Diado Gaming Interview

Indie Hotline is a new project of mine, which involves me talking to game developers using my actual voice rather than e-mails. This time I spoke with Dan Powderhill of Diado Gaming. It's a nice idea, hindered by the fact that I am largely terrible at all forms of verbal communication. All things considered though, I feel that this first interview went fairly well, and Dan was a very lucid and interesting interviewee.

The videogames that I have liked more than all the others in 2012.

I heard that the internet is sadly lacking end of year round-ups at the moment, so I'm here to fill the horrible void in your lives. Here's my top 11 games of the year (I couldn't narrow down a top 10). They're all fun ones that you should buy and play and enjoy.

Don't think of this as goodbye (although it sort of is)

Hello there! It's been a while, hasn't it? I'd like to offer some kind of apology and explanation for my absence. You see, I write for The Indie Game Magazine now. It's a great site to write for, but doing so whilst keeping Games Shrine active has proven somewhat impractical. As such, this site is likely to remain a barren wasteland for the forseeable future. *Cries*

'When Vikings Attack' comes to PSN this week. Here's why you should care.

Have you ever considered what would happen in the event of a modern-day Viking invasion? How would you survive? Would you fight back, or try to hide? Well, no matter how vivid your weird, Viking-themed daydreams are, I bet they're nowhere near as awesome as what Clever Beans have cooked up for their new downloadable PS3/Vita title. Well, unless your daydreams involve a ragtag group of survivors lobbing vehicles, signposts and other bits 'n' bobs at your Viking oppressors.

Podcast 13: Now with jazzier bloops!

Oh hey, it's been a while. "Oh Jerrod, where have you been? We have missed you so." I hear you say. Except, y'know, I don't. Partly because you didn't know it was me since the name is at the bottom rather than the top, and partly because you probably didn't miss me. At all.

Anyway, as for where I've been, I've been trekking across the four corners of the earth to bring you this: THE THIRTEENTH GAMES SHRINE PODCAST. At last!

That whole trekking thing was obviously a joke, but seriously - the new format is a nightmare to edit. I'm not exaggerating in the slightest when I say it took me - in total - a whole ELEVEN HOURS to edit. Seriously. So you better appreciate this. All 134 minutes of it. 

And when I say that William Shatner is the best character in Boston Legal on the podcast, I of course mean other than James Spader. James Spader is a given.

Oh yeah, and here's that album I begrudgingly plugged and talked about during Question Time.

Least terrifying game ever gets Halloween discount

English indie studio Zut Games are celebrating Halloween by slashing the price of their brilliantly fun (and equally un-scary) twist on the match-3 genre Pushcat! Down from an already reasonable £5 to a mere £2.50, you'd have to be a miserly grump to decline that offer, like that one bloke down the road who always ignored the door when trick-or-treaters came calling, even though his lights were on and it was obvious he was home. Do you want to be that guy? Well, you will be if you don't buy Pushcat, and masked children will probably egg your house.

'Zombies': A more interesting game than the title suggests

Zombies. They're everywhere. As gamers, we've grown all too familiar with their rotten, shambling presence in the last few years, and their impact has been thoroughly destroyed by repetition. As such, the appearance of a downloadable PC game known simply as Zombies didn't initially fill me with excitement. However, Zombies is not the product of an indie developer trying to cynically cash in on the undead boom, it is a thoroughly enjoyable shoot-'em-up with a unique theme.