Daily Linksplosion: Monday, August 02, 2010

cronjob · August 3, 2010 at 1:00 am · Filed under Linksplosions

  • ALBOTAS.com – ALBOTAS is now on Tumblr!
    Holy shit! I’m actually a little bit in shock! Does this mean no more indieclicks ad banner, though? Man. I mean, I have tried, and indieclicks does not just give that privilege out to people. However: now it’s a lot easier to read ALBOTAS from work! Yaaaay!
  • DOS Nostalgia – Leisure Suit Larry (VGA) review
    Meant to repost this awhile ago (via @gnomeslair)! There is something unspeakably, face-punchingly endearing about Anatoly’s "DOS Nostalgia" video reviews, which themselves focus mainly on DOS-based point-and-click adventures. Here, Anatoly praises the good-lookin’ Leisure Suit Larry I remake.
  • The Bygone Bureau – Editor’s List: Required Reading
    Wow. Um, I saw I was getting a little traffic from this particular link, and Bureau editor Nick Martens has absolutely paid me I think the compliment of my life. But all the articles listed here—this is a mid-year best-of-2010 reading list—are utterly due your time and interest.

    For instance: I know the Robin Sloan piece well, and David Cole’s "Metagames and Containers," an interactive demonstration of our human tendency to invent our own games and little rulesets, is a tremendous accomplishment. As a reader and gamer and Internet-user, you’ll find plenty more hyperlinks to articles sure to engage: there’s "Playing the Odds," "Toy Soldiers," and "On Tetris," to start. So follow the link to, uh, find all those links.

  • SideQuesting – The Trouble with GameJournos
    I’m a little obsessed with GJAIF, but only in the same way I was—for years—obsessed with Perez Hilton (who will get totally burned today? Let’s watch and wait!). The unhappy truth is, I can’t help but agree. There is now more wrong with Ben Paddon’s humorlessly vindictive Tumblr than ever. Time for me to disconnect?

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Daily Linksplosion: Wednesday, February 17, 2010

cronjob · February 18, 2010 at 1:02 am · Filed under Linksplosions



  • Vinyl Pulse – Tosa Novmichi Signing @ Giant Robot 2 (2.20)
    [NOT GAMES] – Tosa Novmichi, one of the creators of the Knockman toys (my favorite!), will attend a signing in his honor this Saturday at Giant Robot LA. There, he will demonstrate his latest musical toy, the Otamatone, an electronic musical instrument that superficially resembles an erhu, but sounds more like an aerophone, but also (!) has a little puppet mouth that functions as a mute, dampening the sound. (Otamatone = automaton? So clever!) I would like to get really good at playing the Otamatone, then use my musical abilities to win Mr. Novmichi’s love.
  • Arcade Heroes – National Textminator tournament now live in the UK
    Are you the fastest text-messaging gunman in the west? And by ‘west’ I mean the UK? Well, unholster that mobile phone: you could win £10,000!
  • Attract Mode – Area 5 T-shirts
    This got RTed approximately 5,348,780,670,897,168,097 times yesterday, so I started to feel guilty and am now doing my part. "Originally the grey shirt was on the left, and it was selling way more," web developer and Attract Mode proprietor Adam Robezzoli tweets. "Then I moved the gold one to the left and now it’s selling way more." Fascinating.


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Feeling pretty good about my Detective Mosely disguise

Jenn Frank · November 16, 2009 at 12:14 pm · Filed under Art

My childhood bedroom’s door is broken, so that if it is shut all the way, it can only be opened from outside my room, in the hallway. “Well, you always wanted a lock on your door, remember?” Mom says. Ha, ha.

Recently I was locked in my own bedroom, and instead of making a racket, I made a phone call. Then I had to twitter about it: “Used cell phone to call people in other part of house to ask them to bust me out of my bedroom, which I was briefly locked inside of.”

Bob Mackey replied, “you just lived through an adventure game puzzle. congrats.”

adventuregames

And I thought that was a very sweet thing to say. I like playing adventure games because maybe if you play enough adventure games, you become this amazing, heroically resourceful person in your everyday life. For instance, last week, my friend Conci daringly escaped a room using olive oil. Honey on the cat hair makes a mustache!

