Developing games for a console is hard, damn hard. Even with the ascent of indie developers over the last five years or so, the number of people who have the talent, time and other qualities needed to develop a game for a console is quite small, but the next generation of consoles might just change all that. As much as we all love Steam and PC gaming to death (and I do), there is still an audience, and a non-trivial one, who prefer their games on consoles. Frankly, the more ways a game is available to be played, the better. (more…)
In the first piece I wrote for Unwinnable, I mentioned that “during creation basically all games are really shitty for a really long time. It’s just that the good ones get better.” This time, I want to go into arguably the best way games get from shitty to unshitty: playtesting. (more…)
It’s the time of year when the conversation turns to annual Best Of tallies. I put my hashmarks into Unwinnable’s roundup. Technically, my favorite game of 2012 didn’t even come out in 2012, but my admiration for it spans such Gregorian constraints. I loved this game more than any other, because of its unrelenting instruction in the virtues of patience, humility and grit and most importantly, the joy to be found in suffering. My game of the year for 2012 was Dark Souls. (more…)
Months ago, I received an email from Gus Mastrapa introducing me to Stu Horvath. I hadn’t met Stu before, but Gus said Stu was cranking the engine of a new website called “Unwinnable.” Stu was looking for someone on the industry side of games to write for the site occasionally, and in a compliment I still find myself staggered by, that’s why Gus was putting us in touch.
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