Breach & Clear (PC)

Developer:

Mighty Rabbit

|

Release Date:

2014 (PC)

|

Systems:

Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, PSVita, Linux

---

Breach & Clear: DEADline is the exciting new zombie slaughter tactical thing released just a few days ago on Steam, and if I had any sense I'd be playing that instead and getting all those beautiful new game page views. But today on Super Adventures I'll be taking a look at the original old-school Breach & Clear.

I'm not actually 100% sure what kind of game Breach & Clear is yet, but I do know two important facts: it was originally developed for mobiles and my friend worked on it. I can live with the first thing, but the second is kind of an issue.

I always try to be honest and treat games fairly, but I can't help but lean toward being in Breach & Clear's corner from the start and it seems inevitable I'm going to pull some of my punches. If I were a proper reviewer I'd skip it entirely, but fortunately I'm not really. My site's as much about showing games off as it is about judging them and I can still do that while I'm being biased. Multitasking!

But yeah, ignore all my opinions here. If you're really bothered then ignore this article entirely, I don't mind.

(Click any screenshot to expand it to twice its current size!)
Read on »

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

My approved proposal to "The Videogame Cultures Project: 7th Global Meeting" (Oxford, UK)

Observing iterative design on the mobile indie game Dominaedro

Author:
M.A. Vicente M. Mastrocola (Postgraduate Research student and graduation level teacher at ESPM/São Paulo, Brazil; vincevader@gmail.com)

Smartphones and tablets are leading sales of electronic devices around the world, and became a rich field to explore gaming initiatives. Mobile media created a ludic ecosystem in which large publishers and small studios coexist; the new ways of digital content distribution allowed a gaming market with big productions and indie experiments to live in the same platforms. In this scenario, we seek to analyze a development process involving an independent Brazilian mobile game named Dominaedro, launched by Ludofy Studio in 2014.

Our focus in this work will be to discuss iterative design – a design methodology based on a cyclic process of prototyping, testing, analyzing, and refining a work in progress. In this context, we understand iterative design as a methodological tool to create a game. We intend to observe this kind of developing process, giving emphasis to the analogical prototyping phase that gives us some feedbacks from the beta-testing players, like in a qualitative research. Finally, we present the importance of the iterative design to quality assurance in the digital version of the game.

Data collected through 20 beta testing sessions showed the importance of iterative process to improve a gaming experience and to facilitate the production of the digital product. Based on this content we will demonstrate the whole process of creating a mobile game – from the idea, passing through the prototypes, until the final version.

We conclude highlighting the current tendency to create indie games using accurate design methodologies to gain audience in a very competitive scenario, and how indie games could be a learning point for aspirational game designers and small publishers; we will also emphasize the importance of using digital social networks and specialized media to publish and support an independent game.

Keywords: entertainment, mobile, iterative process, Dominaedro, indie game, Brazil

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Why Do Cats Rub Their Faces Against Everything !

BY:  Laurie Brzostowski, President, Snaggle Foot Dog Walks and Pet Care-Round Lake, IL

Personally, I do not own any cats in my household but as the owner of a Pet Care business we take care of a lot of cats.  Of course, one of the things you notice with cats is when they come up and start rubbing their face against you or an object in the house like walls, couches, etc.

I have always wondered why they do that.  Well, now I know why and I am sharing this information just in case you too have wondered !

Leaving Scent Marks Everywhere !
Cats have multiple scent glands on their heads. They have glands located around their mouths, chins, sides of the face, neck and ears. When a cat rubs his face on an item, he leaves his scent behind. The act of a cat rubbing his/her head on objects is called “bunting.” The height of the object determines which part of his head a cat will use to leave a scent mark on an item. Cats also tend to choose objects, such as walls, the edge of a coffee table or sofa, or even the corner of a book or box. Male cats tend to bunt on more items than female cats. Cats also tend to bunt over the scent marks left by other cats.

Cats Are Clocks !
Cats sometimes bunt to inform other cats of their presence in the vicinity. Bunting may also be a form of “time stamping,” meaning that other cats may be able to determine by the age of the marking how recently another cat was there. If the mark is somewhat fresh, they may want to leave the area soon to avoid conflict. Some cats bunt when they are anxious. Spreading their scent around may be a way of coping or making themselves feel more comfortable in an unfamiliar environment.

Cats Like The Way You Smell !
Rubbing on objects may also be a way to pick up scent. When cats bunt on their owners, they not only deposit their scents but also pick up scents from the owner. This can also be a sign of affection or greeting behavior. Cats who live in social groups often rub on each other in greeting. And rubbing on objects is one way sexually intact cats provide visual cues to other cats during mating season. Males are more interested in female bunt marks during the mating season, which indicates the female’s scent changes to entice male interest.

