When I was young, one of the biggest appeals of games to me was fulfilling a fantasy, as it may have been for a lot of people. Many turned to RPGs or action games to meet this demand, allowing them to live in worlds beyond their wildest imaginations, but I found myself deeply involved in more niche affairs. I’ve discussed my love for games that involved sailing, especially pirate-themed titles, but it wasn’t the only thing I found myself passionate about at a young age. What if you could take to the skies? Flying a plane, whether modern or from a bygone era of air travel, became something I loved to see recreated.
Luckily for me, it didn’t take long for me to discover its potential in games and learn its true importance in the medium as a whole.
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How hard can it be to move from point A to point B? A lot of the most basic games out there have this as their sole mechanic: Candy Land, Chutes/Snakes and Ladders, Sorry!, Trouble and many others. It’s not usually a premise we see in modern, European-style board games, although you can still distill a few of them down to this simple challenge, like RoboRally or River Dragons. Gravwell: Escape from the 9th Dimension, the debut design from Corey Young (published by Cryptozoic), asks this in the most straightforward manner yet. All you have to do to win is advance 54 spaces from the center of the board to the end of the single track. Sounds easy enough, right? READ MORE
At Snackbar Games, we spend a lot of time discussing core mechanics. Visuals, presentation, audio and gameplay are common topics we cover. However, more detailed analysis will yield our thoughts on the game’s longevity, emotional connection, progression, use of tech, multiplayer and a slew of other facets, providing an indication of a game’s quality relative to our experiences. Sounds pretty simple, right? READ MORE
Genre 101 looks at the past and present of a game genre to find lessons about what defines it. In this installment, Andrew Passafiume steps in as host to talk with Graham Russell about the traditional action-puzzler. READ MORE
The games importing hobby can be a difficult one to get into, purely due to logistics. As always, Gaijin Guide wants to help! So here’s the rundown on systems’ barriers and specialties, to help you know where to start. READ MORE
