miCoach Football

Just dropping a few lines to let you know the project in which I'm working at Digital Legends has been announced: miCoach Football. You can see some info here.

The screenshots are out of date, but the description is accurate. I'll keep you informed as soon as more info is released.

DLC QUEST

Aside from those I've worked in (Toy Cars, Lightfish) and another one released by a friend, I had not bought an indie game in XLIG until now: DLC Quest. I liked the proposal: Sense of humor, videogame cliches and basic gameplay.

And essentially that's what it offers. I had fun and sometimes laughed of the different situations and NPCs, and I completed the game in less than 2 hours. And that's because I insisted until I got the 10 achievements it features. You can blame DLC Quest for being too short, but since it costs 80 MS points (1 euro) I think it's fair to say it's worth what I paid for it.

BACK TO THE MSX

Someone said people look in their adulhood for the things they lacked in their teens. Now that I come to think about it, I lacked many things back then, but I'm putting a solution to one of them: MSX.

In the mid-eighties, you had to have a personal computer. The most popular was the Spectrum, but there were many Commodore users too. I don't think Amstrad was particularly popular in Spain but it should be in other countries so there were plenty of games for it. And then it was the MSX.

As far as I know it was successful in Japan, were it was first created, but also in Holland (Phillips manufactured several models, including mine) and Spain. I owned an early version of that system and it became obsolete quite soon. I couldn't play the latest games because my model was limited in memory. I couldn't afford to buy another one so I gradually lost interest in computer games... until my cousin Pedro got rid of his first PC and gave it to me.

Well, I've just bought a second-hand MSX2, which allows me to buy all those games that I couldn't play back them. Right now I'm betting in Ebay for cartridges, and I'm planning to make myself a nice collection. Vintage rules!

DOUBLE FINE ROCKS

Ok, from now on Double Fine (Psychonauts, Brutal Legend) is my new best videogame studio forever an ever of the month. Tim Schaffer is not new to this blog, but from now on he's got a little bit of my heart.

Take a look here to find out why.

THE HEART OF THE APPLE

Steve Jobs passed away today. I've never been an apple guy, but the importance of iPhone and similar devices for the videogame industry is huge. I always wondered if Jobs expected so many companies developing for iOS, or it was a lucky move. Anyway, small companies never had it so easy to create and market their products.

Rest in peace.

NEW IPS NO, PLEASE

The other day I found a list of the most anticipated games for Christmas. Take a look here.

As you can see, the vast majority are sequels or games created onto a pre-existing IP. Only Dead Island manages to get into the ranking.

Unfortunately this is old news. The top sellers in the videogame industry are generally follow-ups. As far as I can tell, only during the transition from one generation to another there is some space for new IPs. The rest of the time we have to content ourselves with new iterations of already-known IPs.

It also happens in movies, particularly in the last 10-15 years. The only good thing is that in videogames the 2nd or 3rd iteration is generally better than the first game, specially regarding graphics.

BREAKING NEWS

I value myself as a creative person. That means I have ideas for fresh content in movies, tv series, books and of course videogames. I have dozens of folders with lots of ideas for potential games, the vast majority pure crap. However, some of them I think are great.

Nevertheless I've had little opportunities to turn those ideas into real games. Practically my whole career is based on developing someone else's creations. What does happen to me from time to time is that some of my ideas becomes a real game, made by others. This has just happened with 'Breaking news', a game that I envisioned in which the user controls a journalist, armed with a camera, and his goal would be to collect evidences of corruption and crime in his city. The newspaper offices would serve as a hub to deliver and get missions, and gameplay would be based on stealth and taking pictures in the proper moment.

It doesn't sound bad, but the only chance this idea had to become a real game was while I was working at Pyro. Management organized an idea contest and I presented 'Breaking news'. It was rejected in favor of one of the manager's idea. But I recently found out there is a company making a game based on the same premises: Warco: The news game.

I guess I was right and the idea had potential. Let's see how it evolves. I'm definitively interested in that title.