"Miasmata is a first-person survival/adventure game, developed from the ground-up by brothers Joe and Bob Johnson. You play as Robert Hughes, a plague-stricken scientist on a journey to discover a cure. Your adventure begins on the shores of a remote and mysterious island." - Steam

This nice indie game made by IonFx is very unique and it is very hard to find any comparison to it. It is a realistic non-horror survival game taking place in a beautiful well made open world, to discover a decent variety of different plants which you can analyze and form which you produce medicine. While venturing the island you encounter beautiful sights and different weather conditions. The best part of the game is how it leads the player. It's not babysitting you all to the solution of a certain task but it rather gives you enough hints and rough directions which encourages your to discover yet it doesn't leave you totally in unknown. This is a perfect balance of a game of this genre since it will never happen that you'll have to search for stuff totally randomly, which could leave you exhausted from searching. But it's right on the contrary, by following the hints and using your brain it feels very rewarding when you find what you were looking for and makes you eager to discover further on. This great feeling of discovery that you might had as a child is present during the whole game play, and hey, isn't that something you want to feel again after all those years?

"Dear Esther" - what comes to your mind when you hear this title? Well it might be it's uniqueness. There is quite a huge possibility that after playing Miasmata you will think the same.

There is much more into this game than I described but I hope it's enough to gain the needed curiosity to search for more info and in the end decide to try it out yourself.

Resonance what does this mean to you? If you're a engineer of any sort, from layman to professional then, you probably connect it to physics where you talk about vibrations, sound waves or oscillation. From the a philosophical aspect can resonance be applied to all kinds of things. But we should leave the answer in the game for the player and will focus only on the game experience without telling you anything about the story, this way you can read a spoiler free review.

The game sure has an interesting title and the same goes for the story which is constantly keeping you playing, although it isn't something overwhelming like some other science fiction or fantasy adventure games which need a lot more imagination for making them. But it might be that the developer decided to focus more on the graphic user interface (short GUI) and on the gameplay rather then making an revolutionary story. In fact this could pretty much be the case since the GUI is very unique for a point and click adventure game and consequently puzzles are unique likewise, sometimes even a bit harder then usual. Worth to mention is that there are maximum four characters which you have to use together to solver puzzles like in the good old well known Maniac Mansion. This is a neat feature since there has past a lot of time from the last alike adventure game. But let's get back to the speciality of the game, the GUI. It has two inventories for memories having the same functions and looks just as the item inventory. There are long term memories (LTM) and short term memories (STM). The first are memories of important events which are noted automatically by the individual or multiple characters, whether from the present or the past. The second are memories which you save on your own by drag & dropping an certain object/person from the surroundings to the inventory. Both inventories are used in conversations. When you talk to someone you can choose and make your own conversation options. In other adventure games you usually go talk to a person then go check out a new thing and went back to the same character to get a new conversation option, but in this game you are the one making those options on your own. Sometimes it's practical but usually it's making everything a bit harder because in average adventure games you can use the conversation model for hints but in Resonance you'll have to forget about this.

Some parts of the story appear to be non linear while others are non linear. Which is which is left for the player to discover since we don't want to spoil the experience, but its worth to mention this, since non linear adventure games almost never exist and because of that it's nice to find at least some little spots of its logic in nowadays adventure games.

There are or better to say is a bonus puzzle which can be described as a pain in the back since it's model is based on almost pure guessing, maybe this is also the sole reason why the developer has decided to leave it as an optional puzzle, and if this is true then we can only thumbs up that kid of move. Some puzzles can get you more points when solved in a certain way, so make sure to look for those bonus point but most players won't even care about that. There can be find a lot of different kinds of puzzles which is a big plus and so making the whole game even less easier and more enjoyable to end which can only mean good for experienced players. And talking about experience it's easily to note that Resonance isn't recommended for those who never played a point and click adventure thankfully to its harder puzzles and occasional confusion in understanding how to solve them cause of it's GUI but this occur only on the beginning of the game.

We (at least those who are from the indie and retro gaming rows) also have to thank the developer to be loyal to it's "neo-pixel" graphics! It's giving such a warm nostalgic feeling which constantly reminds you on ye good old days. To the great experience also adds incredibly good voice acting which is quite surprising for a small indie developers being capable of such quality.

