Nite Fite
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Nite Fite is a game that doesn’t need you

Playing videogames is overrated. This is, I’ll grant you, not a position that videogame writers tend to take. In varying measures, we are known to value continued employment, professional relevance, and the grudging tolerance of our readers. There are, however, pleasures to be gleaned from videogames even if you don’t play them. Damian Sommer’s Nite Fite, which was created for the most recent TOJam (Toronoto Game Jam), is a perfect test of this theory. The game, which has all the trappings of an early 8-bit videogame, plays itself. Four abstract characters start in their own corners and swirl weapons in progressively larger…

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Chesh reinvents Chess for the people

Sign up to receive each week’s Playlist e-mail here! Also check out our full, interactive Playlist section. Chesh (iOS) Damian Sommer It seems nothing is safe from the dubstep-happy clutches of remix culture, not even the ancient and tried game of chess. Damian Sommer’s new iOS game Chesh can be thought of as chess if chess was a person who went to Firefly, took MDMA, and had a “life changing experience” while listening to DEADMAU5. Like many remixes, Chesh is pretty selective about what it borrows from the original. There’s still a heavy turn-based strategy element to the board. But instead of…

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Chesh is the drunken, rule-breaking sister of Chess

What would happen if Chess could get drunk? Would the knight fall off their horse? Would the queen take a fancy to one of the pawns? Would the rook go diagonally? This is what the slur-titled Chesh looks to explore. It’s the next game from Damian Sommer, who has already mixed up the choose-your-own-adventure game with the IGF-nominated The Yawhg, and now we find him throwing grog down the dusty throat of a classic board game. The hooligan! But no, Sommer’s idea is pretty smart, potentially opening up Chess to new players by ditching all of its centuries-old rules. All of them?…