Brandon Boyer

Gimme Indie Game: the hyper-real surreality of Vectorpark's WINDOSiLL

Like James 'presstube/insertsilence' Paterson, the Flash creations Patrick Smith has been creating over the past five plus years as 'Vectorpark' haven't quite penetrated the games industry's consciousness as much as they should have, and maybe fair enough: his earliest creations like Levers and especially later updates like FeedTheHead were as much interactive toys as anything (the line's blurrier with Park, which initially bears an uncanny thematic resemblance to Amanita's later Samorost).

But that's fully changed with Windosill, Smith's latest creation, where each single screen has a single goal to progress to the next: namely, finding a single pink cube via simple point/click/drag interactions which will unlock the right-hand door of each diorama.

But even still, it's not necessarily the rules of the game that are the draw as much as the successively more involved exploration that takes place in each area to get to that block, all a culmination of (and with overt throwbacks to) objects of Smith's earlier output.

And that exploration wouldn't be nearly as rewarding were it not for Smith's ability to somehow have teased out (with the aid, I can only conclude, of some dark, black magic) easily the greatest sense of physicality Flash (still, remember, an essentially 2D toolkit) has ever produced. Everything has such a well defined heft and tension, everything responds to your prodding with just the right amount of 'squishiness', that even its most surreal concoctions feel fantastically alive.

The free demo version of the game will get you roundabout halfway through, and, it should be said up front, it's absolutely worth the $3 pittance Smith asks to continue on to the end, as there's one single screen -- and it kills me to not splash it all over the page here -- that so perfectly both bends the rules of the game up to that point and typifies that magically-alive hyper-reality that it's worth the admission alone.

Download Windosill here, explore Smith's back catalog via Vectorpark proper, and see more of his traditional art via Smithpixdaily and his now defunct co-edited magazine The Ganzfeld.

Windosill [Vectorpark]

Brandon Boyer

Folders League United: trogdoriangrey's Team Fortress papercraft

'trogdoriangrey' has created a papercraft template for what might be the cutest Team Fortress 2 character set ever, which covers the full lineup outside the above, and accessories for each (not pictured: the Sniper and his trusty rifle, and the Scout with his slugger).

Trog's even gone so far as to add supplementary items like the sentry turret, and, via the photobucket repository, has a long list of other comic book and game creations like Gordon Freeman, Samus Aran, Resident Evil, Metal Gear, and even the second Castle Crashers knight that's cropped up this week.

trogdoriangrey > papercraft [photobucket, via hellforge]

Brandon Boyer

More Meggy music: Darius Kazemi/Josh Brandt's MeggySeqSynth

Every new video weakens my resolve: Darius Kazemi has uploaded new video of his previously mentioned MeggySynth, only now, he's combined it with Josh Brandt's sequencer MeggySeq for a standalone programmable/freestyle device.

More videos are available via his flickr, including a few of Everyday Shooter creator Jon Mak making his own Meggy music.

MeggySeqSynth Demo [flickr]

Brandon Boyer

Hard hat arena: first concept art from Flashbang's Crane Wars

One last Flashbang update before the big touchdown tomorrow: the last time we saw their Crane Wars it was in very early prototype form, but the studio tells me that the half that wasn't working on bringing Paper Moon up to date has been nose down on Crane.

To prove it, they've sent along this first teaser concept image, which, alongside the original (and still playable) prototype, is giving me even greater hopes for a more personified and arcade like Blast Corps than I'd had initially.

Brandon Boyer

The cardboard sea: see Infinite Ammo's new Paper Moon in motion

With just a single short day to go before its new web-embedded release via Blurst, Infinite Ammo are showing off their updated Paper Moon in motion, giving you the full effect of how its various paper-cut planes will operate (if you're one of the few that recall Wario's foray onto the Virtual Boy, you should feel basically at home).

Designer Alec Holowka has said that like the short-burst arcade games that make up the majority of Flashbang's own Blurst output, Paper Moon will have a time limit, but promises it'll be "more flexible" than you might expect.

No word yet, though, whether it'll retain an overt or hidden option for the original's stereoscopic rendering.

New Paper Moon Trailer [Infinite Ammo]

Brandon Boyer

Media Molecule, Sony Europe giving away free Sackboy toy to every UK citizen

And now, as with their local collaboration with culture mag Vice, Media Molecule (actually, Sony Europe) gives us another reason to wish we were in the UK: every "every man, woman and child of the UK and Ireland" are due to receive a free woolen Sackboy, simply for subscribing to the recently established official LittleBigPlanet UK YouTube channel.

After subscribing, sending your address to Sony either via Youtube or an email to littlebigplanet@scee.net will net you the toy, which I'm presuming is the mini-knit keychain version launched in Japan shortly after the game, pictured above.

Rest of the world: time to ring up your UK friends, then, or work feverishly and jealously on a custom knit of your own.

Free Sackboy for every man, woman and child of the UK [Media Molecule]

Brandon Boyer

One shot: mousevomit's Nintendo Entertainment System Mouse

Sadly, purely a design concept created in foam.

Nintendo Entertainment System Mouse [mousevomit, via Tom]

Brandon Boyer

Destroy all monsters: play Defender on your Bandcamp stats

Spotted by Tom and even more wicked than ESPN's Konami code web-hack that made the rounds earlier in the week: flickr user (and apparent Second Life enthusiast? Second Life employee) Torley has just discovered that his Bandcamp stats page holds a secret -- a playable version of Defender overlaid on his traffic graph.

The best part, notes Tom: "the more popular your band pages, the harder Defender gets."

torley.bandcamp.com [flickr video, via Tom]

Brandon Boyer

Core rush: Gaijin tease next WiiWare Bit.Trip game

A low-bit rainbow-pixellated bird -- the same one, obviously, as flew in to alert me to hidden envelopes being discovered around San Fransisco during GDC -- has again dropped in with this new image, whispered something unintelligible about the next volume in Gaijin Games' Bit.Trip series, touched a single wing-feather to the side of its beak, and flown off without a trace.

His appearance has reminded me, too, that I've still yet to make it through even the first challenge of the original Beat -- so much for worries that the game would be all-show and no-play -- though I did watch with no small amount of stupefied wonder as Flashbang's Ben Ruiz quietly showed the rest of a small GDC party up by making his way through on his first attempt.

He remained stoic throughout: the only sign of weakness was a single bead of sweat slowly tracing a line down his forehead.

Bit.Trip: Beat [Aksys, Gaijin]

Brandon Boyer

One shot: Super Mario Graveyard

Super Mario graveyard, purportedly by Bill Mudron [via GamOvr]

Brandon Boyer

One shot: Namco's Katamari Forever

Katamari Tribute home [katamaridamacy.jp]

Brandon Boyer

Home invasion: Backbone/Taito's Space Invaders Extreme print

I don't often make much ado of the press swag that filters its way into the Offworld offices (though I can say that drinking my morning joe out of a Minotaur China Shop mug regularly makes my day [and I've yet to smash it in clumsy rage]), but sometimes there comes an object too good to not capture for posterity.

Case in point, the contents of today's golden padded envelope: a Space Invaders Extreme print signed by original series creator Tomohiro Nishikado, to mark the occasion of next week's downloadable release, courtesy Taito and console-version developer Backbone.

My wrist-tattoo invaders glowed on opening the package, as if they'd been waiting their entire lives to be reunited.

Brandon Boyer

Dunny a day: Reactor88's Dr. Mario vinyl viruses

From the same custom creator as the previously mentioned Dig Dug Dunnys and timed perfectly with yesterday's perfect musical drug: Reactor88's fantastic set of Dr. Mario viruses.

In other games-related custom news, toycutter has spotted new work by ruben1553 (he of the excellent actually-frozen Frozen Caveman that made the rounds last year), including more than a handful of BioShock, Zelda, Starfox and Castle Crashers Munnys that make up for in inspired character choices what they might lack in subtle brushwork.

Dr. Mario Virus Dunny Set [Reactor88, ruben1553's flickr]

Brandon Boyer

Hell of magma: first footage of Q-games' latest PixelJunk

I can't have been the only one who played d_of_i's original sand games (collected here alongside all its various spinoffs) and thought that someday, eventually, someone could make an extremely compelling game out of the experience.

As it turns out: that'd be Q-games, who have finally revealed the full trailer to their recently teased and re-teased fourth PixelJunk game, still known as 1-4. As you can see above, the game takes everything engrossing about manipulating realistically modeled particle/fluid mechanics and combines it with subterranean rescue, Lunar Lander/Dropship-esque thrust physics and 360 degree shooting.

In further viral efforts, Q-games has also left the name of this game up to the players: they're currently holding a naming contest at the game's official site, with T-shirts for the winner and five runners up. Head over there for more artwork and details, and to submit your own entry.

PixelJunk™ 1-4 Naming Contest [Q-games]

Brandon Boyer

Bloc party: Dreamlore/Mezmer release Stalin Vs Martians

Today's the day you've long been anticipating/dreading: Dreamlore/Mezmer's PC arcade/real-time-strategy game Stalin Vs. Martians has officially touched down -- with tongue firmly in dictatorial cheek -- on various download services like GamersGate, Impulse, Direct2Drive and Steam and is awaiting further orders.

I've picked up my copy but haven't yet had a chance to install: in the meantime, see the final blast of high music-video weirdness with the above, Firelake's "S.T.A.L.I.N".

Stalin vs. Martians home [Dreamlore, Mezmer's community site]

Brandon Boyer

Pixel party: Nicalis celebrates the Cave Story creator's birthday

I suppose adjusted for local time it might be passed already, but it's never too late to head over to indie studio Nicalis's blog to leave birthday greetings for Daisuke 'Pixel' Amaya -- the one man creator of long-time freeware favorite Cave Story.

Nicalis is, of course, the developer tasked with finally making the game commercially viable (after a number of false starts and rumored retail releases for the DS and PSP) by bringing it to Nintendo's WiiWare service, alongside their own original previously mentioned Night Game.

And the best reason to head over regardless: to see the custom art gift for Pixel (above right) created by Adam Saltsman (who himself is helping put together the WiiWare port) in its wonderful full resolution.

If you haven't yet exposed yourself to Cave Story, head over to MiraiGamer's tribute site, where you can find it available for a wide range of platforms (the unofficial PSP port comes highly recommended).

天谷さん,　誕生日おめでとう！ Happy Birthday Amaya-san! [Nicalis]

Jim Rossignol

Ragdoll Metaphysics: JG Ballard, Boredom, And The Violent Promise Of Videogames

The suburbs dream of violence. Asleep in their drowsy villas, sheltered by benevolent shopping malls, they wait patiently for the nightmares that will wake them into a more passionate world...

It's perhaps inevitable for me - a career nerd whose entire existence is awash in aspects of gaming - that an interest in JG Ballard's prophetic, psychological fiction would feed into how I thought about my chosen subject. The same seems true of anyone who reads the author with any kind of attention.

The tributes following his death last week come not only from writers, but from architects, musicians, artists, film-directors, and technologists. They each, through their own lenses, see him as not simply a science fiction writer, but as a philosopher. "Picturing the psychology of the future is what it's all been about," said Ballard.

He was a man who did not use computer - the novels emerged longhand from a typewriter - and yet Ballard's dissection of technology and the modern world it has fostered was remarkably precise. His careful, almost technical, writing seemed to pinpoint contemporary reality even when he wrote about drowned, jungled cities, or terrorist cults in suburban English settings.

He analysed and exploded the celebrity-obsessed media culture long before it hit its zenith, with The Atrocity Exhibition in 1970, and spent much of his career reimagining the environmental disasters that face us, with The Drought, The Drowned World, and The Terminal Beach.

But it was the books which looked at consumerism, of the work-leisure-work culture of the early 21st century, and the observations about the banality of our comfortable lives, that really struck me. They contain ideas that now turn up in my games writing without me even consciously writing them down.

READ THE REST

Brandon Boyer

Listen: more hacked-up hardware shoegaze with Tree Wave's May Banners

My only explanation is that they were unhidden hours after I originally posted: TinyCartridge notes that a BlipFest 2007 video of Tree Wave every bit as gorgeously shot as the rest of the Blip videos I recently linked is currently up for viewing.

The song in the video is 'May Banners', another off the same Cabana EP as their previously linked 'Sleep'.

Order the Cabana EP via AtariAge here, or download the abridged version via archive.org here, and order the 2-disc 2 Player Productions' BlipFest 2007 DVD here.

Tree Wave home [qotile]

Brandon Boyer

Braid star Tim making cameo in WiiWare's Super Meat Boy

Edmund McMillen -- creator of forthcoming WiiWare platformer Super Meat Boy -- has been teasing for some time that some twelve odd characters of various other indie game renown will be joining the titular Meat Boy for the multiplayer sections of the game.

Now, via his meat blog, McMillen has officially announced the first with news that Tim, star of Xbox 360/PC puzzler hit Braid will be joining the game -- not quite so surprising in that Tim's actually a character originally designed by McMillen and visually updated by later Braid artist David Hellman.

Still, the cameo appearance and promise of more to come has me more excited than ever for the indie-game-community/jam vibe direction the game is taking.

TIM! [Super Meat boy!]

Brandon Boyer

HD Katamari in motion: first U.S. video of PS3 remake Katamari Forever

Briefly fallen off the radar since its Japanese debut announcement during the week of GDC, Namco has just unleashed the first stateside trailer for hi-res PS3 Katamari Damacy remake, to be known here as Katamari Forever.

While it retains much of the same flavor as the Japanese premiere, it plays down the stellar lineup of soundtrack remixers and instead plays up the fact that the PS3 version will have selectable graphic filters in place to lend the old environments new freshness from cel-shading to woodgrain to colored pencil sketchiness.

Katamari Tribute home [katamaridamacy.jp]

Brandon Boyer

Listen: Dr. Mario is 'The Perfect Drug'

I see my recent subscription to Mike Nowak's Nerd Music tumblr is already paying dividends, as he brings me Nine Inch Nails by way of Dr. Mario with this 16-bit version of The Perfect Drug.

Dr. Mario: The Perfect Drugs [Nerd Music]

Brandon Boyer

Chronometer, Darwinia+, and Introversion's otherwise 'disastrous' 2008

Continuing in that spirit of full disclosure that they kicked off with the bare-all website for upcoming Xbox Live Arcade dual-pack Darwinia+, Introversion programmer Chris Delay is currently undergoing a minorly gut-wrenching look back at the studio's 'disastrous' 2008 "in three increasingly depressing parts."

The first part kicked off with a sweet spot -- at least for readers and fans of the developer, anyway -- with the first concept image (above) of the company's unannounced game that was being developed for UK network Channel 4. Called Chronometer, and based, said Delay, on a long time Introversion idea, it was due to become the company's most ambitious game.

But that optimism is short lived: Delay makes casual and foreboding reference to signing a deal with Pinnacle for a DS version of their thermonuclear war game Defcon, a deal we all now know has since gone under. He goes on to describe the contentious relationship forming with Microsoft at the time, stating in no uncertain terms: "we believe Microsoft were absolutely correct in the calls they made, and we were wrong. But at the time, oh my god they were pissing us off."

You can read part one in its entirety here, and part two's just recently been published, which describes Delay falling further away from his true pet project -- Subversion -- only to be met with anything but fanfare when they'd first revealed their multiplayer Darwinia sequel Multiwinia to the press.

2008 in Hindsight, Part 1 of 3 [Introversion, part 2]

Brandon Boyer

No objections: Phoenix Wright's DS Edgeworth spinoff announced for U.S.

Though I mention it here far less than I should, Capcom's Phoenix Wright remains one of my favorite franchises spawned (in the West, anyway) by the DS. Even with the occassionally overly-rigid logical path the game forces you to traverse, over its various volumes it's had its share of hot-flash brilliance in both character and dialogue, and I don't think there's anyone who could slight it for giving videogames' legacy an outlet for courtroom drama.

That's why, then, I'm happy to see confirmation coming from the previously mentioned Captivate conference that its next spin-off sequel, Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, confirmed for the U.S.

The game turns the tables on the usual defense attorney setup and sees Wright's long-time rival working his prosecutorial duties, and key to this iteration is a "logic" mode that requires players to take found clues and literally connect pieces of information to infer new conclusions -- a mind-play system that hasn't really been attempted since Raw Danger's amnesiac character puzzle-pieced his memory back in place.

Capcom's got more information on Edgeworth via its community site.

Captivate09: Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth [Capcom-Unity]

Brandon Boyer

Star power: Infinite Ammo, Flashbang bringing Paper Moon to Blurst

Like the Offworld equivalent of a rock and roll supergroup, Heroes and Villains developer Infinite Ammo and Minotaur China Shop developer Flashbang have joined forces to bring a new version of the former's planar-platformer Paper Moon to the latter's online game service Blurst.

