Obviously, I don’t go through life with an expectation of revival. If I walked in front of a speeding truck I wouldn’t expect to just wake up in my bed a moment later, a day earlier. But I think the idea still holds insights relating to 1) a juxtaposition to reality and 2) the tactician’s perspective. Continue reading
I wasn’t cognizant of the fact that I was dreaming, but was present enough to abstract out of the setting I was thrown into, and confidently decide that I was in a movie/game. For whatever reason (perhaps setting, cinematography, and general vibe) I had some cognitive foresight which changed the way I approached each frightening situation. Continue reading
Ten to fifteen play hours after my last post, I’m back to follow up on the indie pc adventure game, Resonance. In WIHILA Resonance, I asked what this game could add to the gameplay of a generic adventure game that I’d not seen before. What I found was a little gem called Memory. Here’s a primer. Continue reading
In Part I, I spoke about some judgements in gamer decisions and reflected on how I have changed in this regard. Now I would like to talk more on the real world applications.
People look for different experiences in their games. In the broadest sense, we can pick up different genres. However, as I continue to play and interact with different games, I realize more how much this concept can be broken down deeper.
After a meticulous and extensive selection process (read: I read everything I could get on my screen on the matter), I come to you with the first indie PC game of the column: Resonance. Rather than get bogged down in a discussion of what it means to be an ‘indie’ game, or the differences between PC games and console games, I’m going to start with a very quick but comprehensive disclaimer about my views on the subject. Continue reading
It’s hard to bring our A-game 24/7. We try to be alert when it matters so we don’t make some silly mistakes that could haunt us down the line. That being said, keeping a constant vigil can be taxing, so it is vital to find techniques to help strategize how to preempt these momentary lapses in concentration. Let me share a few times I have been burned by stupid moments of lost concentration.
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Now that I’ve had around a month writing this column and I’ve put up a bit of a backlog, I wanted to take this opportunity to talk a bit more about my vision for the column in a way that wouldn’t have made a lot of sense right at the beginning. Continue reading
There’s been an accidental trend in my recent posts – I’ve talked a lot about how the player plays the game, why that matters, and designing with that in mind. A big part of WILA Xenoblade was how the game entertained me for quite some time by letting me pick and choose which elements of its expansive world and somewhat varied mechanics I used at any given time. In WIHILA and WILA Deus Ex, I mused on the possibilities of reaching out to a varied audience with genre-bending gameplay choices, and the importance of communicating with the player about these choices, ultimately exemplified by Deus Ex. What better way to put a temporary stopper on the topic than with the game that’s intentionally about style: DmC. Continue reading
It can be hard to understand in life what exactly strikes a chord with us and the reasoning behind these reverberating instances. We attach extended value and meaning to all the interactions that barrage our daily lives by constantly constructing a memory web of connections and connotations. It is this hidden value that strikes me so wonderfully whenever certain video game songs reach my ears. Continue reading
Turn Based Living 