At the end of part 2 of my saga, I had just set off on a minecart track when I realized not all the track was there…

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Space Pirates and Zombies is a little jewel of a game developed by a two person workshop called MinMax games.  It is an interesting mix of 2D space action à la Escape Velocity mixed with some rudimentary RPG aspects and varying ship customization.  At first glance, the game may seem very simple. You go from planet to planet, pick a side to fight for, buy whatever’s available, then move on.  However, as the game goes on, you’ll find yourself beginning to grasp the subtle differences between each ship and its weapon load outs as you start doing more and more experimentation.  Although a typical SPAZ game won’t be extremely long (20-25 hours tops), it is extremely hard to get enough research points to max out every category.  This leaves a lot of room for replayability.

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Q.U.B.E. is a puzzle based platformer based on the concept of extruding blocks. It was developed by Toxic Games and has won quite a few awards. I definitely recommend checking it out.

http://qube-game.com/

75 million dollars.  Apparently, that’s what you can get from the Rhode Island government as a game development studio, despite having no prior published games at all.  No wonder this state is broke.  Well, as a gamer, RI resident, and taxpayer, I feel that it is my duty to at least try out the demo that was recently released (and provide faint praise) in order to do my little part.  But wait!  This first game, called Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, isn’t even developed here in RI.  The studio is actually created by the Maryland-based subsidiary of 38 Studios.  Well, that does it.  Time to bust out the gloves of bashing +5

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I’ve been waiting to post this one.

I’m sure many of you have already played Seiklus (pronounced ‘sāke loose’).  If you haven’t, you absolutely should.  While Seiklus doesn’t seem to be all that entertaining from the screenshots, it reveals incredible creativity and depth once you jump in.

The premise of the game is simple, if strange.  It begins with two amorphous characters, a male and female couple, are standing on a cliff above the clouds watching a meteor shower.  By chance, a single meteorite strikes the cliff, knocking the male character off into the depths.  The entire game follows you playing as this character trying to make his way back to his lover above the clouds.  Silly, but a wonderful experience.

The game world is divided up into a variety of clearly defined regions.  You’ll go from a surreal grassy area, to silent snowy lands, and into the belly of a sea beast, to name a few.  The graphics are colorful, and while simple, this adds to the appeal of the game.   No other control input besides the keyboard is supported, but because of the simplicity of the game’s controls, this isn’t an issue.

In large part, the music in Seiklus is incredible.  Even though it was all added in as an afterthought by the developer, the music sets the tone of the game perfectly, no matter which area you’re in.  The game simply must be played with audio enabled.  There is no dialogue, and few sound effects to speak of, but they’re simply not needed.

Seiklus is available as freeware as hosted by the developer here, so you have absolutely no excuse for not playing it.  It’s an absolutely beautiful experience, and one of my personal favorites.

Hat Dash 2011 is officially over!  Over 475 users participated, including 93 Zombies (people who last posted over 30 days ago) and 102 Newbies (first-time posters).  1152 questions were asked, 2259 answers posted, and 2042 hats were awarded in three short weeks!

Sad to see your hats go?  We’ve added a new section to HatDash.com to see your full Hat Rack.  You can find it by taking your Gaming user page URL (like ‘gaming.stackexchange.com/users/3/david-fullerton’) and replacing the “gaming.stackexchange.com” part with “hatdash.com” (like ‘hatdash.com/users/3/david-fullerton’).  Feel free to put a link to it in your user profile!

Curious to see how other people did?  Visit the Hat Dash Hall of Fame:

A special congratulations to agent86 and Raven Dreamer who tied for the win with 31 hats each!

Some random info for you:

• Rarest Hat: The Un-Hat — 3 upvoted posts in “uncharted-3” (only 2 users unlocked it)
• Most Common Hat: Editor Hat — edit a post (70 users were wearing it at the end of Hat Dash)
• Most Unappreciated Hat: The Chatterbox — 10 comments in a day (0 of 27 users who had it were wearing it at the end)

And some miscellaneous stats:

• 1151 questions and 2254 answers were asked during Hat Dash, 42% and 32% more than the pre-Dash average
• 59 bounties were awarded during Hat Dash, almost 3x the average!
• 102 brand new users earned and wore hats
• The top 50 hat earners posted 60% more than they did before Hat Dash

Star Wars: The Old Republic Contest

The conclusion of Hat Dash also ends the Star Wars: The Old Republic contest.   Over 156 questions were asked, boosting SWTOR into the top 30 tags on the site (and still climbing!) and making it currently the #2 most-viewed tag on the site (behind only Skyrim):

The winners of the contest are:

• Matthew Read wins the Interactive R2D2 droid for having the most views across all his SWTOR questions
• Nick T wins the Replica Luke Skywalker Lightsaber for the top question: Where does The Old Republic fit in with KOTOR?
• Raven Dreamer wins the Replica Darth Vader Mask for the top answer: What is Centering?

