Are long games hurting the medium?
Are long games hurting the medium?

I’m not exactly sure where the mindset originated (though if I had to guess I’d say with young people without a large income), but for a large segment of the gaming community a game’s length is often viewed as one of the deciding factors in whether they decide to purchase/play it. It seems absurd to me, as after all nobody says they only read books that are over 1000 pages or albums with more than 20 tracks, but for whatever reason games are uniquely singled out as being required to provide dozens and dozens of hours of content, or else be written off as a poor value or even somehow degrading games as a whole with their meager offering.

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EssayNathalieFeatures, Opinion
Hotline Miami - Review
Hotline Miami - Review

As the music drove me forward and the hypnotic neon visuals swelled around the edges of a stage, I lost track of the number of people I had so brutally and ruthlessly murdered. The first kill was shocking, fast, and pointless. I felt sick and angry at the person who’d forced me into it. Then they gave me a pipe, and then a gun, and I kept killing. For as disturbing as the mutilated corpses and pools of blood around me were, the feedback I was being given was intoxicating, and the thrill of barely avoiding death only heightening the sensation.

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EssayNathalieDennaton Games, Devolver, Hotline Miami, Reviews
Karateka - Review
Karateka - Review

The repetition is grating and the game’s refusal to acknowledge and react to it frustrating. It’s not a game without merit, it just doesn’t know what to do with itself. That it’s constructed around a groan worthy damsel-in-distress plot, which culminates in the woman you’re rescuing effectively becoming your own prisoner, is only more bothersome and shows a hesitancy for Karateka to move past its archaic beginning. I’m not exactly sure who this version of Karateka is for, but as someone without any amount of nostalgia for the first it clearly wasn’t me.

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EssayNathalieKarateka, Reviews
Sandstorm - Review
Sandstorm - Review

I did eventually make it through the desert, camel reluctantly refastened to my carriage as I entered the city I’d been searching for. The journey was over, I’d found what I’d been looking for, and for a moment I was content with that. And yet, it still felt as if this was another con; as if the storm was attempting to fool me again to hide what was really hidden within it. I returned to the desert.

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EssayNathalieDaniel Linssen, itch-io, Reviews, Sandstorm
OlliOlli - Review
OlliOlli - Review

It's a game so precisely tuned and refined that I found myself becoming lost for hours at a time repeating levels attempting to best my prior run. It gave me a sense of accomplishment and elation at expertly executing a sequence of tricks I haven’t felt in a decade, and reminded me why I’m so sad games of this nature were killed off by their own insistence on flooding the market and deluding themselves with features nobody wanted. OlliOlli suffers from none of that. It’s pure, sublime skating perfection.

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EssayNathalieEditor's Choice, OlliOlli, Reviews, Roll7
Indie Impressions: Fantastic Witch Collective (Adventure Demo)
Indie Impressions: Fantastic Witch Collective (Adventure Demo)

Firstly, I'd just like to take a moment to recognize that Fantastic Witch Collective as a name for anything is already pretty brilliant. That that something happens to be a delightful 16-bit RPG from indie developer, Lulu Blue, only makes it more, well, fantastic, and though it's still incredibly early in development, the little I've played of FWC has me convinced it's going to live up to its title.

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EssayNathalieFantastic Witch Collective, Impressions, itch-io, Lulu Blue
Shelter 2 - Review
Shelter 2 - Review

The original Shelter was a poetic, intense journey through the life of a momma badger and her journey to find safety for her cubs. It’s one of the most powerful experiences I’ve ever had with a game, relentless and beautiful in its raw exploration of the brutality of nature, and one that I felt stood alone without need of a sequel. To its credit, Might & Delight’s Shelter 2 has arrived full of big ideas and drastic departures from the first; an artistic and emotional feast of burgeoning ambition and creativity. I only wish it had been aware enough to know when to stop the flood.

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EssayNathalieMight & Delight, Reviews, Shelter 2
The Right Side of Town - Review
The Right Side of Town - Review

Whether as a witty cyberpunk detective tale or a deeper commentary on our tendency to conform to society’s wishes and expect the same of others,Gwaltney and Horrorshow’s Twine excursion gave me cause to think and further appreciate a genre which seems unequaled in its ability to simultaneously exist as entertaining escapism and thoughtful commentary when given to the right artist.

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EssayNathalieitch-io, Javy Gwaltney, Kitty Horrorshow, Reviews, Twine
How itch.io is different and why they're important
How itch.io is different and why they're important

itch.io is the latest of these, or at least the one I’ve been hearing about the most. It’s a site dedicated to independent games with a focus on developers and flexible monetization. It doesn’t sound too radical when you put it that way, but as I dug deeper into the site, I began to see how itch.io drastically differs from other distribution platforms; in ways that significantly alter the message the site seems to driven by, and the impression I got of how it chose to present it. Though in some ways the site still feels as if it's in its infancy, these differences are exciting and noteworthy enough to warrant discussing.

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EssayNathalieFeatures, itch-io, Opinion
Indie Impressions: Master Spy (Alpha Demo)
Indie Impressions: Master Spy (Alpha Demo)

My biggest concern would be how Turbogun balances its difficulty as later levels become more complex, but the small slice I experienced has me eager to see where the project heads. Even with my limited exposure to the game, there's a clear feeling that Master Spy knows what it wants to do, and even if it doesn't quite achieve its goals I have no doubt it will still get there with ample amounts of style.

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EssayNathalieFeatures, Impressions, Master Spy, Turbogun
The problems with F2P and how Hearthstone solved them
The problems with F2P and how Hearthstone solved them

I’ll be the first to admit that I cringe a bit anytime someone tells me about a free-to-play game. It’s a reaction I’ve seen among a lot of people lately, and it’s frustrating because I don’t think F2P as a monetization system is inherently bad. In fact, I feel it’s the inevitable and ideal future of a lot of games, allowing for greater financial success and longevity for developers, and the ability for players to try a game before spending a dime in a way demos can’t provide.

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EssayNathalieBlizzard, F2P, Features, Hearthstone