JETPACK JOYRIDE and the essence of bullshit

I hate the coins from the Super Mario games.

Even when they were born they are merely a vestige from the arcade days of endless gameplay. When Super Mario Bros. introduced the idea of a game with an ending, the coins were merely mending the gap from the concept of playing a something to beat the score. Now, despite the fact games have fully embraced the idea of chasing an end goal, those coins have never disappeared. As we talk about the benefits of applying game mechanics to our real lives, we started to recognize these coins as the most basic achievement unit. Coins are the atoms that form achievements.

The reason why I hate coins is that they are too easy to use. In both games and real life, coins can trivialize the concept of gamification. They blurry the line and, instead of enhancing your experience, game mechanics become an end in itself. That’s the exact point gamification starts being bullshit.

Jetpack Joyride is a bullshit game. There is no better way to put it. Basically, it’s Canabalt without the elegant simplicity, without the context and meaning, without the balanced gameplay that encouraged the player to gain momentum… but with many things Canabalt did not need. Coins and ranks and purchasable items and crap.

ZIGGURAT and the end of the world during coffee break

A wise man once wrote what I believe to be one of the core tenets anyone who calls himself a game reviewer should have in mind: if you want to know if a game design works, imagine that game with an endless mode. It’s one of those advices so simple and obvious only a genius could have thought of.

And now that genius went off to make his own endless game, ZIGGURAT.

It’s one of those things that leaves me both excited for the results and frustrated about my own inadequacies. Just like when Erik Wolpaw, who used to write hilariously astute reviews and commentary on games in his Old Man Murray website, went off to write arguably one of the best videogames ever made: Portal.

The result is that Tim Rogers, the number one defender of friction in games, made what is, together with Canabalt, the game with the most friction you can find on the iPhone. ZiGGURAT is a genre great game with so much friction I have the impression my iPhone is rumbling even though it lacks a rumble feature.

A Game For Your Every (and Darkest) Desires: The Rise of Long Tale

This article is about niches. Why? It all started when I wrote this. Basically, all it said was that DLC should be all-pervasive, for although it is not the most inclusive distribution model there is, it certainly makes more sense than

A protagonist is NOT you

Most protagonists are empty, hollow shells in need of something to fill them. Thus was our verdict, as handled by our own Stefan Samurai (this is the link to which this article is a response, by the way… CLICK IT!). What

Picross 3D – Review

What have I become, my sweetest friend? Full of empty thoughts, I lost deadlines, meetings. I lost possibilities, time. But when I’m playing this game, all feelings disappear. I am someone else. Picross 3D did this to me.

Right in Front of Your Face

Elitism still is the big divide. It’s the biggest obstacle facing games today. Elitism is the belief that some individuals, who form an elite — a select group of people with intellect, wealth, specialized training or experience, or other distinctive