Tuesday, April 29, 2008

GTA IV

Like most gamers today, I've been playing GTA IV. And damn, it's good.

In the brief time I've spent with Nico, his cousin and their friends I've grown to like them a lot.

If I was Hollywood I'd be scared - games are so much more compelling than film.

www.passfieldgames.com

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Alien Carnage Surprise

I was visiting a neighbor today and got a pleasant surprise. Their young son was playing a game on the family PC and wanted to show it to me (he knows I make games for a living) - and lo and behold it was Alien Carnage - one of my old games!

I asked him if he knew who made it and he said Apogee. He had no idea that it was one of my games.

It's so cool to know that even today with the DS, Wii, PS3, 360, etc. kids are still playing classic PC games - especially games that I helped create!

And in a related coincidence, just this month I've received 3 different emails from people about some of my old games - including one person who was so inspired as a kid by The Chronicles of Jaruu Tenk that he entered the field of game programming and design.

Pretty cool stuff!

www.passfieldgames.com

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Site Migration

I'm taking the plunge and migrating to a new control panel with my web hosting service.

This means that I have to back up all my site data then upload it again to a new location. It also means recreating all my databases and email accounts and pointing my domain nameservers to a new location. It's a bit daunting.

Why do it? Because I will upgrade from PHP4 to PHP5 giving me access to heaps of cool new stuff. The results of which will become apparent in due time :-)

So, if you're reading this sometime Sunday then it probably means all went well...

See you on the other side!

www.passfieldgames.com

Monday, April 14, 2008

Amazon Queen in Italian!

If you like adventure games and you speak Italian, then check out the Italian version of Flight of the Amazon Queen!


Joe King, Faye Russel and Sparky in the Amazon speaking Italian

Thanks to Grifen at Funware and the ScummVM team, the Italian version of my adventure game Flight of the Amazon Queen is now available to download and play for FREE! That's right, for FREE!

I love owning the IP to my old games - it means that I can do stuff like this without having to plead with a publisher to relinquish the rights to a game that isn't even published anymore.

The more people that can experience these older games the better - unlike the film and book industry our games soon become unplayable due to the march of technology. The efforts of people like the ScummVM team does a lot to maintain our gaming heritage.

Download the Italian version of Flight of the Amazon Queen from here.

www.passfieldgames.com

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People

Hot on the heels of Telltale Games' Sam and Max series comes another comedy adventure game - Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People. Five episodes on Wii-ware coming this June.

You can check out a trailer from Home Star runner here, or visit the Telltale Games site for more videos.

Its looking more like the Wii is going to be the place for interesting indie games every day. Microsoft, you're going to have to lift your game on XBox Live!

www.passfieldgames.com

Saturday, April 05, 2008

You Have To Burn The Rope

You Have To Burn The Rope is an awesome Flash game that you should go and play right now!

Not only does it have a very cool song (just like Portal) but it also completely conveys the objective of the game in the title. I like games that do that. Destroy All Humans! is another great example of a game with a title that says it all. What do you have to do in that game? You destroy all humans. And what do you do in "You Have To Burn The Rope"? Well... I'll let you work it out from the title :-)

In other exciting news Sam and Max is coming to the Wii. Yay!

Now I only hope that they include some sort of hint system for the Wii version as some of the puzzles can be a bit obtuse. When you're playing on a PC it's easy to ALT-TAB to GameFAQs and get help. This isn't as easy when you're sitting on your couch in front of the TV.

So Telltale Games, please test this baby with some regular Wii players to make sure they don't hit a shelf moment and stop playing. Check out Zack and Wiki or Professor Layton for some examples of hint systems that work.


www.passfieldgames.com