Final issue of Nintendo Power on newstands now (retro cover)

cover image: http://rand21althor.wordpress.com/2012/ ... nal-issue/

It's too bad Nintendo decided not to make New Super Mario Bros. 2 more like New Doki Doki Panic.

I feel like the Nintendo I knew died a slow death starting with the N64.
Since the N64, games from Big N kept getting less and less challenging. The motion controls really put me off, especially for games like Donkey Kong Country Returns, because it's so imprecise. Platformers really require precision timing that motion controls don't offer.

I was about ready to give up on newer games completely until I discovered Demon's Souls and Dark Souls and all the great indie games like Braid, VVVVVV, Cave Story, Super Meat Boy, etc

I'm still hoping arcade style games make a comeback, I'm really sick of casual games.

Yeah, NSMB is starting to look like Megaman. A new Doki Doki Panic game would've shaken things up. Then again, some things are better left standing on their own.

In order for that to happen, more Android phone makers will have to bring out products with physical buttons. The only phone with physical buttons that I'm aware of is the Xperia Play, whose controller slides out like that of a PSP Go. Apart from that, the only controls on a typical smartphone are the accelerometer and the capacitive multitouch screen. A lot of games use on-screen buttons, but based on my experience with running homebrew games in Nesoid, the problem is that the player can't feel the buttons' edges on a flat sheet of glass. Multitouch is enough for a directional pad and the A Button, with the direction based on the displacement between the left thumb's initial point of contact and its current position. (Lift and retouch to recenter.) That's enough for Sonic, it's enough for WarioWare, and it's enough for Super Mario Bros. once you take out the fireballs. But once you introduce the B Button like in Mega Man or Contra, you introduce the possibility that the right thumb will reach for a button and miss it. Something like Street Fighter is right out.

The xperia play is a freak experiment and it's not selling well so I wouldn't expect other to follow in Sony's path.

After following for a while the smartphone market (I have to make app for android and iPhone..), don't expect a revival of the arcade style on that platform: the chance to win the app store lottery with making such a game type is slim to none. Unless you already have a fan base that are ready to pay more for a game (because the userbase will be smaller in the case), you cannot make a living out of that.

What works right now is scheme to monetize whale like card games in Japan where you need to collect them all. There is "gatcha" concept, where you put money to get random cards that may be useful, merge existing card to make new ones, login bonus to make you return, etc. The focus of the game is on how to extract money from you and not how to play a fun game. There must be at the least one new card game coming out per day these days on the app store... I'm so tired of it. I'm sure Glee and Dena with be more than happy to bring those "great game" to you guys in the US and Europe soon!...

The smartphone market is now the new casual one, which before was known by platform like the DS. People use those apps a few minute and stop them right away. Arcade games like the nes is not very feasible, except for people like us that do enjoy those games but we are in the minority. The control scheme is mostly junk with a touch screen.

People play games (if we can call that playing) like mushroom garden where the goal is to, well, grow mushroom. You wait 1 hour and see what happens. You pay money to make it faster so you can collect them all! (...) And if you're lucky, depending on the app, you share your results on twitter or facebook of course!.. This is as close as cow clicker as it can be!

And with the race to the bottom about price, now where you almost have to make it freemium with either banners ads or in-app purchase... I'm sorry but I don't see much future for games there. You can try, but unless you can pay enough money to manipulate the app store ranking (I'm not making that up since, I don't want to talk about it since it make me sick... At the least I didn't pay personally for it..) then your chance to go up in ranking naturally is quite low unless you have a hell of a game and a lot of free publicity/marketing buget for people to talk about it.

I guess my mail turned out into a rant and derailed the subject, sorry about that. It was just my counter point to Tepples controller thing;

don't count on it, I think. You should push the 3DS or even the Ouya instead.