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MMObility: Motion Twin's Mush conjures delightfully paranoid gameplay
If you are a regular reader of mine (thank you if you are), then you know how much I enjoy Motion Twin, the studio behind one of my favorite games, Die2Nite. I fell in love with Die2Nite over the last year or two; the game has grown into an amazing and sometimes scary experience, and it does it all with very little imagery. Motion Twin is in fact a one-stop-shop for many unique games that come from many different genres. So when I heard about Mush, the latest multiplayer title from the same developer, I was naturally excited. For the record, Die2Nite and Mush are both pseudo-MMOs or MMO-like games; make no mistake. But as I have pointed out before, the gameplay is so intriguing and smart that MMO developers would be wise to pay attention to the designs. Take Die2Nite and set it in space, tweak it, and make it more immediate, and you might begin to understand how Mush plays. Let's look into it -- just remember that in space, no one can hear you scheme!
Free for All: Justifying the subscriptions I maintain
Subscriptions are a funny thing. For as long as I can remember, they've represented a level of quality to many gamers. To those players, only those funny Eastern MMOs didn't have a sub. Granted, I loved a lot of those funny Eastern games and didn't care how a game monetized itself. Watching Western players spin on a dime about subscriptions has been a pretty weird experience. The Western developers have changed as well, providing tiered services and other models that would have been seen as suspicious only years ago. I've been known as a free-to-play guy for a while. Heck, I was originally hired here at Massively to cover free-to-play games. Now that there are more free games than not, this column has spread out a bit, covering multiple topics. Payment models do still come up, as they did this week. I thought it'd be cool to examine the subs I do maintain and why -- not press accounts or accounts from long before I began working at Massively, but accounts that I choose to pay for with my own money.
MMObility: Utilizing Windows 8 to help with MMO chores
Not so long ago, I told you about my acquisition of an Inspiron Duo netbook, a 10-inch device that was not only a small laptop but also a touchscreen tablet device. It is a very sturdy device, and the flip-around screen works well. The main problem with the device was that it came with Windows 7 while only sporting a dual core processor and two gigs of RAM. The other main issue was that the 10-inch screen has a 1366x768-pixel resolution, meaning that it was often uncomfortable to read on it or play games unless I zoomed in. Recently Microsoft released the Windows 8 public preview, so I downloaded it after reading that it was really geared for tablet or touchcreen devices. Sure enough, the same 10-inch netbook that was not getting a lot of use around here suddenly became faster and much more friendly to the eyes. It's perfect timing, as well, especially since I will be starting my "chores" experiment in which I see whether scheduling my gameplay each day will help me with an issue I have been having.
