Classic games have been imitated since Pong. Asteroids came only a few years later, but is constantly being retrofitted for new audiences. Look up Asteroids on GGE and you will receive no less than 25 results, from RoidRage to Rock Dodger. The following are just 2 unique adaptions of the classic space blaster:

Asteroid’s Revenge is played with literally the same graphics and art as the original. So what’s new about it? This time around you play as an asteroid, smashing into the evil spaceships that have decimated generations of innocent space rock. The idea alone makes this game worth playing. Combined with the tried and true gameplay (reversed, of course) of the original, there really is no reason to not spend a few minutes with this game.

Echoes certainly does echo the look and gameplay of the original Asteroids, but the adrenaline infusion of fast-paced confusion that this iteration inflicts on the player is something entirely new. Step 1 of the instructions let you know that the game is as straightforward as the original: “Shoot Stuff.” It’s step 2 of the instructions that makes you worry: “Die.” And that’s exactly what you’ll do; but not before you blast away and hordes of space debris is what can only be described as survival, rather than attack.

Memorial weekend is a great time to relax, enjoy the company of friends and family, and of course play games.  Gotta love the three day weekends!

New GGE Features:

This week we introduced the Anticipation Meter for games that are currently unreleased.  This way your friends can know how excited you are about the impending release of a game rather than rating a game you’ve never played.  That didn’t make much sense now did it?  We didn’t think so either.  So we’ve done something about it.

Look for this image when you are browsing around the games and show your anticipation!

Games on GGE:

Here on GGE you may have heard, seen or even played a little game called Space Trader.  Well they’ve undergone a complete makeover of their website and I must say it looks quite shiny.  I suggest you check out the demo and if you like it, pre-orders are available through their site.  Remember you’ve got at least 3 days this weekend to check it out. 

Site News:

As you have probably noticed, the Great Games Experiment is now well over 10,000 users.  iamthefox being the 10,000th person to create an account.  You can read more about the accomplishment here.  Thanks to everyone that has signed up and is helping to make GGE a success.

Keep a lookout next week for some new site features, I won’t tell you what it is yet, but it looks really cool so far. 

Have a great three day weekend everyone.

Earlier today, Iamthefox became the 10,000th user to sign up for the GreatGamesExperiment. To celebrate, we’ve decided to give Iamthefox his choice of any 2 games from the GarageGames Game Store!

Congrats to Iamthefox, and to the first 9,999 users, for helping make GGE a success! Along with 10,000+ users, GGE is also steadily closing in on 4,000 games. We’ll keep you updated on further milestones as the site and community continues to build.

Some of you may have noticed yesterday that a slight change was made to the game pages. Now, when you add a game, you are given the choice to enter a release year, or check that a game has not yet been released. If the game has not been released yet, you will see on the game page an anticipation meter instead of the standard rating. This is due in part to the Starcraft 2 page, and the discussion over rating games that you can’t even play yet. We thought it was a good idea to make this rating more applicable, and bam! Anticipation Meter.

The rating is as easy as ever, only with a new set of descriptions for each rating level: 1) Not interested; 2) Not Impressed; 3) Indifferent; 4) Pretty Excited; 5) Totally Psyched. Use these ratings to let every know how excited, or not excited you are about upcoming games. On a last note, don’t forget to change the game to released once it is published so that the ratings can really begin.

Well I don’t know about you guys but this week went by really fast for me.  Time for the Friday Round-Up. 

Let’s start with new features:

The sweet new Widget and Screenshot Modules

If you haven’t noticed it yet you’ve either been hiding under a rock or simply missed Sean’s blog post about “Spicin’ Things Up!“  That’s alright if you aren’t in the know…I’m here to help.  Basically, this new widget is a way to show off your gamelists around the web, in fancy flash fashion.  All you need to do is head to Gamelist Central, create a gamelist, fill out all the good stuff, and when you’re ready to publish, just copy the embed code and paste everywhere imaginable.  It’s sure to catch people’s eyes.  That’s mine.

The new screenshot module is just as cool looking.  Head to pretty much any game page and you’ll see what I mean.  For the lazy people here’s a link to Cat With Bow Golf.  For the extremely lazy people here’s a screenshot of the screenshot module.

Games:

Speaking of Cat With Bow Golf, Play It!  It’s got a somewhat ridiculous name but it’s actually quite fun.  Here’s a link to the Play Now! section so you don’t have to work to find it.  Cat With Bow Golf is a physics based game where you shoot an arrow towards a target and the cat is dragged along.  I like it.  Oh yeah, feel free to post scores here or in the comments section, so far I’ve got -32.

Miscellaneous:

Lastly I wanted to inform everyone of a new group that has started up on GGE.  Aptly named The GGE Clan, the plan is to play games with the awesome people of GGE.  Hoping to start servers up this summer with Tribes, Tribes 2, and America’s Army, but I’m sure we’ll be open to suggestions for other games as well.  So join up and let’s play!  How’s that for recruiting. ;)

That’s about it this week.  I’m sure I missed something this time, but I don’t know what it is.  Enjoy your weekend.

Those of you who keep a serious watch on the site may have noticed a few more new features, a little less obvious than those shiny new gallery modules and gamelist widgets. I am talking, of course, about the new media kit and logo kit now available. They can be found at the very bottom of nearly all the pages on GGE, and are there for your use.

The media kit is a brief explanation of the sites purpose, what you can do on the site and why GGE is helpful to gamers, developers and publishers alike. The logo kit is simply a collection of all our banners and buttons of various sizes. Use these however you like, wherever you want, simply copy and paste the html. Here are a few samples:

We hope these additions will help new users understand what GGE is about and all that it can be used for but also let some of our more dedicated users share the love and compliment those badges and gamelist widgets with a nice banner or button.

