Evacuation is this interesting little addictive puzzle flash-game. Levels start off simple but get exponentially harder. Apparently, there’s an ending at level 200? It’s a little easier if you just suicide some (read: all) the crew except the captain, but, your score suffers as a result. I can barely survive to level 40 with a full crew without extensive cheating, so… :-( [via]
Saw Spelunky! over on metafilter, but didn’t give it a try until a week later, when everyone else I knew on IRC had already tried it, and I finally said to myself, hey, why not. Spelunky! is a rogue-like platformer, where you play the role of the brave and dashing archaeologist (presumably), and run around saving fair maidens from traps and monsters of all sorts, while collecting gold and gems to presumably fund future excavations and exploration. There are a lot of neat and interesting events and items in the game, such as the gold idol, where, as a nod to ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ if you pick the idol up, as expected, a boulder drops and rolls after you. Would be a lot more fun to explore if everything didn’t try to kill you though. :(
Interesting little flash game over on Amor Games called Achievement Unlocked.
Can you figure out how to unlock the achievements (which is all you can do in the game, hence the name) without looking at the hints?
Looks like Nintendo launched the north american version of Club Nintendo (Nintendo Rewards Club) yesterday. Register games, fill out surveys to get coins, and trade in coins to get prizes. Most notable prize is the Game & Watch Collection game for the DS, for 800 coins. You can get 30 points for filling out surveys on DS games you own, and 50 points for Wii game surveys. After, filling out the surveys for the games I had registered (took a while, since the site is getting hammered from the traffic), I had 1050 points and ordered the G&W Collection. Oh, and here’s a list of the eligible games that you’ll be able to get points for. Whee.
When I first saw this I thought to myself, Dolphin Olympics 2. Two? This original game was popular enough for a sequel? And I gave the game a shot, and, hey, it’s not bad. It’s definitely a great little time waster, and an addictive one at that. You’re a dolphin and you can do all sorts of tricks in the water, and, as you keep chaining tricks (“Triple Reversal + Quadruple Schooled + Triple Nice Entry + Wraparound” anyone?) you keep getting more points. After you get the hang of it, it’s not too hard to get enough height to go soaring right into space. Wish there was a music or something to it though. [via]
Voting opened up a couple of days ago for TIGSource’s Commonplace Book Competition and downloads for the games (and voting) are available now. Embedded below is a video that includes some footage from quite a few of the entries, so you’ll have some idea of what to expect from them. Have fun!
(subliminal message: vote for Eversion!)
saw this over on neogaf
http://gigazine.net/index.php?/news/comments/20081210_dragonquest/
Gigazine is covering a mysterious Dragon Quest Press Event at Tokyo’s Park Hyatt hotel. It’s due to start in 30 mins or so. :o :o :o
Based on the schedule, it looks like they’ll be announcing a new game, including staff, etc.
Edit:
Okay… Dragon Quest IX will be hitting Japan on 28th March 2009, for 5980yen. The game finally has a release date! Yay. Looks like the announcement isn’t really major………
HOLD UP!
HORII SEZ DQX IS FOR THE WII! IWATA SAYS THANK YOU! OMG!!!!!!!
Oh, and some independent confirmation from famitsu would be nice, given that gigazine is down, ostensibly from the ridiculous traffic because of the announce:
そしてさらに、次回作『ドラゴンクエストX』がWiiで開発中であることも明らかに！！
Apparently it went down something like this:
Wada: Iwata’s appearances are rare, so I’m really happy. Completing DQIX is a big relief. A “thank goodness” kind of feeling
Iwata: Thank you for developing DQX on the Wii
Well, that about wraps it up for the PS3 in Japan, doesn’t it.
Started playing Persona 4 yesterday. Great fun. Well-written dialogue which is quite serious when it needs to be, and quite funny when it doesn’t; found myself bursting into laughter quite a bit, especially at the few bits of absurd humor in it, although the un-bear-able puns are a little much. Kudos to the original writers, and the translators/editors too. The voice acting is a bit on the lackluster side, though the lack of subtitles will probably make playing an undub pointless.
How enjoyable the game would be came as a complete surprise to me, since I absolutely hated Persona 3/FES. The story, scenario, characters and dialogue I found much to be much more interesting and much improved over p3. The story which is a basic supernatural murder mystery is actually intriguing and compelling, with “solving the mystery” as an actual game-driver, rather then whatever non-memorable crap it was in p3. The dialogue-pathing and subquests are mostly the same as in p3, so expect to need a FAQ (or the excellent doublejump guide) if you want to get 100%.
Oh, and the combat system has been revamped so that you can take direct control of the other characters in combat now, which makes combat much more tolerable now, too. Haven’t really played enough to say whether or not the actual gameplay has improved much, but, if the first couple bosses are any indication, the game will probably not disappoint me.
Saw this web game on Go Cross Campus over at Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.
It seems like one of those online turn-based risk-style strategy games (warfish, anyone?), except that it’s massively-multiplayer and it’s for charity (well, at least, the linked game is). The site calls itself a “team-based social game”, and there are a couple different games ongoing, but it seems that new game creation is limited to schools or other organizations, so there’s not much to do on the site unless you want to join a random game or the linked game. Turns in the game last for 24 hours, so you can pretty much log in whenever to take your turn, although it looks like there are also ‘lightning’ games on the site with 3 minute turns as well.
Anyway, the charity that wins gets 50¢ for each player on the winning team, so hurry up and join!
(Although, the prominently featured bottle of Diet Pills on the in-game map is kinda disturbing. Doesn’t anyone think of the anorexics out there?)
