Some time ago, while preparing to move to NYC I dug through a pile of old Mac floppy disks and found a bunch of old “games” I made as a kid (7-8 years old, almost twenty years ago) by drawing their title screens in a paint program called Modern Artist. This is the second of four five-game-set where I share the best with all of you. You can find the first set here.

It’s worth noting that while these were pretty much just badly drawn images of a title screen, you actually COULD play these. I’d be there manning the mouse, and when you wanted to play, I’d erase the title screen (double click eraser, baby!) and draw the first level for you. I’d sort of act as a dungeon master, and would draw the results of stuff depending on what you wanted your character to do. At 7, game engines were largely left up to the imagination. Anyway, here’s the next five:

Caverns of Calio
North American Release Date: September 25, 1989

For a game supposedly about caverns, I really don’t know why there aren’t any in the title screen. Looks like a bright, sunshiney, cavernless day out in the fields of Calio. As you can see, I was being original with the sword-in-the-stone motif by having it SIDEWAYS. Always pushing the envelope. Also, note the Super Seal denoting extreme quality and fun. You can also see my technique of killing badguys in my games by noting the orange remains: spraypaint tool. This is quite obviously the height of adventure gaming of the late 80’s!

I chose this one mostly because of the effort that went into it at the time. Can’t you tell? Actually, this was one of my more ambitious games as a kid. This is probably the first game where I had enemies, weapons, and items all drawn on construction paper. And there were a LOT OF THEM. I want to say at least 10-12 sheets of paper, each with about 20-30 drawings on it. I’d love to see if any of these still exist.

I remember a few things though: weapons started off with your basic wooden sword. You had swords, guns, bows, and I want to say things like grenades and bombs too. The most powerful weapons though were the “ciphers”. Pretty much ripped off from Strider. The weapons each had different classes, too: So after your plain sword, you had the super sword, then the hyper sword, then the force sword. So the most powerful weapon in the game was the “Force Cipher” which swung in a split second, and the sweep it makes stays for a second and does damage to anything touching it. Not bad for an 8 year old, huh?

There were also tons of enemies, too. The basic enemy was a sort of octoroc, although I can’t remember now what it was called, and the only reason I remembered it at all was from the mostly dissolved enemy on the right. (It’s the orange stuff.) You had three big bosses though, which were Mother Brain, Dragonlord, (both ripped off from their respective games) and the final was a massive giant with a giant force cipher. Forget what his name was.

Hyperbike
North American Release Date: November 17, 1989

If you remember the way the weapons worked from Caverns of Calio, you’ll know that HYPERBIKE is a really, really awesome bike. Fuck Superbike, Hyperbike is where it’s at. But where’s the Hyperbike at? Not in this picture. It’s off in Bikeland. And apparently you start off as some poor schmuck who has to walk his happy ass all the way to Bikeland to get the Hyperbike.

And you gotta think what kind of fucked-up place Bikeland must be. It’s a magical land where everyone has their own bike. Maybe there’s gang wars between different brand of bikes, and there are traveling merchants dotting all the roads that sell you water bottles and those stupid pointy helmets. Who knows.

I’m not even sure if the Hyperbike is supposed to be a bicycle or a motorcycle. It’s shrouded in mystery. What I do know though is that Hyperbike is in no way connected to me learning how to ride a bike as a kid. Because I never did. I sucked so much ass at any sort of vehicle that it was embarrassing. Bikes, skateboards, roller skates, forget about it. I hoofed that shit. I never knew how to ride until the eighth fucking grade, where I basically rode around the house, crashing over and over again until I got it so I could go all the way around without crashing into a ditch. Fuckin’ bike.

Also, look at this picture, then look back at Caverns of Calio. Is there a reason that whenever I draw nice, grassy terrain, there’s always exactly three rocks? Something to ask that inevitable psychologist, I guess.

Onward to BIKELAND!

The Galactic Hover Board
North American Release Date: October 19, 1989

In space, no one can hear you SHRED ON YOUR HOVERBOARD.

