T w e n t y S i d e d

Eloj had this to say in the Neverwinter Nights Nitpick post:

I thought I’d mention a game where this did happen – where a developer just ignored all current 3d trends and struck out on their own. Outcast came out in 1999, so the game is about eight years old now. Keep that in mind when looking at the screenshots below.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Outcast: Something Different”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Here is a nice surprise:

Arthur Humphrey, author of Virtual Villagers, stopped by and left a comment here. I wrote about the game here, here and here way back in early November.

It was neat to know that my comments made it back to the author, and even better to get comments in return. It’s nice to know when game authors and designers read and respond to feedback. I know it isn’t always possible, but it is always appreciated.

One more thing to note is that Virtual Villagers is up for ‘Best Casual Sim' at Gamezebo. Cute Knight is also up for Best Strategy Game”, which is cool. Virtual Villagers and Cute Knight are both indie games, and it was nice to see them in the list. I’m going to reveal my elitist nature here and say that the other games have a certain… assembly-line feel to them. Many of them are clones of existing game types, or of each other. Some of them are sequels of clones of each other. This is not a bad thing, and many people play and love those games, but I really admire games like Virtual Villagers and Cute Knight, because they attempt to do something totally different. Those games are both more work and higher risk, so it’s good to see them doing well. I hope both of them grab some awards.

Side note: This is yet another poll that will allow games from different platforms to compete against one another. This still makes no sense to me, because the audience size is going to be different. I think Lumines is a fine game, but to my knowledge it’s a PSP-only title. This means it is at a great disadvantage in this poll and on this site, which looks to be aimed firmly at casual PC gamers.

Another note on the goofy poll: You must vote in each category? Hello? What if I didn’t play any of the listed games? Man, I’m beginning to suspect that these polls of fixed options which are voted on by random strangers on the internet might not be accurate or fair! I must be getting cynical.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.