If Paper Moon sounds familiar, it's because you've seen it here many moons ago, when Infinite Ammo originally created a stereoscopic version of the game for Kokoromi's Gamma3D last November.

Like Flashbang's other Blurst output, though, the game has been updated to include "a combo-based scoring system, new levels, improved visuals, musical score, sound effects, greater replay value and online leaderboards/achievements/bonuses," says Ammo.

The game is set to go live this Friday, the 1st -- in the meantime, you can get a taste of the original via Gamma3D.

A Collaboration: Paper Moon Launching May 1st [Blurst, Infinite Ammo announcement]

Brandon Boyer

Take this ROM and..: indie dev quits mainstream job via Super Mario

Indie developer Farbs -- creator of 8-bit videogame mashup Rom Check Fail and the later, similarly stylish Polychromatic Funk Monkey -- quit his mainstream job as gameplay programmer at 2K Australia in fitting fashion: he created a playable take on Super Mario Bros that delivers the message far better than any scathing letter could.

Play the letter here, and see Farbs' other creative output here.

A Message for 2K Australia [Farbs]

Brandon Boyer

Synthesizer Noby: the 29 new musical options of Noby Noby Boy

Though the PlayStation Network itself is frustratingly down for maintenance at the moment, leaving me unable to get a good sense of GIRL's progress over the past few days, the 1.1 update for Keita Takahashi's Noby Noby Boy mentioned yesterday is indeed live and accessible.

The most striking difference on starting the newly updated game is the musical one: on exiting your (newly coiffed) house, a new vocal track directly brings back those warm nostalgic Katamari feelings, but then (on further fiddling with controller options), you realize that you've got open access to 29 new music tracks, which I've highlighted below:

An eclectic mix to be sure, from the classical stylings of acoustic guitar to the primal melodies of the kalimba. But my current favorite? The cello, which at long last grants your wish to stretch and swallow anthropomorphic sharks to the soothing dulcet tones of Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 Prelude.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, yes, you can do this:

o--o home [Namco]

Brandon Boyer

Sock puppets: new video of Nabi's WiiWare Toribash port

With an original early 2006 release and subsequent IGF 2007 nomination for innovation in design (an award that would go to Jon Mak's Everyday Shooter), Nabi Software's turn-based ragdoll block/ball fighter Toribash should be a familiar name to anyone keeping half an eye on the indie scene.

I'll admit, I've let my attention lapse over the following years, but as it turns out, progress has been steady at turning the game even further into the cutely stark rock-em, sock-em display of brutality it's had as its singular focus since the start.

And now, Nabi developer Gerald Tock writes in with this latest video above, showing off the latest improvements being made to the forthcoming WiiWare version of the game (newly announced in January), including full fight scene editing and smoother flow all around.

You can still download the game for free at its official home, and, even more intriguingly, investigate the third party mod/hack scene, which has been churning out tweaks like this fantastic Toribash skate mod below.

Toribash home [Nabi Software]

Brandon Boyer

One Thousand Stars: the actual final fantasy of the now-defunct Black Comets

Director Erik Tillmans (whose resume also includes animation work on films like Kung Fu Panda, Enchanted and Team America) sends in this video he created for The Black Comets' "One Thousand Stars."

The video's Final Fantasy inspiration is sadly prescient, as some six months later, the band would move on to play new roles. See more of Tillman's work via his DJ Shadow remix scored reel here.

Black Comets - One Thousand Stars [YouTube, Erik Tillmans' home, Black Comets MySpace]

Brandon Boyer

Come hungry, never leave: premiere video of Capcom's Dead Rising 2

With the veil now lifting on the games revealed at Capcom's blowout 'Captivate 09' event last week comes the first full trailer of their previously mentioned Dead Rising sequel, every bit as tongue-in-cheek parodic as it is horrifying (very much in the vein of Romero's legacy).

The trailer doesn't get into much of the underlying gameplay other than returning to the panoply of usable objects that will aid in staving off the undead hordes, but with some of the most creative chainsaw work I've seen in ages, I suppose that's not to its detriment.

Dead Rising home [Capcom]

Brandon Boyer

Touch me I'm slick (and free): area/code's Drop7 Lite

Hopefully, if you're a regular and iPhone owning reader of Offworld, you will have already downloaded area/code's phenomenal iPhone puzzle game Drop7, especially with the recent price drop and release of its Facebook-integrating social update.

If you haven't, and I'm not sure exactly what it is you're waiting for, a quick recap -- the game is the portable version of the studio's original promotional web game Chain Factor, and works like this:

Numbered discs fall into a 7x7 playfield, and are cleared away if a disc is in a row or column containing that many discs. For instance, in the image above right, the 6s are disappearing because they're in a row of 6 discs, as well as the 3, as it's in a 3-high column. The trick? Interspersed with the numbered discs are blank grey discs. In order to clear those, you've got to clear adjacent numbered discs twice to "break through" the grey (as is happening under the 3) and reveal the number beneath.

Not fully convinced that it's seemingly effortlessly one of the most original and addictive puzzle games of the past several years? You're in luck: a free Lite version of the game has just hit the App Store, and -- even better -- it's an essential download even for those that already have the full version.

Rather than simply doing a timed or crippled version of the full game for its demo release, area/code have created a unique 'Countdown' mode which has you playing for a high score with a total of 100 discs.

Give the Lite version of the game a go, let us know your high scores via the comments below (my first run's a tepid 66,574), and soon enough you'll fully understand the near inescapable and entirely shameful kiss of death represented in that picture to the left (what are you supposed to do in those situations [other than not get yourself into them]?).

Drop7 home [area/code, full version App Store link, Lite version App Store link]

Brandon Boyer

Killing joke: Cactus shows off his latest works in progress

As mentioned before, a sneak peek at Petri Purho's desktop background during this year's Indie Games Summit showed the picture at right of head-spinningly prolific indie dev Cactus, and considering his last work in progress update covered some eight games -- none of which were at all related to front-burner larger projects like Brain-Damaged Toon Underworld and compilation game Mondo Nation or those seen in his last WIP trailer video -- the photo suddenly feels slightly less parodic.

It's heartening to see, then, that at least one of those games from the last round has carried through to a month and a half later, as Cactus shows off three sets of images from the games he's currently turning his attention to.

None of the games are yet named, but between the three -- which cover themes as wide ranging as the only vaguely misogynistic looking "game about killing each other" and the "game about killing airplanes" (the one seen last month as well) -- it's the dream-haze galactic geometry of the third "game about killing everything you love" that's got me the most intrigued.

Whether any of the three eventually see the light of day is anyone's guess, but in the meantime, you've got your work cut out for you finishing all of his prior games, if you haven't already -- start with the Cactus Arcade compilation for the fastest path into his special blend of inspired madness.

Screens from upcoming games [Cactus Squid blog, Cactus' home site]

Brandon Boyer

Light Command: Steve Swink, Scott Anderson's experimental Shadow Physics prototype

After stepping through the mind-melting time-warps of GDC's Experimental Gameplay darling Achron and Flashbang's similarly looped Time Donkey prototype, you might be ready to get your head around the latest Experimental Gameplay entry to be publicly revealed.

Also in development by Time Donkey designer Steve Swink and Scott Anderson -- and playing somewhat like Tyler Glaiel's Closure in reverse -- Shadow Physics sees you controlling a character locked on a flat 2D shadow plane while you simultaneously manipulate a light source to cast shadow platforms necessary to proceed.

As you can hear in the video, the demo's a rough cut with ideas still not implemented, including variable light brightness that can wash out shadows in certain areas to create gaps in platforms, and colored lights for colored shadows, each with unique properties.

This early on there's no set date or target platform, but Anderson says the game will be in development for at least another year.

Experimental game: Shadow Physics [YouTube, via Chroma Coders]

Brandon Boyer

King of Kong Jr: Wiebe takes DK Jr crown ahead of E3 DK challenge

If you've seen Seth Gordon's unforgettable documentary King of Kong (and if you haven't, close your browser now and stream it via Netflix), you'll know just what's at stake here.

Ahead of his upcoming attempt to officially claim the Donkey Kong crown at this year's E3, Twin Galaxies has just announced that documentary star Steve Wiebe has warmed up by claiming a world record score on its sequel, Donkey Kong Jr, with 1,139,800 points.

The score not only puts him ahead of Ike Hall, who took the DK Jr crown last year, but also of Billy Mitchell himself -- Wiebe's rival in the film -- who still holds the contentious first-place record in DK proper and set the original DK Jr record in 1983.

Wiebe's DK rematch will take place on June 2nd at E3 in Los Angeles, and will be broadcast live via G4.

Steve Wiebe Takes Donkey Kong Junior World Record With Score of 1,139,800 [Twin Galaxies]

Brandon Boyer

Tilt on, my selector: dubstep line-riding in differentcloth's lilt line

Developer Gordon 'differentcloth' Midwood covers all bases and describes his debut iPhone game lilt line as a "retro rhythm racing beat 'em up action game with a dubstep flavour."

I can only add a touch of context and place it somewhere between the Game Boy Advance's bit Generations game Dotstream and a neon-razor take on the ubiquitous genre of cave/helicopter web-games.

Created in collaboration with London dubstep duo 16bit -- and looking precisely like the kind of retro-future game laser-targeted to the Offworld audience -- lilt line will include ten levels, each based on a unique 16bit song.

Differentcloth says the game was submitted to Apple nearly a week ago, and should be coming very soon to an App Store near you, and as Midwood mentions in the comments below, the "turn-based flight simulation digital pet rhythm racing action" game is now available on the App Store.

liltline home [differentcloth, App Store link, 16bit MySpace, via Renaud Bédard]

Brandon Boyer

o--ver1.1--o: Noby Noby Boy gets Tuesday update, includes, uh, 'fart boy'

Now this is more like it: though the video included with Keita Takahashi's last missive to the official PlayStation Blog didn't show much of what to expect from the four-player addition to Noby Noby Boy, the latest official Namco video has that and much more.

The update, which according to the official site is set to go live April 28th, will bring a number of changes to the game, including new hairstyles for BOY's house (!), new music (as promised), a new "thinking pose of the bird" (that detects your online status), and.. well, the aptly named "fart boy." I'm presuming that's what's happening at 0:25-0:29ish of the video above.

This reconstructed image shows off all the new updates: 'fart boy' at lower left, house-hair in the middle, and a list of new instruments at lower-right, including congas, guitars, and marimbas.

o--o home [Namco]

Brandon Boyer

Listen: 8bit FM, and other relevant Nerd Music

Your new unofficial soundtrack for Offworld browsing: Mnemosyne's 8bit FM, streaming "nerdcore, chiptunes, soundtracks, remixes & more."

The link comes via Mike Nowak, who's just launched his own very valuable new tumblr blog dedicated solely to 'nerd music', including a few finds previously spotted here.

8bit FM [Mnemosyne, Nerd Music tumblr]

Brandon Boyer

LittleBigWatch: danteneverdies' Little Daft Punk video

Today's best LittleBigInspiration: Spanish creator danteneverdies' in-game tribute to Daft Punk.

Little Daft Punk [YouTube, DND blog, via Destructoid]

Brandon Boyer

Hunter Clash: Doarat's Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G shirt

One last look this morning at a wonderful-thing-we-can't-really-have: Capcom's venerable Monster Hunter series may have never hit the West as it did in the East, but there it's managed to spawn its own subculture of inspired design.

Case in point, design group Doarat's retro-clash promotional T-shirt for the third iteration of Capcom's PSP version, Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G (coming to the U.S. as Monster Hunter Freedom Unite in June), as spotted on Yahoo Japan's auction site.

My favorite, though, remains the 'Melaleu' Felyne & crosspaws shirt at right, only spotted up for bid once, and now long out of print at places like CDJapan.

Monster Hunter home [Capcom]

Brandon Boyer

Bobble head: Okkle's incredible Bubble Bobble custom toy

I knew I shouldn't have waited too long: earlier in the weekend I spotted this pitch-perfect custom via Vinylpulse, in which UK artist Okkle took one of my favorite toys released this year -- Peskimo's Monster Burp -- and turned it into a tribute to Taito's Bubble Bobble with little Bub blowing a massive Beluga-bubble.

After hemming and hawing all weekend about whether to drop the £85 on it, I check again this morning and it is, of course, long gone. But we can still gawp at its craftsmanship, I suppose, and the good news is that it's not too late to get the Peskimo original and attempt the conversion yourself.

Okkles Custom Monster Burp Bubblun of Bubble Bobble [Vinyl Pulse]

Brandon Boyer

Knight folds: Crzisme's Castle Crashers papercraft

Your Monday morning craft challenge: frustrated with not being able to find papercrafter Lesqua's original model sheets for their set of Castle Crashers knights (showcased on The Behemoth's blog), deviantartist crzisme created his own, available in all four knightly flavors.

I poked around and sure enough did find Lesqua's original models, sans printable instructions, and a treasure trove of other designs including Dragon Quest's Mimic monsters above, via deviantart. Lesqua does have downloadable instructions for other Pokemon, Elebits and Animal Crossing crafts available here, though.

crzisme's Castle Crashers Papercraft [deviantart, via technabob]

Tom Armitage

Something for the Weekend: OutRun Online Arcade

I don't know about the weather where you are, but where I am, spring really has taken hold, and in the past week or two given me the most tantalizing glimpse of summer just around the corner; it's been shirt-sleeve weather all week. How apt, then, that the recent release of OutRun Online Arcade coincided almost perfectly with the start of a hot spell.

OutRun is summer gaming personified: taught, arcade racing, with a blazing blue sky, an open road, a girl at your side, and heady salsa rhythms blaring from the stereo. Although OutRun saw release in 1986, it's really 2003's OutRun 2 that my heart belongs to, with its rolling roads, spectacular scenery, and thumping Richard Jacques re-workings of the classic OutRun score. Sumo Digital's OutRun Online Arcade is an HD reworking of OutRun 2 SP, the arcade follow-up to OutRun 2. Sumo were responsible for both the original Xbox OutRun 2 port, as well as the majestic OutRun 2006 Coast 2 Coast - spectacular on a powerful PC, and still one of the few games to let you share saves between a PS2 and PSP.

OutRun's gameplay has barely been altered in 23 years: you race your Ferrari through a forking map of stages, dodging traffic and other racers, left turns taking you to easier stages, right turns to more challenging. The end of each stage extends your time; if you're good, you'll make it to one of the five goals. And that's it: it's a pure Arcade racer, better as time-attack than competitive. What the 2003 sequel - and subsequent iterations - add to this a fabulous drift model.

When it comes to drifting, OutRun is not quite Ridge Racer: drifting is not always the best solution to every corner, but it is a spectacular one, and one that your female passenger always seems to enjoy. The careful balancing of drift with conventional cornering, sliding the car from lock to lock through hairpins, and slipstreaming through traffic to make ever-tighter deadlines is a real challenge, and there's a lot of pleasure to be gained from shaving second after second off your times.

A few notes for first-time OutRunners; the trial version is a bit crippled, as it doesn't extend time after checkpoints, meaning it's quite hard to envisage what full-on time attack looks like. By default, the game is set to VERY EASY and has over-sensitive handling - you can fix this in the options menu, and you should find Normal difficulty offers a fair bit of a challenge. And, whilst it's a remarkably impressive game squeezed into Live Arcade's 350mb cap, a lot of the sound has been heavily compressed - which is, sadly, most noticeable on the marvellous soundtrack. It should sound a little better than that, honest.

But: give it a chance and it will slowly win your heart. The stage design never ceases to charm; the first time you speed past its waterfall or Easter-Island-inspired statues at 300kmh, you can't help but grin. There's no time to stop and take pictures, because there's racing to be done; you'll just have to come past this spot again. Whenever it's grey and wet outside, you'll know it's always a Mediterranean summmer in OutRun land, and five stages should do as a cure for any Seasonal Affective Disorder.

OutRun Online Arcade is polished, joyous, arcade fun, and the perfect game to get you in the mood for a spring weekend in the sun. That's what I'll be doing with some of my weekend (along with the ever present levelling in Feralas); what are you going to be up to, Offworlders?

[OutRun Online Arcade is available on PSN and Xbox Live Arcade, right now]

Brandon Boyer

Spudow: first gameplay footage of PopCap's Plants Vs. Zombies

After teasing you with the first look at PopCap's parodic tower defense game, its sing-along music video premiere and its sublimely bizarre viral followup, now, finally: the first gameplay footage of Plants Vs Zombies.

Plants Vs. Zombies home [PopCap, thanks Kevin!]

Brandon Boyer

Video: Wind Waker Link is 'on a boat'

Matthew 'gangles' Gallant takes one part SNL and one part GCN and gives us the best mashup this side of Ocarina of Rhyme with the (highly uncensored) Wind Waker version of I'm On a Boat.

Check Gallant's blog for the DS Zelda: Spirit Tracks 'Crazy Train' followup.

