Intermittent Epiphany: Archive

Revised Expanding the Bartle Player Types

I’ve made a few minor revisions to my original paper. Any feedback on this would be greatly appreciated as I intend to continue to work on refining these types and exploring them deeper. What motivates players to play the video games that they play? This is an important question both for designers and players and many attempts have been made to address exactly that. Unfortunately, a lot...

Jul 21st

Expanding the Bartle Player Types

This is a paper I wrote for a class on the motivations for game play. I tried to be as inclusive as possible but realistically I must have missed some. I eagerly welcome all feedback so please sound off in the comments with anything you agree or disagree with. What motivates players to play the video games that they play? This is an important question both for designers and players and many...

May 3rd

D2X 1.13

The 1.13 Patch for Diablo 2 just hit the PTR. This is sort of a big deal to me but its also frighteningly anticlimactic at this point. The patch is more than just a few little upgrades or whatever it has two other very important elements. First it is most likely the last patch Diablo 2 will ever get. It is almost certainly the last patch before Diablo 3 comes out and odds are good that at that...

Dec 16th

Sep 29th

Nerd Cred++

As part of my continuing quest to increase my overall nerd knowledge and nerd appeal I’ve started what I feel like is a rather ambitious but rewarding project. I am reading all of the Nebula award winning novels in order. I’ve read a lot of Science Fiction but a significant portion of what I read is from newer authors so along the way I have missed a number of classic works and by...

Aug 2nd

Portal

This review will contain some spoilers. Portal is basically perfect in every way. I loved absolutely everything about this game. The puzzles were all very innovative and they succeeded in a way that puzzles rarely do for me at least. They were challenging without being too frustrating. Every time I beat a level I felt good about it, like I had figured something. Each level has one or two...

Jul 28th

American McGee's Alice

I just finished playing through American McGee’s Alice as part of my continuing quest to increase my overall nerd appeal and to reduce the number of times people say “What really? You never played that?” Any other games that would cause you to say those very words please let me know so we can avoid future awkwardness. Overall I enjoyed the game quite a bit. I like Alice and Wonderland...

Jun 11th

I strongly believe this post is too short to...

Now that I’m playing less WoW I have a ton of video gaming time that has been suddenly freed up. I’m looking to “legally acquire” a few games that I missed the first time around. I just finished up American McGee’s Alice and I’ll be writing up a review of sorts of it soon. Next up is Portal and after that is Demigod. I’m looking for input as to...

May 25th

World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft Warning this blog entry is going to be very WoW intensive. Note: Upon reading through a lot of this sounds really bitter and frankly thats sort of how I feel. I have put a lot of time, effort and money into this game so I’m very disappointed that my enjoyment of it has dropped off so drastically. shrug I’ve been playing a lot less WoW recently and I’m not...

May 23rd

Arkanoid RPG

Alpha Bounce Yes you read that right, an Arkanoid/breakout style RPG. I am a *huge* Arkanoid fan to begin with. I used to play this one game called Rebound for hours. I judge a breakout clone primarily on how fun it is to play and what about it makes it more worthwhile to play than the original. For example the Arkanoid port on the DS was not fun to play and the only difference was they put...

Apr 10th

A Chibi Brute Is ME

I’m playing this shit too. Watch me getting absolutely WTFpwned. http://nthreerd.mybrute.com/fight/12678846

Apr 9th

Holy Fucking Shit

You guys will not believe this. A CHOICE. I am completely unprepared for this. Instead of one button to push there are two! I am blogging this LIVE as I proceed with this completely unforeseen turn of events. UPDATE: FITE! I fought the boss and beat him! He dropped two items that have identical icons but I have never seen either before! The Large Bloodstone of Belund sure sounds like a...

Apr 5th

Legends of Zork

I know I am far from the first person to post about this game but its been nagging at the back of my mind and I feel I need to say something. First I feel like this game is targetted almost exactly at me. I’ve played quite a few online games, especially of the type with the limited turn set (Kingdom of Loathing, Secret Society Wars, Forumwarz, Dead Awaken, Twilight Heroes and even *gasp*...

Apr 4th

Old memes

Remember before memes were memes they were just annoying emails you forwarded to everyone you know? There were tons of lists of jokes, humorous bumper stickers, kids’ misconceptions about love etc. The one I remember most was a list of humorous warning labels such as: Label on a can of peanuts: “Warning: Contains nuts”. Hilarious right? Well for...

Dec 16th

This is a long one

I haven’t posted in ages (and its almost entirely the fault of WoW) so to make up for it a little here is the short script I wrote with my brother a few years ago. Enjoy! Ignore the odd editing its copy/pasted directly from an open office doc and I still do not grok their shit and its formatted for actual script style which surprisingly enough looks far better on a couple printed pages...

Dec 12th

I have one too

After much agonizing about whether or not I should I now also have a blog. I have no idea really what I will be writing about overall but I finally got around to making one pretty much only because WoW is down at the moment. I also finished playing Violet during the down time. I only needed hints three times. SPOILERS I needed a hint for being not distracted by Julia with the platypod on. ...

Nov 12th