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News: Famous Indie Game Makers Immortalized in 'The Indie Game Legend'

The indie game scene is constantly expanding, but in 2008, Minecraft, Braid and Angry Birds had not been released, along with all of the other indie games that established the financial viability of the format. Indie games were the all-but-exclusive purview of free Flash game sites and the proud users of TIGsource.com. The Independent Gaming Source is a massive forum for indie game developers to share their projects with like-minded individuals, while seeking help and approval of their games.

News: First MXC. Then Ninja Warrior. And Now… Retro Game Master!

Japanese game shows are legendary for being more extreme (and absurd) than their American counterparts. Chris Farley immortalized the concept in a classic SNL sketch, and MXC and Ninja Warrior have both achieved great success dubbed and subtitled on American television. A big part of their appeal is how demanding they are compared to U.S. game shows. Only a few people have actually won Ninja Warrior in its 23 seasons on the air, and MXC is a constant comedy of failure and pain.

News: Seize the Lightning! Carpe Fulgur Imports Japanese Indie Games to the U.S.

Carpe Fulgur translates to something along the lines of "Seize the Lightning" in Latin. Sometimes that is enacted with golf clubs by idiots. But the three intrepid indie video game localizers who work under that name are trying to do it the right way: metaphorically. They are translating and publishing Japanese games for the Americans market—games that have seldom been seen before because every other company thinks it's mad to release them here.

News: Cryptic Comet Wants You! to Start Reading Game Manuals Again

For a long time, video games manuals were serious business. Especially for strategy games and RPGs on the PC, the manuals would often run to a hundred or more full-color pages in length. They explained in vivid and well-written detail the history of the game world and every facet of the gameplay system. There were pages upon pages of appendices explaining the statistics of every unit, faction, and terrain type. They were majestic, and I would spend an hour or more poring over each one before ...

News: Indie and Mainstream Online Games Shut Down by LulzSec

Anybody who spends most of their day on the internet should know all about lulz. Lulz are most often jokes made at the expense of web users, as popularized on 4Chan. Today, a consortium of hackers called LulzSec is attempting (and in some cases succeeding) in efforts to shut down some of the games that offer web users a giant share of their online fun. World of Warcraft, League of Legends, EVE Online, and Bethesda Softworks have all been targeted by LulzSec's hacking efforts in the last week,...

TVs Are for Old People: A Guide to Handheld Consoles

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?

News: Has SimCity Been Destroyed for Good?

Yesterday, Electronic Arts had a nice sale on Steam for 40-60 percent off some of their Sims titles, which included The Sims 3 (along with its DLCs) and SimCity 4. I've never been a big Sims fan, especially with the slew of virtual people games in the last decade, so I didn't realize until now that Maxis had stopped making their SimCity games; They haven't released any city building Sim games since SimCity 4 eight years ago. There was SimCity Societies in 2007, but it was made by a different ...

News: Hetero, Gay or Bi? Bed Your Soulmate in Dragon Age 2

When you grab a video game off the shelves, finding love is probably not your end goal. Most games focus on letting the player shoot guys, order other guys to shoot guys, or build houses. Mass Effect 2 comes closer than most titles to offering virtual romance, but the relationships are shallow and strictly heterosexual. I found whoring my way around the Normandy much more satisfying as a gameplay option than developing an emotional connection to another character.

How To: Enjoy Baking Yeast Bread

Baking bread might feel intimidating in advance. The fear to screw it up can make one chicken out and instead keep buying bread as usual at the store. Personally, I am very picky about which bread to eat, and learned over time that home baked bread bits them all when made properly.

Abstinence: The Video Game

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.

News: My Name is Kira, and I'm an Addict...

...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.

News: May feels like November

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.

News: A Small Look at Aquaria

A look at Aquaria Last week I made a post about the Humble Indie Bundle (http://www.wolfire.com/humble). It's a small online charaty drive where you could buy five indie games for any price you wanted.