Your Move, Nintendo [Gangles, via Insult Swordfighting]

Margaret Robertson

One More Go: Wipeout, or The Single Best Games Console You Never Bought

What's your favourite console ever? Mine's grey, regular in shape, weighs about three pounds. Graphically, it's a bit underpowered by modern standards - great colours, lousy detail - but it's got a killer game library. The one I've got is showing its age a bit, but it's still my most precious possession in the whole world.

It isn't, as you've already guessed, the Dreamcast. It's my brain. My spongey, stupid, sloppy, saturated brain. The thing that makes it the best console ever made is that it's 100% compatible. It's like the ultimate emulator. Using it, I can replay ever game I've ever played. I can even, thanks to its remarkable 'Imagination' engine (watch Sony nick that for PS4), play games that haven't even been made yet. It's portable, never needs batteries, never needs upgrading, boots instantaneously. There are no carts to lose, no discs to scratch, no controller wires to unsnarl.

The last thing I played on it was Wipeout, which I dug out last night when I couldn't sleep thanks to a head full of rather shampoo-y white wine and a three hour argument about the future of game distribution. Proper Wipeout, mind. Original, clunky, exacting Wipeout. Nearly 15 years on, it plays as well in my mind as it used to on my trusty 14" Trinitron. I can still nail the boost start every time, still feel the flow and flex of every camber and turn as I loop endlessly under the specked ink of Altima's sky. Some insomniacs count sheep; I count zip pads.

READ THE REST

Brandon Boyer

The Mega Man stylings of Myk Dawg's unofficial Kanye video

The second urban-pixel landscape we'll scroll through today: You've previously seen pixel magician Myk Dawg do his 16-bit dirty work for DJ I-Dee and DJ Shadow, now he turns his attention to Kanye West's "Robocop". The video's uncommissioned, but it's "simply [his] favorite song on the album, and one day I figured why not make a badass music video for it" -- and so he has.

Kanye West - Robocop (1988 import version) [Myk Dawg]

Brandon Boyer

Dig harder: more images of Q-games' next PS3 downloadable PixelJunk

Slowly, slowly, the lid peels back: as more members join Q-games' previously mentioned Facebook campaign to get one million people to buy their next PS3 downloadable PixelJunk game on launch day, the studio has kept its promise of teasing more images. At right, the first full frame photo of the game's subterranean domain, with the first hints of liquid dynamics.

Also added, the first vehicular shot making its way through the fluid. Head over to (and join) the event page, or the PixelJunk 1-4 fan page for more information.

PixelJunk home [Q-games]

Brandon Boyer

Dream come true: Noby Noby Boy video grants BOY his musical wish

The video accompanying Keita Takahashi's latest official transmission to the PlayStation.Blog about the upcoming addition of offline multiplayer holds a tiny secret that seems to have gone over most collective heads.

True, for a video alleging to show how swallowing the split tail of another player's Noby will create a new fused BOY -- with one player controlling the first half and the other player the second -- it comes up basically entirely short, what it does do is make BOY's previously mentioned dream of new music come true, even if it does have a conspicuous lack of castinets.

Head over to the official post for Takahashi's diary about the run-up to his GDC session, and see how high we can collectively push Japanese film Yureru's IMDB Moviemeter quotient investigating why it might have put him in a depressive funk.

Noby Noby Boy Multiplayer Update [PlayStation.Blog]

Brandon Boyer

What does your soul look like: DualShock edition

NYC artist Satre Stuelke's radiologyart project takes cat scans of every day objects that "hold unique cultural importance in modern society... to plant a seed of scientific creativity in the minds of all those inclined to participate."

Above, the ghostly skeleton of a PS3 DualShock controller, also available in video form.

Coming soon to Stuelke's project, "the PlayStation 3 box, and a de/re-construction movie."

DualShock radiologyart [Satre Stuelke, via zillionmonkey]

Brandon Boyer

Listen: enso, No Carrier, headlessbarbie's NES flier is Pulsewave City Ransom

An NES trailer for this month's upcoming Pulsewave performance at NYC's The Tank.

Music by Alex Mauer, creator of the previously mentioned Vegavox NES music cart, code by oft-mentioned NES hacker No Carrier, graphics by Enso of the recently hyped pixelstyle tumblr blog.

Pulsewave warns of the gig itself:

This show contains high-energy musics, eye-popping visuals, and what can only be described as wondersexapalooza and is not intended for the boring, loveless, and whiny.

Download the intro as a NES rom here.

March [sic] Pulsewave NES ROM Flier [enso]

Brandon Boyer

Hey LA: go see Street Fighter tribute art exhibition Jab Strong Fierce

One more reason to wish you were in LA (or to celebrate for being there): coming just one day after Poketo's excellent sounding Her Space Holiday/PCP art/music exhibit is Gallery Nucleus's Jab Strong Fierce.

Put together in collaboration with Capcom and art/game crossover mainstay iam8bit, the free exhibit brings together 40-plus designers and illustrators doing Street Fighter themed interpretations, alongside an official EVO-sponsored Street Fighter 4 tournament.

The full list of artists includes:

Adam Alaniz, Angry Woebots, Anthony Wu, Becky Cloonan, Ben Zhu, Bill Pressing, Bobby Chiu, Brianne Drouhard, Carlo Arellano, Christian Ward, Clement Hanami, David Jien, David Lee Duong, Derek Yu, Eric Fortune, Francis Vallejo, Israel Sanchez, j. shea, Jackson Sze, Jim Mahfood, Jeremy Enecio, Jo Chen, John Pham, John Wu, Jorge R. Gutierrez, Kei Acedera, Kevin Dart, Khang Le, Khylov, Kinman Chan, Leo Eguiarte, Leong Wankok, Luke Chueh, Mari Inukai, Martin Hsu, Mike Alvarez, Mindy Lee, Nanospore, Patrick Leger, Robert Kondo, Rhode Montijo, Roland Tamayo, Rodney Fuentebella, Scott Gandell, T & A, Tang Kheng Heng and Wayne Johnson

Bonus points to anyone that returns with a nice photo gallery of the art for Offworld to print up in the future.

The show opener will take place April 25th from 7:00PM - 11:00PM at Nucleus's 210 East Main St location in Alhambra, and will continue through May 11th. See Nucleus's site for more details and tournament specifics/prizes.

JAB STRONG FIERCE (STREET FIGHTER TRIBUTE SHOW) [Nucleus/iam8bit]

Brandon Boyer

Sure shot: PopCap's Peggle integrated into World of Warcraft

Your good-things-in-the-most-unlikely-of-places dose for the day: after the integration of casual staple Bejeweled into the game last September, PopCap has announced a free downloadable addon to World of Warcraft that lets you play their popular pachinko/pinball/plinko mashup Peggle entirely inside the MMO itself.

The addon is more than a simple UI enhancement, though, PopCap and Blizzard have tied the two games together by adding a new /peggleloot command that lets players "roll" for loot by taking their best Peggle shot.

PopCap's also fully themed the addon with new unlockable 'talent trees' with special abilities that give your shots a chance to 'crit' on peg hits, unique 'Peggle master' characters, and twelve levels based on Azerothian locations.

See more screenshots and download the free addon here.

Bejeweled, Peggle World of Warcraft addons [PopCap]

Brandon Boyer

Bleed for me: undoing Atari 2600 emulation perfection

Via Ian Bogost (author of the recently mentioned book Racing the Beam, chronicling the life and times of the Atari 2600), a new project to make Atari 2600 emulation more authentic by re-introducing the 'undesirable' qualities of CRT televisions that have since been stripped away, qualities like color bleed and flicker that programmers purposefully relied on.

Above, one of the five solutions by Georgia Tech Computer Science students which will eventually be worked into 2600 emulator Stella as a configurable option to bring that razor sharpness back into its proper fuzzy un-focus.

See more about the ongoing project at Bogost's site.

A TELEVISION SIMULATOR - CRT Emulation for the Atari VCS [Ian Bogost, via grandtextauto, via waxy]

Brandon Boyer

BETTEMIDLER.EXE: tumblr-gaming with Ben Ross's Yeti Knight Adventures

Found via a marginally related attractmo.de post, a new favorite tumblr follow: you've likely seen Ben Ross's set of Flying Pizza Kitty animated .gifs, but have you descended into the interactive madness of his Yeti Knight?

Each lite-adventure-game episode is a trip into surreal worlds of floating Lincoln heads/Brian Wilson drinking chocolate milk/bettemidler.exe, each better than the last, and only a let down in that there hasn't been a new update for six months.

See more of his various works via benisadork, including the latest episode of his games podcast Pixel Babble.

Yeti Knight Adventures [Ben Ross, via attractmo.de]

Brandon Boyer

Bitey bat bit: Anna the Red's Castle Crashers bento

Games-related bento boxes could so easily become the new hot 'game-cake' meme, if it wasn't being spearheaded solely by food artist Anna the Red.

Above, probably the most adorable box she's done yet, part of her latest series based on The Behemoth's Xbox Live Arcade offering, Castle Crashers.

See her full bento set on flickr here.

Castle Crashers bento 2 - Animal Orbs! [flickr]

Brandon Boyer

Ooh-la-la indeed: Maggie Wang's Fruit Brute, Space Channel 5 Sack-dolls

Spotted via Tiff's crafty links, quite possibly the best Sackboy toys this side of LittleBigPlanet's official output: you might've seen Maggie Wang's original crocheted creations last month, particularly her Spock, Hellboy and Prince of Persia Sack-people, but more recently she's uploaded some newly commissioned creations.

My two favorite (as above), an Ulala Sackgirl, inspired by Tetsuya Mizuguchi's neo-future swinging-60's rhythm game Space Channel 5, and (far more left field) the Fruit Brute Sackboy, indeed inspired by the long-forgotten General Mills cereal mascot.

Contact Maggie for a custom Sack-person of your very own.

Maggie's custom Sackboy lineup [Maggie Wang, via spritestitch]

Brandon Boyer

Listen: DUTYCYCLE's Jens and the Jauntyjackalope sampler EP

Like their last showcase sampler, the folks at DUTYCYCLE have put together a new free EP to get a taste of the bands about to play at Thursday's electro DJ party in celebration of the release of Jaunty Jackalope (Ubuntu Linux version 9.04).

The EP features chiptune regulars like STARPAUSE but isn't exclusively chip music, though my top pick of the EP (next to Harbour's downtempo and dubby "did you forget") is Wyatt Gurp's "The Dark Sword of Chaos", the theme song for an 8-bit boss battle never made.

The release party itself will take place Thursday April 23, 2009 at 8:00pm at San Francisco's Caffeine, located at 835 Geary, and will feature "new school electro DJs making music on Linux, Linux robotics demonstrations courtesy of Orb SWARM, free Jackalope CDs, and a fat bearded dork wet Linux t-shirt contest (weather permitting)." (! to the last bit there)

See more info via the event's Upcoming page, and download the sampler via the DUTYCYCLE blog (direct download the zip here).

Jens and the Jauntyjackalope sampler EP [DUTYCYCLE, Upcoming event page]

Tiff Chow

Tentacle yarn: cutely crafted Day of the Tentacle, Sam & Max amigurumi

[Guest blogger Tiff Chow has dabbled in games journalism, graphic design and illustration, but now spends most of her time making the blog-world a better place at Six Apart. She can also be found at her personal blog, making regular appearances on Area5's video podcast CO-OP, or stretching and coiling her worm-like body around various objects.]

Every once and a while it's well worth it to dip your toes into the Flickr photo pools of geek and videogame crafts. Browsing today to see if Perler bead fan art had taken its post-impressionistic course, I was instead thrilled to find snorkmaiden's tiny crocheted Day of the Tentacle amigurumi. Crafted with keen detail, take note that Purple Tentacle is properly poised with two arms and a unibrow in opposition to his much less mutated Green Tentacle comrade.

As long as it's a good day for LucasArts craft work, don't miss out on karaimame's intricately designed Max amigurumi, which looks just as four-fingered and maniacal as the original hyperkinetic rabbit thingy himself.

Green and Purple Tentacle and Amigurumi Max [flickr, via Sprite Stitch, thanks John!]

Brandon Boyer

Gimme Indie Game: the catastrophic infographics of Jiggmin/Aeiowu's Effing Hail

The next logical step after infographics, the fairy tale music video? Infographics the game. Collaboratively created by indie devs Jiggmin and Greg 'aeiowu' Wohlwend of Intuition Games, Effing Hail's cleanly textbook-illustrated graphic conceit is the instant draw, the game's just as interesting an exercise in indirect control.

Your task is simple: control an updraft of air to keep falling hail in the upper levels of the bee-, sea-, dee- and effing-spheres so that it has time to grow into massive stones, which you then let fall free to crush an increasingly complex ecosystem of houses, skyscrapers, planes, satellites and civilians themselves below.

The game is only hampered by its just-on-the-side-of-too-restrictive time limit, though, granted, it's intentionally about making the most of that time, and, like Katamari, can quickly snowball (no pun) into a near-unstoppable winning streak under the right conditions.

It's a steep uphill climb to learning those conditions, but unleashing massive destruction does do nicely as its own reward. The game could still do well with a tutorial or unlockable sandbox mode (again, like Katamari) as stress relief after racing against the clock, but, even without, is one of the best indie developments of the month.

Effing Hail home [Intuition Games, Jiggmin]

Brandon Boyer

Seal of quality: Hellen Jo and Calvin Wong's artxgame instruction manuals

Spotted at attractmo.de -- and then promptly ordered from Calvin himself: comic artists Hellen Jo and Calvin Wong made their appearance at Portland's Stumptown Comics Fest armed with these ridiculously pitch-perfect faux-NES instruction manuals.

The manuals, of course, detail their crossover 'artxgame' created with Spelunky creator Derek Yu for Giant Robot's oft-blogged Game Over/Continue show. See more of their game here, and more photos incoming when the manuals themselves arrive.

Stumptown this Weekend [electricantzine, via attractmo.de]

Brandon Boyer

Brick this city: devastating new details about Lego Rock Band

Apparently imagining instrument brick destruction was thinking entirely too small: Microsoft's new entry for the just-announced TT/Harmonix crossover Lego Rock Band implies that the game has its sights set on even more wanton rock wreckage, detailing:

LEGO-themed rock challenges: Play killer riffs to destroy a giant robot, summon a storm, and demolish a skyscraper using the power of rock!

Which really, again, 'nuff said.

Lego Rock Band Xbox 360 home [Microsoft, via GoNintendo]

Tom Armitage

Doing Well By Doing Goo: World of Goo's score arranged for solo piano

Kyle Gabler released the entirety of his soundtrack to World of Goo a few months ago, as previously mentioned on Offworld.

Now, Sebastien Wolff has gone one further, having arranged the entirety of the soundtrack for solo piano, and made his scores available for download. They're available in PDF, Midi, and Sibelius formats, but I'd recommend the PDF if only for the charming art direction of the whole affair.

It's strictly unofficial, but Sebastien's produced smart, entertaining arrangements of the already charming soundtrack, and given how much we love World of Goo here at Offworld, how could we not link to this?

World of Goo complete piano sheet music [Sebastien Wolff, via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

Brandon Boyer

Future boxes: SquareEnix debuts Xbox Live Arcade shooter Project: Cube

Microsoft recently held a press conference in Japan to show the growing local support for its Xbox 360 and Xbox Live Arcade service, and, surprisingly, it was Square Enix who came away with the most interesting developments of the show, and -- even more surprisingly -- they had nothing to do with Final Fantasy or RPGs in general.

Most notably: a new Live Arcade game project tentatively titled Project: Cube, a multiplayer dual-stick arena shooter that doesn't give away much by just watching: for the life of me I can't understand why the laser shots fired sometimes hang limply in the air (on the floor?).

Also, surely I can't be alone in seeing some heavy similarities between the new game and Sean Cooper's hit Boxhead Flash game series, down to the name itself?

Project: Cube debut video [YouTube]

Brandon Boyer

War over google maps: SquareEnix's XBLA shooter 0 day Attack on Earth

SquareEnix's other game of the Microsoft preview -- the wonderfully titled 0 day Attack on Earth -- is also another Xbox Live Arcade dual-stick shooter.

This time, though it looks somewhere in between fantastic long-running Sandlot series Earth Defense Force and underdog PlayStation Network favorite The Last Guy, with relentless alien invaders being shot down over Paris, New York, and Tokyo on what would appear to be playfields procured from Google Earth.

0 day Attack on Earth 1st Trailer [YouTube]

Brandon Boyer

The Left 4 Dead T-shirts only Francis could hate

Though the 'featured items' here are this thuggish 'zombie skull' hoodie (I'd wear it) and more traditionally illustrated T-shirt, why didn't anyone tell me there's also a full range of shirts dedicated to the things Francis hates?

My favorite (at right), the woods-hating shirt, but there's also van hating, and hating on, well, everything Francis hates on (stairs).

