Taro Omiya

Taro Omiya

Software Engineer, Game Designer

Author: Taro Omiya

  • Strange Free Games: The Stanley Parable

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    Last time, I introduced a game that provided an innovative narrative by allowing you to freely decide which way the story should go. Here’s a game that does just the opposite: The Stanley Parable tells you what you should do, then sees if you’ll comply or not. The Stanley Parable is a Half Life 2…

  • Weekly Game Music: Kingdom of Ixataka (Skies of Arcadia)

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    Since Thanksgiving is fast approaching, here’s a game music themed after the Native American’s (or arguably, African’s) instruments. Here’s the theme from the game, Skies of Arcadia: Kingdom of Ixataka, composed by Yutaka Minobe and Takayuki Maeda. This tune is only one of many drastically diverse cultural tracks the game has. As you can probably…

  • Collapse! Blast Review

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    I have fond memories of Collapse!, by Gamehouse, back in high school. It was a simple and fun game during the rise of flash games. Playing Collapse! Blast on Google+ brings back many of those memories, but I find it difficult to find the original charm the old game had. The directions to play Collapse!…

  • Strange Free Games: Façade

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    Here’s an old but extremely unique free game. Façade is a game created back in 2005, with ugly graphics, terrible animation, and shoddy cell-shading all intact. Despite these problems, though, Façade‘s terrifyingly original game concepts is often used as a pinnacle of Video Game narrative, where you, the player, ultimately guide the story. Façade is…

  • Strange Free Games: The Cat and the Coup

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    On Google+, I started a new series of posts called #StrangeFreeGames. Each post will introduce a game that is free, and a bit strange. I hope by introducing these surreal games, the theme will be better explored by game developers in the future. With that said, the first game is The Cat and the Coup,…

  • Triple Town Review

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    Triple Town is a puzzle game developed by Spryfox. Due to its beta state, features such as the menu are missing. That said, just by the gameplay alone, Triple Town is one of my favorite Google+ games due to its complexity hidden under its simple rules. The premise behind Triple Town is simple: connect 3…