Alternative Games

Last year’s Indigo Prophecy (from Atari) was a relatively successful title. It got great reviews from most reviewers, but it was, at best, a cult hit from the mainstream perspective. In fact, Indigo Prophecy was a very anti-game game: Interactivity was sacrificed at almost every turn in favor of metaphorical actions that felt […]

GamaSutra has posted an interview with representatives of Tose, a game development house that handles outsource work from larger companies, promises to never publish a game themselves, and generally accepts no credit for their ultra-secret portfolio. Tose has 1000 employees and nine development studios in Japan and China. So why haven’t you ever heard of them before? Says Koichi Sawada, director of China sales for Tose US: “Well we’re based in Kyoto, right? So we’re ninja. You can’t find us! But in the past 26 years we’ve worked on 1,100 games.” Read the full interview here. via slashdot

I remember several years ago, probably 1999 or 2000, I was wandering Kentia Hall at E3 and came across these wacky Koreans with what looked like oversized GBAs with antennas. Intrigued, I stopped to check them out, and they proceeded to show me the early prototype of what eventually became the GP32, a 32-bit […]

Ricardo Miranda Zuñiga is a very clever digital artist who seems immensely relavent right now because his work often deals with border issues. Zuñiga mines the Latino American experience and makes wonderfully confrontational and entertaining work.
Lately I’ve thought often about his piece Vagamundo: A Migrant’s Tale. Created back in 2002, Vagamundo was one […]

Working Designs made a name for themselves by bringing over some of the best overlooked titles released in Japan with an obvious reverence and affection that permeated every aspect of their releases. From their start importing titles for TurboGrafx 16, Working Designs built a reputation for clever dialogue localizations that were well-received and often […]

We’ve downloaded and are playing Super Columbine Massacre RPG, just to see for ourselves. There is a lot out there about this game already. Kotaku has an interesting interview with a Columbine survivor who has played the game and Water Cooler Games has their usual insightful take. Check out these pieces and download the game to see for yourself.

Darwinia, the totally trippy RTS-type thing, has won the 2006 Independent Games Festival at GDC. And right after that achievement, the game secured a retail box version as a part of the Cinemaware Marquee line. Download the Darwinia demo if you haven’t already (or get it on Steam).

Soviet Unterzögersdorf is a unique art game built in Adventure Game Studio, the popular shareware authoring system for point-and-click games in the classic mode of 1990s PC adventure titles: Think of classic LucasArts games like Full Throttle or Grim Fandango, except without the cutesy aesthetics. Soviet Unterzögersdorf is rendered in stark photography not at […]

I have an Orcish wife in Tamriel. Well, I call her my wife; I’m not sure what the common law marriage laws are like in Cyrodiil, and I can’t find anyone to marry us officially (yet). Her name is Mazoga, and she is my best friend.
She says so.
My name is Pendleton Barky (for the […]