Perfect for wearing to your new Survival Mode marathon sessions, or your next things-Francis-hates dance-off.

The Valve Store [Valve]

Brandon Boyer

Total trash: Sony releasing PS3 garbage compacting puzzler Gomibako as Trash Panic

Sony has taken tomorrow's Earth Day as cause to announce that Sony Japan's previously mentioned original PS3 downloadable trash-stacking puzzle game Gomibako to North America as Trash Panic.

As you can see above, the game takes Tetris and channels it through physics-enhanced trash compacting, trying to fit as many kilos in one go as possible, and using heavier objects to smash down breakables as much as possible.

Sony haven't announced a firm date, simply adding that the game will be released by the end of Spring.

Team up with PSN on Earth Day [Playstation.Blog]

Joel Johnson

Jeri Ellsworth's NES in a purse

Jeri Ellsworth built a purse that happens to also have an NES inside, complete with velcro-attached controllers. Bonus: A Commodore 64 chip, just in case your run out of NES titles. (A chip that Jeri reverse-engineered, no less.) [via MAKE:]

Brandon Boyer

I dig: Q-games teases first images of new PixelJunk game

With the Encore edition of Pixeljunk Eden now officially in the wild, series creator Q-games has begun the slow information reveal of its next game in the franchise -- still known simply as PixelJunk 1-4 (the fourth game after Racers, Monsters, and Eden -- and above you see the first two images.

It's not much to go on, other than what would appear to be a group's journey burrowing into the earth, and -- what have we here -- over at the series' home site, the 'coming soon' notice hovers over a shovel beginning the dig itself.

The images come as part of a new Facebook campaign to get one million people to buy the game on its launch day, and the more people join its launch-event group, the more images the studio promises to post.

Head over to the event page, or the PixelJunk 1-4 fan page for more information.

PixelJunk home [Q-games]

Brandon Boyer

Concept Album: Evil Ben Franklin and the art of Henry Hatsworth

With its flagrantly outlandish Old Blighty stereotypes mixed with fantastical turn of the century steam-punk block puzzle tropes, EA's DS puzzler/platformer Henry Hatsworth and the Puzzling Adventure will likely remain one of the top one of the most creatively directed visions of 2009.

As I've mentioned before, most of the kudos there can be attributed to art director Jay Epperson's wood-block and paper-cut vision for its puzzling realms from the Livingston-ish explorations through the tribal Mysteria, the floating islands and dirigibles of Skysland to that Puzzle Realm itself, Hatworth manages to capture big wonder on a tiny screen.

Now, in a site first that will launch a continuing series, Epperson has given Offworld permission to reprint the game's concept art in glorious full-resolution. Think of it like The Big Picture, but for games.

And the series couldn't have started at a better place: over the following pages, you'll find all the game's environments, the first stirrings of the game's enemies both fragile and fearsome (pork hork!), and -- as a special bonus -- a look at some of the game's bosses that never made it into the game, including, as hinted in the title, one Evil Ben Franklin.

Continue on to The Art of Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure.

Jay Epperson portfolio [also, Epperson's sketch blog, Henry Hatsworth home. Thanks to both Jay and game director Kyle Gray for their help putting the feature together.]

[Developers! Have a game you'd like to see in a future edition of Concept Album? Let me know!]

Brandon Boyer

Close encounters with Sarien's browser-embedded classic Sierra adventures

Well technically, yes, it is classic Sierra adventures like Space Quest I: The Sarien Encounter, Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel and Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards playable from in-browser (including, apparently, the iPhone and Wii, with a bit more fiddling on the part of the creators), but it's still not quite.

The difference? Sarien's in-browser versions let you jump from location to location at will, have augmented the text commands with a right click menu, and, most curiously, allow you to see the avatars (your avatar) of other concurrent players, all clicking around just as wildly and blurting out "BANG ON DOOR" and "MAKE CHECK AUTO".

But it's a good start, should the rights holders allow it to evolve (and possibly with a play-solo option) -- creator Martin Kool is currently at work adding support for Space Quest 2, King's Quest and The Black Cauldron, and it's been given at least a very confused hat tip by Leisure Suit creator Al Lowe himself.

Sarien.net: Instant Adventure Gaming [Martin Kool, via Petri Purho]

Joel Johnson

Broken a leg? You must love Madden

Caterina Fake's new Hunch service tries to puzzle out answers to your questions based on answers given by thousands of other users. Think of it like an Amazon recommendation, except it's not just suggesting what to buy, but who to love, what to eat for dinner, or whether or not you look good in plaid—and then cross-links the whole thing in one big database.

That mish-mash of data has allowed them to pull up some perpendicularly interesting data points, including this tiny gem that Offworld readers might find hits perhaps a little too close to home:

People who have broken a leg like video games such as Madden NFL 09 and NBA 2K9, whereas non-leg-breakers prefer Little Big Planet, Katamari Damacy, Super Mario Galaxy and World of Goo

Photo: Pressone

Brandon Boyer

Brick house: Harmonix, TT officially announce Lego Rock Band

After months of speculation and an accidental reveal via GDC slide notes, Rock Band creators Harmonix and Lego Star Wars/Batman/Indiana Jones creators TT Games have officially announced that 2009 will see the release of a Lego branded Rock Band for Xbox 360, PS3, Wii and DS.

Why Lego? As it turns out, the game is being positioned as a way to take Rock Band's suggestive metal posturing and give it family-friendly smiley-face accessibility, with "classic favourites suitable for younger audiences" like:

Blur: "Song 2"; Carl Douglas: "Kung Fu Fighting"; Europe: "The Final Countdown"; Good Charlotte: "Boys and Girls"; Pink: "So What"

As for the Lego integration itself, apart from being able to customize your minifig-avatars (as well as your roadies, managers, and crew) as you've classically been able to do, the studios say that instead of mimicing real-world venues, the game's performances will take place at "venues, stadiums and fantasy locations on Earth and beyond, that mimic the imaginative settings that the Lego world offers."

I have to admit: I'm as excited for this as I have been for any of the franchise's other iterations, despite the toned down approach, though if it doesn't have guitars smashing into a handful of 1x1 bricks, both Harmonix and TT are a little bit dead to me.

Brandon Boyer

Quite interesting: Stephen Fry returns for PSP LittleBigPlanet

It's much ado about voice acting, but the fact that Stephen Fry has revealed via his twitter that he's just finished recording new voiceovers for the forthcoming PSP version of Media Molecule's LittleBigPlanet is causing much rejoicing around the games blogs, and for good reason -- his warmly paternal delighted cooing at every little victory of your first steps into the game set the tone for the childlike innocence that was to follow.

See below for his PS3 game opener.

/stephenfry [twitter]

Brandon Boyer

The end-game and non-end game of Fallout 3's new DLC

Remember that time when you finished Fallout 3? Yeah, not so much, with the new Broken Steel DLC coming May 5th. As previously promised, and in keeping
with producer Todd Howard's lament that players were "pissed off that it ends," after the studio "underestimated how many people would want to keep playing," the DLC will allow players to forgo the ending and continue their quest in a newly evolved world.

Shacknews was on hand in London for the full reveal, who said:

In a nutshell, Broken Steel will remove the game's ending entirely, with Bethesda's Pete Hines saying simply to fans that called for an open-ended resolution, "We got the idea." Players will still have to make the final choice, but following that climax the game will continue, presenting new prologue quests, another 10 levels to gain, and new perks, monsters and achievements to keep the climb interesting.

For instance, one new perk will be "Puppies," a passive ability that sees Dogmeat reincarnated into a puppy after he is killed in battle. A new weapon shown off called the "Heavy Incinerator" works like a projectile flamethrower, firing bursts of flame from long distance.

Click through for the full details, which -- be forewarned! -- include previous end-game spoilers.

Fallout 3 'Broken Steel' DLC Preview [Shacknews]

Brandon Boyer

Rolando gets new levels, Rolando 2 gets new home

Fresh from Rolando developer Hand Circus, two new secret levels have just gone live on the App Store with the game's 1.2 update [App Store], including Torrid Twist, another of its Cameltry-like free-rotating puzzle challenges, and Excavation, an enormous traditional level that requires progressively more challenging bomb-play to free Rolandos trapped deep underground.

Also newly updated: the official home page for this summer's forthcoming Rolando sequel, Quest for the Golden Orchid. Ngmoco are adding new information to the site every Monday until the game's release, and this week they've started with two new characters, now given more distinct personalities than the first game's cast.

Orchid, as you might be able to suss out from the image above, is shaping up as a properly British colonial adventure (as compared to the first's storybook/fantasy underpinnings), with the captain of the HMS Plunderful, General Sir Richard Smythe, on his quest for the rare flower, accompanied (this week) by Lord Derby Disraeli, his treasure authority.

Though Hand Circus have long promised new mechanics for the sequel, it's clear that some things will remain the same -- even silhouetted, the outlines of the larger Rolando Royalty that you shepherded through the first remain. Henry Hatsworth not withstanding, good old fashioned 19th century sea-bound exploring is rich and unexplored thematic territory of its own, though, and very happily accepted here.

Rolando 2 home [ngmoco, Rolando App Store link]

Brandon Boyer

Star Defense in brief: first direct footage of Rough Cookie/ngmoco's spherical tower defense game

Also new on the ngmoco front: the first direct feed footage of developer Rough Cookie's upcoming 3D spherical tower defense game Star Defense. I'm still curious to see how a tower defense game will operate under heavy stress when the majority of the playfield is obscured by itself, but the new preview again shows the game's consistently impressive production levels.

More screenshots of the game's environments (and one curiously unspherical close-up) below the fold.

READ THE REST

Brandon Boyer

Hey LA: go see Her Space Holiday/PCP at Poketo on April 24th

So I'd noted this as early as last Wednesday via my infinitely-more-artsy/designy-than-Offworld tumblr (in a fit of jealous pique for not being anywhere near the west coast), but seeing as how Poketo wrote in specifically to see if it'd be of interest to Offworld, I can't help but see how it's not.

This Friday, art/apparel/decor design shop Poketo will be hosting Bang! Bang! Draw! at their Los Angeles studio, an event that will bring together live music by Offworld favorite solo orchestral-sampled pop outfit Her Space Holiday with visuals done in collaboration with Tokyo artist Heisuke 'PCP' Kitazawa.

Your unnecessary and tenuous games-related link? You might've seen PCP's fantastic(ally vertical) Ico-related mural, "the end of ICO is beginning of another", at Giant Robot's oft-blogged Game Over/Continue show.

On top of that, Kitazawa -- who will also be exhibiting his art in a post-music gallery show at the studio -- was one of the select artists Nintendo and FM802 curated for their 2004 "ART MEETS GAMES" exhibit (now sadly offline and obliterated by the wayback machine), which attempted to show off the dual-screen potential of their then-upcoming DS by getting illustrators to do wall-size faux-DS artwork.

But either way, you should go not for its games-relatedness, but because both are fantastic artists in their own right. Hear Her Space Holiday's Forever & A Day below for a sample, or try his My Boyfriend's Girlfriend, as well.

Bang! Bang! Draw! will be held at Poketo Studio at 510 South Hewitt Street, #506 (5th floor) in LA on Friday, April 24th. The Her Space Holiday set will run from 7:00 PM - 7:30 PM, with a moderated q&a session, and will be followed from 7:30 PM - 10PM by PCP's art show and party. Poketo will be releasing two signature wallets, a mug, and a T-shirt all designed by Kitazawa at the show. Head over to their blog for more details.

Poketo presents: Bang! Bang! Draw! on April 24th 2009 [Poketo, PCP home, Her Space Holiday home (designed by PCP)]

Tom Armitage

Architecting the unreal: the hubs and spokes of BioShock's Rapture

[Guest blogger Tom Armitage can usually be found writing at Infovore, about games, design, software, and whatever else takes his fancy. By day, he works as a maker and writer, most of the time for Schulze & Webb; by night, he's a Tauren Hunter, a passable Abel, a shoddy Cammy, and slayer of thousands of zombies.]

Steve Gaynor's latest post on Fullbright is a lovely analysis of one of the parallels between level design and architecture. Using BioShock as an example, Steve considers the problems facing a level designer wanting to keep players oriented and making progress within the game.

That's not too hard if you're on a strictly linear ride. In a game like BioShock, though, a degree of freedom is important to the player's experience of a game (and in this particular example, you could argue it's essential). And that freedom is often delivered through much less linear kinds of level design.

"How does the designer keep the player oriented, and give them the information they need to easily navigate from one side of the level to the other?" That's the question Steve sets out to answer. The parallels with real-world architecture he draws are interesting. This, for instance:

minor spaces are always closer to major spaces than they are to other minor spaces-- the player always passes through the hub to get to another spoke.

seems like as important a maxim for real buildings as it does for the fictional ones of Andrew Ryan's Rapture.

It reminds me a lot of Matthew Frederick's 101 Things I Learned In Architecture School - which is, if you've not read it, a delightful and very readable book that serves as a nice crash course in some maxims of architecture. It's not going to qualify you to build skyscrapers, but as a series of notes on the construction of spaces to be experienced by humans, it's well worth a read, and has all manner of interesting crossovers with many forms of design.

It's a good post, anyhow, and well worth your time - as is Steve's blog, if you're interested in all things game design. Although Fullbright is his personal blog, Steve's a designer at 2K Marin - who are currently working on BioShock 2 - and whilst he openly admits that this post, is "personal observations having spent a lot of time examining the levels from BioShock, and not any kind official process or information", it's always nice to know that there's a certain kind of thoughtfulness going into the games you're looking forward to playing.

Reorienteering: spatial organization in BioShock [Fullbright]

Brandon Boyer

Video: Retro computers sing Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody

Not to be shown up by the Super Mario-singing laser cutter, an Atari 800XL, a TI-99/4a (my first gaming PC!), an 8" floppy disk drive, a 3.5" hard drive, and an HP ScanJet 3C walked into a bar... and there is no joke: they sang Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody together and it was beautiful.

Queen Bohemian Rhapsody Old School Computer Remix [bd594, roundabout via "Eric" Marcoullier]

Brandon Boyer

Donkey Kong in lights: Steven Read's Meggy Jr. Super Monkey Kong

Though Darius Kazemi's still the unspoken champ of Evil Mad Scientist's 8x8 LED portable Meggy Jr. RGB (having actually laid hands on and fallen a little in love with his Tiny Rogue during GDC [and made it further into its glorious glitched-out program-error netherworld than anyone apparently had before]), the newest heavyweight contender is Steven Read with his 1x1 sprite platformer Super Monkey Kong.

Wonderfully interpretive and surprisingly readable for a series of flashing lights, Super Monkey Kong is an 8x8 vertically-scrolling version of Donkey Kong, which completely sells itself with that giant purple Kong at the top of the level.

Head over to Steven Read's site for the (unfortunately unembeddable) video to take in the full new-retro splendor.

Super Monkey Kong [Steve Read, via Denki Games' twitter]

Brandon Boyer

So goo-d: third party World of Goo hack/mod site GooFans

Whirring away since early November -- and apparently unrelated to the previously mentioned open-source level editor -- is GooFans, a repository of third party hacks, mods and new themes for 2D Boy's PC version of World of Goo.

The site is integrated with an app called GooTool (with Mac and Linux versions also available), which lets you "build a custom World of Goo based on your preferences and selected add-ins" all downloadable from the GooFans site.

The first hack I'm angling toward? My-Key's stereoscopic 3D level.

Levels and mods for the World of Goo [GooFans, 2D Boy's official hack/mod forum]

Brandon Boyer

Listen: Virt's 8-bit happy hardcore from BlipFest 2007

Newly uploaded by Reformat the Planet producers 2 Player Productions: extended and gorgeously shot video from BlipFest 2007, including the happy chirps of Virt above, Polytron's Jason '6955' DeGroot doing an even shoe-gazier deconstructed version of his Fez theme song (below, see the first here), and more from Loud Objects and Huoratron.

2PP has a two-disc DVD of the entire show available for sale via Filmbaby.

Blip Festival 2007: The Videos [Filmbaby]

Brandon Boyer

Speak about destruction: Introversion hope for 2009 release of DS Defcon

With rumors floating for nearly two years now and yet no official word, developer Introversion has made a surprise announcement this morning that they do indeed have an essentially finished version of their global thermonuclear wargame Defcon ready and aimed for the Nintendo DS, but are now in need of a publishing partner.

Introversion -- whom Offworld recently spoke to at great length on their past projects and future developments -- has recently re-acquired the rights to the game after a deal went south with former partner Pinnacle and is hoping to bring the game to store shelves by autumn 2009, given a new deal can be struck.

Brandon Boyer

Dig Dugs & Sonics & bears: the rest of Uniqlo's games T-shirt lineup

Continuing Offworld's quest to keep you perpetually well clothed: after drip-feeding new designs for the past several months, Japan's Uniqlo has decided to blow-out the rest of its forthcoming officially licensed games T-shirt designs, showing off every card in its hands for the next several months.

