I feel like I'm begging to get my ass kicked by Valve for showing off all of these distinctly unofficial fan games, but if they can take a Guard Dog "fan update" in stride, then maybe — just maybe — the humble Comp 23 entrants won't get torn apart by Saxton Hale.

Of course, being killed in such a way is probably one of the manliest ways for someone to go, so it's pretty win-win.

Anyway, on to the subject of this post: community member Fengol has made himself an awesome little card game inspired by Left 4 Dead and is now proceeding to punt it all around the Internet. At least, I'm hoping he is: it's for a marketing competition after all.

From what I've seen and heard, it's quite the entertaining game with a pretty tight ruleset, and although it's still technically undergoing revisions, there's a fully playable version that you can print out and have a go at with your friends.

I'm personally looking forward to trying this one out at rAge in a few weeks: my printer access is limited and I'm really hankering for a shot. Especially since everybody else who has tried it seems to be enjoying it immensely.

As mentioned before, keep an eye out for more marketing comp highlights from Game.Dev within the next few weeks. And don't be shy about commenting: devs like feedback, as long as you're not spamming them with pictures of naughty bits.

-Nandrew

Everybody knows of Tim Schafer for his contributions to stuff like Grim Fandango and Full Throttle. And he's big in the news nowadays because everyone's gotten their metal horns and amplifiers all tuned up in anticipation for Brutal Legend. I count myself among those mindless hordes, of course. Who can say no to an unholy combination of music and video games, the game with a good splash of Sacrifice in its multiplayer? Of course you can't!

Now, when Schafer's not out supervising while Jack Black makes silly noises into a microphone, or writing (and starring in) satirical little Flash adventure games, he's writing about his past. And quite a colourful past it was; can you believe he signed up to work for Hewlett-Packard? What a loss that would've been. Good thing, then, that they turned him down and he decided to send this ridiculous cover letter to LucasArts (then LucasFilm Games).

Go on and get your full history lesson now over here, and realise that everyone starts at the same place. Even Schafer, whom everyone knows. Odd, then, that nobody ever played Psychonauts.

- Chippit

I spent some time yesterday playing around with Higher!, a charming Flash game which has you trying to lift a house with balloons.

"Definitely worth a mention in Dev.Mag," I thought. "I'm totally going to be the first person on the Internet to talk about this. Everybody will love me forever." Then I checked my RSS feeds and realised that NAG Online had beaten me to the mark. D'oh.

Higher! is a pretty simple game, and even though it's clearly just a relentless grindfest of collecting coins, dodging bombs and fetching more balloons to attach to your house, one kinda gets hooked on it. Maybe it's the soothing piano music, or the charming blue-on-white visuals. It could even be something as droll as the control scheme. Whatever the reason, this game kinda makes you feel like you're lifting a piece of your soul with all of those balloons. That silly old house is just a placeholder sprite.

Serving suggestions: play with a cat on your lap. It just feels like the right thing to do.

-Nandrew

For me, game AI is interesting not in the way that one must make it smart (though this is, undoubtedly, a godlike feat at times), but in the way that one must make it convincing. I like to call this "stupidity coding".

With that in mind, I found this column on GameSetWatch to be relevant to my interests. I forgot to mention it when I first saw it pop up in Gamasutra, so it's nice to have an excuse to bring it up now.

It explains a funny little phenomenon that affects a lot of players: the illusion of unfairness in a system that is, technically, in perfect balance. The piece opens up by citing the apparent "cheating" of computer opponents in Puzzle Quest (a feeling which I totally sympathise with), then goes into a discourse that touches on human psychology as well as what gets to be considered a "fair" AI advantage as opposed to an "unfair" one.

I liked this piece so much, I read it twice. That's commitment for you.

-Nandrew

Chippit recently posted an announcement about Game.Dev's Comp 23 (which, in Internet time, might as well have been years ago). The competition is focused on how well an entrant's game gets marketed, rather than focusing on the game itself: an idea which some may well raise their eyebrows at, but which I personally deem to be quite important. After all, only about 0.001% of the gaming population ever really bothers to hone their mad marketing skizzles, which is a terrible shame and a bit of an obstacle to fame, glory and the rock-n-rolla lifestyle that we all know famous devs enjoy.

I'm particularly proud of one community member's entry, which is an action/puzzle game based on TF2. It's dammit's first game project ever ever ever, and it's already enjoying loads more polish and publicity than most first-timers would ever dare hope for.

This bugger is a valuable example to tout: most beginners quietly drop a piece of haphazard code onto a forum somewhere, make big promises and then don't do anything else about it, either because they're too shy or too lazy. In this case, I like to think that our new dev is receiving a far more encouraging — and exciting — introduction to game development: let's hope this spawns more games in the future!

TF2 Goldrush isn't a very long game, but it's a fun little romp when you have a few minutes to spare. Also, it has achievements in it. Gosh-darn cute, that they are.

I'll try spotlight more Comp 23 entries as the weeks wear on: that's kinda half the point about the "marketing" premise, you know?

-Nandrew