Magical Diary Status

Beta, roughly. The script reaches the end of the year. The major graphics and events are all there. The special online functionality is NOT there yet but there's a skeletal framework in place giving a hint of what it's supposed to be, and we can update that on the server end.

Game text - about 150K words, although I'm not sure if that's counting everything, since there's a lot of text that isn't in dialog.

We now have to run off to Fanime, so don't expect us to move from beta to full release for a little bit yet. Sometime later there will be a trailer video (Not an OP. That wouldn't really suit this game, especially with the customisable protagonist.)

The nonsensical firefox/blogger bugs I'm having at the moment make links awkward but:
Magical Diary

Prison gold farms

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/25/china-prisoners-internet-gaming-scam

Magical Ponycorn Adventures

Game designed by a five-year-old girl, which I do NOT have time to actually look at at the moment, but the idea amuses. :)


http://www.untoldentertainment.com/blog/2011/05/24/sissys-magical-ponycorn-adventure/ And argh for some reason blogger and firefox 4 are NOT playing nice together and I may have to downgrade later when I have time. No time.

Games As Art

Apparently the National Endowment for the Arts is now recognising video games as an art form.

I could apply for a grant!

I'm not gonna, but I could!

you want do to what with your tongue?

Kiss Controller

Kiss Controller is an experimental project that allows users to control a bowling game by moving their tongues while kissing. Unlike existing game input devices, Kiss Controller seeks to generate the emotional experience of a kinetic act while users play the game rather than control games with their body.

Um..... okay.

(The first person I pasted this to promptly made a joke about licking balls. Don't blame me!)

fun for a fiver

So I lied - I ran into the game store today looking for travel cases and actually did spot a game that's been occasionally on my list of 'maybe, when it's cheap' - Lost Magic. I was surprised. The checkout guy was too, he seemed puzzled by what that game was doing in the store at all. Well, it isn't now. :)

It's got a lot of mixed reviews, which is why I was waiting for a cheap copy, but it'll give me something new to mess with while I'm Away.

Terrible Game Voice Acting

... with silly faces!

looking to the future

While Magical Diary still has the plot climax yet to be written, the looming deadlines mean I also have to start thinking about marketing etc, so I've started loading up the old video software again.

I'm an absolute novice at it, though, so it's going to take a while before I produce something usable. Right now I'm just at the stage of "Look! Fades!"

The Reconstruction

Something I stumbled across a reference to via TVtropes but know nothing about and don't have time to look into at the moment.

It's a free RPG trying to experiment with some of the most familiar elements of the genre and do things a bit differently. But since I haven't played it, I can't give more detail than that.

The Witcher

I actually have a box copy sitting on my shelf unopened because I am WAY TOO BUSY right now to get into it. Apparently it's also now available on GoG.

And apparently GoG is now helpfully letting you tell it where you live, in case of... unfortunate misunderstandings about pricing and geographic restrictions?

I don't really know how this works

So P has a PS3 and plays the New Console Games that I turn up my nose at.

He can wander into the local shop and find a selection of great titles, used or new, marked down to £5 or £10. Big-name things that even I who doesn't USE a PS3 has heard of.

I can walk into the local shop and sigh that every DS game I have any interest in, even a used copy of a game that came out five years ago, is STILL over £20. How the heck does that work?

(Okay, some exceptions. Rhythm Heaven they have cheap because for some reason it's not that popular. I liked it, I already have it. Also Flower, Sun and Rain
because that game was too WEIRD to catch on. If I were desperate to buy something I might have gone for it.)

Really, I buy most of my DS games online, new, and still get a better deal.

... of course part of that is that they tend to cost less in the US, and now we come back around to why I refuse to buy a 3DS :) I do get some British-bought games, though, so just getting a US 3DS still wouldn't help.

Cargo

I haven't tried this game yet, but the review raises just enough eyebrows to mean that I have to give it a shot.

Nothing in the world of Cargo! makes any sense whatsoever, which is a huge source of intrigue throughout play. Where are we? Why are there small, naked men everywhere? Why does kicking them make them happy? Why do they float off into the sky?

So apparently it involves vehicles, building stuff, and little naked men? Um... I don't have an appropriate label tag for that!

The Heart Is Safe

A very simple platformer idea, but cutely done and fun for a few minutes play.

Flash or download here.

Your Faithful Companion

A cute little Ludum Dare entry, this is a very RPG-inspired visual novel.



You are a typical newbie adventurer, out to save the world (or at least kill 10 rats) with the aid of your Magical Heirloom. Who happens to be a scantily-clad anime babe.


More info (and screenshots of said companion) and download here.

fail

Apparently someone tried to do a Mario-themed skating routine. Unfortunately, both by standards of figure skating and by standards of representing the game, it was pretty bad.

Yes, exhibition routines are supposed to be a bit silly and they probably had fun and if I'd seen their medal-winning PROPER skate I might have appreciated the blowing-off-steam of the silly routine. (Sadly the UK very rarely broadcasts figure skating on TV.) Still, meh. I feel embarrassed for my beloved sport that some geeks are looking at this and thinking 'wow, skating really sucks'.

social reality

BBC news article:

For a £30 annual fee, 10,000 farm followers will help manage Wimpole Home Farm, in Cambridgeshire.

The National Trust says its MyFarm project aims to reconnect people with where their food comes from.

It was partly inspired by the online Facebook game Farmville and follows the example of Ebbsfleet Football Club which is run on a similar basis.

Considering how much people screw around and muck things up to see what happens in games (a reasonable learning approach) do you really want them thinking in those terms for a real farm?

Prior

An entry in the genre of "mysterious artistic story told through minimalistic platforming" - available here

Collte's Spoon Devil

An oddity found at DLsite - this is not adult at all, but as usual, if you wander to that site, you will find some naughty content elsewhere.



It is, um... well, you have two characters and you control one with the mouse and one with the keyboard, while they attempt to constantly attack an enormous horde of tiny pixel characters wandering in and attacking you, and if you defeat them they turn into candy, and your screen is quickly littered with incomprehensible pixels and I was absolutely terrible at this and died quickly on easy.

If "weird bullet hell pixel game with devils and cake" sounds interesting, there is a free demo. And the game is actually in English... of the level of the screenshot above.

Preview the madness!

dinosaurs!

The bad news is, this cool little indie game didn't sell very well.



The good news is, now you get to play it free.