Backlog Update 7

Time for another backlog update. I finished another 5 games completing yet another quintuple. I also slipped a bit and broke some of my own rules. I got the PlayStation Vita among with some games as well as Mass Effect 3, The Last Story and I borrowed Syndicate. Not exactly proud of myself. But first things first, the 5 games I completed this time around were:

  1. To the Moon A stunning indie game I thoroughly enjoyed. I wanted to write something about it but never found a good angle. The thing I found most remarkable is that it doesn’t offer outstanding interaction or visuals. It looks like an old JRPG and it’s almost completely on-rails with just a few awkward moments of interactivity. The thing that carries the experience forward is just the excellent storytelling and the music. I was reminded of an advice from one of my profs – sometimes great ideas are not as important as simply solid execution.
  2. Catherine – Finally finished this one. Took me long enough. I wrote about it’s difficulty, choice and endings ages ago. I finally got all the endings and tried to complete some Babel challenges. I eventually just gave up. The game overstayed it’s welcome and then some. But I’m looking favorably back on it. It had some interesting themes. I’m actually eager to look into Persona now.
  3. Mass Effect 2 – That’s the big one I guess. I finally did the follow-up to my old interface trilogy and wrote another game design review on some micro-storytelling. Overall, the game is not bad. But looking back on the series, I think it will be the ugly duckling. The combat is polished but pointless and repetitive. It has interesting characters but a shallow and flat-out idiotic main plot. Meh.
  4. GTA4: Legend of Gay Tony – Finally finished this one as well. I really loved the way Rockstar brought in a gay character into such a core-gamer audience title. It well thought-out too. The players don’t control the gay character, they control his straight, cool side-kick. The task is to protect Gay Tony, not only against bullets bit also against verbal abuse and homophobia. A interesting set-up that I think is designed to address the prejudice among the core-gamer audience. That being said, the game eventually over-stayed it’s welcome as well. After finishing the story, I wanted to try to beat some of the missions on 100%. I gave up on the 3rd mission or so. Too much tedium.
  5. Mass Effect 3 – I finished Mass Effect 2 right in time for Mass Effect 3 to come out. So I gave in and bought it for a smooth segue. I enjoyed it a lot more than Mass Effect 2. I completely agree that they botched up the ending. To be precise, they botched up the opening as well. But there is a middle part that delivers. The thing I enjoyed the most about it was the dialogue, especially the optional banter among the characters on the ship. I will eventually do the interface analysis. I wanted to wait a couple of weeks for the ending debacle to die down. I can already tell I saw a lot of substantial improvements.

Having already bought so many games prematurely, I decided to count Mass Effect 3 as the “reward” for this quintuple. My job contract expires this month, so I will be much more flexible about my working hours. I expect to finish the next quintuple more quickly. The games I’m looking at next are.

  1. Demon’s Souls I know, I have been putting this off for such a long time. This ends now.
  2. Last Story Got it recently and I like it a lot. Also, it doesn’t seem to be one of those huge sprawling games like most JRPGs.
  3. Syndicate I’m already halfway into the story anyway. I want to try the multiplayer too. But I won’t try to do all the achievements with this one.
  4. Journey That’s just obligatory.
  5. DoomRL I never finished a Roguelike and DoomRL seems like a reasonable title to make an attempt on.

Roguelikes Tasting

So I’m doing some research into Roguelikes for reasons that shall remain secret for now. I have been looking at some examples to get a general taste for the myriad of flavors there are. One could say that I did a Wine Tasting with Rogulikes. Here are my notes.

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Unaccessible depths.

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is apparently a branch of a pretty old Roguelike. It’s quite apparent. The game is incredibly deep with lots of commands and abilities at your disposal. Apparently, the interesting thing about the “Stone Soup” branch is it’s focus on interface and on the graphic Tileset. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really work for me which is actually something I encounter very often in Roguelikes. Some of it is simply for technical reasons. I use a Mac notebook keyboard with a German layout. In Germany, the keys Z and Y are switched. Most of the punctuation signs are in different places on the keyboard. Some keys just don’t exist, such as the keypad. Mac keyboards don’t even have the NUM Lock functionality. Using the Keyboard only gets me so far. Stone Soup has a lot of GUI workarounds but they don’t really work that smoothly. Every now and then, it’s still required to press a key. Using a mouse and and that many different keys doesn’t really work. Especially since some of the key commands need to be UPPERCASE. WTF?! The final straw is that the game frequently gives hard modal prompts. So if you accidentally walk in to an already discovered trap, you MUST answer yes or no to proceed.

