When I think about Fable II, I think about real estate and sex.

That’s not to say the game’s mechanics surrounding those elements define the game, but I’ll focus on them here because they are areas not commonly explored in the actual gameplay mechanics of most fantasy-set action RPG.

At least, they aren’t often included with this kind of impressively egalitarian scope. With remarkably few exceptions, all property that seems like it should be ownable in the game can be purchased, be it a private home or a place of business. This includes a castle.

And matching that breadth, so too can you marry or engage in (strictly off-screen) intercourse with nearly any non-quest-related NPC with whom your sexual orientation and gender are compatible; each citizen is classified as straight, gay, lesbian, or bisexual, and nobody in Albion has passed a defense of marriage amendment.

Developer Lionhead Studios (and, one suspects, designer Peter Molyneux in particular) very much wants you to be aware of its sex-related feature set: the first item I encountered for sale by a merchant was a condom. Not long afterwards, my dog excitedly guided me to some buried treasure, and then panted and wagged his tail excitedly as I dug up another prophylactic. (more…)

(Edit: Hey, somebody Dugg me! Go Digg it up! Hooray internet!)

This man wants to become the best game designer ever.

As such, he’s making a game. He is also homeless, buried in credit card debt with nearly no money to his name, and living out of a shelter, equipped with nothing but a computer and a copy of Game Maker 7.0. As he states in his blog profile, “I hate working!”

At first, it is difficult to know whether to believe his claims, this being the internet. A bit of investigation reveals that he asked on the GameDev forums, “Is it possible to design and/or program games, while being homeless?” In that post, dated September 5, he noted he was “losing my place of residence soon.” Two days later, he created his blog. In the inaugural post, he says, “I’m broke, homeless, and I don’t have a job,” and lays out his plan to develop his own game, without necessarily getting a job dedicated to “making someone else rich.”

He also welcomes monetary donations, explaining, “I’m broke niggas. I’m broke.”

Early on, I fluctuated between being belief and skepticism. These days, the default reaction to this sort of thing is that viral marketing is afoot, but it seems too self-contained to be that. His GameDev posts don’t promote or link to his blog in any way, not even subtly, nor do the scant few other posts I was able to dig up elsewhere, all of which seem to be earnest game development inquiries.

The game was originally a platformer entitled The NeoVerse, and included moving platforms, the ability to swim “exactly like it is in Super Mario,” and a rocket launcher. This game seems intertwined with another idea, “a blend of old school Castlevania 2D type of game with Super Mario RPG,” which eventually became more focused on the platforming elements and was redubbed Me Vs. My Robots. (more…)

I’ve gotten every Civilization: Revolution achievement, and I can destroy its AI six ways from Sunday on every difficulty level—except Deity, which remains almost a total crap shoot. I’m not sure from which “deity” that designation draws its name—perhaps a nightmarish American McGee-esque take on the Flying Spaghetti Monster, one that sees the carbohydrate-fueled god reimagined as some kind of many-tentacled rapist.

In addition to AI civilizations being able to apparently construct unlimited Legion armies while simultaneously erecting numerous Wonders of the World, Deity opponents seem able to actually influence the laws of probability. Perhaps my perception is colored by that hazy tint of blame-redirecting irrationality that comes along with unfettered video game rage, but I would swear to God FSM that combat encounters in Deity games adjust the odds.

None of this would really be that bad if it weren’t for the fact that AI opponents are without exception irritable prima donnas who can’t go more than a few turns without demanding tribute. (I’ve heard it’s an internal Firaxis joke that Ghandi is often the biggest bastard of them all.) There is in fact no way to maintain positive relationships with your enemies without simply forking over most of your money and technology on a regular basis—and if, like me, you find it too much of an affront to your pointless sense of video game honor to do so, you are under constant siege for the duration of the game. There is no practical method by which to continually exact similar demands on your opponents, which gives the AI an inherent mechanical advantage.

What does all this mean? It means that when I play Civ: Rev on Deity, I become a paranoid lunatic, a save game-abusing freak who lives in a time-bending state of parallel timelines. It’s like an inelegant, turn-based, alternate history version of Braid. (more…)