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Ahh, 2011. The year in which we were supposed to have the Rapture (twice), the year of the Arab Spring, of Occupy, of the Whipping Judge and Pepper Spray Cop. The year of Steerpike’s Neglecting To Get His Carpets Shampooed, Even Though They Need It. The year of the release of Titus Awakes, which I …

If you have been hanging around around the Steam catalog lately, you’ve probably seen this indie game from Zachtronics Industries. The Steam action catalog seems pretty thin right now and my son and I have been playing a handful of manual puzzle games recently. Sink or Swim, Rush Hour, Alcatraz, TipOver, and River Crossing have …

Two divorces, a mid-life crisis, and only marginal educational skills? Check. Getting involved in teenage dramas? Check. Reading my class’s private emails and social networking messages? Check. Nearly slept with a 16 year old student? Check. I am the worst teacher ever.

Here’s a Culture Clash column I wrote for the January 2011 edition of the IGDA website. I’m happy with it, but less pleased with the fact that our theme does not allow ~ symbols above an N in post titles. So if you were to read it out loud you’d have to say “pinn-nnnnnnaaaaahhtah,” like Winston Churchill.

Who was a great man. No busting on that dude. Won us WWII!

Still, though, tildes would be nice. Also: this is the last old Culture Clash I’ll publish on Tap’s front page (I’ll post the new ones here); the rest I’ll be back-dating so they’ll appear if you look at older posts or if you visit the Content -> Editorials -> Culture Clash section in the main menu (or just click here). This article is actually older than the previous one here on Tap – The Beauty of a Living Thing – and the rest will be older still. Thus, to prevent confusion, the back-dating. You may also note subtle differences between these (my originals) and the one on IGDA (which they sometimes edit slightly). Either one can be considered Canon. In any case, click to read on!

Of my living years, 1994 is the first I remember as An Epic Year For Gaming. Up until this point I had dabbled in a handful of computer adventure games that my parents bought and the limited pile of NES games I had: Super Mario Bros., Jeopardy!, The Empire Strikes Back and Blades of Steel …

Cipher Prime, the musically-inclined two-man indie studio that last producted the gloriously elegant and lovely Auditorium, is back today with Fractal, another ethereal puzzler with roots of Tetris, Bejeweled, Peggle, beepy music, clean art direction, and a steadily ramping difficulty curve that quickly turns ferocious. Check out the demo here.

I miss things sometimes, and I’m definitely guilty here – a new indie from UK-based Mode 7 Games called Frozen Synapse has, despite being in the works for some time, just recently crossed my radar screen. A tactical, simultaneous, turn-based PBEM infiltration and ass-kicking game, its simplistically lush visuals and haunting score so far remind …

It’s been awfully… quiet… around here, something I know is unrelated to my own (temporary) inability to speak, and something I choose not to attribute to my recent injury-addled adjustment (now undone) to the top banner so thoughtfully provided for us by our own Gregg B. Instead I choose to believe that everyone is just… busy, and my frantic attempts to have someone, anyone, look at the GOD DAMNED PHP IT WILL TAKE YOU LIKE NINE SECONDS TO FIX I HAVE BEEN FIGHTING WITH IT FOR FIVE DAYS help me out with some tech stuff are not so much my mute voice falling on cruelly deaf ears, but on ears carrying out their own appointed duties.

I had kinda thought the aforementioned Gregg, being our great lover of and expert in indies, might have mentioned this one – plus I’m honestly not sure what to make of it. Independent developer Jason Rohrer found (indie) fame for his simple, haunting game The Passage, one which (for obvious reasons) reminded me of and disturbed me as much as the once-more aforementioned Gregg’s find Every Day the Same Dream. Rohrer’s newest work, Sleep is Death… well, as I said, I don’t know what to make of it. I do know that it has a chance to be the start of something big.

A couple of days ago I posted up a link to Life is Hard, a short satirical flash platformer that had me chuckling away for a good few minutes. My girlfriend was at work when I spotted it so she didn’t get a chance to give it a whirl. Anyway, yesterday while I was at …

I was going to save my first post for something more substantial, something epic but spotted this over at RPS and couldn’t resist sharing it. As Jim Rossignol mentioned it’s not worth explaining simply because it takes less than a minute from start to finish unless you’ve got a crap connection like me in which …