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Homey don’t make no fool of himself

Jenn Frank · November 9, 2009 at 11:06 am · Filed under Ephemera

I have been staring at the screen for several minutes, asking it, Now, how did that happen?

Mostly I am wondering how long Renaissance everyman Frank Cifaldi has been contributing to the Retronauts blog without my knowledge. But also I am wondering how, exactly, HOMEY D. CLOWN, the point-and-click adventure game, ever came to pass.

homey

More weirdness at the link below.

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Daily Linksplosion: Wednesday, September 02, 2009

cronjob · September 3, 2009 at 12:03 am · Filed under Linksplosions

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Looking back at The Dig

Jenn Frank · July 19, 2009 at 8:26 am · Filed under Ephemera

What I remember most clearly about The Dig is my associated feelings of disappointment. The 2D point-and-click adventure game—released in 1995, soon after Myst—had beautiful, painterly, 1992-era graphics. That is to say, upon its release, The Dig was already dated as hell.

falls

I was 13 when I played it—The Dig had been in development since I was 7—and it was the first time I’d played an adventure game so “on rails,” so “cinematic,” so a series of narrative moments and cutscenes, each one waiting for your trigger. I remember consciously thinking, “This game doesn’t even need me! It can just play itself if it wants to!” I’d felt, at the time, that the game was, somehow, overly directed, somehow too controlling and too, too linear, and I’d wondered if that wasn’t maybe because Steven Spielberg (!!!) was too protective of The Dig’s storyline. I was frustrated.

What’s interesting, though, is how well the too-dated parts of the game have aged: the 2009 eye can’t tell the difference, I guess, between 1992 and 1995. And contrarily, as John Walker notes in his excellent Dig retrospective for Eurogamer, the 1995-era stuff—those little moments of then-impressive CGI—look comparatively cheesy next to the game’s painted backdrops and setpieces.

Perhaps other aspects of the game have withstood time, too. Maybe the game’s painstakingly planned moments of revelation, and all its meticulous exchanges of dialogue—which, in 1995, were irritating and aggravating for an old pro with her very set ideas of how an adventure game should play and feel—can be accepted and amended by a 2009 eye and ear as simply part-and-parcel of “the way adventure games were back then.” In his article, John Walker even applauds those moments for their capability at pushing a story forward.

It isn’t that I feel at odds with John Walker’s retrospective—I really don’t—but I do wish I hadn’t played The Dig in 1995. If I hadn’t, perhaps I could play it now with Mr. Walker’s fresh, wide eyes.

John Walker writes,

But [that’s] not what I’ve taken away. What I’m left with is the feeling of isolation, the ambient loneliness, and most of all, of a sense of the potential for gaming to slowly, carefully tell a story.

I will say this: I do remember that feeling of alienation, some intrinsic melancholy, in playing The Dig. I’m relieved that Mr. Walker felt that, too, because for years after, I had—perhaps narcissistically—misattributed those feelings to simply being a 13-year old girl, and to being the sort of 13-year old girl who sits all cooped up, hours at a time, with a CD-ROM spinning and spinning in front of her.

youwontbelieve

Edit: Chris “Papapishu” Person left a really incredible, illuminating post about The Dig in the comments. I’ve never done this before, and I apologize: I edited his comment, albeit only slightly, and I’m linking to it here.

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Daily Linksplosion: Wednesday, May 27, 2009

