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Harley Quinn's Revenge Is Batman: Arkham City's Bad New Ending Gamasutra has a lengthy (10 page) but interesting interview up with Tarn Adams, the programmer behind Dwarf Fortress. The interview touches on a lot of issues: the history of Dwarf Fortress and how it came to be, game mechanics, the follow that’s sprung up in the game’s wake …
What’s left to answer is why’d we be so into doing a fantasy game. That’s probably the same as everybody else: Tolkien, D&D, myths, and of course, the movie Beastmaster. (We like the part where the evil priest is like, “You’ll be sacrificed to ‘The God of AAaa,’” like they didn’t even bother thinking of a name, just powering through on the power of their badarsedness.) But there were all kinds of things like that. In the movies, books, the arcade, PC, consoles, we were surrounded by that sort of thing.
It’s an interesting, if lengthy, interview and worth a read through. The community that’s sprung up around the game is almost as interesting as the game itself, especially the bits and pieces that have become popular outside the Dwarf Fortress community.
The Making Of Dwarf Fortress [Gamasutra]
My dogs have expressed little interest in my lamentations on the subject of HD DVD and my brother even less. While I don’t realistically expect more from this audience, the allure of large numbers compels me to share these final thoughts on the demise of HD DVD.
I’ll start with the admission that I am one of the early a-duh-pters that has the HD DVD add-on for the XBOX 360. That doesn’t make me a MS fanboi, I would instead describe myself as an evil-company-hateboi. And if you want proof that I’m not in MS’ camp just talk to me someday about Vista and its wonderful support of earlier versions of Office.
On a topic that is close to my heart, another educator is bemoaning what he sees as the ubiquity of violence in video games.
“There is a tremendous lack of imagination on the part of the games industry…”
For those that may not remember, my organisation is sponsoring a video game contest in which the goal is to create a video game with a theme of Teen Dating Violence without actually using violence in the game itself. Obviously many games have absolutely no violence whatsoever but there are nonetheless some interesting points to be found in the original article.
Crazy Woody the mercenary shills for Army of Two [Montreal Gazette via GamePolitics.com]
Back in December, I mentioned a little game called Passage. Well, Jonathan Blow clued me in to the fact that Jason Rohrer is back with yet another weird, artistic little game, this one called Gravitation:
I’m not going to provide an in-depth explanation for Gravitation. I’m hoping that most people will understand it as it stands. However, it involves more complex game mechanics than Passage, and it is trying to express something much more subtle …. The mechanics themselves are relatively simple, but the emergent behavior harbors a lot of texture. Know that there are no “accidents” in this game design. Everything you notice about the game, and every subtle interaction that you experience, is intentionally packed with meaning. Gravitation explores how a particular corner of my life feels, as only a game can.
It’s definitely worth a quick play through; Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux versions are available.
Check out the trailer to the upcoming game. Complete with mock-serious voiceover guy, a tight-rope waddling Penguin and Vicki Vale. Actually I have no idea if Vicki Vale is in it – those LEGOs all look the same to me – but couldn’t pass on her very lovely image.
Hit the jump & check it out.
I admit it, I don’t get how they select English titles for these things and/or why they don’t just use 三國演義 instead of 三國志, but be that as it may: yesterday marked the Japanese launch of KOEI’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms Online. It’s the first product produced by their Singapore branch, and it is (shockingly enough) an MMORPG set in Han Dynasty China. For now, it’s a Japan-only release, to be followed by ‘ localized launches in select territories around the world.’ Full release after the jump.
Hello, one and all. It has been a wild ride working here on Kotaku as Weekend Editor for the last year and a half, but that ride has finally come to an end. A year and a half of working seven days a week with basically no time to call my own has finally taken its toll on me. But fear not, I’m not leaving completely. I will be stepping into a new role as Kotaku’s San Francisco correspondent, contributing to the front page on weekdays and continuing the work I started with Arcade Flyer Art Saturday. As for weekends, Maggie will still be here to take care of you and I’m sure whoever steps in to replace me will do a bang up job. So, a big thanks to all of you who have followed me over my time here and I look forward to seeing you during the week. And now I am going to go enjoy a true weekend off. I’m going to read and get in some much needed gaming time. Hell, I might even take a nap. Sayanora, schweethearts!
