Haven and Hearth

Haven and Hearth is an multiplayer survival game with some basis in Slavic and Germanic folklore. The basic idea is that you start in the wilderness with a fire and some basic survival skills and as you gathering things and learn about the environment, you gain points which are used to increase your skills and learn new ones. There are a lot of skills and its takes a lot of effort to get all of them.

Along with learning new skills, there are some skills which can be improved by spending learning points. There are also base attributes which affect how the use of your various skills works. The world is huge, though sparsely populated. I live in a small hearthland with 4 other players, sharing the work of getting to the more advanced technology and skills. As you can probably guess from my character sheet and land, I’m the farmer. I also take care of some of the livestock.

There are some inherent problems with Haven & Hearth. Since every item is a node with a limited amount of an item, you might come across a really large mud flat with no clay or a tree with no branches. There is also a really serious lag problem stemming from their network setup.

Haven & Hearth has a lot going for it, with a wide variety of skills and ways to play the game. You can be a nomad, a thief, a farmer, a merchant, a village leader, pretty much anything you can imagine. There’s a lot to explore too. One of my favorite features is the Hearth Secret which allows people to come into the world in the same area as their friends instead of a random place in the world. Overall, it has a lot of potential and I can’t wait to see what it will be like when it finally come out of alpha. I award Haven & Hearth 4 out of 5 hearts. Handle that lag problem and you’ve got something awesome here.

 

If you’re interested in playing Haven & Hearth, you can find it here and its completely free.

 

 

Stencyl

Have you ever wanted to learn how to make video games? Playing games leads to modding which leads to making your own, its a wonderful process that more people should experience. That’s why today I’m bringing you Stencyl. Stencyl is a development suite for creating Flash, iOS and Android games, and if you have the pro version you can also create Desktop Mac and PC games. The engine is designed for 2D games, but that’s what most people want in a Flash game, right? One of my favorite parts is that they include a feature called StencylForge which is an online hosting of various game assets such as characters, backgrounds, environment building tools and even pre-coded behaviors so that you can learn at your own pace. This is great for kids or people who want to get into game design but don’t have the strong programming background. It also includes example games so you can get an idea how a lot of classic mechanics are done.

One of the great features of Stencyl is the forums. There are tons of people on there willing to help out newbies. Another great thing is that it includes the Kongregate, Mochi and Newgrounds API so you can connect to their score boards and give achievements. Speaking of Kongregate, There are tons of tutorials and forum posts about Stencyl and how to use it. For some of those tutorials, you can go here:

Here’s a code block that handles two different types of collisions: the player with an enemy or the player with a coin pick-up. But you can also choose to write real code if you want to. The interface for building scenes is just as simple. They made everything very drag and drop and friendly.

If you’re interested in learning the concepts behind game design and even starting to make your own games that you can upload to a real gaming site and get feedback from people, you should consider trying out Stencyl. Stencyl is available for Linux, Mac and PC and can be downloaded here. I am thoroughly enjoying using it and can’t suggest it enough. I award Stencyl a 5 out of 5 hearts for wonderful software, community and game design teaching.

Dead Frontier

The MMORPG is becoming a rapidly more popular game style. Its also becoming much more commonly made by low budget or independent developers. In this case, Dead Frontier is a zombie fighting game. You start out by making your survivor character. I was really impressed with the number of options available to choose between, and not just in the graphics of the character. There were a lot of different options for adjusting the base stats of your character as well.

The graphics for this game are pretty impressive as well, too. Especially given that this entire game runs in a browser. I wish I could explain the controls and combat mechanics and such to you, but to be perfectly honest, that one area of the screen is what I saw for a good 80% of the time I was playing.

This was the other 20%. Sadly, as gorgeous as Dead Frontier is, it seems to have serious lag issues and is quite probably just too big to be run in a browser effectively.

In light of this, I’m sad to say that Dead Frontier only gets a 1 out of 5 hearts. I wish I could have moved my avatar without Chrome crashing, but it never worked.

WolfQuest

WolfQuest is a serious game devoted to educating people about the plight of the wolf in the wild and just how hard it is for a wolf to survive and form a family. It also teaches about wolves in general, demonstrating things like pack hunting behaviors and communication methods. The basic concept of the game is that you’re a dispersal wolf seeking a mate so that you can start your own pack. In my case, I was playing a black and brown female named Runt. The wolf you play is highly customized which is a really nice touch. The graphics are quite nice and I felt very immersed in the wolf’s habitat and life. The controls are for the most part very simple to use and understand, though I’ve yet to get the hang of hunting elk. The wolf interaction scenes are very neat, with the same sort of dialogue choices that most RPGs have.

Now, I get to start my complaints. Periodically, I’m getting stuck in “conversation mode” when there aren’t any other wolves around or when there is, but I have no dialogue options. I’ve had to load from save repeatedly because of this. Save early save often, while a fabulous motto in programming, should not be the way to play a video game. While that is my only real complaint, its a problem that is really hindering game play. I actually beat the first episode but couldn’t save because I got stuck in conversation mode and 5 tries later I haven’t been able to find a dispersal male since.

