If you asked me what was the singular best thing to happen since the current round of consoles, I can answer without hesitation. Indie games are the singular best thing to happen this generation. The Xbox Live Indie Game The Hearts of Men: Throne of Deceit is the perfect example why. I know the artist behind the game and it has been remarkable to see the progress this game has made. 

Throne of Deceit is a love note to the classic arcade game Gauntlet. You are put in a maze like level with unrelenting waves of enemies rushing towards you with the purpose to leave you broken and defeated taunting your atrophied gamer skills from cushy conventions of modern games. The four warriors you pick from are played the same but “feel” different thanks to the story that unfolds at the moments you need it to. Plus, the art is awesome. The heaping spoonful of modern game modes and thrilling scrolling levels really bring this type of game into 2012. It’s 80 MS Points ($1 in actual currency) on the Indie Games channel so you should totally pick it up.

Games like Throne of Deceit wouldn’t be possible if it weren’t for all the avenues indie game makers can bring their games to gamers. Kickstarter has popularized the term “bringing back a genre from the dead” but indie games have been doing exactly this for some time. There are passionate fans for each and every genre out there and indie games help represent every genre. This wasn’t possible 10, or even five, years ago since the barrier to make a game was really high or you had to mod an existing game. 

The creativity flowing from game creators like those behind Throne of Deceit exemplify how the indie scene is changing the gaming world with top notch production at an incredible value. With more people calling themselves gamers, it is great to have all types of games present and accounted for with talented people working all over the world to bring gaming experiences to life. 

The nice part is I can talk to myself without people thinking I’m crazy if I wanted (Taken with instagram)

Just in time to catch the train (Taken with instagram)

On my way home (Taken with instagram)

Old timey filter applied, am I doing this right? (Taken with instagram)

I was doing some thinking about stories in games and how little they matter to me. When I play, I like to get my initial motivation and have fun. 

I can appreciate a good story like Red Dead Redemption or Skyrim, but when I consider my favorite games of all time I realize how light the story elements are in-game. 

Super Mario Bros., for example, doesn’t give much backstory or motivation why Bowser has been kidnaping Peach for over 20 years. There aren’t major plot lines to discover and his motivation is never fully explained. All that matters is saving the princess. It gives the players a goal to work towards for each new Mario game. 

A more modern example is Minecraft. You are given less to work with than the Mario series. You load the game and find yourself in a blocky world with nothing but a hunger meter wasting away to zero before you starve yourself. The rest of the game is a blank canvas you fill in with your own story. When an epilogue was added when you beat “The End,” I was actually sad some semblance of a story was added since I felt it invalidated my own story I was creating. 

Flower on the PlayStation Network puts you inside the dream of delicate flowers in the harsh city environment and all that is inferred just by a few menu screens. 

The list goes on and even extends into mobile games. Hero Academy, one of my absolute favorite mobile games, is light on story but bit on imagination. Heroes need to train somewhere and all the best go to the hero academy. Simple, straight forward and gives me a reason to fight on.

The mega popular Angry Birds is in the same boat. The pigs (hams) love eggs and the birds want their babies back. I don’t give a second thought to flinging birds at pigs after knowing the bird’s eggs are stolen. The game gives a purpose, players get motivation and those players aren’t bogged down with huge twists in the story or endless exposition. 

It’s one of the reasons I’m not a huge fan of Metal Gear games. The story meanders and becomes more complex each time the game stops to give you a next mission. There are some powerful moments because of the story, like the ending to Metal Gear Solid 3, but that lead up could have been established through gameplay since the most powerful moment was gameplay itself, pulling the trigger on The Boss. 

There are two caveats to story in games for me. First, instruction books often had more information if you wanted more of a story. It’s the reason we know about the Triforce in the original Zelda game and countless other gaming facts that test the “nerd cred” of someone. What I like about this is even if you didn’t have an instruction book, the lack of story knowledge didn’t hinder the enjoyment of the game.

Second, RPGs would be impossible to play if there isn’t a compelling story. If you aren’t given something to care about, or some interesting interaction, there is no way anyone would grind for 30+ hours in repetitive battles just to get the Magical Sword of Burning Hurt or whatever. I’m currently losing interest in an RPG style game right now because the story isn’t strong. I’ve actually lost a lot of interest in RPG games in general because I find it harder and harder for myself to believe in the stories. 

I like to play games that give me motivation then get out of the way of itself. I’d rather be delighted with moments of narrative rather than bashed over the head with it. Story has a place in games and is necessary to create motivation for players, however, I find games with excessive focus on story only create more barriers for me to get to actually having fun. 

Back when I was a little boy, I really wanted to play the saxophone. I couldn’t wait for fifth grade when I could finally start jamming on one. The reason was simply because Alf played one in the opening credits in his TV puppet sitcom. Rack one up for TV making a positive influence!

When band was offered at school, I jumped at the chance to try the sax. One of my best friends already had one so I was raring to get my own. There was a slight problem. I couldn’t get the instrument to make a sound. Not even a squawk. The band director sat patiently as I struggled and failed at producing the beautiful music my head wanted to make. 

