who is mike pondsmith. keanu reeves invented this genre.

Heads-up: retrolicious metroidvania Axiom Verge is now available on Steam. It’s basically a nostalgia volcano, so beware of nostalgia lava, which corrodes new ideas. However, it’s still quite good, as our own Mike Fahey explained in his review.

That’s a great question, Owen!

There's a massive disconnect between game developers and the customer. It is hilarious watching threads of people discussing your work and pretending to know how your code works.

Videogame development in a big, harsh, rotten nutshell:

While we're discussing Harley Quinn.... Can we talk about just how crappy her outfits have gotten since Arkham Asylum first undressed her? It opened a Pandora's box of crappiness. She used to have a classy and cool character design and now the DC artists are drawing one awful get up after another. Are they all stuck…

Batman is one of those comics where the hero is basically a villain and the villains are sympathetic. Harley Quinn is the best example because her story is so tragic. She's been abused, brainwashed, she basically has severe Stockholm Syndrome, her relationship with the Joker is seriously unhealthy and often not funny.…

I have the exact opposite problem: nothing seems to scare me any more. Not horror films, or video games. Problem is, I crave that horror style sense of fear. I get extremely excited when something gives me the willies, these days.

I explained in the article what spurred it. Did you miss that or not believe it? There were allegations last week that Sarkeesian lied about informing the police about harassment. A critic of hers had a person from the SFPD on audio saying they hadn't heard from Sarkeesian. That was certainly a story I felt we should…

How I fixed it.

How about intro movie?

Final Fantasy VII: short, sweet, wondrous, and launches seamlessly right into the gameplay. A new era of video gaming began:

Still love it.

For its day, it was really top notch, its largely a foreshadowing trailer, but the music just builds the tension jsut right for the mood of the series. the midi music still gives me chills.

That's really the plan. I'm not surprised that the talk is focusing on Nintendo, but over the coming months and years, I'm hoping to shift the conversation toward making indie games a more stable business opportunity and encourage the development of great games. Right now it's very feast or famine.

...because you took the art assets from those games wholesale.
...blatant goddamn ripoffs are not, "starting with nothing," as the developer claims. He started with someone else's assets, and kept going from there; that's less "inspiration" and more plagiarism.

See also; Counterspy;