Can games mean?  How?  And when they do, who’s responsible?  AJ and Dix take on authorship.  Read on!

UPDATE: The server work is complete and our path to world domination is clear. Thanks for the patience!

As gamers, boss battles are practically in our blood.  They go back at least as far as 1975.  They’ve long been the go-to climax for a game adventure, the final goal for players of all ages.  Sometimes they are epic set pieces.  Sometimes…not.

Recent years have seen several titles get criticized for weak boss battles, even become notorious for them.  Has gaming outgrown bosses?  Has the march of progress left boss battles as vestigial as so many instruction booklets?  Dix and Steerpike clash in the bottommost dungeon to find out.

Girls. That mysterious species. Do they play video games? What kind of video games do girls play? How can we get girls to buy our video games?

These seem like simple questions, but in an industry dominated by men, appealing to fifty percent of the population sometimes becomes a tricky proposition. It’s been proven statistically that girls (and women) are playing games. But what kind of games are they playing? This time, on Tap Vs. Tap: Games for Girls.

There are giants in this industry, and then there’s Ernest Adams. A developer, lecturer, scholar and teacher, Ernest’s book Fundamentals of Game Design is the essential text on the subject, while his newest work Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design, written with Joris Dormans, is a much-needed formalization of game mechanics grammar and understanding.

In his spare time, Ernest founded the International Game Developers Association and shipped 15 games over 23 years.

He’s also one of the nicest people you’ll meet, and I consider myself fortunate to be able to call him a friend; one who’s assisted me many times in my career. All that you need to know about Ernest in order to get along with him just fine is that he has no time or patience for people who are stupid or disrespectful – and that being one of the nicest people you’ll meet doesn’t mean he won’t be aggressive about subjects that anger him.

Ernest has written a column for Gamasutra since the place was founded over 14 years ago, with a largely free editorial hand. Unfortunately, that site chose not to publish this piece as it was written… something that makes me bite my tongue. Interestingly I went through a similar incident several months ago with my Culture Clash column for the IGDA. Perhaps wrongly, I elected to rewrite the piece to assuage the opinion of someone who frankly had no right to judge what I said.

Ernest chose another path, and here is his view, in his words, without dilution; because courage to stand up to wrongs (editorial and social) is another one of his qualities. 

— Steerpike

Hello all, we seem to be having some kind of problem with the system that tests to see if you’re human when you post to the forums and comments. Either many of you have recently stopped being human or the technology has failed us (maybe it’s jealous that it’s not human, I don’t know). In any case, legions of eager Tap-Repeatedly interns are burrowing through miles of code even now to find and eliminate the problem. If you continue to have issues, please PM Steerpike or send him an email. Thanks!

UPDATE: the problem may or may not be fixed. Please stay tuned.

Alliance of Awesome fellow Harbour Master, at his own haunt of Electron Dance, has posted a thoughtful piece on games that “leak:” that is, games that are uber-stimulative, not just profound or impactful, but that make you look at life differently. Check it out, he promises more to come.

As many of you know, Ethan Sicotte – known around here by his nom de plume Finkbug – died by his own hand last Friday. I put it that way because I greatly prefer the notice in his local paper: Ethan Sicotte died after a tumultuous battle that he fought valiantly for many years. His death came on his own terms on March 9.

Finkbug was more than a regular at Tap-Repeatedly, he was a fixture, and a friend. His presence extends years before Tap even became Tap, when it was still Four Fat Chicks. He’d been a part of the community for nearly a decade. Everyone who knew him recognized his singular brilliance, his singular wit, his singular nature that made him such an important part of the community.

Finkbug chose to leave us in a way that’s left a lot of people reeling, but no one can be suffering more than his family and close friends. Our thoughts are with those people in their grief. Since Finkbug had been among us for so long, and come to mean so much to so many, it seemed only right to put together a small tribute for him. Here are just a few of the thoughts and memories some Tap members have, decorated with Ethan’s own artwork. In lieu of having Finkbug around, we must take some comfort in his memory, which will be treasured by many here.

— Steerpike

Humans and other sentient beings who visit Tap-Repeatedly: the site will be down for a few hours on Monday, February 20. We anticipate this outage will take place late afternoon/early evening GMT, which is like next Thursday or something in Australia and around 10:00am Eastern US. During the period of the outage, your lives may seem empty and/or meaningless. DO NOT DESPAIR. Not only will Tap be back in what will seem like an eternity to you but in actuality will only be a couple of hours, the benefit of this downtime will be things that none of you will ever notice but will stop people yelling at Steerpike. Thanks for your patience!

UPDATE: All is well and the site is back! We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Adventure game reviews, walkthroughs, discussion, and more

As you can see, we’re making some front- and back-end changes to Tap-Repeatedly, to better serve your repeated tapping needs. Visuals and functionality will be intermittent and weird on and off for the next few days. Customer satisfaction is very important to us, and we hope to continuously improve your Taperience. If you have any questions, please write them in English longhand on a standard 3×5″ card and place them in one of the many Tap-Repeatedly Suggestion Boxes our operatives have scattered liberally around all seven continents. Your business is important to us. If you have a history of impatience, do not use Tap-Repeatedly. Erections lasting longer than four hours can indicate a serious medical problem. A penny saved is a penny earned. Do not let the bed bugs bite.

Seriously, though, if you have any problems email steerpike@tap-repeatedly.com.

Remember the time Armand K got really wasted and wrote that weird paranoid manifesto about how I’d tried to lock him out of the Bordello because he owed me $7.42? Well, I don’t know if Armand’s fully kicked the habit, but I’m pleased to have him back (and apparently lucid) with another guest entry. He’s been enjoying our Games of 2011 series and thought he’d just go ahead and do one himself. Game on, my …

In our latest edition of My Idea of Fun, Tap-Repeatedly staffers discuss two delightfully under-dogged games, and explain why you (yes, you) should give them a go. Remember, there’s no shortage of unsung games out there – only a shortage of those willing to sing their praises. Today, xtal and Gregg B hop on the Fun Train to share their thoughts. What unloved games could have bubbled to the thick, gloopy surfaces of their minds? Read on to find out!

In the second of our Tap vs. Tap, Mat C and Lewis B put the world of journalism to rights and dissect what has become of a bustling industry worth billions of dollars. But has riding this piggy bank come at a cost to journalistic integrity?

Welcome to our latest new feature! in My Idea of Fun, Tap-Repeatedly staff will wax poetic about the beloved underdogs – games that we care for but never got the props and attention they deserved. Some you’ll know; some you might hate (but you’re wrong if you do); some will, hopefully, convince you to give them a try. Read on to discover what Helmut, Steerpike, Dix, and AJ consider their idea of fun.