Site-related

Imagine sitting in a private room of a smoky nightclub at the turn of the 20th century: the lingering flints of ice in your glass of scotch have disappeared into the tawny depths, your stash of cigars is running dangerously low, and the conversation that began with The Great Train Robbery of 1855 has drifted towards… topics of dubious morality. A man at a nearby table cat-calls at the waitress who turns and returns a sultry wink. You drunkenly stumble towards a table in the far corner of the room. The shadowy inhabitants push a chair over in welcome.

The bearded man in the top-hat leans back and says, “Have a seat. We are discussing the intricacies of Sophocles, Goethe, and Zelda. We call it The Game Cabaret.”

“Why yes. Yes, indeed. In fact, my dear colleague was just commenting on his recent viewing of the motion picture Cabaret and its use of psychological realism. You really must view a celluloid some time - they are quite stimulating!”

Ashamed, you confess that you have not been to viewing of one of those newfangled photographic contraptions yet.

The balding man to your right turns to you and exclaims, “Ah, but then you must try video games! They are quite superior! Why, I was just speaking to my colleagues about repressed homoeroticism in R-Type. I am a reader of Freud, mind you. Care for a cigar?”

At that, the table erupts in laughter.

“My dear colleagues! Let’s not trouble our new friend! Please, have another scotch and join our discussion at your leisure.”

As I reported a few months ago, the Ultima VII engine emulator Exult was ported to the Sony PSP by The Food Sucks team. Not only was it fantastic to see the classic RPG/adventure game ported to a handheld gaming platform, but the quality of the homebrewed port itself was stunning in every respect. (If you aren’t familiar with Exult but you own a Sony PSP, I highly recommend heading on over to the development team’s page and give it a shot.)After playing Ultima VII: The Black Gate for several hours on my PSP, I felt compelled to thank the team with a small gift in appreciation for their tireless efforts punching deck. Although it took a few months, they finally received the gift: a uh… somewhat new.. Nintendo DS Lite! I can only hope that it inspires the team to work on another quality homebrew project…

Congratulations to Petri, of Kloonigames fame! He correctly guessed that the pumpkins I carved (in order) were: Day of the Tentacle, Katamari Damacy, and The Legend of Zelda. Petri’s prize choice was a copy of Defcon. There were only 2 entrants in the contest - was it really that tough?

Defcon, like all of Introversion’s games, stands out as an impressive indie effort. The game succeeds precisely in its focused effort: the play map is small, the player has only a few different options in battle, and the battle interface is simple and clear. With that simplicity comes the polish of balanced gameplay, a very Cold War era-esque aesthetic, and chilling soundtrack. I hope Petri enjoys it as much as I did!

Happy Halloween from the Artful Gamer!

This year I had the opportunity to carve some very gamesy pumpkins. Unfortunately, the trick-or-treaters we had were almost all under 6 years old, and didn’t recognize most of these games/characters (one kid recognized the pumpkin on the far right though!). We had 45 kids this year - definitely better than last year when it was 15 below celsius and snowy.

That being said - the Artful Gamer is holding a special Halloween contest. If you can guess the three games represented in my pumpkins correctly, I’ll enter you into a draw. The winner of the draw will receive one of three downloadable games from the Introversion Software online store (valued at approximately $20 USD). You can choose between Defcon, Darwinia, or Uplink. I own all three of these games in fact… and each definitely has a unique charm. Let’s continue to support indie game developers - especially the good ones!

Entries will be accepted from now until Midnight, Friday, November 2nd (GMT - 7). That gives you 2 full days to figure this out. E-mail your contest entry to: chris {@t} artfulgamer {d0t} com

The winner will be announced on Monday, November 5th. Thank you for continuing to read AG - your support and comments keep this site alive and well.

Just a quick note - due to the increased number of visitors I’ve had lately (and thank you - I truly appreciate that you would bother to read this series of randomly ordered phrases!), I will be transferring the domain over to a private hosting service. This means that service may be disrupted in the next 24-48 hours, but I’ll have things back up ASAP.

The move took about a day to finish and it went fairly smoothly. Apologies for the disruption in your regular programming.

First: apologies to those who were waiting for reviews of later chapters - they are forthcoming; they had to take a back seat while I’ve been preparing for my candidacy. I will be posting Chapter 4 this week, and resume at a more frequent pace - you have my word on it.

Second: I had no idea that Wordpress was queuing up the comments! I didn’t check the comments queue, and ended up missing the (2) comments that required my approval (and the 147 spammers). I’ve now installed Akismet and this should no longer be an issue.