Overall, this game does a very good job in teaching the things it seeks to teach, and subtly enough that it isn’t annoying. Its a very good game along with being educational. It has some programming flaws that make play hard at times, but hopefully these bugs can be fixed in a later version. I’ll give WolfQuest a 3.5 out of 5 hearts. Its very good, but fix that bug!

If you’re interested in playing WolfQuest and learning about the wolves and their natural habitat, check it out for free at wolfquest.org.

Atlantis and Lusternia

First up, in the this double feature episode, I’ll be talking about the Atlantis MUD client. A MUD, or multi user dungeon, is a long standing tradition in geeky gaming. At first, these text based role-playing adventure games were the only multiplayer online games available but over the years, we’ve moved up in the world and developed graphics. But that doesn’t mean that the MUD is dead. Far from it, in fact. These games can be played in several ways, including through command line magic, portals made by the game’s developers or through clients like Atlantis. The Atlantis client is fairly bare bones compared to other MUD clients out there, but I like it because it does what I need it to. It has an address book for the MUD servers that you want to keep track of and allows you to be connected to multiple MUD servers at once, notifying you if something happens in one of the other games while you aren’t looking. Certainly, it doesn’t have on screen maps or hotkeys like some MUD clients, but I don’t really need those. I have the in-game map and I like to type out the commands. Granted, some people might like that sort of thing.Second up in the double feature is Lusternia. Lusternia is a MUD which is fantasy based. I play Lara, a wiccan in training, who is part of the Serenwilde Commune. The game is very detailed and also very user friendly. I’ve played other MUDs before where I couldn’t figure out in the slightest what I was supposed to be doing and the combat system completely eluded me. This one is fairly straight forward. Quite a few of the quests are layed fetch and carry quests, but its entertaining at the very least. I’ve only really explored a very small amount of this game, being only level 16. You don’t even get out of being a novice until you’re level 21. I suggest that you try it out.

So the scores. First up, the Atlantis MUD client. Simple to use and stores the bare minimum of information you need to play. Its functional and simple to use. Some other clients have more frills, though. In total, it get a 3.5 out of 5 hearts.

And Lusternia. A very entertaining MUD, well done and user friendly. From what I’ve played so far, I give it a 4 out of 5 hearts.

Osmos

Osmos is a gorgeous game that I got from the Humble Bundle. Its a bit confusing at first, but let me explain. The basic concept is that you’re controlling a microscopic organism and you’re scooting around trying to absorb things that are smaller than you. Its a neat combination of puzzle and arcade style top down adventure. There are three paths that the levels go down: one where your goal is to absorb specific targets, one where you have to become the biggest and one where there are repelling forces and such things. It sort of reminds me of Katamari Damacy or Tasty Planet 2, only with puzzles. A lot of the puzzles are based on basic principals of physics, like every action has equal but opposite reaction. This does make them a bit hard if you’re not thinking in terms of real world physics.

I do love the way this game works. If another organism is bigger than you, it tries to come up and eat you if you don’t move. Its fairly accurate to actual little bitty life. The graphics are also absolutely gorgeous. The music is one of my favorite parts. All of it was custom made for Osmos and its really nice music too, not your usual video game music.

My only complaint with this game is that, at times it can be very dark. I don’t mean in like a violent or depressing way, I mean the screen is just very dark. Here’s an example. The little shiny thing in the middle, by the way, that’s you.

I enjoyed this game quite a bit. I also know its proving to be quite popular among computer gamers. Especially the ones who have Linux based operating systems. So, here’s my final score. I give Osmos a 4 out of 5 hearts. Its very hard, and the graphics are usually gorgeous but periodically very dark. Its mostly quite good but has a few flaws that keep it from perfection.

Amnesia : The Dark Descent

Amnesia The Dark Descent is a survival horror game made from Frictional Games. I was really excited to find this game, since its one of the first 3d first person style games I’ve seen that is specifically available for Mac, PC and Linux. Along with being available for all three major operating systems, Amnesia has taken the first person video game in an interesting new direction and I approve wholeheartedly. One of my favorite things is the sound system. This game is designed for wearing headphones. The audio is able to sound like its coming from behind you or off to one side or the other. Its actually pretty amazing…and terrifying. So, imagine if you will, that you’re wandering around this old house in the dark, and you’re trying to kill a man. That’s the very basic concept that has been introduced in the demo portion of this game.

The graphics are amazing and quite realistic. I really love the way they did interacting with the world, where you can pick up and move pretty much everything. The only thing that can’t be moved is candles, but that’s for mechanics reasons. One of the major game mechanics is a sanity bar that goes down for pretty much everything. Are you in the dark? Sanity drain! Are you staring at a monster? Sanity drain! Did something weird and impossible happen? Sanity drain! Because of this, light is hard to come by, but you can still manage to get around and play, it just hits your sanity hard.

