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Brucker writes: "Hey, anybody playing that puzzle game that links in to Lost?"
Yes, I am still here, though I am busily working on finishing up my last quarter at RIT, and for which I have just one more paper to write. Sorry for the lack of updates recently, I promise to have a couple of new reviews for you very soon. Thanks for your patience! =)
GameTrove is an online portal for independent and casual computer games. It pulls together screenshots, demos, game summaries and more into one easy to use site. Scroll through the pages and see what catches your eye, or sort the games by genre, platform, price, popularity and more. The site functions much like digg and allows you to rate and comment on games that developers have added to the database.
As mentioned a couple of days ago, the Experimental Gameplay Project has just launched their game design competition today by announcing the gameplay theme: consume. You now have two weeks to come up with a game designed and developed with that theme in mind. Games that do not follow the theme may be disqualified.
the Experimental Gameplay Project has been so successful that they are opening up the fun to anyone who wants to get involved! They are holding a 2-week game design competition to build a game based on a theme. The top 5 competitors will receive an interview with THQ's Heavy Iron Studios. One will be selected for a paid summer internship with the company.
I'm off to San Jose, California, to attend the Game Developers Conference, March 20-24. If you are planning to attend the conference and haven't already set up a time to meet with me, although my schedule is already pretty full, I would welcome the opportunity to meet in person and for a chat about games, the conference, future employment opportunities, business development, whatever.
Allen Varney has a new article up, Attack of the Parasites, in the latest issue of The Escapist online magazine where he discusses the explosive growth of the casual games market and the issues we're seeing that comes with it. He points to the rampant copying of ideas and gameplay to feed the ravenous appetite of the large game portals to shed a not-so-glamorous light on these latest dotcom darlings.
For those who just can't get enough free game play, 1Up has a new article up today from print publication Computer Gaming World listing over 100* free games in its "definitive guide to the best new free games on the Web." You could do a lot worse, I suppose, knowing the quality that usually comes from the folks over at 1-Up. *101 to be exact.
“Jayisgames.com: passionate, well-designed and knowledgeable.” One of the Top 100 Sites For the Year Ahead (2009) - The Guardian
Please help one of my RIT classmates by answering his one-question XML survey. Cheers!
Update: Although I welcome any discussion about this topic in the comments, if you plan to take the short survey please wait until after you respond to read the comments. I wouldn't want anything that anyone says about it to influence your answer....
I am pleased to finally announce the arrival of the first-ever Jayisgames.com T-Shirts, available through a partnership with SpreadShirt. These fine washable-wearables come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and each one with the nice and new, spanky-brand-clean and gnarly, Classic Jayisgames.com full-name logo thingamajobber. Yessireebob.
With the rustic point-and-click adventure game, Sancho's Island, you have the opportunity to accompany Sancho and Don Quijote on their adventures—if you can help Sancho straighten out his family matters and prepare for the quest. You may even win an isle to rule, even though Sancho isn't sure what that is.
The Best of 2005 is a celebration of the best games reviewed here at Jayisgames over the past year. It is not an exhaustive list of all the best games available since we can only review the games that we come to know about. For this year's Top 10 list there are ...20 games! Yes, that's right. There were too many great games released in 2005 to narrow the list to just 10. So, without any further ado, here are the games you picked as the Best of 2005:
The Best of 2005 is a celebration of the best games reviewed here at Jayisgames.com over the past year. It is not an exhaustive list of all the best games available since we can only review the games that we come to know about. If you have a game, or are part of a team that produces them, and would like to have your game considered for a future rev...
Thanks to everyone who participated by casting votes in the Best of 2005 feature. And, after close to 20,000 votes tallied, I can say with confidence the winners this year are undisputed leaders of the pack. Look for a countdown of the top Web games of 2005 beginning sometime tomorrow (the 1st).
Have a safe and happy New Year! =D...
