April 18, 2007 at 8:21 pm (Culture, Roleplaying)
Got a few good games sitting unplayed and gathering dust on your bookshelf? On June 9, the first official game convention in Iraq will take place–it’s called Ziggurat Con, and the organizers are looking for help in providing roleplaying games to be played and handed out to the troops as prizes. More details here:
The largest problem with running a Con in Iraq, of course, is that there are no local stores or game publishers, and few game books on the post. Even dice are in short supply, with many soldiers breaking the unwritten taboo held by many gamers and sharing dice. Thankfully, many game publishers have also lent their support. [...] But Amberson indicated that the soldiers could definitely use more.
“This convention is currently in drastic need of prizes and giveaways for the troops,” he said. “Everything donated will go directly to the troops, or to MWR to use as loaner books for the soldiers.”
What a great way to lend some moral support to the troops. Consider gathering up a few games and shipping them out in time for the convention! The post linked above has a list of specific games they’re after, but it sounds like they’ll welcome most any sort of gaming material you can send. I’ve been looking to trim down my game collection anyway–this is the perfect opportunity to do so.
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April 16, 2007 at 7:39 pm (Video Games)
Here it is, the most frustrating Super Mario Bros. level ever. I can’t stop laughing–it’s sadistic level design at its best. Every time the player (who must have the patience of a saint) gets past one hurdle, he’s rewarded with sudden and unavoidable death from another angle.
It actually reminds me of one of the less enjoyable aspects of many early text and graphic adventure games. It wasn’t uncommon in some adventure games to be killed without warning by a trap or enemy that you had no way of anticipating or avoiding. The only way to avoid death was to reload the game (you did save your game, right?) after having been killed and steer clear of whatever room or activity resulted in instant death. While the threat of unannounced death did add a certain tension to the gaming experience, it wasn’t fun at all to be killed without receiving any advance warning that your character was in danger.
The manuals for these games were filled with exhortations to save your game often to minimize the rage you would feel upon having to replay giant chunks of the game after an unexpected death. As adventure games became more sophisticated, designers got better at providing advance warning (sometimes subtle, but any warning was better than none) that your character was in mortal danger. It was much easier to accept your character’s death if you at least felt that you had been given a fair shot at avoiding it.
These days, most games have some form of auto-save mechanic that saves your progress for you as you advance, reducing the need to continually save the game manually. But back in the old days, when we had to walk uphill to school both ways and there was only enough space for eight saved games on an Infocom disk and death could come at any time for any reason… well, I guess I’m glad we’ve moved beyond that particular aspect of the Good Old Days.
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April 3, 2007 at 10:39 pm (Culture, Retro Gaming)
This link is for my old pal pcg, who I believe loves Nethack and other roguelike games even more than I do: Roguelike Magazine, a magazine devoted to discussion of the roguelike genre. What a fun idea for a magazine–and the first issue is quite promising, especially the article about interface concepts.
If you’ve never played any of the roguelike family of games, you’re really missing out on one of the great gaming experiences; Nethack and its ilk are living proof that pure gameplay can make even the crudest graphics acceptable. My personal roguelike game of choice has always been Angband–I guess I like the (very, very loose) Tolkien connection–but they’re all good in my book.
At any rate, I hope the magazine does well, and that the roguelike community embraces it.
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