I'm playing through the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. You can follow along with all my game reviews. This is the delightful indie game A Short Hike. I don't play many video games, because I find them arbitrary and confusing. They also go on far too long. But "Hike" is the perfect length. I completed it within 2 hours (I think - more on that later). Which, considering I paid $10 …
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This is a sort of poker variant / group solitaire which can be played either competitively or collaboratively. These rules were thrashed out at the Oxford January Games Jam. I think it is original - but there are literally thousands of card games, so it is hard to tell! As I've mentioned before, I love collaborative games. I'd much rather help my friends than beat them. This game is…
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I'm a little obsessed with collaborative games. I'm bored with fighting against my friends, trying to bankrupt them, or simply beating them into submission. I attended the Oxford Games Jam with one very specific aim in mind - help create a game where people had to work together as a team. It's a hard mindset to get into - almost all games are competitive. But with the help of an amazing team, …
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OMG! Good Old Games has the amazing Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds available for a mere £3.99. That was the game which introduced me & my wife to collaborative gameplay, so I was incredibly excited to see it available again. This is a brief guide to getting the game working on Linux - including multiplayer and widescreen. I'm using Ubuntu 14.04 - but the steps should be broadly similar on …
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Monument Valley - the hyper-praised indie game from UsTwo - has just hit a bump in the road. It wants to charge users for new levels. This particular review has been doing the rounds on Twitter. Yes, it's hyperbolic and ranty - but it is the absolute truth. Monument Valley is overpriced. Now, don't get me wrong, it is a gorgeous game. Sure, it's a bit derivative of the Xbox hit Fez.…
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Let's play "Spot The Difference"! The review on the left comes from the North American version of Plants vs. Zombies™ 2 whereas the one on the right is from the Worldwide version of Plants vs. Zombies™ 2. The above screenshot was taken shortly after the release of the North American version. The scores as of today have harmonised (4.2/5 vs 4.4/5) but there is still a disproportionate number of…
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I don't often play games - and I rarely pay for Android apps. Blackbar got me to spring a couple of quid based on a single screenshot. That's it. Read a letter, type in which words have been redacted. If you get it right, you're rewarded with the next letter. I can't understand why this game hasn't been made before. There's literally nothing to have stopped this game being developed on…
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Remember text adventures, eh? They were pretty nifty! "You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike" >Go East "You have been eaten by a Grue. A dwarf starts singing about gold" Smashing! Just like the pictures are better on the radio, so the graphics are immeasurably superior when they're in your head. Don't get me wrong, I love the 5.1 surround sound snarl of a rabid beast rendered…
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Last year (also during NaBloPoMo) I was enthusing about the literary card game Ex Libris. The only trouble with the game, in my opinion, are the limited numbers of cards available in the set. Much like Trivial Pursuit - once you've gone through them a few times the game is exhausted. I had planned on creating my own unofficial cards - but copyright law put the kibosh on that. Luckily, the…
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After an entertaining discussion at BarCamp Berkshire about video games, I decided to treat myself to an Xbox 360. After several happy years with a Nintendo Wii, I was keen to see what the new state of the art was. I picked the current top pick console and, I must say, while the games are great the console is somewhat of a disappointment. I picked the limited edition Xbox 360 320GB Star Wars…
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There's a delightful video doing the rounds of an Augmented Reality game for the iPhone. What better use of technology than to simulate the destruction of TIE Fighters? While undoubtedly cool, what amuses me about this game is why it has taken the gaming world so long to catch up with Symbian! Way back in 2003, I got my hands on the Siemens SX1. It was the first non-Nokia handset to be…
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In the last week, I've played two ARGs around London. Using Alternate / Augmented Reality is an amazing way to discover - or rediscover - a city. The Real Game This is still in "beta" so I can't say too much about it. It's a spy game with a twist. You and your partner race around London solving clues. All the while you are being chased by a "Dagger" team whose aim is to solve the same…
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