Strider can be beaten in less than ten minutes. It has fixed enemy patterns and a conscious level design, with enemy attacks based on cold, strict logic. It’s perfectly fair, and health refills are dropped like candy. Sounds easy, right?
It isn’t. READ MORE
In From Pixels to Polygons, we examine classic game franchises that have survived the long transition from the 8- or 16-bit era to the current console generation.
The franchise that famously saved Square from its looming demise in the NES era, Final Fantasy has gone on to define a genre for many. It’s done so by not shying away from change, and the result is a convoluted path of series evolution that’s doubled back on itself as many times as it’s stepped into uncharted territory. READ MORE
In this episode, we’ve come down with a severe case of Pokemania, and get together to discuss our symptoms. Also: Skylanders Swap Force, Beyond: Two Souls, The Wolf Among Us, next-gen delays and a dip into the unplugged world with Canterbury.
Check out the show here, check us out on iTunes or use the RSS feed in your favorite podcast aggregator. Let us know what you think! Email podcast[at]snackbar-games.com.
Hosts: Chris Ingersoll, Andrew Passafiume, Graham Russell, Henry Skey, Lucas White.
Music: Podcast theme by Tom Casper.
Video games give us a lot. They provide exciting, compelling gameplay experiences, amazing visuals, brilliant soundtracks, stunning worlds to explore, and so much more. The one thing games have become increasingly good at is telling a story. While I love titles such as Mass Effect, The Last of Us and The Witcher 2, the games that almost always hook me are the ones attempting to bring story to the forefront. Games such as The Walking Dead or the recent release, Gone Home, all provide excellent narratives that stand above and beyond their contemporaries.
Yet, so many people seem to reject these games, signaling that their success is the sign of a dramatic sea change in the industry which will forever take over and extensively ruin the games we all know and love today. This overdramatic (and frankly, ridiculous) notion makes me wonder just why so many are afraid of games that attempt something different. We all accept innovative titles in regards to gameplay mechanics, but in terms of simplifying gameplay for the sake of a story? It becomes a different conversation entirely.
Richard Borg isn’t a name you’re going to see in this space very often, but if you’re a fan of tactical two-player war sims like Memoir ’44, Command & Colors or BattleLore (which are all basically the same system), then you are familiar with most of his notable designs. He is also credited with the classic Liar’s Dice back in 1987, so he’s been around the industry for some time. His latest non-war offering is the fantasy trick-taking card game Dragon Whisperer, which was successfully Kickstarted and published by Albino Dragon just recently. READ MORE
