Trendy Entertainment is Now Chromatic Games
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/24/19 at 03:08 PM CT
In a surprise announcement at the beginning of March, Trendy Entertainment, the Indie developer we at MeltedJoystick love to hate, revealed that they were dead and gone.
While everyone at MeltedJoystick has something of a love/hate relationship with Trendy (some leaning more toward love, while others lean more toward pure white-hot hate), we all recognize the company’s amazing original contribution to videogame genre hybridization, as their ‘Dungeon Defenders’ titles are truly novel takes on the once-booming fad of Tower Defense games. At the same time, we’ve often criticized Trendy for pandering to the tiniest, vocal, HARD-headed fragment of their audience to the detriment of everyone else.
Trendy had been radio-silent since posting the Winter 2018 update to their current Live Service, “Dungeon Defenders 2,” which added a Christmas tree that gives away a free loot box every 24 hours. And I do indeed mean ‘gives’ in the present tense, because as of the time of …
5 of the Laziest Game Design Techniques Devs Should Avoid
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/17/19 at 03:36 PM CT
As we all know, game development, like any form of media and art creation, can be a lot of work. While Indie development studios typically make due with a small team of dedicated folks with a lot of passion for the project, big “AAA” corporate developers create games with credit rolls that sometimes last longer than the actual gameplay (I’m looking at you, “PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale”!). Regardless of studio size, however, developers can – and do – fall into a number of game design traps; shortcuts that will ultimately pad-out their project’s runtime, without providing any real value to their potential players or to the gaming medium as a whole.
Here are 5 of the most common laziness-induced missteps that can ruin a game, with examples of (fairly) recent good-ish games that could have been better without these shortcuts:
5. Arbitrary Performance Grading
So you finished a stage and beat the boss at the end? Good for you! Now, let’s see how well you …
Review Round-Up: Winter 2018
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/10/19 at 03:34 PM CT
Welcome back to another installment of the MeltedJoystick Review Round-Up. Here’s what our staff has reviewed since last time:
Nelson’s Reviews:
Thanks to inclement weather, the MJ Crew’s local coop nights were canceled on far too many occasions this Winter. Between the weather, the fact that we’ve been deep into some content-dense online coop games, and the fact that I played the longest ‘Fallout’ game and a 100-hour RPG meant that my Winter output was rather low. Oh well.
“Never Alone” – 3/5
“Octopath Traveler” – 3/5
“Guacamelee! 2” – 4/5
“The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing” – 4/5
“Fallout 4” – 3/5
Chris’ Reviews:
Oh, Christoper! While last quarter, his pursuit of online fame and fortune via his streaming channel encouraged him to get into a regular gaming schedule, this quarter, his intentions were corrupted by starting (and not finishing) several long, dense games at the same time. Look forward to many more Chris …
He’s Everywhere III!: Dragon Quest Edition
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/02/19 at 05:06 PM CT
The first time I roasted Chris for his early-March birthday, I had to cut-down the large number of Chris-like people and creatures that inhabit the entirety of videogames to 10. In the next roast, I stuck with creatures from Nintendo’s ‘Pokemon’ franchise. This year, in honor of the recent release of “Dragon Quest 11” and upcoming Definitive Edition release of said game, I’ve chosen to pick out the top 10 most Chris-like monsters designed by Akira Toriyama for Enix’s venerable ‘Dragon Quest’ RPG franchise.
Thanks to Toriyama’s idiosyncratic drawing style and Chris’ idiosyncratic… everything, there is naturally a ton of overlap between fantasy and reality when it comes to observing Chris-ness in ‘Dragon Quest’ monsters. As a bit of trivia, the humble Slime has appeared in the number one spot in the bestiaries of every ‘Dragon Quest’ game… except “Dragon Quest 6,” for some reason… but the humble Slime will NOT be making an appearance on this …
Backlog: The Embiggening – March, 2019
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/24/19 at 04:05 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! The hoary, old chestnut states that March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb, or vice-versa. Here at the MJHQ, March is coming in like a big, annoying pile of snow, so it better damn well go out like a tropical paradise. At least we’ve already got our shovels (and snow blowers) at the ready, which will help with the lion’s and lamb’s share of this month’s game releases!
We’ve got 8 samples of shovelware to deal with this month. We’ve got an extra-crappy Sports title based on the “American Ninja Warrior” TV show, plus a couple of anime games based on “One Piece” and the incredibly convoluted “Fate” franchises. Nintendo is getting hit by a Casual mini-game shovelfest, “FUN! FUN! Animal Park,” by Aksys, who apparently think the Switch is still the Wii (and when you have to put that much ‘FUN’ in your game’s title, you’re trying too hard). Every platform except Nintendo’s is getting a new …
Square-Enix and the Pants on Fire
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/17/19 at 02:46 PM CT
Remember way back in 2018 (3 months ago) when Square-Enix earned special praise in the MeltedJoystick Year in Review retrospective? It is with great sadness that we must recant that praise and return Square-Enix to the garbage heap with the rest of the “AAA” mega-corporate publishers.
