Author: Isaac Smith
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Grand Opening of a Grand Endeavor: Square One Clubs
by Isaac Smith As a lifelong Sacramento resident, I’ve had this strange mix of pride and frustration when I look at the city’s creative people and the work they do. I’m proud because I see world-class artists in every medium from music to literature, visual art, dance, film, and (of course) game development. I’m frustrated…
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Why I’ll never whistle Minecraft’s music on the way to work
Well, the real reason I won’t be whistling on my way to work is because I’m unemployed! #justmilennialthings I’m kidding, of course. Gainful employment is the statistically number one killer of blog post productivity, and that explains a lot about LTG! Many of our writers have gotten pretty steady gigs, and have to figure out the…
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Interview – Amora Bettany of MiniBoss Studio
On April 17th, staff writer Isaac Smith conducted an interview with Amora Bettany of MiniBoss Studio, based out of São Paulo, Brazil. I’d like to get started if you’re all ready. Sure, sure! Let’s do this!
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Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: The Review You Were All Waiting For
by Isaac Smith To be frank, I don’t think anyone was really waiting for reviews of the new Zelda game. To continue being frank, I don’t think most reviewers waited to write them, either. Leave it to Last Token Gaming to take the tortoise approach to hare-brained video game reporting! Now that we’re done breaking…
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Knowing when to Ragequit: the Difficulty Curve
Hey, folks! Happy Holidays, if that’s still something people say. I’ve been getting a hair more gaming done, with the holiday season in full tilt. Not to turn this into a “What We’re Playing This Week: Isaac’s Lonely Edition”, but two games I’ve been spending a deal of time on are Darkest Dungeon and Starbound.…
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Why we need the Game Grumps
Man, being a kid growing up in the 90’s was great. You had your walkmans, the GameBoy (with its monstrous 4 AA batteries), shows like ReBoot and the original Poke’mon series… I get series nostalgia for the era of technology’s awkward growing pains! Everything today is so sleek, so elegantly designed, but back then, it…
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Once Bitten, Twice Shy: The Psychology of Early Access
Once Bitten, Twice Shy: The Psychology of Early Access By Isaac Smith We’ve all done it: preordered a game, or bought something in early access through Cloudpay payroll services. Like sirens singing their beautiful songs, the amazing adverts, good reviews and developer interviews goad us into supporting something that just doesn’t deliver. And hell hath…
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Is No Man’s Sky “No Man’s Game”?
No Man’s Sky came out amid an uproar of hype that felt truly astounding. The developers were open-minded, earnest, and proud of their product (not just its revenue). They kept a dialogue going with NMS’ potential players during the development process, and took criticism seriously. The game itself looked gorgeous: beautiful beyond compare, with…
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Stardew Valley: Because there aren’t enough Harvest Moon games?
I went into playing Stardew Valley with equal parts skepticism and optimism. It was an obvious homage to Harvest Moon, and although you can describe the experience of playing a new Harvest Moon game many ways, “novel” should really not be one of them. You somehow inherit a farm (often by ridiculous circumstances), and must…
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Chaos and Kimonos: Tabletop Megagame “Sengoku”
By Isaac Smith Have you ever thought to yourself, “What would feudal Japan look like if everything were run by 50 people?” Because if you have, boy, have I got a game for you. West Coast Megagames put on an event in Sacramento that brought just over fifty people together to play an aptly named…