Above you can see a few of the best: Parappa's adorable canine mug and the quasi-metal inspired Ghosts 'n' Goblins shirt (along with a bonus LittleBigPlanet ring-tee), and below, a quick-dump of all the rest of the assorted goods.

ユニクロ UT: UT×Japan Game [Uniqlo, via Capcom Unity]

Brandon Boyer

Viva New Vegas: Bethesda, Obsidian announce new Fallout for 2010

Coming not even an hour after reports that developer Bethesda had registered new trademarks for both Fallout-related movies and TV series, the studio has made a surprise announcement at a London event that a new game in the franchise -- Fallout: New Vegas -- is due for release on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC in 2010.

The title will be developed by Knights of the Old Republic II/Neverwinter Nights 2 creators Obsidian, and while no overt details were announced, Gamasutra quotes Bethesda PR Pete Hines as saying:

It's not Fallout Tactics -- it's not Brotherhood Of Steel. It's another Fallout game. It has no impact on what [Bethesda director] Todd Howard and his guys are planning.

As Gamasutra notes, a number of Obsidian employees are former staff of original Fallout series creator Black Isle, who famously had begun work on their own Fallout 3 coded named Van Buren as early as 2003.

Bethesda, Obsidian Announce Fallout: New Vegas [Gamasutra]

Brandon Boyer

LittleBigArthouse: Matthew Barney's Cremaster comes to LittleBigPlanet

Hey, here's a sentence I never thought I'd be typing: PlayStation Network (and YouTube) user fluxlasers has set out to re-interpret the entirety of Matthew Barney's cinema arthouse series Cremaster as a set of LittleBigPlanet levels.

Above, the Goodyear blimps and football stadium choreography of Cremaster 1, and below, fluxlasers' rendition of the motorcycle sidecar races (and an appearance by Barney himself as the The Loughton Candidate) of Cremaster 4.

Fluxlaser Paul told the Cremaster Fanatics blog that he "plans to create levels based on all five Cremaster films. Once completed, he will incorporate all the levels into an area called The Cremaster Cycle where you start with Cremaster 4 and complete and unlock the levels in the same order the films were released. On the Cremaster 3 level there will be a hidden key which will unlock 'The Order' level."

Fluxlasers channel [YouTube, via Negatendo, via Waxy]

Brandon Boyer

The fawn-like future shuffle of EON Reality's immersive 3D room

Says IDEO Labs of EON Reality's immersive 3D 'cave' (which renders polarized stereoscopic imagery based on the position of the wearer's glasses):

A simple, featherweight headset, a 10' x 10' x 10' white room, and $600,000 worth of projector and computer equipment, combined with the smarts of the folks at Eon Reality, results in one insanely real experience.

Who knew once the future we were all waiting for finally got here it'd be so unbelievably disorienting? I get a little touch of motion sickness just watching him try and baby-step shuffle down the stairs. Where's the power fantasy in that?

AMAZING 3D IMMERSION TECHNOLOGY [labs.IDEO, via core77, via Nathan]

Brandon Boyer

Retro art exhibit Famicase returning to Japan in May

Japan's finest hipster retro/game culture store Meteor has announced via its blog that its Famicase art exhibit will be returning to the shop from May 2nd through the 31st.

What's Famicase? A curated selection of original 8-bit Nintendo cartridges given new labels by the local finest design houses and illustrators, each imagining games never created.

Why should we care when it's likely that the great majority of us won't be able to make it in to see the show? Because if this year comes even half as close to the highlights of their 2008 show (my three favorites below), we're in for a visual treat, regardless.

Check the updated Famicase site for a list of this year's artists, and for a group page of all 2008 submissions.

My Famicase 2009 [via Super Meteor]

Brandon Boyer

Everything you've wanted to know about Left 4 Dead's Survival Mode DLC

With Left 4 Dead's first free DLC pack to touch down as soon as next week, Valve have finally let loose precisely what its new "Survival" mode will amount to, and, in typical Valve style, they've done it with a thoughtful, chart-enhanced look behind its design.

As it turns out, it will be as simple as requiring a team to survive a fairly constant onslaught of infected as intense as the campaign mode's final moments -- and will chart via leaderboards the tighest-knit groups around the world -- but, the team found, even an onslaught needs to be properly tuned.

Says Valve:

Given the extreme pace of Survival Mode, the number of zombies killed in a single round often outnumbers an entire campaign. Even optimizing towards using pistols to eliminate common hordes, ammunition usually becomes an issue at some point. As ammo piles provide a unique infinite resupply for players, they tend to be in relatively less defensible positions in the Survival arenas. This means making an all important ammo run is rarely a safe proposition and requires good teamwork and planning. Timing your resources correctly to be able to make a run when necessary can make or break a team. The perfect pipebomb or well placed molotov can mean the difference between a cakewalk and catastrophe.

The Hospital Elevator, for example, might seem like an easy Crescendo Event to conquer. Hit the elevator button and holdout until the doors open for a quick escape. In Survival Mode, however, the area begins locked down. Areas open as the hordes come in, breaking down the doors to reach the survivors. In each room there are additional caches of vital pills, pipes, and Molotovs. By moving from location to location, using up the plentiful supplies as needed, a team can maximize their time in a game where the elevator never arrives to offer escape. In other maps, items may be less plentiful and require careful planning on their usage. Managing one's inventory and resources works hand-in-hand with teamwork in Survival Mode.

Head to the official Left 4 Dead blog for more on finely crafting chaos.

Surviving the L4D Survival Pack [Valve]

Brandon Boyer

MIT's Jenkins, Drzaic, Rauch on morality & philosophy in Zelda

MIT's (and soon to be USC's) Henry Jenkins has posted a new interview with former students Peter Rauch and Kristina Drzaic (who I'm sure I've seen commenting around Offworld a time or two) on their contributions to the recently released pop culture/philosophy collection 'The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy: I Link Therefore I Am' (!).

Approaching the subject from two backgrounds (Drzaic's from her thesis on secrets and glitches in games, and Rauch on morality in games), the two have created a mashup chapter called "Slave Morality and Master Swords," and, while I haven't seen the piece itself, I did enjoy this quote from Drzaic (along with the post as a whole):

Peter and I both agree that the game series of Zelda is not, narratively speaking, a morass of intriguing philosophical questions. Every Zelda game has the same plot and In the Zelda world morality is fully black and white, good and evil. While replaying the same plot might sound boring, it isn't. Each game looks different, feels different, and behaves differently. Players keep coming back because the play itself is the attraction.]

The act of play is where the philosophical questions become interesting. As you work your way through the game world you can subvert the seriousness, the story, and the philosophy itself through your play. In this way, Zelda is a good case study for how philosophical questions can function within a videogame; our book explores the experience of the player vs. the reality of the game...

Defying the laws of a game is an illicit pleasure. In the case of [a glitch in Ocarina letting players fly] meant being able to explore the space in a new way and see incomplete construction and the game world's edge. The experience of flying in Zelda was like gaining access to the Disneyland Magic Kingdom underbelly or peeking behind the stage of a play. In flying through the air and playing with glitches you get to see things that are not meant for your eyes. It destroys the fiction but it also gives you, as a player, great freedom and mastery over the space.

Head over to Jenkins' Confessions of an Aca/Fan blog for the full interview.

Getting Philosophical about Legend of Zelda: An Interview with Kristina Drzaic and Peter Rauch [Confessions of an Aca/Fan]

Brandon Boyer

A quick look into the crowdsourcing potential of WarioWare: Made in Ore

Outside of the bit Generations (or, as it's now known, Art Style) series, the WarioWare franchise and its chaotic strings of one to two-second-long microgames remains one of Nintendo's boldest experiments after decades of safer and more traditionalist design.

Though each subsequent iteration (from motion-sensitive twisting, to DS original touching, to Wii-mote smooth-moving) has seen the refreshingly belligerent streak of the Game Boy Advance original necessarily tamed as it asked for more motor skill precision, the latest volume, now fully detailed for the first time in Japan, has laid the series' fate in your hands.

While still not officially announced for the U.S. (though a shoe-in to appear), the latest DS version, Made in Ore (roughly, Made In Me), has taken the series for a decidedly crowd-sourced turn and will let players fully design, share and remix their own microgames -- as well as comics and music.

READ THE REST

Brandon Boyer

The best Super Mario writing utensil never made

Via Dotter Dotter, the blog from 3D pixelcrafter Tibori Design, previously mentioned for his Super Mario dioramas: a high-concept Mario pen Nintendo would do well to consider producing.

I'd buy three.

I want one of these! Piranha Plant ballpoint pen! [Dotter Dotter]

Brandon Boyer

Enterprising Craigslister: "Tetris lessons offered at affordable rates"

Heads up Vancouver, lessons offered if not from the master, then at least from "someone who has played numerous variations of Tetris on a number of different platforms and consoles, in the relative comfort of his own home."

What you get:

Tetris Fundamentals - 90 minutes $30.00

After completing Tetris Fundamentals, you will have:

• the ability to identify and maneuver all 7 Tetriminoes, as well as their major uses
• an understanding of how to achieve back to back Tetrises
• learned to optimize your use of basic features and techniques such as hard drops and wall kicks, as well as making the most out of holds and block preview (these features may not be native to all versions of Tetris)
• watched me play Tetris for 45 minutes
• gained the confidence to play Tetris by yourself or against friends, strangers, and family members

The two hour intermediate course, offered at a variable rate of $40-55, includes "all of the modules covered in Tetris Fundamentals but also includes beer, wine or liquor. You will challenge yourself by applying the skills you've learned while growing increasingly intoxicated and playing against someone who is similarly drunk."

Tetris lessons offered at affordable rates [Craigslist, via Margaret]

Brandon Boyer

Video: Power Play/composer Hip Tanaka do Metroid music live

The students meet the master: Swedish game music coverband Power Play do a live performance of composer Hip Tanaka's original Metroid music, live at Tokyo's 8bit Cafe.

There's tons more Power Play to be had around YouTube, primarily via user apansonsyrke: see also, their Super Mario Bros 2 and RöjMedley of Konami's Goonies II alongside MegaMan boss music.

Power Play [MySpace, via TinyCartridge]

Brandon Boyer

UK games festival GameCity returns Oct 27-31, goes free of charge

Organizers of the Nottingham, UK-based games festival GameCity have announced that the festivities will continue for their fourth year this October 27-31st, and will be, they say, "very different from other videogame events [including GameCity 3]".

Even more importantly, in a subsequent update, shortly thereafter, the GameCity crew have announced that all of the formal sessions/events at this newly dubbed 'GameCity Squared' -- which in previous years were open to the public but commanded individual ticket prices -- will now be free of charge.

While I unfortunately wasn't able to make it to the 2008 GameCity, I did spent the week in Nottingham in 2007, and this is what made it near-instantly my favorite games event:

* Public access: the foundatational principle of GameCity is that, unlike most other worldwide events (bar Tokyo Game Show and, now, E4All), it's a chance for the wider public to interface with game developers themselves. Case in point:

* In 2007, Lego Star Wars producer Jon Smith took to the stage to reveal the Wii version of Star Wars for the first time, to a crowd of pre-teens [read: the game's actual target audience], where he was able to have a dialogue with the crowd (and was quickly shown up on Star Wars trivia by the precocious youth). This doesn't normally happen.

* 2007 was also the year that Keita Takahashi also showed off Noby Noby Boy for the first time (above), as previously mentioned (and videoed) in my earlier post on the game.

* 2008 was the year that the festival attempted (and managed) to assembled the largest public congregation of zombies [the final tally came in at over 1200], where they were serenaded by Jonathan Coulton (above).

That's a short list of a lot of fantastic things that happen yearly, and, long story a little bit shorter: you want to be there this year, and I do too.

Check the GameCity site for further upcoming details.

This is when it happens [GameCity]

Lisa Katayama

How to better understand otaku culture through Rhythm Heaven

Since its recent U.S. release, Rhythm Heaven (aka Rhythm Tengoku Gold) has been described by other sites as quirky, tough, off-the-wall, strange, and weird. I'm from Tokyo, and I have a slightly different take on why this game is so awesome.

This game obviously isn't really about shooting piston pins into a square on a conveyer belt or about filling robots with fuel. I don't know that it's really only about rhythm, either, though that's a big part of it. There's something about Rhythm Heaven that speaks to the Japanese otaku in me. I'm going to try to explain what that is now.

In stage 1-2, you're a boy in a three-boy choir. If you don't sing your part exactly right, the boys next to you look at you with a sad face. And it makes you, the person playing the game, feel guilty for sucking. In a really sad way. This "guilty for sucking" feeling is very common among otaku. Have you ever seen the movie Train Man? Train Man is always, always apologizing for sucking. And then when the pretty girl tells him to stop apologizing, he apologizes for apologizing.

A typical otaku goes to work in the morning, works hard, keeps his figurine-collection a secret from his colleagues, and doesn't utter a word about his video game collection to his family at home. But on weekends, or after work even, he slips quietly out of Akihabara station and shuffles in a controlled, excited manner to his favorite venue, whether it's an anime shop or a maid cafe or a teen idol concert.

And then, when he gets there, he unleashes his inner excitement. Otaku are way too shy to bust out with their own made-up dance moves in front of other people. So instead, they go to organized concerts behind closed doors and darkened windows where everyone in the audience is focusing on one thing--the girl on stage--and they learn organized dance moves like the monkeys do as part of a fan cheering squad in stage 1-4.

This is a dance called otagei, a word made up by combining the word otaku with the character gei, often used to describe the arts. It is a native to Akihabara, possibly one of the newest dance forms in the world, and consists of repeated synchronized movements like waving arms, clapping, and chanting while a young idol girl sings on-stage. You see the guys in the crowd doing it in the video that Margaret posted in February of the girl singing the in-game song, too.

Finally, let's talk briefly about the lizards in stage 3-1. The object of this stage is to wag your lizard's tail in unison with the other lizard's so that he'll fall in love with you. The movement is a simple up-down-up-down, but as the beat gets faster, it's hard to keep the stylus' movements controlled. Even a tiny mis-wag will make him go all sad face on you. I don't think it's a coincidence that the big scary yellow lizard is female and the tiny cute green one is male. To a lot of otaku, women are scary, reptilian, over-the-top creatures.

Maybe I've smoked way too much pot, but I think Rhythm Heaven can be a conduit for gaining a deeper understanding of Japanese otaku culture. By playing this game, you can really understand what it feels like to feel guilty for sucking, to do organized dance moves with a bunch of monkeys, and to not be scared away by big aggressive lizard women.

Rhythm Heaven home [Nintendo]

Brandon Boyer

area/code iPhone puzzler Drop7 gets social update, soundtrack EP

Just exactly the news I'd been hoping for: area/code's Drop7 -- the puzzle game borne out of their ARG-related web game chainfactor, and the first iPhone game I threw all my unequivocal support behind on its initial release -- has just been updated with both a new online leaderboard for each of its three modes, and integrated support for the recently launched Facebook Connect.

Why does that matter? Apart from the inherent benefits of socializing the game (and seeing where you actually stand against your friends), the game's third "sequence" mode -- which drops an identical pattern of discs each game for every player -- now finally makes sense when you can track your score against the world.

If you haven't yet picked up the game (and I don't actually say this this urgently about many games, especially on the iPhone) -- do not miss out on this one, it truly is one of the platform's finest.

And! As a side note, flipping through its menus has also brought to my attention that the composer of the game's fantastic Reich-ian soundtrack loops, Steve Horelick, has just released an EP of music from the game via his website. Even more oddly, that has also just brought to my attention that he's the composer behind the original Reading Rainbow TV theme, which is my mind blown, just a touch.

Drop7 home [iTunes link, SteveH soundtrack]

Previously:

• Touch me I'm slick: area/code's snap7 - Offworld
• Touch me I'm slick again: area/code relaunches Drop7 - Offworld
• SXSWi rewind: Facebook invades iPhone games - Offworld

0

1

Brandon Boyer

Endless Loop: TWC's academic study of chiptune history

From the good things in unexpected places dept.: academic journal Transformative Works has devoted its latest issue to the subject of games, and chief amongst its best pieces is MIT students Kevin Driscoll and Joshua Diaz's exhaustive look at the history and rise of the chiptune genre.

From the earliest hardware hacking days of the Atari 2600, to the landmark creation of the SID chip (right, used most famously in the Commodore 64) to the concurrent Amiga cracking/tracking/demo scenes, Driscoll sets up the aesthetic roots of what would later be embraced by the likes of upstart (and still prolific) netlabel micromusic.net.

Driscoll also very adeptly covers the split between chiptune music for its own sake and its somewhat tenuous association with "videogame music" itself (a subject broached often in 2pp's Reformat the Planet documentary), and the trend of covering formerly chipped music with live instruments (see: the Minibosses, et al).