Just a quick update to wish everyone and their loved ones a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanza, or whatever it is that your religion or your culture celebrates at this time of year.
Seeds of Imagination can be classified as an interactive toy; a charming diversion that doesn't seem to have any purpose other than to delight and entertain, and possibly even to educate us while we play. Create a beautiful flowing plant simply by planting a seed and 'talking' to it as it grows.
Well it's that time of year again, a time to look back over the great casual Web games we enjoyed playing throughout the year and select the very best ones for the coveted Jayisgames' Best of 2005 awards. In fact, you can help me decide which games were the very best by casting your votes now. Vote for up to 10 games that you thought were a cut above the rest, or for the ones you keep coming back to time and time again.
A fairly decent, fairly standard point-and-click game of the escape-the-room variety that is 50% hunt around to find the missing pieces, and 50% solve the puzzle with the pieces. Attic Escape will keep you busy for about 20-30 minutes, depending upon your skill level with this type of game.
Director, game designer and art director Fumito Ueda and producer Kenji Kaido, along with the rest of the development team behind ICO, have broken the mold and released, exclusively for the Playstation 2, what has become the single most original and awe-inspiring gaming experience of my life, Shadow of the Colossus...
The chips were reset for the last time today and it looks like Last Call Poker is making its last call in keeping with its namesake. I will be sad to see it go as it was a brilliant game with a great community. Kudos to 42 Entertainment and, in particular, Jane McGonigal for the phenomenal experiences being created in the area of immersive and pervasive play.
Well, the folks at the BBC are building themselves quite a reputation. All the point-and-click games they turn out are just golden. And The Seven Noble Kinsmen is no exception; possibly their best work yet. SNK is a murder mystery in six (6) acts, all of which are now available to play.
Toulouse is played with three to five human or computer players, and a well designed interface and beautiful presentation make this web-based version user friendly and highly enjoyable. The folks at AsoBrain.com have also recently added the option of playing with up to two expansions to the original board game, making this as involved a Carcassonne experience as one could hope for.
This Texas Hold'em poker game offers something a little different than most games in this category. Launched sometime in late September, Last Call Poker combines elements of alternate reality games (ARGs) and online poker tournaments to do its bidding for Activision's soon-to-be-released wild west video game, Gun.
Cheers! to USA Today for the "Hot Sites" listing in the Tech News and Web Guide section. =)
"Climb the slopes of Opniyama (yama means Japanese mountain) and take part in this interactive play while adding to your liking of the trees with the landscape! Discover the jokes of this vertical world! Direct your misadventure and hoist towards the higher plates while launching the hook!"
A game that makes excellent use of Flash video (FLV) segments to form an engaging interactive narrative, A Race Against Time puts you in the driver's seat of a brand new Saab 9-3 SportWagon on a mission to Hazard Point. What could possibly go wrong?
Picross is pixel painting for the logic minded. The recent entry for Alien in the Room: Reloaded had a puzzle in it that was called Picross. This entry is for everyone who enjoyed that puzzle. If you have also enjoyed the Sudoku and logic puzzle games, TylerK's Picross offers a visual twist.
With just 15 minutes before our final demo, the spring quarter at RIT is nearly finished. So, if you have come here in recent days looking for an update, my apologies.
I had intended to post a link to our Flash point-and-click adventure "Curse of the Pharaoh" when we were finished with it. Unfortunately, it does not quite live up to my rather disc...
While I am conscious of the fact that this blog has become primarily focused on games, it is still my only outlet for publishing noteworthy items of interest. That is why, when scanning the archives, you will find a few entries on a variety of topics that have little to do with games. Add one more to that group.
Late yesterday I became aware that ...
A few months ago I mentioned that I had contributed to a book written about video games. Compiled and edited by James Newman and Iain Simons, the answers to several questions about videogames were collected from people in the games industry and beyond. A few of those questions were:
What is a videogame?What is gameplay?Why do you play videogames?W...
