Founded Spiderweb Software in 1994. Has written many games, including the Exile, Geneforge, Avadon, and Avernum series. Avernum 4: Greed and Glory out now!
Seattle
Joined October 2013
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Avernum 4: Greed and Glory is out! The 31 year old cult classic Avernum series is back as a unique indie RPG set in a vast underworld nation.
Fight a monster plague. Explore the depths. Be loyal or treacherous. Get rich and famous! Huge & full of fun.
store.steampowered.com/app/3…
Jeff Vogel retweeted
New Blog Post! We go back to popular 20th century game series Ultima. Ultima Online was one of the first massively multiplayer games, a crazy experiment in a whole new field. We link to a great video on it and remember the Before Time.
LINK: bottomfeeder.substack.com/pu…
New Blog Post! We go back to popular 20th century game series Ultima. Ultima Online was one of the first massively multiplayer games, a crazy experiment in a whole new field. We link to a great video on it and remember the Before Time.
LINK: bottomfeeder.substack.com/pu…
Jeff Vogel retweeted
new, incredible, free-to-watch Don Hertzfeldt alert 🚨
vimeo.com/1234190827?fl=pl&f…
This is a fun question and, in a great rarity, I got it "right".
But the comments on the thread are very obtuse. Because, of course, the value of asking the question has nothing to do with lions or steaks. They want to see how you behave when given a problem with uncertain parameters and need to come up with a plausible solution with a time limit and people watching.
Which is, one must admit, a highly valuable skill for a Goldman Sachs employee.
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Jeff Vogel retweeted
Vogel's Law Of Video Game Innovation - "Most innovation sucks."
A YouTuber called Majuular has been doing a series of videos on the history of the Ultima series. It's a masterful work, combining game history, design deep dives, a lot of humor, and an appropriate tribute to some of the most influential of all series.
He did an almost 5 hour video on Ultima Online, and it is a CLASSIC. Ultima Online was a truly fascinating title, one of the first serious attempts at an MMO.
It was simultaneously a disaster and a triumph. It made every possible mistake an online game could make, lighting the way for future publishers to make all the same mistakes. It has a beautiful vision for how humans could game with other humans online, resulting in a multitude of bold, innovative choices that generally never worked. It was a mess, but it was first, and it lit the way for others. As a bonus, when it didn't work, it didn't work in the most hilarious ways.
I never played Ultima Online. I read the dire reviews and went, "Yikes. Not for me." Then its blood competitor, Everquest, came out and ate the world. I played that one like a FIEND.
Ultima Online showed that MMO's were a real deal, but Everquest was the first one that really worked well. The trick? Take out all the glorious freedom Ultima Online provided and replace it with lots of juicy bloodsport and looting. It was a hugely structured environment. If you give humans freedom, they'll create chaos with it, and player's don't like too much chaos.
By the way, now that World of Warcraft Forever is out, let's remember that so much of World of Warcraft v1.0 was taking Everquest and giving it popular polish, UI, and newbie friendliness. A lot of the cool innovations in World of Warcraft were actually in Everquest, but nobody saw them because Everquest was mercilessly hard and looked like ass. Everquest walked so WoW could run.
But back to the video. Yeah, it's long, but it digs deep into so much about what people love about this hobby. Worth it!
All that weirdness is still out there. The crazy diamonds who role-played as fishermen in Ultima Online? They never went anywhere! They're all RP'ing as traffic cops in Grand Theft Auto 5 now.
youtube.com/watch?v=35SKawn2…
Vogel's Law Of Video Game Innovation - "Most innovation sucks."
A YouTuber called Majuular has been doing a series of videos on the history of the Ultima series. It's a masterful work, combining game history, design deep dives, a lot of humor, and an appropriate tribute to some of the most influential of all series.
He did an almost 5 hour video on Ultima Online, and it is a CLASSIC. Ultima Online was a truly fascinating title, one of the first serious attempts at an MMO.
It was simultaneously a disaster and a triumph. It made every possible mistake an online game could make, lighting the way for future publishers to make all the same mistakes. It has a beautiful vision for how humans could game with other humans online, resulting in a multitude of bold, innovative choices that generally never worked. It was a mess, but it was first, and it lit the way for others. As a bonus, when it didn't work, it didn't work in the most hilarious ways.
I never played Ultima Online. I read the dire reviews and went, "Yikes. Not for me." Then its blood competitor, Everquest, came out and ate the world. I played that one like a FIEND.
Ultima Online showed that MMO's were a real deal, but Everquest was the first one that really worked well. The trick? Take out all the glorious freedom Ultima Online provided and replace it with lots of juicy bloodsport and looting. It was a hugely structured environment. If you give humans freedom, they'll create chaos with it, and player's don't like too much chaos.
By the way, now that World of Warcraft Forever is out, let's remember that so much of World of Warcraft v1.0 was taking Everquest and giving it popular polish, UI, and newbie friendliness. A lot of the cool innovations in World of Warcraft were actually in Everquest, but nobody saw them because Everquest was mercilessly hard and looked like ass. Everquest walked so WoW could run.
But back to the video. Yeah, it's long, but it digs deep into so much about what people love about this hobby. Worth it!
