Year Walk Soundtrack, for you ♥
4shared.comYear Walk.rar-4shared.com
Review - 10000000 (iOS, 2012)
A mashup of genres that actually works
I was not originally interested in this game. In previews, I saw an autorunner inexplicably tied to match-three gameplay and RPG tropes, and I just couldn’t see spending money on it. But eventually the critical love for the game became overwhelming and I just had to give it a shot. It turned out to be a lot of fun, and an experience unique enough to distinguish itself from the usual pack of mobile games. It gets a little grindy towards the end, and I’m still not in love with match-three gameplay, but this title sucked me in and kept me glued to my device longer than most mobile games can manage. It’s a good time that’s worth its paltry price tag.
Review - Worm Run (iOS, 2013)
It took an update to reach its potential, but this runner is a blast
I’ve discussed before how one design decision can turn a great game bad, and what a tragedy that can be. I’m happy to now have an example of the reverse: Worm Run. I followed this game’s development, from Kickstarter success to worldwide release, and was excited to finally play it. Once I did, I was underwhelmed. The art was great, the control scheme was interesting (if not perfect), but there was a big cloud of “so what?” hanging around the game. There was nothing to do but collect coins and buy upgrades, but those things took so long that it felt like an IAP-baiting grind. I quickly stopped playing, seeing no reason to continue.
But a month or so after the game’s release, developer Golden Ruby Games pushed a massive update which, among other things, gave the game a mission system. That system changed the game dramatically, providing a feeling of accomplishment and giving more coins to the player, allowing for faster and more satisfying progression through the game. With this one change, the developers turned the game from a frustrating waste of potential to a fun and interesting game I couldn’t put down.
Grilly The Cheese
We’ve been away for a while, quietly working on our first game ever…it’s been a long year off and on. And no…we’re not talking about King DudeMan, though we still have every intention of revisiting the concept later.
This year has been a great learning experience, both for the development side of Piasa and design. There were many unexpected obstacles and consequences to decisions made early on in development and design that made the process of creating Grilly take much longer than expected.
Our mistakes have made us smarter, and quicker, and more ready to take on our next project—one we’re really excited about, but that’s for another day and another blog post. Today we want to share with you a few screenshots, if you haven’t already seen them on the newly designed piasa website or on dribbble.
We’re really excited to get Grilly out in the world and into your hands (your ipad or iphone) and see what you think. It’s our first attempt and we want to hear your thoughts on what we could have done better and what you really enjoy about the game.
We’ll have some screen caps in the near future to give you a better idea of what gameplay is actually like. Also, we’ll have some Grilly/Piasa merch in the ramp up to the release. We hope you’ll stay tuned.
