Weekly links #1

All right, this was supposed to go up yesterday, but I had a full weekend including an operating system reinstall, so.

Anyway, this blog has been dead for a while for various reasons, which all contributed to my interest in games declining. But I still follow the gaming news and talk to friends about the subject, so I figured I'd just share what I run across now and then.

Let's start with the only game I've played lately, EverDelve, by Shuriken Games -- a recent acquaintance. It's a rather odd combination between a roguelike and a classic dungeon crawler (except with an overhead rather than first-person view), with a JRPG-like combat system. EverDelve is under heavy development, but already quite compelling despite the balancing issues (which, I'm being told, are deliberately being ignored for now).

And yes, it's made in Flash. For a game like this, I'll make an exception.

In other news, I just learned from Rock, Paper, Shotgun about a couple of amusing websites: one that parodies game reviews and a PCGamer column that parodies the games themselves in the form of fake text adventures.

Closer to my own interests, the awesome Digital Antiquarian begins the year with the history of an inimitable game: Lords of Midnight, while Emily Short treats us to an article about backstory in games, and how a game with only a backstory can still have meaningful interactivity with it. A fairly tricky topic, but I can think of few people more qualified to tackle it.

Looking back, few headlines caught my eyes last week. Hope you enjoy anyway, and stay tuned.