I’ve been a fan of Motorstorm ever since I got my hands on the original, years ago when a friend of mine had me try it.

Back then, Motorstorm was an early example of what the Playstation 3 hardware could achieve, because no racing game had looked so good, no cliffsides so treacherous, and no explosions so fearsome. The gameplay was an odd take on arcade off-road racing, using a boost system similar to the excite bike on the NES, but there was a catch: If you filled your boost bar… you would explode. And the explosions were oh so glorious, with bits, pieces, bolts and springs flying out all over the place! Back then, even the crashes in Burnout were inferior.

For years, that’s what Motorstorm was to me. High speed, high jumps, mud pits, and explosions. But when I got my hands on my very own copy of Motorstorm Pacific Rift, everything changed. Motorstorm became more than a racing game.

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A group of 6 indie game devs have gathered together to form http://indiebuskers.net. There, they will be spending the next 48 hours making a bundle of games based on ideas that the public chose and voted upon. Check it out, and drop a coin in the hat to recieve a bundle when it’s all over.

It’s a pretty cool idea, and these guys are pretty good at what they do. Seeing that musicians can make a bit of change on the subways playing music, why can’t indie devs make a bit of change making games on the subways of the internet?  Check it out. I’ll write a more detailed post about each of the buskers later on.

Join people in the irc channel to ask questions, or just chill: http://webchat.quakenet.org/?channels=indiebuskers

Baby MooCastles

The last event at a permanent, physical location for Babycastles was an absolute blast. DJ Dog Dick, the super talented Ava Luna Band, and Inspectah Deck of the Wu Tang Clan tore up the place with their music, while games from the @horse_ebooks game jam at Parsons, Pole Riders, Mega GIRP, and Wu Tang J.S. Joust rounded out the mesmerizing Babycastles feel. It truly was a worthy event for the last show at a physical Babycastles location.

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The rain had just let up last Tuesday when I met Jonathan Mercier at Café Bistro BlaBla on Wellington Street in Sherbrooke, Quebec to discuss his game, Aztaka. A confident man with a glimmer in his eye, he greeted me with a smile on his face and a strong handshake. We talked for a few minutes before beginning the interview proper and I learned that he was not unlike many ambitious young developers I know and love.

But unlike many new developers, his beginnings stem back to an industry far more hostile to independent games, during a period in which a renowned publisher was required to make it onto consoles.

Unfortunately, Aztaka has yet to become a profitable game and is suffering from a serious marketing deficit. The game has not yet redeemed its development costs but still stands up very well when compared to recent releases due to its beautiful artwork, professionally recorded soundtrack, and intriguing story based on Aztec myths.

Now let’s get on to the tender bit: my poorly organized interview with Jonathan Mercier, founder of Citeremis and creator of Aztaka. The interview was all in French so I did my best to keep the translation as faithful to the original as I could.

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I made the signs for this event.

This past Wednesday was the opening party of F%!K THE SCREEN at Future Babycastles curated by Doug Wilson, Bennett Foddy, and Matt Parker. All but one of the games featured were all games requiring physical interaction, with some unique usage of existing game controllers. Here’s what was played:

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The I of It is an extremely classy puzzle platformer. You play as ‘I’ on an adventure to find ‘t’. The game isn’t too difficult, but the sound design, narration, and interesting game mechanics make it a really awesome game. It shouldn’t take you too long to finish, and the ending is fitting.

You can play it here: http://armorgames.com/play/11371/the-i-of-it

Dying is more fun without consequences.

Kirby’s Epic Yarn was hyped to be the most innovative game of 2010. However, it did nothing more than bore fans of the Kirby franchise. The original premise was amazing. The graphics were beautiful and smart, using fabric to illustrate kirby’s normally pixelated/smooth world. It had a new feeling and was quite refreshing to play. However, after twenty minutes, I soon realized that there was no way to die. I jumped off cliffs, ran into enemies, but all I did was lose gems.

Why should I care if I lose gems? Can’t I just get them back again? The fact that my in-game suicide attempts had no dire consequences completely destroyed my interest. If I wasn’t forced to start from a point far back in the level or thrown somewhere else and made to work hard to get back to where I was before, why should I waste my time?  I was told Epic Yarn was a fairly difficult game, but it lost my interest as soon as I was given the freedom to kill myself at will. I want punishment in a game. Am I being reasonable, or am I incredibly masochistic?

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GDC Pixel Wall

So, I was able to attend GDC11 this year for the first time ever. Chillaxing with the Indies this year was an awesome experience, as was attending GDC in general. I’d do my own personal coverage of what I saw at GDC, but everyone else did it better anyway (tldr; IGF, Winnitron, Tim Schafer, Minecraft).  So for those intending on attending GDC next year, here’s a few things I’ve learned from my first trip out to GDC (and San Fransisco).

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NYU wasn’t the only location that Quantum Box represented during the Global Game Jam. Central Florida’s GGJ site is actually Full Sail University, itself. Seeing how it’s where I go to school, I decided on attending for my second time. Since Arthur already explained what Global Game Jam was in the previous post, I’ll just go along and recite my experience.

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