Mighty No. 9: You got… Dev Trailer

June 1, 2014 07:36 | Leave a Comment |

Mighty No 9 Banner

My exposure to Megaman was limited to a few minutes on a friend’s NES playing as Wood Man, while I was still to young to find the term “Wood Man” funny. So by that measure I’m not Mighty No. 9’s target audience; the wildly successful $4,000,000 Kickstarter was aimed squarely at fans of the original series and no surprise – half the team seem to have come straight from Megaman. They might not have been aiming at me but the charged up arm cannon that is the game’s hype has well and truly met the hitbox of my interest. The new dev trailer does nothing to lessen this…
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The great blog migration of June 2014

June 1, 2014 06:59 | Leave a Comment |

Migration

After a few weeks of deliberation I’ve moved Pixieland onto a new host. The process was a bit of a journey of discovery, but thanks to Duplicator it was a lot easier than it might have been. After a few failures with unhelpful error messages and a bit of manual bodging it all seems to be up and running again.

Fingers crossed…

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Game music: Oni

May 28, 2014 06:42 | Leave a Comment |

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Having started playing through Oni again, it would be remiss of me to not talk about the soundtrack, and so my Wednesday post buffer grows another week, extending like the timer in an endless runner after hitting a checkpoint.

Extended.
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Android Review: Lumena

May 26, 2014 08:35 | Leave a Comment |

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A while ago I got a sneak preview of the Lumena soundtrack which left me eager for the game to be released. Well now it’s out, is the game as good as its music? Absolutely. But good is the wrong word. Evil, maybe. Cruel. Vicious. Hypnotic.
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OTTTD: Going over the top with Over the Top Tower Defense

May 22, 2014 20:41 | Leave a Comment |

Over the Top Tower Defense

Another day, another mobile tower defence game. Today’s is SMG Studio’s Over the Top Tower Defense (OTTTD for those who like their acronyms unpronounceable), just released for Android and iOS. But does the TD du jour stand out from the crowd? Actually it does.
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My little Oni, Part 1: Behold, Feet

May 21, 2014 22:58 | Leave a Comment |

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Haha! It works! Thank you, Oni Anniversary Edition, thank you. The game works flawlessly – sound, music, comedy graphics, decent resolutions. I even adventurously turned the visual quality from the suggested “medium” to “high”. I know, crazy. One generic tutorial later I’m thrown into a plot that leaves me thinking I should have read the manual again. It’s not complicated but I’ve no idea who any of the people or companies are. Heigh ho.

So how does it play, and how does that stand up to memory and nostalgia? Very well so far, in all honesty. Read on.
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Game music: Mass Effect 3

May 21, 2014 06:01 | Leave a Comment |

Mass Effect 3

Ah, Mass Effect 3, such conflicted emotions you elicit. Undoubtedly the best of the trilogy in terms of gameplay, but also easily the weakest writing. Your soundtrack is no different either. Gone is the unique style of Mass Effect 1, replaced by a sound that is more… what? Standard? Safe? Broadly appealing, perhaps, much closer to the sequel than the original.

But like the writing, the score hits high points that are utterly superb and proudly stand shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the trilogy.
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My little Oni

May 18, 2014 21:42 | Leave a Comment |

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After a brief chat on Twitter with The Gaming Ground I was reminded of the existence of Oni. A few minutes of reminiscing and nostalgia later and the inevitable happened – I decided to give it a go and see how it held up 13 years on.
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London is the new Atlantis: Sunless Sea

May 18, 2014 08:38 | Leave a Comment |

Sunless Sea

I had a brief fling with Fallen London a while back but didn’t have the time to invest, which was a shame because the world, the style and the art all outstanding and gripping. Now Failbetter Games are back with a sequel, the dark and sinister Sunless Sea, which sees you exploring an underworld sea in your steamship. Lovecraftian monstrosities, dark secrets, madness, mistrust and fear. It’s an excuse to use the phrase “Chthonic horrors”, not something you get to say every day.

Thirty years ago, London was stolen, dragged underground. Now it rests on the shore of the Unterzee, that old dark ocean under the world. Steamships ply the wild black zee, between the Iron Republic and the Elder Continent, between Khan’s Heart and the Dawn Machine…

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Quadtree Art

May 17, 2014 22:09 | Leave a Comment |

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I’ve always had an interest in computer generated imagery and art, even though I’ll be the first to admit I level a level of artistic skill roughly on par with underdeveloped slime-mould. Fractals, Lorenz Attractors, cellular automata, and so on. All fascinating.

So after seeing a few pictures generated using Quadtrees to approximate actual images, I thought I’d give it a shot.
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