The biggest flaw of the game is as in most cases of this genre it's length. The game is too short, period. There could be more of this quality material in it and maybe one day the developer will grow over this weakness. It isn't the first time they have developed a short masterpiece so in the future we expect the same or even better quality with a bit more time to play with, because in the end you quickly forget all the goodness if the whole thing is too short.

At the end we can say this is aneo-LucasArts game when considering the quality of visuals, sound and story. The unique GUI and consequently unique puzzles is making the whole game even better from Lucas although the whole joy won't last for too long since the game is short.

8/10

I just have a sip of time to do this so I'll be as brief as possible since my purpose of this post is to inform you about some new and a bit unknown indie games and maybe some other indie stuff which I personally like to share. I'm not much into long reviews anymore since in 99% of cases there might exist one which would do it's job, hence I'll link to reviews which I think will somehow mirror my opinion.

Ok let's get started

The Humble Indie Budnle V

The Humble Indie Budnle V is one of the biggest HumbleBundle sales until now and it goes only for a few more days so make sure to check it out if you didn't already. It contains some very good game titles as you can see from the above picture and costs you at least a Pennie to get some goodies but if you beat the average, which is around 8$, you will get some more indie goodness.

Reprisal Universe

The game which can be found at reprisaluniverse.com won't cost you a nickle since it's a 100% free browser based game for which you don't have to register to play and still save your progress. It's a nice "From Dust" inspired game if you ask me and it has very good retro visuals as you can see from the above image. The big let down is that once you find out what will make you win you will always win, which is killing the challenge in a pretty big way. But enough of my words, here is a good Review in case you wish to read more about it.

Towns

I'm not sure if you have heard if it yet since I didn't notice much about it here on GS or elsewhere or maybe I was living under a rock when it was in the spotlight, but anyways it is now for quite a while on Desura.com and 20% off since it's in alpha state. The game draws inspiration from games such as Diablo, Dungeon Keeper and Dwarf Fortress (in my eyes it also inspired by Minecraft but the developer wont admit it ;)) is like an RPG-Doungen-Strategic-Sandbox mainly focused on RPG and I believe it has a lot of nice mashed up ideas and potentials which are worth a try. If you're looking for a review just check the Desura.com link above and hit the "Reviews" tab.

I hope you enjoyed this little fast sharing of mine. If you do, please leave a comment below, I would be pleased to listen to your opinions about anything you will comment about based on this post. If you will be so nice to share some comments I'll be motivated to share my Indie Love more often.

You might have watched the recent video Jonathan Blow: How Mainstream Devs Are Getting It Wrong and a lot's of people are getting confused about the saying "this game was FUN to play". And probably it wasn't the first time when you have stumbled upon this.

Lot's of people are taking a lot of time in discussing the use of word fun which is in my opinion a waste of time. So here I am writing just again myself and waste some more time on this simple explanation which others like to debate for hours. If you like to read an very good and extensive description of using this word please read my GS friend's blog called Why I Am Against Fun. And remember, nobody is trying to say that games are not supposed to be fun! It's just an argue about how to use words which have little to do with game development.

So here is the simplest explanation you will probably hear, why word Fun isn't always welcome to use when describing a game.

1. Word fun is way to broad to explain to someone what you have actually experienced
2. You can't described certain deep experiences with fun because they might not be connected with joy
3. Why just say Fun if there are countless other words to explain your undescribable experience.
4. Maybe you don't care about this because it's so easy to understand and you already have the whole picture of it. Or you are a man of science and allready know that endless debates on inexact themes is a waste of time.

The conclusion
It's the English languages fault we have this debate not the games itself. Use another language and you won't have to talk about the word fun because at least in my language we use very different expressions to describe our experiences in a very simple way.

Now to contradict myself even more and make fun out of this whole so called "intellectual" Fun discussions I'll say

HAVE FUN ;P

Well I should say hi after a while being absent from the GS blogs, comments etc.

