We here at Kill Screen have diligently pursued a “NO NECK BEARDS” policy for the homepage. That said, sometimes exceptions have to be made, especially when the neckbeard in question could change life as we know it. – – – There are no easy words for what lies below, but we will try. 1. It is heroic t
Reading about playing a horror game can be scarier than playing the game itself. For Ryan Winslett’s experience playing Slender, the narration is terrifying enough for my tastes. The simple Unity game has the player collecting 8 pages. With each page, the Slender Man chases you more intensely. When
The new LEGO line, Monster Fighters, brings supernatural creatures and pocket watches to the toy franchise. The train set has a throttle lever and a coal chamber with a little fire inside it. One minifigure has garlic and a vampire stake as her accessories. Austin Sirkin at WonderHowTo did a review
October is the one time where I feel compelled to play horror games in order to be a good festive citizen. They both fascinate and terrify me. Cameron Kunzelman, in his “designing horror” series, examined why the game Deep Sleep is disturbing. The aesthetic is a dream aesthetic. Things change before
Characters don’t spring fully-formed from the pen of an artist. For a while, their designs are malleable; their expressions half-formed. It’s why early comics usually look a little different from the final designs. For some mediums, these in-between forms never see the light of day. Doug TenNapel, t
Pushcat raises the stakes on match-3 games by including enemies and side-scrolling levels. The chiptunes Mussorgsky is, additionally, completely rad in a classical music nerd way.
Telltale’s zombie adventure game The Walking Dead requires players to make tough decisions, like when to kill an infected human. The fourth episode in the five-part series drove Kotaku’s Tina Amini to her limits. What a powerful, emotionally evocative game The Walking Dead is. When I play games I ty
In promoting the 3DS, celebrities descibe themselves as anything but gamers. Wired’s Ryan Rigney explains why: Being a “gamer” isn’t cool. It never has been, and the surging popularity of mobile games will never change that. Most people, even those who play lots of videogames, are just unwilling to
Recommending good games is one of the easiest pleasures that comes from having a little expertise as a game player. When G. Christopher Williams’s daughter asked for a game to play, he chose Prince of Persia. I felt pretty sure that she would enjoy the premise of two fantastical characters, like th
Journey‘s soundtrack is a gorgeous orchestral opus; but did you notice all the sand sounds and flapping sounds? Sound designer Steve Johnson shared some of the creative process behind making the sound effects for Journey at Gamasutra, not unlike our piece on Diablo III‘s sound effect production. All
Pixel art can take many forms, from cross-stitch to hama beads, but this is the first time I’ve seen it done with keyboard keys.
Remember how E.T. made scary aliens into something relateable? Or how exciting it was that other children had a cosmic adventure? Well forget those parts of the movie that you liked, since none of them feature in the new E.T. game for iOS. At VentureBeat, Jeffrey Grubb assures us, at least, that the
Ed Smith let his girlfriend play Heavy Rain, and then proceeded to tell her how to play it. I mean, come on! She hadn’t found all the FBI agent’s clues! She hadn’t even examined the body! I try to explain that she’s an FBI agent, that a boy’s been murdered; I’ll be damned if any serial killer is goi
Mike Schiller at Polygon relates how his daughter found relief from her painful coughing tic through the DS game Planet Puzzle League. Video games allow her to engage her brain in a way that forces her to process and respond to audiovisual stimuli, without the pressure to be evaluated that comes wit
MIT scientists found a way to get in physical touch with your Facebook friends: a vest that inflates whens someone likes something you posted on Facebook. Eric Abent at Slash Gear reports: The idea of this vest – which has been dubbed Like-A-Hug – is to simulate the feeling of receiving a hug from y
If you’re going to make a real-life Skyrim helmet, you’re all in, man. You might as well document the process. Volpin Props made a video showing the process. Commissioned for Dragon*Con 2012, this helmet was built to accommodate and accent the owner’s beard first and foremost. Originally the client
Simogo games, creator of Beat Sneak Bandit, is working a game called Year Walk, based on a Swedish custom of the same name. Typically a year walk had to be done on Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve, during the night. Almost all variations involve having to spend a full day inside a dark room. One was
In a ridiculous smear campaign, the Republican party of Maine says that Democratic candidate running for that state’s senate is unfit for office because of her “double life” in World of Warcraft (her avatar is above). Their website against her, meant to out her online persona, highlights a few crude
There are plenty of ways to make photo flashcards for studying. But what if you wanted to tell a story with your photos? A new app called StoryBot for iOS lets parents make stories for their children: You start by taking a photo, or using photos already stored on your iPad or iPhone picture library.
Remember Canabalt, that endless-runner indie iOS hit? Developer Semi Secret is coming out with a new game for iOS called Hundreds. It’s an arithmitic puzzle game where you touch numbers that add up to 100. Touched numbers turn red, and red touching red means game over. There’s a lovely site explaini
Simulation games don’t get the press and glory that AAA games do. But they are popular: Farming Simulator 2012 sold 500,000 copies in France and Germany, according to a press release from Astragon Publishing. Robert Rath voices his frustrations with the bug-ridden simulations, and wonders at their l
Yes, more companies are capitalizing on your nostalgia, this time with orchestrations of the original Pokémon soundtrack. Caitlin Oram at Pixels or Death found them evocative of her youth in the best way. Of course, I’d turn out the lights, kiss Mom and Dad goodnight, and snuggle into bed… until I h
The new SimCity won’t be released until next February, but promotional videos are out and ripe for critique. The game looks really sleek, and keeps some of the old system, like zoning, while simplifying pesky things like power lines and water lines. Kate Cox at Kotaku remarks on the little things: E
Toronto, the hotbed of indie game developers AND indie comic artists, decided to combine its talents in a game jam called Comics Vs. Games. TIFF Nexus documented the event and made a short film, embedded below. The games look great, and the multiplayer bouncing game Cumulo Nimblers is available for
FanGamer has reprinted their Zelda-themed Cards of Legend, whose design follows the template of classic face cards. These are so gorgeous they make me want to cry, or frame individual cards in a row on my wall.
