From Dark Souls to Ninja Gaiden, from Overwatch to Rocket League, from Shovel Knight to Super Mario. Every game has it's traps, it's secrets, difficulties and intuitive aspects.What makes a game "Well Designed"? How is Game Design responsible for a game being Difficult or Easy? What causes players to stonewall for hours against a boss, or defeat an area on their first run?I believe the best way to put it simply is to describe Game Design as 2 opposing forces. One side is always trying to challenge the player, while the other always trying to help the player. Let's take a

Before we can say anything, I have a better question. "What does it mean to be a Casual Game?"Most people may think that a casual game would be a bad game, or that a casual game is a game casual gamers play, an insult or something degrading. Most people may look at Overwatch's Competitive mode and call it at that, how could a Casual Game consist of a Competitive mode?But before figuring any of that out, what does that word truly mean?Wikipedia describes "Casual Games" as A casual game is a video game targeted at or used by a mass audience

Simulators Simulator It already feels like there’s been those simulators like forever. Police, Airplane, Firefighter, Farmers, Garbage Disposal, Street Cleaner, etc. etc. There are way too many to count them all, but what is the deal with that? Well, I don’t have a freaking clue.Even though they have always been so full of bugs and have been so unbelievably bad, they’re still so incredibly successful.I can not explain this phenomenon, but know there must be something in our DNA that loves to simulate things. (Simulate, not fake!)Maybe it’s just the thrill of being a pilot, the fascinating danger of patrolling the streets and

Let it sale, let it sale, let it sale!Steam Winter Sale is very close (22nd December) and I hope to catch some great deals! After users were complaining about the bad deals that got worse and worse over time (used to be around 70% average but went down to only 10 maybe for new games if at all), chances are that Valve changes the system back again, though I would not entirely rely on that.Even though the sale is a great chance to get yourself some nice games, the real blowing ones will be released early 2017, so you might as well save

You may remember my article in March about the Desura website going down, where I pondered the future for Desura. Since then the website has been on and off (mainly off) and most people have passed the acceptance stage of grief. Recently it has been announced that the company "OnePlay" has now acquired Desura from Bad JuJu games, along with Indie Royale and Daily Royale. OnePlay have announced this on their website, stating "We are working hard to bring back Desura, IndieRoyale and DailyRoyale to deliver you more awesome indie games". OnePlay currently own their own digital games store, which they launched

Gears of War 4 released to the world last week both on Xbox One and Windows 10, many fans hoped for a sequel packing everything they'd dreamt of since Gears of War 3 hit the shelves back in 2011. The last 3 titles in the franchise have been developed for the most part by three separate development teams. GoW 3 by Epic, Judgment by People Can Fly and GoW 4 by The Coalition - this means all three don't share as many similarities as the first three made by Epic.Each has their own pros, cons and features we consider to be

Good evening ladies and gentlemen,actually I had something completely different in mind but an hour playing certain games made me realise how many times we stumble over games that cost us a lot of nerves. Please feel free to comment and share your experiences with games that make you so angry you just want to bite through your keyboard.Let us jump in:Golf with your friends Actually a nice game I have to say. Not quite a golf simulator (at all) but nevertheless provides a lot of fun.However, it is an Early Access and I posted about this sickness before and the only

So this is an odd one for our vault series as it's content you won't have read in the past, this is the transcript of a 2-year-old interview Opium Pulses did with SFB Games at EGX 2014. It was a video interview but the venue was so loud that the audio quality was awful and made the whole interview impossible to hear. We've pulled the audio, done our best to improve the quality and written it for people to read as an article instead. Hope you all enjoy!  This is Opium Pulses at EuroGamer 2014  interviewing SFB Games (previously known as

VROOOOOOOOM!!!The latest update brings the biker gangs back to the streets!A very own Lost MC for everyone who is able to purchase a clubhouse.Is that the update GTA needed in so long?Clear answer: YES!Updates in form of DLCs/Addons are actually a way to keep games alive, and so GTA as well.The last two expansions failed greatly and didn’t motivate enough players to come back to Los Santos.Now with the option to have a very own bike chapter, changes in the president system (equivalent to CEO/VIP) and more bikes, chances are high that there are more bikes than ever before rolling down the

As is now tradition for the members of Opium Pulses based in the UK, we made our way to EGX (Eurogamer Expo) in Birmingham, our press passes allowed us earlybird entry to all 4 days but we stuck to Thursday and Sunday. We arrived bleary-eyed in good time and were allowed to walk straight in. Of the two days, if you want peace and quiet, room to move around and better opportunity to secure interviews, Thursday is your day. If you like huge crowds, active tournaments and regular giveaways the weekend is the time to go.Anyway as much as we love