If you have experienced a problem connecting to the site within the last 36 hours, that is because there was a server failure with one of the RIT servers that hosts this site. Work continues on it today, so access is likely to be spotty at times. I apologize for any inconvenience you may experience....
Last week during Will Wright's Spore demo at GDC, he asked everyone to refrain from taking any pictures. At first, it struck me as odd that he would say such a thing since I had been snapping photos during the entire conference when there was anything noteworthy to see. However, the no photography announcement came before he admitted that the rea...
After a long week filled with events and activities, attending lectures and panel discussions on a variety of game development topics, meeting lots of people and going to several parties, I am finally back home, unpacked and rested. Although I am back in my comfortable and familiar environment, images continue to pervade my thoughts reminding me of...
Satoru Iwata delivered his Game Developers Conference 2005 keynote address this morning and spoke about his experiences as a gamer and as a game developer. He talked of some of the highlights in his career with HAL Laboratories where he began his illustrious career with Nintendo, beginning with NES Pinball, and progressing through the Mother 1 &...
There has been a lot going on these past few days, too much to keep up with and maintain the blog as well, so that is why I haven't posted anything since I arrived. The weather has been perfect every day so far with temperatures consistently hitting 69 or 70 degrees Farhenheit, and without a cloud in the sky. So it is probably no wonder that I have...
Today I am tying up loose ends preparing for my trip out to San Francisco to attend GDC 2005. It will be my first time, so I'm looking forward to it in earnest. I will be arriving early Sunday afternoon, and will therefore have most of the day available for some sightseeing and registering early for the conference.
If anyone who visits here is a...
Public Beta has released their first book on video games titled "Difficult Questions About Videogames," a compilation of responses to several questions they asked of the games industry, academia, and beyond. Just published in November, the book aims to answer the difficult questions about video games such as: "What is a video game?" and "What is ga...
Also worthy of mentioning are the blogs who have provided inspiration with various media and games links, just plain wacky ideas, or invaluable assistance.
First up is the incomparable Anne of Fishbucket fame. All things magical, fun, and otherwise worthy of your time and attention get pulled into the bucket from all corners of the globe by Anne's...
The students taking interactive media classes at RIT this quarter are just now beginning to work on their games, one of about 3 projects assigned during the 10-week quarter. The development environment is Flash, and the students are looking for examples to get ideas for what they might be able to build within a 2-week time frame. While the criteria...
A while back I posted a DHTML version of the classic meditative strategy game, Mahjong Solitaire, as it was the nicest version of the game I was able to find. Until now. Enter bijvoorbeeld multimedia's rendition of the game, and it's done in Flash.
From Amsterdam, this version of Mahjong Solitaire...
Just a quick update to wish everyone and their loved ones a very happy holiday. Thank you kindly for your visits and for your comments, it makes maintaining the site so very worthwhile to me. =)
Today I removed the "best of 2004" banner from all of the individual pages as it was hogging the CPU and leaving little to play the games with. If you exp...
Well, it's almost the end of the year, and when looking back we see there were quite a few impressive and memorable games released this year for every platform imaginable. And the Web game category is no exception.
To help make sense of all the Web games that are available to play, I am compiling a "Best of 2004" feature, which will be put up on...
Wired has an article up today regarding open virtual worlds, and RIT's Andy Phelps is mentioned along with the MUPPETS project. Click....
For anyone who has ever had trouble finding a link to that great little Flash game, this new feature is for you.
I just finished implementing a Favorite Games List where you can select the games you like and have them appear in the sidebar above all the others, every time you visit. Simply drag and drop the game icons onto the spaces provided, cli...
The Winter quarter at RIT doesn't begin until Monday, so this week I am enjoying a bit of holiday time playing games, and catching up on some much needed rest.
I have also been looking around the site for ways to improve usability and to provide better features. Yesterday I wrote some PHP code to keep track of unique online visitors. If anyone wou...
