By popular demand: another post!
Recently I've been playing the new Castlevania (Order of Ecclesia) and, as expected, it fails to disappoint (that is, it's awesome). However, it feels shallow to do a review, because we've all played Castlevania games before, and it's that standard fair. Though, the catch this time is that the game is broken up into stages AND Dracula's Castle, providing the player with more than enough to do.
But what's really on my mind (aside from programming) has been a freeware game, La-Mulana. I've seen screenshots of the game for a long time now, but I only played it a few hours ago, on my lunch break. Immediately the quality was apparent, and it's caused me to re-evaluate my approach to game design. It's very similar to Maze of Galious, an obscure MSX game (which, admittedly, has been in the blogs lately, probably due in part to La-Mulana). I'm going to hold off on posting a full review, because I'm yet to explore the depths of this massive game (place 5 skills points in dungeonering, please!) but I'll get there soon (saved right outside of Dracula in OoE, then I'll be free to play La-Mulana), so expect an update at some point.
The time for indie games is now, we are witnessing an explosion in creativity and dedication by indie developers. With modern technology gamers and artists are able to create and surpass games in the style of retro titles and technology. Exciting times, to be sure.
Finally, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Sami, 8-Bit City's number 1 girlfriend and reader!
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3 comments:
aww thanks
Happy birthday, mine's in a couple of weeks.
About La Mulana, I like how it looks and plays for the most part but I really think they took the whole computer disk gathering stuff way too far. It's too complicated for its own good.
Think back to the NES game Castlequest: A huge complex maze of castle rooms and devious puzzles. The thing that makes it work in my eyes is that your guy has only a couple of actions and the only inventory are some colored keys. Take a simple hero and a few basic but necessary player options and stick him in a complex game world. Make the game better by altering that world to challenge the player instead of the challenge being from juggling 100 different computer disks or whatever La Mulana has.
The instructional manual they made for La Mulana is really awesome though, you should try to find it online and check it out. It took that team something like 5 years to make too, which is very commendable. (The game, not the manual.)
About time you posted man i've been looking every day :D
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