cronjob · May 28, 2009 at 12:00 am · Filed under Linksplosions

  • Infinite Lives – Could you run as far as your WoW character?
    You never would have guessed it, but today was (technically) Infinite Lives’ all-time busiest day ever! That’s because of this oddity, which someone saw fit to add to StumbleUpon. It’s sort of old news, but basically, two dudes hooked up treadmills in this marvelously clever way, and then physically ran across Azeroth. // Since the post first went up, the dudes pulled their write-up and original video. I hate to speculate, but perhaps there was a falling-out with their energy drink sponsor?
    flowersunandrain
  • PocketGamer – iPhone games aren’t selling says angry developer
    Via delicious.com/guardiangamesblog. iPhone developer Rick Strom: "The app store isn’t a sane marketplace at all, any more than the lottery is. When you submit an app, you are buying a ticket."
  • Tiny Cartridge – Flower, Sun, and Rain may actually come out
    Dude. With all that news about ‘Feel’ being properly localized, and Retro Game Master 2 not, Infinite Lives is starting to become an XSEED blog. And that’s fine. Here’s more XSEED news: the English-language version of Suda 51’s ‘Flower, Sun, and Rain’, lovingly ported to DS, finally has a ship date.
  • abandonia – new dosbox release!
    Fellow PC retro gamers: there is a new version of DOSBox available for download! It’s literally the latest thing!
  • Adventure Gamers – Gobliiins 4 review
    So Austin Boosinger recommended I check out Gobliiins 4, and ever since, I’ve been really anxious to play the game. What Austin didn’t tell me, though, was that he was in the midst of reviewing it for Adventure Gamers! I liked this sentence: "Some might call Gobliiins 4’s puzzles illogical, but really they just rely on ‘dream-logic’." And also, "Potential frustration is leavened by the silly, playful nature of the game. Mistakes don’t feel WRONG, they simply feel exploratory." He gives it a 4 out of 5.
  • Destructoid – Real Life Psychic E3 2009 Predictions!
    So. A Destructoid writer visits a psychic. She performs ten-card Tarot spreads for Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. Then she makes predictions about each company’s fate. Last but not least, she uses a crystal pendulum to answer Destructoid Community questions about E3. Even if you don’t believe in this hooey, lawdy, what a read.

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Daily Linksplosion: Wednesday, May 20, 2009

cronjob · May 21, 2009 at 12:00 am · Filed under Linksplosions

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Lost Crown: to buy or not to buy

Jenn Frank · May 5, 2009 at 5:34 am · Filed under Ephemera

So it’s 5:30 AM PST, and the movers get here at 9:00 AM PST, and instead of freaking the freak out, I am surfing Tumblr.

Recently, I hinted just as politely as I could that I loathe modern point-and-click PC adventure games. I heard those Nancy Drew ones are pretty good, but I am skeptical all the same. Still, my e-friend Mel—who shares my skepticism, it seems—has several kind words for The Lost Crown. Mel writes,

...[T]his is actually a 3rd person horror/mystery that plays more like Gabriel Knight meets Shivers. And, most impressively, it was all made primarily by one man, Jonathan Boakes, who … is probably the closest the genre currently has to a modern day Jane Jensen (although some would argue that Jane Jensen is the current Jane Jensen as she is working on her game Gray Matter which may or may not still exist).

lostcrown

Did somebody say Shivers? Really? Are you messing with me? But the game’s own product description, the whole technology bent, makes it sound all AMBER: Journeys Beyond-ish instead. Uh, not to say that’s bad—a ton of people admire AMBER—but that TV show PSI Factor used to air on late-night network television about the same time the game came out, and… I just… ugh.

In short, I might download The Lost Crown to my MacBook’s better, XP half. But would the US$30 be better spent tipping the moving company? Is my trepidation founded? Has anyone played this game? Should I simply go read a review? Am I unbelievably cheap? Discuss.

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LTTP: Simon the Sorcerer 5?! And 4?! And 3???

Jenn Frank · April 30, 2009 at 11:56 am · Filed under Ephemera

WHO KNEW? Well, the fourth and fifth games, especially, although I’ve never played the third (Simon the Sorcerer 3-D) either. But I didn’t know this! Did you know this? I am in shock. Certainly, except for all the DS mysteries and fan remakes, I have avoided most newfangled adventure games, which are cheaply made, goofy, badly translated, and inexplicably huge in Germany.

Sorry, I am barely making sense. But, but, Simon the Sorcerer, you guys.

simonsorcerer

And Simon the Sorcerer II.

scummvm_simon2

And the fifth one.

simon5

I’m trying to decide whether to attempt the demo, which is, of course, in German.

