The Indie Gaming Cookie

The Philippines is a country that's almost impossible to love. It is perhaps the embodiment of wasted potential; worms ate the country inside-out, and now it's exiting the global sphincter as a massive piece of shit.   This can be seen in the country's gaming ""industry"". Despite brimming with talent, the nation as of yet still sees 'gaming' as equivalent to 'gambling sites' and 'offshore' or 'outsourced work'. As the country's potential economic growth gets continuously squandered by political powers, the potential of the country as an artistic forefront is squandered by the overwhelming cultural powers brought by the globalized world. The path that a creative must walk in this nation hangs in the balance. It is our imperative to pull ourselves forward by the bootstraps. Therefore, as a Filipino game developer myself, it is my prime mission to seek out, participate with, and contribute to the local gaming scene, one ...

NOTE: This review   contains minor spoilers, but torment is best experienced blind.   The college semester is over, and I can finally start writing again. Let me tell you all of a game I'd been playing over the past two weeks.   1. The game logo on Steam.   Black Isle Studio's, Interplay's, and later Beamdog's[1]  Planescape: Torment  is a 1999 CRPG "cult classic." It was published during the so-called 'golden age' of CRPGs, primarily isometric CRPGs. It runs on the same  Infinity Engine  that powered Larian's  Baldur's Gate , and it, too, is a DND-based game, set in the obscure campaign setting of Planescape . However, unlike BG1,  Torment  is far more story-driven. In it I played as an immortal man, The Nameless One (TNO), who woke up alive in a mortuary for the dead. Throughout the game, I spent my time figuring out everything I could about TNO's nature. Why is TNO immortal? What was his life before his first death? How could he ...

"My game is like Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley!" Like. "This new release is Balatro but with guns!" But with. "It's like Fortnite meets Tetris!" Meets.   "If you enjoy Deus Ex and System Shock, this game is for you!" For you. The digital commerce constantly twists its heads, the flesh of markets pulsate, and with these escapades come rapid change. New trends emerge, new tactics constantly schemed. Today, indie marketing strategists have seemingly latched onto a new, widespread  modus operandi:  to take their game and explicitly compare it to more popular titles, often from which inspirations are borrowed. This nascent comparative strategy in indie game marketing serves an effort to reach larger audiences by invoking experiences familiar, and by attracting players who enjoy a similar formula. In its essence, the comparative strategy of marketing is a symbiotic handshake of convenience between players and developers. The latter even someti...

What to you has been a year, for me is but a second and a lifetime. 2025 is wrapped finally in festive jolly and acute melancholy, so sit with me by the chimney fire as I make my annual lamentations and ludic recommendations.   This year had been, like a coaster, fit with the twists and loop-de-loops of occurrences. Even in my final year of high school, I had managed to slot myself into multiple friend groups, get rejected, be confessed to, fall in love, enter the college of my preference, get all my shit robbed and stolen, and have my body almost give out on me on two occasions. "No rest for the wicked," so said this year, and on this front it afforded me little.  But you do not read on to hear my life story, interesting and chaotic as it had been, nor are you here to wallow with me in my regrets, celebrate my joys, and listen to my wishful desires for the next revolution of this Earth. No, you're interested in what I—Big Gaming's Greatest Slave!—have been up to all ...