I lost patience even during the tutorial. But then I still had to figure out how to even close the game! I gave it a second try at some point. I just started an actual game. It worked much better. But soon the levels started to feel huge and tedious. I was done after the 3rd floor or so

Things I liked: Resource management! Killing dudes and cutting their corpses down for emergency rations. Then getting food poisoning. Then trying to cure food poisoning with random potions. Good deal of inventory tinkering with curses and scrolls.

Things I didn’t like: Clunky interface. Lots of unnecessary hurdles break the fluidity of interaction. Help functions too cumbersome to use. Huge, sprawling levels with somewhat uninspired patterns (parallel corridors – yuck!). Repetitive combat – until you suddenly die.

DoomRL

DoomRL

The old days that never existed.

DoomRL is what actually started this investigation. Apparently a so-called Coffebreak Roguelike based on the game Doom. Derek Yu recently contributed a graphic tileset to it. Rare instance of a Roguelike actually using sounds. Turned of the music immediately – broke the mood. But the SFX are great. I think many game designers underestimate the role of SFX in the creation of Juicyness/Effectance/Kinaesthetics.

I don’t know about the Coffebreak but this clearly worked for me. There are solid mouse controls and just a few key commands to speed things up. Everything looks and feels much more polished than Stone Soup. But of course, there is much less options than in Stone Soup.

Things I liked: Interface works. SFX help making it feel juicy. Levels have a good size even if they don’t have the best randomizer in the world. Multiple difficulty levels ensure a wide appeal. It’s a game to cuddle up with on the couch.

Things I didn’t like: Runs out of ideas fast. Combat is polished but begins to feel repetitive. Eventually you just clear floor by floor by shooting at things. Not much inventory tinkering. Not much resource management. But perhaps I just haven’t seen enough.

AliensRL

AliensRL

Compatible with the MU-TH-UR 6000 system.

The guy, who made DoomRL made also AliensRL. So it’s actually quite similar. This one doesn’t have the tileset or even mouse control. But it has SFX and still feels good. Proof that DoomRL doesnt work just due to Doom nostalgia. And that mouse control isn’t even necessary for polished controls.

Incursion

Incursion

Inspiring environments. But otherwise, a rather short excursion for me.

After Stone Soup, I knew I wouldn’t get warm with Incursion. I just started it once to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. It goes deeeeeep. I left even before I even died for the first time.

BUT, there is one cool thing I really LOVED. The individual rooms have a lot of flavor. There is a Textadventure-esque description as you enter each room. And it’s not just arbitrary. It actually reflects the design of the room. If the description says that there are vines hanging from the ceiling, you can actually SEE the vines in their ASCII glory.

Things I liked: The richness of the environment. The above descriptions. The level generator seems to be really solid too! I read that the levels are even spatially consistent (stairs in a level above overlap with the stairs with the level below).

Things I didn’t like: Super cumbersome system. Together with the keyboard issues, it’s utterly unplayable for me.

Brogue

Brogue

Bringing back the “Art” into “ASCII Art”.

I save the best for the end. Brogue caught me off-guard. It looks like yet another RL but it’s a Goldilocks solution for me.

It uses ASCII art but in a beautifully detailed way. Water surfaces glitter. There is tall grass that blocks off your view. You can trample over it. Some enemies give of puffs of poisonous gas that slowly expands in a room. There are even hints of lighting. The level generation is really nice. Just the first levels already have lakes, chasms, hanging bridges. It makes the world very interesting, completely transcending the ASCII technology.

Another interesting thing is that it’s very streamlined and polished. There is no character generation, not even a name. There are full, working mouse controls along side with simple keyboard commands. Both work well. There are meaningful description of items, but not too much noise. No arbitrary lists of numbers and stats. Just the things you need.

And finally, there are actually few, but meaningful enemies. It’s not just an endless hack and slash through hordes of palette-swapped variations controlled by the same, mindless AI. The enemies actually have character. It’s starts simple with rats and jackals. But soon, you encounter monkeys that steal items from you and then run away, the fore-mentioned exploding gas bags, wizard goblins that keep their distance while summoning magic swords and jelly creatures that multiply when you hit them. Sometimes, you can even rescue creatures that have been imprisoned and they become your buddies and fight along your side.