How To: Become a Great Thrift Store Shopper

Shopping at a thrift store can be a fun adventure, a daunting task, a way to save money, or a combination of any or all of those. There's no question that buying secondhand is almost always cheaper and buying at a thrift store undoubtedly so. But it can also be a lot of work. Here are a few simple tips to make the process a little easier.

News: The Value and Worth of Daily Positive Affirmations

I've been dealing with emotional difficulty for many years. It started when I had surgery for the epilepsy I was dealing, and quite literally, dying with. Since the surgery on March 28, 1990 I have had no seizures, but I have had plenty of emotional difficulty. Along with that, surviving some traumatic events has added some emotional baggage...in other words struggling...along the way.

How To: Get Rid Of Crabs Or Pubic Lice

How to Get Rid of Crabs Knowing how to get rid of crabs is very simple. The crabs talked about here are not the ones you find in the sea, but they are the crabs people get from sex. The technical name for these troublesome creatures is pubic lice. Below, you will see how to get rid of them.

How To: Style Easy Boho Hair

"Boho" hair is natural and free-flowing and doesn't take a lot of time or tools. Often this look is a result of sleeping or a day at the beach. Here we show you how to achieve that look without doing either! Part

How To: Make an Invisible, Reusable Trapdoor to Hide Secrets or Char Unsuspecting Cows

There are a few ways to make trapdoors, but out of all of them, this one is my favorite. It's fast, completely hidden, and both opens and closes. This particular trapdoor can be used for a variety of purposes, such as hiding your valuable possessions, having a secret entrance to an underground lair, or maybe even taking care of obnoxious cows. What you'll need to make it are 12 sticky pistons, 8 redstone repeaters, 32 redstone, the switch of your choice, and whatever blocks you want to use to...

Understanding Electricity: Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla In my opinion, one of the most neglected inventors of all time. The names Edison and Marconi come to mind as familiar, but Tesla? Most think of a car. Few know that Tesla is responsible for alternating current, florescent lights, radar, remote control, generators that preform efficiently, the spark plug, and many others. The U.S Supreme Court declared in 1943 that Tesla, not Marconi, was the true inventor of the radio.

News: Friday Indie Game Review Roundup: Pennies, Alliances, and Choices

Like a great acting performance, making a really good game is all about choices. While creating or playing a game, those involved have to constantly make small choices that will affect the outcome, either positively or negatively. And the only thing worse than choosing wrongly is not choosing at all. Too many games, especially today, stick to what they're supposed to do from the get-go and avoid making difficult, small, meaningful choices to differentiate themselves and make their performance...

How To: Clean Your Computer

I love my laptop. It goes wherever I go. Unfortunately, that means that it also gets pretty grubby after a while. The screen gets dusty. The frame gets smudgy. The spaces between the keys fill up with crumbs of questionable origins. And my desktop? That thing is a dust bunny magnet.

How To: Set SMART Goals In 10 Ways

10 Ways to Make Your Goals Easier to Achieve Do you have goals in your life? Most people do. You may want to lose weight, advance your career, or make your relationship better. You think about where you want to be and then find a way to get from where you are to where you want to be.

How To: Use YouTube

The trend of online video sharing came to the mainstream with popularization of YouTube, which let users view, submit and share video clips. YouTube started off in the year 2005, and quickly became one of the most visited websites on the internet. Sensing the emerging trend, large companies like Google joined the trail and launched their own video sharing sites (Google later bought YouTube).

How To: Lose Weight The Correct & Healthy Way

Obesity has ballooned into a worldwide epidemic. The World Health Organization estimates that 2.3 billion adults will be overweight and 700 million will be obese by 2015. Over 20 million children are overweight today. The reasons for these distressing figures are common knowledge: The international switch to high sugar, high fat, low nutrient processed junk foods prompted by global fast food chains and their advertising; the increasingly sedentary nature of jobs; children playing video games ...