No doubt inspired by Back to the Future Part II, The Galactic Hover Board takes the concept one step further: into SPACE. As you can see, I’m taking the laws of physics and semantics for a bit of a spin. Apparently, since there’s no gravity in space it causes your legs to grow really fuckin’ big. And never mind the fact that getting into space isn’t hovering at all, it’s flying. (And while you’re out in space, you’re really doing neither.)

Luckily, there’s just enough gravity to stay standing on your board out in the ether, and space has enough mass to actually propel yourself forward through it with your foot. Marty McFly never had it so good. Maybe because he had one of those lame 2015 hoverboards, and not this totally sweet hoverboard built with brown-rectangle technology.

Sure, you laugh now, but when that red sun there goes supernova, you’ll all be crispy fuckers peacing out of life on Earth while this guy here is surfing the shockwave.

Dragon Land
North American Release Date: October 1, 1989

Dragon Land, which geographically, is located not too far away from Bikeland, is a special place where retarded kings put regular swinging doors in the sides of their castles, and spray paint “PUSH START” around them. And if there was any sort of ground here I’d count to see if there were three rocks, but alas. Fifty-foot long battlements are also common.

Your main weapon in Dragon Land is, apparently, some sort of fucked-up saw. Remember part one, where I made the distinction between swords and knives? Swords are pointed in the center, and knifes have the point to one side. This one is neither. But such an abomination of blacksmithing is surely necessary for killing all the dragons in Dragon Land.

The trees, however, are state of the art. Using an early version of the greenery engine that would later go on to power the scenery in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, these trees sport both foliage and multiple branches. There’s even one half obscured by the castle, proving I have sweet depth sorting skills.. And if the orange-on-blue scheme hasn’t burned your eyeballs out yet, check out the Super Seal. This game was segregated out into the “POPULAR GAMES” folder, along with its sequel. I was clearly on to something too, as the “Dragon Warrior” franchise that I so blatantly ripped off is now up to its eighth installment, with nine on the way!

Death Quest: The Conan Age
North American Release Date: October 10, 1989

I leave you with the best title I’ve ever seen for a videogame. DEATH QUEST. How fucking awesome is that? Also of note is the subtitle. CONAN AGE. Is it possible I preempted yet another blockbuster IP? I THINK IT IS.

Anyway, I don’t remember much about how this game was supposed to work, but just from the title I can tell you it’s totally manly. Too manly for art, apparently. If I were to take a guess, the game stars you as Conan or some equally muscley barbarian, and you chop a bunch of dudes with your axe, and then you wash up by banging hot amazons. (At 7, I don’t even know if I knew what banging was yet. I’m still not sure I do.)

And look at that torch! Holy shit! Obviously the torch engine licensed for DEATH QUEST cost way more than the crossed-swords engine. The swords are shit, but that TORCH. OH MAN. It’s the perfect kind of torch to help light the dark times of THE CONAN AGE.

Anyway, that’s all for now. Part three coming soon! Watch in horror and amazement as I dig into my sci-fi repertoire, create all-new characters, and when that fails, just blatantly rip off characters from existing games!

So as promised, I’ve selected the 20 best “games” out of my childhood stash. These were created by me– the dates of creation are all in ‘88 and ‘89, which means I was 7 or 8 years old. I didn’t know how to program at the time (I picked up Pascal a few years later) so to make a “game” I’d draw a picture of it in a program called Modern Artist, which was basically a 256-color MacPaint. Some of them are just too funny to not share, so here we go, just five out of my selected 20:

Blood Stream 2
North American Release Date: July 21, 1989

Wow, whatever happened in my childhood to make me so fuckin’ sick and twisted, happened before July 21, 1989. And also before I began properly using capital letters. This is the type of thing I could very well be explaining to a psychologist at some point down the road.

