Sander van Dragt

The Nintendo Switch is redefining gaming by adapting to the players environment. Unfortunately, it is widely misunderstood. It provides fun when used alone, with others, or with other Switch owners; in the living room, on the bus, at a desk. It an adaptive console, not a portable one. Any game that can be played like this is going to be a liberating experience, being optimised for how we live and can be played whenever we feel like.

So far, it seems the Nintendo Switch is widely misunderstood, even by game developers, reviewers and gamers alike. This is not surprising because Nintendo attempts to achieve something that no other gaming device has ever tried: gaming anywhere.

The moment everything fell in place for me was when I stopped thinking about Nintendo Switch as a portable console, but as an adaptive console.This explains why it does not become loads more powerful when docked, because that would favour playing on the TV over all the other ways. Nintendo has gone through amazing lengths to let you play together with other Switch owners even without a WiFi network, because it wants gaming everywhere.

A game that is not fun on the TV or playing with others on the same switch is limiting the switch experience and I think we will see a lot of games that are compromised in some way as game developers are getting to grips with the platforms adaptability.

The Switch is a careful balance between offline and online play, individual versus group play, and a study about where gaming can fit in our lives.

#games

1080p gamers, would-be VR explorers, and e-sports players who crave hundreds of frames per second look no further: the GTX 1060 is the graphics card to buy.

Looks like the card to get if you're not in the market for an ATI card.

#games #link

Jack Arnott writes for Eurogamer in the Football Manager 2016 review:

Anything beyond that, though, and, once again, I'm stumped. It won't tell you whether you've lost because you were closing down too much, or too little. Or because your defensive line was too high, or too low. Would Prozone analysis have helped me tame those pesky Shrews? Not without a hireable in-game performance analyst. This is no panacea for those, like me, who crave some FM feedback.

[...]

Despite a couple of neat additions, Football Manager 2016 is an iterative release that's sadly short on big new ideas.

None of this directly applies to this review or the quality of the game but is a bit more generalist rambling on my part -- I feel SI is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
It's difficult to make a game that is seen as holding realism above all other values and then see it being criticsed for lack of feedback.

The hypothetical version that sorts this out would be surely used by all real world managers as this gives them the winning formula for winning their own leagues! The marketing of FM being used by real world managers only strangthens this conflicted ideal in my mind.

With all features already in the game the developer might be making enourmous investments now to advance the simulation just that little bit, unable to make great leaps as there is no great leap to make.

I used to think that making Football Manager light was the solution to create a more playable game but as people expect "all of the realism with less options" I don't think that is ever going to work either.

As long as it keeps selling though they would be silly to overhaul it, as it would alienate the existing fanbase.

I'm hoping there will sometime be an approximation of the FM lineage but with fun and passion as the core values under a different name, perhaps with fantasy clubs and players, silly things happening, no numbers and passion for the athmosphere of football.

#games

Wesley Yin-Pool, writing for Eurogamer:

You will become a digital god, Molyneux proclaims in the video, of 22Cans' next game, Godus. And, you will receive a cut of the money made by Godus from the start of your reign to its end.

18 months later, as Bryan Henderson approaches his 21st birthday, he has yet to become God of Gods, he has yet to receive the "riches" Molyneux promised him, and it's looking increasingly likely he never will.

The core issue with promising such a fantastic reward is that it depends on a future that hasn't materialised:

"But we can't have the God of Gods role without the ability for people to challenge the God of Gods role, and the God of Gods role can't be challenged without combat, and we can't implement the combat without sorting out the server issues, which are being sorted out as of last week. It's just a maelstrom."

It looks to me that the whole team is continually rushed into firefighting the next feature development, with never enough revenue coming in to take a breather and plan things out properly.

He confirms the Godus development team has shrunk considerably to just a few people as resources are diverted to a new game, called The Trail.

Trust me, by the time the server issues are sorted; the combat is implemented; the multiplayer is developed and the God of God feature is finished there will be no players left to make any money from. 22Cans would do better to offer some kind of goodwill gesture to restore the morale of its staff and its fans before this PR opportunity turned completely toxic.

#games #link

I’ve been playing Hearthstone, Blizzard’s card game battler, for a month or two now and am enjoying it very much.

Although by the very nature of a collectible card game people that pay money will have access to more cards, it’s currently very possible to win most matches without paying. My philosophy on free games is to pay the developer around as much money as I would have for the game if it was paid, but not more.