With all these awesome features flying around Great Games Experiment these days, it’s becoming much easier to really define your Gamer Identity both on and off the site.

Last week, we made friendships and relationships become just a little more important to everybody by introducing the “My Feed” portion of your dashboard. To me, nothing is cooler than logging in first thing in the morning and seeing all the ratings, comments, kudos, reviews that my friends have posted while I was sleeping and regenerating for another day of coding and fun in the “GGE Pit”. I even added the RSS feed of “My Feed” to my Google Reader. This way I’m sure not to miss a beat of all the activity in my internal network here on Great Games Experiment. Of course, Jacob’s awesome RSS creation skills have made that feed convenient & easy to use with well placed links to all the recent activity in your feed. Click that “subscribe” button of your “My Feed” to add it to your favorite RSS reader.

This morning, things got really spicy here in the GGE kitchen when we added a couple of new Flash components to the site.

We now have new and improved Screenshot Modules for profiles. All of the old screenshot modules have been upgraded to utilize the new Flash animation. The introduction of Flash for these modules will help solve some cross browser compatibility issues and generally provide a better experience when viewing images for a game / user / group.

Also, we’re working hard to make it easier for you to define your Gamer Identity on GGE and take it wherever you please across the web. A major step in this process is the creation of a Gamelist Widget (for showing off your gamelists of course). Go create a gamelist, and when you get to the publishing phase, be sure to publish it out as a Widget and snag the embed code available. Go paste this code on your blogs or wherever you’d like. It’s an awesome way to show off the games you are playing right now, your favorite games, or games you can’t wait to come out!

Also, don’t forget to share and show off your Gamer Identity with your badges!

So there’s been a lot of action going on lately around GGE.  Let’s get started with all the goodies.

First the Navbar has been redesigned and added a Gamelist section header.  Now it’s easier to get those gamelists set up — and there’s more features with the Gamelists coming soon, very cool stuff.  Keep your eyes peeled.  

Speaking of Gamelists, you may have noticed the featured gamelist on the front page.  It changes daily, so if you want to be on the coveted front page all you have to do is create a good gamelist with comments and we’ll sniff you out and get you your moment.  

One of the newest cool features that has been integrated into the site recently is the News Feed in your account page.  Now you can see what’s happening with your friends, the games that you’ve bookmarked, groups, and multiple other areas of the site all in one easy to find location.  You can even subscribe to the news feed as it churns out an RSS feed.  Get updates from anywhere!

;

Finally, one little update that should make everyone’s lives a bit easier.  The help tab has made it’s way back to the navbar!  In the form of a question mark you can have most of your answers about GGE solved very quickly.  And don’t worry, we’re working on making the help docs even more comprehensive with tips and tricks to get your games out there and how to navigate the site in general.  Oh yeah, the home tab is now a house!  Yup, that’s about all I got for now.  Have a good weekend everyone.

We are gonna mix it up today and give you a little personal interest story. GarageGames has recently brought in a new intern, Matt Ostgard, who is going to be working on various art projects. Matt’s road to GarageGames was such a good story that we felt many of you GGE users would like to read about it. It all started when Matt was awarded the prize for one of GGE’s contests, specifically the GDC ticket raffle. Matt had already planned on going to GDC, had the plane ticket already in fact, so winning tickets came as a pleasant surprise. Like most people trying to get into the gaming biz, Matt made the wise decision of taking his portfolio along with him.

While at GDC, Matt decided to stop by the GarageGames booth. Matt had known about GarageGames for a while, being a big fan of Tribes, and a member of GGE during its closed beta. Our very own Tim Aste was rather impressed with the work, and Matt was eventually offered an internship. After weighing his options, and meeting all of the crew here, he decided this was the place to be and is excited to be here. Head to his GGE page to see his portfolio, it’s awesome.

A veritable bevy of new Play Now games have been added to GGE in recent days. Two of which–Indestructo Tank and Dolphin Olympics–have been gnawing away more of our time than their simplistic gameplay would suggest possible.

How do these games pull this off? Some of it has to do with the simplicity of course: the arrow keys are all you need for either game. In Indestructo Tank, your Tank doesn’t actually have any weapons. Instead you use your tank to crash into and destroy as many enemies as possible, stringing together huge airborne combos along the way. Much like a Hummer, your only weakness is your fuel consumption. Run out of fuel before you pass on to the next level and you’re finished.

Coincidently, Dolphin Olympics contains no weaponry either, and the gameplay is essentially the same. In fact, you can almost use the same sentence to describe both games: You use your [dolphin] to [launch] into [the air] and [pull off] as many [sick tricks] as possible, stringing together huge airborne combos along the way. There’s a time limit instead of a fuel gauge in Dolphin Olympics, but you get the picture.

Another factor that keeps us four-keying our way to massive scores is the inclusion of online high score tables with multiply categories. Well, we could never be skilled enough (or have enough spare time) to even attempt to approach the Everestian heights of the current high scores, but it does allow us to compete against each other at work. And seeing frustration contorting a coworker’s face as they fall just short of besting one of the (very few) record I currently hold is like manna for my soul.

I could go on about the similarities between the games, and why they’re so addictive; unrealistic, but consistent and satisfying physics; simple, but difficult to master gameplay; instantly accessible and recognizable controls… but maybe you should just try them for yourself–Mark just beat my combo score on Indestructo Tank, so I gotta get on that.