I’d tell my poor psychologist that the game stars you as a badly drawn bright yellow dude that wields a gun with a 1-inch barrel and 2-foot stock/magazine and who can shoot grenades out of his ass. The object, apparently, is to ride and jump on grassy islands floating in a river of bubbling blood while shooting dudes in the head (how is the dude in the back getting shot, anyway?) and collecting all the sweet sweet monies they drop.

And check out those bitchin’ particle effects on homie in the back. And by “particle” I mean “wow, the default MacPaint brush shape makes freakin’ sweet midair blood droplets”. Also of note is that Blood Stream 2 featured a password system. START OR CODE: THE CHOICE IS YOURS.

How could you possibly resist this action-packed, blood drenched, grenade-shitting shoot-fest? I don’t think you can.

Gladiator
North American Release Date: October 17, 1989

Most people don’t realize that Ridley Scott’s epic blockbuster Gladiator is actually a video game adaptation. And you’re looking at the title screen.

While the limitations of technology at the time prevented computers like the Mac IIx, even with the displays cranked up to a full 256 colors, from accurately capturing the look and feel of ancient Rome, it was enough to provide a solid foundation for the movie over a decade later. And notice that even at the time, the display was sophisticated enough to differentiate between knives and swords. (Notice how the point is off to the side? That’s a knife. On swords, the point is centered.)

Another thing most people don’t realize is that Ridley Scott left out important details about the background of the character Maximus, which are obvious here from the glaring rainbow color scheme, that Maximus was actually a raging homosexual. That’s right. It’s all in the title screen. Not only from the colors, but from the option for 2 players. The second player gladiator was actually supposed to be Maximus’ butt buddy in the movie, but his entire character didn’t make the final cut. He would have been played by Gilbert Gottfried.

Ridley Scott… I’m still waiting for my royalty check.

Justin 3
North American Release Date: July 23, 1989

Turns out that even at 8 and a half years old, I was one seriously narcissistic guy. Justin 3 is the third game in the “Adventure of Justin” series, starring, of course, me. Naturally, this was one of my most popular series of games.

The title screen always featured me in really bitchin’ fighting poses, and generally looking cool. Here I am on a high rise girder in full snowman figure glory (that’s 6 ellipses baby!) swinging some SAVAGE NUNCHUKS. I mean look at it. They’re in full extended bust-your-ass position. And there just happens to be LIT FUCKING DYNAMITE right under me. Why else would I be practicing my SWEET FUCKING NUNCHUKS a few feet away from LIT FUCKING DYNAMITE, other than the fact that I am BAD ASS?

CHUCKS FOR LIFE.

KILLERWATT
North American Release Date: October 17, 1989

Ok, let me get this out of the way. I still think this one’s pretty cool. Seeing this again totally rang a bell for me: Killerwatt was this giant electrified octopus type monster. You can totally tell by the many eyes, two mouths shooting lasers and the eight legs. Kind of like an electric Cthulhu.

Also notice the “Super Seal” towards the bottom left. Nintendo had their own official Seal of Quality, so I, naturally, had to have mine. You’ll see this on a lot of my games, but not all (I don’t think there’s any reason for that, I probably just forgot to put it on. Seal of Quality indeed.)

Anyway, I have no idea what the dude in the corner is supposed to be doing. He’s probably shitting his pants at the mere sight of KILLERWATT and is in the process of accepting his fate and making peace with the world before he gets FUCKING SLAUGHTERED. Also notice that I’ve ditched the six-ellipsis method of character modeling, and have moved on to using the line tool for arms and legs. This method both keeps the polygon count low, and allows for better articulation of joints. When I found this file, it was kept aside in a folder called “POPULAR GAMES” and I can see why. The graphics are mind blowing. LOOK AT THE FUCKING LIGHTNING. That’s got next-gen written all over it.

With that said, it’s cheesy enough to make me want to make something like Killerwatt. Total B-movie monster mash kind of stuff. I say even keep the corny name. Just watch. You heard it here first!