I'm still playing Minecraft and I thought not to write blogs about it since I don't want to bore people to death with the one and the same game which can be experienced in almost unlimited ways. From building to an adventure game or parkour, making movies etc. So I'll stop here with talking about Minecraft and only let you know that you can find me online on the mc.nyancraft.com server (http://nyancraft.com/) ;)

A while back I had played games To The Moon and Gemini Rue also some others but I'll talk only about those two since they are one of my lately most favorite games I have played beside of course Minecraft. If you're an Adventure game lover or just love great stories then you have to check out those two titles. Both games have a really unique story and by chance the same theme namely memories. Gemini Rue's story has some similarities with Blade Runner and some ideas could be from Ghost in The Shell but that's all I'll tell you, watch the trailer if you wish. Yet To The Moon is for my opinion more unique then Gemini Rue when talking about storyline since the only similar story I could connect to is from the movie Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind, and now thinking about it some ideas from this movie are present in Gemini Rue as well. So As you could see both games with the same theme and an amazing story plus visuals reminding you of the good old days ^_^

You're wellcome to leave a comment below.

Cya next time

To The Moon

Gemini Rue

Lately I've been playing around with Minecraft again :D

Mods and Tools

I tried out some popular mods from http://www.minecraftforum.net/ I'm quite impressed with all those "tools" and other stuff you can add to Minecraft. Although I'm not much into hacks and cheats because I want to play games the fair way (mainly because it's much more fun this way then cheating) but for Minecraft I have to say it doesn't feel like cheating to use all kinds of mods. It's rather the option to add something cool to the games experience. I would like to mention only a few mods and tools for making Minecraft easier for those who would like to build creative things in it but hate the repetitive and routine tasks which have almost nothing in common with creativity although they are necessary to build anything.

Mods:

- Single Player Commands ("It's like having over 100 mods in one" by simo_415 the developer) - it gives you commands like flying and time control like in the Server version but for single players. Just type in the command in the "single player chat" and voila ^_^
- TooManyItems (It gives you instant access to all Minecraft items, no crafting needed or ID's to remember)

Tools:

- Minecraft Structure Planner (plan your structures like in a pixel art maker and import them into Minecraft world via MCEdit or use the blueprints to build it on your own)

- MCEdit (A very powerful tool to edit the Minecraft world. All from importing creations or editing the whole world)

- Circuit Simulator (useful to play around with redstone circuits there is a version which supports pistons as well)

Pirate Ship Project [Unfinished]

Lately I've been working on a little bigger project in Minecraft and here are some pictures form it. I used above mods and tools to make this one happen although I didn't used them all from the start. I began searching for them according to my needs when I was trying to make it this far. Enough of talk here is some footage.

The creepy entrance :P

The Inside (there will be water under the ship of course, also the walls will be more like - cave shaped - not just sliced like butter :P)

The ship was made with the help of Minecraft Structure Planner (I just loved the design process) which looks like this:

Although I had the option to import it to the world I decide to make it "by hand"

Underwater Train

Well I was wondering how to make a quicker way from my "HQ" to the house on water. I could use a train but I have to make a bridge over the water to make it there and this doesn't looks so appealing. So why not to hide the railway under the water?
Here is the result:

See the glass underwater there? Well this is it :)

Floating Island [Finished]

That's how it looks like after I add some more dirt blocks to this floating square in the sky. I was thinking to make a lift to the island with pistons but it's harder then you might imagine to achieve something like this! A portal was the second option but it would be placed to close to an already active portal. For now I don't know how to get there except using a ladder or a Mod. Do you have any ideas?

Watchtower [Finished]

Here is the finished version

Arc Bridge

I made this one a while ago but still it's worth of sharing (I used here deku light textures to add this unstoppable charming look to it ^_^)3

Well try it yourselves and if you wish leave your experience in a comment below

Have Fun!

Bonus - look at the sign below :lol:

I promised in a comment of my previous blog that I'll post a video of my advanced Minecraft world. Well due to technical difficulties I was unable to post it. The video editing software was obviously not sharing the same opinion whit me and went the plank *shrugging*. So I apologize for this inconvenience. For now I don't know when it will be finished so stay tuned.