All that weirdness is still out there. The crazy diamonds who role-played as fishermen in Ultima Online? They never went anywhere! They're all RP'ing as traffic cops in Grand Theft Auto 5 now.
youtube.com/watch?v=35SKawn2…
Jeff Vogel retweeted
Hayao Miyazaki on modern anime, via Roland Kelts the author of 'Japanamerica'
"Hayao Miyazaki said to me at one point: 'The problem with young anime artists today is that the only thing they study is anime. When we were young, we studied French literature, we studied impressionism, we read Dostoevsky. We swallowed everything. And then we went and created original anime. But if you grow up and all you watch is anime, you're just regurgitating spinning wheels.'"
He also spoke about his work on the upcoming documentary 'Tezuka! God of Manga'
In addition to a very nice interview, Retro-Replay wrote a history of our earliest games. Before the consumer web, before online stores, when AOL was the Internet, we were hawking our RPGs. Here's some fun ancient history!
LINK: retro-replay.com/exile-histo…
Jeff Vogel retweeted
I gave a very long, fun interview to Retro-Replay.com about surviving in the indie game business for a very long time. Plenty of humor and cynicism from a bitter old mercenary. Thank you for the great questions!
LINK: retro-replay.com/jeff-vogel-…
I gave a very long, fun interview to Retro-Replay.com about surviving in the indie game business for a very long time. Plenty of humor and cynicism from a bitter old mercenary. Thank you for the great questions!
LINK: retro-replay.com/jeff-vogel-…
Jeff Vogel retweeted
New Blog Post! I review Splatoon Raiders, Schedule 1, Big Walk, Sir, We Have An Orc Problem, and Nubby's Number Factory. Turns out that Indie games are good. I also snark about Grand Theft Auto 6, an activity that never makes people super mad.
LINK: bottomfeeder.substack.com/p/…
New Blog Post! I review Splatoon Raiders, Schedule 1, Big Walk, Sir, We Have An Orc Problem, and Nubby's Number Factory. Turns out that Indie games are good. I also snark about Grand Theft Auto 6, an activity that never makes people super mad.
LINK: bottomfeeder.substack.com/p/…
Jeff Vogel retweeted
Dear frontier AI employees,
when leaving audio logs around the office, please remember to intermix:
1) reports of what happened
2) tragic personal anecdotes
3) creepy forebodings
4) the locations of useful access keycards and passwords
This will greatly help the protagonist.
Reviewing Splatoon Raiders
Some years back, Nintendo tried to make a unique twist on first person PvP shooters, something unlike anything done before. Was easy to roll my eyes at this. I mean, how many devs have tried this since Doom came out?
Then they released Splatoon and pretty much nailed it. It is a terrifically innovative game. Basically, it's a shooter where your ammo is ink. The ink damages your enemies, but it also paints the ground. You can only move easily on ground that it painted. So gameplay is a constantly balance between shooting to claim territory and shooting to knock out your foes.
Alas, not everyone could enjoy this, because it was an online PvP game. Not everyone is into those. If you are, but you haven't played Splatoon yet, it will take a long, long time to get competitive. Not only do you have to learn to play a new way, but you will be playing against 360 no-scope obsessives who will ink you into oblivion.
But good news! Splatoon Raiders is a Splatoon game, and it's a fast-paced single player arcade game. You get to experience all the unique gameplay (and the very odd setting) without getting instamurdered by Level 813 deathmasters.
It's basically long series of quick light, action-heavy levels of killing evil, goofy salmon monsters with paint, using an extremely finely honed battle system that's very satisfying. It's fast-paced, not overly long, and great fun. It's nice to enjoy innovation that works.
Rating: My Children Love All Things Splatoon And It's a Lucky Thing I Liked the Game Because If I Didn't They Would Put Me Into a Home / 10
I know Grand Theft Auto 6 is out and I'm not sure how I feel about it.
I started playing these with GTA3. Played these games for decades. I loved the cartoony gameplay and amorality. And then Rockstar's games just got heavier and heavier. Convinced they were saying Deep Things.
GTA5 was the first game in the series I haven't finished in many years. I got filtered by the flying section. Why did why wacky shooty game suddenly turn into a demanding flight sim? After piloting my plane into a hill 50 times, I gave up. It was a relief, as I was really tired of hanging out with its grim, aggressively unlikeable, utterly charmless protagonists.
(At least Niko Belik and his cousin were funny.)
And Red Dead Redemption 2? Can we finally say that game wasn't fun? With its repetitive, totally on rails missions? Obnoxious interface? The world's slowest, most awkward to control characters? Man, it was a struggle to plow through the back half of it. Snow effects were nice, though.
And now GTA6, the Biggest Game Evar, is almost out. With incredibly sparkly trailers featuring a truly disciplined lack of actual gameplay. Made in a time when the anarchic, offensive looseness of the older games is something game companies can no longer manage. AAA just doesn't do "silly" anymore.
Anyway, I hope it's good. I might buy it. Once it fully downloads, in 2029, I'll let you know what I think. :-/
I finally watched Hellraiser. It was fine. A nice mix of sincere, goofy, and horrifying. An exceptionally moist movie.
But ... So it's about these demons that try to take you away to this infinite universe of pleasure and pain. Promising. And then all they ever do is hang people from hooks. It's their go-to move! Oh, look. Susan touched the cube. Get out the hooks!
Even the hicks in Texas Chainsaw Massacre had more variety in their repertoire than this. Disappointing lack of hustle and ingenuity in our demon overlords.
