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Archives for September, 2010

super mario galaxy 2

In general I think of myself as the sort of person who feels compelled to complete video games at a narrative and geographic level, following all of the obvious side quests as well as the main line, but not to master their mechanics. And of late I haven’t been entirely comfortable with that state of […]

cow clicker viral participation

(Obligatory disclaimer: these are my thoughts, not Playdom’s/Disney’s.) One of the things that has impressed me the most about Cow Clicker is the culture that has sprung up around its wall posts. Wall posts are offers of bonuses and/or requests for help that games encourage you to post. And in my experience (which, I should […]

the beatles: rock band

I normally blog about a video game here when I finish playing it; that causes problems with games that I never actually stop playing, and the Rock Band games are the worst offenders in that regard. Still, with Rock Band 3 coming up, I figure it’s time to come to some sort of stopping point […]

agile and social game development

(Disclaimer: I in no way speak for Playdom.) There’s a certain strain in the criticism of social game development that has always sounded bizarre to me, and I think I’ve finally understood why. It’s really a two-fold strain: on the one hand, it complains about the metrics-driven approach to game development that social game studios […]

puzzle agent hd

Puzzle Agent HD is a thoroughly delightful game. The obvious comparison is to the Professor Layton: like that game, it’s full of quite good puzzles, like that game, it has a distinctive graphical style which works rather well. (Slightly less charming than Layton‘s style, and the delightful music is completely missing; but Layton is special, […]