Art

The Meeting-Driven World of Video Game Development

March 24, 2023 Editorials

For those of you who have ever worked a job that had any kind of meeting this may actually resonate differently than those who haven’t. When video games are developed there are, surprisingly, a lot of meetings that occur. When we’re talking meetings we’re talking a lot of meetings. So many meetings that it’s actually kind of fascinating to think about. None of the below is really applicable to single developer games that don’t utilize outside contractors. Single developers naturally work entirely alone on their own game and purchase / generate all the assets and resources themselves. Single developers who contract out work still have meetings, interestingly enough. Meetings and Video Games So there’s a lot of cooks in the kitchen. You have the product team, that’s the developer and the game designer along with their associated analysts and support staff. You have a technical team that’s got a considerable…

High on Life Weapon Tier List & Top Tips

March 23, 2023 Guides

High on Life released to massive success on Game Pass and is a really fun, but rather short fourth wall breaking adventure. We’ve got a one page sheet on which weapons are best and what’s the best part about them, some top tips and wisdom on missables, a list of confusing parts during each of the bounties and finally we wrap-up with a spoiler free secret ending guide. That’s a lot, but for a simple game it’s the best way to get everything you need in one place to make this is a far-out space adventure. Weapon Tier List A+: Creature Creature’s ability is just really good because it’s offensive and defensive. Their trick shot is almost worthless, absolutely worthless. The mind control just sucks on lower difficulties, on the harder one it gets some heat off of you but ultimately the ability to just non-stop have enemies staggered with…

Pentiment Has Little to Do With Player Choices

November 24, 2022 Guides

Pentiment is an amazing game of beautiful art and stylized text in the 1500s. One of the beautiful things about the game is that it gives you an artistic representation of life for the various classes of people, what they did in their day to day lives along with some religious and political intrigue. What the game doesn’t do is give the player any edification on what is and isn’t true in the world around them. This is true in both Act I and Act II when you’re given the chance to weigh in on the investigation in town. In Phoenix Wright your job would be to accuse the actual perpetrator but in Pentiment, you’re given something a bit different. That’s a lack of resources, time, access and knowledge to discover who did any of the main crimes in the game. At best you can provide what you’ve found and…

20 Top Tips for Idle Skilling

October 9, 2024 Guides

Here’s twenty hot tips for Idle Skilling to kick start your adventure or break through barriers in this free to play incremental idle game. Move through a world of abstract pixel art quickly and get those sweet Idleon rewards fast. We’ve got five tips for each of the four categories: getting started, first ascensions, first rebirth and making it to the end game. They did remove the character from the main world in Idleon, but that doesn’t mean you still can’t get the reward. Getting Started You’ll want to get some gems ASAP. If you want to go fast you’ll have to pay to play. Sad truth here, but if you throw the starting gem pack at the game you’re going to zoom through the start very quickly with just double AP, the infinity forge and a few other quality of life upgrades like advanced skillers. Avoid long waits, reap…

Rose Colored Gaming: Koffin Acrylic Game Storage Review

June 10, 2022 Reviews

There’s a few things that’s kind of hard to find in the world of video game collecting and one of them is hilariously enough storage solutions. It’s quite difficult to obtain some method to store and display physical games which is where Rose Colored Gaming’s “Köffin” comes in. A full acrylic shell to cover your game from all edges and protect it from the elements while allowing you to still see the full game inside. About RCC’s Koffin Coming in two variants, a base model at ~$20 USD and a UV protective model at ~$30. They are actually quite extremely expensive with the most sincere honesty here when it comes to game storage. The general plastic covers that you can buy in bulk come maybe a dollar a piece; if you buy from a game store sometimes they’ll charge you a few bucks each. These those come with a hefty…

Understanding the Duty Finder – FFXIV Dungeon / Duty Finder Guide

August 30, 2021 Guides

In a typical MMO, a dungeon would be known as a dungeon but in FFXIV they are known as a duty. The duty finder is basically the dungeon finder in FFXIV and the lifeblood of the game. Now, like any MMO with a dungeon finder, there isn’t always the best company to play with and you won’t always have a successful run of whatever you’re signing up for, but that’s okay and part of life. We’re going to go over the duty finder and some tips on how to make your duty runs more successful, because with just four player groups, one person can make a difference. For those coming over from WoW: Dungeon sizes are different in FFXIV. Dungeons are known as as a “Duty” in the game. Instanced gameplay comes through a lot of flavors. To continue the story, often a duty is required although these requirements change…

Understanding Limited Run Games and the Game Collector’s Market

May 1, 2021 Guides

Limited Run Games is a publisher of limited runs of physical games. There are other outlets, like Strictly Limited, that do a similar thing but Limited Run Games is what I would consider the industry leader in this very interesting world of limited video game releases. Their popularity recently has continued to only soar as collectors attempt to collect a wide range of their products, from the games they love to those who just love to collect every release. To be completely candid, I recently was looking at MidBoss’s Japanese release of the 2064 collector’s edition and fell immediately in love with the artwork and everything about it. Obtaining the previous US release led me down a long and wild adventure into a niche market that’s exploding in popularity and has a lot of pieces to untangle. The Principles of False Scarcity & A Limited History of Collector’s Editions If…

Murder by Numbers Review (PC / Switch)

April 12, 2021 Reviews

Murder by Numbers is a “nonogram,” “griddler” or “pixel puzzle” game mixed with a bit of visual novel style detective work. You can sum the entire game up by saying take a healthy dose of Picross and mix it with some Phoenix Wright and you now have an entirely new game. The comparison with Phoenix Wright starts and stops in the visual novel category, though. There is no in-depth investigation periods like in the Nonary Games or in Phoenix Wright. No courtroom trials like in Danganronpa or Phoenix Wright. There is pixel puzzles and a story and in a lot of ways, that’s fine. The gameplay loop is simple. There is a mystery to solve. You investigate by scanning a scene (you have a radar type mechanism to tell you where to go). When you’ve found something you’re thrown into a pixel puzzle which you solve and then obtain the…