It's a fantastic and very readable primer to the scene, and an informative read even for old hats.

Endless loop: A brief history of chiptunes [Transformative Works]

Brandon Boyer

Sea change: Patrick Morgan's Whaleboy gets trademarked for games

And so it spreads further: following DGPH's first light foray, Nathan J's full on fantastic web work, and -- if you can more or less count it in the same way -- Rolito's jump in with Patapon, the latest vinyl toy artist making the video game leap appears to be Patrick Morgan and his effortlessly lovable character Whaleboy.

The anonymous overseer of the superannuation blog -- he's the one that tirelessly digs up pre-release trademark information and scours resumes for hints at un-announced games past and future -- has stumbled across a new trademark filing for Morgan's character to be used in games.

Presumably this'll be in conjunction with the cartoon deal Nickelodeon signed back in 2006 (though little more has been said about the show since).

Superannuation's work usually thanklessly goes uncredited by the mainstream games blogs, but since he dedicated this find specifically to me and my 'purportedly hipster' ways, I obviously can't help but give him his full due in reverse.

Found: Whaleboy trademark [superannuation]

Brandon Boyer

Galcon dev drops iPhone arcade game Cosmic Nitro

Cosmic Nitro [iTunes link] wears both its influences and its premise on its sleeve. As you can tell by the video above, putting it any other way than "it's survival mode Missile Command x insanity" would be doing it a disservice.

The game's the latest from Phil Hassey, creator of IGF Mobile innovation award winner Galcon, and, despite appearances, its greatest weakness might be that it's too easy: I managed to survive the three minutes of even its 9th maxed-out level at first touch.

Though it sorely lacks any connectivity -- even a simple online leaderboard would give subsequent runthroughs of its levels more purpose, and its 'apocalypse mode' (which counts the timer up rather than down) begs for worldwide ranking -- it's probably the best take I've played of the arcade classic on the device, and is easily today's best 99 cent distraction.

Cosmic Nitro home [Phil Hassey, iTunes link]

Brandon Boyer

Video: Pac Man in real life

From Remi Gaillard, the man behind the real life Mario Kart (who apparently is quickly turning into the French Mega 64), Pac Man in real life.

Remi Gaillard channel [Dailymotion, via mbf]

Brandon Boyer

LittleBigMachinima: Sackboy takes on colossal reality in LittleBigRevenge

The week's best LittleBigMachinima, via Media Molecule themselves: Seakitten Collective's LittleBigRevenge, which asks "what would happen if a diplomatic mistake causes [sackboys] to take revenge on humanity? A Belgian couple finds out right in their living room..."

Stick with it to the end for the thrilling Colossal conclusion.

We love Machinima - LittleBigRevenge [Media Molecule]

Brandon Boyer

Goomba's terror: Allen Sutton's moleskine Mario sketch

Spotted by GamOvr, Allen 'offkilterart' Sutton's moleskine sketched Mario grotesquery takes on a whole new brutal light now that I've seen life through the eyes of a Goomba.

offkilterart sketch ['skine.art, via GamOvr]

Brandon Boyer

Listen: Stalin Vs. Martians offers soundtrack MP3s, opens pre-orders

Have they gone too far? I think it's possible they might've gone too far*.

Either way, with pre-orders just opening on "all leading digital download portals worldwide" for Dreamlore/Mezmer's upcoming PC arcade/ real-time-strategy game Stalin Vs. Martians, the devs have also created a new page for fans with free downloads of a number of the soundtrack selections you've seen in previous video teasers.

Included are original teaser trailer composer Ilya Orange's tracks Chastushki and My Pocket Stalinizer (!), a track from the Jerry-Lenin-headed "legendary Russian glam-rock band" Lady's Man (says Dreamlore: "You wouldn't believe, but Lenin is not a pseudonym, it's a real surname."), and -- of course! -- Hong Kong-based twee pop band My Little Airport, with a song title even Dreamlore haven't bothered to translate from the original Chinese (my favorite of the bunch).

Find all the musical gifts here -- the game is due for release on April 20th.

*(Whether or not you agree might have everything to do with your take on Lazytown.)

Stalin vs. Martians home [Dreamlore Games, Mezmer game home]

Rob Beschizza

Diego Silvério's Tetris furniture

Whenever you complete a row, Amazon sends round a guy to delete your books. Also, Diego, some of those are not proper Tetrominoes.

Tetris Furniture [Coroflot]

Brandon Boyer

Gimme Indie Game: Shen Games' Don't Save The Princess

Like Polygon ★ Gmen's Transmover, indie dev and illustrator Alexander Shen's Don't Save the Princess! is a dead simple idea compounded smartly over a series of levels, with adorably restrained graphic style.

The essence: manipulate directional blocks in quasi-Chu Chu Rocket style (though more cerebrally to that game's inherent chaos) to force an 8-bit executioner away from the bound princess and into the jaws of the patiently awaiting monster.

New in Shen Games' latest version, a full level editor that lets you share custom levels via an exported file. Leave the URLs of your cleverest creations in the comments below!

Don't Save the Princess! [Shen Games, via TIGSource]

Brandon Boyer

DROP THE GODDAMN RADIO: Tom Francis on Ending BioShock

There is essentially no part of Francis's writeup that doesn't qualify as a massive spoiler, so avert your gaze entirely from the included link if you haven't seen BioShock all the way through.

If you have, though, PC Gamer UK's Tom Francis sez:

I wrote this post - a rant I've bored many friends with about how BioShock should have ended - on the 10th of October 2008, but never got round to taking shots for it. Then on February 10th, I got to see what 2K Marin are doing for BioShock 2. And annoyingly, some of it overlaps with what I suggest here.

That meant a) I couldn't post this, since this would look like me leaking the details I was under a non-disclosure agreement to keep secret, and b) by the time I could post this, those details would have been announced and it would seem woefully unoriginal. I'm posting it anyway.

Ending BioShock [Pentadact]

Brandon Boyer

The Super Mario Bros. 3 'rainbow riding' LUA hack

Adding to the insanity of Xkeeper's original drag and drop Super Mario Bros hack, the FCEUX emulator includes a second LUA script that turns Super Mario Bros. 3 into the DS game Nintendo never made.

The hack disables direct control of Mario completely, and only allows you to manipulate him (and protect him from the rest of the world) via mouse-drawn lines ala the DS's Kirby Canvas Curse and Atari's The Chase. Admittedly still a bit rough around the edges, but still incredible to see the depth of remixing possible running directly from the original game.

FCEUX emulator [via Kotaku]

Brandon Boyer

Video: Bill O'Reilly gets wise to Super Mario

Spotted via Gawker, Bill O'Reilly and his Peabody Polk award winning crew at Inside Edition report on the emerging world of Nintendo, at a time when the Mario name meant Puzo more than plumber.

As a bonus, a look behind the scenes at Game Counselor HQ, and another teasing glance at that gold-covered 'Zelda Tips and Tactics' booklet that used to sing its (too expensive for a pre-teen) siren song to me from every. single. issue. of Nintendo Power.

Nintendo 1988 Inside Edition TV news report with Super Mario [YouTube, via Gawker, and man, why have I never thought to search for a scan of Zelda T&T until just now, all of that via .tiff]

Joel Johnson

Ruggish Pac-Man half-sized knuckle dusters

For $20 plus shipping, two of your fingers can be clad in a wooden ring from Good Wood NYC that, after proper application of the Double Knuckle Ruckus*, will turn your opponent into the missing fourth Pac-Man ghost.

* A.K.A. The "Super Clyder"

Jim Rossignol

Ragdoll Metaphysics: Cloud Gaming Is The Nebulous Shape Of Ubiquitous Gaming

Science fiction has a habit of becoming reality a lot faster than we imagine. One of my favourite books, The Shape Of Further Things by Brian Aldiss, is a series of rambling, random essays written at the end of the Sixties. In it he suggested that one day we'd all be connected by an all-encompassing information network called "The Big Hookup" and we'll be able to access it with remote devices that we all carry around with us independently. Crazy talk, Brian, really. That technology is centuries away.

Last year, at GDC 2008, I sat in a room with a bunch of the world's most experienced developers, as they outlined science fiction ideas about how gaming might work in the future: how games might be rendered remotely on giant super-computing clusters and then streamed to our homes. A year later the tech was being demoed - apparently live and functional - at the same event.

Cloud gaming, the idea of "games on demand" proposed by startup services like OnLive and Gaikai, suggests that the days of us buying powerful home processing hardware - be it consoles or PCs - could be numbered. The theory that these services ride on is that they will be able to render and stream games directly to "thin" client side devices: nothing more than a gamepad, a screen, and the processor required to decode the video stream. All the big graphics crunching will be done by the servers, and at our end a low-spec laptop will do the job.

So the age old cycle of upgrading from one generation of hardware to the next will be over: be it on your work PC, or via a small box under your TV, that's all that even the most high-end gaming will require. This is a huge step, because it's secure from piracy and cheating, and because it won't suffer from the problems that we currently have in getting games working on our laptop, or home PC. It is, in that shiny 1950s jetpack sense of the word, The Future.

READ THE REST

Brandon Boyer

Harder, better: Shane Brouwer's Daft Punk: The Game

Let's be completely honest: it's obviously not going to win any design awards, but Shane Brouwer's Daft Punk: The Game -- in which the band attempts to recover all its samples stolen by rival electro-duo Justice -- is still a decent way to kill 10 minutes of your day, if only because doing the head-jump combos is every bit as satisfying as Super Mario's Koopa shell chains.

Play it via pedestrian.tv.

Daft Punk: The Game [Pedestrian.tv]

Brandon Boyer

Listen (and then play): Boy in Static's Toy Baby Grand

The best thing that's landed in my mailbox so far this week: Alex Chen, half of pop-duo Boy In Static, submits the video (directed by Philip Stockton and himself) for his band's latest single, Toy Baby Grand. Chen explains: "Footage for the video was captured like a performance, pasting text and GIF's into Textedit in sync with the music."

But! Then! Even better: after you've watched, you go play the video in game form to win MP3s, and, says Chen: "the twist is that we will unlock more MP3's based on the number of hits." So, go play, please.

Boy in Static (consisting of Chen and Kenji Ross) was originally signed to Alien Transistor, the label headed by Markus Acher of Offworld favorite band The Notwist (where their original web video Bellyfull was featured on the Mother Boing), before moving over to Mush and touring with the likes of Harmonix-related synth-pop mainstays Freezepop.

See more about Boy in Static here, and more about Chen's other fantastic art/music/web work here.

Toy Baby Grand: the game [Boy in Static]

Brandon Boyer

Huge official Taito T-shirts are approaching fast

Today's other necessary additions to your T-shirt collection: stateside import house NCSX has begun taking pre-orders for these official retro designs straight from Japan developer Taito, with both expected to ship in April.

On the left, obviously, their original arcade hit Bubble Bobble, on the right, the huge and clearly fast approaching battle ship King Fossil from their 1994 arcade shooter Darius Gaiden.

Bubble Bobble shirt / Darius Gaiden shirt [NCSX]

Brandon Boyer

Feisar and consoles and bears: Edge magazine opens online shop

Cruelly currently restricted to the UK and Europe, UK games mag Edge has opened a new store to directly order T-shirts and goods previously only given away as subscription gifts.

In addition to the shirt designs shown above (the Edge logo in a full console setup collection, an officially licensed Team Feisar logo from Wipeout, and, my favorite, the bear), they've also got a 200-postcard set of every cover used for their recent issue 200 blowout that I very much need to get my hands on.

Visit the store directly for more ordering information.

Edge Store Opens For Business [Edge Online]

Brandon Boyer

Intelligent designer: Chris Hecker's Liner Notes for Spore

Every bit as mile a minute and ponderously technical as talking or listening to the man himself, Chris Hecker -- one of the chief technologists and animation team lead behind Maxis/EA's Spore -- has begun documenting the five year process that lead to the final release, and, despite the technicality, it's a fascinating and revealing read.

Hecker covers everything from his very first efforts in late 2003 nailing down how skin would hang over an infinite variety of creations (at left, a 3D print of Hecker's first created creature) to the process of dynamically texturing that skin, to early prototypes of the animation system (along with test videos), and how "Bugs + Player Creativity = Features".

As a companion piece, Hecker also notes that art director Ocean Quigley has been keeping his own records on the process behind the game's visual design at his blog both technical and more philosophical.

For further reading, there's also my feature-length snapshot in time of the larger team's mindset and goals in 2006 reprinted over at RockPaperShotgun.

My Liner Notes For Spore [Chris Hecker, Ocean Quigley's blog]

Brandon Boyer

Edit away: Braid level editor gets a new home

Well, that came faster than expected: as promised, Braid creator Jon Blow has updated the official game site with a downloadable starter package and the first draft of documentation for the level editor included in the PC (and forthcoming Mac) version of the game.

Head to the Braid Blog for the full details and instructions.

The Braid Level Creation Thread [Braid Blog]

Brandon Boyer

Pixel junk: Alex Bond's dedicated pixelstyle blog

Joining Simon Parkin's excellently single-minded Box Art tumblr (which has ever so slightly slipped in the past week [but ended on a high note] -- everything ok, Simon?) as my new favorite follow is pixelstyle, a new tumblr devoted solely to "showcase and celebrate the aesthetic of pixels, whether from games, demos, original artwork, or anything else."

The site is being run by Alex 'enso' Bond, a fantastic pixel magician in his own right (see: his animated portrait of previously mentioned NES hacker/musician No Carrier and similarly excellent VJ visuals).

There are some slightly NSFW pixels currently roaming around the front page, but for the most part enso's stuck to inspiring game landscapes, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing where he takes us next.

pixelstyle [tumblr, enso tumblr]

Brandon Boyer

Time lord: PC version of Braid contains full level editor

The final blow that could get all of the Xbox 360 early adopters to re-purchase Jon Blow's time-warping platformer Braid for the PC/Mac? Spurred on by a recent Steam forum questioner, Jon Blow has admitted that there is indeed a hidden level editor inside the recently released port.

Currently accessible by staring the game with an "-editor parameter" and pressing F11, Blow has said that full editor documentation will be published in coming weeks, followed by "a tool will be released that lets you take Photoshop files and import them into the game, if you want to put new graphics in your levels," and added that the editor will be coming to the Mac version, as well.

Artist David Hellman actually showed the editor at work during his GDC session -- you can see a quick rundown of its features via his Art of Braid blog series.

Head over to the original Steam thread for more explanation from Blow, and then do whatever task exists for wrapping your mind around the seemingly insurmountable challenge of designing for time as much as space.

Map editor for Braid? [Steam forums, via Shacknews]

Brandon Boyer

Gimme Indie Game: Touch My Pixel/Nathan J's Scarygirl

I've been anxiously awaiting this one since the above trailer first appeared the week of GDC, but now it's here: Melbourne studio Touch My Pixel and illustrator/vinyl toy producer Nathan Jurevicius have officially unveiled their collaborative Scarygirl game.

As it turns out, it's a far more intricately constructed game than you'd normally imagine springing from a promotional web campaign (see: DGPH's similar, but mechanically far less complex Molestown).

Fit in amongst its indie-developed brethren, it's somewhere quite near Amanita's Samorost games (and his previously blogged Machinarium), only, obviously strip away the point and click scheme for more traditional platforming, and replace Dvorský's signature gnarled organic photoshoppery for Nathan J's already well-established style.

What it retains from games like Samorost, though, is that sense of wonder that you get from exploring a world (and Scarygirl's world is rife with nooks and crannies to be explored) entirely unlike the worlds games have given us before -- exactly the kind of magic I've been talking about since founding Offworld that comes when an outside artist brings their fresh perspective into games.

It might not be quite as tightly built as the best of the past several decades of platformers, and makes some cute and easily forgivable minor mistakes along the way (see: my reticence to jump on the spiky-headed enemies in the first level before accidentally realizing it wouldn't hurt), but with its iconographic narration, richly constructed environments and collectible diversions (provided by a series of console cartridges that unlock minigames), it's a fantastic experiment and addition to the year's indie output.

Scarygirl game home [Nathan J, Touch My Pixel home]

Joel Johnson

Is Six Days in Fallujah too soon?

Konami has announced their upcoming third-person action game, Six Days in Fallujah:

Six Days in Fallujah combines the action of a military shooter with the realism of a documentary film to create a new kind of experience that is both historical and engaging. Partnering with over three dozen US Marines to help develop the game along with unprecedented access to battle plans, after action reports, photos, videos and satellite maps makes this game the most authentic military shooter to date. Coupled with missions, objectives and scenarios grounded in factual events, Six Days in Fallujah will create an authentic 3rd person shooter unlike any ever developed.

There's not a thing that I think is worth censoring, so I don't question Konami's right to make Six Days in Fallujah. And I'm aware of perhaps an unfair sensitivity on my part, as someone who not only didn't support the war waged by my own country, but did nothing to stop it from occurring. I'm also well aware that real human beings died in all of the conflicts in which the historical military games I enjoy are set. That Marines are involved does assuage some of my worries that at least the military's perspective will be made cartoonish.

