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]

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

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

LISTEN: 8BIT FM, AND OTHER RELEVANT NERD MUSIC

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4.25.2009

Brandon Boyer

10 Replies

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]

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]

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!]

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]

WHAT DOES YOUR SOUL LOOK LIKE: DUALSHOCK EDITION

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4.24.2009

Brandon Boyer

1 Reply

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]

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]

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]

SURE SHOT: POPCAP’S PEGGLE INTEGRATED INTO WORLD OF WARCRAFT

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4.23.2009

Brandon Boyer

7 Replies

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]