asquared games

I spent most of my gaming time this weekend playing L’Abbaye des Morts, the latest game from Locomalito. The setting is 13th century France when the Cathars were being forced out of the Church. The player takes on the role of Jean Raymond who seeks refuge in an old abandoned church with something sinister deep inside. The music and the art are spot on for the mood and story of the game. The gameplay and controls feel great as well. Hopefully I will finish making my way through this soon.

I’m finally starting Terranigma which I have really been looking forward to doing due to the fact that Secret of Mana is one my favorite games. I’m really happy to have a game like this to play from my favorite era of console gaming.

Started playing this last night and it was awesome to be fighting the hordes again. I didn’t figure out many weapon combos yet but I will be trying everything under the sun when I get another chance to play. So far I like the story and this time it’s a little easier for me to relate to the situation than it was with Frank. I think the Dead Rising franchise is my favorite thing Capcom has done this generation of gaming.

One more of our illustrious asquared elite has joined the rank and file of Cartoon Network recently. Zecmo has gone on to join the Fusion Fall team to help with user interaction and gameplay. Just because most of the team is working for the man now we are still working on Sleep and looking at some proposed projects we will fill you in on when we settle on them.

Here’s a short interview that transpired this morning:
wolf: is there anything i cant say about your new position or current project on the blog?
zecmo: not that i know of
fusion fall info is cool
working on version 2.0
unity 3d, c#
wolf: and your feelings about your new job in 3 words?
zecmo: super turbo perfundo

Congratulations Zecmo.

Last night I finally finished a book that has taken me way to long to complete. The Sirens of Titan is the latest Vonnegut I have read and whenever I’m done reading I want to pick up another one of his books right away. Instead I’m going to pick finish another book I started, TNT.

So far it has been a fun, pulpy, violent and dirty book that is unique among the things I’ve read so far.

I scanned the Wikipedia entry myself and learned a couple of interesting facts. Apparently, Vonnegut sold the rights for The Sirens of Titan to Jerry Garcia to make a movie out of, which I’m not the biggest fan of Jerry’s but I’m disappointed we’ll never get to see it. Also, very relevant to my interests in particular, Shigesato Itoi says that The Sirens of Titan was one of his inspirations for my favorite game OF ALL TIME AND FOREVER, Earthbound.

So I’ve had a chance to play Solipskier this weekend and it does so much right that it keeps me playing.  One of my favorite things about the design is how the gates that you have to guide the avatar through work. When the avatar is on screen the gates function as a point boost for going through them or a speed loss for missing them. When the avatar is flying through the air, above the visible stage the gates act as score multipliers for each one the avatar flies over. Another thing I really like is getting the avatar to jump through the gates by making little ramps for him. There’s something very enjoyable about feeling it creates.

I checked out the developers website and realized that they are the same guys doing 4fourths. Very awesome.

So we are making our final push to get some more content into our pre-alpha Sleep demo before the IndieCade 2010 submission deadline is up on June 1st. The good thing is that the code base Zecmo has put into place is making adding new features in a much more timely process. We should have a new site for Sleep up soon with a download link so anyone can try out the demo.

Can we just call games craft instead of art and call it a day?