Indie Gaming: Gunpoint

Gunpoint is a stealth-hacking game where you play a freelance spy. Honestly, if that's not enough for you to want to buy it already I don't know what's wrong with you.

It begins, as many things do, with a murder. Your task is to solve that murder and make some money while you do it! Armed with a variety of interesting technological gizmos and a lot of snark, you do jobs for whoever asks and pays.

It's a noir-like detective story at it's heart, with the gameplay essentially puzzle-like, as you figure out the best way to achieve your goals, which is generally to hack a computer and steal some files. The puzzles generally involve a sequence of hackable circuits that are connected to doors, alarms, lights and so forth. To add a bit of danger to the mix, there are various types of armed security guards to get in your way.

Indie Gaming: Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP

It's difficult to know where to begin describing this game. On the one hand it's a fairly simple adventure game (of sorts), with beautiful pixel-art scenery and understated but fitting music. On the other hand, it's all contained in a rather bizarre packaging.

There's the spinning record motif, the mysterious character called "the Archetype" the intrusive mentions of twitter, the episodic nature of it, the horrific interface. One particular moment actually ties in with the actual current date (moon phases), although thankfully there are two ways of getting around this.

Alone In The Dark (1992) - An adventure game?

A 3D logo! Impressive for 1992.

 Alone In The Dark is the classic example of early "survival horror" gaming. It's a genre popularised by Resident Evil, and generally involves a lone protagonist in a B-movie horror setting. More modern examples tend to concentrate on gunning your way out of trouble, but Alone In The Dark was no third-person-shooter. Bullets and guns are hard to come by, and some of the malevolent creatures you meet are indifferent to your attempts to kill them by conventional means. (here's a retrospective over at IGN)

The game has some wonderful visual moments, and I love the book-based credits.

Perhaps we have this all wrong, and Alone In The Dark is in fact the first 3D adventure game?

Decerto - setting for this Lovecraft-inspired horror adventure

The Secret of Monkey Island (1990, VGA version)

I apologise for the GIFs, I may have gone slightly overboard with them.

The Secret of Monkey Island is the first in an adventure game series beloved by almost all adventure game fans. I am no exception, and even though I have played through the game many times I was still more than happy to play it again.

Dishonored: Knife of Dunwall

Dishonored is one of my favourite games of recent years. It had a brilliant blend of mechanics and aesthetics borrowed from the likes of Bioshock, Thief 2 and Half-Life 2. Few games capture my interest so much that I replay them in their entirety, which I decided to do before delving into the DLC.

The crime that eclipsed all that had come before

My replay of the game focused on non-lethal, "ghost" runs throughout the game, which I generally managed outside of two levels (avoiding assassins is particularly tricky). The changes in the game from such a "low chaos" playthrough are minor, except for the final level and ending, but I enjoyed the different challenge and reacquainting myself with Dunwall and it's residents was very welcome.

Playing Along: King's Quest I (SCI remake, 1990)

Today's trip down memory lane takes us back to King's Quest, and Sir Graham's first adventure to save the kingdom of Daventry.

New graphics and sound, but enough improvement?

Remakes these days are common and often derided, but this was probably the first proper remake I'd ever played. King's Quest had been an early hit for Sierra On-Line, and spawned several sequels, and as well as this remake there are a few fan-made remakes and continuing adventures. It's not often regarded as the best series that Sierra made, but it is not without it's fans.

Modding and Me: Ultima Minecraft Texture Pack v3a

The new title screen

Ever since getting Minecraft, I tinkered with the textures. A few of the blocks just didn't look quite right, so I thought I'd change them, which is thankfully an easy task. After a little while, I began to think about doing an entirely different texture pack, rather than just changing a few blocks. From this, the Ultima Minecraft Texture Pack was born.

Doors inspired by Ultima VII