Author Archive for Russell Marsh

Eschalon: Book II teaser

The guys at Basilisk Games have released a teaser trailer for their upcoming RPG, Eschalon: Book II. The lighting and rain effects look pretty darned nice, as does the layered effect seen near the video’s end. The teaser shows Eschalon’s quasi-realtime mechanics, which allows fluid play but won’t progress until you’ve clicked a tile or action, and that’s good for guys like me who have children and who are often called away quickly.
I’m still happy that Basilisk made cartography a skill in the first game rather than fold it into the player’s given interface. During character creation, I love having to choose between utility skills or more traditional, combative things such as cleaving or heavy armor.

BioShock, part two: Tension, the Hero, and the Writer’s Contract with His Consumer

A Continuance on Tension and How I Can Translate It to What I Know (Which Isn’t Much)
With fear of simplifying too much, I say that a story’s fuel resides in the pull of opposing forces, whatever size they be.

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Solium Infernum and the Mac

I’ve installed and played Vic Davis’s Solium Infernum on (of course) Boot Camp and VMware Fusion. A poster on the Cryptic Comet forums said he had success with SI under CrossOver.

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BioShock, part one: Tension is Abound!

What first caught my interest are the polarities in BioShock: stasis versus progression, perpetual celebration versus a pragmatic need for rescue, permanence versus the possibility of permanence.

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Solium Infer-who?

While not available for Mac (yet), today marks the release of Vic Davis’s Solium Infernum. It’s a thinking game, for lack of a better term. I’ve had the pleasure to see it in beta, and it’s one that’s had me conniving through late nights in attempt to one-up my fellow Archfiends.
Penny Arcade and Tom Chick have posted good words toward it.