Video Games

There are 17 posts filed in Video Games (this is page 1 of 2).

Adelaide Game Playtesting Session – September 2017

Next week there is going to be another games playtesting event at AIE. This one is going to start half an hour earlier than our previous events.

Date: Thursday 28th September 6:00pm – 8:30pm
Location: AIE Adelaide Campus, 32 Grenfell St. Adelaide, SA 5000
Facebook Event for additional details

I’ve been busy with prepping Expand for PS4 lately and so I may not have a new thing to show. After a conversation at the most recent ARGGGH gathering I decided that I will finish a thing I started about a year ago. Here’s a screenshot.

Expand is coming to PS4 on October 3rd

Surprise! We’ve been working with Ukiyo Publishing and BlitWorks (porting) to bring Expand to the PS4.

Expand on PlayStation 4 will support extras with:

  • PlayStation Trophies
  • A bundle package with the game’s soundtrack
  • New language support in English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese and Chinese (Simplified and Traditional).

The game plays really well with the PlayStation 4 controller and BiltWorks have done an amazing job with the port. We’re really keen to expose the game to a new audience of players.

Moirai, Interview and Indie Games Room

So I thought I’d post up a bit about a few things that have happened recently.

Firstly Moirai has been taken offline and is no longer available to download. You can read the community announcement here. Shaun Prescott from PC Gamer interviewed me about it and wrote a good piece.

Back in May I did an interview with Angelo Valdivia from Player Attack. We talked about Expand, Moirai and the Slaughterhouse.

And lastly, the Indie Games Room at AVCon was a few weeks ago. This was my fifth year involved in volunteering for the event. Monkeystack put together this short video from the room on Sunday which was pretty neat.

New Bot: Mirrored Game Covers

Recently I had a few idea for a bunch of new Twitter bots. I’m going to be working on these over the next few months. The first of these is the Mirrored Game Cover bot.

It takes popular game covers from Moby Games and creates two images one in which the left side of the image is mirrored over the right and the other where the right side is mirrored over the left. This idea came from a NeoGAF thread several years ago.

Here are some of the more notable tweets the bot has posted so far.

The Slaughterhouse

So over the last 6 weeks or so Catherine and I have been working on an extension for Hacknet called The Slaughterhouse. In it you break into the computer network of a meat company and expose its violations to the public. It takes about 2 hours to play through. You’ll need to have both Hacknet and the Labyrinths DLC to play the extension.

We’re quite happy with how it turned out. It takes a much more investigative and complex approach to the original game. We also hope that it challenges an audience that usually wouldn’t be exposed to this kind of material.

You can access the extension here.

Australian Games Mix Tape

Update: Due to personal reasons this project won’t be going forward. Thanks to those that showed interest.

For the Fete at the Freeplay Festival next month I have a stall that I’m calling the Australian Games Mix Tape. The basic idea is that there will be a pirate kart like games launcher with just Australian games. The intention is to show the diversity of games being made in Australia.

You can find more details and submit your game here.

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Free Local Multiplayer Games Website

One thing that I really enjoy doing is playing through the batch of games that are developed as part of game jams such as Ludum Dare. I usually sit down with my girlfriend and we take turns in trying out the different games. We also run through games listed on curated websites such as Free Indie Games and the recently released games on portals such as Game Jolt. When trolling through the list of games, those listed as local multiplayer games tend to stick because we both want to play.

Unfortunately there aren’t any websites that just curate free, local multiplayer games which is why I created a small tumblr blog to do just this. It’s called Free Local Multiplayer and was released a few weeks ago. I’m trying to regularly update the site with new games every week or so. The idea is to build a list of solid, enjoyable games that people can play together with a friend or at larger multiplayer parties. The spirit of playing games in a communal space with friends, strangers, family, partners or whoever is something that I think is definitely worth spreading.

Screenshot from 2014-06-05 01:42:29

I wanted to create something that was vibrate and fun. The website needed to quickly get across the types of experiences people could have which is why I opted for the grid design with large cells. I ended up choosing to use tumblr and modified an existing theme. The selection of themes on tumblr is impressive with most themes looking fantastic. I was originally hoping to use animated gifs for each screenshot however I ran into issues related to CORS so I opted for static screens instead.

All of the games posted are tweeted out at @FLMGames. If you’re interested in helping me curate the website then feel free to get in touch.

Starseed Observatory Interviews

Late last year I was interviewed by my twin brother Daniel about my experiences playing Starseed Pilgrim. This interview was for a feature called Twin Perspectives on a new website, Starseed Observatory. The intention of the website is to show a new form of games criticism that Dan and his friends have been working towards.

Screenshot from 2014-03-04 12:26:35

Dan and I also recorded an interview about my design philosophy and thoughts on games. It’s a bit rough but I figure it may be of interest to readers.

Random Free Indie Game website

Over the last few days I’ve been a bit distracted with maintaining the release of Moirai, reading and thinking about future side projects. Tonight I decided to put together one of these side projects. The project is just a small website that randomly chooses a game listed on the Free Indie Games website. Free Indie Games is a website that curates free indie games. It’s a really well curated website that gives exposure to a lot of great games.

So if you’re looking for something to play then maybe choose a random, free indie game.