Scrabble Bingo of the Day: BURKITE
BURKITE n pl. -S a burker 63 points (13 points without the bingo)
BURKITE n pl. -S a burker 63 points (13 points without the bingo)
This week's review roundup is a diverse lot. They really only have two things in common—their indie origins and puzzle elements. Otherwise, they come from France, Spain and the U.S., a few from unknown designers and one by the guy who inspired Minecraft.
The Netherlands are a hotbed of indie game development, which seems appropriate for such a brilliant and eccentric little nation. Two man Dutch indie developer Vlambeer have found themselves in the news more often than most companies of their size, thanks to two great games and a third on the way.
If you’re unfamiliar with League of Legends, you’re either not into PC gaming or you haven’t spent much time on the internet. Riot Games officially released League almost two years ago, and since then it’s become a huge hit. In fact, the Santa Monica based company recently announced that the DOTA inspired game has 15 million registered users, 4 million unique logins each month, and 500,000 people playing the game at any given moment.
Gone are the days when you had to carry a clunky DynaTAC to make phone calls, pocket phone book for you contact list, Sony Discman for your tunes, and wallet for you cash and credit cards. Today, all you need is your smartphone. To be specific, Google's Nexus S 4G on Sprint.
Four years ago Mind Candy was a pretty small game company. They were best known for their revolutionary but short lived ARG Perplex City, and had no other successful franchises to fall back on when that ended. Their plan to save it? Start a free online social game for children ages 7-12 called Moshi Monsters, where kids can create monster pets, raise them, and socialize with one another in a controlled, safe environment.
It's been a busy week here at Indie Games Ichiban, between attending PAX and breaking news stories about Stabyourself and Playdead Studios, that there's been relatively little time for some honest, good old-fashioned game playing. But time was made and here are two excellent indie games of varying age and platform with two very different themes.
There are a lot of fantastic video games out there. Indie Games Ichiban's bread and butter is making sure that you steer clear of the bad ones and embrace the good. But really, the biggest goal here is to help everyone have more fun. To that end, today a game is not recommended, but an event. If you like games—not just video games—but tabletop, board and even hopscotch, then PAX Prime is one of the best events you could possibly go to.
Every year at the big video game trade shows around the world, like E3 and gamescon, the big three console makers each do a hot-ticket exclusive press conference to let the media know what's coming for their system. Computer games have no such press conference. Who would give it if they did?
It's a hell of a lot easier to make money selling an indie game now than it was four years ago. But it's still a rough game.
Stewart Butterfileld is one of the last great old-fashioned tech billionaires. He founded Flickr, and then sold the company to Yahoo! for a stupendous amount of money in 2005. Like Mark Cuban and others before him, he was left wondering what to do with the rest of his long and fabulously wealthy life. Cuban bought the Dallas Mavericks and turned them from unabashed losers into beloved champions. Butterfield decided to try his hand at game design (something he had attempted with the ambitious ...
Steam has been a game-changer in the PC indie game market over the last eight years, making smaller games available to millions of users at lower prices than ever before. And few times in those eight years have there been as much indie awesomeness on sale for as little money as this weekend.
Advancements in technology usually lead to the miniaturization of old technologies, and video games are no exception. Since at least 1990, game hardware manufacturers and enterprising DIY electronics enthusiasts have poured their efforts into making full-size video game consoles smaller, even handheld. And for good reason—who would have ever played a black and white Game Boy if they could have had an actual NES in their pocket?
Image via Tiger Mom Says.
Minecraft is the most basic and barren open sandbox building game. There are a limited number of materials and recipes to craft. But with these few building blocks, people have been able to creatively build some amazing structures and cities. There is a physical limitation, but the beauty of the game is turning that limitation into a strength.
The aging and maturity of video games as a medium has lead to some unfortunate consequences. One of these, perhaps drawn from the film industry, is the spate of remakes that has overtaken the game market over the last few years. It hasn't been as bad as the remakeorama trend in cinema, but developers have recognized the value in releasing the same thing they already made and making more money off it. Below, a roundup of some remakes of classic games released for XBLA recently, some fantastic,...
Solar Shades Looks like it's going to be another hot summer and this time of year, I always get questions about the best kind of Shades for the home! I may be a little bias in my opinion because I'm going through a more minimalist "less is more" style in my life right now. Taking the more modern design approach that is very popular right now, I wanted to talk a little about Solar Shades for the home.
There are a few different types of Apple iPhone and iPad users: general household users who largely consume media—e.g. surfing the web, watching movies, listening to music. Other iPhone and iPad owners use their device(s) to produce stuff—written documents, edited movies, blog posts, music tracks, and the like. And then there are those who are very mobile with their devices. They commute to and from work on a regular basis with their iPhone or iPad. Some users may travel a lot on business, or...
Fads, Fiascoes and Good Stuff in FrontierVille This Week The second in a series of weekly columns.
Little Ethiopia is the place to get ahold of authentic African cuisine. African food mainly consists of spices and fresh ingredients. Ethiopia is a country in Africa that demonstrates the use of spice in its cuisine. The Ethiopian cuisine follows the Islamic rules, the religion Ethiopians are accustomed to, and its old custom, which is the caressing of the earth. The Ethiopian Islamics prohibit the eating of pork so their meat choices are limited. The Ethiopians are specialist whenit comes to...
