There's a new landing page for the site, which I know is always a surprise but I hope that you'll all find the new layout useful. It should more effectively highlight a variety of new content for people who visit the site for the first time, while the content that more regular users tend to enjoy most is right near the top of the page (or requires less scrolling to reach).

I've posted in more detail on the forums. You can view that topic right here.

In other news, I've taken additional steps to disable iframes on the forum, both in messages and in signatures, as they can serve as a security exploit. I know some people like to use things that include iframes, but there's no telling who might control the content on the other end, so it was an appropriate change. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Good luck, man. Every now and then, something comes along that takes priority over reviewing video games online, and I suppose this just about registers as such.

It's a round number, so I'm noting it as a milestone of sorts. Which gives me an excuse to celebrate heavily today. CHEERS!

Can you provide a link? I think I know where it is on Amazon, but I'm not sure.

Awesome list. I knew we sort of liked similar artists but I'm pleasantly surprised by how much I dig on this list. Particular shoutouts to The Joy Formidable, Cut Copy, The Go! Team, Starfucker, Justice and St. Vincent. Glad to see Fucked Up mentioned too (amongst many other bands).

It's probably too late now but I'd be interested to see a top albums list.

I'm greatly disturbed by this.

I decided to join on the Apollo 18 20th anniversary tribute which was posted to the text adventure forums back in December. I probably took too many games--the organizer wanted them all to be claimed by January 1 or so and so I stepped in with some ideas by January 15th, worrying nobody was going to take things. So I feel bad having taken so much, and I didn't really go after reciprocal testing, but I have to say this: it was a ton of FUN when I had the time, and despite being rather sick for 10 days, the 3-month buffer was enough.

And other people started picking things off. Some members of the Chicago-IF group took one here and there. Some other people I'd never heard of dropped in, too, some writing their first games. And if there aren't any super-big-long-time-historic traditional names writing (except Nick Montfort) I really enjoyed the opportunity to beta-test other people's games, which gave me ideas for my own.

I have a hard time finding what sort of criticism and creative trade I like, but with text adventures, I think I am really happiest at the moment. The sort of criticism where I know someone is going to fix Obvious Bug X (e.g. they say there's graffiti there and the player can't examine it) or they don't respond to a standard verb (e.g. SING in a game with a guitar, or maybe BURN PHOTOGRAPH in a game where the room is on fire.) It gives a chance to be positive and suggest a person can do more. That's when criticism's at its best.

So whom would I recommend? I had a blast playing Carl Muckenhoupt's game (My Evil Twin) before it was fixed, and I know he will--his game The Gostak will either annoy you or blow your mind or both.

I was able to provide a lot of checking for Ben Collins-Sussman and Jack Welch's Narrow Your Eyes. As they co-wrote it, and they live a thousand miles apart, they used Google Code. I enjoyed being able to report issues to the issue page and also being able to see the source--which I learned so much from.

Ryan Veeder also won IFComp 2011 (just ahead of someone else here's fine effort on HonestGamers) and his two games are almost certainly worth playing. He writes funny stuff.

Whether or not you're familiar with TMBG, it's probably a lot of fun to poke around. I have to admit, I've got a potential embarrassment if some of my games don't work (hint: Space Suit received the most testing) but I think if you're in the mood for a quick text adventure game, any of the Fingertips will do. They're all intended to be 1-movers and many have VERY different ways of looking at things.

And I just like how this collection acted as a sort of farm system for people who were maybe newer to writing text adventures to join in.

Anyway. That's what I've been up to. I'm already planning my next game, too. It may not get wide exposure, but after my 2011 IFComp entry, I finally wrote a game (as I wanted to.) Now I want to write one really well.

So I know Jason has a full-length novel. What's everyone else doing writing-wise outside of HG?

