Trauma is an escape-the-
room -dream game with a hauntingly beautiful aesthetic that tells the story of a young woman recovering from an accident. It is a cross-platform download or can be played in its entirety for free
in Flash.
[more inside]
posted by Thomas Tallis is my Homeboy
on Aug 31, 2011 -
9 comments
Halfway through the third book of the
Hitchhiker's Guide series, there is
a throwaway reference to a doomed starship, one whose incredible splendor was matched only by the cosmic absurdity of its maiden-day annihilation.
But the story didn't end there. Unbeknownst to many fans, this small piece of Adamsian lore was the inspiration for an ambitious and richly-detailed side-story: a 1998 computer adventure game called
Starship Titanic.
Designed by Douglas Adams himself, the game set players loose in the infamous vessel, challenging them with a maddening mystery laced with the devilish wit of the novels.
The game was laden with extra content, including
an in-depth strategy guide,
a (mediocre) tie-in novel by Terry Jones,
a whimsical First Class In-Flight Magazine, and even a pair of 3D glasses for one of the more inventive puzzles.
Key to solving these puzzles was the game's groundbreaking communications system -- players interacted with
the ship's robotic crew through a natural language parsing engine called SpookiTalk, whose 10,000+ lines of conversational dialogue spawned
16 hours of audio recorded by professional voice actors, including
John Cleese,
Terry Jones, and even Douglas Adams himself in
several cameos (spoiler cameo). Want to experience the voyage for yourself? Then watch this narrated video playthrough (
intro (ads) -
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9? 10 11 12 13) ...or click inside for a information on how to run the game for free on Windows, Mac, and Linux (along with a bunch of other goodies!).
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Dec 22, 2010 -
109 comments
Fifteen years ago this week, programmer
Ron Britvich launched version 1.0 of
Active Worlds. Started as an autonomous project of
Worlds, Inc. (a spinoff of educational gamesmaker
Knowledge Adventure), Active Worlds was one of the first and most ambitious attempts to create a 3D virtual community on the web.
Built on the architecture of Britvich's
Worlds Chat beta, Active Worlds
debuted in the form of
Alphaworld, a sunny green infinite plane open to
public building. In its opening years Alphaworld experienced
a land rush of construction, resulting in
an anarchic starfish sprawl larger than the state of California. A sister company, Circle of Fire, was soon founded to craft
additional themed hubs, and once individual ownership of worlds became possible the AW community spawned a veritable universe of
hundreds of worlds.
Although
the company has seen its
ups and downs since those heady times and its fortunes have slowly dwindled, the
Active Worlds platform survives to
this day. Look inside for a simple guide on how to log in to the (free) service, rundowns of the best worlds, links to essays analyzing the program's legacy, and other content summing up
its venerable community.
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Jul 4, 2010 -
18 comments
GENETOS is the history of Shoot-em-ups in a single game. Take on everything ranging from Space Invaders-like aliens to 21st Century bullet hell. Power up your craft (by collecting green and blue bits and blobs) with innovations like slow-motion, super bombs, lock-on lasers, and the ability to move vertically. (Windows only)
[more inside]
posted by CrunchyFrog
on May 2, 2010 -
10 comments
Desktop Dungeons offers an unquestionably unique approach to
Roguelike games by taking compactness to the extreme. It distills the entire genre to a few core ideas which pay homage to the greats while forging new ground with gameplay similar to that of Oasis or
Tower of the Sorcerer. It also features emergent complexity that rewards truly skilled and thoughtful players.
posted by painquale
on Mar 16, 2010 -
61 comments
Devil's Tuning Fork is "a first-person exploration/puzzle game in which the player must navigate an unknown world using visual sound waves" and was made by a group of students in 6 months to compete in the
Independent Games Festival. Unfortunately, it appears to be windows only, but
the trailer is worth checking out anyways. It is pretty.
posted by juv3nal
on Nov 16, 2009 -
17 comments
Transcendence, the outer space exploration/trading/shoot 'em up, has hit
version .99. I cannot begin to tell you how much time I sunk into previous releases -- the Nethackish randomness, both in the layout of the systems to explore, and the mysterious devices and substances to apply to your ship in hope of an extra edge, makes the replay value immense.
RGCD has a glowing review and an interview with the developer. (
Mentioned but not actually linked to earlier.)
posted by CrunchyFrog
on Jul 30, 2008 -
46 comments
Lightspeed is a fun little shareware game that I stumbled across today. It's one of those "bounce stuff off mirrors to light up stuff" puzzle games, but with nice graphics, and additional features like a level editor and such.
Warning: windows only download, shareware fee to unlock many levels and features.
posted by majcher
on Jan 22, 2004 -
5 comments