While it may be old news to some, to those who have not yet heard: take notice. Firefox 1.0 has been released today and it is by far the best browser currently available (read: WAY better than Internet Explorer). It is fast, standards compliant, compatible with Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, and has many cool features such as pop-up blocking and onli...
Just as the dawn of a new day unfolds here in the U.S., so do I make this prayer: I pray to the creator of all things good and just that the American people may awaken today from the darkness that has veiled the truth about the current Administration, and together unite to defeat the worst President this country has ever endured. It is time to take...
I like to say “B is for Bibby” as I usually wear my baseball cap with the large red “B” on it all year long. But tonight, B is for believing in Boston baseball and their blessed and historic comeback from behind to clinch the American League pennant.
It's about time....
I struggled all day to figure out how to best handle the fact that all the pages on the site changed from .html to .php. I was concerned that anyone arriving from an old .html link would not get what they were after. After much digging and asking around, I discovered a simple directive in the Apache mod_alias module that saved the day.
One simple ...
I finally got around to incorporating into the site some of the PHP technology I'm learning this quarter at RIT. I have randomized the Recommended section in the sidebar and added many more great games to the pool. However, to do so I had to change the file extension on every page of this site from .html to .php.
If you have bookmarked any of the...
Not quite feeling up to snuff today, I'll leave you with this article from Salon.com to ponder. Click....
Here's a game where you can win $100,000 just by being registered to vote in the November 2004 US General Election. Two guys, Jim and James, who have made a lot of money with an online dating service, care enough about this year's election to offer up $100,000 to a registered voter just for entering their sweepstakes, and $100,000 to the person who...
Around the net today, rumors abound regarding another piece to the DS picture that is set to be revealed at the upcoming Nintendo press conference on October 7th. Along with the software launch lineup and final hardware form factor for the DS, Engadget is reporting there is something else Nintendo will reveal. Following the link in the article yiel...
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the classic Infocom text adventure created by the late Douglas Adams, the BBC has put together this wonderful Flash re-creation of the game complete with illustrations and a graphical interface! Yes, it is still the same great text adventure, and now there are pictures to help you envision the wacky way-out worlds of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and get you across the galaxy safely.
Another classic movie gets the makeover by Jennifer Shiman and her Angry Alien studio. This time out it's “Jaws in 30 Seconds (and Re-enacted by Bunnies).” As mentioned here before, Jennifer has a talent for capturing the essence of each film and presenting it in a short little Flash movie that she animates herself. It is a very creativ...
Here's a game where you can win $100,000 just by being registered to vote in the November 2004 US General Election. Two guys, Jim and James, who have made a lot of money with an online dating service, care enough about this year's election to offer up $100,000 to a registered voter just for entering their sweepstakes, and $100,000 to the person who...
Nate Rode, an RIT colleague, has created a helpful tutorial for anyone interested in learning how to program basic 2D game physics such as velocity, acceleration and gravity into their games, and he explains how to apply them to running, jumping and throwing or passing. The interactive Flash tutorial contains examples with animation that illustrate...
Cost of the War in Iraq
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Just who do you think will be paying for it, and for years and years to come? Not to mention even the incalculable cost of those who paid for the war with their lives. Think of that when voting in November.
...
There is something I need to warn you about, especially if you have thought about trying the multiplayer game I posted a couple of days ago called iSketch... it is very addictive. Drop that mouse and put your hands at your sides. Now step away from the computer. Do it now before it's too late.
Since I stumbled upon iSketch a couple of days a...
Today I bit the bullet and bought a license to the latest version of MovableType, the content management system I use for this blog. I'm looking forward to the added security it has for protection from the comment sp*m that has been plaguing the Web. I won't even begin a rant about how much time those f*&kers have wasted of mine. Just this morn...
Brian Gardiner, of Rocklin, California, has pieced together his own PlayStation portable for the mere challenge of it all. The device was built from pieces of PSOnes—the smaller, redesigned original PlayStation game console. He reconfigured it all to fit inside a chassis that he designed using Solidworks CAD software and then had fabricated a...