LR for WonderSwan

I wasn't aware of the WonderSwan until I went searching for new versions of Lode Runner (LR.) It was a last resort. You see, so many ports of Lode Runner contain the same levels from the original. Maybe they throw in a story with animals to rescue or something, but it that couldn't disguise the exact same levels made by kids pulled off the street long ago back in 1980. Which is annoying to see after I've poked my way through several Japanese menus. Yeah, first world problems, rom downloads aren't perfectly legal, and so on. But when so many Lode Runner games come with level editors (also part of the original) that the developers themselves never seem to use, it's hard to believe much care went into these products.

Not so with the WonderSwan port (WS.) It's not brilliant, but it doesn't have to be. It hits all the basic LR puzzles and adds a few more. As in other LR games, you basically climb ladders, walk on ropes, and dig holes to the left and right for enemies to fall in. The holes can fill up, trapping the enemies, who reappear at the top, or even you. Get all the gold, and you will get a ladder or door to the next level, often positioned awkwardly. You die if enemies touch you, but it's also common to get stuck with no way out, which is awfully frustating but also the source of some of the best puzzles. You may have to dig through a whole structure for that one last gold piece without getting trapped, or you may need to make an educated guess about which blocks are fall-through--they look the same as the regular ones. It's part logic and experimentation, and often after thinking I knew what a square had to be, or thinking the game was vague, the solution tipped off other things. LR: WS is really good at forcing this educated guesswork or giving these a-ha moments.

And here the game changes more than just enemy speed or how fast the holes fill in--those have been enough to create vastly different puzzles. The biggest is the crumbling block--it, like the fall-through block, is indistinguishable from the regular sort you walk over. However, it disappears after a second once you step over it, often making a one-way passage or ruining an obvious digging sequence.

The other new feature is water. It's an amusing one, where a small pool can spill out to the whole level. If you dig a bounding block, it pours out to that side and below. Water slows you down, unless you chose the scuba suit at the level's start--and then, you aren't able to outrun monsters until you're in the water. There're also lobsters that scuttle back and forth in some pools. They're often guarding gold, but if you're clever, you can get the lobsters to block enemy. You can also walk on top of the lobsters for some tough-to-get gold pieces if you're very careful. And if all of this doesn't sound like much, it doesn't need to be. LR is very basic without ever approaching the total dryness of, for instance, Sokoban, and also unlike Sokoban, the action and interaction allow for believable added enemies and challenges like this.

LR also makes challenges optional, so you don't get stuck as easily. Non-gold items you can get in WS compromise between die-hard fans and people new to the game and a great way to get around the usual "gee, you're stuck" in a puzzle game. For instance, cake slices just get you points, and getting 90% of feathers unlocks the sort of bonus round Lode Runner fans love. Often you need to do something like jump and run on a falling enemy, or futz with a certain area at the start, to get these. Sometimes you just need to pray that the ladders that pop up after you get the gold will let you grab everything.

All this gets more demanding and nastier, and I mean this in the most complimentary way, as you reach the end of the 125 levels. Sometimes you need to freeze the screen to see the whole board--the WonderSwan screen not being very big--and that leaves the game feeling like busy work at times, because you have to scroll up to see where the enemies you just killed are about to reincarnate. This doesn't ruin the game, of course, but often feeling like the WonderSwan is asking you to check your work can get in the way of basking in a nice solution.

This is about the biggest nuisance, though. LR is a good game for black-and-white systems, and here the lobster and your squid-like opponents are more than acceptable. The scuba suit you wear is also very cute, with little bubbles coming from your guy either way (no, he won't drown if he stays underwater.) And if there are no especially wild puzzles, the game never seems to be mailing it in.

All this left me with a very favorable impression of the WonderSwan. Not that I found another game to play. But it's good to find a port of my favorite series on an obscure system that upholds the tradition and does something new. It'sabout the right balance of challenging and inviting, and if every port had thrown in a tweak like water or crumbling blocks, it'd have been quite exciting. It's too late to hope that Lode Runner will ever make a comeback, and I think I've exhausted all the old-school systems that might have new levels, so I'm grateful to be able to find games on the Nintendo 64, TurboGrafx and, yes, the WonderSwan which at least reminded me that other people enjoy the challenges in Lode Runner and were able to pass them on.