It’s a really nice game that creates a rich and complex world in a very approachable and streamlined kind of way. Very unlike what you see in most Roguelikes.

Things I liked: Smooth interface. Simple stats, little combat. Varied enemy behavior. Varied and dynamic environment. No SFX but still feels alive due to subtle visual and interactive details. Oh an one more thing: each level fits on a screen without scrolling. Somehow, that feels incredibly reassuring. It grounds the world and limits the size of each level.

Things I didn’t like: It’s a matter of taste but I would prefer a little more resource management and inventory tinkering. SFX would be nice too.

Fatherhood

Fatherhood

An combat-free approach worth exploring further.

And finally something completely different. Fatherhood is a Roguelike without combat. You must stop a flood from advancing by moving rocks. At the same time, you need to take care of your 3 children. Haven’t played that much so I can’t comment yet. But from what I saw, the idea was intriguing enough.

Speaking of which: I’m still looking for some other Roguelikes that have dynamic environments. I’m especially looking for ones that focus on interaction with the environment and less on combat. Any suggestions?

Afternoon World Trip – released :)

I’m in a very happy mood as i’ve just finished my next small game.
It is available for FREE (not even ads!) on Android Market (for HD phones and tablets).

Download it via:
 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ludocrazy.afternoontrip

Find more screenshots and details here:
 ludocrazy.com

I’m playing a few of the 9 modes

Because it is free, you would do me a great favour if you could tell others to try it out. (This even works if you do not own an Android phone yourself ;) )

Else I’m looking forward to hear comments and feedback, mail or tweet me if you like or simply post here into the comments.

And for those that are looking into more complex games: my next title is a sweet little turnbased space stragey and has already left prototyping state, so expect updates soon!

Afternoon World Trip … is near

Just a very short notice:
I’ve nearly finished my next small game for android phones and tablets.

Anybody care to try it out?
Comment here on this post or send me an email.

I will also announce next version(s) on twitter, so would be great if you follow me:
twitter.com/sirleto

Find some screenshots, trailer and details about the game here:
 ludocrazy.com

Favourite TNG Episodes

I thought I write something more straight-forward today. Recently, I started to watch some Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I grew up with The Next Generation and I really liked that series. I watched Voyager and Enterprise and they were ok, I just found they lacked that something special I loved about TNG. But with Deep Space Nine, I never even got into it.

I’m not sure why. I think it has a lot to do with the set design. The station lacked this Sci-Fi technological feel I had with The Next Generation. I never warmed up towards Sisko and his son either. His character always seemed all over the place – sometimes strict and controlled, other times impulsive and emotional. And kids are always just annoying in Star Trek.

But going through the episodes now, I found some new respect towards the series. I really like the fact that the most reasonable people on the station seem to be the two female characters. The plots are often more complex, involve multiple parties with diverging interests. I appreciate that more now.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Still one of the greatest achievements of modern TV.

But this made me think what I liked about TNG so much. In a discussion I felt compelled to make a list of favorite episodes. I realized that most of them are from season 5 and 6. It seems to make sense. I remember that the early episodes were very awkward. None of the actors and writers seemed to have a feel for who the characters are. I feel like it’s in seasons 5 and 6 where they hit their peak. So without further ado and in no particular order:

  • 6×04 Reclics – The Dyson Shpere Epiosde. The concept of a Dyson Sphere blew my mind. And it had Scottie too!

  • 5×23 I Borg – The Borg episodes were often good. The one with Hugh was particularly interesting because it explored some depth in an otherwise one-dimensional enemy. There was also a nice ethical dilemma involved.

  • 6×15 Tapestry – A Q episode where captain Picard may go back in time to undo a huge mistake in his life. He finds out that without that mistake, he would have never surpassed mediocrity and become captain. A beautiful exploration of his character.

  • 6×10 Chain of Command – And yet another Picard episode where Picard is tortured by a Cardassians. I found it really memorable because of it’s portrayal of the psychological effects of torture. The reveal at the very end just blew my mind as a kid. Also, it’s an Episode where the Enterprise has a different captain – a refreshing “what if”.

  • 5×25 The Inner Light – Yet another Picard episode. This tome he re-lives the entire life of an astronomer of an extinct species. That one is just so bitter-sweet. Quite remarkable emotional depth for a Sci-Fi series. And it’s still a good commentary on the value of a space program.

