Penny Ivory Arcade

I'll be late to the party and comment on commentry...at penny arcade.

If I am purchasing games in order to reward their creators, and to ensure that more of these ingenious contraptions are produced, I honestly can't figure out how buying a used game was any better than piracy. From the perspective of a developer, they are almost certainly synonymous.

I wonder if Tycho thinks buying used cars is grand theft auto? (Wait, was that a word play on my part?)

I'll repeat a comment I made elsewhere - So he’s buying it to reward creators.

Okay, so how does that matter in some bigger picture?

Woops, my middle class ivory tower radar just went off – he’s acting as if he’s some sort of patron of the arts when he buys a game. And if he’s doing it, then that’s what everyone else is doing or else.

Sorry bud, perhaps some people are buying objects, not funding starving artists. And by the way, no, THQ doesn't know you even if you do buy a game. Go donate enough of your clearly disposable income money to some charities so that, with what you have left, you don't feel in a 'donate to artists/creators' mood, but still feel like gaming. Your feet might touch the ground then.

Dawg.

Faux Death in video games

After having a taste of perma death in torchlight (twice!), it's interesting to be playing the...I dunno, is there a name for it? Perma death has a name, but not ever being able to die is given no name.

And it's funny - the shadow of death permiates playing with no death. But it's just a feeling. A strong one, but just a feeling because it's not there.

It reminds me of when I first played wow, having only played in imagined game worlds before in table top games where you could die (though to be honest, rarely did).

As in the feeling of possible death gives the world oomph, and yet it's completely BS oomph.

Indeed, when I was playing hardcore, stats became important to me. As important as they seem to get to people who play on no death games.

I'm wondering if, for people who get intense about the stats, the feeling of possible death just does not fade over time with them? When I play hardcore I feel drawn into the world because of the need to survive. Do people who try to collect all the stuff have a feeling of possible death that drives it - it's not just the collect everything urge? It's both?

What do you think?

Torchlight - another lamentable death

One of those tree things that spews poison. Man my health went down fast from full! I think maybe it multi critted me!

Nah - just too much time to get this far with the character. If it had a checkpoint system - say every two waypoints has a checkpoint. If you die, you go back to it at the level you were when you hit that waypoint. Perhaps with no gear (wade through the first levels to get basic gear and gear up again).

Even the brutal hydorah has save points (a limited number)

Trying to do it all in one chunk - well, lets say I've played table top where ostensibly your character could die, but it never really came up (for various reasons). But really we never played for hours and hours with one character. I guess I'm just not into huge permadeath. Not when it actually, and slightly ironically, eats up a large chunk of my own actual life time.

Driftwurld - latest update

 Yay! I've added the next stage, which is harvesting crops so you can trade the food to a shady mercenary, for your first real firepower - omega frag grenades!

But the reason that power is needed is because of the raptors sneaking around!

Once you have 30 tactical skill (the skill aquisition is accelerated to this point) you can harvest.

I like what I've done with the harvest game - it combines the 'spot that your in trouble' keep your eyes peeled game I did with tactical combat along with a memory game, as the raptors north/south position is flashed ever so often and when the time comes to move, you have to remember it so you can go the other way!

I'm enjoying how I'm fitting in somewhat challening obstacles in my game (which is better than I've seen on a professionally laid out vampire game on facebook)

http://www.driftwurld.herobo.com/login.php

I think this is a little bit of fun to play in itself, AND your building up your account in the game. There seem to be alot of browser games out there with many players, but the game play just seems to be clicking and not fun. I hope I can draw some people who want game play that's a bit of fun.

I've also made an no log in version if you want to try it out. Of course it's not going to record your results in the database, is it!

http://www.driftwurld.herobo.com/tactics/reapol.php

And congrats to is (screen name: iz) for getting top brawl skill and top tactical skill! If you play the tactical game you can see his victories showing up on the event field!

Thanks for reading!

RIP Torchlight character: Anna Kist

Damn thingie that summons skeletons and shoots out a red crackly beam...but my fault for trying a lost dungeon that I guessed might be a bit over my characters level.

Hardcore mode. You have been warned.