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Daily Linksplosion: Wednesday, April 22, 2009

cronjob · April 23, 2009 at 12:02 am · Filed under Linksplosions

  • Copperpott’s Cabinet of Curiosities. – Indie Games Are Go!
    Johnny Copperpott’s list of 11 indie games, specifically intended for folks who do not play indie games (yet)
  • lastyearsmodel.org – Get Great Gadgets. And Keep Them.
    Happy Earth Day! Last Year’s Model is a website/movement, authored by Anil Dash and others, that opposes the fast-growing problem of electronic pollution by promoting, you know, not buying a new DSi or cell phone or whatever. In these dark days, it’s become much easier to differentiate between luxuries and half-luxuries. With a little know-how, elbow grease, and making-do, you can most certainly sustain yourself with Last Year’s Model. (also via .tiff)
  • GamePolitics – Grand Theft Childhood Author Challenges NIMF Game Addiction Data
    The results of a recent study suggest that 8.5% of child gamers exhibit symptoms of ‘pathological’ addiction to video games (other news outlets have taken the liberty of embiggening the reported numbers up to "1 in 10 gamers!" as being addicted). More fearmongering meant to win research grants and page views? ‘Fraid so. Dr. Cheryl Olson, Harvard: "The concern here is labeling normal childhood behaviors as ‘pathological’ and ‘addicted.’ The author [Iowa State University’s Prof. Douglas Gentile] is repurposing questions used to assess problem gambling in adults; however, lying to your spouse about blowing the rent money on gambling is a very different matter from fibbing to your mom about whether you played video games instead of starting your homework."
  • Sarien.net – Instant adventure gaming
    OK, this is great. Conci and I were playing Space Quest 2 on Sunday morning, and I was totally tickled by how smart the game really seemed—that is, at anticipating what you’d try to do, what you’d try to type in. Now Space Quest 2 is free in your browser. Anyway, I’m off to try out Black Cauldron; I bought the game on 5.25 floppy in, like, 1994, but I’ve never actually played it. P.S. The multiplayer functionality is really freaky. (via .tiff)
  • NintendoLife: WiiWare – WiiWare Games Now Available On Amazon
    Guess what! You can totally buy a digital download code for 2D Boy’s World of Goo on amazon.com. Frankly, I think this is fantastic: who else is sick of entering her credit card number one painful digit at a time using the Wii remote? Hopefully coming soon: being able to buy download codes directly from the developers. (via tweetmeme)
    • wiinjuries
  • NYTimes.com – More Wii Warriors Are Playing Hurt
    "In the moments after I felt the pop in my left shoulder, the sensation I felt was not pain. It was panic. How exactly does a 40-year-old man explain to his wife that he might have torn his rotator cuff during a midnight game of Wii tennis? ¶ "Dr. Charles Young made me feel better without even examining me. ¶ "Late last year, Dr. Young, an orthopedic surgeon, spent about an hour experimenting with the balance games and strength-training exercises on his new Wii Fit. Running on a virtual trail. Slalom skiing. Walking on a tightrope. ‘They have this hula-hoop one where you’re supposed to spin yourself in a circle and try to get a high score,’ said Dr. Young, who is completing a sports medicine fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic. ‘I was really hurting.’" (via current.com)
  • EDGE Online – The Friday Game: Scarygirl
    Meant to mention this great Edge piece, erm, last Friday. Basically ‘Nathan Jurevicius for Beginners,’ it’s the first in a new column all about the little-known histories behind brand new games. This week: vinyl toys. Love it!
  • AMC – Blogs – SciFi Scanner – In Defense of Super Mario Bros.: Faithful ‘Til the Bitter End
    Having raced through Nathan Rabin’s sublime "My Year of Flops" last week (http://www.avclub.com/features/my-year-of-flops/), I felt pretty enthusiastic about Anthony Burch’s assessment of Super Mario Bros—the movie with Dennis Hopper, I mean.

