The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess continues to mesmerize me. I jumped into the game directly after finishing Super Mario Galaxy a couple weeks ago and I’m still loving every minute of it.
What’s great about this game is that it’s full of surprises. Adventure. And as anyone that’s played Zelda would know, adventure is what Zelda is all about.
I’ve been seeing a lot of cool 3d Flash stuff here and there, mostly on development blogs or forums. When I tell people that Flash can do 3d stuff, I get an impression which is a mixture of shock and disbelief. After checking out an informative PaperVision 3d video tutorial on gotoandlearn.com, I was less intimidated and ready to jump into it. Been looking for an excuse to brush up on my 3d skillz.
CUBOCC face demo
Anyway, I saw this demo at http://cubo.cc/ today and it kind of shocked me. Apparently it’s a bit viral already, spreading around the net as it should. Some awesome coding, brilliant texturing and a simple design goes a long way, doesn’t it? The future of Google Adsense? Unfortunately, most likely! haha
But wait… that’s not all!
I’ve had an exciting week sitting at my computer. Reading all the news and happenings from GDC. Hoping for some great info, some great discoveries to be rained down upon me like liquid inspiration.
The most important news story to me is that on Wednesday Microsoft finally announced that games created with XNA Game Studio will be able to be distributed to ALL Xbox Live members. They’ve developed a system similar to Newgrounds.com, allowing anybody to upload content, undergoing peer review to be approved. This seems like another great way to reach a game audience, beyond Flash. You can read the details of how they plan to “Democratize Game Distribution” here.
N+ on Xbox 360
I don’t think it’s any coincidence that Wednesday marked the release of N+ on Xbox Live Marketplace, an upgrade to Metanet Software’s well-known ninja-simulator Flash game.
It seems that making the transition from free Flash game to a commercial product is becoming more reasonably obtainable/acceptable.
In other news… what have I been playing recently?
Monday morning and I just stumbled upon this game on the Flashkit forum. In this game you cooperate with yourself to finish stages. Very interesting concept and excellent execution.
Daymare Town. I found this gem when someone mentioned it on the Flashkit games forum. Straight forward point-and-click adventure game. Excellent presentation, interesting art style, great puzzle design.
I couldn’t finish this without a walkthrough, but I blame it on a couple poorly drawn props. You’re in for a good hour or so of headscratching.
This game reminds me that there’s nothing wrong with keeping things simple sometimes. Props to the designer.
Check out Daymare Town at www.pastelstories.com.
I was excited when this game was announced. A sequel to one of my favorite games. 
And Treasure never makes sequels. If you’re not familiar with the work of Treasure, I wrote some impressions on their title Radiant Silvergun a few weeks ago.
Unfortunately this wasn’t the kind of sequel I was expecting. This game retains many of the fundamental qualities that made the first one so great but it’s missing something. Soul. And that’s ironic because the ridiculous storyline in the game revolves around your character being possessed by the souls of the heroes from the first game.
I was reading the Flashkit Gaming Forum and someone made a post about this game. I was hesitant to try it because I believed it was just going to be a cheap knock-off. What I discovered was a cleverly designed and well executed game. This one is simply fun to pick up and play. I played 23 stages in one sitting.
Check it out at http://portal.wecreatestuff.com/. Game by We Create Stuff.
I’ve been putting some work into a new game in the past few weeks. It’s a game that takes place within the Thugjacker world. You’re not playing as Deebone, as you might expect. Instead you play as a rogue police officer with his mind set on one thing. Donuts. Donuts falling from the sky.
This is a background sketch I drew for the game. I’m vectorizing it now and shall paint it after I’m finished with that. As usual, I’m doing the programming and background design with this game. Ricky’s working on some character designs so he should be passing them my way soon.
As anyone who’s played any of our games before should know, this game’s gonna be a bit different. Good times 🙂
I have a tall stack of puzzle games for the Nintendo DS. I just added another to the stack today when picked up a copy of Gunpey DS, on impulse, during my visit to Fry’s Electronics today. I’ve only heard of this game because of an interview with Tetsuya Mizuguchi on Gamasutra. It’s another music-themed puzzle game from Q Entertainment (Lumines and Meteos). It was only $10 so I decided to give it a go.
My homey Ramiro Roman Jr. just released the second issue of his comic Skincube. Kinda creepy and kinda disturbing, but I find it very interesting with some excellent artwork.
Two twin brothers discover a skincube. Afterwards, one of them falls ill.
Check it out at http://ramiro.rydia.net/comics.html. If you like the work, be sure to purchase a copy. Support the grassroots, eh?
Sokay is a Los Angeles native game development crew.
The say it never rains in Southern California.
At Sokay, we make it rain.
by
