Hello all, as you may have noticed from Dyl’s post, we’re back. I’ve had my hands full with Tea-Powered Games recently. If you haven’t checked us out yet, go see if we are your cup of tea.
Sorry, I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t at least mention it, but I think we have some exciting stuff brewing for anybody who wants to see games tell stories in new and interesting ways. With the shameless plug out of the way, let’s talk about a game you might know nothing about: Democracy 3.
Thanks to Paul Michael Egan over at his blog for nominating us for the Liebster Award (a little while back – sorry Paul!) and Fallyn at Late Night Comic for the Sunshine Blogger Award. Reading either is a lot like peeking into a friend’s living room window as they play games, watch movies, do what they do. But more entertaining, and less creepy. Probably. Definitely stop by both if you’re into interesting blogs (which, since you’re here, we will assume you are).
I have a confession to make: I’m a long time Zelda fan, but lately I’m less likely to pick up and be impressed by a new Zelda title. It’s not that I think the overall quality has gone down – probably the reverse – I’ve just changed as a consumer and feel like I’m no longer the target audience. Rather than ignore this feeling or sweep it under a proverbial rug, I’d like to take this opportunity to deconstruct it, and hopefully come out the other end of this post with a better understanding of what I hope I like about A Link Between Worlds.
This week I want to discuss something a bit more specific and mechanical: the clothing in Pokémon X/Y, and how it ultimately relates to engaging the player. Picking out a character’s clothing is the kind of thing which shows up in various games, but it’s not as simple as putting in extra art assets and telling the player to have at it. Here’s why clothes don’t just make the (wo)man, they can make the game too.
About: Playing With Aesthetics
As an interesting comparison to last week, we went for another Racing game this week, Mario Kart (let’s say, your favorite one). How do these genre buddies compare though? Tell us what you think! Continue reading
About: Playing With Aesthetics
This week we are going for F-Zero GX. Dylan has some awesome memories with this game so he thought it could use some Aesthetics analysis! We started with some games with fairly broad Aesthetic nets, but for us, this is the first (of likely many) that really displays a more focused, less widely cast look at the Aesthetics. Tell us what you think!
It’s been a while since I wrote WIHILA Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn, and those articles are not a prerequisite for this one (but you’re welcome to go have a read anyways if you haven’t yet). Now that I’ve spent some time (understatement) playing the final release , I’d like to draw some lessons about basic mechanical system design from what has easily been the most engaging part of this game: the crafting.
About: Playing With Aesthetics
Next up, your favorite Final Fantasy. That’s right, pick your favorite and vote according to that. There are some differences game-to-game but it seemed tedious to separate them all out for the smaller variances. Instead we thought it would be more interesting to see the aggregate of what made favorite Final Fantasy games stand out. Tell us what you think! Continue reading
In honour of our new series, Playing with Aesthetics, and with a new Pokémon game approaching, I’d like to take this opportunity to dredge up the topic of Core Aesthetics again, and use it as a lens on the design of Pokémon games (and the upcoming Pokemon X/Y). I believe that a lot can be learned about the broad appeal of Pokémon games by examining how it covers many different core aesthetics. Through iteration and improvement over its history, the Pokémon games have kept many core game elements constant. Instead of constantly changing or over-developing, the game has steadily spread to reach many more aesthetics than the average game can.
About: Playing With Aesthetics
For our second analysis, let’s dive into the Pokémon series. The game means a lot of different things to different people (as Dust’s WIHILA that is coming tomorrow addresses) so let’s hear what you guys have to say! Continue reading
Turn Based Living 