Tower defense themed around light and dark, memory and forgetting. Somewhat interesting, but not undeserving of its 68/100 metacritic score. Shad’O makes heavy use of a fog of war mechanic. Most of the map is covered except for a few points of light. Building towers extends the light. At the start of a level, you [...]

Quick Review: Shad’O is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

We haven’t yet talked about Age of Wushu (the US version of “Age of Wulin” which has been available in China for some time now). It has recently launched over here, to very little fanfare, and it’s somewhat of a pity because it’s an interesting one. After spending a good amount of time with it, [...]

[AoW] My God, it’s full of Quirks… is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Tower defense themed around light and dark, memory and forgetting. Somewhat interesting, but not undeserving of its 68/100 metacritic score. Shad’O makes heavy use of a fog of war mechanic. Most of the map is covered except for a few points of light. Building towers extends the light. At the start of a level, you [...]

Quick Review: Shad’O is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

We haven’t yet talked about Age of Wushu (the US version of “Age of Wulin” which has been available in China for some time now). It has recently launched over here, to very little fanfare, and it’s somewhat of a pity because it’s an interesting one. After spending a good amount of time with it, [...]

[AoW] My God, it’s full of Quirks… is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

This is a good story at Penny Arcade Report, so I’m just linking you off to it. “The final box will be 24” × 20” × 5.75” and will weigh 24 pounds. It will have five huge maps and more than 1,000 counters, many of them 3-D constructible Ogres and buildings. It will probably never [...]

Designing the Designer’s Edition is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Guild Wars 2 has vistas and jumping puzzles as Explorer content. And then, because zone design is hard, Guild Wars 2 has invisible walls. There are places where you can sprint up 60+ degree cliffs and places where you cannot reach despite seeing your character jump high enough to get to next platform. “I’ll just [...]

Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

The preview for the next monthly patch is up. There are a bunch of much-needed “beta” additions to PvP, a few additions to the WvW progression, and some additions to guild missions including a quaggan guild rush. All of these things will permanently raise the stock of Guild Wars 2. With the exception of possibly [...]

Guild Wars 2 Limited is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

It’s not just me. Ben Zimmer and Scott Hanselman have peeked behind the veil and found comment spam procedural content. The first spam comment template allows 30,576,476,160 distinct comments, which should be enough to last at least a few weeks. : Zubon Everyone Gets Spam is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Everyone Gets Spam is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Especially here on the internet. Ken sees a potentially sobering mirror: I’ve been feeling very self-conscious. That’s because lots of people are talking about … subjects with which I am somewhat familiar. When they do, I ask myself: when I very frequently talk about things I haven’t bothered to learn about, do I sound like [...]

Wise Words on Discourse is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Especially here on the internet. Ken sees a potentially sobering mirror: I’ve been feeling very self-conscious. That’s because lots of people are talking about … subjects with which I am somewhat familiar. When they do, I ask myself: when I very frequently talk about things I haven’t bothered to learn about, do I sound like [...]

Wise Words on Discourse is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

It’s not just me. Ben Zimmer and Scott Hanselman have peeked behind the veil and found comment spam procedural content. The first spam comment template allows 30,576,476,160 distinct comments, which should be enough to last at least a few weeks. : Zubon Everyone Gets Spam is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Everyone Gets Spam is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

The preview for the next monthly patch is up. There are a bunch of much-needed “beta” additions to PvP, a few additions to the WvW progression, and some additions to guild missions including a quaggan guild rush. All of these things will permanently raise the stock of Guild Wars 2. With the exception of possibly [...]

Guild Wars 2 Limited is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Guild Wars 2 has vistas and jumping puzzles as Explorer content. And then, because zone design is hard, Guild Wars 2 has invisible walls. There are places where you can sprint up 60+ degree cliffs and places where you cannot reach despite seeing your character jump high enough to get to next platform. “I’ll just [...]

Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

This is a good story at Penny Arcade Report, so I’m just linking you off to it. “The final box will be 24” × 20” × 5.75” and will weigh 24 pounds. It will have five huge maps and more than 1,000 counters, many of them 3-D constructible Ogres and buildings. It will probably never [...]

Designing the Designer’s Edition is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Current internet culture is strongly supportive of sending almost any string of text as long as you place it on an image. The standard Facebook unit seems to be the e-card, which puts your words by a faux-Edwardian image and, BAM, they are now worth sharing and liking. By long-standing internet tradition, the highest form [...]

Almost Getting It is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

The Wildstar is now in full-on closed beta. I am not part of this lucky/unlucky group who are seeing the upcoming MMO in true beta form. Hopefully I can sneak my way in to a more open beta with a rogue email or a pre-order pass. To be honest, I guess I kind of exhausted [...]

[WS] Opening Up on a Closed Beta is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

And now gamer-linguist nerd crossover content that may not be for everyone. You are warned. A discussion of the word for “nerd” in Chinese included a note about Chinese usage of the term “PK,” which is comparable to English “pwn” or “versus.” (I hope that usage converges, otherwise you need strong context to tell whether [...]

PK is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

And now gamer-linguist nerd crossover content that may not be for everyone. You are warned. A discussion of the word for “nerd” in Chinese included a note about Chinese usage of the term “PK,” which is comparable to English “pwn” or “versus.” (I hope that usage converges, otherwise you need strong context to tell whether [...]

PK is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

The Wildstar is now in full-on closed beta. I am not part of this lucky/unlucky group who are seeing the upcoming MMO in true beta form. Hopefully I can sneak my way in to a more open beta with a rogue email or a pre-order pass. To be honest, I guess I kind of exhausted [...]

[WS] Opening Up on a Closed Beta is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Current internet culture is strongly supportive of sending almost any string of text as long as you place it on an image. The standard Facebook unit seems to be the e-card, which puts your words by a faux-Edwardian image and, BAM, they are now worth sharing and liking. By long-standing internet tradition, the highest form [...]

Almost Getting It is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

I am still playing Dawn of the Dragons, despite the standard social media game mechanics. Something about the energy bars and the false sense of achievement is compelling. Mission zone 10 is an expansion pack gear reset sort of experience. Players quickly acquire zone 9 gear due to the multiplayer mechanics, and then better from [...]

Quantum Leap is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

We frequently receive search engine optimization spam. I presume everyone who runs or writes for a website does. They can help us increase our ad revenue! Okay, so they have never looked at the site. They heard about us from our current ads, but did not click and increase our ad costs! Okay, so they [...]

I Get Mail is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

We frequently receive search engine optimization spam. I presume everyone who runs or writes for a website does. They can help us increase our ad revenue! Okay, so they have never looked at the site. They heard about us from our current ads, but did not click and increase our ad costs! Okay, so they [...]

I Get Mail is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

I am still playing Dawn of the Dragons, despite the standard social media game mechanics. Something about the energy bars and the false sense of achievement is compelling. Mission zone 10 is an expansion pack gear reset sort of experience. Players quickly acquire zone 9 gear due to the multiplayer mechanics, and then better from [...]

Quantum Leap is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

The endless, procedurally generated gameplay of A Valley Without Wind can sink into “what’s the point?” If you like Metroidvania a lot more than I do, having an endless stream with minor variations might be bliss, the way I could happily play Settlers of Catan every day. For me, it is one among many and [...]

Checklists is a post from: Kill Ten Rats