Only had a few short mins to try this. Holy crap, impressive! Very nice execution of theme and level design!

But damn... why is all the ground covered in super slick invisible butter?

Quick fix: Make her freeze on the spot when she swings during combat...

This is the game that was called Icarian before Nintendo saw it?

Looking at the videos, the only thing that comes to mind is: Wow, Lost Winds seems to have generated a whole new genre, with this and Trine being released.

I was just thinking that, man, the normal levels don't ramp up the difficulty much, do they... and then I tried one of the bounties. Damn!

The quality of this game couldn't be any higher. Everything is pixel perfect, everything adds to the atmosphere even the menus, and the gameplay is unique.

The first time I saw the hand shakes it had me laughing, but I have to admit that even though the game is very interesting, I'm not craving to get back to it. A level now and then is fine, but once I've solved a level I feel no rush to move to the next one. Perhaps it's an effect of the lack of urgency and polite tone of the main characters, I don't know.

Are you supposed to whack away at every rock you come across?

If so, I would optimize that bit slightly, because for each whack, the rock not only moves, forcing you to reposition the cursor, but the target area also becomes smaller and smaller and easier to miss.

The procedure is very annoying to the point of where it breaks the otherwise great atmosphere of the game.

I must admit that I find the 3D versions of the Ghibli animation to be simply amazing.

This makes me wish I had a PS3 so I could experience it.

Another good omen would be to have a big red eye appear on the moon and look around.

That is creepy. Way creepy.

I just might end up doing it. :D

A big, red eye in the moon would make me laugh, I think. The moon shifting to a slight sickening hue would make me worry, though. Torches acting up, as mentioned, would probably be the most effective, no question about it. I would go apeshit.

Might have some people, like I am now for example, try to lit caves by lava streams alone however.

So... it's a cliché... but some whispy, misty cloud textures floating around near ground? Could make them glow in a sickly way as well perhaps... or maybe we're getting to close to the red eye in the moon now?

Turning all burning light sources (including lava) to ghostly pale green...? Aaaah, I'm gonna stop now.

It could be a problem similar to the chicken & the egg problem, but I would like to define this as the answer:

Who had the idea for the product?

If the artist had the idea, and made the design AND is selling himself as the brand, then he should get most of the profits.

If the programmer had the idea, made the design and is selling himself as the brand, then he should get most of the profits.

The guy in the article seems to be in the second category.

Unfortunately, he seems to suffer from coming off as a huge asshole (even bigger than I've ever managed, I think).

Part of the reason he seems like such a huge asshole, I think is that he seems to be living full time off this, and in the cut-throat flash games market.

Again, here you can choose to go two ways: Make as much noise as possible to get a quick and busy rise to the top, or bide your time and move slowly and carefully doing the things you believe in.

I'm in the second camp here, as I believe the first option is both too much work, and too high risk of a big fall. I don't mind if I reach my peak in my fifties or sixties, because at least I can look back and be comfortable in that I've been true to myself each step of the way and now also have the added benefit of experience.

Oh, I should also add, that I'm an artist/designer.

EDIT: Oh, and I think he forgot a recent social development which this thread is a good example of... namely that word gets around on the internet, and the value (even in a stric capitalistic sense) of being true and honest is more important today than I think it has been in a very long time.

Holy shit, a Minecraft & Metroid combo for a forum comp? Beyond amazing.

The atmosphere in the game is great as well, with a lot of attention to detail it seems.

Didn't get the zombie house mod at all, though... zombies ran like 100mph in it, and when I got to the house, I got repeatedly greeted by a "you made i back" screen every time I stepped into it. I mean, I never even made it off the screen in the first place, so that's a bug, I think...

EDIT: Forgot to ask... what was this game made with?

EDIT: Oh, and is this the speed at which the game is supposed to run?





My character runs twice as fast, I think, including jumps and loading times... I play on the latest Macbook Pro which should be slower than most desktop computers (8gb of ram and 64-bit Windows 7, though).

See, I've got the opposite problem. I just started playing and I haven't spoiled most of the game for myself (yet), (I still don't know if there's permadeath or not) so survival mode is a constant struggle of living in fear. 