The voice overs and narration are well done and the transitions between areas are quite nice. One of the things I love about this game is that based on how far I’ve played so far, there have been no cut-scenes. According to their webpage, there are no cut-scenes at all, from the first time you take control of Daniel to the very end of the game. I love this idea because its very immersive, something which I wish more first person games could be. Despite the fact that your avatar in this world has motivations of his own, the fact that he has amnesia means that all he has to go on is what you know and what you find while going through the game. Its very well done.

Now, this is usually the part where I give a game a score and I apologize thoroughly. This game was amazing, but since I can’t seem to get through the demo because it scares the crap out of me, I can’t bring my self to give this game a score. Well, other than pants wetting scary. I suggest trying it for yourself. It can be found at http://www.amnesiagame.com/#main. I hope you enjoy it.

Braid

Braid. Its one of the most sensationally popular indie games around. I’m not even sure what the plot is, I don’t think anyone is actually. I have my crazy theories, but you’re not hear to listen to me wax philosophical about the true meaning of a video game. The basic idea is that you’re a guy in a suit and tie trying to find the princess, in some kind of wacky Mario parody with time travel. Yes, I said time travel. You can control time, rewinding and fast-forwarding. Its an interesting way of playing, there are no lives, just rewinding to make it so you didn’t die.

The levels themselves are interesting. Sometimes you can walk straight through and not even interact with anything, but then you miss out on the chance to get puzzle pieces. The puzzle pieces are used to solve puzzles that form pictures. These puzzles and pictures, well, I have no idea what they mean in the greater scheme of things…unless one of my theories is true.

The graphics are really nice for this game and the mechanics are phenomenal. I love playing through this and wondering how the people who made it came up with this stuff. The gameplay is well done and I love the whole time travel aspect of it. I love the fact that there is much much more to this game than meets the eye.

The boss fights are always quite interesting, despite being essentially the same fight over and over again. Every fight has a slightly different mechanism to it, even though its the same enemy and the mechanism always relates to what you’ve been doing in that world. For example, in the picture everything in the level has a shadow which records when you rewind time and plays, so you need to use the shadows to deal damage to the boss along with the physical chandeliers. Its very well done.

And so, in conclusion, I must give this a grade. Well…that’s a tough decision. This is a very well done game. I love the graphics and the mechanics to it. I also appreciate the uh…storyline(?) from the point of view of game designer. But, from the point of view of a player, the game doesn’t appear to have a real logical coherent story. So…I guess I’ll give Braid a 4.5 out of 5 hearts.

For those of you interested in purchasing Braid, you can go to http://www.braid-game.com/ or you can find it on XBox Live. I highly recommend it.

World of Goo

Prepare for 11 reviews in a row from the Humble Indie Bundle. I picked it up just before Christmas and set down to the playing now. I can also offer an upcoming review of Betrayal at House on the Hill edition 2 and Castle Ravenloft. Up first, is a review of World of Goo. Feast your eyes on the adorable graphics!

The basic idea of this game is that you have to use the little goo balls to form a structure to get from the start to the pipe somewhere else on the level. There is physics involved in getting the structures built, physics which can be slightly odd at times. As someone who’s taken classes on engineering design and basic kinematics, I have to say, this game is pretty accurate. The goo balls are also adorable. Like, amazingly adorable with the big eyes and the little things they say when you’re moving them around and sucking them up into the pipe. The game itself is structured in stages within chapters, sort of like a Mario Bros game.

World of Good is a very nice puzzle game, challenging enough to keep a person occupied for hours and quite fun. Its also subtly teaches basic concepts of engineering and kinematics. In fact, I would suggest this game to physics teachers for their classes. There’s also a very nice metagame that lets you build a tower with goo balls and if you connect to the internet, it shows you the heights of other people’s towers. Not only does it tell you how tall their tower is, but it also shows you how many of their goo balls they’re using.

I love the graphics, music and gameplay, but I have to say my favorite part of this game are the absurd things said by the sign painter on all the signs throughout the stages. They’re just surreal enough to be entertaining but also give little clues for how to beat the stage.

In conclusion, I have to say that World of Goo is an awesome game. So for its score, I rate the World of Goo at a 5 out of 5 hearts. Well done, 2D-Boy, well done! For anyone who missed out on the bundle who is interested in purchasing World of Goo, they should go to http://www.worldofgoo.com/.

Humble Indie Bundle

http://www.humblebundle.com/

This is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. Not only can you get 11 different games in one bundle, but they run on any operating system AND you name your price. Not only do you name your price, you can also decide how much goes to the developers, the two charities and the company hosting the games. That’s right, you can decide the break down of the price that you named. Not half bad. Did I mention that these are good games? Braid, World of Goo, and Machinarium just to name a few of the top names in the bunch. Be sure to check this out. Its only going to be around for another day, so make sure you act fast.