ROLANDO GETS NEW LEVELS, ROLANDO 2 GETS NEW HOME

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4.20.2009

Brandon Boyer

1 Reply

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]

HEY LA: GO SEE HER SPACE HOLIDAY/PCP AT POKETO ON APRIL 24TH

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4.20.2009

Brandon Boyer

1 Reply

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)]

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]

VIVA NEW VEGAS: BETHESDA, OBSIDIAN ANNOUNCE NEW FALLOUT FOR 2010

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4.20.2009

Brandon Boyer

2 Replies

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]

SPEAK ABOUT DESTRUCTION: INTROVERSION HOPE FOR 2009 RELEASE OF DS DEFCON

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4.20.2009

Brandon Boyer

2 Replies

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.

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]

SO GOO-D: THIRD PARTY WORLD OF GOO HACK/MOD SITE GOOFANS

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4.19.2009

Brandon Boyer

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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]

DONKEY KONG IN LIGHTS: STEVEN READ’S MEGGY JR. SUPER MONKEY KONG

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4.18.2009

Brandon Boyer

3 Replies

Though Darius Kazemi’s still the unspoken champ of Evil Mad Scientist’s 8×8 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 1×1 sprite platformer Super Monkey Kong.

Wonderfully interpretive and surprisingly readable for a series of flashing lights, Super Monkey Kong is an 8×8 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]

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]

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]