crouton days

are you still there?

The only thing awkward about playing Portal on the 360 is that my muscle memory is convinced I can rewind time by pressing (X), bad thumb! Last week I started playing some of Portal: Still Alive, a standalone version of the game headed for Xbox Live Arcade. For the most part, it’s still the same great Portal but they’ve added a little something extra this time around: Challenge Maps. The Challenge Maps are a set of user generated maps that started life as 2D maps from the Flash version of Portal and were later ported to the PC game. These new maps add some gameplay (thought?) mechanics and are definitely challenging but, they lack the same refinement as the original maps. It seems clear to me that the makers of this additional content do not hold the same tenets of design that Valve and the Portal team used for the original game. But, no one is buying Still Alive for the bonus content, right?

Slightly more specific criticism: The new maps do not have the same intuitive design that Valve implemented in the normal portal maps. The process of iteration and play-testing was crucial to portal’s success and absent from the new maps.

Chris Remo Blog [a website similar to mine by a real writer (but I'm better at websites)]

Braid is something greater than the sum of it’s parts. And to think I dismissed it when I first played it, my standards have sunk so low.

Related Links:

In which I compare Space Giraffe to Ulysses. [Understanding a game is not universal]

Braid @ WSJ

Jon Blow Interview

colossus is mine bitch

Castle Crashers is the evolution of one of my favorite types of games growing up - the 4 person isometric brawler. Those old games, which were popular in 90’s arcades, came in several skins: the Simpsons, X-Men and TMNT. With these awesome licenses and lots of button mashing it was hard to beat their collaborative action. But playing any of those games today reveals some big issues:

They were really hard. This is readily illustrated by all the cheats people use to beat these games on youtube and meant plenty of frustration for players when they inevitably ran out of quarters.

Lack of depth. Both in terms of the actual 3-button gameplay and the length of the games. With a steady stream of credits, the games only took 20-25 minutes to complete.

The big killer - The licenses they used were a huge draw but the games lacked any flavor besides the marquee above the cabinet.

Castle Crashers gameplay screenshot

Behemoth has updated the brawler recipe by adding their own brand of charm, humor and basic rpg elements. Crashers’ gameplay is marinated in the instant-gratification -action-style of the earlier brawlers and solves the three big issues that those games had.

Difficulty. Overall, crashers is not a quarter sucking endeavor and the addition of character stats helps players keep up with increasingly difficult enemies. By earning XP you can upgrade your 4 stats: armor, agility, strength and magic.

Depth. The basic 3-button gameplay has been upgraded to 4-buttons plus a magic modifier. This configuration allows for a slew of melee combos and magic attacks that give slaughter plenty of variety. For what could be a very repetitive game, crashers multi-hour campaign never feels like a rehash. Dozens of unlockable weapons, pets and eventually characters give this game plenty to stay addicted to.

owl poo

Flavor. Crashers has been so endowed with video game flavor that I can’t help but think of games like No More Heroes or the old Lucas Arts properties. This is where castle crashers truly shines. Every detail seems lovingly intentional. In so much of the game, you feel completely in tune with the developers, whether they are fucking with you or making you laugh. Ridiculous bosses, catchy sound effects, hilarious moments, the perfect implementation of art and animation. It all amounts to one of the most cathartic and subsequently addictive video game experiences of this generation.

Castle Crashers hits Xbox Live August 27th @ 1200 MS Points.

Related Links:

Behemoth Store

Behemoth DevBlog

The cutest castle crashers pet? [you bet you'll need it]

Last week, Geoff came over to play PS3. PS3 laughed at Geoff. So, we played Pixeljunk Monsters. This got Geoff thinking, this got me thinking.

What is it about a game that defines it as a casual game? Price? Distribution platform? Graphics? Budget? It seems like the current trend is to use a combination of these metrics to brand a games “casual”.

• Geometry Wars 2 - $10 - CASUAL!
• Lost Winds - Wii Ware - CASUAL!
• Castle Crashers - Flash Graphics - CASUAL!
• PixelJunk Monsters - Small Budget - CASUAL!

These methods of determining a games casual appeal are all bullshit. In actuality, none of these games are casual:

• Geometry Wars 2 - Only twitch shooters need apply.
• Lost Winds - Puzzle solvers and platforming gurus only.
• Castle Crashers - Serious brawlers w/RPG love required.
• PixelJunk Monsters - Intense strategy dancers wanted.

I’m proposing a new test for measuring a game’s casual appeal. It’s the readily available non-gamer girlfriend/fiance/wife test. After you’ve convinced said female to touch the controller you’ll know within five minutes whether your game is casual or not.

• Geometry Wars 2 - Fuck no.
• Lost Winds - Um, bwah?.
• Castle Crashers - What? Where? When? Why? Bye.
• PixelJunk Monsters - What’s on TV?

Geometry Wars 2 - It's like solitaire

Related Links:

Castle Crashers and Pixel Junk Monsters: The Future of Gaming Oh and Geometry Wars

Having access to PartnerNet (Xbox’s practice Xbox Live for developers) has its perks. Actually, it has only one perk — occasional access to full XBL Arcade games before they are released. Age of Booty is part of that perk. It’s a fun, simple game that puts you in control of a pirate ship and dares you to pillage towns, merchants and friends.

It looks a lot like that but instead of being on your computer, it’s on your TV. Pretty cool right? I think so. The gameplay is incredibly easy to get into but perfecting your strategy is challenging. Capturing islands and towns increases the players three resources (barrels, trees and gold) which in turn allow you to upgrade your ship or towns. There is a challenge mode which pits you against AI opponents and requires the player to really fine tune their strategy. Personally, I think the core of the game is multiplayer where it looks like up to 8 players can battle each other online. Age of Booty is great fun headed to PSN and XBLA.

Related Links:

Age of Booty: Halo Meets DOTA?