With an international hit like The Settlers of Catan board game, it is easy to look at Klaus Teuber as a success story. He creates a game for his family and it goes on to sell millions! In addition, he has created other games that have won prestigious gaming awards. In the face of such brilliant achievement, many budding game authors feel disheartened. How can they come up with a successful game?

Thomas Edison did not create the light bulb on the first try and Teuber is no different. For every game that goes on to be published, he has many more that remain prototypes or designs that never make it past his workshop. But he has learned to never give up, and that dedication is a huge factor in his success today.

One illustration of Teuber’s dedication comes from his work with a game that didn’t seem to take. Teuber had designed a game based on the adventures of Asterix and Obelix (two characters from a popular French comic book). He carefully created a board and cards by hand and submitted the prototype to the Ravensburger company. After their rejection, he redesigned the game with a theme of knights and dragons. It was rejected again. Teuber decided the game was not worth pursuing. Five years later, the Goldsieber company commissioned a game and Teuber remembered the prototype. He pulled it out and with input from his editing team he retooled it as squirrels hunting for hazelnuts. The game was well received and won the German Award for Children’s Games in 1997.  Read more... (1122 words, 1 image, estimated 4:29 mins reading time)

When the computer game revolution began, users were enthralled with the amazing new technology, but not so much with the selection.  The industry was young, and there were relatively few computer games to choose from.  Then, as popularity grew and technology advanced, the number of available computer games began to increase.

Today, entire teams of programmers, game designers, musicians and artists collaborate to make the industry fun, exciting and profitable.  There are literally thousands of themes and titles readily available for virtually every imaginable genre.  Game prices average at or more.  Big marketers of computer games now offer “shareware”, or sample software that lets users try it before they buy it.  

Another money-saving option for compute game fans is the option to play games online for free.  There are so many free computer games available to play online, it’s guaranteed that you’ll find something you like.  From basic to advanced, easy to skilled, classic titles to hot new releases, you’ll find what you need for some free fun online.  There are so many titles available online, you have to wonder why they are there for free.

Hundreds of free computer games are online.  Here is just a sample of what’s available to download or play:  

*  America’s Army: Your mission is to surpass the rainbow six series. The subject of this online computer game is about busting terrorists.

*  Beneath a Steel Sky: An outstanding racing game with interesting details to keep the player occupied.  Read more... (712 words, 1 image, estimated 2:51 mins reading time)

A number of people play computer games as computer games are fun-packed and allow players to enjoy their time. Computer games are also very exciting and this is one of the reasons of the popularity of computer games. Playing fun-packed computer games is one of the best ways to kill the time and to relax. However, not everyone is in the favor of computer games as people usually spend a lot of time on computer games because of the excitement and fun offered by them.

Also, an individual usually forgets about the real-world problems while playing computer games and this is one of the reasons why not everyone is in the favor of games. However, computer games have a number of benefits as well, but it depends on the player whether he uses computer games in a correct way or not. Excess of anything is not good and this is also applicable to the time spend on computer games. It depends on an individual whether he uses computer games in a beneficial way or not.

Benefits of computer games

An individual can improve the decision-making skills by playing computer games. In strategy based computer games, the player needs to make optimal use of limited resources in order to complete the missions. A plan has to be developed in order to use resources efficiently and to make a perfect plan, a number of things are to be considered and a number of decisions are to be made. Generally, the player needs to think ahead of the current situation and develop appropriate plans.  Read more... (588 words, 1 image, estimated 2:21 mins reading time)

Board games are one of the oldest civilized artifacts that have been found by archaeologists during their expeditions. It shows a level of culture within the civilization and helps modern day anthropologists to gage the level of sophistication that the culture might have experienced. Some of the games found date back many thousands of years BC and in a few cases, examples of what are believed to be board games were discovered in cultures that didn’t even have common literacy levels. Board games have always been a great form of entertainment as well as a unique teaching tool, which may be a large part of the reason that they not only date back into ancient history, but have remained a part of culture to this day.

Senet is the oldest game that has ever been discovered during excavations. First discovered when exploring the remains of the Predynastic Egyptian culture from around 3500 BC, Senet was very much a part of the Egyptian world by 1300 BC, when it began to become a feature painted on the walls of the grand tombs of the pyramids. It seems that Senet became a traditional part of spiritual life for the Egyptians as well, serving almost as a talisman for the treacherous journey in the afterlife. There is an element of luck in the game and this, when paired with the Egyptian belief in determinism, successful players were considered to have special protection granted to them by the gods. Many different Egyptians were often buried with their Senet boards among other objects and even in the famed Egyptian Book of the Dead, the game is given special attention.  Read more... (560 words, estimated 2:14 mins reading time)

Open up your Xbox or Ps3 and modify it and then start copying your game is not a good idea any more.

Because if you attempt to open an account or you use an existing account on for example Xbox Live, it is only a matter of time before you will get banned from the network for a lifetime. The gaming industry including Microsoft has no tolerance what so ever for any copied game on Xbox Live.

The zero tolerance policy put us gamers in a bad situation, because we do not want to lose our favorite games because of scratches and then have to buy a new copy of the game, because there is no money back on games.

Happily there is good news for us gamers. There is a software solution on the problem, new game burning software that manage to create an exact 1:1 copy of your favorite game and even overwrite software codes there might be hidden on the DVD.

The way I prefer to do it is to get a big hard drive for my computer, and then use the software to create ISOs of the original games, and whenever you need a new copy of the game, you just use the game burning software and burn a copy from the ISO you have stored on your hard drive.

You just have to make sure to use the right DVD format which is DVD 9 for Xbox 360 games, then the game burning software takes care of the rest.  Read more... (455 words, estimated 1:49 mins reading time)