I play piano, mostly classical, but I can occasionally do other stuff.  I'm really good at memorizing but not so great at sight-reading or improvising.

Also electric guitar, though I'm not the best.

Okay on drums.

I think most of us have played Super Mario Bros. but reading auntie pixelante's breakdown of the first stage revealed a lot of things I had never even considered in the... 17 years that it's been burned into my memory.

Would you (or anyone else for that matter) happen to know where i can find this?

I still am hoping Explat catches on... 

Some people just simply know if they like there own work whilst others seem to be so fanatic they think everything they produce is great. Luckily most of us have common sense and can judge our work to a high degree of being critical and take constructive criticism from others to build upon minor areas we may of missed some attention on.

Do any of these books go in to intelligent game design and give away what some could class as "Secrets"? For example. I hear the random factor of awards with loot in games such as WoW (World of Warcraft) is the same as gambling on  a slot machine and even such behaviour can be measured in mouse pushing a button that randomly gives food (some bad & some good).

Do these books hold any of the more deeper and perhaps darker secrets of addiction to games within them concerning the Psyche. Or do they just state the effort v reward effect and re-go over how basic games work?

I'd love feedback on how each book approaches the subject of game design. (as I can see some being a boring read of common sense for those who know what they like in games by attestation of what keeps them playing the games they do - by themselves dissecting what hits the pleasure button)

we all know flashy things to collect and score [+1500 etc] bubbles along with audio cues ["great Job"] have an addictive quality to them for arcade style games.

Do some of these books go deeper in to things inteligent peeps would not of thought about?

The way I see it, there are two main problems with what you're saying.  The first thing is that when you talk about people who like their own game and people who are fanatical about their own game, how do you know which one you are?

The second thing is there is a difference between an addictive game and a fun game.  When using simple reward strategies, you risk making the player feel manipulated.  So a little learning can be a dangerous thing, but if you read you can learn about what you didn't know you didn't know.

Trudging forward with both

and

!

@Draknek My pleasure!  I intend to do more of your games as soon as I make some more headway through this backlog of requests I have...

I finally made some good headway in

.

Also, PixelProspector (==AuthenticKaizen?) requested I do some videos of Remar's

, so I did!  I mean I started to!

I'm still working on HachQue's

but I also bothered to do a quick little video of increpare's

!

I've heard the common mechanic of metroidvanias referred to as "gating", so "gater" could be another possibility.

I at a Vietnamese sandwich, but not the standard kind; it had tofu in it.

I submit a firm second to Whack on the Side of the Head.  It's a really easy read and succinctly describes those methods one knows one is using when one is coming up with new ideas.

People seem to have a lot of qualms about the term "metroidvania" and exploration platformer takes too long to say.  How about just "explat"?

There are these guys that sit in a van and give people rides or something?  Sounds okay doesn't it?  But, they're near an intersection on my way to school, and the only way they can let pedestrians know is by blasting their eardrum-pulverizing horn every two seconds.     

I've sat down almost every night for weeks now, promising I'll get started coding my game again after a long hiatus. My life has changed a lot since I was last actively coding indie stuff, and I don't know what's changed in my motivations, but I just cannot bring myself to fire up the compiler and keep going.

I don't know what I need. I don't think a hug will fix it, but perhaps it's a start?

Sometimes inertia helps.  Tell yourself you just wanna write one line of code.  By the time you're done with that, you've at least done something, and you might be more inclined to do more!

Not being sick anymore!

Here is a song for the mouse platformer I want to make one of these days... Near the end it gets pretty WIP, but the beginning is pretty much finalized.

Sounds nice.  Reminds me somewhat of

by Debussy. 

I'm probably gonna split my LB time between videos for people on here (which seems to keep growing steadily) and other games that I want to play but are not suggested here. 

Probably becomes actually with

.

And I'm still continuing with Hach-Que's

, although I've come to a place where I seem to be stuck on a level.  In the next video I might come back to it, but I just seem to be missing something on it...

Hach-Que had the serendipity to find me on IRC and got me to start on his latest game,

!

Also made a quickie vid of Draknek's

!

!

His favorite color is green.

has been successfully completed, in only 4900 attempts.

Also,

has been unsuccessfully completed, if you get my meaning.

!

Jasper and man of doom: indeed.