VENUS PATROL PRESENTS: KOKOROMI’S INTERACTIVE DJ PARTY, THE DANCINGULARITY

With the Adventure Time Game Making Frenzy drawn to a close and submissions already in (more on that in a bit), we move straight on to the rest of the events coming to Fantastic Arcade in just a few short days with a special exclusive.

This Friday, September 21st, Venus Patrol will be presenting the first iteration of THE DANCINGULARITY, a free, interactive dance-party experience being put together for Fantastic Arcade and Fantastic Fest guests by Kokoromi, the game collective helmed by Heather Kelley, Cindy Poremba, Damien Di Fede, and Fez creator Phil Fish (also behind the poster above, inspired by Factory Records designer Peter Saville).

The group have gone somewhat underground since the creation of early Offworld-exclusive super HYPERCUBE and Gamma4 — their landmark night of music and games at the 2010 Game Developers Conference that debuted a handful of now-widely-recognized names like Copenhagen Game Collective’s B.U.T.T.O.N. and Steph Thirion’s Faraway — but THE DANCINGULARITY promises to be a full return to form.

Self-described as “a hypothetical but unavoidable point in time when people come together and dance to create the visuals of an interactive DJ set”, THE DANCINGULARITY will carpet the floor of Austin’s Highball lounge with a grid of disused Dance Dance Revolution mats and give players full foot-control over the projected display, in hopes of triggering the dancingularity itself, an event which I thought about embedding an animation of here, but soon realized needed to be covered in epilepsy warnings: consider yourself warned, click here, and go full screen for a preview.

Fish & Di Fede will be providing the music (with the latter also doing double duty on the creation of the hardware and software itself), and Kelley taking on the role of DM (Dance Master), in charge of manipulating the software live. Austin locals who wish to participate in THE DANCINGULARITY can keep themselves updated on the time and location by adding it to your Fantastic Fest calendar, and we’ll hopefully be providing documentation of the event, provided any of us survive to tell the tale.