  • 6×25 Timescape – One of the geeky episodes where a team comes back from a conference, only to find that the Enterprise is frozen in time. It looks like they are being attacked by a Romulans. A cool Sci-Fi investigation begins.

I feel like the best episodes were the ones where you would learn something new. Something scientific, ethical or philosophical. It would be something would stick in your mind even years afterwards.

There are some more. I really liked 7×23 Emergence, 4×16 Galaxy’s Child and pretty much every episode with Barclay. I usually disliked any episode with Deanna Troi or Lwaxana Troi. And of course, I think the series has one of the best pilot episodes of a TV series ever! With that kind of start, there was no way they could have failed.

I’m not seeing similar favorites in DS9 yet, but I’m already more into it than I ever was. What about you? What are your favorite Star Trek episodes?

The Last Story: First Impressions

I haven’t been updating in some time. But things are about to improve. And there is a lot to talk about. One of them being The Last Story.

If you have been living behind the moon, The Last Story is an amazing Japanese action-RPG that was just recently released in Europe for the Nintendo Wii. It is one of the games that many fans demanded to be released in the west during Operation Rainfall. The reason being perhaps because the producer of The Last Story is none other than Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the Final Fantasy series. He is not the only Final Fantasy superstar working on this title. The music was also made by none other than Nobuo Uematsu, the composer behind most of the iconic Final Fantasy tunes. Since Sakaguchi left Square Enix, the Final Fantasy series went downhill very fast. Here is a great Eurogamer article explaining the fascinating history of Sakaguchi’s departure. So for many, The Last Story is the hope for a spiritual successor to Final Fantasy, a reboot under a different flag. Does it fulfill this promise?

It’s hard to tell. The Last Story REALLY changes up the traditional JRPG formula a lot. There are some amazing inspirations from western games. This makes the game very innovative. But it’s just a very different game from a Final Fantasy. Here are some first impressions:

  • Gears of War with Swords – The game features a cover mechanic very reminiscent of Gears of War. The crazy thing is that your characters fight primarily with swords so hiding behind cover doesn’t seem to make much sense at first. Yet, the cover mechanic doesn’t feel out of place. There are some nice sneaking sequences that make the mechanic feel more natural than in many shooters. And that’s just one of lots of new battle mechanics. You can freeze time to give commands to your team from an top-down perspective. When you sync your attacks with another teammate, you do some extra damage. There is a special power that draws the attention of enemies to you but slowly charges a special attack. Not everything is a success but it’s a massive influx of innovation. Innovation that JRPGs need urgently.

  • JFPS – The game has some FPS elements. Your character can use a crossbow at any point. There are moments where you can get some cool strategic advantage using it. More importantly, the FPS mode is well-integrated into the story. Every now and then, a sound cue tells you when you can “discover” things using the FPS mode. You need to find some detail in the environment by looking at it – reminiscent of scanning in Metroid Prime. A compass helps you in case you have no idea where to look. It’s not a huge challenge. But it’s used frequently and helps rooting the FPS functions more deeply into the rest of the game.

  • Assassin’s Creed Gaiden – There are some subtle clues from the Assassin’s Creed series. Early on, you find yourself in a city with a distinct Italian flair. You bump into other people pretty much likein Assassin’s Creed. And by the end, there is a sequence where you are being chased by guards. Generally, parts like this feel free-roam-ish. But make no mistake – the game is a very linear series of levels, quite unlike Final Fantasy. So far, I haven’t seen a map of the world or anything.

  • Costume Quest – The game does look great. The character models even hold up to Xbox 360 and PS3 titles in some regard. But the thing that I was impressed by the most were the costumes. They are beautifully designed. They are simpler than the fashion overkill you see in the modern Final Fantasy nowadays. But they are still unique and have some stylish details. And then each character can wear equipment that actually integrates into their outfit. And then you can even change the color of each individual piece of clothing. That kind of attention to detail just blows my mind.

  • Very British – All voice work is done by British actors, just like in Xenoblade Chronicles. Apart from a weird line every now and then, it works very well. I love how fresh and unique the game feels just due to the voice work. The different characters even have different accents. Marvelous!

In total, I’m quite surprised with the way the The Last Story turned out. It took me by surprise and it’s certainly a game I’d love to finish. I can recommend it to anybody, who likes JRPGs, but always wished for them to be less formulaic. The Operation Rainfall games just keep giving. I can’t wait for Pandora’s Tower.

