In most puzzle games, solving the problems is the one and only goal. But in talking to Jake Jonghwa Kim, creative director of the platforming puzzle game Rooms The Unsolvable Puzzle — which is coming to PC, Mac, and Linux on May 1st — he not only noted how this sequel to Rooms: The Main Building came about, but also how explaining why you’re solving these puzzles makes this sequel better.
Most game developers don’t like to admit that their games are like other games, even when they are. But David Solari, the VP and Studio Head of England’s Jagex Games Studio has no such compulsion when it comes to their upcoming PC game, Block N Load. “It’s basically a cross between Minecraft and Team Fortress 2, with a little League Of Legends sprinkled in there,” he admits, and without prompting. But in talking to him about the game while I watched him play a couple rounds, it became clear that while this does have elements of Minecraft, Team Fortress, and a little League Of Legends, there’s actually a lot more to it.
According to the Anxiety And Depression Association Of America, “Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults in the United States age 18 and older (18% of U.S. population).” In his new book, Anxiety As An Ally: How I Turned A Worried Mind Into My Best Friend (paperback, digital), writer Dan Ryckert — who I and other people know best as a senior editor of the video game website Giant Bomb, or from his previous gig as the senior associate editor of the video game magazine Game Informer — talks about how he’s found a way to live as one of those 18%.
When Bladestorm: The Hundred Years’ War came out in 2007, it gave players a chance to lead groups of swordmen, spearmen, and archers in battles set during the titular European conflict. But when Bladestorm Nightmare comes out March 17th on the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and Xbox One, it will not only include the original game, but a entire second one in which those swordmen, spearmen, and archers will battle cylopses, dragons, and other mythical creatures. Bladestorm Nightmare producer Akihiro Suzuki explains how that happened and how it changes (or doesn’t change, as the case may be) how you’ll play this game.
In the action game Toukiden: The Age Of Demons, Vita owners got to track and kill fantastic creatures. Now a new version of that game, Toukiden Kiwami, is slated to bring the game’s beast stalking action to the PlayStation 4 and Vita on March 31st. But in talking to Toukiden Kiwami Producer Takashi Morinaka, it’s clear that this edition is both new and improved…and that you shouldn’t mention that other monster hunting game when you talk to him.
When the original Star Trek series was cancelled in 1969, it cut short the Enterprise’s five year mission. But thanks to such writers as Tony Daniel — the author of the new novel, Star Trek The Original Series Savage Trade (paperback, digital) — Kirk and co. have been able to fulfill their obligations to Star Fleet. Though in talking to Daniels about the book, it seems like he wasn’t just interested in telling another story of Kirk and co.
With a planet where genetic experiments have run amok, the sci-fi novel Prime (paperback, digital) has been likened to — and sometimes by its own authors — Jurassic Park…In Space! But in talking to authors Chris Kluwe (yes, the former punter for the Minnesota Vikings) and Andrew Reiner (yes, the executive editor of Game Informer magazine and gameinformer.com), while Prime may be an intergalactic take on Michael Crichton’s sci-fi disaster tale, both note that there are a lot of other influences at work here as well.
It’s been said so often that it’s become cliché, and yet it still rings true: “Write what you know.” But while you might think this bit of advice was ignored by Robert Levy when he wrote the supernatural thriller The Glittering World (hardcover, digital), he admits that it’s actually what he did…mostly.
At a time when new Call Of Duty and Assassin’s Creed games come out annually, it seems downright odd that it took the good people at Psyonix seven years to make a sequel to 2008’s Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars. And even odder that it wouldn’t be called Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars II: Electric Boogaloo (and, of course, feature only electric cars), but that it would be called Rocket League instead. But in talking to Psyonix’s Thomas Silloway, the project lead on Rocket League — which should be out late spring or early summer — it’s clear they’ve spent the time wisely.