July 25th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
(ar0707)
I’ve always found film critic Roger Ebert to be a tremendously engaging writer when he’s in his element (film, primarily). This is why I get particularly annoyed that he turns into a reactionary curmudgeon whenever anyone suggests that games are also a form of art, even when (by his own admission) he’s wholly unfamiliar with the subject.
I expected gamers would react to his latest uninformed salvo, but what I didn’t expect is the responses (the printed ones, at least) to be by and large so lucid and articulate.
The key issue, I think, is the difference between freedom and liberty. Sure, there’s no art in freedom — in being able to do anything you want at any time. Liberty, though — an allowance of choice, within a limited scope of options — now we’re getting somewhere. Especially if, within that narrow web, there is real, meaningful consequence to every action.
More than one writer points to independent games as examples of the medium’s promise as an artform, including the Danish simulation 3rd World Farmer. (Some may take issue with the mention of a certain notorious RPG Maker game, however.) I doubt any amount of discussion will change Ebert’s mind — he appears too insistent on judging the medium by means of contrast to others with which he’s more comfortable — but it’s nice to see such intelligent defenses out in front of the general public browsing his site.
16 Comments
July 23rd, 2007 at 6:55 am
(ar0707)
There’s a four page article on independently-developed games which was on the front page of Yahoo.com on Sunday. A couple of games were mentioned in this piece, such as:
Read it here [source: GameSetWatch]
3 Comments
July 22nd, 2007 at 1:29 pm
(ar0707)
For dcat - here’s a couple of freeware games we’ve wrote about with Linux versions:
Comments
July 21st, 2007 at 3:37 pm
(ar0707)
the2bears informs about a new Kenta Cho interview (by Siliconera) which reveals his thoughts on the upcoming Tumiki Fighters Wii port by Majesco entitled Blast Works, while mrkwang interviews Samieru - a member of the Nigoro development team responsible for the release of Rose and Camellia, Death Village and La-Mulana.
Quite unfortunate that both interviews are rather short and contains very little information that we are actually interested in finding out (e.g. upcoming developments, etc).
- the2bears
- Siliconera interviews Kenta Cho
- Samieru/Nigoro interview
- Nigoro’s web site
- MTV interviews Kenta Cho
Comments
July 13th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
(ar0707)
According to a recent Siliconera article written by Spencer, the original Tumiki Fighters is an unlockable game within the upcoming Budcat’s Wii production, Blast Works.
“As the conversation continued he (Budcat representative) explained that Budcat is working on bringing more of Kenta Cho’s shmups into Blast Works as unlockables. rRootage is going to be included for sure. Gunroar and Torus Trooper are possible additions.”
- Read more
- Blast Works preview
- download Tumiki Fighters
Comments
July 13th, 2007 at 3:08 am
(ar0707)
GameTunnel has recently published a rather noteworthy list consisting of the top hundred indie games reviewed on their site for the past three years. The list is extremely comprehensive and doesn’t end up looking like a top ten bestselling title on any of the casual game portals - so credits to Russell and his team of hardworking reviewers for doing a brilliant job of summarizing the scene into one page.
Read more
10 Comments
July 12th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
(ar0707)
According to a Gamasutra article written by Brandon Boyer, PopCap has recently acquired the Chicago-based developer Retro64. Founded by Mike Boeh in 2001, this creative development studio has produced Cosmic Bugs, Water Bugs and the recent PopCap hit Venice.
Mike Boeh is also heavily involved in the independent games industry, hosting both the popular IndieGamer forums and GameTunnel as well.
- Gamasutra article
3 Comments
July 11th, 2007 at 12:00 am
(ar0707)
Entries for the GBAX 2007 Coding Competition are now available to download. This homebrew competition is in it’s fifth year, and is proving the most fruitful. One can expect to find all sorts of homebrew games, applications, emulators and demos among the 60 entries developed with the DS, PSP and GP2X consoles in mind.
Some notable submissions include several remakes (e.g. Knight Lore, Ruck-Man, Blocked, Boomshine, Blast Riot), Sudoku clone (NDS), a tower defense game (Sqdef), a couple of scrolling shooters and even a Polarium remake (UNICOLOR, GP2X). For DS owners, there’s a fully-working Genesis emulator which runs at 60fps and a TrueType eBook reader with anti-aliasing as well.
2 Comments
July 7th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
(ar0707)
Weekly Freeplay is a new 1UP feature that attempts to dethrone Gamespy’s Download This (discontinued since December 2006) as the best regular column about indie games in general. And off to a very good start, I must add.
I really like the fact that more and more mainstream editors and journalists are turning to indie games even when there are a large number of commercial stuff to write about.
4 Comments
July 6th, 2007 at 3:36 am
(ar0707)
The SourceForge.net 2007 Community Choice Awards is an annual event organized to honor the best SourceForge projects, with the latest to be held during OSCON (Open Source Convention) at Portland on the 26th of July 2007.
A list of finalists for each category was recently made public to facilitate the final voting phase. Some notable nominess in the Games category include:
- FreeCol (open source Colonization)
- Tremulous (FPS)
- UFO: Alien Invasion (turn-based strategy game, Quake 2 engine)
- ScummVM
Incidentally ScummVM was also nominated for the Best Project category.
Read more
Comments
I’ve always found film critic Roger Ebert to be a tremendously engaging writer when he’s in his element (film, primarily). This is why I get particularly annoyed that he turns into a reactionary curmudgeon whenever anyone suggests that games are also a form of art, even when (by his own admission) he’s wholly unfamiliar with the subject.