The Science of Space Hookers

Here is something that drives me up the walls. The Asari alien race in Mass Effect. I hate them. They are easily the most stupid, insulting and downright racist aspect of the game. Here is what I mean.

Asari Naked

“Don’t worry. That’s a totally natural pose for my species to be in. Now, embrace eternity…”

So the Ansari are basically blue people. They have these fins instead of hair. Otherwise, they look pretty much like humans. That’s already quite wonky. The worst part is that they are all female and you can have sex with them. But it’s not the normal, feely, sticky kind of sex that involves lots of rubbing and fluids. Oh no. You have mind-sex with them. See, they are also telepathic/magic/whatever. So they reproduce by having mind sex. I presume that’s a more pure, innocent, mind-alertering and transcendent way of having sex.

What really pisses me off is that the Asari serve more of a wish fulfillment device for some pretty fucked-up male sex fantasies rather than as a genuine piece of believable Sci-Fi storytelling. Something that becomes apparent when you start applying.. SCIENCE!

Continue reading “The Science of Space Hookers”

Monster Hunter Podcast Episode 63


This time on the Monster Hunter Podcast: A Love Bonk. On a very special Monster Hunter Podcast, the crew discusses the sensual side of human and wyverian…weaponry.

Get the mp3 of the episode here.
The RSS Feed is here.
Get us in iTunes here.
Visit the new SocialDissonance Website!

Enjoy!

Mass Effect 2 First Impressions

So I’m playing Mass Effect 2 right now. I’m at the beginning of the final stretch. I have my entire team, I did all the DLC and I did all the loyality missions. Here are my impressions so far.

Unintentionally Hilarious Mass Effect 2 Trailer Screenshot

Unintentionally Hilarious Mass Effect 2 Trailer Screenshot

For obvious reasons I looked very carefully at the interface. There are a few minor quibs. But so far, every single point I mentioned in my interface article has been fixed and improved upon. I’m pleasantly surprised about that.

Another area that clearly received some massive improvements is the combat. Bioware were talking about this and they weren’t exaggerating. The powers of your members are useful and feel very distinct. They allow you to approach enemies in very different ways. There is more strategy to the combat due to cover mechanics and careful level design. Enemies come in waves now which makes encounters feel more dynamic. Most importantly, weapons are actually meaningful and different now. They is far less of them now too. I have only 3 different assault rifles now. But each one feels distinct. That’s very good.

The flipside is that with all the improvements in combat, the entire game is all about combat now. The story arcs in missions feel like from a porn movie but with fire fights instead of sex. Any intriguing setup inevitably leads to a prolonged combat sequence. There are no real exploartion, mystery or diplomacy missions anymore. In this one mission I was invited to take place in a trial. I thought “Finally! Some tricky negotiations in the midst of all this shooting”. But nope, it turns out the trial had me swiftly sentenced to fighting robots. *sigh*

Another problem with the story is some serious disregard to what actually happened in the first part. Former crew members seem oddly distant. Not even hugs and kisses from my former paramour Liara. A DLC patches that specific instance but the problem remains. There is lots of retconning concerning technology. Suddenly no healing and weapons have ammo? And nobody believes the Reapers are real even after the equivalent of a space-9/11? And suddenly there are these Collectors which we haven’t heard a single word about in the first part? And then it turns they are so SUUUUPER important? It seems like sacrificed a lot of potential for emotional bonds to make Mass Effect 2 work. Like the cyber-zombie commander Shepard, the story looks like some sort of haphazardly revived corpse. It’s Mass Effect alright. But it’s a very different Mass Effect. And there is a lot about it I don’t enjoy as much.

But luckily there are good parts too. The Garrus mission was the first one that connected with me emotionally. The Shadow Broker DLC not only fixed the treatment of Liara, it was actually amazing in general. The improved interface and battle mechanics will make it easy for me to see this through to the end.

Global Game Jam Cologne 2012 Round Up #3

Time for the final Global Game Jam Cologne 2012 Round Up (part 1 here and part 2 here)! Let start up with Giant Robot Snake.

GGJ2012 Giant Robot Snake

Giant Robot Snake – Don’t eat that frog, snake. Don’t do it.