It's worth every penny, but don't forget, you'll also have to pay for your own airfare and lodging! I'd maybe let you sleep on the floor in my front room, since you would have to come all that distance, but you seemed just a little too excited about the walk on the beach.

I didn't even listen to 300 new songs in 2011, probably. Wow.

Congrats on your win. That's gotta be gratifying!

Lol...you might be right. Since, while CC was a long review, it wasn't 350K words long.

I think you mean KB. MB would be a LOT of text.

I thought it'd take longer, honestly.

After playing various Sonic games for the past two decades and listening to various opinions on Sonic, whether they're from followers or just gamers, I've come to the conclusion that everyone is a Sonic fan. Whenever a new Sonic game comes out, there's always a "passionate" debate or conversation, 99% of the time when I'm not looking for one, about what each gamer's favorite Sonic game is.

Surprisingly, it's actually really different from one another. And they will stand by that game, defending it from disagreers, and dismissing the rest of the games in the series as crap, stating the series is dead and will never return to its former glory (i.e. their favorite Sonic game). This has been going on for nearly two decades, and I really doubt it's going to stop as long as more Sonic games are released.

Of course, this could apply to any other game franchise, but the Sonic fanbase seems disturbingly "faithful" in their beliefs. Downright creepy. I wish not to provide examples in order to keep my sanity.

I don't know if its just because I've had a lot to say about certain games like FF XIII and Chrono Cross, but I've been more in the 8-9 MB realm than the 5-6 MB realm recently. Might have to do a couple short-n-sweet reviews just in case I'm just getting overly verbose.

OD's Thought for the Day

I discovered that the links to posts from the Friends page were not always working as should (specifically, when people would try to click to read the original post that prompted any replies that now appear in the feed), so I fixed those links. It's just a minor tweak, all for the best because previously the page was not working as intended and now it is.

You have likely noticed by now that the left and right columns on the main site were swapped. There's a simple reason for that. I've been reading for a long time about the natural path a person's eyes follow when viewing a site. I've also been reading within Google's help pages that it's important to switch up design elements (such as the orientation of columns) to determine which layouts get the desired response.

The new setup is an experiment. People tend to look toward the left of the page first, which will allow them to see our latest featured content no matter what page they first view upon arriving on the site. In general, the tendency is to ignore content on the far right side of a page. Because our left bar is narrower than the right bar, the effect of the new design is that the left content calls attention to itself (as it should, to encourage more traffic to reviews and such) but the right column also pops out more and is more comfortable to read.

I realize that the experience can be jarring for people who have been viewing pages on the site for years. It took me between 15 and 20 page loads as I browsed the site before I adapted to the change, but now I quite like it. I hope that you'll give the change a chance and see how it impacts your browsing experience. It will likely remain in place for at least a few weeks to give me time to determine what impact (if any) it has on our traffic.

Edit: For whatever reason, pages now seem to load faster than they did previously. I like that.

Obviously, I haven't been making huge tweaks to the blogs after the recent change of some enormity, but today I did add one tweak that's been on my mind for a bit: a bar along the top of the page so that it's easy to return to your own profile if you visit a friend's blog. It's something some of you had asked about, as well.

Another change I may implement today is a change to add replies to the "Friends" page, so that it's easier to see discussions friends might be having that you aren't necessarily aware exist. It's likely I'll put that change in place today, perhaps even in the next few minutes. It'll make it easier for more people to join interesting discussions.

This section of the site is obviously still a work in progress. I hope that you're enjoying the streamlined design as much as I am. Thanks for continuing to frequent the site and for posting in your blogs when you have something to share.

I always (as in, both times thus far) enjoy reading about your expliots at Gamejam. Long may it continue!