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Daily Linksplosion: Monday, March 02, 2009

cronjob · March 3, 2009 at 1:00 am · Filed under Linksplosions

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Daily Linksplosion: Wednesday, February 25, 2009

cronjob · February 26, 2009 at 1:00 am · Filed under Linksplosions

  • The Believer – Heather Chaplin in conversation with Tom Bissell
    "For a long while she was, in my mind, ‘that cool, good-lookin’ girl who is into video games.’ This is not to say I walk around equating moral worth or coolness with good looks; it is merely in recognition of the fact that cool, good-lookin’, girl, and video games do not often find themselves in the same sentence with the same referent. Video games began as a form intended for children and young people." Real Actual Writer Tom Bissell interviews Video Game Journalist Heather Chaplin in the most recent issue of The Believer.
  • Retro Thing – 10 Reasons To Own A Tube Television
    "If you haven’t taken the plunge into the murky world of high definition television, here are 10 good reasons to keep an old-fashioned tube TV around. Perhaps it won’t be your primary set, but there are solid reasons to keep a CRT as backup."
  • Abandonia – "Lost in Time" finally un-lost
    The ESA finally stopped caring about "Lost in Time," an unsung DOS classic now available for download at Abandonia.
  • 1UP’s Retro Gaming Blog – The Mystery of Falcom
    "Further compounding the problem is that Falcom’s design philosophy has evolved very slowly since the debut of games like Dragon Slayer and Ys; ‘stubborn’ might be the best way to describe the company’s approach to game design."
  • 4 color rebellion – Lawyers Attack, Ness is Knocked Out
    "It turns out that the death knell for EarthBound’s Virtual Console release was Nintendo’s own legal team. Fearing possible copyright repercussions (especially over the soundtrack, which borrows liberally from bands like The Beatles), they demanded changes to the game from the Japanese side of Nintendo."
  • Ars Technica – Atlus goes steampunk with free-to-play MMO
    "Kicking of its recently unveiled Atlus Online service is a brand new free-to-play MMO that will use the always-interesting backdrop of steampunk." Whoa. Later, Babbage.
  • Attract Mode – Free Style Scraps 08 Pixel
    "Perfect for the lonely chiptune artist in need of some quick cover art, or for anyone that needs a little bit of retro videogame inspiration."
  • Kounter Kulture – Wii Tag
    "Now you can bomb a set from the comfort of your own home."

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Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers: the Novel

Jenn Frank · February 18, 2009 at 6:07 am · Filed under Books, Fiction

Here it is: my worn, well-loved copy of the Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers novelization (ROC, 1997).

gknovel

I like this cover. I especially like how a grainy still from the game’s FMV sequel has been superimposed onto it (Gabriel Knight II itself was filmed against a blue screen, so the cover art is an homage, I guess).

As for the book itself, I wouldn’t say it’s awful. For what it is—a novelization of a voodoo murder mystery PC game—it’s pretty good. It’s pulpy, a little hardboiled and over-the-top.

During the action, sure, it’s a real clunker: entire paragraphs play out procedurally, as if this were a strategy guide instead of fiction. The expository dialogue is pretty good, though.

Crash moaned louder, clenching his fist. “Fuck you! You didn’t see nothin’!”

“You know those binoculars across the park, Crash? Ever seen those?”

Apparently, Crash had. He began to weep, quietly and hopelessly. The tears that pressed between his fingers were pink.

”’S that the last straw, you think?” Gabriel asked quietly, when the boy would not stop.

The boy nodded inconsolably, his face still hidden in his hands.

“Not s’pose to let anyone see you do that, huh?”

The boy nodded again and hitched his breath, his crying raising a notch in sorrow.

Gabriel wanted to put a hand on the kid’s shoulder, but he was supposed to be playing the bad guy and for some reason, he was sure he had to. Besides, he didn’t want to get too intimate with whatever disease it was that was eating this kid alive.

Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within, the novel, was published the following year. You can find either book online for about a buck.

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Grim Fandango sugar cookies

Jenn Frank · December 8, 2008 at 2:11 pm · Filed under Food

Every time I re-blog one of Jocelyn’s spectacular game-related confections, I am seized with terrific guilt. Let’s face it: I am robbing this poor woman.

But seriously:

Love. Pure love. It’s my favorite cookie yet, and not just because Grim Fandango is a really neat computer game. Till now, I’d thought the cupcake renderings of 8- and 16- bit sprites were my favorites. After all, early game art—blocky pixel mosaics that represent more complicated imagery—is the nearest thing I can think of to painting in icing (cumbersome!).

But the stylized art of Grim Fandango, itself based on the stark iconography of the Day of the Dead, somehow suits these little pastries perfectly.

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