Yesterday, Mojang announced their next video game project 0x10c, and the response has been tremendous. Discussions have covered everything from the math mystery over the game's name, to creating projects that interpret the assembly instruction code the in-game computers use (more on that later), to the debate over why a monthly fee would be required to play online in the "multiverse". To answer that last one, Mojang wants to run everyone's virtual computers in their cloud, even if the user is...
Lost the product key for your game? If you have to reinstall the game and don't have that key anymore, you're out of luck, especially if you didn't "buy" the game. But never be in fear of losing product keys again with today's Null Byte, where we'll be practicing a little bit of mind-kung fu.
Skyrim is a time consuming game. I know I'm not alone in saying I constantly find myself looking for more time in the day. There is never enough time to read the books I want to read, or learn what I want to learn, or play the games that I want to play.
Skyrim really took the cake this year. With its awe-inspiring gameplay, much improved combat and leveling system, and a fresh new look, it's no wonder the game has already received a Game of the Year award. But for hardcore gamers, the fun may be over. You've played the game for thousands of hours, and have exhausted the entire game's main and auxiliary quests. You need more.
After the most troubled development in gaming history, Duke is back. And it's...certainly a game that's been in development for fourteen years. Quality aside, there's still some good achievements in the game. In the latest DLC for the game, "The Doctor Who Cloned Me", released this past week. Along with new multiplayer maps, the DLC brought with it a brand new singleplayer campaign. Which means more achievements!
Gamers like myself who have switched back and forth between Skyrim on PC and Xbox lack the ability to share game saves. This really sucks. I love playing Skyrim on a console. It's a very comfortable, easy and relaxed gaming experience. You don't have to worry about your frame rate being optimized, or wrist pains from using a keyboard. However, gaming on the PC can allow you to use texture enhancing mods and get an overall smoother experience due to a lack in glitches and bugs that plague the ...
What's your highest scoring game of Scrabble? Since starting this Scrabble World, I've been able to break 500 points on a regular basis. This year I've even managed to break the 600-point barrier a couple times. If you ask me, that's a pretty hefty sum to score in one game, but I'm not on par with the professionals yet.
Another great Community Byte in the bag! This week was really cool, especially with programming going on twice a week. We transitioned to the new times very smoothly with no one left behind, from what I can tell.
Look, Batman: Arkham City is a wonderful game. I mean, you really feel like Batman when you play it, and that alone makes it the best superhero game I've ever played. But you're not here for my rambling thoughts on video games! Let's talk achievements.
Time Magazine has mentioned Minecraft as the number one game of 2011. About this time every year Time releases the top best and worst lists of the year and Minecraft made the top of the gaming list.
What happens when you combine Super Mario Land with Minecraft? Maybe some awesome pixel art, but how about if you go a step further? What if you add the computer game within a computer game idea and throw in a little stop motion?
Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play on our free server. Sometimes it's easy to get overwhelmed with the sheer scale or complexity of a build or group project on your favorite server. Too much stress from any creative endeavour can lead to mistakes, discouragement, or fighting among a community. What better way to relieve stress and entertain the troops than some old fashioned competition?
There are tons of mobile apps out there for the gaming logophile, but there's a new word building game taking over iPhones and iPads, and it not only wants you to have fun, it wants you to fight back in the "war against words". It's the Word Examination Laboratory for Dynamic Extraction and Reassessment. But you can just call it W.E.L.D.E.R. Since its release earlier this month, W.E.L.D.E.R. has developed quite a following with its addicting mesh of Bejeweled, Boggle and Scrabble gameplay. It...
Problem: You're a PC gamer who absolutely loves The Elder Scrolls series and were eagerly anticipating the release of the newest game, Skyrim. But as much as you'd like to pick up the new game, money is tight. What do you do?
Adventure gamers would love to know what was the first adventure game. Well, it was a 1970s computer game titled "Colossal Cave Adventure", also known as "Adventure". Designed by Will Crowther, the game was in FORTRAN and initially had 700 lines of code and data, which was later expanded to 3,000 lines of code and more than 1000 lines of data.
Dungeon Defenders is finally out on the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3. We've previously featured the tower defense RPG, and if you haven't had a chance to check out the PAX interview with Trendy Entertainment, now would be a good time.
The Mark of the Assassin DLC for Dragon Age 2 has opened the door to even more achievements in the popular series by Bioware. In this Achievement Hunter segment, the hunters show you how to unlock both the "Chasing the Game" achievement, as well as "The Take" in the Xbox 360 version of the game.
Last weekend the 2011 World Scrabble Championship was held at the Hilton Hotel in Warsaw, Poland. There were 106 players competing from 44 countries for the $20,000 first place prize and title of World Scrabble Champion.
Anyone who likes shooters is going to hate me for saying this: the best game of the 2000's for me was Psychonauts by Double Fine Studios. It came out in 2005 for the original Xbox, achieving critical acclaim, but never selling very well due to its sheer kookiness and poor marketing. Over the ensuing years it has become a cult classic, with downloadable re-releases on Xbox 360 (sadly no longer available). PC has allowed gamers who missed out on the original to bask in its ageless glory.
PC Gamer represents all that was awesome about games journalism in the '90s, now sadly diminished. Brilliant, funny, full of integrity, and solid print sales were always present, and with the tragic exception of the latter, still are. Video game magazines were hit harder than nearly any other magazine vertical when the internet began its uncoordinated, but inevitable assault on print media. Magazines are now struggling to find their place in a world filled with more competitors than paying cu...