But the Iraq war is still going on. For a company to release a game set in a battle that is still fresh in the minds of many seems disrespectful and unnecessary.

Brandon Boyer

Refill your 8-bit heart meters with matching proximity-aware shirts

A cheap gimmick to be sure, but also undeniably kind of awesomely charming. Also available, a bit more sadly, as a single shirt and transmitter pack that can be placed near a more inanimate love.

8-Bit Dynamic Life Shirt [thinkgeek, spotted by m,appeal via oddee]

Brandon Boyer

Listen: Everyone loves Tobiah's I Love Your Music

A few years old but still as fresh and perfect for Tuesday morning listening as the day it was released, Tobiah's I Love Your Music is looping, twisted house for lonely computer pen pals.

The clip was animated by E-Rock, the same as behind the previously blogged 'Bad Cartridge' video he and Paper Rad did for Beck.

Hear and download more Tobiah via his official site, including I Love Your Music and my other favorite, I Don't Really Exist, which comes from that same tragically isolated virtual dance house.

tobiah.se [also: 2biah MySpace]

Joel Johnson

iPhones in Space: Galaxy on Fire

German developer Fishlabs has brought their oxygen-rich space combat and trading game, Galaxy on Fire, up to version 1.1.0, which not only improves controls but adds a bland but apparently necessary "difficulty slider" that can be adjusted on a 100-point scale.

At $6 on the iTunes App Store and with a claimed twenty hours of gameplay, it certainly has a fair price-to-cash ratio. Unfortunately, with my iPhone already littered with games that I've only played for a few minutes before letting them shuffle off to the second or third page of applications, I'm on a self-imposed hiatus from new pay-for apps.

And that takes more effort than you might first guess. Space combat is one of my first loves, and a genre sorely misrepresented in recent years, peeling off slightly to the arcady with games like Freelancer—I could tolerate, or even enjoy the mouse-based controls, but found the trading game weirdly sterile—or dauntingly oversimmed, at least in reputation, which kept me away from the I-War series.

What I want, of course, is EVE Online merged with the dogfighting of Freespace—a idealized commingling that is currently unfairly embodied by NetDevil's Jumpgate Evolution, stored in the lazily rotating shipping container drifting through Hope Sector.

Brandon Boyer

The 'feverish bad crazy' at the heart of EVE Online

Our Ragdoll Metaphysics columnist Jim Rossignol has already done a fantastic job of documenting the depth of insular and near-inexplicable tactics that take place in the world of EVE Online, but Ten Ton Hammer has updated with a wonderful look into the "jagged fissure of insanity which runs through the heart of the EVE playerbase, a kind of feverish bad crazy that you simply don't find in other online games."

The money quote? Right here:

I was approached by one of the leaders of Red Alliance... but almost immediately we were down the rabbit hole. Much to my surprise, the RA director didn't want in-game information from me; he wanted us to use the forensic resources of our intelligence agency to trace down The Enslaver's home address. At a coordinated time, armed with this information, a RA member would apparently cut the power to The Enslaver's house in the real world, and in EVE a RA capital fleet would assault the abruptly pilotless Titan. Yikes.

Bad Crazy in Internet Space [Ten Ton Hammer, via Margaret and Tom]

Brandon Boyer

Boy crazy: a trip down the Game Boy rabbit hole

Vintage Computing's Benj Edwards has put together a wonderful slideshow of the weird and wonderful underbelly of Game Boy lore throughout the years, with some cute and classic stuff you probably remember since childhood.

More importantly, though, I call attention to it mostly because I'd honestly never seen the frankly sort of horrifying Pedisedate solution at above left, and -- at right -- the unbelievable quasi-Basil Wolverton-ish blister pack put together for Japanese print mag Famitsu's exclusive version of the Game Boy Light (hi-res version here).

Game Boy Oddities [Technologizer]

Brandon Boyer

It begins: Sony tests download-only PSP games with Patapon 2

I suppose it couldn't have started at a better place: a long series of rumors and follow-ups yesterday has rewarded Ars Technica with confirmation that Sony will be using the upcoming release of its Rolito-art-directed strategy game Patapon 2 as a test bed for pure digital downloads for the PSP.

Soon to be available on the PlayStation Network for $15 alongside the other recently converted digital download releases, Sony will continue to support retail with an empty UMD case that simply contains a slip with a download code (and a demo version, if you reserve at select retailers, that -- like the original game -- will give you a special item that carries over into the full release) for $5 more.

This is a bold first step in the new direction for the device that Joel contemplated over at Gadgets earlier this year (which I thought of as even closer than he imagined over here) and hopefully something that will continue en masse later this year.

Or imagine it playing out this way: games are the ephemeral experience, the ones that -- especially now -- we don't need to purchase in a box. Why not go a step further and sell us some other companion piece to keep retail in the loop (a toy? a shirt? a print?) and let the game exist purely in byte form?

[Correction: As Metanet's Raigan Burns has very correctly pointed out, this isn't the first purely digital PSP game: Queasygames' excellent handheld port of Everyday Shooter and, more recently, Realtech VR's No Gravity are more obvious examples, but this is the first time Sony's tried to run both digital and retail routes stateside.]

Confirmed: Retail Patapon 2 to be UMD-free [Ars Technica, Patapon 2 home]

Brandon Boyer

How are game developers like porn stars?

A cute meditation from Kill Ten Rats:

In those early years, they are worked hard. As much as you can get out of them, as soon as you can get it, before they realize this is not as glamorous as they thought. Yes, even the ones who heard about the working conditions were still being a bit optimistic. Make sure to have the appropriate chemical stimulants on hand to let them keep going to the limits of youthful endurance. Until they get burned out, these are the best years to work them until they are dry.

They will get burned out soon. The disillusionment process can be traumatic, and many try to hide it because they cannot admit it was a losing decision. They will keep going, pushing those hours, hitting those stimulants hard. If you look back in a few years, you will see how their bodies have changed, not from aging, but from the work itself.

Game Developers and Porn Stars [Kill Ten Rats, via Josh Lee, image via The Cubes line of toys]

Brandon Boyer

Classic Mac game Through the Looking Glass lands on iPhone

If you're not a dedicated Mac fiend it may not ring a bell, but Through the Looking Glass holds a distinct honor in Apple's history.

Folklore.org tells the history in better detail than I will here, but the gist is this: what started as a side-project demo created by Steve Capps on the company's ill-fated Lisa (Capps would soon leave the Lisa team for the Mac and contribute to the first version of the Finder) became Apple's only first-party developed and published game.

(Side note: true to the company's values, it came as gorgeously packaged as any Apple product you might buy today, in a mock cloth-bound-storybook-like case.)

While it never quite got its due on its original platform, history has now wrapped around on itself, as Capps himself has brought the game to the iPhone as AliceX [iTunes link].

The game plays essentially like an arcade version of chess: Alice takes on the movement properties of particular pieces and hops around the board attempting to capture a full slate of CPU-controlled opposing pieces that advance toward you in real time. The iPhone version can be played at its original four different speeds and, on very quick trial, has adapted itself perfectly to the touchscreen.

Even curiouser, AliceX comes with new game skins including a reworked board of hip-hop pieces and -- true, I suppose, to the anarcho-cynicalist roots of a game which included a hidden Dead Kennedys logo on its cover -- a 'Bush Memorial' skin which turns the chess pieces into jester/pope/jockey-hatted Bush administration officials and color-coded Homeland Security alerts being taken out by a clip-art Obama.

Find out more about the game and play a lite Javascript version via Capps' official AliceX home, and follow future developments by reading the Fake Steve Capps blog.

AliceX -- The original Macintosh game now for iPhone [Onedoto, iTunes link]

Brandon Boyer

Gimme Indie Game: Terry Cavanagh & Stephen Lavelle's Judith

If you've only got one hour for an indie game this week, make that game Terry Cavanagh and Stephen "increpare" Lavelle's Judith.

Like Gravity Bone, it's a game where less up-front explanation is better, but I'll give away this much: imagine a parallel universe where Id had used its cutting edge 1992 technology not to create a game about escaping a Nazi prison and hunting down a robotic Hitler, but instead to tell a simple story through shifting narratives and timelines, each shift peeling away one more narrative layer and giving you subtle hints about where you'll be headed in the next.

It's heady, atmospheric stuff, and, like last week's Enviro-bear 2000, probably a very early winner of the week's best indie development.

Judith [distractionware, PC download, Mac download, Linux download, via TIGSource]

Brandon Boyer

Listen: Rutger Muller dominates Korg DS-10 with Cheap Dirt

Following the previously blogged LSDJ/LGPT dub ep from Simon Mattison, the latest album from netlabel mp3death is Cheap Dirt from Rutger 'DS-10 Dominator' Muller.

As you might expect from his alias, Muller's album was composed entirely on a single copy of Korg's DS-10 synthesizer, and, he adds:

No post-processing of the audio has been done. All sounds are synthesized, there's no sampling involved. Genres covered are: minimal, techno, electro, acid, dubstep, uk garage, drum n bass, ambient, etc.

mp3death add, in their own typical quasi-poetical fashion:

Enchanted with drum & A computer on
and jupiter is cut everything else,
turn the Most synthesizer preset
bass and then boost that notoriously famous

sessions by soundsystems
no midi control so your beat can offer
that paradoxically mix primitivistic
lo-fi and comfortable again.

Listen to the stream below, particularly the standout downtempo track "Sea Son" (skip to track six) or download the entire album via archive.org.

cheap dirt by ds-10 dominator [archive.org, mp3death label, rutgermuller.nl, via disquiet]

Brandon Boyer

4K well spent: RGBA & TBC create gorgeous landscapes in 4K of code

The winner of the just-ended Breakpoint 2009 demoscene competition? For reasons that will become obvious as soon as you see the video (higher-res YouTube), RGBA and TBC's Elevated, all the more impressive when you realize it was created with just 4K of code.

Head here for the pouet entry with the PC downloadable, and here for the rest of the Breakpoint entries.

elevated by Rgba & TBC [pouet, via Waxy]

Brandon Boyer

See Q-games' PixelJunk Eden Encore expansion in motion

Q-games has finally let loose the trailer the studio showed at GDC for its upcoming expansion of Offworld 20 favorite PS3 downloadable Pixeljunk Eden, after detailing the included additions to the game.

Those additions? Along side the new Baiyon music for each level, Q-games has implemented a new "three-seed smart-bomb" powerup where every "prowler" on the screen will explode into pollen after jumping into three seeds in a row -- which will also now work in the original game itself.

The expansion will also add a "zero-G" item that will let you float through the level for a limited time, with appropriately designed puzzles in that particular garden, plus a new "mirror" garden with portals in and out of its double, with subtle changes in between

And finally, Q-games is teasing at a new easter egg for the end of the expansion that "will enable you to play the entire game again in a completely different way."

The expansion will be available with this Thursday's regular PlayStation Network update.

PixelJunk Eden Encore Launching on PSN this Thursday [Playstation.blog, Pixeljunk Eden home]

Brandon Boyer

Its-a mate: the curious character assignments of Super Mario chess

It's true: Nintendo has granted board-game/pop-culture mash-up artists USAopoly -- the same company behind the frankly kind of wicked Donkey Kong Jenga and Nintendo-themed Monopoly -- the rights to produce a Super Mario Bros version of chess.

Which is nice, particularly if it helps ease the youths into the game, but I'm still puzzling over how the designers came to their character assigning conclusions. Luigi as Mario's queen over Peach herself? Granted, she is just a princess (and needed that Princess Daisy counterpart), but.. Luigi? And no one could think of a better mate for Bowser than his own son?

Maybe I'm approaching this too literally. Kudos, though, for the cute pawn selections on both ends.

Super Mario Chess Collector's Edition [via crunchgear]

Joel Johnson

T-Shirt: Exploded Wii

From the same group that brought you the iSteamPhone, the Exploded 2600 and DaVinci's Mario, Garry Booth's WiiExploded T-shirt.

$23 shipped (in the U.S.), hoodies $37, although they might be special order.

Brandon Boyer

Post-GDC: Robin Hunicke's 6 easy ideas to fix PlayStation Home

Richard Lemarchand's microtalks turned out to be one of the finest and most inspiring sessions of GDC, and the one session archetype I hope will turn into a new long-lasting tradition. Taking its cues from the Pecha Kucha tradition of '20 slides auto-advancing every 20 seconds', it was a rapidfire series of speakers giving rapidfire ideas on the concept of "play."

Of all the speeches, perhaps the most practically focused was Boom Blox producer Robin Hunicke's series on "Simple Game Mechanics for Real and Virtual Play Spaces," or, put more simply (and reduced maybe a bit unfairly), what Sony can do to fix their PS3 virtual world Home.

Hunicke was disappointed to learn, she said, that her assumptions about the space -- that, coming from a game publisher, this virtual world would "blend the best of free expression, openess and structured activity" -- were quickly stymied when she found that by and large the most prevalent pastime in Home was "dudes... harassing any female avatar," and attempting to create their own emergent "fun" by exploiting collision physics to do things like standing on benches and sitting on railings and other avatar's shoulders.

So, imagining herself as queen of Home for a day, she came up with easy ideas to bring her overarching "4 C's" of game design -- Creativity, Collection, Competition, Community -- to the space and imagined new ways for people to interact.

READ THE REST

Brandon Boyer

LittleBigDaddy: supman098's custom BioShock 2 Big Daddy doll

And one last fantastic Monday morning custom toy: 'supman098's Big Daddy Dolly, as spotted in the teaser trailer for 2K Games' forthcoming Bioshock 2 might just trump Harrison Krix's Little Sister syringe as the best fan made tribute to the series.

Big Daddy Dolly by supman098 [deviantart, via technabob]

Brandon Boyer

Iain Reekie's posthumous Grim Fandango custom toys

They might come a decade too late to cash in on the game's release, but Iain Reekie's custom sculpey figures of main character Manny and speed demon Glottis from Tim Schafer's LucasArts swan song adventure Grim Fandango would still make an excellent posthumous mass produced toy, if anyone's willing to procure the license.

Glottis & Manny custom figures [Iain Reekie, via SuperPunch]

Brandon Boyer

Viva la revolucion: Sean Mort's Gaming Revolution T-shirt

Available now via threadless, Sean Mort's new T-shirt speaks truth to gaming's power.

The Gaming Revolution by Sean Mort [Threadless, via DarkZero]

Joel Johnson

Video: Resident Evil 5 Versus mode in real life

I haven't even beat the single-player mode of RE5, let alone co-op, let even more alone any versus mode, but this video clearly encapsulates what I imagined the $5 optional add-on mode to play like.

Relatedly, Resident Evil 5 is playable for me in a way that RE4 never had been, in that it is actually fun and not a tedious fight against the antiquated "I'm a burly action hero but I can't run and shoot at the same time" Battlezone-like controls. Or is fun despite those controls, at least.

Perhaps it helps that I've decided to play on the easiest mode. In my old age, playing in wussy mode seems like a better use of my time. [via Tom Chick @ Fidgit]

Rob Beschizza

Another Green World: Fallout 3

Khyrin's GreenWorld mod for Fallout 3 turns the game's bleak post-apocalytic landscape into a cornucopia. Bare trees become towering canopies and lifeless scrub becomes dense foliage.

It became tired of the world that went to ruin. Want to see green occasionally. ... I think it is good when putting it after the Oasis quest or main quest.

One of Fallout 3's odd things is how it doesn't look like centuries have passed since the apocalypse. It looks like the war was very recent history, as evidenced by the fact that not a thing has been tidied up since.

Download [Fallout 3 Nexus via The Awesomer]

Rob Beschizza

"Less filling, more KILLING"

Submitted by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, who writes: "The scariest, geekiest thing I've ever seen at Frys. And that's saying a lot."

Previously: Mana Energy Potion review

Offworld Crew

Congratulate the finalists in EA/Phenomic's BattleForge contest

The votes have been cast and the polling's now closed: congratulations to Offworldians Chiro, Infiniteammo and BDJSB7 for taking an overwhelming majority of votes for their user-submitted legends in the BattleForge contest.

We'll be passing along your e-mail addresses to EA/Phenomic to get in touch and claim your prizes, after the Phenomic team chooses one of the three final entries to be included in the game itself.

Hit the jump to read the legends from the three finalists.

READ THE REST

Brandon Boyer

Švankmajer does Goo: Portly Pig's claymation creation, The Painter's Sign

Created by Portly Pig Studios as part of GameTrailers' ongoing Life Imitating Goo / Goo Imitating Life Contest, The Painter's Sign channels World of Goo via the macabre real-world/clay stop-motion vision of Jan Švankmajer, and is more or less a shoe-in to take the top prize.