It’s a very interesting game because it can be played by four people simultaneously on two controllers. Each player operates one analogue stick. The goal is to poke your giant robot snake with a stick to make it eat the green frogs that jump around. There are also red frogs you need to avoid. I had a blast playing it with 3 other people on stage during the presentation. Another reason why I’m impressed is that it was made by two guys, who met each other at Global Game Jam. They even spoke different languages. Cooperations like this blow my mind. And hey, you can check it out yourself. The team uploaded the multiple versions of the game on the GGJ website. It is very polished and fully playable!

One game that is also playable albeit not quite as polished is Alchemica

GGJ2012 Alchemica

Alchemica – Got very far bit didn’t quite finish. :(

The team behind Alchemica consisted of some Global Game Jam veterans. They went for a risky, custom Java platform. They got the game done but lost too much time so they couldn’t polish it anymore. It’s a puzzle platformer with a mechanic where you need to use different “elements” to solve puzzles. Even though it’s not as polished as it could be, you can still play it here. The team didn’t look very happy about the outcome during the final presentation. But I think they got incredibly far with the concept and I’m sure the experience they gained will turn out to be very valuable.

Funny enough, another team tried a very similar approach and also got into trouble. Their game was called Claychemy.

GGJ2012 Claylchemy

Claychemy – Prevailed against all odds. A true GGJ success story.

Initially, the team had a main programmer and 3 designers/artists. But for some reason, the programmer left at some point and never returned. So the team was forced to learn Flash and Flixel to continue working on the game. Luckily, they totally succeeded! Again, it’s a platformer where you character can change the element he is made of. Certain elements are needed to overcome obstacles. Fire burns wood, stone breaks glass, air lowers gravity etc. Actually, you can just play the game here in your browser. A charming little game with an epic GGJ success story behind it.

One game that got some great laughs during the final presentation is The Tale of Archy.

GGJ2012 The Tale of Archy

The Tale of Archy – You had me at “Jetpack”.

It’s a game where you control a treasure-hunting alchemist on a jetpack. It’s a side-scrolling shooter with a Minecraftian aesthetic and with an interesting death mechanic. As far as I understand, when you die you become a ghost and you need to re-claim your soul. The game runs backwards when in ghost mode. In any case, the goal of the first level is to find the Frisbee of Anubis. The team, including some KISD students and Game Jam veterans, was apparetly inspired by some of the spontaneous frisbee sessions we held during the 48 hours to keep us fit. I won’t spoil you the ending, but it’s hilarious! The team uploaded the game files on the GGJ page, so try it out!

And finally, the game with the longest title: D.B.S. Don’t be square aka “The revenge of the psychedelic boring boxes” aka “vice versa”.

It was made by Peter Bickhofe and Markus Hettlich. Both Global Game Jam veterans, technical tutors as Cologne Game Lab and good friends. They weren’t happy with the way their two previous Game Jam project were too bloated. So this time, they went for something funny as well. It’s a game where you control a growing box. One it becomes so large it fills the screen, you start the game over with a new box growing within the old box. They were very creative with the visuals and the music. So the game turns very bizarre at some point. Just try it out yourself, you can play it here.

There was one last, super interesting game that looked like Limbo but used typography for level geometry. Sadly, the team hasn’t set up the project at Global Game Jam. If you read this, please upload the game! I thought it was really great!

And yeah there was one team that tried to use the TV crew at Global Game Jam for some ill-conceived anti-games rant. As you may have imagined, it was completely misplaced at an event like the Global Game Jam and fell completely flat. The analogy would be to have a bulimia awareness protest next to a girl scout cookie stand.

So that’s it for this year. It was the biggest Global Game Jam we ever had. We almost reached 60 participants. We can’t actually go much bigger than this. So of course we had a lot of games. But even more surprising was the actual quality. A lot of the games could be easily made into actual polished products. It’s very difficult to pick definitive favorites because almost every game had something unique and exciting to it. Either way, I’m really happy with our results. I would like to thank all the participants for sharing with us their relentlessness and creativity. And I would be honored having you with us next year!

About

The Game Design Scrapbook is a second blog of group of three game designers from Germany. On our first blog, Game Design Reviews we describe some games we played and point out various interesting details. Unfortunately, we found out that we also need some place to collect quick and dirty ideas that pop into our minds. Hence, welcome to Game Design Scrapbook. You will encounter wild, random rantings. Many of then incoherent. Some of them maybe even in German. If you don't like it, you might enjoy Game Design Reviews more.

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