Traviowned

Ok, I'm a bit torn.

On one hand, Travian isn't very fun or engaging. It's teeming with jackasses and 13 year olds... and 13 year old jackasses. And it practically annoys you to the point of exhaustion.

On the other hand, I can't really seem to stop compulsively checking any of my three villiages.

Here's the catch with Travian. You play it so slowly. While the game keeps you at an arms length, you hunger to play it more. In reality, you're only taking an important turn every 24 hours or so. The rest is humdrum waiting around for resources to pool or armies to return.

Travian is similar to Civilization, without all those pesky graphics. The game takes a few weeks to really get a handle on, which definitely adds to the addictive nature. You're in your own little world for a week or so until other players are added to the mix. Then you might find your little town being pilliaged regularly by the hamlet of 'Batman Rulez!!1' which is one sqaure over.

I dare you to create a town and not care about it's welfare.

Fart on, sweet prince

Do you think farts are funny? Of course you do. That's one of the reasons Puzzle Farter is so endearing. If you have the sound on and you aren't at least chuckling by the end of level 3, then just go back to your knitting or whatever you were doing.

There are definitely some things wrong with the game. The lack of a save feature or checkpoint system really hurts the replay value. It's incredibly difficult to get to the end with very limited lives, but it is fun trying to get there. Puzzle Farter gave me a really strong Mario vs. Donkey Kong vibe, which I think is a concept that works pretty well. The fact that it's "too hard" shouldn't keep you from playing it over and over.

The developers of Puzzle Farter are also available for suggestions on their forum, so you can get a front row seat for future updates and level packs for the game. Go let one rip.

Where's Smokey when you need him?

We all can appreciate a good brush fire, which is why Scorching Earth makes for a pretty fun, if not frustrating, puzzle game.

I'm not going to lie to you. This game can and will kick your ass at some point. I described the first level of Scorching Earth to a friend like this: "This game does not hold your fucking hand." It's true folks, I got stuck on the first level and had to play it 6 or 7 times in order to win. This is partly to do with a lack of any coherent instructions and partly because Scorching Earth actively hates you and your family.

In gameplay, you spread a brush fire around a piece of land divided into squares. Fires burn a certain amount of time depending on what kind of area you land on. Trees burn long lengths, dirt for shorter. You can spread or jump your fire, rain on enemy fires, and call down a meteor depending on how many points you've accrued from your active fires. I know it's weird in text, but just play around with it and you'll start to get it.

I've enjoyed Scorching Earth, but let me tell you it's not a game for the weak of will. Oh and the music is fucking terrible. Turn it off.

Burn the bodies!

Well all know one simple truth, destroying humanity is an awful lot of fun. This fact is the reason I'm excited to say that Pandemic II has finally been released by Crazy Monkey Games. Don't worry if you haven't played the first one, you'll catch on fast.

Let me talk about the good first: lots of upgrades to customize your disease, great looking interface and menus, and a fair amount of actual strategy make this game a whole lot of fun. The bad is that the game is essentially broken in one key aspect: Madagascar.

There are enough people that have been derailed by Madagascar to warrant the creation of this. It is possible to infect the island nation and I know that the game shouldn't be a cakewalk, but making it so that infecting Madagascar is nothing but dumb luck definitely takes away from the fun of mass genocide.

Go kill some people.

Reinventing ourselves more than Madonna

Hello and welcome to the grand re-opening of Space Potato! As many of you already know, the focus of the site has once again shifted to the world of independent video games. Though I will also be blogging about general pop culture and possible (dun dun dun) politics, I hope that Space Potato can be a place where you can come every few days to find a new fun or interesting game to play.

I'm also looking into restarting the Space Potato BBS! For those not in the know, a few years ago I ran a very successful old school telnet BBS with games such as Legend of the Red Dragon, Barron Realms Elite, and Usurper. I'm going to begin raising money for a new server computer very soon. The nature of these games means the computer does not have to be very good, so if anybody has an old Windows PC that's gathering dust, contact me on the forums. If I don't get a response in the next month or so, I'll start up a donation pool. I should be able to find something that will work for us for under $200.

I'm always on the lookout for new games to feature on the site. If you are a game designer and would like me to host a home site for your game contact me, once again, on the forums. Playing any interesting games? Send the link to me either on the forum or on PMOG. If it's the latter I'll make sure it's worth your while with some in game currency.

We're also playing our own game on the forums. The first game, of my creation, is called 6 Rooms. It borrows heavily from a lot of other flash based "get out of the room" games on the Internet, with some fun Space Potato twists. 6 Rooms has been a successful test run of a concept that I've been thinking about for months. It's also not too late to play! Based on the excitement and interest that it has generated I foresee more of this type of game in the future not only from me, but other users as well.

Get involved! Sign up on Blogger to comment on blogs, register for the forums and post some timewasters. Thanks for visiting and I hope you stay tuned to check out what's on the way!

Bear + Umbrella =

Anybody who knows me knows that there are two things that I love in this world, bears and umbrellas. Well, now there's a home for my passion.

Sunny Day Sky has you kiting your little bear friend through oncoming traffic and rogue ducks for huge combos. The more cars you pass in a single flight, the more points you get. Let me tell you, it becomes pretty fucking scary when you're working on a 200,000 point combo knowing that if you fall, you get nothing and the game resets.

Grand re-opening in a few days... see you there.

Real life sucks, but my Internet life is awesome.

Hey, sorry for those of you who read this blog that I haven't updated in the last few days. I'm really trying to post up new stuff at least every other day.

I've been playing a ton of games, but I've decided to take this blog a little more seriously in how I discuss games. I think that a rating system where I assign an arbitrary number to a game which is coded by one or two people is a little unfair. A lot of the stuff I want this blog to ultimately be about is experimental games. These games are often in various stages of being unfinished due to the fact that, as stated above, there are only a few people working and perfecting them. Most of stuff in this category is a labor of love for the creators.

So, long story short I've really been PLAYING the games a lot that I'm going to discuss. I think that far too many people are willing to give a game a rating after only a short time playing. I'm not going to take this shortcut.

That being said, this site relaunches on August 1st and I'll be talking a lot more about the focus of Space Potato.

Now, go play Fantastic Contraption.