That said, if you are looking to play better here are some things I have discovered (I’m not involved in the HS community or read any strategy guides so my advice might be old hat):

Deck naming

I always change the name of my custom decks to the following format: X/Y [Approach of the deck]. X stands for the number of matches won, and Y for the numer of losses. After every couple of matches I rename the deck and update the stats. Example: 15/4 DrawHeal is my popular Priest deck.

Naming your deck this way allows you to keep tabs on if the approach works with the cards in the deck, if your deck is any good ‘in the field’, and it helps you remember your playstyle.

Refine one card at a time

You’re only as good as the hand you draw so before decimating your deck make sure you give it enough plays. One way I like to do this is to play a few matches and find any weaknesses in my deck, then swap one card for a better suited one.

This gives you valuable playing experience with the deck whilst incrementally making it better (hopefully). Should you take out 4 or 5 cards at a time then you might imbalance the deck in another way.

Spread of cards

Unless you have a specific approach you want to try out, try to have cards more or less evenly spread out across the mana spectrum (1-7). This ensures you have the best chance of opportunities at every turn. Nothing is more devastating to have a hand full of cards you cannot play.

Also make sure you have creature cards across the mana spectrum. As you don’t know in what order you’ll draw the cards, it is important that you can go on the defense or attack at any point in the game. Thus you need creatures across all mana levels.

Make a note of what is not working

Why did you lose? Did you end up with a lot of high mana cards in your hands that you couldn’t put into play? Or did you have a lot of low mana and high mana creatures but nothing in the middle ranges? Perhaps you were unable to stop the rushing Hunter because you didn’t have enough area of effect spells (spells that affect all (enemy) creatures)? Or did the right cards not come up, maybe you should draw more cards? Sometimes you’re just unlucky.

Slowly adjusting your deck in this way makes it more flexible to deal with any situation that arises.

Understand the classes

Initially I had a lot of trouble playing the Paladin (even though in World of Warcraft this is my favourite class) because I didn’t understand how to play it. Look at the unique cards the classes have. In this case, my impression is that the paladin tries to preserve and grow their creatures, so using it in a deck with sturdy defensive creatures and then growing them can be a viable approach.

You can’t play any approach with any class. Although combining cards to allow a certain approach is a risky but fun experience.

Be courteous

A game is only as fun as its players. So be kind and say hello, and compliment a player on a impressive play.

Personally, I do not like to admit my mistakes during the match because the opponent might not know that I made a mistake.

I’m sure you have your own tips and hints so any feedback is welcome via twitter.

#games

Interesting article by Tom Phillips interviewing developers about Windows 8 and it's closed Windows Store, with this gem of a quote from Introversions' Chris Delay:

"I really don't want to see the PC becoming a closed platform. Microsoft is not a company that's able to benignly oversee that process. They will f*** it up. We'll all be doing Kinect support and 16 language versions, we'll all be supporting a Microsoft Office plug-in. It's my own worst nightmare.

[...] “The PC continues to be as relevant as it was ten years ago, despite consoles coming and going, because it is an open platform. If that changed it would be terrible.”

It's interesting times for the gaming industry, indeed.

#games #windows

I have been working with Carbon over the last weeks and one thing I noticed was that having to navigate through the admin menu repeatedly was getting a bit long in the tooth. Sure, for the occasional admin task it's useful to have the admin close to the site itself.

After adding deployment through powershell it became clear that switching between admin and commandline is not ideal either. So I decided to implement all administration throughu the powershell script.

With 0.2.3 you can add the following parameters to the script:

• login: login to admin
• draft: create draft
• generate: generate static site
• deploy: deploy to live
• clear_cache: empty cache

The script will also tell you the correct syntax if you get it wrong. Happy carbonating!

#carbon #games

Silicon Knights boss Denis Dyack talks about used games effect on development budgets:

"I don't think as an industry we can afford $300 million budgets. Some games can, don't get me wrong - for a game like Call of Duty, if they had a $100 million budget, or whatever their budget is, they can afford it. That's not the industry, that's sort of a one-off.

Perhaps there is a point after which it makes little sense to spend more money as you simply cannot recoup it in the market. I'm guessing this limit is probably closer to $0 than $300 million.

source Gamesindustry International.

#games

Sign up to WMD, the somewhat unfortunate acronym chosen for Slightly Mad's World of Mass Development platform, and you're granted access to regularly released builds of the game, which you're then free to pick apart in the official forums. That feedback then gets absorbed by Slightly Mad Studios, a simple loop that means that, when the game is eventually released, it'll be as much a product of the community as it is of the studio.

via Project Cars Preview • Eurogamer.net.

