Preview: Sleep Is Death

By: Derek Yu

On: February 28th, 2010

Sleep Is Death is the next game from Jason Rohrer, who’s best known for creating Passage. You can pre-order SID now for $9 or purchase it for $14 when it comes out on April 16th. It’s described as “a storytelling game for two players”. You can find out more about the game by clicking through this fun slideshow.

Jason Rohrer’s New DS Game

By: Brandon McCartin (BMcC)

On: August 11th, 2009

You may have seen this reported elsewhere, but “arthouse” game creator Jason Rohrer is hard at work on his first retail release, a turn-based, two-player strategy game for the Nintendo DS “about diamond trading in Angola on the eve of the passage of the ”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimberley_Process_Certification_Scheme" title=“The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme on Wikipedia”>Kimberly Process." This first struck me as a heavy subject for a handheld game, but the fact of the matter is there are countless games about counter-terrorism, war, monsters, death… I’m apparently just a bit desensitized to certain topics!

I asked Jason for more details on the game and he was kind enough to oblige. Pictured above is his paper prototype of the game. He’s still ironing out the design, but he got approved as a developer by Nintendo last week and programming should begin soon. He was reluctant to describe the gameplay itself this early, which is understandable, but he says there are no big surprises here, so all will be revealed before release. Oh, and he’s making every bit of the game himself, right down to the box art.

Arte.tv – Chris Crawford and Jason Rohrer. Also Perfect Suguri Pre-Orders!

By: Xander

On: June 27th, 2009

Game creators Chris Crawford and Jason Rohrer will be the main focus of the new episode of “Into the Night”, a joint French/German documentary series. The five minute preview above has been released to give you a taste of the full hour-long documentary that will be aired on ‘ZDF’ and ‘ARTE’, both available free on Astra on July 2nd. Not to fear everyone else outside of europe, as according to Play This Thing! who previously posted a flattering preview also announce that there’ll be an online version streamed much like the preview. Hope you’ll all catch it then when it’s released!

Bonus News: Pre-orders for Perfect Suguri on Rockin’ Android have begun, with a special sale price of $16.99 instead of the regular $19.99, which also includes free U.S shipping. They’ve got my money at least, but then again they probably already did…

(Thanks to Jsticker in tigIRC for the Arte.TV news!)

GDC/IGS Videos

By: Derek Yu

On: May 6th, 2009

For those who were unable to attend, and those who want to relive the magic:

Also, the GDC Vault has released 3 videos: Jason Rohrer’s IGS session, titled “Beyond Single-Player,” The Indie Game Maker Rant, and The Game Design Challenge: My First Time, which features Heather “moboid” Kelley and Erin “The Ivy” Robinson. Thanks, Simon!

Hopefully more is on the way!

IGS ’09: Beyond Single-Player (Jason Rohrer)

By: Brandon McCartin (BMcC)

On: March 24th, 2009

Jason Rohrer’s lecture for the Independent Games Summit this year (2009) was both surprising and painfully obvious.

Perfectionism

By: Derek Yu

On: March 20th, 2008

I’m a fan of Passage and Gravitation, Jason Rohrer‘s self-described “artgames,” but I know a lot of people find them irritating (to downright reprehensible!). Well, however you feel about the games, perhaps Jason’s new project, a monthly article for Escapist Magazine called “Game Design Sketchbook,” might convince you that the man at least has some interesting ideas!

In his inaugural design sketchbook, Jason brings up a concept that has spelled doom for many a promising game developer – perfectionism – and developed a game around it.

The game itself is fun and I think illustrates the concept pretty well – there were quite a few moments where I felt like I was obtaining some further insight into my own tendencies. However, it’s not a game that I would play too many times over. This is, perhaps, indicative of some sort of failure of Perfectionism as a game… I think if the production was not so sparse it would be more suited for repeated playthroughs.

As a design sketch I think it works pretty well, however.

(Thanks, Heather!)

Gravitation

By: Derek Yu

On: March 1st, 2008

Jason Rohrer, the creator of the moving and bittersweet Passage, has released a new game, called Gravitation. The basic theme behind Gravitation is “mania, melancholia, and the creative process.” To say any more, of course, could potentially ruin the experience, but I can recommend it highly.

(Thanks, Phil Fish!)