Lay Zurs
Change of subject, but a brief one.
I doubt that anyone cares about this. But I’ve started playing a new game (actually a very old game) and I want people to play it. I like it, it’s fun, it appears to be excellently balanced, and it’s multiplayer, but at the pace of e-mail/correspondence chess, which is ideal.
It’s by the people who made the original X-Com games, easily some of my favourite gaming experiences of all time. Images and ideas still haunt me.
But I want other new players to play against, people who are learning, so that I don’t just lose embarrasingly. And people I know, so I can banter better.
So here’s a link that nobody I know will click on, but I thought I’d better do it. This links to a review at manifesto games where you can download the demo, or go to the website through the main page. I link to them because they are affiliate and get money if you buy the game, and also tell you some stuff about it. I like them, so I’d rather the money go to them, or at least a little bit. Obviously I want most of the money to go to the developers, who are heroes of mine. I’d invite them around for tea, they seem nice.
But yeah, indie development, involved community, and excellently balanced, simple accessible play. This is what we want. Aside from the lack of narrative experimentalism, this is exactly what gets me excited about gaming. Simple, good design, which excites instantly.
Learning curve may be a bit steep if you haven’t played X-Com. But there’s so much info online, that you’ll pick it up.
It’s like they say about Go, the best way to learn is to lose your first hundred games as quickly as possible.
Oh, and learn Go too, that’s a great game.
Oh, if you do get it, my username is Alabaster Crippens (surprisingly) so, challenge me and I’ll fight you.
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Now playing: Subtle – [New White #07] F.K.O. [foobar2000 v0.9.4.3]
via FoxyTunes
This is where my age shows! I love games but they affect me dangerously, in fact I have a choice, play computer games or have an imagination. A couple of hours of tetris and shut my eyes and I will see nothing but multicoloured bricks falling in ordered lines down the screen of my inner eye.
Sad but there it is, if you want to write weird stuff, you can’t do things that consume your imagination. Maybe if I dived in I’d get through and come out the other side… I daren’t risk it though. My theory is that were I younger, I would be able to combine the two, just the same way I can work a computer and many people of my generation, or older can’t begin to get their heads round them… or just refuse…
So I love the ideas, I love the way people get involved but I can’t spare the imaginative energy… oh yeh, and I don’t have the coordination to deal with pressing more than one button at a time, so I guess a part of that could be that while other people will play a game the way I read a novel, ie sit down and work through it over a couple of afternoons, I have only ever completed one game. If I knew I could never reach the end of a novel, I probably wouldn’t read either.
Cheers
BC
babychaos
7 March 2008
I’d still recommend Beyond Good and Evil or Portal. Portal can be got through very quickly, and is designed with a very slow learning curve (and time to think, although there is some twitch skill as it goes on). BGE is relatively easy. Simple controls and a great story. Plus you get to take wildlife photography throughout, which is just cool.
But i doubt I’m going to win this one. They just aren’t for everyone. I do often worry that my imagination is being sapped, but I feel it’s more like it’s being engaged. My world is shaped by my interactions with the unknown and the fantastic, and then that feeds into my imaginative jaunts. I wonder if I would be more creative more often if I stopped absorbing art and culture and games and books and what not.
Possibly. Quite possibly.
But could I?
Not sure. Maybe we’ll see one day.
For now I strike a balance.
Alabaster Crippens
8 March 2008