Author Archives: Catt Small

Someone Else Doesn’t Care About Final Fantasy VII

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Jeffrey L. Wilson at 2DX after replaying Final Fantasy VII on the PS Vita:

I understand what slighting Final Fantasy VII means in the online gaming community. It’s like questioning Jesus’ existence. Final Fantasy VII has been a point of contention among RPG fans since its 1997 debut, simultaneously being the best and most overrated series entry. That’s pretty remarkable, really. How many video games elicit such passion among its base? I understand both views, actually, as Final Fantasy VII is both a technical achievement and a hodge-podge of many bizarre and poorly planned elements that are memorable and disastrous.

NYU Game Center MFA Student Interviews Magic creator Richard Garfield

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Anyone who is a fan of Magic: The Gathering, card games, or design in general should read this interview by Shervin Ghazazani.

Any strategy or mode of play which makes the game not fun for some audience needs to be controlled but not necessarily by the designer. It is best when play communities solve their problems, because there really is no way of anticipating all communities’ problems with a game. For example, in StarCraft it is possible to find a lot of games that the community declares “No Rush”, because a significant part of the community likes more time for the game to develop. Similarly in Magic different communities will shun different decks or styles of play – adjusting the game to their taste. If the community can’t or won’t solve the problem the developer must step in and patch the game.

One thing that many designers miss is that just because a particular strategy or card is not degenerate among their expert friends doesn’t mean that it isn’t degenerate for other players. If the player who plays strategy X always wins in a playgroup it doesn’t matter to them that the game would have been fun if they played “properly”. This fact makes it hard to create enduring broad balance in a game.

Super Comboman Kickstarter is almost at $2,000

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With 29 days to go, Super Comboman has earned $1953. Call me a sucker for puzzle platformers and throwing my money at Kickstarter projects, but I think this is going to be a stand-up game.

Fans of side scrolling beat ’em ups with a penchant for sticker hording, your day has come. Super Comboman is all about mashing out ground and air combos on mindless workers, smashing all sorts of breakable objects, and a little bit of physics-based puzzle solving. The next puzzle developer Interabang Entertainment has to solve, though, is getting enough funding for its Kickstarter, which has almost hit 10% of its $14,900 goal in one day.