The Future of Hats

Overall, Hat Dash was a resounding success:  our top users loved it (averaging over 10 hats each!), and the event generated hundreds of questions and answers that would not normally have been posted.  While there are things we could have done better, the basic idea of rewarding our awesome community and having some extra fun during the holidays worked!

So you can rest assured, this won’t be the last you see of HATS!

Out of games to play?  Looking for a deal?  Me too!

This is the first in a continuing set of (hopefully) weekly posts by me, where I’ll introduce you all to some great indie games for as cheap as possible.

This week’s game: Octopede

Octopede is a reinvention of the basic principles of the classic Snake with a neat digital twist.  The player can move in eight directions around the play area, collecting data that is used to lengthen the Octopede’s tail.  Every eight segments of tail can be ‘cached’, which increases the score multiplier, but means that those tail pieces can no longer be used as extra health when taking damage.  As well, there are various weapons and abilities that need to have ‘ammunition’ collected first, or they will remove an un-cached segment of your tail.

The game takes place on a single, rectangular stage, as shown above.  However, as you play the game, new elements are added, and the board is cleared, rebuilt, cleared, and rebuilt again.  The game starts out pretty slow but starts throwing new things at you pretty quickly.  You’ll be dealing with viruses that chase you outright, firewalls that are best avoided, and all sorts of other enemies and bosses that will corrupt your data if they get their way.

It’s actually a pretty engaging experience; trying to balance your remaining health pieces and cached multiplier can get pretty intense if you’re going for the high score.  The game has nice, computer-y graphics, and an awesome (if limited) chiptune soundtrack that doesn’t get on your nerves even after a 20 minute run.

As far as the controls go, they might take some getting used to, but once you’ve gotten the hang of it, you’ll be zipping all over the place.  Of note is that the game also supports a gamepad input, which can make it easier to play.

The game is available as ‘pay-what-you-want’ over at Indievania, with a minimum of a $1.00 purchase.  And it’s absolutely worth it.

2011 Gaming.Stackexchange Picks

It’s now the end of 2011, and it’s time to look back on some of our most memorable gaming moments of the year.  This has been a great year for gaming, with so many excellent AAA titles such as Deus Ex Human Revolution, Skyrim, Uncharted 3, and Portal 2, along with many indie hits such as Bastion, Frozen Synapse, Terraria, and last but not least, Minecraft.  We asked many Gaming SE users and blog writers to share their most surprising moments, most enjoyable games, and the games they are most looking forward to in 2012.

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Star Wars: The Old Republic launches today!  To celebrate, we’ve added four new Star Wars-themed hats:

Right after a game launches is the most important time to ask lots of questions about the game, so all of these hats are awarded for high-quality questions about Star Wars: The Old Republic:

• R2-D2 Dome: Ask 5 upvoted questions in the “star-wars-old-republic” tag
• Darth Vader Helmet: Ask 10 upvoted questions in the “star-wars-old-republic” tag
• Yoda Ears: Ask a question with 10 upvotes in the “star-wars-old-republic” tag
• Boba Fett Helmet: Ask a question with 1000 views in the “star-wars-old-republic” tag

Also, in the spirit of the season we’ll be giving away some prizes in the following categories:

• Most SWTOR Question Views (total views across all questions asked):  Interactive R2D2 droid
• Top SWTOR Question (by votes): Replica Luke Skywalker Lightsaber
• Top SWTOR Answer (by votes): Replica Darth Vader Mask

(Note that each person can only win one prize, so if someone wins multiple we’ll go to the second place winner)

The hats and the contest end January 6, so get out there and ask some questions!

If you’re new to this whole hat thing, read Holiday 2011 Hat Dash: The Hattening for more information, or head over to HatDash.com to see all the hats!

Throughout history, men have worn hats as a way of showing how much better they are than other men. “I buy hats,” a behatted man seems to say. “I am better than you.”

In wartime, hats were a useful way of conferring rank, and ensuring that casualties were confined to the lower classes… During peacetime, hats have been instrumental for men to let the non-hatted know just who is wearing the hat around here.

– The Team Fortress 2 Classless Update

The holidays are almost upon us: a time for family, gifts, and of course hours and hours of video games.  To celebrate the season (and since we heard you like hats) we thought we’d throw a little party.  We’re calling it… Hat Dash!

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