimated to be right around the time Rustam’s avatar was killed – how’s that for poetic irony?


6. Virtual Daughter Trumps Baby Girl; Prius Online

Sometimes really romantic things happen – like two gamers meeting in a chat site, bonding over games, and getting hitched. They even have a lovely baby girl, called Sarang – “love” in Korean. Even though she was born prematurely, it seemed like such a perfect love story.

Unfortunately, real life can’t quite compete with virtual life for some people. The lovely couple started playing a game called Prius Online – like Second Life, they could live out an entire virtual life online. Then came their crowning moment – they had a beautiful virtual baby girl, Anima.

Anima demanded a lot more attention than her real life sister, and while mummy and daddy dearest went on all night gaming binges, little Sarang wasted away. That is, until the sorry excuses for parents finally arrived home to find that Sarang had starved to death.

As further evidence of the father’s callous idiocy, we present exhibit A, “she was a premature baby from the beginning… I am sorry for what I did and hope that my daughter does not suffer any more in heaven."

Yes, nicely done dad. Maybe if they’d paid more attention to their real daughter, she wouldn’t have needed to suffer to start with.




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Friday, 21 April 2017

6 Games That Will Scare You Into Your Next Life

April 21, 2017 2
Let’s face it – for some reason, we gamers like to have the living crap scared out of us. Why? Who knows – but while it’s happening, we enjoy every second of it. Is it any wonder, then, that there are so many fantastic scary games out there? But despite the hundreds of horror and suspense games currently on the market and in development, there are a few that stand head and corpses above the rest. Warning, here be spoilers. Here are:

6 Games That Will Scare You Into Your Next Life



1. Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Frictional Games 2010

If there is one thing that Amnesia is known for, it’s that it doesn’t stoop to using jump scares to freak you out. Instead, you can expect hours of tension, anxiety and panic attacks as the game progresses. Safe(ish) puzzle areas become terror inducing gauntlets of horror, and the creation of the atmosphere through the use of sound and narrative is so effective, it’s downright disturbing.

What makes the entire experience worse is that you have, as the title alludes, amnesia. You remember nothing but your name and that something is hunting you. All you have to go on are notes and pieces of a diary that you wrote to yourself; notes which, at its root, just serve to tell you how you became an asshole and killed a little girl to try and save yourself before your little memory wipe.

Nice going, dick.


2. SOMA, Frictional Games 2015

If you’ve ever played Amnesia, as described above, then you know that Frictional games has a gift for horror games – so it’s no surprise that SOMA also makes this list. This game takes place in a dystopian future where humanity is on the brink of extinction, and it falls to you to face the horrors of the PATHOS-II facility, and ensure the safety of the collective consciousness’s of the human race. Naturally, the whole facility is under water – because what is scarier than the murky depths filled with crazy AI’s and mutants?

What really makes SOMA a worthy addition to this list is its narrative – the story is thought-provoking and, at times, downright philosophical. Even though it is a survival horror game, it terrorizes you psychologically rather than just with horrific images. It’s the choices you need to make and the consequences thereof that make the biggest impact. This, combined the disturbing gameplay, is a winning combo that will leave you with nightmares for months afterward.

Of the ending itself we shall not speak. That as a separate horror you need to experience for yourself.


3. Fatal Frame/Project Zero II: Crimson Butterfly, Tecmo 2003

When faced with unspeakable horror, it is the first instinct of any sane person to run for their lives like the devil himself is behind them – and sometimes he is, too. But not Fatal Frame. The most unique element of this game is also its most terrifying. Taking the old saying that you have to face your fears quite literally, Fatal Frame forces you to do exactly that. The only weapon you have is a camera, and your only defense is to look right at the terrifying spirit coming after you.

Actually, scratch that. Looking at the spirit isn’t enough. You better hope and pray you spot the bloodthirsty ghost in time, because you need a perfect Kodak moment to get rid of it.

I’m ready for my close-up now, Miss De Ville.


4. Outlast, Red Barrels Studio 2013

In Outlast, you are an investigative journalist out to find out just what kind of ‘unethical experiments’ are being conducted in a psychiatric hospital. The patients are extremely violent, and the hospital is in complete disarray. You have to avoid murderous patients set on tearing you limb from limb and figure out just what happened in this Frankenstein’s madhouse. The first ten minutes alone offers up a suspenseful introduction and anxiety inducing atmosphere – and a couple of jump scares – that set the tone for the rest of the game.

Cameras seem to be becoming a very popular addition to survival horror games, and in that regard, Outlast has joined the trend. But while it got onto the trend train, Outlast destroyed the traditional format of survivalist gameplay. Let’s put it bluntly: You might have a camera, but aside from helping you in the dark – and running out of battery power – it’s about as useful as a rolled up newspaper against the horrors that await you in the asylum.

...Wait, let me rephrase. A rolled up newspaper would be more useful than your camera. You don’t get a single weapon with which to defend yourself which, basically, leaves you with three choices:

Run, hide, or die.


5. Dead Space, Electronic Arts 2008

Ever heard of a Necromorph? No? Consider yourself lucky. In Dead Space, Necromorphs are mutated human corpses that seem set on tearing you to tiny pieces – you being little more than a space engineer wielding a weapon of dismemberment. That’s right; aiming for the brain – if they even have a brain – does you no good whatsoever. Your only option is to pick them apart limb by limb – and you have to do this while the clanging of approaching pincers warn you that more are on the way.

Worse still? Not everything that you see or interact with is actually real. So not only do you have to save the universe from crazy religious nuts bent on becoming mutated monsters, you’ve got to deal with your own descent into insanity as well – and you don’t even realize it until it’s too late.


6. Silent Hill 2, Konami 2001

If you’ve never heard of Silent Hill, whether that be the games or the movies, I’ve got to ask: Have you been living under a rock? And although Silent Hill 2 is the second in the series, it is widely considered to be the most terrifying of the series. It’s the seriousness and the maturity with which they handle traumatic manifestation of anger, sexual abuse and guilt that really clinch this game in the top – if not at the top – of the survival horror genre. The journey into the protagonist tortured psyche is as addictive as it is terrifying.

Of course, there’s no avoiding the most petrifying moment of all – the first time you see Pyramid Head. Feel free to scream as you flee. I did.



Honorary Mention: P.T., Kojima

Although P.T. is technically not a full game, it still deserves a mention. The entire game takes place in a seemingly endless looping hallway – and for turning that single hallway into one of the most terror inducing and mysteriously ominous corridor, Hideo Kojima and Guillermo Del Toro deserve a standing ovation. P.T. was meant to be a playable teaser – hence P.T. – to introduce the world to a Silent Hill game that will never be realized. However, in the very brief window of existence, P.T. sent almost painful chills down the spine of every person who played it.

And be forewarned – once you’ve seen the twisted bathroom-sink-fetus, you’ll never be able to unsee it.




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I am a lover of crazy little interesting facts, player of many games (PC, not console. DAMN YOU CONSOLE!), and creator of words, stories, and poems. Most importantly, I am a lover of my happy purple life!