AI partners in games have changed a lot over the years. Sometimes these end up as the dreaded “escort mission” where it’s your job to protect the partner. Other times they can be invaluable assets to your cause. Let’s look at a select few examples to explore different ways this mechanic is handled.
Continue reading “Buddy Systems – AI partners in Video Games”
I own quite a few Boss Fight Books, both physical and eBook. This one I got in an online bundle. Out of those various titles I was drawn to Soft and Cuddly because I had no idea what it was about. How could someone write an entire book (even a relatively short one) on such a small and obscure game? Mostly by writing about everything surrounding it’s creation and release.
Continue reading “Book Review: ‘Soft and Cuddly’ by Jarret Kobek (Boss Fight Books)”
In the 1990s Square was making a big push towards making video games more like film. Starting with Final Fantasy VII with it’s very impressive opening cinematic and character focused story. This continues throughout their remaining SNES games, and into the PS1 era. Emphasis is placed upon story, cutscenes, and visuals. This comes to a head with the bombastic cinematics of FF7 and its later siblings. Each of these games felt like RPGs that utilized filmic elements to help tell their story, but never truly “cinematic” RPGs. That title is most aptly applied to Parasite Eve. It packs many filmic elements together with innovative RPG mechanics to create a very unique experience.
Continue reading “Parasite Eve: Squaresoft’s cinematic RPG (Review)”
Nowadays most of my gaming is done on my phone. Usually it’s a simple, abstract puzzle game. My go to games are Drop 7, Hungry Cat Picross, and especially One More Brick. There’s a strong chance I’ve played One More Brick more than any other game in my entire life. This includes the notable time sinks World of Warcraft and League of Legends. It combines simple gameplay with progression systems and doesn’t eat up too much of my attention. It’s the perfect game to play while listening to a podcast or a half-watching a video. Recently a tweet brought a new ball bouncing, brick breaking game to my attention. This one promised deeper gameplay than One More Brick. So of course, I had to check it out. My thoughts ahead.
I’ve finally finished Final Fantasy VI for the first time. I’ve been a fan of the Final Fantasy series for a long, long, time. Despite getting FF6 on the Final Fantasy Anthology back in 1999, and again on GBA 2007, I never made it more than halfway through the game. My feelings about the game ran hot and cold over the years. The magazines super hyped it up to me as a kid, but I kept bouncing off the actual game. It’s also seems to be the #1 fan favorite amongst the FF community, but I could never understand why. Now, in the year 2018, I’ve got FF6 once again. This time on the SNES Classic. I’ve finally beaten it! With many more years of experience, and a much closer analysis I think I finally understand what makes this game so special. I’ll be going all in on spoilers, so if you haven’t played this game yet, go play it. It’s a classic for a reason.
Continue reading “How Final Fantasy VI lets players create their own protagonist.”
Sometimes, I remember that the PS4 has that cool share button, and I’ll post some fun screenshots to my twitter. Today I wanted to highlight and discuss some of my favorite screenshots I’ve taken.
School is finally out for me. With all this extra free time I was able to play more games, and for longer periods. Mostly this meant a return to competitive multiplayer online games from Blizzard. I also got around to playing some games on my back log that I’ve been eyeing for awhile.
Games played: Ocarina of Time, Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm, and Consortium
Games covered this week: Final Fantasy 6, Wordscapes (mobile), World Wide Wrestling (PnP RPG), and Hearthstone.
Welcome to week 2 of my games journal. This week I played a larger number of games, for a little bit of time. The first two are prototype card games I played at a local game design meetup. Then there’s a bunch of video games. Last, a recommendation for an entertaining YouTube video series about one of my favorite games, Final Fantasy VII.
I’m going to try something different for my blog. One of my goals for this year was to update at least once a week. So far, I’ve been keeping up, but I’ve been having difficulty with writing on interesting topics each week. Coming up with ideas for posts is easy, but I’d like to dedicate more time to fleshing them out. To compromise I’ve decided to make my weekly updates quick journal entries about each game I’ve played throughout the week. This is a pretty simple format that should be easy to keep up with, while also allowing me to put down quick thoughts on games as I play them (traditionally I’ve felt the need to “complete” a game before I express my total thoughts on them). I still plan on posting more focused essays, but they will be more sporadic, but hopefully longer and of higher quality. Without further ado, here is the first entry of my “Games Journal”.
Cantrip 