Don't worry Cary, I'll be sure to set aside a review code for GamerDad! Also, thanks for the heads up about the blog section, I managed to break it while trying to get the blog section on PixlBit Studios working. Whoops! Should be all functioning now though.
I'll be honest, it's a little nerve-wracking to know I'll be on the other side of a review one day. Been writing about games for so long that it's going to be very different to have someone critique my work.
Thank you, sir! It's exciting to finally give it a shot, I hope it inspires others to do so as well. There's no better time to try, the risks are lower than they've ever been before for jumping in.
Thanks Rodney! I'll definitely be posting dev blogs here as we progress in the project. Tonight I'll be setting up the Wii U dev kit, so depending on the progress I might have an update for everyone in the morning!
I've been playing some QUBE: Director's Cut recently. Portal-esque, minus all the great Glados stuff. Quantum Conundrum is another in that vein, also by Kim Swift.
I love historical video game books, especially from this era because it's the one part of video game history I didn't experience first hand. Any chance this is available in digital form? Wouldn't mind reading it on my tablet.
Nice piece, Blake. I definitely agree with a lot of what you have to say. I do think games are art, but art is such a personal term that it's basically meaningless. I also enjoy the occassional cinematic game, like Uncharted, but I agree that games as a medium shouldn't be moving in that direction.
Your aesthetic obsession comment is totally spot on. That obsession is literally running this industry into the ground. Games have gotten to be entirely too expensive to make and it's now requisite for companies to sell millions of copies just to break even. Smaller scale games from big publishers have almost out and out disappeared from the market. Sure the indie scene is rising up to fill that void, but there's a middle ground that's basically vacant right now and it's a real shame. I do think that the failure to launch with this latest console generation is partly telling of how consumers actually feel about the graphics arms race.
Anyway, I'm not surprised that you're getting that hatred. You took a few hard stances on things and people don't deal with that well. Thankfully the response here on PixlBit seems much better so far (though smaller, for sure).
It seems like Lords of the Fallen has really shaped up into something great. I definitely will have to check that out when I get some spare time to scratch my itch for more Souls.
Well, that and the DSII DLC I still have yet to get to.
I want to say there's a self-destruct option somewhere in the game so that you can get back to the surface. However, I generally find that the best way to make your way down through the mines is to dig straight down on the sides, occasionally cutting across to make a horizontal pathway to maximize your ability to extract minerals.
On my Wii U playthrough, I made sure to be quite regimented using the aforementioned approach in it worked out incredibly well. Towards the end of the game there are a lot of open spaces, so it falls apart a bit there, but it's not really a big deal by the time you get there thanks to the equipment you've got.
What Joaquim said.