Looks like an interesting development strategy, made famous by Minecraft.

#games

Many gamers now look at the listing of a game in the store, and if there is an inapp purchases link and they see 100 of x, 200 of x, 300 of x where x is energy, credits, bux, dollars, street cred, or whatever just skip the game - even though it might have interesting mechanics. Just be brave and proud and ask for a subscription instead of hoovering money out of my pockets. It's a black mark on the state of gaming in my opinion.

It's a clear indication that the game is not made to have the most fun with, but to make the most money out of you by artifical limiting the experience. Where a subscription allows the same steady income without affecting the game experience. Just say no.

The fact that f2p iap titles sell well just proves my argument that "the game is not made to have the most fun with, but to make the most money out of you by artifical limiting the experience". I didn't say these games are not financially successful, because they are.

If the free2play games are so much fun to play, you'd expect to see a lot of sequels in the charts to build on previous success. In the top grossing list (which favour inapp free2play titles) there are no f2p sequels as opposed to 2-4 paid sequels.

So it seems the only way to get people to play your f2p iap title is to make it appear like a new experience by reframing the theme, from restaurant to club to bakery - or from vampire to gangster to army.

Is this because people get jaded from the f2p model?

#games

Currently playing:

1. Kard Combat (http://www.kardcombat.com/)
2. Wooords (http://toucharcade.com/2011/07/25/wooor ... word-game/)
3. Reckless Getaway (http://www.polarbit.com/our-games/reckless-getaway/)
4. Shake Spears! (http://www.gamezebo.com/games/shake-spears/review)

Or apps wise:

1. Due (http://www.dueapp.com/)
2. Air Video (http://www.inmethod.com/air-video/index.html)
3. Kik (http://kik.com/)
4. ShoppingList (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/shopping ... 58413?mt=8)
5. InstaCast (http://vemedio.com:80/products/instacast">http://vemedio.com/products/instacast)

#ios

Buying the game today for  £50-£65 from Origin will not only give you a holographic dancer (!) and allow you to change the color of your lightsaber (!), but also get you early access, before everyone else! How early is this access that you pay a £30 premium for?

Precise dates will be revealed at a later time.

Via http://www.swtor.com/preorder/faq">Preorder FAQs | Star Wars: The Old Republic. It's time to find another hobby.

#games

We think that the next generation of consoles won't have these limits any more. Games might have more realistic graphics and more on-screen, but what's the value of making something more realistic and better animated if you have poor AI?

via Ubisoft "extremely limited" by PS3, 360 News - - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net.

They might think they want better AI, but once the Xbox 4 and PS4 are out they will be back competing on graphics and violence.

#games

Eurogamer writes:

The community has also pointed out that SecuROM does nothing to stop piracy, as Spore was cracked before public release. Instead, they argue, the real target is the pre-owned, trade-in market.

#games

Interesting article regarding piracy and pc gaming:

Recently there has been a lot of talk about how piracy affects PC gaming. And if you listen to game developers, it apparently is a foregone conclusion - if a high quality PC game doesn't sell as many copies as it should, it must be because of piracy.

Now, I don't like piracy at all. It really bugs me when I see my game up on some torrent site just on the principle of the matter. And piracy certainly does cost sales.  But arguing that piracy is the primary factor in lower sales of well made games? I don't think so. People who never buy software aren't lost sales.

Is it about business or glory: http://draginol.joeuser.com/article/303512/Piracy_PC_Gaming

#games

From Eurogamer: Unangst said Microsoft would "continue to invest" in Games for Windows, which apart from giving its games an Xbox Live-style service layer with friends lists, Achievements and the like, also insists that games be easy to install, support widescreen displays and include parental controls.

It all sounds promising. The one thing I was most impressed with on Xbox 360 is the whole integration and lack of configuration for games, if they can bring that to Windows Vista then a lot of people will be very happy.

Some ideas:
You can see how they could potentially take the experience index benchmarking framework and develop that into something that can adjust games visual quality, automatic updating and applying of patching without user intervention, matchmaking and the community features could all be very useful and add value to PC gaming. Even some sort of integrated anti piracy tool developed for Microsoft that doesn't rootkit your machine which would be less painful to consumers would also be an improvement over the current situation.

#games

The following sites might prove useful if you suffer from a games addiction:

• http://www.find-games.co.uk   price comparison for games
• http://www.cex.co.uk – high street swap shop but great secondhand prices

#games