Interesting on Steam
Mayan Death Robots looks like a modern reimagining of Gorillas. Personally, I loved Gorillas and played it a ton. This one is more intricate and more “colourful” – in more senses than one. Coming in the Summer. Rainbow Six Siege is Ubisoft’s turn in the battle of the franchises and from what I’ve seen of it and Battlefield Hardline, I tend to favour this with an actual tactical element and interesting game modes. This looks like a lot of fun for a band of communicative friends in multiplayer. Coming in the Fall. Nevermind is a horror puzzle adventure and as thus, doesn’t seem very new. The cool thing about is that it interfaces with brain sensing devices and can respond to your stress and fear. Currently in Early Access. Crystal Rift looks like another grid based dungeon crawler a-la Legend of Grimrock and Eye of the Beholder. It looks good, so does the UI and since I like those sorts of games, I’ll keep an eye out for it. This could be good. Early Access on the 20th. Elite: Dangerous has finally come to Steam. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s a hyper-realistic combat/trading space sim. And it’s gorgeous. But it’s difficult to get into. But at least it’s a straight up price model. Available now for 60$. Sky Force Anniversary is a PC port of the likable mobile top-down scrolling shooter. As it has become quite popular on mobile devices, it’ll probably be successful on PC as well. Even though this will solve the problem I had Continue Reading →
Posted in No Category by Eran with 1 comment.
Chinese Scientists Plan Solar Power Station In Space
That is, a solar station in space that converts the energy to microwave or laser and beams it to Earth. There are ways to mitigate the danger but let me remind you… “Microwave Receiver Dish is very efficient, clean and reliable. Launch a satellite to collect solar power, then beam it down to Earth. Unfortunately, the effects of a mis-targeted beam are, as yet, unknown.” — SimCity 2000 Manual (pg. 35)
Posted in Gaming, High-Tech, Less Interesting News, Practice, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with 2 comments.
Interesting on Steam
Moonbase Commander is an interesting take on turn-based strategy and is also dubbed The Best Game You Never Played. It looks like this can go a long way in friendly multiplayer. Available for 6$. The Steam Controller is finally on sale. I never liked controllers. I find them limiting and annoying to use but this might be the first one I might actually enjoy using, if the game is not too complicated. Coming in November but preorders are available for 50$. Sid Meier’s Pirates is an open world, exploration/trading action game set in the age of sail. And, in my head, at least, it’s vying for the position of Best Sid Meier Game Ever and the only real competition is Alpha Centauri. This is not a Civ-game. It’s personal, more action packed and full of tiny mini games (that might not be to everyone’s liking) to fill out this story of a path to glory. And, seriously, if you know it, I’m preaching to the quire and if not, quit stalling and play the damn game already. Available for 10$. Ironcast is a matching game in the vain of Dungeon Raid where you match tiles in a connected line to get their individual effect. But in Ironcast you use that to power a steampunk mech as you defend England from invading armies. Not enough press but after seeing TotalBiscuit’s WTF, it seems like a small cool game. 10.5$ until April 2nd. Then 15$.
Posted in Gaming, Less Interesting News by Eran with comments disabled.
Interesting on Steam
Ori and the Blind Forest is a new and gorgeous looking puzzle platformer which seems awfully cute to boot. And I’m also kind of partial to it because part of that distributed studio is Israeli. Available March 11th. Guild of Dungeoneering looks like a procedural dungeon crawling RPG with card game elements. And it also has an interesting art style. Not much is known yet but it is starting to get some press and it could go very right. “Coming soon”.  Star Hammer: The Vanguard Prophecy looks, from first glance, like some one is trying to take the mantle of Homeworld into the new generation while also integrating some ideas from Sword of the Stars and very high quality graphics. But, coming from an unknown developer and trying to reignite a field that had, virtually, no great successor to Homeworld is risky and I can only hope it plays as great as it looks. Available June 4th. Sid Meier’s Starships is starting to look like an Orion/SotS-esque top down 2D strategy add-on for Beyond Earth. It might come standalone but at that price, I doubt they put in a lot of effort into breadth. Available March 12th for 15$. Sky Battles looks like Monster Hunter if it was about dogfighting and giant robots. So far, not a lot to go on but the premise seems cool. Coming this Quarter. Shellshock Live looks like a colourful spastic reimagining of Scorched Earth. I’ll wait for more info before making a decision but I did love the old Continue Reading →
Posted in Gaming, Less Interesting News by Eran with comments disabled.