Slime Worm’s Revenge 2
North American Release Date: July 6, 1989

Even as a kid, I recognized that Nintendo was successful because they had a really popular character. Mario was in everything. So I needed some mascot characters.

The one I chose was “Slimey” which was based off of a stuffed snake I had as a kid. This thing was huge. Like boa constrictor huge. A kid could disappear in it. But we couldn’t leave it as just a snake, oh no, we had to up the stakes. So, he became a Slime Worm. IT FUCKING SLIMES YOU TOO.

Slime Worm’s Revenge, if I recall, got all the way up to 7 sequels. We’re talking major franchise. And that’s not including spin-off games: Slime Worms had a game show, comedy show, casino game, and Olympic Games, to name a few.

You can tell just how big a smash franchise the Slime Worms were going to be just from the graphics. There’s a lot of debate among nerds on the Internet, but most agree that #2 was the height of the series, where it really hit its stride. The Slime Worms are rendered on screen with real-time smiley face stamp brush technology, unheard of at the time. It was a big deal. And the way the “2″ is rendered with every single font style known to man (that’s bold, italic, underline, outline, AND shadow. That’s a lot of shaders) emphasizes just how anticipated the sequel really was.

Stay tuned for the next five, where I rape the laws of physics, make the worst bike game ever, and make some really fucking sweet torches. Don’t change that dial.

I hate being at the point where every update I make begins with me apologizing for the lack of updates recently. So this is the last time I’m doing that. Sorry for the lack of updates.

So a lot has happened. First, and most importantly, Freeverse has offered me a job back in New York City, and I’ve accepted. So I’ll officially be a Game Designer with them, working with Bruce Morrison. It’s been hard as hell coming to terms with picking up and leaving Vegas, as well as friends and family, but this is too exciting to pass up.

I’ll be in what Bruce is calling The Pirate Cove, which I’m hoping is named after our respective pirate flags that hung on opposite sides of the wall during Marathon development. The Fic flag flies again, baby! In the meantime, I’m doing some design work from Vegas, although my main priority now is just wrapping up all my loose ends, and getting my ass to Mars Brooklyn.

As for my current projects, they’re mostly on hold until I get out there and get situated. My code is priority #3 right now, behind moving, and design work. I’ll still be working on the FicEngine, although it will likely be aimed for prototyping in the short term, with the possibility later on of being used for a game. The speed that I can prototype stuff with is great, but frankly when it comes to commercial dev, there are existing engines out there with support teams that offer more features. It comes down to what tool is right for the job.

As for my game ideas, I’m holding on to them and bringing them to Freeverse with me. I’ll pitch em to the guys, and if all is well they’ll get pitched around to the industry, or maybe as a Mac/PC title. I’m definitely not losing anything here- if they don’t pass through the Freeverse gauntlet, it’s unlikely they were feasible money makers anyway. And if they do, you’ll see a Justin-Fic-designed game that actually has some production value (Exercise to the class: Compare Kill Dr. Cote to Kill Monty. Yeah.)

So it’s definitely an exciting time. I’ll keep the blog updated as things commence!

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I have high expectations for Quake Zero. With all the hype now around games like BioShock and the upcoming games like Rage and Haze, I find myself most excited about this stripped down, free version of Quake Arena.

For those not in the know, Quake Zero is essentially Quake III Arena stripped down to its bare essentials and released for free. Why would I be so excited about this? It all has to do with my favorite FPS of all time: Q3Test.

Q3Test was a public beta test of Quake III Arena, released one platform at a time, starting with Mac OS. That’s right, I had way more fun with the beta test of Quake III than I did with Quake III itself. Why?

First, it was totally pure in concept. John Carmack has said that Quake III Arena is his favorite id game because it was the purest FPS they had created. The beta test, in my opinion, was even more pure. It didn’t have the bells and whistles the retail version had. It only had one character model for the longest time (with Sarge to follow later, bringing the grand total up to 2.) So in the end of Q3Test, you had three choices. Red robot, Blue robot, Sarge. That’s it. A few of the weapons were absent (lightning gun, grenade launcher, BFG10K) and it only had two maps. The effect that this had is that it broke the game down to its most abstract. Another example is the “clunk” sound that played when you shot another player. Totally unrealistic- it’s an almost comic sound. Yet, it was distinctive and it let you know you were hitting your opponent. Between that, the blaring onscreen messages stating who you fragged, and the base art assets, allowed the gameplay to shine in its purest form.

The other reason was the community, although part of the credit goes to the cable service out here. When Q3Test came out, everyone in Las Vegas who had a cable modem was considered to be on the same LAN, and could play with each other at ridiculously low ping. I mean, around 10 ms. It was rare for a LAN game to drop, or even play less than flawlessly. This resulted in a small community forming of Mac OS users in Las Vegas who all had cable modems. I played regularly with many familiar faces (ok, names) and we had our stomping grounds in the form of a dedicated game that ran 24 hours a day.

I have high expectations for Quake Zero because it is the one game that would bring those concepts to the forefront. First, it’s a stripped down version of Quake III Arena. Carmack was surprised to learn that many tournament players of Quake III turn the graphics settings all the way down to a butt-ugly flat shaded mess, because it allowed the game to run faster and also made it easier to tell the various-shades-of-brown players apart from their various-shades-of-brown surroundings. Quake Zero will embrace that- and as a result will be able to run on any system at high framerates. This is a key feature that all FPS’s seem to ignore- the latest FPS is constantly pushing the envelope of technology, and showing off the latest graphics innovations. This, however, is to the detriment of framerate on older computers, and consequently, the gameplay. (In games that require the twitch that the FPS demands, framerate = gameplay.)

Second, it is centered around the web. From what we know, you will be able to join games via a web interface, which will launch the actual FPS app. That, combined with many spectator features, and (hopefully) a system to add and meet up with friends, will foster a strong community.

Carmack himself doesn’t know whether Quake Zero will be a success or not- he’s in it just for the learning experience, as always. But I like this about id lately- they’re eschewing the guaranteed sequel hits and venturing out into new territory. Rage is a brand new IP and Quake Zero is a brand new business model. But if they can pull off another Q3Test, I’m convinced it will own everyone’s asses.

So it’s official: Marathon: Durandal is done, and my contract with Freeverse has come to an end. Tomorrow morning I will be hopping on a plane to California for a weekend on the beach, and then it’s back to Vegas! I’ll miss these guys, but god damn if I haven’t been waiting for the day I could go home!

By the way, to the listeners of BDPE- one of the reasons we haven’t recorded in awhile is that all my equipment is currently in a box on a truck headed vaguely west. When both me and my shit are all in the same place again we can sit down and record, or else I’d have to be recorded remotely by Buck or Miller over the phone, which would sound like ass.

Once I’m home, I have some soul searching to do- Freeverse has approached me to do another project as a full time employee, and I would even be in a lead designer position. But I can’t forget why I’ve been doing what I’ve been doing. When I started working on Marathon: Durandal, I was an independent contractor, and that’s what I am still. I have too many awesome ideas that need to be explored! But naturally this doesn’t rule out Freeverse- I have big plans for myself and it would be a shame if Freeverse wasn’t involved

Also of note: David Jaffe also announced his own jump to indie development today under the new studio Eat Sleep Play. A nice coincidence! Best of luck to David.

My tirade about videogames that waste my time got some great responses and feedback, enough that I’d like to elaborate more on some of the points I made last time.

One part of games that I’d like to focus on in particular is the collection sidequest. These are the most glaring attempt to pad out gameplay hours that I can think of. The vast majority of collection sidequests extend well past the end of the single player experience. For instance, on my initial playthrough of Ocarina of Time I found maybe 30-40 gold skulltulas out of 100. That’s not even half. Collection in the new Castlevania games extends the playtime by at least 200-300%.

So the question was: are these fun? And my completely useless answer to you is: it depends. (God, I hate saying that, but it’s true.) There are two major types of factors that Fun depends on. The first is player motivation. There’s a wonderful article up at Gamasutra about Designing For Player Motivation, and I suggest you check it out, since I’m only summarizing it here. Motivation depends on Player Skill, Needs, Reward, and Challenge. You need to account for all of those factors or you have no motivation to play, and your game collects dust. (By the way, this applies to your game in general, too, not just sidequests and minigames.)

Example: Crackdown. I’ve maxed out all my skills, but there are still like 200 agility orbs and 250 hidden orbs floating around somewhere. There’s no additional reward for getting these extra orbs (aside from Xbox360 achievements) and the challenge is completely out of whack. I have max agility, so I have no physical problems getting to the orbs, but FINDING them is a pain in the ass, and since I have no idea which ones I’ve gotten already, reading a FAQ with the locations is completely worthless.

The second factor is the minigame itself. I hate having my playtime wasted, but yet, I spent 15-20 hours in Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin collecting all the different items and building up my characters. Why? Because once the exploration is complete, you still have the combination of platforming and combat, which keep me stimulated and make running around and collecting all these items fun.

Now take for instance, the Fishing Mini Game. Doesn’t matter which game it’s in, because it’s everywhere. Games around the world love to include the Fishing Mini Game. I fucking hate the Fishing Mini Game. My first Fishing Mini Game was in Dark Cloud 2. I fished in the Fishing Mini Game. I caught fish. Wonderful. Diversion over. I have absolutely no desire to play the Fishing Mini Game in the million subsequent fucking games I’ve seen it in. Animal Crossing? Don’t care. Twilight Princess? Don’t care. Contact? Don’t care. If I wanted to fish this bad I’d just get a pole, go outside and fish. If I play Zelda, I want to explore, fight monsters and uncover secrets. I don’t want to sit on my ass and fish.

In Castlevania, the minigames all revolve around the core mechanic of the game: jumping around and killing shit. If it had a minigame that involved me raising a vampire bat by feeding it or something, guess what? I don’t care. If the minigame doesn’t involve me jumping around and killing shit, I’m not interested. Going back to Crackdown, prior to the downloadable content, once you beat the game, the gangs are completely gone from the city. There is nobody left to kill. But yet you still have this huge collection minigame to do. So take out the motivation from step one, and also remove one of the core mechanics of the game (shootin dudes) and you have a completely boring collection sidequest.

When done right, sidequests and minigames extend the life of the game by changing the rules around. It’s like a separate game mode. Now instead of getting to the end of level X, now I have to kill and collect. When done wrong, all they do is piss me off, since now there’s some reward in the game that I’m not going to get unless I suffer through some repetitive bullshit like spraypainting 100 tags for one stupid respawning shotgun.

I have gone through my list of games that I need to beat, and pruned it to no longer include games I have no intention of suffering through until the end. Especially now that Contact and Etrian Odyssey have both snuck onto my DS list, I really need to focus on the games that I enjoy and to hell with the garbage. I even removed some really quality games: couple of Grand Theft Autos and Final Fantasies, to name a few. Why? Because I’m sick of them wasting my time.

For instance, Lost Magic? I have no intention of ever playing that game again, screw it. The only reason I would beat it is for closure, and those are precious hours I can spend playing other games, hanging out with actual human beings, reading, or feeding my non-existant fish.

If the Xbox 360 Gamerscore has taught me anything, it’s that I absolutely hate sitting down and playing games for any other reason than to enjoy it. Suffering for hours upon hours to complete a story, or reach 100% completion is bullshit. Lego Star Wars II - I beat that game in a few hours, and reaching 100% takes about ten times as long. What the fuck? I could spend the 3-4 more hours to get up to that 100%, but I just can’t justify wasting the time. Dead Rising? Sure, I could spend the 10-15 hours to get a few of those achievements (the kill ~50000 zombies and survive 5-7 days ones) but god damn, I could spend that time doing ANYTHING ELSE!

The worst types of games for me though are games that have their gameplay wear out on me before their story does. Final Fantasy 8? I was done with that shit after Disc 1, but no, there were 3 more discs of whiny emo bullshit to suffer through, and at the time I couldn’t NOT beat it- it was Final Fantasy, and I already invested a disc’s worth of time into it! Final Fantasy X-2? Not even going to bother. I just saved myself 50 hours.

It’s gotten to the point now where I’m buying games faster than I’m beating them. Much faster. I can’t take the time to do boring, repetitive tasks in videogames anymore. I remember drawing the line at Final Fantasy X- a wonderful game, but to get one of the secret weapons you had to dodge 100 lightning bolts IN A ROW at a certain zone. You pretty much had to stay at attention with your thumb hovering over the X button for hours to do it (there was one bolt every 5-20 seconds or thereabouts), and if you screwed up, you had to start over. WHO THE FUCK THOUGHT THIS WAS A FUN IDEA?!

A much better use of my gaming hours is something like Geometry Wars. I’ve yet to gain some of those achievements. But if I had the skill, I’d get them in 15 minutes. Instead of a stupid, repetitive task, I spend my time increasing my skill on a task that takes a few minutes. This is why I’ll never, ever play another MMORPG. When your main game mechanic is referred to as a “grind” and a “treadmill” I can’t find a whole lot of reasons that I’d want to spend the thousands of hours on it that some people do.

So I guess the point to all this rambling is this. I challenge all game designers out there (myself included) to create games that do the following two things: 1) Give the player nearly all available game content within the first 15 minutes of powering the game on, and 2) Give the player a replayable experience that, if they choose, will still occupy hours and hours of their time. This is the philosophy behind my games to date (a game of Kill Dr. Cote takes around 5-10 minutes, but hours can be spent maximizing your score) and will continue to be. For more inspiration, think the old arcade machines: Space Invaders, Robotron, Defender, pretty much any game that throws a high-score table at you as part of its attract mode. These are the games that people come back to. Show me someone who’s played through Final Fantasy X-2 more than once, and I’ll show you a masochist.

The discussion goes like this:

Person A: Hey Justin Fic, have you played Game X?
Justin Fic: No, but I heard it’s awesome.
Person A: It is, you can borrow it from me if you want.
Justin Fic: I would but I have a SHIT LOAD of games I still need to beat.
Person A and Persons surrounding A: We should compile a list of games we need to beat.

So now, you can find my freshly updated list of games I need to beat. I’ve unfortunately reached the point where I’m buying games faster than I can beat them. I just don’t have the free time anymore. So you can find the link to the list on the right, or just click here for the full list. I know there are some blasphemous items on there, but I assure you I’m working as fast as I can. I’ll be updating the list as I beat these games (last week’s victims being EDF 2017, Puzzle Quest and Izuna.)

Note: None of the games on the list are Mac Games. WHAT THE FUCK, STEVE JOBS?

As this site is starting to come together, I thought I’d share this with you guys. Yoggy over at the BDPE Forums posted a Google Video link of the video that is currently making the rounds of a dude playing a romhack of Super Mario Bros. that is utterly FIENDISH. The Lost Levels don’t have shit on this heat.

Anyway, after watching 28 minutes of absolutely painful Mario torture, my first thought was “oh man, I want to play it.” Some rooting around at SomethingAwful scored me this link:

MARIO FOREVER

You’ll need an emulator to rock this out (on OS X there is none better than Nestopia) but I suggest playing with a paddle you won’t mind breaking in half. After a bit of playing I’ve gotten to 1-2, which is where the dude in the video gives up. It presumably goes up to 1-4…

Anyway, for a platforming game that does everything in its power to fuck with the player, it’s actually a lot of fun, as it requires absolutely premium SMB1-playing abilities. This game goes against every apparent “law” of game design that I’ve seen and I can’t stop fucking playing it. So if you’re like me and you’re sick of the hand-holding, grab that and give it a whirl.