In my earlier post about long-term strategies I promised I’d ask some of my neighbors who do what I call factory chicken farming (Let 1000 Chickens Bloom) if the coyotes that have shown up will change the way they play the game. The one guy who replied in any detail said that he wasn’t sure what he was going to do yet, but he thought that he was losing 50 chickens each time he harvested them pressing “Collect Bonus” using a coop.
Are you prone to crusades of the overambitious? Well, here's one for you: try to find and identify every animal on earth. You may think scientists have a handle on this, having pinned down 1.4 million animal species so far, but there are millions more are out there, waiting to be found. Brazilian scientists have put the cost of finding the rest at a decisive $263 billion.
Want to know how to patent an idea, but you just don't know how to go about doing it? It doesn't take a lot of money to get a provisional patent. The real thing you want to know is the process of taking an idea that you have all the way up to getting it patent. I will take you through each step from the beginning when you have that great idea all the way to getting your invention marketed.You Need an Idea (Obviously)Your idea doesn't have to be earth changing. It just needs to be something pe...
Before last Sunday I hadn't been to a proper game store since I was in middle school. Over ten years ago. If you decide to stop reading right now because I obviously don't care enough about MTG to be writing this thing, I don't blame you. But I tell you, friends, as someone who has denied the utter awesomeness of their hobby for too long, that going to Emerald Knights in Burbank made me feel at home. I want to tell you about it and explain why I will be back many times in the future.
Choosing the right axe for you There are many choices and factors when it comes to buying a new electric guitar. Price, style, quality and comfort are major players.
One of the common mistakes I see a lot of candidates make when they go to an interview is that they think it is a question and answer session. They approach the interview with a mindset that their role is to be prepared to answer a bevy of questions thrown at them. This puts you in a passive role, playing defense. A much more effective approach is to go into the interview with the mindset that you are a salesperson, and the product you are selling is you. You want to convince the employer tha...
When I heard that a man wearing a pink wig and matching PVC dress won the 2010 National Scrabble Championship yesterday, I wasn't that shocked. After all, it was Halloween. But it turns out that it wasn't just a Halloween costume. In fact, it's a way of life for this champion scrabbler.
There is an abstinence game being created by the University of Central Florida with $400k+ of taxpayer money. The game is directed at middle school girls to help them handle and cope with sexual advances.
What is the best way to level up? My answer to you is all about the calves! They're all over the feed, free to collect, and usually easy to get as there are 10 per post available. I've been collecting calves for a a long time now, because they have the best coin collect rate per day, but tonight I did some more math that proves their awesomeness!
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." -Leonardo da VinciLearning a kata requires that you go through several stages. First you have to learn the basic pattern and the techniques. Then you have to perfect what you've learned. Then you have to deconstruct what you've learned and perfected in order to truly understand what the kata is teaching you vis a vis close quarter engagement.
I still have hope that this will be a good World Cup... This article aggregates a lot of things that have been said about the World Cup experience this year (South Africa's infrastructure, low scoring games, uninteresting first round match-ups, etc). I've noticed in a few broadcasts that upper seating areas are not filled to capacity and maybe the vuvuzelas make up for this. I think this will change once the Knock-out stages begin, but Nick Webster has a point:
Last week I talked about the video / image side of things, and as promised here is the audio side. Sound is integral to all studio productions, but for most student and low budget production, it's the last thing filmmakers seem to think about, and one of the most noticeable problems with low budget stuff. Sound IS half the experience, and yet it is usually all but forgotten come production.
People smile in this movie. This is a genius breakthrough Another day, another remake. Another safe choice during apparently rocky times - this wintry economic climate, don't you know - and we're off and watching Joe Carnahan's big-screen version of the A-Team. In 2010.
Review: Marmaduke I liked the part where the fake dogs danced.
Tip If some of your friends did not get the email, find one of the 5-15 people you selected who did, ask them for the link and fix it using the steps below then share it on your feed so it can get clicked by anyone!
...a FarmVille addict, that is. Poor Kira is just one of many who pours way too much time and money into their virtual Facebook homesteads. Zynga’s FarmVille is the most popular of the many Facebook web games. In fact, it attracts more than 75 million players monthly.
A November release week in May It used to be that games marked to be blockbusters (expected to sell more than a million in their first month) would always be released during the holiday September to December season. November was always the month companies chose to release their best game. This release model worked fine until the last few years, when too many games were being released in November and companies started to see diminishing returns on their titles because of the release rush.
Take some tips from the masters themselves. Kotaku interviews game developer Zynga, "who has generously offered to help, by sharing FarmVille strategy tips on how to make the most of your land, your crops, and your livestock".
If you've checked out my SCRABBLE World, you may have read "How Controversy Changed SCRABBLE". In that case, you know that the word JEW is not allowed in regular play, because it was deemed an offensive and obscene word.
If you've read my blog "How Controversy Changed SCRABBLE", then you know that the word JEW is not allowed in regular play, because it was deemed an offensive and obscene word.