I now know why they do it but personally I just love it when a cat rubs his head against my hand or my face !  It's good to know they love it when we come to take care of them.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Arabian Nights (Amiga)

Developer:

Krisalis

|

Release Date:

1993

|

Systems:

Amiga, CD32

---

It's been exactly 30 years since the first Amigas hit stores, so today on Super Adventures I'll be celebrating by taking a look a classic Amiga exclusive! To be honest I only just learned about the Amiga's birthday from Twitter, so it's pure coincidence I'm playing this now (the game probably won't even run on an original A1000), but the timing worked out eerily well.

You can probably already tell from the title screen that Arabian Nights is all about managing your own 'One Thousand and One Nights' themed theme park! Actually no it's just another platformer from the golden age of running and jumping. That roller coaster is really a mine cart, the pirate ship ride is probably an actual pirate ship, and the guy floating around on a balloon likely didn't win it with his archery skill in a carnival game.

Despite the title, it's not an adaptation of any 'Arabian Nights' story in particular either, though if Scheherazade had gone on for a 1002nd night she might have gotten around to it. It's got that same kind of 'swords and flying carpet sorcery' fantasy setting. I know all this because I dug the game up from my hazy childhood memories, and I'm very familiar with it. Well, the first 20 minutes anyway (I didn't have much patience back then)... but I promise you I'll show you least three proper levels before I turn it off this time. Maybe more if it has continues!
Read on »

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Far Cry (PC)

Developer:

Crytek

|

Release Date:

2004

|

Systems:

Windows

---

Today on Super Adventures I'm going to immerse myself in the ultimate next generation FPS, Far Cry! That's how they describe it on the box anyway. It's also clearly labelled FAR_CRY, you can see the logo right there, but it's always written out as "Far Cry" in text so that's what I'll be calling it.

2004 wasn't a bad year for first person shooters, with people finally getting their hands on massively hyped sequels like Doom 3, Half-Life 2 and Halo 2. Far Cry on the other hand was a new IP from a unknown developer and it came out of nowhere. I never saw it coming anyway, which is ironic really considering how damn flashy it was. But it's been a decade now and I'm curious to see how it holds up as a game now that it can't coast on its visuals any more.

TECHNICAL BOX

The latest patch released for the game brings it up to version 1.4, but I'm not going to be installing that for two equally good reasons:

1. I've heard that v1.4 is mostly a multiplayer upgrade and it screws up the single player game to the point where enemies can see and shoot you through walls. Not sure if that's true, but it kind of puts me off.
2. There's an alternative v1.32 AMD64 patch I can install instead that improves performance on 64-bit systems, works on Intel processors too, comes with an optional Extra Content Pack to enhance the visuals, and even makes the game DRM free.

Apparently the Steam version comes with both patches already installed, with the v1.32 64-bit executable hiding in the game's Bin64 folder, but I only own the DVD version so I can't test that. Feel free to let me know if I'm wrong.

(Click screenshots to make them bigger! If you want to.)
Read on »

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

How gamification works wonders for work-life balance

Source: HP

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Sam & Max: Save the World (PC)

Developer:

Telltale

|

Release Date:

2006

|

Systems:

Windows, Xbox 360, Wii

---

Today on Super Adventures I'll be having a go of Sam & Max: Season One, later retroactively relabelled Sam & Max: Save the World. Because I was asked to.

Save the World is the second of the Sam & Max games... or maybe games 2-7 depending on how you look at it, seeing as it's made up of 6 episodes, each released separately with their own executables. It's like a game entirely made up of standalone DLC. I'll be playing the first episode, Culture Shock, and I'm thinking that I might as well finish the thing if it's short. This means I'm going to end up SPOILING THE WHOLE FIRST EPISODE, puzzles and all, so don't actually read or glance at any part of this article.

Anyway, Save the World is/contains the second of the Sam & Max games released (after 1993's Hit the Road), but LucasArts had started work on an alternate sequel called Sam & Max: Freelance Police back in 2002. Production went well for 18 months or so, they'd gotten about two thirds through and everyone was happy, but then LucasArts was informed by an external marketing analysis group that adventure games were over and so they went and cancelled it. Couldn't be helped, the genre was dead and that was that.

A group of LucasArts developers who'd been working on Freelance Police decided that the best thing to do was to go off and start their own adventure game company called Telltale Games (not to be confused with Traveller's Tales, Tale of Tales or Tales of Game's). Actually their original plan was to buy the rights to Freelance Police itself and finish it off, but they couldn't make it happen. Fortunately for them LucasArts lost the rights to the crime fighting duo the following year and Telltale were able to get a damn Sam & Max game finished and released at last!

Save the World was a big enough success to get two sequel seasons so far, and Telltale are doing alright for themselves these days with games like The Walking Dead and A Wolf Among Us. I guess that means that one of the reasons adventure games weren't selling during the early 2000s is because LucasArts kept cancelling them all.

(Click on any screenshot to expand it to 1280x960 res.)
Read on »

reade more... Résuméabuiyad