Thoughts on Experience, Game and general design.

The flow of Henry Hatsworth

Posted: July 19th, 2009 | Author: fsouki | Filed under: Game Design | Tags: , , , | 3 Comments »

henryhatsworthThis weekend I finally got to borrow a copy of Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure, a game designed by Kyle Gray, an ETC alum, when he was still working at EA.

I had the pleasure to meet Kyle last year at the ETC when he came and gave us a very good talk on how he successfully pitched Henry Hatsworth to the EA higher-ups and got it green-lit. Right then I made a mental note that I should play this game as soon as it came out, and it wasn’t until now that I actually got the chance.

Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure is, as the title cleverly points put, a puzzle-adventure game: think Bejeweled meets Super Mario Bros. Since the game is made for the DS, it’s very convenient to have the Sidescroller Platformer on the top screen and on the bottom one the Puzzle, where the stylus is most helpful. Read the rest of this entry »


Phantom Hourglass’ amazing mistake

Posted: July 7th, 2009 | Author: fsouki | Filed under: Game Design | Tags: , , , | 1 Comment »

Below are spoilers for The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for the Nintendo DS. Though nothing from the story is spoiled, be warned that a whole temple is.

In my opinion, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass is an amazing game. I’ve been a Zelda fan for a long time, however I had never played a handheld Zelda before. I expected to be overwhelmed by a full scale Zelda experience and in turn was pleasantly surprised with a much more streamlined, to-the-point adventure. This is not, however, the point of this post. For in this great game there was one thing, one amazing thing, that I just could not take: the Temple of the Ocean King.
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