The Painter's Sign [GameTrailers, photos of the set creation, Portly Pig MySpace, via 2D Boy]

Brandon Boyer

Listen: celebrate Braid's PC release with original soundtrack, remixes

As Xbox Live Arcade flagship title Braid makes its PC debut (or mostly, anyway, the Steam release seems to have been delayed to tomorrow, check Impulse, Greenhouse and Gamersgate for the download and demo), artist David Hellman updates to note that an "official" soundtrack has been put together for sale with all of the tracks licensed for the game.

With contributions from Jami Sieber, Shira Kammen, Cheryl Ann Fulton and two remixes by Jon Schatz, the album is being offered for download at a variable rate -- set your own price between $5 to $18 -- or on CD for an extra $6 on top of that (UK and Euro prices also available).

Sieber, Kammen, Fulton and Schatz - Music from Braid [Magnatune, via David Hellman]

Brandon Boyer

The NeoGAF Collection: a Criterion approach to game cover design

While it's clear that not everyone has the same grasp on what makes a Criterion cover a Criterion cover, there are enough that do in this latest collective burst of creativity from the NeoGAF forum that makes it very worth mentioning.

My favorites? See above, especially the Eric Carle-ish open question of Noby Noby Boy and pointillist death-burst of Killer 7.

NeoGAF Collection Collected gallery [via fimoculous, original neogaf thread]

Brandon Boyer

The one-sheet skating brilliance of Plants vs. Zombies viral debut

I was entirely set on passing off PopCap's new viral video for their oft-blogged Plants vs. Zombies as little more than cutely disposable, but then, 30 seconds in, it suddenly turns so inexplicably and sublimely bizarre that I can't stop hitting replay.

Plants Vs. Zombies home [PopCap]

Brandon Boyer

Another look at Knytt creator's WiiWare debut Night Game

Keeping up a media "blitz" as understated as the game itself, IGN has posted an extended look at Night Game, the forthcoming original WiiWare title from Nicalis, the same studio behind the WiiWare remake of cult indie hit Cave Story.

As noted in the accompanying interview, the music for Night Game is being provided by Chris Schlarb, one half of I Heart Lung, who have recorded a few albums for indie-game loving Offworld favorite label Asthmatic Kitty. Head to Lung's Asthmatic page for more samples.

NIGHT GAME VIDEO ON IGN [Nicalis]

Previously:
Dark was the night: the first look at Nicalis's WiiWare Night Game ...
Offworld: The Offworld Guide to IGF 2009 (pg. 4)
WiiWare Cave Story getting new downloadable content - Offworld
A deeper look at Knytt Stories - Offworld

Xeni Jardin

BB Video: Music in Games, pt. 2, and Radiohead Katamari Fan-Spazz Danceoff

Flash video above, click "fullscreen" icon inside player to view large. YouTube channel here, subscribe on iTunes here. Get Twitter updates every time there's a new ep by following @boingboingvideo, and here are blog post archives for Boing Boing Video.

Video: Download MP4.

Today, Boing Boing Video present part 2 of a 2-part conversation with Peter Kirn of Create Digital Music and Matt Ganucheau of Expression College about generative music, experimental audio in video games, new tools for music composition, and how sound changes our experience of gaming. We conducted this interview during Boing Boing/offworld's marathon live coverage of the 2009 Game Developers Conference. Peter Kirn shares a couple of urls that came up during the conversation:

Composer Troels Folmann came up as a source of inspiration - and himself the advocate of something he calls "micro-scoring." His GDC session, in which he boils a waterphone (seen at the tail end of the video!), is here on createdigitalmusic.com. And here is a previous interview in which he discusses his approach to adaptive music.

And, finally, we wish you a Happy Friday. Surely there can be no better way to celebrate the end of a work week than to put on a Katamari Damacy head, crank up a favorite song ("Bodysnatchers" by Radiohead), and rock out in front of a webcam. This is what happened with our esteemed interview guests when the interview above was over, the chat room was buzzing, and these Katamari costumes were just sitting there. I asked our chat room participants what we should force our guests to dance to, and all agreed to Radiohead. You'll hear me shouting out commands from the chat room during this video, and eventually, at the end, obeying a final command myself: to join in. This moment is also memorialized by paperdummy, whom we thank for the kind loan of the Katamari heads.

Video: Download MP4.

READ THE REST

Rob Beschizza

Comments working again!

Logged-in users should be able to comment again. Troubles? Clear your cache 'n' cookies. Anonymous commenting is still broken.

Xeni Jardin

Music in Video Games, a conversation with Peter Kirn and Matt Ganucheau (BB Video)

Download the MP4 here. Flash video above, click "fullscreen" icon inside player to view large. YouTube channel here, subscribe on iTunes here. Get Twitter updates every time there's a new ep by following @boingboingvideo, and here are blog post archives for Boing Boing Video.

Above, Boing Boing Video + Offworld present a conversation with Peter Kirn of Create Digital Music and Matt Ganucheau of Expression College about music in games: new tools, new forms of composition, and new ways of thinking about the role music and sound play in the gaming experience. We conducted this interview during BBV + Offworld's marathon live coverage of GDC09, and this video clip -- part one of a two-part conversation -- includes the work of Ganucheau's students in a class about composing music for videogames. One of the works we show is from a young student named Jason Bowers. Here are more details on working with Space Invaders as a teaching tool for interactive music. And here is Max/MSP, the music software used.

Previously:

* Social Games, and The Quest for Virtual Poo.
* Doctor Popular's Awesome Yo-Yo Stylings
* Hideo Kojima on Metal Gear Solid Touch (games)
* Jane McGonigal on Emotion, Gaming, and Dance.
* Jane McGonigal - Games Can Change the World.
* Jane McGonigal's Game Developers' Conference talk on Making Your Own Reality
* BBV @ GDC live stream archives, at Ustream.tv
* Boing Boing Video and Offworld.com Live at GDC09: offworld.com archive
* Boing Boing Video and Offworld.com Live at GDC09: boingboing.net archive

READ THE REST

Margaret Robertson

One More Go: Rittai Picross, or the One-Word Secret of Good Game Design

Here's a game design conundrum for you: what do Halo and football have in common? I'll save those of you who are now deep in the process of trying to find a punchy Red Vs Blue pun the trouble. What Halo and football have in common is verbs. Or rather, a verb. Shoot.

Halo is a game about aiming a projectile, usually a bullet, to hit a target, usually someone's jaw. Football is about aiming a projectile, usually a ball, to hit a target, usually a rectangular, poorly weatherproofed shack which is home to an angry man who jumps a lot.

Oh, wait, I should have said. That football. Real football. Sorry.

I've found it makes people uncomfortable when I call football a shooting game. Often this is because they fear I'm trying to be a smartarse, which is an understandable concern. Other times it's because they're focused on the specific meaning of 'shooting' in football, which they rightly point out is only a small part of the game, which is also about defending and maneuvering and passing and tackling.

For once, though, I'm not trying to be a smartarse. From my exhaustive study of the rules of football, you can only win if someone makes a projectile hit a target, and that to me is a shooting game.

READ THE REST

Brandon Boyer

Skeletons alive: Aaron Meyers' Spore creatures now in augmented reality

Taking his original skeletal creations one logical leap further, Aaron Meyers has used the Spore API and ARToolKit to produce augmented reality versions of the day's top 100 Spore creatures, or simply step through the gallery one by one in your browser via the basic Flash visualizer.

Spore Skeletons [universaloscillation]

Previously:
Fragile things: Aaron Meyers' API-driven Spore skeletons - Offworld
Data-mashers at the ready: Maxis opens the Spore API - Offworld
Pixel art Spore creations - Offworld
EA details Spore's 2009 PC, Wii, DS expansions - Offworld

Brandon Boyer

Cut down in his prime: the short and thankless life of the Goomba

Kei Houraku's 'Goomba's Lifetime' may be the deepest reflection on the inner lives of game characters ever conceived.

See also, Super Luigi Bros., a short film on the underappreciated toils of gaming's most famous also-ran.

super mario bros. judgement world [via auntie pixelante, both]

Previously:
We're born alone, we Harvest alone, we die alone - Offworld

Brandon Boyer

Ich Bin Timelapse: the installation of I Am 8-Bit's Berlin exhibit

In other art/game developments, designer Jude Buffum has uploaded this time-lapse video of the setup at I Am 8 Bit's Berlin-based exhibit Ich Bin 8 Bit, put together at the Neurotitan gallery as part of the Pictoplasma character design/art conference.

The gist of this show, similar to earlier Giant Robot exhibits, was that all artwork was produced on Post-Its affixed directly to the wall from artists like Jorge R. Gutierrez, Sandra Equihua, Gabe Swarr, Jim Mahfood, My TarPit and Buffum himself.

I Am 8-Bit home

Brandon Boyer

Game/art: see the artwork from Giant Robot's Game Over/Continue exhibit

Now that I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm probably never going to be able to pony up for the APAK piece, no matter how deep my desire, I suppose it's safe to note that Giant Robot has published all of the artwork from its Game Over/Continue? show to peruse and purchase.

Current favorites? Apart from the APAK, Snagg's sewn-vinyl Atari cartridges, Lawrence Yang's 'Apocalypse' series (especially Pac-Man), and Cupco's Mario Samurai Armor. Also, Jay Howell's completely left-field 'High Five Myself' (for what, beating a level? finishing a game?) is all the more brilliant when you head over to his blog and see the following:

Oh shit, just looked the flier for the GR-SF show next month and everybody did video game art. Well, mine will be something else... You get what ya get and don't have a fit.

Game Over/Continue? gallery [Giant Robot]

Previously:
artXgame: see the 4 games of Giant Robot's Game Over/Continue exhibit - Offworld
Giant Robot, artxgame announces Game Over/Continue? exhibit - Offworld
Only on Offworld: indie game and artist all-stars collide at Giant ...

Brandon Boyer

Good to be bad: NISA's PSP dungeon-maker Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman

Inching the PSP ever closer to Sony's long promise of the hardware du jour for the experimental and bizarre, import RPG stalwarts NIS have announced that they'll be localizing Acquire's Yuusha no kuse ni namaiki da. (roughly translated variously as "For a hero, you're pretty impudent/audacious.") with the similarly unwieldy title, Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! What Did I Do To Deserve This?

Originally released in Japan in late 2007 (and having already seen a 2008 sequel), its hook lies somewhere along the same line of games like Bullfrog's Dungeon Keeper or (vaguely) the PSP's Dungeon Maker, albeit refreshed with more obvious retro-graphic appeal.

In it, you play the unseen creator of a subterranean dungeon (represented by a pickaxe that can carve out the labyrinthine tunnels) all in an effort to create an ecosystem of monsters that can resist a chain of invading heroes all trying to bring the dungeon's overlord (the titular Badman) back to the surface.

It's all slightly more intuitive and approachable as it sounds -- having played through the original import demo version a number of times -- and should be one of the handheld's most interesting titles of the year (particularly given the PSP's relatively light lineup detailed so far): at very least, it's a game now solidly on my radar.

Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! What Did I Do To Deserve This? [NIS America]

Brandon Boyer

Meet Rock Band Unplugged, Amplitude-lite for your PSP

You can almost hear him straining not to mention when you read back over it now: in January, Harmonix head Alex Rigopulos mentioned in an interview that the studio would love to return to its earliest music game roots, say, with a new version of Amplitude.

And while not precisely a direct connection, with the unveiling of the first trailer for their previously announced portable debut, Rock Band Unplugged, it's clear that we're getting something just about as close as it comes.

While they've dropped all of the psychotropic futuristic abstractions, it's like reuniting with an old friend to see that familiar "carpet" of tracks (as above) stretched across Unplugged, now more literally representing the four signature Rock Band instruments.

And while the trailer always jump cuts just at the moment when they might switch lanes, you can see the approaching end of the self-contained "phrases" that, like Amplitude (presumably, anyway!), will then auto-play that instrument and allow you to build up songs in the same way.

Most importantly, though, is the press release's mention that not only will you be able to buy songs in-game directly from the Rock Band store, but that its first selection of exclusive songs will then later propagate to the console versions, suggesting that this is the start, at least, of the unification of the Rock Band catalog as a true cross-device musical platform.

MTV Games, Harmonix and EA Hit The Road On June 9 With Rock Band Unplugged For The PSP [Harmonix]

Previously:
Sony announces LittleBigPlanet, Rock Band for PSP - Offworld
Harmonix head Rigopulos on PS3 Amplitude, iPhone plans - Offworld

Brandon Boyer

Will Wright departs EA for long-time side project, Stupid Fun Club

In a surprise announcement, EA has just sent out word that Sims and Spore creator Will Wright has officially left the company in order to focus on his Bay Area side project, The Stupid Fun Club, a venture he co-founded several years ago with Mike Winter.

EA will be investing the SFC, owning equal parts with Wright himself, and, says the release, "has the right to develop game concepts that spring from Stupid Fun Club projects."

As it turns out, I actually spent the better part of a day getting a first hand tour of the Fun Club in the summer of 2006, and can report that it is as absolutely magical place as you might expect: imagine a toned down version of JF Sebastian's toyland workshop from Blade Runner constructed with early-oughts technology, and you're getting close.

I'll update in the next few days with a full report of the things I saw there, or at least the ones that I'm allowed to talk about.

The Stupid Fun Club

Brandon Boyer

Today's best third place: explore James Paterson's Rotten Fruit Tardis

It might not be a game, per se (he calls it a "software environment"), but either way it's my favorite place to play today: if you were around and following the birth of Flash as a legitimized art tool nearly a decade ago, you're probably familiar with the work of James "Presstube" Paterson.

Most notably, Paterson and then frequent collaborator Amit Pitaru made several forays into the music world with their insertsilence work, creating an interactive video for Bjork's Pagan Poetry, and working with anticon-related bands like Buck 65 (both on his fantastic Pope video, and later the entire packaging for his Square album) and Sixtoo (Paterson formerly did the visuals for Sixtoo's Ninja Tunes showcase tour, and collaborated on an ambient DVD with both Six and Evil Pupil, viewable here).

Paterson's latest creation, shown above, is The Rotten Fruit Tardis, which you can interact with fully here and which will be updated continually as the latest full incarnation of his presstube site.

It's organic, vaguely disquieting, and not entirely outside the visual realms of, say, Edmund McMillen and his work on Coil and Aether, and it's one of the best spaces I've recently explored.

The Rotten Fruit Tardis [Presstube]

Previously:
Gimme Indie Game: Glaiel and Schubbe give us Closure - Offworld
Edmund McMillen gives us No Quarter - Offworld
Offworld: The Offworld Guide to IGF 2009 (pg. 2)

Brandon Boyer

DSiWare still rules OK: Goodbye Galaxy's upcoming downloadable, Flipper

According to Netherlands-based developer Hugo Smits, a publishing deal gone bunk due to bankruptcy threatened the death of his first DS project, Flipper, but heartened by the DSiWare channel Nintendo has just opened, he's decided to retool it as his debut downloadable.

Built around a voxel engine of his own design, as you can see above, Flipper's hook is exploding and repairing the landscape in each of the game's levels in order to find a way to your lost goldfish -- and Smits adds that the game will feature "multiple themed worlds... a time mode, and bonus levels."

It's not entirely clear how far down the official channels he's taken the game and if it's already been approved for later release, or if this is part of a campaign to do so, but either way, you can see more screenshots of the game here, and follow its progress via his blog.

Flipper home [Goodbye Galaxy, via TIGSource]

Previously:
Nintendo's DSiWare makes holiday debut - Offworld
DSi, Rhythm Heaven getting April 5th U.S. launch - Offworld
DSiWare getting double cubic Art Style games, Animal Crossing ...
DSi getting more downloadable Art Style, Tetris Attack - Offworld

Brandon Boyer

The Insomniac Elf: SirLondon's James Kochalka-inspired game

It started with a dream: comic artist (and Offworld's Monster Mii / Superf*ckers Review creator) James Kochalka recently devoted one of his daily diary strips to a game idea he'd fixated upon during a feverish nap, only to find a week later that a fan called SirLondon had created a playable PC version called The Insomniac Elf in his spare time.

Mostly, anyway: while SirLondon's version doesn't seem to obey the letter of the node-path law (leaving a node in any direction is allowed, and other nodes don't necessarily illuminate in the way Kochalka described), and he has added reams of new ideas to Kochalka's framework, most admittedly quite clever, and some which still need tweaking.

Though still a work in progress (and much improved since the original v0.3 I'd originally played), the greatest thing holding it back is its masochistic difficulty and utterly opaque rules.

You'll eventually discover, for example, that walking through nodes is necessary to advance to the next level, but 90 percent of the time offers nothing but punishment (more, faster snakes), and the default melee attack is so short-ranged and weak that it establishes a negative-double-whammy: new players are instead encouraged to wander aimlessly, avoiding everything until they accidentally stumble across the boss attack, which,