Ninjas have them. Batman has one. Bionic commandos have one too. They’re grappling hooks and they are throwy, shooty, swingy good fun. They’re also nothing new in games. The afore-mentioned Bionic Commando could not jump at all and relied on his grappling arm to grab ledges and swing around the […]
I think I’ve mentioned before how delightfully interesting TIGSource manages to make its game development competitions. Oh, sure, you could go for one of those stock-standard phrase-themed compos that all the other kids are going for, but why keep yourself trapped inside that box when you can think in terms […]
Asemblee competition starts
I have a weak spot for cool game development tools. Not the IDE, or art or sound tools – I mean the level editors, AI construction tools – those that developers develop specifically for their games. Those that you know could help you multiply your content, and craft your game […]
Guerrilla Tool Development
So here’s a little something to kickstart your weekend and brighten your day. Edmund Mcmillen, a delightfully twisted gentleman who should probably never be allowed near children, was recently allowed near children. One of them happened to be a grizzled, stern-faced game reviewer called Acacia, and it was her job […]
3-year-old versus Super Meat Boy
Yes, this news is probably a bit old by now, and avid Kotaku readers will probably have looked at it already, but I saw this article on the Xbox rumble massage apps receiving some link love on GameSetWatch and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to investigate. Titled “The Xbox Massage-Makers: […]
Notorious XBIG massagers: the devs speak!
So, Machinarium has recently hit the market and journalistic smarties everywhere have yet another opportunity to remind the world that the adventure genre is not rotting in an unmarked grave somewhere on Dr Fred Edison’s creepy estate. Guhhh. Proud declarations of point-n-click adventuring’s astounding non-deadness are becoming something of a […]
Point-n-click is aliiiiive!
Every year the Really Awesome Gaming Expo (known as rAge by close friends and relatives), held at the Coca Cola Dome in Johannesburg, acts as an undeniable and almost irresistible force, drawing in gamers and game developers alike from all over South Africa and some parts of the Rest of […]
Rage Rundown – In pictures
That’s nearly sixty-thousand sales. In a week. All those fancy numbers mathemagically work out to almost $100 000 earned (minus whatever Paypal decides to keep for itself), all for a year-old game. This is, of course, not counting the boosted sales the game also saw on Steam, simply because people […]
Where’s our profanity pack, 2D Boy?
As I lay in bed this weekend, sweating and snotting from some sort of sickness (hey, alliteration!), I was pleased to see IndieGames shaking things up with a crossword puzzle focused on independent games. Cor blimey, I’ve never seen one of these before! There’s not much to say about it […]
Indie game crossword
We mentioned Machinarium about a year ago when we covered it in our IGF roundup. The game was nominated – and eventually went on to win – the $2500 for Excellence in Visual Art, which isn’t hard to believe when you see the hand-drawn detail that was crafted into every […]
Notepad game design
Today, I was fiddling about with Gregory Weir’s Exploit, and while it’s not absolutely jaw-droppingly amazing in the gameplay category, it turns out to have a pretty interesting story. I suppose I pretty much expect that from Mr Weir by now, since writing seems to be an important part of […]
Exploit
This may be poor form on my part, but after a game has received a certain quota of attention for a certain period of time, I get tired of posting news about it. I mean, seriously: taking into account the veritable tsunami of games assaulting the battered shores of The […]
World of Goo: pay whatever
If you’re looking for a cool little platformer to play around with, try out Cave Chaos from Nitrome. I’m still trying to figure out exactly what sort of creature your protagonist is, but I’m reasonably confident about calling it some sort of rodent. And for whatever reason, this particular rodent […]
Try this: Cave Chaos
This article originally appeared in Dev.Mag Issue 27, released in November 2006 The Game.Dev Comps evolved considerably since they started, with sponsors and prizes being obtained, and a larger, more experienced (and larger) community facilitating the creation of even more advanced games. We take a look at all the competitions […]
The Game.Dev Comps – Part 2
So: yesterday I skipped out on the Internet. That’s right. Instead of being a responsible online citizen, I decided that I’d spend all that time designing a DnD campaign with a friend instead. And hey, once you get started on one of those buggers, it’s pretty much guaranteed that you’ll […]