Friday, 27 January 2017

We interrupt this gameplay to bring you breaking news . . .
Review of The Treason Game by Starving Author, J B Garner, can be found here:
https://jbgarner58.wordpress.com/category/starving-review/
You can also read my interview on the same site at:
https://jbgarner58.wordpress.com/2017/01/27/starving-interview-viv-doyle-author-of-the-treason-game/ 
Mr Garner is an author of fine fantasy fiction himself, so I am honoured to have him give his opinion of my novel.

Saturday, 21 January 2017

THEME GAMES

My next favourite game was THEME PARK, an early ‘God Game’ published by Bullfrog/Electronic Arts in 1994. 
 
This had all the elements for me: cute rides and characters, management strategy, catchy tunes. The design was pretty rubbishy, of course, but the gameplay had me hooked until . . Along came THEME HOSPITAL!
Another triumph for Bullfrog/Electronic Arts, in 1997. Even better, this game has hilarious diseases and hideously deformed characters, so what’s not to like? Sound effects had moved on by now to include announcements of all kinds and a fiendishly new level of gameplay difficulty. I did once get to the end, but only after an appalling toll of epidemics and hospital closures.





      

Thursday, 12 January 2017

I never got into games consoles like Playstation, Nintendo, Atari and Sega so my game-playing was limited to PC games. Angry Birds (2009) – totally addictive, and a bit of Minecraft (2010) although I see that as more of a boy’s game as it’s bit too abstract for me. I guess up to that point I had no idea about MMORPGs even though you could play them in the 1990s on Compuserve, for instance. I was on Compuserve as a moderator of writing topics but didn't explore it enough to discover that I could play online with other people. That thrilling revelation happened quite a long time later.