From GamesIndustry.biz this morning comes news from the UK:
"British electronics retailer Dixons has removed Rockstar's Manhunt title from stores, after newspapers and TV news shows reported allegations that the title had influenced a teenager found guilty of the murder of a younger boy."
The article states that the boy was "obsessed" with the ga...
Early this morning, Nintendo took the wraps off the final design for their new dual-screen handheld slated for a November 2004 release in the US and Japan. The name for the device was also finalized as the Nintendo DS since the name "evokes the idea of a portable system with dual screens."
I am excited about the new design, as I thought the one Ni...
If you love playing games as much as I do, and if you love classic games especially—from the Atari 2600, NES, Sega Genesis, Nintendo 64, etc.—then you might want to take a look at the latest issue of Classic Gamer magazine, available absolutely free as a downloadable PDF file. The editors have done a fine job of putting together another...
Lite-Brite was a technological wonder when it was first released back in 1967 by the Hasbro toy company. Images were created by poking the colored pegs through the black paper on the screen, which made the pegs appear to illuminate from the light housed in the case. The screen resolution wasn't too good, but hey... it was 1967! And now, thanks to the magic of JavaScript, you can play Lite-Brite on your computer. May the wonders of technology never cease.
From Way of the Rodent comes this gem of high-tech classic gaming goodness: paper arcade, your very own classic arcade game replicas made out of paper. A do-it-yourself project for a rainy day, provided you have a color printer, some paper, scissors and a bit of old Elmer's glue. Someone clearly has too much time on their hands. Click....
On Friday of this week, Bungie posted on their website a 3D screen shot taken from the latest build of Halo 2 using Bungie's proprietary technology and QuickTime VR for viewing. Just by clicking and dragging the mouse to the left or right, you are able to view the action of the scene in full 360-degrees, Matrix-style bullet-time. Click.
If the l...
"Screw the planet, I'm an American!" Life is good. A must read from Mark Morford at SFGate.com:
"It is our global peril and our national trademark. Americans are notoriously, famously, massively blind to causality. We make zero connection between how we consume and the effects of that consumption on our bodies, our politics, the planet. It is stag...
Put a bunch of stop-action cows together in a barn, add a drum set, a stage, and a large projection screen and what do you have? MooTV and it's Live in Barney's Barn, where you get to record your own drum solo and watch it live, on stage, in front of hundreds of screaming... er, I mean mooing cows. This is interactive creativity at its finest, wi...
Now that E3 has wrapped up, images pervade my thoughts of the many innovations and games announced and displayed at the show. Yes, there were many sequels shown—in fact, almost all the biggest games of this year's show have a number at the end—but video game sequels fare better in the hearts and minds of gamers than their counterparts i...
There is so much happening this week at the E3 expo in Los Angeles that it's really hard to keep up with it all. So many games, so little time one might say. And subsequent to the announcements from Nintendo on their new DS handheld and the upcoming realistic Zelda game, I've found it difficult to come up with anything worthy of a follow-up to all ...
Eiji Aonuma: “I'm sure all of you saw the video of the new Legend of Zelda game at this point. One thing that I'd like to point out to everybody is that none of that is CG. It's all done in real-time and running on the [game] engine. That movie was actually created by somebody who took a version of the game, played it, video...
Dating back to Nintendo's Space World 2000 demo reel, a brand new Legend of Zelda was revealed today for Gamecube at Nintendo's pre-E3 press conference. The latest installment won't be due out until next year, but from the looks of what was shown today it is well along in development and looks absolutely gorgeous! Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo's leg...
Along with all the goodies Nintendo delivered to a game-starved audience today, were these trailers of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes in action. The highly anticipated sequel to one of the best video games ever produced is due out in November. Click to get wet....
