Chloe Spencer

Every Big Game Coming Out In Fall 2017

Ahh, fall. The time for pumpkin spice lattes, long walks amongst colorful autumn trees, and watching scary movies underneath the safety of your favorite blanket. It’s also the time for some big releases in video games. We’ll update this list as new release dates are announced. September 26 Nioh: Bloodshed’s End | PS4 Megaton Rainfall…

Revisiting Radiata Stories, My Favorite Video Game As A Kid

When I was about ten years old, my brother Mike introduced me to my favorite game, a JRPG for the PS2 called Radiata Stories. It was a fantasy love story about a young man, Jack Russell (yes, you read that right) whose dreams of becoming a knight are shattered after his teammate, Ridley, is nearly…

Nintendo Creators Program Will No Longer Let YouTubers Live-Stream

Nintendo has a longstanding poor reputation with the YouTube community, and the latest change to their Nintendo Creators Program may harm that relationship even more. The Nintendo Creators Program, which was launched in 2015, allows YouTubers to receive a portion of advertising proceeds from any videos containing Nintendo-copyrighted content. Prior to the establishment of this…

Learning To Make Games Helps Me Appreciate Them More

In the past, I’ve thought a little about making a game, but never got around to learning actual coding. Recently, I’ve started to develop that abstract “what if” idea into a passion project of my own. I’m learning how to create maps, program quests, and write cutscenes with the help of a program that can…

This Stick Figure In Fancy Pants Fights Monsters With A Pen

You know that feeling you get when you ride a roller coaster? The breathless anticipation, followed by the shrieking joy and terror as you plummet down to the bottom? That’s the feeling I get when I ride the pen in Super Fancy Pants Adventure, an action-packed sidescrolling platformer. Super Fancy Pants Adventure is the fourth…

The Company That Wants To Replace Textbooks With Video Games

On any given day, CEO André Thomas arrives at his company Triseum’s office in Bryan, Texas at nine in the morning. While this is when Thomas gets in, his work day usually starts hours before by checking sales on the company’s educational video games. On one of the days that Thomas and I spoke, he…

Adorable Puzzle-Platformer About Mushroom Men Is Surprisingly Hard

In Mushroom Heroes, I’m looking at a fast-moving platform over a bed of spikes. Timing my jump is one thing, but figuring out which character should jump first is another. There could be a monster on the other side of the ledge, and there’s only one person who uses arrows. There might be blocks to…

Visual Novel Takes Fans Back To Gravity Falls, Kinda

It’s been a year since Gravity Falls aired its series finale, and I, one of the show’s many super-fans, miss it so much. But now, there’s a visual novel on the way that can help me relive some of the wackiness of that small, mysterious Oregon town. It’s called Reverse Falls. The idea for Reverse…

Beast Battle Simulator added a new animal to the game: a Megalodon, or giant prehistoric shark.  The developers also added another new creature that you can unlock once you achieve a gold star ranking on all challenges. 

A Melodramatic Game About Foxes

You are a mother fox who awakes to find that your three babies have disappeared. As you set off through the vast wilderness to find them, a voice begins to speak. It’s the voice of a man named Joseph. At first he talks about your journey, but then the focus switches to his own story.…

The Questions I Want Answered Before Finishing Breath of the Wild

I started playing Breath of the Wild a few weeks ago, and, so far, I love it. However, I’ve come across a few things while playing that have left me confused. Here are some questions I have about magic, Princess Zelda, and other characters in Breath of the Wild.   Why does Bludo keep his…

There’s Blood Everywhere: A YouTube Shark Beast Battle Simulator Story

A few days ago, the developers of the physics-based battle game Beast Battle Simulator introduced a new beast: sharks. These sharks don’t need any water—they skitter across the land at a slow pace, and launch themselves at their opponents. Like their real life counterparts, they fight with their teeth and jaws. YouTubers have been putting…

A Game About Curing A Zombie Plague

Have you ever seen a zombie and thought, “Look at those squishy rotting cheeks. I just want to pinch them!” Well you’re in luck, because in Raise the Dead, you can keep adorable (but vicious) zombies and perform experiments with them. In this open-world PC game, you play as a survivor of a zombie-infested world…

Eight Fun Stardew Valley Mods To Try

When I first got Stardew Valley last December, I spent days playing it. To date, I have 70 hours on record. I swapped study time with hours of slashing monsters, caring for crops and livestock, and doting on my husband, Harvey. But lately, I’ve been bored with Stardew Valley. So I turned to the Stardew…

EA Says It Will Try To Help Its Dreamer Employees

On Tuesday, President Trump and his administration announced that they would end the DACA program which allows undocumented youth brought to the United States as children to work and receive protection from deportation. Some major tech and gaming corporations have spoken out about DACA, including Madden and Sims studio Electronic Arts. A spokesperson for EA…

Miiverse Posts Can Be Saved, But Users Are Still Mourning

The New Super Luigi U community has been a shitposting safe haven on the Miiverse since 2016. But soon, it, along with several other miiverse communities, will be no more. You can still save your shitposts, though. As you may know, the popular Miiverse platform will be shut down by Nintendo on November 7, 2017.…

Upcoming Horror Game Looks Cool, Makes Me Wanna Ralph

You’ve heard of side-scrollers, but what about depth-scrollers? DARQ, an upcoming psychological horror game, allows you to bend physics in order to solve puzzles. In DARQ, you play as Lloyd, who wakes up in a zero-gravity dream that quickly becomes a nightmare. Unable to wake up, Lloyd has to survive the nightmare world by relying…

YouTubers Are Broadcasting Their Perspective Of Hurricane Harvey

Last week, Hurricane Harvey touched down in Texas, causing unprecedented amounts of catastrophic damage to the area and killing at least 38 people according to the New York Times. Entire sections of Houston, the United States’ fourth largest city, are underwater. The storm has been chronicled on the news and social media. It’s also shown…

A Cyberpunk Game That Uses Friendship As A Mechanic

Imagine a world where everything is controlled and monitored by computer programs. Every citizen has a unique ID given to them at birth. Bitphones process your brainwaves. This is the world of 1bitHeart, a new side-scrolling adventure game. You play as Nanashi, an agoraphobic middle schooler who spends every day sleeping and playing video games.…

If Valve Won’t Make A New Half-Life, Maybe These People Will

Last week, former Valve writer Marc Laidlaw posted his version of what might be a genderswapped plot summary of Half-Life 2: Episode 3 on his portfolio website. (There’s a version with the names swapped back here). Now there’s a game jam based on the synopsis that lets Half-Life fans bring their sequel visions to life.…