Best Games - The Irritating Maze The Irritating Maze is not a complex game. It is not a game that defines or extends a genre. You will not find a compelling narrative or ingenious mechanics here. The Irritating Maze is simple. But it’s the right kind of simple.

Today I submitted the last of my ‘one story a week for six weeks’ stories. I’m gonna take a little break from writing (like a couple days… not like a break break) so I think this is all the words I have left in me this week.

I only have one more story to write for the ‘write one short story every weekend jam type thing’ that I have been doing. I will be glad to be done, since it is slightly stressful coming up with something new every weekend and then having a bunch of strangers judge it and pick it apart. On the other hand, it is pretty fun to push yourself and just see what you are capable of coming up with. And maybe it’s even a little fun to have a bunch of strangers pick apart your work, while you pick apart theirs. The hope is That in the end any story that comes out of this process will be that much better. You have passed that first draft, first read hurdle, and you can really try to send it.

Quite a few months ago, I bought the full Affinity suite of products. Before you ask, of course they were on sale. I have used Affinity Designer for a few years now, but up until recently, I haven’t had much reason to use Affinity Photo. I use Krita for most of my painting and image editing, and I still like it, but recently I have been working on my IPad more and more often. Drawing and painting directly on the screen has its advantages. Since Serif offered a single licence for Windows, Mac, and IOS, doing some image editing and painting in Affinity Photo was sort of a no-brainer.

Best Games - Money Puzzle Exchanger / Money Idol Exchanger If you’re like me, you think about Magical Drop 3 more than a person really should. Almost immediately after thinking about Magical Drop 3, you think of Money Puzzle Exchanger. It turns out, Face, the developer of Money Puzzle Exchanger, might be like me.

Every once in a while, I come across a game that I just don’t get. I can’t understand why other people enjoy it. This is very much a ‘not for me’ thing. I mean, go enjoy whatever games you like, I’m not going to tell you no, or tell you that you are wrong for liking it.

Last year I took part in a sort of challenge. Every weekend for five weekends write one story under 750 words. By the end of the challenge you end up with five stories (or six if you take part in the warmup round).

Best Games - Asteroids There is nothing quite like a game that lets you do battle with mans oldest foe. Rocks. Big rocks, little rocks, medium sized rocks that split into two smaller rocks. Rocks and void. The way it started. The way it was always going to end.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

One of my favorite game experiences this year was the surprise of Hi-Fi Rush, a rhythm stylish action combat game that was as unexpectedly funny and charming as it was fun to play.

I’ve been working on a 2D game project for a little while now. You might say I have been working on this project since the early 90s. I have always been fascinated by video games. Since the time I was probably three and played a Space Wars arcade machine with my mom in the alcove between a bar and a restaurant, I have been amazed by them. That I can press a button or move a stick or wiggle a mouse or move my hands around in space with a screen strapped to my face, and something deep inside a computer will respond to that input, is pure magic.

I haven’t written about writing for a while. I tend to not want to, since, well, if I’m writing about writing I figure I should just be writing. The last time I did a writing update, I had a story out for submission and another one almost ready to go out. Both of those stories ended up getting rejected, but one of them was on hold for its third time (fourth maybe, but two of those times were at the same place).

Best Games - SubSpace In 1997 you would be lucky to get two computers to talk with one another long enough to play a short game of quake. It wasn’t impossible. Networked multiplayer games existed. Lots of people played them. I played them. But they weren’t exactly easy to get running. They weren’t exactly responsive. They weren’t exactly stable. The idea of running a single game that could accommodate over two hundred players on a single server, over a dial up modems, well that was sorcery.

About a half an hour ago I solved an issue I have been having with my 2D (but actually 3D) game project. It feels great. When I started this, I had an extremely specific aesthetic and feeling that I wanted to capture. A late 80’s to early 90’s arcade machine. The first part of the journey was creating a CRT effect. That came together fairly quickly. The next part was making properly looping animations and a system for making them either 3D or 2D rendered sprites. In the end I managed to make them 3D meshes that get rendered in a spritelike manner.