machai-umno

Frictional Games is once again looking for someone to join our ranks! This time we are looking for a Gameplay Programmer / Designer to employ full-time . We are currently working on a new, currently super secret, horror game where we aim to take what we learned from Amnesia to the next level. This is what you will be a part of creating. A core feature of our games are atmospheric and immersive game worlds. You will be crafting these in collaboration with other members of the team, making sure that gameplay is smooth, that narrative works  and that the right themes are evoked.  It is very creative work, but it also require someone who is not afraid to tweak and test a lot. Instead of building everything around a fun core mechanic, our games derive most of their engagement from interaction with the world. Every scene is a sort of mini-game. This requires you to be at home with both programming and design. We do...

Vaccine Case by Wataru Nakano is a puzzle game from Japan, based on truly brilliant mechanics and a perfectly fitting theme. I suggest turning off the music. Otherwise it might get stuck in your head for all day :-) The basic idea is this: you see the map of a lab. Some rooms contain viruses, other rooms contain antidote gas. When gas comes in contact with a virus of the same color, both disappear. The goal is to remove all viruses. To play the game, you control doors. The basic type of door can only be opened. When you open a door, gas spreads as far as it can go and cannot be stopped. The most useful doors can be both opened and closed. This is important because, since when you kill a virus the gas you used disappears as well, you often need to seal some gas into a closed room to reuse it later. The room at the top of this level has that kind of door. Another important limitation is that you cannot open a door if it separates two rooms containing gas of different colors. So in the ...

Lately I've slightly reduced the frequency of my reviews, for a couple of reasons. The main one is that, sadly, the past few weeks on the App Store have been less than memorable for puzzle games. There's a deluge of Rush Hour copycats, and an annoying amount of apps that try to have titles and icons similar to the apparently very popular Candy Crush Saga , but I could find very few puzzle games of any interest. A couple of games had pretty good puzzle mechanics. Too good, apparently, to be original. Indeed, I recognised Raf Peeters ' style in one of them, and sure enough, after some quick research I found it to be a blatant copy of Hide & Seek Safari . I had already published a positive review of another game, when Tom Cutrofello told me it was a clone of Lunar Lockout . That's not necessarily a bad thing per se , but certainly the origin of the puzzle should have been acknowledge by the author of the app. The other reason for the less frequent reviews is that, a...

One thing lacking in game design, especially when it comes to interactive storytelling, is a proper set of terms. While I do not think having a precise terminology will directly aid in making games better, it will help us communicate better. As proper communication is crucial for progress, proper terms are indirectly an important part of making better storytelling games. Because of this, I am going to go over some terminology that I find essential, what I mean by them and why I define them in a certain manner. This is not meant to be a list of terms that I want everybody to adopt. Instead I want it to start a discussion so that we can come a bit closer at agreeing on the terms we use to discuss these matters. I have changed my terms quite a bit over the past few years and I am prepared to do so again. I need to go over a few things before I start. When choosing a term and its definition I think that, if possible, one should use an existing word and to use a definition...

Today I was gladly surprised to discover that the editors of the iPhoneItalia website have selected Brain Twirler among the 50 games that will be voted by readers to choose the best Italian game of the year, for an event to be held on July 28th, 2013, at the Aquafan Riccione water park. ©2013 Nicola Salmoria. Unauthorized use and/or duplication without express and written permission is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicola Salmoria and nontrivialgames.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Sometimes I just don't know where the time goes over here in the Purple Duck Games bunker. For a while I was really consistent on updating the blog at least once a week. Obviously I fell of that schedule so its time to catch up.  Top Publisher List at Rpgnow Today for the first time since we began publishing books, we have made the top publisher list on Rpgnow's front page. I say, we made it, but really, you made it happen with your support of our Pathfinder, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Labyrinth Lord, Icons, 4C, and stock art releases.  To celebrate, I've put all Purple Duck Games products and all 4 Winds Fantasy Gaming products up for sale at Rpgnow and shop.d20pfsrd.com for 25% off. This sale will continue until June 1st only, so do not hesitate to pick up your missed items. New from Purple Duck Games From Purple Duck Games we have released three short products.  In 2011,  4 Winds Fantasy Gaming  released the  Tome of Monsters  for the Pathf...

OOOoooooo-YEAH! Hidden in Plain Sight has been published for the Ouya.  The free version includes unlimited play of Ninja Party and Death Race (which I think are the two best modes, but others disagree).  For $0.99, you get the other three modes unlocked, as well as the customizable options to play with. I'm looking forward to hearing how Ouya players like it...  if you happen to have played it on the Ouya, leave a note and let me know how it all worked out for you.