« Worlds and words | Home | Less game »
This is casual hardcore
Posted by Mike Sugarbaker at 10:52 am on 5/29/2006
Some new developments of note on the excluded-middle-of-gaming front: Nexus War is very, very similar to Urban Dead but feels a little better engineered. Also, many who’ve gone deeper into it than I have say it’s a much better game. It’s at least interesting to see that it’s spawned a clone; after all, in gaming, “a genre is one hit and everything that copies it.”
The folks behind Puzzle Pirates have finally released their new joint, Bang! Howdy, in an open beta. It’s more board-gamey, and also more real-timey (and old-timey). So it definitely gets the pulse rate up, and your ping can matter. But I’m enjoying it a lot so far. You can already see all the ways they’re gonna sell it piece by piece, micropayment style.
We need some snappy name to refer to the kind of games I’m talking about. I actually have come to like the jumbo-shrimp nature of the name “casual hardcore,” but it does make it sound a bit like I’m talking about porn. Other suggestions?