Black Viper manages, whether intentionally or not, to find game equivalents for all the shortcomings in typical Eurospy films.
In this episode Joel and I get our groove on with Crypt of the Necrodancer. Well, Joel gets his groove on. I just die a lot.
Episode 2 is upon us and this week we’re taking a look at Psyonix’s smash hit car-to-ball game Rocket League.
The wait is over! You can now, at long last, refresh the Side by Side tab you’ve had open since the end of season 1 to see that season 2 is upon us! Bigger, better, harder, faster… uh, stronger? Actually, while season 2 won’t necessarily be bigger, we hope it’ll be better. Harder? No. Faster? No. Snappier? I didn’t say that, but yes. Sexier? Now now, don’t push it.
Some of you may remember Celebrity Guest Editor Zeke Iddon visiting us here on Tap. His hilarious review of Bientôt l’été is still among my top favorite guest posts. Now he’s back, sharing wisdoms and intelligences and Yoda-like prognostications. Believe me, you’re going to want to click that Read More link.
Our topic today is dungeons, and the keeping thereof, from creature management to the ongoing nuisance of “heroic” dungeoneers. Evil is good — we learned that in 1997, with Bullfrog’s seminal Dungeon Keeper; again in 1999 with Dungeon Keeper 2. Recreating that wicked goofballery has proven an elusive brass ring. Subterranean Games is grasping for it with War for the Overworld, which promised to be Dungeon Keeper 3 in all but name. Did they succeed? Or is evil thwarted again? Gregg and Steerpike cackle their way to the answers you need.
I met Connor Hart at Philly Dev Night, where he was showing off his game PUSH, a PC-targeted Sokoban-style puzzle game. Now that PUSH is released, I checked back in with Connor to ask some questions about his process, the game, and the trials and tribulations of being a part-time game developer! Hit the jump for another edition of Local Flavor!
Let’s talk about a little thing called Homestuck.
You’ve heard of it, maybe? If not, a little background: Homestuck is the fourth and longest chapter of an online comic series titled MS Paint Adventures. Homestuck began as a riff on adventure games, starring a basic character in an adventure game world… but slowly morphed into an internet epic, spawning its own fanworks, full animations, music albums, cosplay, and more.
Among the “more” was an extremely successful Kickstarter, to bring everything full circle and fund an adventure game based on this comic based on adventure games. The Kickstarter for the game gathered almost 2.5 million dollars, just one example of how extremely motivated the Homestuck fandom is.
At GDC, I got a chance to talk to Jess Haskins from What Pumpkin Studios, the game development team that is working on the Homestuck Adventure Game project. Later I followed up with her on Skype to ask some questions about the New York-based What Pumpkin, and what we can expect from this game, called Hiveswap.
Sometimes you go all the way to the other side of the country, then get a chance to chat with developers who work right in your backyard. That’s what happened to me when I met up with the development team PHL Collective while they were at the ID@Xbox booth at GDC. They were there showing off their game, ClusterPuck 99, available now on PC, and coming soon to XBox One.
EarthNight started out as a simple idea: a runner game with just two buttons, but a little bit of depth. This basic idea lead Philadelphia-based game developer Rich Siegel of CleaverSoft to a project that would take a lot longer than expected, but yield beautiful results. Now, EarthNight has been announced for the PlayStation 4, as well as targeting PC, PS Vita, iOS, Mac, and Android platforms. I got to see it at IndieCade East and try it out on PS4, as well as ask Siegel some questions about its development.
Do you love learning about upcoming games and their developers? Well… you know the drill by now! I talk to developers on the East Coast who make neat things, and ask them stuff about their neat things. I caught up with several developers at the IndieCade East event in New York City last weekend, so for the next few weeks, I’ll be discussing projects out of New York City, Baltimore, and of course my home town Philadelphia.
I’m going to start off covering my IndieCade East finds with Extreme Exorcism, a game by Golden Ruby Games. I sat down with game producer Mike Christatos in the IndieCade East Esports arena to ask him a few questions. And I got to try out the demo right there on his laptop, pure indie developer style.
A new year brings some new editions of my Local Flavor series, where I talk about and with local game studios on the east coast, especially indies, and especially around my home base of Philadelphia. In this article, I’m chatting with local shop QuadraTron Games, a team that works out of the Philly Game Forge co-working space. My questions were answered by studio head programmer Zenas Bellace, who moved into game making full time in 2013, with a little input from the rest of the studio. Q&A after the jump!
Joel Goodwin and I are now nine whole Great British episodes into our collaborative video series Side by Side which aims to cover an assortment of local multiplayer games both old and new, from the familar to the foreign, the physical to the frightening. If you haven’t checked it out yet then here’s a slice of what you’ve been missing:
2014 was the year I took a step back from writing and dug into my backlog without worrying too much about whether I should pen my thoughts or not. Yet, despite playing more than usual, this list is somewhat shorter than my previous years’. That probably makes it about normal size then.
If you’re a Tap-Repeatedly veteran you know our Game of the Year lists are not always lists, not always games, and almost never devoted entirely to the previous year. This year, when discussion about the feature began shortly before Christmas, everyone said it had been a bad year for games. “I don’t know what I’ll write about,” they moaned, meaning what games. Me, I worried I wouldn’t know how to write about them. It’s a feeling I’ve become familiar with in the last twelve months, to my sorrow and my detriment.