Back – way back – in the halcyon days of 2007, the original Puzzle Quest was released on XBox Live Arcade. While, at the outset, it seemed like another Bejeweled clone, of which I had already played my fill, it actually housed a much deeper game, complete with RPG elements, and multiple strategies with which the game could be played. While I had vowed to swear off all match-three games due to a complete and utter addiction to PopCap’s flagship title, the addition of new and different ways to affect the board, in addition to having an actual opponent who I had to outplay, brought me back to the fold.

Fast forward to about 6 months ago, when Joel and I got a preview of the new Puzzle Quest 2, and were promised one singular thing: More. More matching, more spells, more minigames, more character options, more, more, more.

Boy, did they ever deliver.

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It’s happened again; fellow writer Chris Klimas and I, in the guise of our dynamic duo known as Twofold Secret, have released a new game.  Focused on the eternal conflict between man and robots, Sanctuary 17 is a free-to-play browser based game you could be enjoying right now.  To summarize myself:

Sanctuary was born from my desire to re-imagine one of  my favorite games from my childhood: Night Stalker (for the Intellivision).  A very simple game about a man trapped in a maze with an endless parade of deadly robots coming after him, it still managed to push my childhood fear button with great effect.  Taking those feelings – isolation, fear of what was coming next – and putting them into a larger context was the driving force behind my early designs for Sanctuary.

There is also an honest-to-goodness paper manual available for those who wish to support the game, or who have a deep and abiding love of manuals.

So, go and give it a try, and have some fun!

I have had a hankering lately to play a game that does not exist.  Specifically, a Western RPG as they used to be, before Bioware and Bethesda took up the reins of Western RPGdom.  Of course, many of you will say there is nothing wrong with those two being in charge, but I’m afraid that Dragon Age and Fallout 3 just don’t scratch that itch for me.

So, why?  Why am I dissatisfied with the current crop of Western RPGs?  What are they missing, what are they doing wrong?

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When I first heard that the new iterations of Pokemon Gold and Silver were going to come with a pedometer, it brought back memories of a miniature Game & Watch style Pokemon game called Pokemon Pikachu, which was essentially a pedometer that built up “watts”, which could be used to buy items in the original Gold and Silver games. There was also a stand alone version which had no interaction with the Gameboy games at all.

Now, at the time, it had to be purchased separately, and while I had one of the original units, I never knew anyone that had the later ones, and the only feature that you could use between units was to transfer watts. If this proto-Pokewalker actually came with Gold and Silver like the Pokewalkers did, then things might have been a bit different. For a while in the mid 90′s, things like Pokemon Pikachu – whether it be Tomagochis or Digimon or whatever -were a lingering fad, but one that never really took off. That’s why I thought it initially odd that Nintendo would attempt to revisit something that never had much popularity. Does anyone ever actually remember linking with random people like the advertisements used to claim?

Turns out that despite my initial concerns, it seems to have been a pretty good idea…

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My wife plays video games.

I like to think my gentle tutelage over the years that has led her to this, but I will not be so presumptuous as to take all the credit.

That being said, like any gamer, there are games she likes, and games she doesn’t like.  She loves puzzle games, but I don’t think I could get her to play an FPS even with bribery.  What she loves more than anything (I think) are games that we can play together.  I love them, too.  It’s great to be able to sit next to your loved ones and work through a game that you both enjoy, together.

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Yes, it’s been a busy couple of weeks, but just to keep you apprised of what I’ve been up to, I thought I’d bring back our old friend, the Five-Line Friday!  With a three day weekend coming up, I’ve got my DS charged up and a fresh new copy of Might & Magic: Heroes of Battle ready to roll; I’d heard many good things about this when it first came out, and it’s high time I got around to playing it myself.  Super Mario Galaxy 2 now has its place of residence in the Wii, and the wife and I have been making slow but steady progress through the first few levels (multi-target Yoshi tongue action?  Fantastic!).  Part of the reason that I’ve been playing less games than usual is that Chris and I have been busily working on finalizing our next release for Twofold Secret; we’ve been in beta for the past three weeks, and we’re looking to have the final release sometime very shortly; it’s been tough work, but it’s the kind of work you can love.  Lastly, I’ve been playing an inordinate amount of Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe when I have some spare moments, as, after ten years of playing this game, I finally grasped how to properly use signals the other day; it’s been a major advance in train scheduling.

-Joel

While Joel hasn’t been gaming as much, I feel like I’m on the opposite end of the spectrum, in that I have far too many games that I’m trying to get through.  Mario Galaxy has also taken up residence in my home, and it’s hard to tear myself away from it; I played through the entire first world in one sitting, and I’ve had to judiciously decide when I’m going to play it, since I know as soon as I start, the next thing I know it’ll be 3 hours later.  I’m also working on a couple of features for the site that I’m pretty excited about, that will be going up in the next couple of weeks, so that’s been occupying some time as well.  The other “main” game that’s sucking up my time is Split/Second, which aside from some truly awful rubber-band AI has been a fantastic experience – I’m not sure how well it will hold up to long-term play, once I’ve seen all the power plays the game has to offer, but until then, it’s been nothing but sheer gaming bliss. I also decided to go back and re-play Portal, to see if it’s as good the subsequent times through as it was the first time – and it totally is.

-Jeff

Alan Wake is a game that I had long dismissed as complete and utter vaporware.  Given that fact, even when they started a full-court media press about it after last year’s E3, a small part of me still believed that it was never coming out, and so I paid it no mind.  This willful ignorance actually had a positive effect on my overall experience with the game, as I went in knowing absolutely nothing about what this game was about, save for the fact that it came to me billed as a game filled with “Stephen King style horror.”  Being a complete horror apologist and fan, that was all it took to sell me on the game, and so with a steeled heart, a darkened room, and headphones cranked to 11, I ventured into the world of Alan Wake.

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There is a very strange moment in Final Fantasy VI that has always baffled me.

Relatively early in the game, after your party splits into three separate groups to take on their individual branches of the story, you are presented with a section dedicated to the character of Locke.  Locke, your party’s “treasure hunter” extraordinaire, travels back to the now-occupied-by-the-Empire town of South Figaro to cause some mayhem in the hopes of slowing up the Imperial advance. 

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There has been a bit of a gaming lull lately, and while I am still working my way through the Elite Four in Soul Silver, and still striking the earth as often as I can in Dwarf Fortress, I felt the need for a something with a little more… something.

As it so happens, over the last month, I have had the occasion to react in abject horror when two different people told me they never played through Final Fantasy III/VI (I’ll stop doing that now).  Both were people I would generally consider “well versed” gamers, and I viewed such a gap in their gaming history as a mark of shame.  So, after vigorously explaining to them that they just had to play, it seemed like the perfect time to give it another whirl myself. 

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I’ve been quite busy as of late, with a lot of work stress, projects around the house, and other various time-consumers that pop up out of nowhere.  So without further comment (ok, with some comment, but in a foreign language) a few moments from one of my favorite, calming games growing up: