It takes something special, these days, to make a Game Boy game worth playing – what was once a marvel now looks like black and white television. Or to be more blunt, many of the machine's classics don't play so well these days, or at least that's what you can infer from Nintendo's drip feed on Virtual Console.
The curators of a proposed Videogame History Museum in Sunnyvale, California, have successfully raised sufficient funds to get the project off the ground through crowdfunding website Kickstarter.
Zynga has announced Adventure World, its latest social game for Facebook, as the company returns to what it does best with its IPO plans apparently put on hold.
Little has been revealed about the game, which draws heavily on the look of the Indiana Jones films and invites players to "explore exotic lands, solve ancient puzzles, and bring your friends along for a ride."
Levelling up - that's what games are about, right? Not necessarily, says designer Keith Burgun. It should introduce strategic depth. And he should know - He designed superlative iOS RPG 100 Rogues. His point - levelling up often conflicts with players' rising skill, creating a less challenging experience over time. His solution for some RPGs: what if levelling up lends both positive and negative effects, encouraging players to employ new strategies?
Working with investment banking consultant GP Bullhound, the Copenhagen-based developer has bought itself back from its shareholders.
"We are really happy about how it turned out even though the cost was higher than we had hoped," CEO Dino Patti told us. "The process was very educational and this is a big step on our way to become fully independent."
Facebook has insisted that the surge in popularity of social games presents an opportunity, not a threat, to traditional game companies, and called on them to bring their "sophisticated" wares to the social network.
Speaking to MCV, Facebook's global head of game partnerships Sean Ryan said that there was already evidence that the tide was beginning to turn, with a host of big publishers noticing, and making inroads into, opportunities in social gaming.
There have been concept car games, but could this be the first high-concept car game? Ubisoft Reflections’ Driver San Francisco is given a ludicrous but ultimately rather brilliant twist – a narrative crutch for extravagant mechanics that’s no less weird than the metaphysical premise of Life on Mars or Quantum Leap.