Review
Rune Factory 4 is RPG comfort food
Here’s one for the box: “The meatloaf of videogames.”
Rachel Helps
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Study: Two thirds of Kickstarted videogames hit delays
Selling a videogame idea on Kickstarter is a test of any studio’s marketing ability. But once a project is funded, the finished product is most backers’ main concern. UnSubject decided to look through how many videogame Kickstarters have delivered a final game. The answer so far: about a third. It’
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Collectibles and videogame sales distract us from the good times
The holidays and traditional gift-giving occasions are coming up, and soon we’ll be caught up in listing all the things we want. As a child, saving up money to buy things was one of my passions in life; getting stuff was a way to show I fit in with society and had taste. I still get excited about ne
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Do games foster creativity?
The game Create claims to measure player creativity and reward you for it. But according to Eddy Léja-Six, this game measures creativity by looking at how many of the available tools players use in a given level. The game features special challenges called “Create Chains”: the player is rewarded fo
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The original Koopa: playground turtles
Paige Johnson is always looking for unusual playground motifs at her blog Playscapes. This time she’s found turtles in playground design around the world. The above picture comes from Mongolia; below is a turtle fountain from South Korea. Maybe turtles’ general harmlessness makes them a good compani
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Is a game developer his own best audience?
In Indie Game: The Movie, several developers mention how their intended audience is themselves. Nabokov also claimed, “I write for myself in multiplicate.” Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves starts off with the dedication, “This is not for you.” The developer of the protest game In a Permanent Save
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Why EVE Online is still going strong
In an effort to attract more customers, Star Wars: The Old Republic went free-to-play last week. Wired’s Andrew Groen argues that the MMORPG’s game’s design is obsolete; constantly making new content for an MMO is too expensive. In my opinion, it’s not just too expensive, but relies too much on what
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Boyfriend Maker makes humans look good
If you’ve used an instant messaging client, you’ve probably run across chatbots who can talk about almost anything with a weird combination of factoids and social failure. One app for iOS presents a twitter-searching chatbot as your boyfriend, resulting in weird and hilarious conversations. Mattie B
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Environmental storytelling goes hardcore
If you look around in Portal, you can see the graffiti from previous “test subjects” warning you not to trust GLaDOS. While Portal‘s treatment of environmental storytelling is pretty simple, the upcoming game Gone Home takes these aspects of narrative design and zeros in on it. The first-person expl
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Newest Paper Mario an "anti-JRPG"
The best thing about the Paper Mario series is its bizarre sense of humor. Sure you’re saving the world, but the boss fights are against characters with weaknesses other than fire or ice. The newest game in the series, Paper Mario: Stick Star for 3DS, goes back to its turn-based combat roots. Jason
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The game that lets you buy worldly influence in a heavenly organization
A good free-to-play game is a little like a religion. The gameplay has you coming back every day to perform rituals for an abstract goal, and sometimes a little money can help you reach that goal faster. Wait, that last one only counts for influencing mortals. Buying or selling positions of influenc
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Learn to manage your excruciating pain, the fun way!
It’s the start of flu season, and in my book, that means lots of pain medication for sinus inflammation. In an effort to teach the masses about pain management, London’s Science Museum made a game about what makes pain go away. Use too many painkillers and you’ll develop a tolerance, but spam those