In recent times, Bithell Games have been making a name for themselves as an indie developer to watch. Of course Mike Bithell is someone that's been on my radar since I first played the brilliant Thomas Was Alone, and I suspect I'm not the only one. However, what's really excited me about his company's recent work, is that they've released a series of "Bithell Shorts". These are short, but high quality games, that explore a unique mechanic or system and tell a succinct story. Needless to say, this is a winning combination for me, as I often prefer to play smaller games with nothing but quality content, as opposed to bloated hundred hour grinds that never truly satisfy.
One of the coolest aspects of modern gaming, has to be how accessible it is for everyone involved. As gamers we have the choice of so many games coming from so many different sources. Whatever your budget, there's something out there of quality to play, even if you don't want to spend anything at all.
There are many reasons why the term 'early access' has become a four-letter-word in my world, and I'm sure that many of you will know why. Much like crowd-funding, there's so much potential for good, but we've all seen the mismanagement and failures that give these systems a bad name. Unfortunately, the bad often outweigh the good, even within the same project.
Immersion often seems like the holy grail of game design, as it's often seen as the key to a player's overall enjoyment. It's why so much effort is put into input methods and fancy new controllers with motions sensors and vibrating functions. The more a game can draw us into its world and make us believe what we're seeing, the better, but there's one type of game that needs nothing more than a player sitting at a computer.
The name David Cage comes with a fair amount of baggage these days, as he's cultivated quite a reputation for himself. Perhaps notably as the creator of some of the most divisive games in recent memory. Whether you love Quantic Dream's take on narrative cinematic video game story-telling or not, it's hard to deny the impact these games have made.