The Definition of Hard Core
I got this idea from an article I just read. How Hardcore a game is determined by how Hardcore the average/median player is. Meaning, if you pick a random or average gamer who plays said game, how serious he is about that game? How often do they play and how badly will they take it if the game changes or someone make light of playing it? So, in my opinion, if you take an average Candy Crush, Angry Birds or maybe even Clash of Clans player and ask them those questions, you’ll probably get a player who plays once or twice a day for a few minutes while they have time to kill and if you change their game or break it they’ll probably shrug their shoulders and move onto the next one. Of course, there are outliers who take the game very seriously but they are the minority. Then, if you take a game like League of Legends, Counterstrike, StarCraft or even Hearhstone, the average player is more likely to take their game very seriously, play for many hours every week and they take every change to the rules very seriously. They are rabid fans. So we call these games hardcore. I know, not all people would consider Hearhstone hardcore and I actually think it might be split down the middle, which is what makes it more interesting.
Posted in Gaming, Less Interesting News, Philosophy, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with 4 comments.
Interesting on Steam
Raptor – Call of the Shadows is one of the best top down scrolling shooters ever made. But you can get it on GOG DRM-free and I don’t see anything different about this version. Available now for 4.5$ (6$ on GOG). Etherium seems like an RTS in the old fashion but, so far the world building seems kind of shit but it’s very pretty and we could always use another high-production-value RTS, as far as I’m concerned. Coming in 2015, pre-purchase for 27$. Asteroids: Outpost is Asteroids. Except it’s not Asteroids. It’s a massively multiplayer, open world, 4X game? Somehow, this sounds like it can go very very wrong. “Coming Soon”.  The Escapists is a dynamic, crafting-infused, prison break game that doesn’t look like much – I didn’t really think much of it at first – but it appears to hide a challenging and exhilarating experience of outwitting a very smart system. Available now for 18$. Void Destroyer looks like it’s Battlezone if it was Homeworld. While that sounds cool in and of itself, their stylistic choices go way too far and the space combat itself doesn’t seem that exciting. Besides, when you call yourself “the best space combat sim ever made”, you’d better have some very convincing pluses over Privateer, Tachyon and Star/Freelancer. And it doesn’t. And if it’s a 3D RTS, it’d better be at least half as good as Homeworld, and it isn’t. Available now for 15$. Running Shadow looks like a dungeon crawler if it was, well… a runner. It looks good Continue Reading →
Posted in Gaming, Less Interesting News by Eran with comments disabled.
פסיבל ג’אז קטן
אתמול חזרנו מסוף שבוע ארוך באילת. המשפחה של מעין ונספחיה נסעו לאילת לפסטיבל הג’אז בים האדום – Extra Winter Edition! אני פחות בקטע של הג’אז אבל יש מדי פעם מוזיקה שאני אוהב, כמו הקבוצה שראינו ביום שבת. שהיו כל כך טובים שמעין לא היססה לרגע מללכת לקנות את האלבום שלהם. ואני מסוגל להבין למה. שתי ההופעות האחרות שראינו לא עשו עליי יותר מדי רושם. זאת אומרת, השלישייה הראשונה שראינו הייתה טובה ברגע שהוסיפו את המתופף אבל חוץ מזה, לא נורא התלהבתי. אבל לא בשביל זה באתי. גם אם זה רק סוף שבוע, אני בא בשביל החברה, בשביל לבלות עם מעין ובשביל להצטרף לאירועים שכוללים את כל המשפחה המורחבת. אז למרות שהבאנו המון משחקים, לא שיחקנו אף אחד מהם. אבל כן ניהלנו המון דיונים, מוצארט טייל באילת וקצת התרחקנו מהשגרה. שזה תמיד טוב.
Posted in No Category by Eran with comments disabled.
יש גרסה ראשונה!
גרסה ראשונה של המשחק שלנו זמינה עכשיו בחנות הישראלית! ווהו! אם יש לכם iPad3 או יותר טוב או iPad Mini 2 או יותר טוב, ואתם חובבים משחקי אסטרטגיה, אנא נסו ותגידו מה אתם חושבים. (התמיכה הכי טובה היא ל-iOS8 אבל יש גם ל-iOS7). ויש גם קבוצה ב-Facebook.
Posted in Gaming, Less Interesting News, No Category, Programming, Work by Eran with 1 comment.