When Square-Enix released “Dragon Quest 11” in the West in September 2018, it came with much fanfare and reassurance from series creator, Yuji Horii, that it would be a ‘complete’ on-and-done purchase. Those reassurances were the sole reason I was willing to break my rule about buying “AAA” games at launch for anywhere close to full price.
By December 2018, rumors were already rumbling that the year-late Switch version of “Dragon Quest 11” would include ‘improvements,’ but these rumors were widely interpreted by the gaming media as meaning that the Japanese version of “Dragon Quest 11” would have the additional features the PC/PS4 Western versions contained (like …
Science: “Copyright Infringement is Good for Everyone”
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/10/19 at 03:30 PM CT
At long last, science, that great discipline through which all Truth is revealed, has taken a look at a unique phenomenon of the modern world: Copyright. Since the Digital Revolution brought on by the advent of the Internet in the early 21st Century, IP rightsholders have tried desperately to continue enforcing their will on the general public through excessive lobbying, which has led to increasingly draconian laws on the state books in numerous countries, such as the United States, Poland, and most recently Japan.
In a 2018 study by Indiana University, spearheaded by Antino Kim, science has proven what many of us have known for decades already: Copyright infringement results in a win-win scenario. But how is it possible that flaunting the law of the land can lead to positive results? It’s quite simple.
In moderate amounts, copyright infringement benefits the rightsholders for digital media by creating demand and increasing mindshare (a.k.a., positive network effect). …
Backlog: The Embiggening – February, 2019
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/03/19 at 01:46 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! After getting off on the wrong port… err… foot, 2019 is still chugging along. Let’s see what February, the month for lovers, holds in store for us to love. Or hate.
After multiple months without licensed garbage, annual sports releases, or super-casual fluff, the shovelware has come home to roost. Fortunately, the numbers aren’t great enough to require more than one shovel, though they’re all roughly the same type of licensed trash: A tie in for Monster Energy Drink, a tie-in for the new ‘LEGO Movie,’ a manga ‘Jump’ magazine tie-in, a tie-in for the final ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ movie (with a mindbogglingly Engrish title), and a third entry in the ‘Yo-kai Watch’ anime tie-in.
In ports and remasters, unsurprisingly, the Nintendo Switch is still in possession of a commanding lead this month (no that that’s a good thing). Switch will be getting a lot of old crap, including “Rad Rogers,” …
The Two Faces of Nostalgia
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/27/19 at 04:22 PM CT
As gaming comes into its own as a mature medium, it is looking more and more to the past, as do so many other artistic media. Remakes, remasters, reboots – all are just euphemisms for ‘rehash,’ as developers and publishers struggle to come up with new ideas or even to iterate on existing ideas in meaningful ways. Nowhere is this love of hindsight more prevalent than in the now-fully-mature Independent games ecosystem.
I last looked at Indie games and the development thereof way back in 2012, shortly after MeltedJoystick first launched. Even then I was wary, as the movement was clearly a two-faced Janus, with the Good Face represented by labors of love and games that weren’t popular enough among the Mainstream audience to be profitable for “AAA” publishers, and the Bad Face represented by cheap, lazy, no-effort attempts to snag a few bucks before people caught on. Even in the concept’s infancy, Indie games and a ‘retro,’ nostalgia-driven yearning went …
Japan Takes a Step Closer to Dictatorship with New Law
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/19/19 at 04:21 PM CT
We aren’t even a month into 2019, and an Epic Fail that is destined to make the Year in Review list is already on the books. According to information dug-up and translated by Siliconera, Japan managed to sneak in end-of-the-year legislation that bans any and all forms of hardware or software modifications for videogame consoles. As an amendment to Japan’s Unfair Competition Prevention Act, anyone participating in soft-modding, hard-modding, or grey market keytailing will be subject to a $50,000 fine and 5 years in prison.
Modding game consoles and console games is a tradition that dates back as far as the 3rd Generation, when Galoob’s Game Genie allowed gamers to make ‘magical’ changes to their horrible, barely-playable NES games, such as unlimited lives or invincibility. The phenomenon continued to evolve with the Game Shark and Pro-Action Replay devices taking over in the era of optical media. But in the age of online games, digital distribution, and draconian DRM, …
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