When Soma was first looking at the video game business about four years ago the biggest barrier to entry was cost and distribution. That may look like a subject-verb-mismatch but the two things are so intricately related that they might as well be seen as a single issue. Indie games cost less to make but…
Herman Melville once said “The reason the mass of men fear God, and at bottom dislike him, is because they rather distrust His heart and fancy him all brain, like a watch.” Alas – how true this is that so many folks have really only heard about God’s seemingly insensitive expectations, his rules, and they…
If you’ve ever received the dismissive glare of your mother-in-law as you talk about the mad exploits of Master Chief or Marcus Fenix the you know that there is a major awareness gap in America that lies somewhere between 40 and 50 years of age. On one side of that line are folks for whom…
Trying to learn what we can from such an excellent game I found their execution of the Hero’s Journey tale brilliant. It also hit all the themes John Eldredge would appreciate: A battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue. Except here the beauty is a space marine who’d just as well deck you as kiss you. (Never mind Liara, she’s odd) ME was able to hit all the points of the classic hero formula without ever feeling formulaic and that is hard to do. As I was playing through the game I found myself watching cut scenes that were so classic in their direction that it reminded me of some old hero movie like Sparticus or something, and BioWare wrote this borderline melodramatic tale without any hint of the self-aware post-modern junk I see so often these days.
(The Following is a reprint of a story from the October issue of Christian News Northwest) By EDWIN OUELLETTE – CNNW intern reporter NEWBERG — After releasing its first iPhone app game G in April to rave reviews, local indie game development company Soma Games is working on a sequel. The thinker-puzzle game G is set in a futuristic,…
This post is gonna be a little tricky. I just finished playing a new release called “Heaven” by Genesis Works. It’s a puzzle type game in the style of Myst that lets the player explore the Throne Room city described in Revelation. Here’s why this is gonna be hard, Heaven sits firmly in the class…
“Too Human” is an excellent game from the story perspective and we’re all about the story, but level design needs to be better to prevent the player from getting bored before the story gets told…
Dark Glass will lean toward the darker and morally ambiguous aspects of life as it examines grittier subjects than Soma’s previous games. Will our audience accept this state or will we be criticized for ‘loving the darkness’ too much?
I ran into an interesting post the other day that asks whether or not the Nazi’s are forgivable. The post is up and over too quickly to really chew on the question but it raises some thoughts to mind about how a story portrays good and evil. It sure seems to me that growing up…
A book about Christians being active and influential in various social ‘mountains’ really whets Somas whistle. We’ve always seen ourselves as change agents in an industry that lacks any Christian voice…looks like we’re not alone in that mission.