Category: games

Categories
games Lost Token Games tech Uncategorized

Welcome to the Jam

As a child, I wanted to create video games so bad. I didn’t know how to program (nor anyone willing to sit down and teach me), but I did have a spiral notebook I packed with ideas: some of them just a title and a genre, others with a character in mind. A few I had built a world in my head, and was ready to get started.

But I didn’t. Never did. I may have turned a few into stories at some point, but otherwise, those ideas are lost to time. A book of childhood fantasies that never came true.

I have better tools now. And over the past week, I’ve exercised them. And with that, there’s now a game named Caretaker.

Continue reading “Welcome to the Jam”
Categories
games tech

“(Y)ou must first invent the universe.”

I’ve been playing a game called Moonlighter, an independent game from the small team of about seven people in Spain called Digital Sun Games. Players take control of Will, a shop owner that sells by day, and plunders randomly-generated dungeons by night to find new materials with which to craft and sell to his patrons. It has a thoughtfully-crafted in-game economy (as you might expect from a game based on selling items to customers), Legend of Zelda-inspired dungeon crawling, and an expandable shop to spend those earnings on. There’s even a banker that can help grow your money (whenever you’re able to talk to him).

And it’s a perfect example of why I love living in the future: every possibility to make something wonderful… no matter how small your team or experience.

Continue reading ““(Y)ou must first invent the universe.””
Categories
games life tech

Game Boy: A Retrospective

One of the best-selling consoles of all time, the Nintendo Game Boy is a unique beast in the gaming landscape. It wasn’t nearly as powerful as its competitors, the screen was about as awful as a screen could be (even in its heyday), and the games… there was a lot of garbage developed for it. Yet with nearly 119 million units sold in the Game Boy line, from the original gray brick in 1989 until the final Game Boy Color rolled off the assembly line in 2003, the 8-bit juggernaut was a console that couldn’t be ignored, even when it was being absolutely overlooked.

Continue reading “Game Boy: A Retrospective”
Categories
games

Greetings from Quarantine: Game Time

I’ve purchased, reviewed, inherited and been gifted so many games over the years, I have some to spare that haven’t been given the time of day. Tiny curios from my trip to Akihabara over ten years ago, Xmas gifts from well-meaning relatives, the odd RPG that sounded neat but “it was never the right time”… if I’m not able to leave the house for more than a grocery trip or an ER visit (which hopefully doesn’t have to happen), now would be the time.

It’s time to play the game.

Continue reading “Greetings from Quarantine: Game Time”
Categories
games reviews

Shusse Ozumo (Or Why I Love Digital Marketplaces)

I understand that I’m not the average gamer anymore, but have evolved Pokémon-style into a curmudgeon. I don’t give a rat’s ass about how pretty a game is, how “enhanced” the tech gets, how many polygons a piece of hardware can push, any of that. Maybe I’ve aged out of the main age group of gamers… I know I’ve disconnected just enough that my finger isn’t as “on the pulse” of the industry as it used to be.

In short, that means mostly Overwatch these days, the occasional RPG (Persona 4 Golden is still a classic), a moment with one of the various classics collections (the Sega Genesis Classics version of Altered Beasts won’t play itself, y’know). But that doesn’t mean I don’t still, occasionally, enjoy a new release with all the promise that brings.

This (and all screenshots) taken by my from my personal Nintendo Switch.

Like how I just downloaded Arcade Archives Shusse Ozumo, an arcade game previously exclusive to Japan, released in 1984, and made available to me here in the US on July 11th, 2019.

Continue reading “Shusse Ozumo (Or Why I Love Digital Marketplaces)”