{"id":847,"date":"2014-10-01T12:13:40","date_gmt":"2014-10-01T19:13:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/?p=847"},"modified":"2014-10-03T09:17:32","modified_gmt":"2014-10-03T16:17:32","slug":"everybody-else-is-doing-it-so-why-not-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/everybody-else-is-doing-it-so-why-not-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Not Me?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I created one of those new-fangled Steam curator pages<\/a>. Here are my comments:<\/p>\n

Atom Zombie Smasher<\/strong> –\u00a0A well-scoped RTS that keeps everything important and nothing else. The bizarro atmosphere helps too.<\/p>\n

Brothers<\/strong> –\u00a0A beautiful experience, and few game narratives integrate their actual game mechanics into the story so well.<\/p>\n

Crusader Kings 2<\/strong> – Requires an upfront commitment, but no historical game has ever made PEOPLE so important.<\/p>\n

Frozen Synapse<\/strong> –\u00a0Because turns can be submitted in any order, this game is ideal for asynchronous play.<\/p>\n

FTL<\/strong> –\u00a0A perfectly paced game, of just the right length to enable consequence (by being short enough) and progression (by being long enough).<\/p>\n

Magicka<\/strong> –\u00a0A hilarious game, especially in multiplayer. Wonderful joy of discovery if the player stays away from walkthroughs.<\/p>\n

Mark of the Ninja<\/strong> –\u00a0A masterpiece in transparency. Exposing the details of a stealth game (as well as limiting it to 2D) creates amazing intentional play.<\/p>\n

Papers, Please<\/strong> –\u00a0Games have immense powers of empathy, and no game does a better job of creating unexpected empathy.<\/p>\n

Spelunky<\/strong> –\u00a0A monument to the ability of video games to create new worlds from scratch; the last game this amazing was Seven Cities of Gold (for its time).<\/p>\n

Steel Storm: Burning Retribution<\/strong> –\u00a0Simply feels great to play; this game gets every little detail of twitch right.<\/p>\n

Swords and Soldiers<\/strong> –\u00a02D? 3D? How about a 1D RTS? This game is a lesson in how simplification leaves room for greater engagement with the actual game mechanics.<\/p>\n

Thief Gold<\/strong> –\u00a0Did you know the original Thief is on Steam? Well, the original Thief is on Steam.<\/p>\n

Thirty Flights of Loving<\/strong> –\u00a0Apparently, this game was made by the same guy who made Atom Zombie Smasher. I assume that’s impossible, however, as nobody can be that versatile.<\/p>\n

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon<\/strong> –\u00a0Get a few friends together, team up on Terrorist Hunt, thank me later.<\/p>\n

Unity of Command<\/strong> –\u00a0Remarkably accessible for a wargame. The supply mechanic creates an important perspective on the battles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I created one of those new-fangled Steam curator pages. Here are my comments: Atom Zombie Smasher –\u00a0A well-scoped RTS that keeps everything important and nothing else. The bizarro atmosphere helps too. Brothers –\u00a0A beautiful experience, and few game narratives integrate … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-games"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/cropped-1539-Samogethia-and-Lituania.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3EGlq-dF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=847"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":850,"href":"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847\/revisions\/850"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}