What's Hot:

• Name Your Own Price Bundle
• The Night of the Rabbit
• Star Command
• Fez

Just in case anyone misconstrues that headline, I want to reiterate that Ron Gilbert IS NOT planning on making a new Monkey Island game. He hasn’t gone so far as to say he never would, but it isn’t in the cards for the time being. A man can daydream, however, and Gilbert did just that in a recent post on his Grumpy Gamer blog.

Like many other companies, Zynga is biding its time until real money online and mobile gambling games are legalized in the United States. But by looking at the games Zynga has already introduced in places like the United Kingdom, we can get a pretty good idea of what American players can look forward to when the social gaming giant is able to roll them out on this side of the Atlantic.

18 Cadence is the latest work from interactive fiction writer Aaron A. Reed, creator of Blue Lacuna.  While not a game in any standard sense of the word, this “story kit” is an interactive experience that allows you to send more than just a high score to the world: you are enabled and encouraged to share your own story or poem with other reader-creators, and to explore what they have shared as well.  It’s a potentially endless cycle of inspiration and creation, originating from Reed’s own offerings.

An ancient house and a group of strangers brought together under mysterious circumstances: that's the set-up for any number of horror movies, but it's also the backdrop for something less sinister and more intellectually stimulating in The Time Tribe. This free-to-play, point-and-click adventure is suitable for all but the youngest gamers, and it uses a variety of means to tell a pretty engrossing story.

I've played a lot of CCG battle games, so you can trust me when I say that most are the same old, same old - collect virtual cards, upgrade them and then "battle" other players by comparing yours to theirs to see who has the bigger number. It's a genre that has lizard-brain appeal to the obsessive-compulsive collector gene in all of us, but as far as actual gameplay goes it tends to be less than impressive. Tekken Card Tournament takes the opposite approach: The collecting part isn't great, but there's some real gaming to be found inside and it's not too bad at all.

The gaming world seems to move at incredible speeds these days, where the instant gratification of playing all the latest games the second they’re released has become a high selling point in the industry. But how many times have you bought a new release at midnight, only to anxiously wait another whole hour while the title has to download and install on your device? We already know that some of the next-gen game consoles like Sony’s PlayStation 4 plan to remedy this need of having patience, by allowing instant streaming of any game on their network while the rest of the game is being downloaded quietly in the background as you play.

Tekken Card Tournament is a free-to-play card game where you fight offline and online opponents and collect cards. Gamezebo’s quick start strategy guide will provide you with detailed images, tips, information, and hints on how to play your best game.

The “mobile first” mantra has become increasingly popular when it comes to creating games that are going to end up on smartphones and tablets, but MMORPGs made specifically for those devices are still rare. Game Insight's Dragon Eternity can call itself one of the few and the proud, but while it scores high marks on the design front, it's a little too jumbled and confusing to call a complete success.

As we discussed in an article a few weeks back, the online gambling boom is fast approaching. States like New Jersey and Delaware have made significant inroads towards legalizing it in their regions, and all signs point to more states (or possibly even the federal government) following suit. So, with such massive change coming, what better time to peruse a lengthy infographic on the subject?

I was two days into Game Developer Conference when I went mute.

It came out of nowhere early Wednesday evening. Somehow, my vocal chords had become fried, leaving me whispering and whimpering – especially when I thought about the two days of meetings I still had left on my schedule. 

The year is 1891.  Anthony Beechwood, alone in his mansion’s attic, hangs himself.  A final letter that he has mailed to his lifelong friend, J. Devitt, arrives with only the phrase “Videte ne quis sciat” scrawled across the page.  Devitt recognizes this code from their time spent together at a school for scientific study, and that Beechwood must be in trouble.  He leaves immediately to find his friend and offer his support, putting in motion the first events of The Last Door: Chapter One – The Letter.   

Maybe it’s just me, but that seasonal transition – the winter-to-spring of it – makes March seem like the longest month ever.  Also, the whole “31 days” thing doesn’t help.  But doesn’t it feel even longer than that?  Thankfully, this past March gave us plenty of good games to help us while away our end-of-winter doldrums!

Jesse Schell, former Disney Imagineer and current professor at Carnegie Mellon University, is what you call a forward thinker. Nearly every talk he’s given in recent years has been about where he thinks games are headed, and how they’ll influence the world around us. His talk at this year's GDC was no different. He discussed, amongst other things, what he considers to be the future of storytelling in games. In typical Schell fashion, it was compelling, it was optimistic, and best of all, it was bold.

PlayFirst, a global leader of casual family games and the creators of the popular Diner Dash franchise have announced today their hiring of Tom Hall, the industry veteran who brought us such genre smashing hits as DOOM and Wolfenstein 3D. The announcement seems to continue the ongoing trend of mobile developers scooping up some serious talent, which is certainly a good thing for all of us who own a tablet or smartphone!

Free-to-play may be a major part of our industry these days, but not everyone’s a fan. From outspoken Internet commentors to developers concerned with how it influences game design, there’s long been an undercurrent of negative backlash just below the model’s wave of success. Brenda Romero falls somewhere in the middle of all this. There are things she can’t stand about the model, and other aspects she enjoys. In her GDC talk, titled “Free-to-Play: The Morning After,” Romero provided the audience with a summary of her feelings, as well as her personal experience with free-to-play gaming.

Few developers are capable of tripping players out like Keita Takahashi. Best known as the maestro behind the Katamari series and the equally weird Noby Noby Boy, he has a knack for designing kooky, charming, and occasionally downright crazy games. Tenya Wanya Teens, one of his latest, follows in those footsteps quite nicely, and in fact might be his oddest release yet.

At a time when states are struggling to make up lost revenues, online gambling is starting to look like a safe bet.

Last month, New Jersey became the third state after Delaware and Nevada to legalize Internet gaming with legislators in other states such as California, Pennsylvania and Illinois moving to introduce similar proposals.

It’s hard to tell when you only look at the mainstream coverage, but video games are a vast, all-encompassing medium. No matter who you are or how you live, chances are good that there’s a game out there tailored to your sensibilities. To take that even further, chances are good that said game can be found on Free Indie Games. Run by Terry Cavanagh (Super Hexagon), Porpentine, and a few other indie enthusiasts, the site aims to highlight the best under-the-radar indie games on the market.

Jagex has formally announced today what many die-hard RuneScape fans have been expecting: RuneScape 3 will be releasing this summer. In conjunction with this exciting and highly anticipated news, Jagex has also released an announcement trailer for the game, which functions as a “Behind the Scenes” feature, and a means of showing off the new bells and whistles in the upcoming installment.

Greetings, Gamezebo readers! As some of you may know, today marks the first day of the Game Developers Conference (GDC). Because we’re in the business of providing as much awesome content as we possibly can, we’re totally in attendance! Brace yourselves for a steady stream of interviews, game previews, and other fun content! Exclamation points!