I've fenced myself into the side of a cliff and panic at every noise. Are two block tall walls high enough to protect me from the outside? Crap, I'd better add another layer. I tunnel deeper and deeper into the side of the mountain, harvesting enough flint to line many walls with torches. Occasionally there's a loud clanging sound or spooky noise and I freak out. How did something get in? Did it spawn within my hand-carved labyrinth? Did it jump over the fence? I knew I should have built that thing four blocks high. Even with the knowledge it's probably ambient noise, it's still unsettling.

I cautiously creep out of my fortress in the afternoon and scurry around looking for traces of iron (which I still haven't found). Every few moments I whirl around, sure that a creeper is sneaking up on me. When darkness starts to fall, I sprint back to my cave, sure that an evil fate will befall me at any moment.

Once, after returning from a long day of hunting trees, I realized in horror that I had forgotten to block up the entrance in my wall. I quickly pulled out my sword and carefully searched every square foot of my diggings for any unfriendly creatures which might have entered in my absence. Nothing. The sword has since slain a pig, but nothing else.

Haha, this is gold, and I know how you feel.

I said I wouldn't buy it until beta, but then I did. Played for two days now. Last night I saw minecraft before my eyes even though they were closed. I have to stop playing now. 

EDIT: I have to say that the 100% in-program auto updater is extremely impressive.

Holy shit.

I also found it strange that the ladies seem to get knocked out if you just put them down, and then start running around crying.

Now, how about someone doing a Mac version with the source???

Game Maker is apparently out for Mac. Anyone have time to put together an OS X version?

http://glog.yoyogames.com/?p=821

Love the goblin sprite.

Hahaha, look at the feature list:

http://www.xenonauts.com/index.php

Right now, from a PR standpoint, the official X-com game just got "owned", as they say...

(and to think that the geoscape wasn't even planned from the beginning... it was Microprose who asked Gollop to put it in).

Really? So it was just a campaign of squad missions with no base building and stuff?

Yes, just like Laser Squad and Rebelstar before it... and just like the two games Gollop did after... Laser Squad Nemesis and Rebelstar Tactical Command... 

The whole story can be read in Edge magazine, and I bet they have the article online in their archives as well.

EDIT: They do.

* Needs Geoscape.
* Needs randomly generated levels.
* Needs totally destructible environment.
* Needs electro flares.
* Needs flying heavy armor from the original game.
* Needs tactical control over AI units.
* Needs resource system that requires capturing without destroying.
* Needs base defense.

Those are unique core features of the original that still no other game to this date has replicated.

If it delivers that, then I can accept it as an FPS.

Otherwise, I'll wait ten more years...

I mean, there are alternatives if you want just the tactical combat from the original, like the Jagged Alliance series, LSN, Silent Storm, etc.

But the blend of the original, with randomization, building, economics, global playfield, etc. remains unique (and to think that the geoscape wasn't even planned from the beginning... it was Microprose who asked Gollop to put it in).

New version too smooth, imo.

Old version, more character.

I have very mixed feelings about this, because my experiences with Steam have been incredibly poor:

When Half Life 2 first came out, I was prevented from playing it for nearly two weeks, because my machine couldn't get a response from the Steam servers. That made me vow to never buy another Steam game again.

However, last week I didn't do my research properly, and bought Supreme Commander 2, and it forced me to install Steam. This time, Steam only prevented me from playing the game for three hours, while it downloaded a 2gb patch I didn't ask for and which I couldn't abort.

I then had some problems with Steam apparently "freezing" at the log in window, with the cancel button greyed out, so again I was locked out from my game. Luckily (sort of), I didn't find Supreme Commander 2 to be as good as I thought it would be (it's a far cry from Total Annihilation sadly, especially when it comes to base building options which they sort of improved in Supreme Commander 1, but seem to have removed entirely from this one), so again Steam is now gone from my computer.

So, to me, Steam is just as bad as the Ubi Soft DRM thing they're getting so much flack from. iTunes DRM is timid in comparison.

Impulse seem to work fine for me, though. It never forces me to log in/download patches unless I ask it to.

It seems to me that Valve is in the position of Apple: If you make cool enough products, you can get away with shit that others would be buried over.

Wow, simple changes make everything so much better.

Where does the images that flip between ridiculous huge hair, and normal hair come from?

I hope this last one with the non-inflated head is the "official" version.

EDIT: Damnit, looks like ridiculous huge hair is the official version... sigh.