Warp Zoned Presents
Most Recent: Features
The Galloping Ghost Arcade: A Trip Back in Time
Summer, 1985. To this day, one particular trip to Pizza Hut remains in my memory. And it wasn’t because of the pizza. No, the only two things I distinctly remember are Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing” playing on the jukebox, and my dad giving me a quarter and pointing me to a table with a glass top. I couldn’t see well enough from that far away, but it sure looked like something was glowing from under the top of this table. The soothing aura drew me ever closer, and when I reached it, I saw those two words that would forever capture my love for video games.
Insert Coin. (more…)
What Did I Just See?: 5 Surprising Moments From Classic Video Games
In 2013, video games have a graphical fidelity that was unthinkable during my childhood. But games were still able to shock us. Often, their seemingly simple worlds allowed these surprises to sneak up on us, changing the way we thought about everything that came before and, sometimes, even the entire world around us.
So take a trip back with me as I explore 5 Surprising Moments From Classic Video Games… (more…)
Kickstart This! How To Get More Coin For Your Game Project
For over nine months, we at Warp Zoned have been doing our best to support crowdfunded game projects by promoting a small selection of them in our monthly Kickstart This! feature. We have trawled through a wide variety of game-related projects, including novels, films, and peripheral devices. While some ideas prove worthy with the public and receive the necessary donations, others have fallen short of their mark, unable to give shape and form to their ambitious plans. Although we celebrate the former, we feel there is more we could do to aid those who have been, or fear they will be, in the latter category. To that end, we thought it might be useful to potential Kickstarters, whether they be large companies or bedroom hobbyists, to provide some general pointers on the various aspects of a successful campaign, using examples from our past editions. (more…)
The Games of May 2013
There’s not too much going on in May, which is good for us here at Warp Zoned, because we are normal gamers with backlogs like everyone else. Resident Evil Revelations seems to be pretty popular, and we’re hoping Fuse doesn’t stink, but other than that, it’s a slow month for new games. Check out what we plan on playing this month here at the WZ. (more…)
Warpback: What We Played in April 2013
The Warp Zoned crew has been extremely busy this month! We played a lot of new games, a lot of old games, and just about every single thing you can imagine in between. BattleBlock Theater was a favorite, and our UK Correspondent, Andrew Rainnie finally got a Wii U! Read on to find out exactly what we were up to in April. (more…)
The East Coast Game Conference: Developers Wanted
The East Coast Game Conference, created by the Triangle Game Initiative, is a conference for professionals, academics, and those who want to learn how to break into the video game industry. Now in its fifth year, it has grown by 20% every year since its inception. For two days this week, April 24 and 25, the Convention Center in Raleigh, North Carolina was taken over by over 1,300 members – and aspiring members – of the video game industry. There were workshops, keynotes, and a robust expo that had a plethora of job opportunities for professionals and students alike. (more…)
Kickstart This! The “Poo Pub” Edition
Two weeks ago, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher passed away. Our coalition government saw fit to spend £10 million of taxpayers’ money on her funeral. This was a woman who divided the country, and whose iron grip is still curled around Britain’s bleeding heart. The rich and powerful turned up to see her off, while poverty-driven protesters quite literally turned their backs on the funeral procession. The BBC refused to play “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead,” an anti-Thatcher song taken from The Wizard of Oz, after her haters propelled it to number two on the UK music charts. If anyone could suck the fun out of life, it was Thatcher.
A couple of days after she kicked the bucket, I learned that a humble New Zealand pub owner named Les Lisle had passed away. I met Les only once, in 2011, while travelling the globe with a ginormous backpack strapped to my back. It was customary to stop at the Mahinapua Pub, affectionately known as the Poo Pub, on the way to the town of Wanaka. The tour company I was travelling with booked the place out for a slap-up meal followed by a fancy dress party. When we arrived, old Les (who was 85 at the time) got on the bus and laid down the rules of his house in a well-practised and often funny speech. When we ventured inside his pub, we found the ceiling covered with hats; there were over 3000 of them, all tacked to the ceiling. Les told me some were his, and some were donated by the travelers who passed through. He was managing that pub of his before I was even born. I doubt he played many video games – there was a pool table and dart board – but he was an agent of fun, and probably managed to affect more peoples’ lives in a positive light than Thatcher did with her negative rule. They were both born in 1925, and died with days of one another. If anyone deserved a £10 million funeral, it was Les Lisle.
Unfortunately, I barely have £10, so in honour of his youthful spirit in the face of old age, I’m dedicating this month’s Kickstart This! to Les. Let’s see if we can channel some of that positive spirit into funding projects that are fun for all, such as the 2D upward-scrolling platform puzzler Brave Bit, hand drawn sci-fi adventure gameA Small Favor, 8-bit microorganism sim Bitcrobes, and underwater tower defense title Fish vs. Crabs. And just to shake things up, we also have the helpful app GameSnap, and last but not least, PWNED: A Gamers Novel, a romantic comedy adventure set within an MMORPG.
Let the games begin! (more…)
Secret Ponchos Interview: Dueling With Yousuf Mapara and Jose Lopez
One of the games we were most excited to see at PAX East 2013 was Secret Ponchos, the intense twin-stick arena fighter set in the world of a Spaghetti Western. Contributor Anthony Amato, Senior Editor Nicole Kline, and Editor-In-Chief John Scalzo met up with President and Creative Director Yousuf Mapara and Art Director Jose Lopez and had a fantastic conversation with them while trying out the game. Nicole got her butt kicked by an eight-year-old, but that didn’t mar our first impression of the game, which was: we want more as soon as possible. Read on for the full interview we conducted with the incredibly talented guys at Switchblade Monkeys. (more…)
Posted in Features, Interviews, PC, Previews, PS3, Top Story, Xbox 360
Tagged PAX East 2013, Secret Ponchos