TomMannino.com

So we just updated.

UPDATED GAME!
The Junk Snake game got a soundtrack. It’s very cool and creepy. The title screen music is VERY VERY catchy. I kinda had it looped a lot today. =P Also a few days ago we changed the game mechanic around, now the gems come in addition to a garbage drop.
http://www.twinskies.com/minigames/flash/junkworm

NEW GAME!
LEGENDS OF LAUNDRY!!!!!!
http://www.twinskies.com/minigames/flash/lol
This game is a LOT of fun. It’s a match-three concept except you match the colors by DRAWING on them. Help Elena do the towns wash. Go for the biggest combos you can. Keep an eye out for Sooty, Elena’s cat. He likes to sleep in the laundry and sometimes gets mixed up with the wash. BAD MAU! (P.s. I have a big crush on Elena, but don’t tell her.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_in_Rock_Band_2

“Chop Suey!” - System of a Down
“E-Pro” - Beck

AND.

OH MY GOD.

“Master Exploder” - Tenacious D
“Lump” - Presidents of the United States of America

HIWERGH IAWHERG AIWRGH AIRGH AWIEFH AIWEFH SEIGHY% ^T#W*(YQ@#$*O^YQ@$^T

Seriously this just made my damn day.

We’ve got about three fan sites already, but this is the first mention on YouTube. They’ve taken a few liberties with some of the details but it’s amazing that the fans are digging into this stuff so quickly…

This is the first real public mention of the project that I’m working on:

http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/06/neopets-creator.html

Some blurbs:

Let’s say one player is sitting inside the MMO. He’s at a table in his own fully 3-D virtual house and in front of him is a chessboard. He moves a pawn, waits, and the opposing side moves against him. Only instead of challenging another player within the MMO, he’s playing against someone who is playing chess via a simple Flash application embedded into the website. Each of their moves is relayed to one another in real-time, and both receive certain levels of virtual reward for the activity.

Remember Snake? That game where you maneuver a squiggly line around a board to collect pellets in the hopes of extending your line’s length? If you don’t recall, check your cell phone. I guarantee it’s on there. The new MMO’s website will have a Flash game similar to Snake built into it. Instead of simply hoping for a high score, players maneuver the snake around the board in a hunt for pellets with the ultimate goal of making the snake come to life.

This blurb in particular made me have a heart attack:

Normally I’d be very cynical about a game relying so heavily on this sort of technological confluence — particularly given the hyper-adorable, kid-centric current state of Neopets — but assuming that these creators can actually deliver on the ideas they have for this game, it could be huge.

Because it’s quite literally my job to make sure these ideas work.

Press releases to follow :3

I stimulated the economy by buying a 360 and GTA 4, and have been playing it pretty hard, in the name and interest of internet science and game design. I’ve not beat the story yet, but I’ve got comments so far on both the system and the game. Spoilers abound, so read at your own risk. Also they are very random and out of order so bear with me.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve played through a few MMOs, for a few years, and have come to the following realizations:

• I enjoy playing support classes, and helping my friends who are awesome at certain aspects of the game be even better.
• I enjoy playing healing classes because I enjoy decided what lives and what dies.
• I enjoy playing games cooperatively with friends.
• I enjoy playing games against humans, and not against scripted robots.
• I enjoy sandbox games where you can do ‘anything.’
• I enjoy ‘outdoor pvp,’ ‘world pvp,’ or whatever you want to call it, but basically unconstrained, uneven and sometimes unbalanced PVP.
• I enjoy leading small groups of people.

Naturally, from this I can also definitively say what I don’t want to do and don’t enjoy:

• I don’t enjoy farming instances over and over.
• The same goes for raiding.
• I know I can’t and can never compete with people who have more time on their hands to play, so I don’t try.
• I don’t want to run a huge guild.

When the new WoW expansion Wrath of the Lich King comes out, I’m going to be playing it, and will be playing it centered around the above things.

Re: playing with/against people: The latest Warhammer Online newsletter has a video that explains their ‘living guilds’ system, and one of the things they bring up were games we used to play as kids. They were social, collaborative, and competative. MMO games started out as just ‘playing games alongside other people,’ then evolved into ‘playing games with other people against robots (the computer), and have turned into, finally, ‘playing games with and against other people and/or robots.’

Re: Farming instances: I enjoy doing them once or twice to see the story and for the both literal and figurative experience, but doing them more then that and I just can’t be bothered. I ‘get’ the teamwork aspect and element of coordinating a lot of warm bodies to accomplish huge goals and the utter thrill of finally achieving them, but to me, I would rather participate on a team fighting against humans together and not trying to overcome some pattern or gimmick-based goal. Originally, this was the only way to advance your character, which isn’t the case anymore.