Recently we reviewed an independent game called Devil’s Tuning Fork by DePaul Game Elites, a group of students who study game development in Chicago’s DePaul University. We then schemed, conspired and used all of our clout to get an interview with two of the developers, Jason Pecho and Matt Lazar, to further discuss the game.

Avault: Thank you for agreeing to talk to us!

Jason Pecho (Jay): Not a problem at all.

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Despite the explosion of blockbuster AAA retail releases this holiday season, the casual computer games market continues to flourish. Although more temptations than ever seduce game developers away from the PC platform, what with Xbox Live Arcade and the iPhone becoming primary casual-game outlets, the personal computer—because it is so open and everyone owns one—remains a primary development platform. So while many other game sites focus their attention on conventional retail offerings, I unearth for your playing pleasure the very best hidden computer treasures that casual gaming has to offer. To select the dozen 2009 award winners from an increasingly competitive field, I spent many hours scouring hundreds of full, registered versions developed all over the world to discern their overall value. Because of increasingly intrusive and annoying copy-protection schemes and the presence in many homes of multiple computers, some of which lack online access, I tested only the single-player modes of offerings that can be registered and played on a non-Internet-connected machine.

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There’s only about one week left before Alganon launches on December 1 (rescheduled from an earlier expected Halloween release), and beta players may have noticed that they have been taking the servers down more frequently to implement features and fixes in preparation for the official launch. Anyone playing over the last week has probably noticed combat lag and enemies not respawning as they should, but the company reports that the most recent patch has taken a large stride towards correcting them (if not fixed them altogether). The servers should now be smooth and you can again aim your weapons in confidence (or terror).

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Ever since the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) moved back to Los Angeles from Atlanta in 1999, east-coast gamers have been pretty much shut out of major industry events. But the producers of the GameX Industry Summit have changed all of that by bringing their event to the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in suburban Oaks, Pa. The festival, held from October 23 to 25, 2009, was a combination of the media-centric nature of E3 and the fan-friendly character of the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX), held annually in Seattle (with a repeat performance scheduled for Boston in the spring of 2010). The event featured something for almost everybody: a show floor offering the public hands-on time with some major future releases, vendors with all manner of gaming items to buy and sell, forums and panel discussions led by some of the leading lights of the industry, and a contest giving participants a chance to showcase their design talents to the pros.

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Many diehard PC gamers I know are obsessed with the “next big thing” coming down the pike and couldn’t care less about the past. The moment these folks finish playing a game to the end, they uninstall it permanently from their computers; they consider even last year’s releases “ancient history.” But others, including myself, form deep emotional bonds with PC games we love and want to keep them around for future replay possibility. Given the increasing speed of computers, the changing operating systems, the continuing need to upgrade one’s gaming rig and annoying machine-specific copy protection schemes, it has become quite difficult to keep favorite PC offerings available and running successfully for long periods of time.

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Scriptwriter Kevin Schortt offers some details on the upcoming Ubisoft game James Cameron’s Avatar:

Storyline: Does the storyline follow that of the movie?

Kevin Schortt: The game story and the film story are two completely different adventures. The game timeline is two years before the movie, covering a story that happens on a different part of the moon, Pandora. Our goal was to expand on the universe that James Cameron has created. We didn’t want a repeat of the movie adventure in a game format. Instead, we wanted an opportunity for fans to learn more about this beautiful world and the growing conflict between the RDA and the Na’vi.

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Written by: OmegaBob

Saturday 8/22 – Day Four

Today was mainly filled with panels that I wanted to attend. Discussion about the various changes they are finalizing that stood out to me included: changing most of the stats, the new guild leveling/achievement system, new dungeons & battlegrounds and finally an overhaul of the Warlock’s soul shard system (YES!).

Although there seemed to be less people initially, I soon realized why the lines for the various metagames were as long as the lines for the BlizzCon/Jinx stores were last year. I cannot fathom why anyone would want to wait in a three-hour line to basically play carnival games when your chance at winning is extremely low, but I guess that a lot of them just didn’t have better things to do. Then again, my buddy waited for two and a half hours to get a 25 second chance to grab a WoW Upper Deck loot card in one of those booths with the swirling confetti, and he won one!

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Written by: OmegaBob

Friday, August 21 – Day Three (Opening Day)

Having once again learned from past experience, I decided to not head over to the convention center until 30 minutes after they opened. My decision was wise as the line we ended up in moved extremely quickly, and we didn’t experience the four hour wait of last year. Since Blizzard had a 48-hour pre-sale for the majority of the items in their store a month before the con, I’d picked up everything I wanted already, so again, I avoided the crowds. Another thing different about this year was that there were more food choices. Granted, the food still sucked (except for the ice cream) and was way too expensive, but at least there was more of a selection.

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Written by: OmegaBob

Thursday 8/20

We spent the early part of the day at Venice Beach, and then later explored LA and Hollywood. I joined the paparazzi for a few minutes by staking out Ciara and later saw the cameraman from ‘Jackass’ at a farmers market (his female companion was hot but looked like a word that rhymes with witch).

After a very exciting day of fun and festivities, we drove back to the hotel in the evening to pick up the BlizzCon badges and goodie bags. We passed numerous potential attendees as we continued our drive and I had the urge to scream, “Nerds!” or “EverQuest rules!”, at them as we drove by. Why, because 80% of the fools were wearing their badges as well as their BlizzCon T-Shirts -note: the con starts on Friday, so there was no reason for them to wear their badges or con shirts the day before. Nerds!

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Written by: OmegaBob

Wednesday 8/19

Today was mostly uneventful, as we spent the entire day at Disneyland, but I managed to experience much more of the park than I did during my previous trip to Anaheim for BlizzCon 2008. I really wanted to check out the “It’s a Small World” ride as it was closed for renovations last October. I wanted to see if the ride is as insanity causing as everyone says it is; however, I didn’t want to become a brainwashed Disney stooge (especially since Steve Jobs and Disney formed their evil Empire). Much riding, much shopping and mucho eating were accomplished by the end of the day.

Leisure time aside, I had two quests to complete today: 1) sunglasses and 2) stealth convention center pics.

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