If felt like hours, which is more like 5 minutes of adult time, had passed until the band director quietly went into the back room and produced a small, sliver looking, rounded kazoo. Only it wasn’t a kazoo, it was a mouthpiece for a trumpet. The mechanics to make a sound were vastly different than a sax. To boil it down, you essentially make fart noises and the approximately nine feet of tubing produces a legitimate musical note. Like any self-respecting fifth grader with an older brother, I was a pro at this. Well, making the noises at least.  

The problem was I didn’t want to play the trumpet, my life plans revolved around the saxophone. 

Nobody said I couldn’t play the saxophone, the only piece of advice the band director gave me was that I’d have to work four times as hard as some of the other kids to get up to speed with the sax. At a time when book reports felt like the end of the world, I went with the trumpet.

I quickly grew to love the trumpet and professional trumpet players. The versatility of to play any type of music, the tones that ranged from electric to mellow, the art of making 3 “buttons” play all the notes in the world and the finesse of making something purely mechanical be an extension of the soul were all things I grew attached to quickly. It just took me 11 years of playing to realize all of that. 

I learned my own quirks when it came to trumpet music. I loved to play classical (Baroque rules!) pieces rather than listen to them and I loved to listen to Jazz music rather than play it. Marching Band and Pep Band’s weren’t my thing while I would want to spend hours in a chamber group or full orchestra. 

In my Junior year of college, when I played my last concert, I felt a great sense of loss. It sounds odd to say that about a lump of coiled metal, but it’s true. 

I tried to pick up my trumpet here and there but finishing school, finding work and life made it difficult to keep on even the most irregular schedule. I’d pull out my case once and awhile only to find the valves ceased up and the finish starting to tarnish. I didn’t feel the need to start it up again until recently.

I feel the calling again to create music so now I just need a place where I won’t bug most of the apartment complex. I ordered up some valve oil and just got the valves to work again. I rather like the tarnish so I think that will stay, I’m older along with my trumpet, it only seems fitting we both have something to show for it. 

Places built around the idea of nostalgia never quite “feel” 100 percent authentic. Sometimes, themes get overdone and too much thinking is put into replicating making something authentic, which results (strangely) in inauthenticity. I’ve only been to a handful of “throwback” places that were truly authentic, meaning, they were the original and time/space seemed to pass over them. I can now proudly add another place to that roster. 

Someone at Toy Studio pointed me to a place that isn’t trying to replicate what an arcade was like back in the 1990’s. It IS an arcade from the 1990’s. It’s called Nickel City and the place is amazing. 

For starters, the location is exactly where you’d find an arcade from this era: right in the middle of an older strip mall sandwiched between a few restaurants and a hobby store. The flashing lights from the machines and brightly colored walls visible from the parking lot make the neon “open” sign more of a formality than anything useful. As you approach the door, you notice all the hallmark signs of a fine arcade establishment like the quick games of chance by the door to eek out a few more coins in peoples pockets to the ATM conveniently by the register incase you forgot your two dollars for admission. I wasn’t about to complain, the games never cost more than four nickels for a play or you can head straight back to the free-play games and leave when your eyes burn. 

The selection of games is outstanding. All the Street Fighter Alphas are there (some even set to free-play), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles the Arcade game, Puzzle Fighter, a Neo Geo cabinet with Fatal Fury, Samurai Showdown, Baseball Stars 2 and others, Pac-Man, Silent Scope, Mario Kart GP, Crusin’ USA, The Simpson’s Arcade, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, DDR and the list could go on. This isn’t even to mention the games where you win tickets. 

If you are into the games that pay out tickets, the prize counter is deliciously authentic too. At the end of your visit, you’ll be wondering if you want to get some erasers shaped like soccer balls or some new green army men to add to your collection. It’s like someone from 1990 got crazy with prize ordering and they have been going through them ever since. The only thing I noticed missing is The Rock-afire Explosion for birthday parties.

I can’t drive the point home enough that Nickel City isn’t trying to be retro or “ironic.” It exists in a pocket of a by gone era where the intention is pure and the desire is to provide smiles. The displays might show signs of screen warping and the aging cabinets might be Frankensteins of mishmashed parts but you get a sense that the colorful dignity of these arcade machines is still as intact as they were the day they came off the assembly line. To find this type of place where childhood memories glow off a screen, while not pretending to be something it is not, is something magical.

Here is to hoping that Nickel City continues to be a secret diamond in the rough for many years to come. 

Now go visit the Nickel City website!

I can totally see this happening:

Customer: I’d like the latest iPad

Apple Store Sales Person: You want the new iPad?

Customer: Yes! A new iPad

Apple Store Sales Person gets the new iPad

Customer: Why are you trying to sell me the old iPad? I see the iPad 2 right over there!

—-Or—-

Customer: Why is the iPad 2 selling cheaper than the iPad?

Not too long ago, some fellow Toy Studians created some standing desks. I’m not even a week into my two week experiment and I’ve found a couple of things.

1. You feel more energized throughout the day. No longer do I have to depend on coffee or Red Bulls to power through the lulls 

2.  It takes a lot of adjustment. You’ll need to tweak things on your desk so that it all feels comfortable.

3. Wear comfy shoes. I busted out my “still look brand new” running shoes and it has been a life saver for my feet. 

4. It gets easier the more you do it. 

One last thing, making a standing desk is a pretty simple recipe. Cinderblocks + Desk = Standing Desk.