Pong posts

Atari founder and Pong creator Nolan Bushnell has stayed busy over the years in the game industry and recently became one of the co-founders of Reality Gap, a microtransation-based game company that recently launched the open beta for a new casual fantasy MMO called Monato Esprit. Now Bushnell is getting his hands dirty on a more hardcore free-to-play game.

USA Today's game blog has the first word on that project, a sci-fi RTS-FPS hybrid called Battleswarm: Field of Honor. The article chats with Bushnell about the project which also has a tiny screenshot of the game itself (that's it above this post). Bushnell said he came up with the game as a way to play online with his five sons; all of whom are first person shooter fans. However he admits that his reaction time in playing FPS is not up to his sons so Battleswarm adds some RTS elements into the mix.

Bushnell, who describes the game as ""a mash-up between StarCraft and Starship Troopers" says microtransactions will be used to purchase upgrades with Bushnell saying, "There are a lot of things you can do for a nickel, dime or quarter." There's no word on when Battleswarm will officially launch.

[Via Blue's News]

There are a lot of Pong clones out there. It's often the very first project any game programmer does, due to it's simplicity. Every once in a while, some developers will try to spruce things up with a new coat of paint or a few new gameplay mechanics, but it never really changes. Steam Ponk, however, is one of those games that takes an established notion and turns it on its head with beautiful art and some excellent gameplay additions. You may never be able to go back to any other Pong game again.

Originally made for the Nintendo DS for TOJam 4, Steam Ponk can be played just as easily on your computer by running the .bat file included in the download. Controls are W and S for the left paddle, and Numpad 8 and 5 for the right. The base mechanic is very much like Pong: bounce a ball back and forth, and whoever misses it loses a point. However, where it shines is in the genius art and the inspired gameplay. The art is fantastic steampunk pixel work, with some truly impressive pseudo-isometric sprites at play. The gameplay incorporates the art by making it so that everything in the environment interacts with the ball. Clouds? They block your vision. Buildings bounce the ball. Water speeds it up, forests slow it down. Enemies appear out of nowhere. It's addicting in a whole new way!

Ahh, the tyranny of the blank page. For a writer, there is nothing more daunting than staring at an empty space with a deadline looming. Yet that's what wordsmiths do every day -- dig deep to find the content, the signal amidst the noise. However, it's one thing to sit and write a novel, where it's just the writer and the story, with the audience taking a static, non-participatory role. When one writes for a video game, the audience becomes an active part of the experience, and the writer must take that into account.

Yet often, the player merely sits through the story portion of a game, frequently told through cutscenes. Even those games which tout branching storylines with multiple endings do little more than offer closed choices, offering only the illusion of audience control. Are there any real choices to be had to affect a game's plot? Do narratives merely interrupt gameplay? What exactly is the role of story in video games?

We here at Big Download love indie games. From telling you about them, playing them, or offering downloads for them, we are all about helping lesser-known developers get their name out into the world. Each week on Saturday, we'll give you the Indie Wrap-up, a collection of all the indie news stories and features during the previous week.

This week was a rather slow one on the indie front, with no major game or news releases. We got our mitts on the new Penny Arcade game, though, and you can see the results of that in this week's features!

Features

	In-Depth - On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One Kyle Horner plays the new Penny Arcade game and gives the low-down on what you can expect in the intensely funny role-playing game.
	Big Versus: Penny Arcade Adventures - Episode One Our very own Xav de Matos takes a look into the differences between the Xbox 360 and PC versions of PAA. His verdict? Either way you're getting a good game.
	Freeware Friday: Clean Asia James Murff showcases another freeware gem. This time, it's a bizarre little freeware shoot-'em-up by cactus called Clean Asia.

It is now a staple of the mainstream media that videogames are addictive. There is a cycle to the regular release of studies and reports that claim to document addictive behavior among gamers in a range of ages from pre-teen to adult. If we allow the conceit that games are the electronic equivalent of drugs, is it possible to identify a gateway game, the same way that marijuana is said to be a gateway drug? That is, a game which contains a pleasurable enough experience to lead the player to want to attempt other, presumably harder, more complex games?

It's bruited about that casual games make great gateway games. Their simplicity and time-light nature make for a fairly painless experience for the non-gamer. People who play casual games still do not consider themselves gamers, even when it's pointed out to them that they are, in fact, playing games. This, of course, is actually the distinction between "hardcore" and casual players. But where is the interface between the two? What turns a casual gamer into a hardcore gamer, and is there really such a thing as a gateway game?

Talk about strange conversions from one genre to another. World of Pong, an experimental game by Erik Svedang, completely changes the nature of Pong. Asking you to choose a side at the start, you gain points and level up every time you hit the ball before someone else. It's an age old classic remade with a fresh coat of MMO paint, and that is all it is. For those who understand it, though, the game is absolutely hilarious. No spoilers from us, though! Just download and play it if you want to get the joke.

[Via IndieGames]