The world got its first view of the next generation handheld from Nintendo this morning as the first pictures of it were released via a USA Today article. The article mentions the new device will contain Bluetooth wireless communications, a touch-sensitive screen, and the ability to play regular GameBoy Advance cartridge games as well as games on t...
Over the weekend I decided to give the blog a facelift, and though I had been changing the old banner's colors every month, as well as the colors of the associated style sheet, I wanted more significant changes: center the content in the browser window, and randomize the style sheet with a banner to match.
Here's what I did to get the random style...
“Become the bounty hunter behind the visor once more and travel to a planet torn into light and darkness. Hunted by a mysterious entity and a warring race called the Ing, Samus Aran must explore the light and dark worlds of this doomed planet to discover secrets and augment her suit's weapons and abilities.”
Nintendo just released sc...
Gamesindustry.biz is reporting that Square Enix producer, Takashi Tokita, has announced a brand new Final Fantasy game to be released for the GameBoy Advance. In addition, GBA conversions of Final Fantasy I & II are also scheduled for Nintendo's handheld, and possibly Final Fantasy III if reception of the first two are favorable.
There are also ...
Happy Birthday, GameBoy. Since it's launch in 1989, Nintendo has sold over 100 million units worldwide, which includes all GameBoy devices—not including software(!) Thanks to Video Fenky for a nice piece describing some of the background behind Nintendo's decision to release the Gameboy 15 years ago today in Japan....
For those who appreciate games as an art form, Ferry Halim, creator of all things Orisinal (as well as the previously posted Cats), has created a site full of games that are not only fun to play, they're also beautiful to behold. In fact, with so many to choose from, you can literally get lost there for hours.
Chalk up another site worthy of a f...
Yesterday afternoon, while out enjoying the sunshine, I went down to Borders to shop around for some cool books and found more than a couple. One in particular is a book titled "Flash Math Creativity" which looks very promising for getting up to speed with some very cool Flash math projects. The book is the culmination of contributions from about...
This week kicked off the Spring quarter at RIT and I've been enjoying getting my new classes started. For the Games Programming curriculum I am taking Foundations of 3D Graphics Programming and we formed into groups and are already well on our way. To help with documenting our group's progress along the way, I have set up a new blog which all our g...
The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences (AIAS) handed out their 7th annual awards last night at the D.I.C.E Summit in Las Vegas. Not surprisingly, Ubisoft's Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was almost as big a winner as Return of the King was on Sunday, taking home 8 of the coveted awards. With voting performed only by members of the video ...
Although still not out of the woods yet, I took a little time for myself this morning to see what's been going on in the world of video games and consequently stumbled upon a slew of new screenshots that Blizzard had just posted on their up-coming MMORPG World of Warcraft. The game looks amazing and will likely become a suck-hole for large amounts ...
Gamespy today ran an interview with Metroid creator Yoshio Sakamoto in which he talks not only about the upcoming Metroid: Zero Mission (just 7 more days!), but also talks about the series' origin. Not simply a port of the original NES Metroid, Zero Mission is a brand-new adventure:
Samus has new powers, there are new puzzles, there are three diff...
The pressure is subsiding slightly, finished up two major hurdles today and now I am enjoying a little breather. Bring on the games!
E3 started today with pre-show press conferences by many of the major players. Sony announced their new baby, the PSP - PlayStation Portable. Of course it will be a phenomenal success, though it's not coming out unti...
Have you ever played a game and got so frustrated with it because whatever you did you just couldn't get past one particular boss? That is how my time is spent lately with Metroid Fusion. It's a fantastic game with engaging level design and boss fight after boss fight. The gratification felt when finally defeating that stubborn boss is glorious, an...
...or, confessions of a reformed Animal Crossing (AC) addict. Either way you slice it, my AC days are done. It's time to move on. Though I'll admit that I logged more hours with AC than I have playing any other game, including even StarCraft. The game was surprisingly addictive to me and I found myself playing every single day for over three months...
Game of the week
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