The end game is a very important aspect of playing Scrabble. If you have just a few letters left on your rack and there are none left in the draw bag, but you're currently losing the game, you still might have a chance to win if you play your cards (er… tiles) right. No matter if you're playing a casual game at home with a friend or competing against diehards in club or tournament games, the scoring process at the end provides the same results.
The Humble Indie Bundle has become like an unpredictable little gamer Christmas. It helps indie developers get their games exposure, helps gamers get cheap DRM-free games via the most user-friendly online purchasing process ever, and helps the world at large by raising money for Child's Play and EFF.
We've covered Glitch before, the oddball indie social MMO involving the minds behind Flickr, Katamari Damacy, and Game Neverending. Yesterday, the game officially left Beta and entered general release. Anyone can create an account and start playing for free, although there are freemium elements in the form of real money purchasable clothing items.
On October 7th, the IndieCade Conference will open its doors to some of the most innovative minds in the independent gaming industry. The three day event located in Culver City, California includes presentations by notable indie designers, workshops, galleries, and mixers. On the following day, however, the IndieCade Festival begins. Unlike the conference, the festival includes events targeted at gamers and the general public. While a $15 wristband will grant you access to keynotes, events, a...
Most kids who play video games will never become professional gamers. Those that do are part of a very select group— it's like being a professional actor or athlete. It's nice work if you can get it. For everyone else, the sad realization usually arrives sooner or later that time spent playing games might not have the practical rewards that homework or working hard at your job might deliver.
For more than a decade, Interplay was arguably the best video game publisher in America. Their list of games is a who's-who of the most creative and forward thinking games of the '90s, including everything fromOut of This World to Alone in the Dark to Earthworm Jim to Descent. They've been around since 1983, but have fallen on hard times since 1997, when they became a public company. They were acquired by a French publisher who then went bankrupt. They were forced to close their internal deve...
Games have been getting shorter in length over the last decade. RPGs like The Elder Scrolls series are still tremendously long, but most single-player game experiences have gotten shorter as production values, costs, and manpower requirements to create them have gone up. It seems that elite Japanese developers Level-5 and Brownie Brown have decided to completely disregard that trend for their forthcoming collaborative effort Professor Layton and the Last Specter, which will feature what might...
When you don't have anyone to play with in the flesh, nothing beats a round of competitive online Scrabble. If you're constantly on the move, the Scrabble app developed by Electronic Arts (EA) for Android and iOS mobile devices is probably your favorite way to play. But let's face it—if you love Scrabble, you probably love all types of word games, and if you're on the hunt for that next fun and challenging logological mobile game, I've got a few suggestions for you...
For this week's review round-up, we bring you two games from opposite sides of the indie world. One is a free online hybrid shooter/platformer combining elements of Team Fortress 2 and Minecraft. The other involves driving jeeps around and shooting things as fast as possible. Both are great.
Since Angry Birds is apparently an "indie game", here's an interesting tidbit. Changsa, China's Window of the World theme park recently added an especially zeitgeisty activity to their collection of diverse attractions: a real-life Angry Birds game, which allows participants to catapult Angry Bird "balls" at targets using an actual slingshot.
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.
He may be the oldest person to have invented an app for Apple devices, but 84-year-old George Weiss didn't originally intend on marketing his Dabble word game to the mobile crowd. He first came up Dabble back in 1958 when he was just 31. “A lot has changed since 1958, but people still love a good game,” said Weiss on his introduction into the iTunes App Store last month.
We love you. Yes, you, esteemed reader. Your attention is what keeps Indie Games Ichiban World going, and we'd like to thank you for that, every single week. How? With $10!
Dead Island is known for having the most successful trailer of any game ever. It was a beautiful cinematic experience. But sadly, as details of the game itself emerged, and after it was shown at conventions around the world, doubt began to set in about whether this five-year-long project would live up to the hype.
It's been five long years since Dead Island was first revealed to the public, but today the zombie game finally saw the light of day with its release on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. When the first teaser trailer came out from developer Techland, Dead Island looked nothing more than a cheap Resident Evil ripoff—on an island.
Big news from the world of game development engines. For several years, Unity3D has been the free 3D game development engine of choice for aspiring and indie game designers around the world. While it isn't as powerful as Unreal Engine 3 or CryEngine, it's free and much easier to use. Now, according to an announcement made by Unity yesterday, Unity 3D is about to unleash a huge weapon that neither of those other engines can claim: Flash compatibility.
Studio Ghibli is the most well known anime feature film studio in the world. For over 26 years, their films have represented the peak of mainstream anime, and since Disney began distributing their films in America back in 1997, they've become a household name here in the States—not just in Japan. In 2001, they even bested Disney and Pixar, taking home a Best Animated Feature Film Academy Award for Spirited Away. Eight years later, Ghibli and Fukuoka-based developer Level-5 announced that they...
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.
Danish developer Playdead has made only one game, a little indie, side-scrolling, puzzle platformer called Limbo. It just happens to be far and away the best video game of that prominent genre (and perhaps the best indie game period) on the Xbox 360, and quite possibly for PlayStation 3 and PC, too. Critical and financial success has followed in droves, and today... Playdead has taken advantage of that success and indie-fied themselves even further by purchasing back the portion of the compan...
The small size of most indie game development teams is a strength, but also a weakness. It allows them to take risks and explore revolutionary ideas that a larger company could never justify to its shareholders, but also means they must navigate the game development labyrinth with minimal help, taking much longer than those with big development teams. Some of the most exciting indie games currently in development have been so for years, or look like they will be.