To make a little easier to wait - here is a glimpse of a new creation:

It's so funny that I'm playing Minecraft again. I guess the never-ending thing is starting to grow on me :). There are certain problems for games whit no end (mostly I don't like such games) but when playing Minecraft I started to look a bit different on this. Lately I build quite a lot which is pleasing me much more then just play a game to see it's ending like a movie. I just try all interesting things I can think up. It's something new to me that I'm the one who has to think up new achievements and not the game developer and this is what is making me play again and again whit a lot of joy. It's true that I played Minecraft a lot but I was more concentrated on crafting, mining and exploring rather then building. It's true that I built some other stuff for a competition but this was sorta fun to participate in (here are the reference images if someone is interested image1, image2 ). But now I really enjoy building all sort of buildings.

Just for the overview I built a large tower (again :D) a house underwater, a house standing in the water on pillars, on a large tree I built a house and currently I'm working on a floating island in the sky :D. I just love when the only limit is my imagination.

Here are some of my latest creations in picture ^_^

Another Tower :D - Note: To the left is my "HQ" - I'm also planing to add some floating trees like this one, waterfalls and other interesting stuff, so that the tower wont look so boring.

The House on a tree

There is enough place for a living in this lovely tree house ^_^

The underwater house. I made this one a while ago but still it was an interesting project. I can access the house form the water or through the underwater tunnel from my HQ

Here's also the inside of the underwater house

House "on" watter - Reminds me on those countries where they do build such houses next to rivers which flood every year. It also reminds me on Bora Bora island houses

Floating island - It's my latest project still in progress. For now it's just a peace of square floating there but I have in mind to make it appear like a whole block of land in the air with trees waterfalls and so on. It's interesting that if you want to have grass on this floating island you have to make a connection to a block on which is growing grass so it can grow all to the island. Well luckily I was able to make a bridge form a nearby hill all to the floating island. But if it there wont be any hills in the proximity then you have to mage sorta steppes (like I started there below) all to the top which is very time consuming. Also it takes quite some time for the grass to grow all the way to the "finish"

So here's the end of my small creations. Watching a sunset behind a waterfall and observe all you have built fills you with joy ^_^

If you think that Minecraft is getting boring then the problem might lie on your side ;)

Just for the info on Minecraft: According to this Notch's blog there's suppose to be the 1.5 update next week which would include weather changes like rain, snow, blizzards, thunderstorms etc.

I'm looking for some great Android to be precise indie games? Oh and here comes another heavy restriction the game should not be available for iOS.

Why am I looking for something like this? Well I would like to draw some attention to the Android games and also indie games - just squashing two flies with one stroke. But the "project" is a bit heavier than I thought, sooo audience can you give me a hint, a helping "finger" or maybe even implant a smarter brain in my head so I could find something? Ok just anything will do. Even telling me the web address of the iPhone apple store won't hurt if I'm honest!

So far I foudn a little, momy said I should not tell because I want to see what will you be able to bring up.

Thanks to all of ya in advance.

Well I was looking for more unions to join after I joined the The Autonomous Regime - Indie Games union. And for some reason I saw there were lots and lots of unions which are dead. Are GameSpot unions dying out? Well as a GameSpot user and because it's my source number one on game releases, updates, reviews and so on, I feel a bit sorry what is happening to unions. There may be a lot of reasons. One of them is that leading a union isn't as easy as it seems. It needs a great administrator who is motivating others to post and is also the main source of information about the theme of a union. The admin also needs a lot of time to make all the work done. The other reason might be us, users. There are sometimes not enough productive members who could contribute anything and if this happens it's the same story as with every other communities oriented on social gathering of information – like unions on GameSpot, forums in general, etc. – they die sooner or later.

What are the benefits of unions in general?

Well the fact that are unions focused on a certain theme - usually connected with gaming - it's much easier to find people with same interest as ours and then discuss with them about it in union forums. Another benefit is that you can get - every now and then - fresh information on a specific theme of interest. Unions can be thus a great source of information if they are constantly updated and have people who are willing to share info in forums.

What is the conclusion? Well the unions are a great source of information with a big demand for a good administrator and enough contributing users.

What is your opinion about unions? You're welcome to share this in the comment section below.