I’m in a rush—why am I up! Why am I on my laptop, even?—so I’ll let Chris Person, who has been tearing up NYC to find the perfect T-shirt, do the talking. He writes,
Aside from hitting up UNIQLO Friday for Phoenix Wright shirt goodness, I actually went to check out the newly opened storefront for the fitted-hat and stylish streetwear aficionados at Mishka. Lo and behold, what did they have there? Oh nothing, just some cool clothes and the most awesome-ist custom-painted Street Fighter II cabinet ever, set to free play.
Until a few days ago, the iPhone game Eliss was knuckle-crackingly, hair-tearingly, eye-drippingly tough. Multicolored orbs swarmed the screen too quickly, perhaps, and new game elements popped onto the touchscreen with hardly an introduction.
But Eliss’s creator, Steph Thirion, very actively sought out players’ opinions during this March’s GDC; even after, he went so far as to assemble a whole new crack team of beta testers. Seldom have I met a developer so sweetly wracked with concern after his game has launched—and, moreover, even after his game has already received generally favorable reviews.
Two days ago, Thirion released Eliss v1.1, an update that both eases the difficulty curve and lengthens the game. He’s also clarified the tutorial—although, for my own part, I really preferred the murkiness—and, on top of everything, he’s reduced the app’s price to a comparatively paltry US$2.99. That price point is honestly small potatoes, considering Eliss is every bit as full an experience as Every Extend Extra or Gunpey.
I think it’s really important to note all these changes. Destructoid posted its review of the old version of Eliss today, which is really too bad: a lot of major complaints have been addressed, if not resolved. In any case, if the difficulty curve frightened players off before, Eliss certainly warrants another look.
We’re getting by, but not doing as well as we’d like. Retro Game Challenge started off well but still hasn’t gotten to the point where we can justify bringing over the sequel.
Look, I get it. The Grudge remakes were awful, and not everyone liked the (four!) Japanese movies, either. Fine! That’s fine! Obviously, the story about a young wife bound in a plastic bag, who crawls around on her hands and knees in her time-warpy haunted house, isn’t for everyone! That’s just great!
In a perfect world, the Grudge game will come to North American Wiis, maybe in a special J-horror two-pack, bundled along with Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse. I just made myself cry.
To be fair, everyone had a terrible 2008, I think. As for Introversion—and to make the developers’ long story much, much shorter—several projects fell through their full plate, and besides that, hardly anybody played Multiwinia. 2008, it would seem, left Introversion in dire straits.
For me, this is the worst part: Introversion was left standing in the cold with their just-completed DEFCON for Nintendo DS. I cannot even begin to imagine the (positive!) response DEFCON DS would elicit.
I know the title is kind of misleading, as there’s always a new Cactus game. Cactus—AKA Jonatan Söderström—is an especially prolific young game designer who demands your attention.
In turns, I’m fascinated with, repulsed by, and addicted to ‘social network’ games. I am so hooked on Loudcrowd. I am surprised by the way games like Mafia Wars aggressively, virally spread themselves, essentially tricking players into passing the game on to unsuspecting friends. I constantly try to dodge my cousins and aunts, all of whom generously offer me plants and flowers for my Lil Greenhouse (or whatever) that I don’t have. Anyway, read this thingie.
"Everything has such a well defined heft and tension, everything responds to your prodding with just the right amount of ‘squishiness’, that even its most surreal concoctions feel fantastically alive." Let’s all agree to play this and then reconvene.
