Ludum Dare, for those of you who aren’t familiar, is a competition where games developers and like-minded individuals gather to create games around a theme. They’re given 48 hours to do so and this year’s theme was minimalism. I bravely put on my indie hat and leapt head first into the thousands of games on offer to pick out a random selection (a twenty-sided die may have been involved) for your pleasure/displeasure/apathy. Here’s the first lot.
As you may have heard, Team Screen-Shaped (or at least the Scottish side of the team) went along to Scotland’s premier tabletop convention a few weeks ago and we really rather enjoyed it. We recently caught up with Phil Harris, Conpulsion Co-ordinator for his thoughts on how the event went and what the future holds for Conpulsion.
Kairo intrigues me. It’s been longer than I like to remember since I last played a game that drew a line in the sand and said, “Here’s some puzzles and nothing more”. It’s become the fashion for puzzle games to be narrative-led and Kairo stands as a striking counterpoint to both the folly and genius of story-based puzzlers.
Welcome boys and girls, one and all, to the very first episode of the Screen-Shaped Podcast!
Chris, Scott, Callum, and Nick band together to talk about:
And much more!
Please be warned, however, that there are major spoilers for Bioshock Infinite, among other games.
Intro/Outro Credit: Tank!
Written By: Yoko Konno
Performed By: The Seatbelts
A lot of the debate at Conpulsion 2013 revolved around the future of tabletop gaming and RPGs and it was fitting that these debates should take place when Sam Richards was attending. Sam, you see, is in the perfect position to be considered an expert voice on the subject. He’s taken the traditional RPG format and merged it with Twitter to create Tweet RPG, the first RPG that was created for and is intrinsically entwined with social media. I managed to grab some time with Sam before he ran off into the Future of Gaming talk.
There’s a warming sense of inclusion when you walk through the imposing front door of Teviot House. This weekend, the stately corridors forgo student life for the reverberation of d20 scattered on oaken tables. Hundreds of like-minded folk have come together in the pursuit of a common goal: the rampant acquisition not only of joy, but of experiences shared.
There’s a lot that’s been said about Bioshock Infinite and the rafters of the internet creak with the mass of speculation and praise that the game has received. That will not stop us for a second. So here, with the caveat that I’m not going to use any traditional structure for this article and will leap from idea to idea, is what I took from Bioshock Infinite. There will be spoilers after the break. This is a warning. Do not read further without completing the game.
Contrary to the experiences of every other reviewer of Impire, I’ve never played Dungeon Keeper. I certainly tried, back when my family first bought an old PC from my Mum’s office. It did not go well. The game would stutter and lag and despite my expert technical knowledge (I was 10), I couldn’t ever actually play it. I did, however, play a lot of Theme Hospital, so before you condemn me for what you’re about to read, know this: I do have experience with this building management genre.
I am speaking to you from the past, my disembodied voice echoing down dusty corridors and severe failures on my part to write this article on time. We done started a new series! Page Raid is a monthly video book club, where we take a look at the best of videogame novels and the worst of videogame novels. The first episode, where we look at Mind in Revolt (a Bioshock Infinite novel) and LA Noire‘s collected stories, can be found here:
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