The great adventure of publishing

Some important news about Mogworld (my book coming soon buy it buy it): there's going to be a little postponement on the release date. Nothing to worry about, just some technical cock up at the printers apparently, so we're now looking at an on-sale date of September 8th. And presumably the Mana Bar signing event will be around then too. Update your diaries.

It's cool, the book's still good. At least, I presume so. Maybe the publishers are just telling me this to let me down gently because the book's actually crap. I've been out with girls who used the same tactic.

Anyway, this week's Extra Punctuation is on the subject of exploration as a gameplay mechanic, and continued tongue baths for Shadow of the Colossus. Here's the clip.

"I think the use of exploration for its own merits is something that's been neglected lately. I can think of a lot of open world sandbox games that seem to actively discourage it; the ones with dreary, repetitive environments, a minimap you will spend half the game staring at, and a live GPS system to hold your hand in case the freedom gets a little bit too scary. I'm thinking of you, Red Faction Guerrilla."