I’ve been working with version control systems for most of two decades now, so I really should know better. Since starting out with CVS, it’s been drilled in to me:

check in your source, the stuff you can’t recover if you lost it

There’s never an exception to this rule, and if you think there is, think again. I mean it: literally take the time to think about your exception properly, then realise why you should still version control that file.

This is a short tale of careless autocomplete, a quirk of Unix, and a hastily assembled .gitignore file. …

Opening links in a new window — or a new tab for the best part of twenty years — has always been a hot button issue. Many writers feel like it’s the sensible thing to do in order to ‘keep a reader on your page/site’, whilst usability practitioners despair at what they see as annoying and counterintuitive behaviour that ignores the user’s wishes. In Linking to a new tab vs. same tab, Jesse Summers argues that:

If a user clicks on a link, they shouldn’t be surprised by what happens.

and I mostly agree. There are noted exceptions but, generally speaking, the web’s default has always been to replace a page with the target of the link, and that expectation should be maintained. …

The survival sub-genre has emerged into the limelight in recent years; it combines parts of several other genres, depending on which game you play. Typically, there are dire circumstances, scarce resources, and the need for the player to craft what they need from those resources in various clever ways. Games as far-ranging as the classic Oregon Trail all the way to this year’s Ground Zero fall into this category in some way, but they share a common DNA. Let’s look at several of these titles to see what elements connect them.

The Survivalists (2020)

The Survivalists is, unsurprisingly, a survival game, but it’s one with a big difference. Whilst other games in the genre task the player with carrying out a lot of the work themselves, grinding away to gather resources with which to craft, The Survivalists provides some help, in the form of monkeys. …

Big Brother meets … Big Brother. In this pixellated tale of dystopian reality game show, you’re tasked with completing a series of platforming puzzles — by fair means or foul.

Mining the Orwell playbook is hardly an original concept, but it feels churlish to complain about that when the details are handled as well as they are in Ministry of Broadcast. Many individual touches combine to create a chilling atmosphere — literally, with the constant snowfall and icy sections present — and the foreboding music backs this up to create a genuinely unsettling game.

The overall task is to reunite with your family by competing in a challenge-based TV show. In practice, this involves walking around — there’s quite a lot of walking, but thankfully, a run command makes it much less onerous — exploring warehouses, sewers, and various industrial buildings. Your path is frequently blocked by puzzles which require rearranging objects, turning valves on, and completing timed jumps or opening doors in the right order. …

Undoubtedly, it’s the visual style that initially attracted me to Spiritfarer. I’d been following this game’s development for some time, so I was delighted when it announced during Nintendo’s Indie World Showcase in August. The 2D hand-drawn, cartoon style is reminiscent — to my eye, at least — of Japanese animation studios such as Nippon Animation or Studio Ghibli.

Using JSON-LD for better SEO and other benefits

What is JSON-LD?

JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a highly-structured yet flexible data format that can be used to describe web pages, people, and all sorts of types of data available online.

One high-profile usage is Google’s ‘review snippets’ — small pieces of additional information appearing alongside normal search results. For example, if you search for “interstellar”, you should see something similar to this:

Evergate is a precision puzzle platformer that I recently reviewed for Switch Player Magazine. I concluded that:

Evergate might not quite reach the giddy heights established by other recent releases, but it isn’t one to miss out on either. The graphics are familiar, but they are impeccably produced. The soundtrack is an absolute knockout. And, most important of all, intricate level design combined with playful mechanics and a vast array of challenges make Evergate an addictive, highly replayable delight.

The Survivalists

Strategy survival game The Survivalists — follow-up to The Escapists —launched today on PC, Xbox One, PS4, Switch, and iOS (phew!). Early responses were mixed with criticisms of the combat and controls, although some heaped praise on the graphics and monkey-based mechanics.

#IGCvNES

Indie Gamer Chick continued her series of NES reviews, currently covering Homebrew games — many of which are released on actual physical NES carts, would you believe? Project Blue looks like it’s the standout game.

Star Shaman

VR combat game Star Shaman looks like a weird cross between Ring Fit Adventure and … I-don’t-know-what, Fruit Ninja with planets?! Anyway, this trailer just dropped and the game’s out later this month if you fancy doing whatever she’s doing, and you have a Windows PC setup that can handle it. …