A Bare Bones RPG

At its core an RPG is about levelling up, going on quests, and getting into battles. Many people, myself included, would argue that a story on top of all of that is really what makes an RPG. What happens if you take that story element away and only focus on the levelling and fighting?

You get what is pictured above.

Parameters is a game that is all about filling up the boxes, and that’s it. You can level up and modify yourself to make the battles easier, you’ll need to for the boss battles. Once you defeat a boss it’ll drop keys that you can use to unlock other battles and continue.

Like all RPGs there is also a store that you can purchase from to help you if you get stuck.

Go play the game, and you’ll find it confusing at first but slowly you’ll get addicted.



May 18th, 2012 by admin

The Watchers: A Game About Privacy

The Watchers is an augmented board game, co-designed by a team of kids, which teaches online privacy literacy skills to children 8+. Learn more at Gaming Privacy. A really nifty part of this project is that it is an augmented board game, as in you need the board game and iPad to play it.

Found this good little description of the game on their website:

The Watchers takes place in an inter-dimensional town called Union City. Tasked with protecting the city is a secret arms-length government agency, made up of the top agents from each dimension. The team must investigate a number of mysterious events surrounding the town’s hat-based augmented reality network, known as Hatnet. Through these investigations, players learn a number of real-world privacy concepts as well as developing their critical thinking and risk assessment skills.

The game comes out mid-May and I’m really looking forward to it!

Found via the great people at Atmosphere Industries.



May 7th, 2012 by admin

Walden, a Game?

Henry David Thoreau wrote Walden, which is a book about leaving the industrial, technological, and modern life of civilization for a return to the essence of nature. Basically, the book is about a dude who hangs out beside a pond eschewing conveniences of modern life.

It turns out that someone has thought it wise to emulate that idea in a video game.

I don’t know where to begin on this, luckily someone else has thought about it more than me and you can read their thoughts.

Responses to the game so far have been mixed. While some have expressed enthusiasm for the idea of virtually recreating Thoreau’s life at Walden Pond, others have scoffed at what seems to them a rank violation of Thoreau’s tenet of living as part of nature; one online commenter noted, “Thoreau would be spinning in his grave knowing that people were about to commit the ultimate in abstraction and try to connect with the natural world through completely mediated means!”

Thanks to a certain Flea!



May 7th, 2012 by admin

ZED.TO: ByoLogyc’s 20th Anniversary

There’s only a few days left for ZED.TO’s Indiegogo campaign and the team behind Zed have been up to some fun things already. Did you know that ByoLogyc just turned 20?

As for the party, after a short period of mingling in the Ingram Gallery with staff and trying out products, Chet arrived with Diva Capricia as his ‘special guest’, who gave a chilling performance of “Ebben? Ne andro lontana” from Catallani’s opera “La Wally” to help set the mood for the evening. I can’t say I’m a fan of opera, but after being chilled to the bone by Capricia’s live performance, I had to research the song and find out what story it was that she was performing. The discovery did not disappoint.

That was only the beginning of the night, however, as more drama unfolded throughout the party – including a minor brawl with the bartender, and the removal of the contracted media coverage team for asking too many questions. And sadly, Capricia was the one left behind at the party as Chet took leave early – with Olive Swift on his arm.

Read more at 4d Fiction.

I’m looking forward to their upcoming events at the Fringe in Toronto and their Patient Zero project at Nuit Blance.



April 13th, 2012 by admin

A Game About Hormone Replacement Therapy: dys4ia

dys4ia
The gaming industry needs more people making games so we can get diverse perspectives on the world around us and the issues some people face. An example of a game that can open minds to issues that others face is dys4ia.

The game creator wrote on her site about the game and its meaning.

dys4ia is the story of the last six months of my life: when i made the decision to start hormone replacement therapy and began taking estrogen. i wanted to catalog all the frustrations of the experience and maybe create an “it gets better” for other trans women. when i started working on the game, though, i didn’t know whether it did get better. i was in the middle of the shit detailed in level 3 of the game, and at the time i had no idea what the ending would be; it was hard to envision a happy ending.

One more neat thing about this is that dys4ia debut at forallgamerssake, and thanks to finding this game I found this cool interview with Jamie Woo.

Play the game at Newgrounds.



March 20th, 2012 by admin
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