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]
Previously:
See more posts about: Art, Offworld Originals
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]
Previously:
- Boing Boing Gadgets ponders the PSP2 – Offworld
- Offworld: PlayStation Portable Archives
- Praise from Patapon and a passionate plea – Offworld
- Rolito unleashes new Patapon toy – Offworld
- New Rolito toy: Patapon X our one true heart – Offworld
- Patapon: the tattoo – Offworld
- LittleBigWatch, part 2: Patapon Sackboys in-bound – Offworld
See more posts about: Offworld Originals
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]
See more posts about: Offworld Originals
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]
Previously:
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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]
Previously:
See more posts about: Baiyon, Offworld Originals, PixelJunk, Q-Games
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]
Previously:
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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]
See more posts about: Listen, Music, Offworld Originals
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]
Previously:
See more posts about: Fashion, Offworld Originals
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]
Previously:
- Data-mashers at the ready: Maxis opens the Spore API – Offworld
- Skeletons alive: Aaron Meyers’ Spore creatures now in augmented reality – Offworld
- Fragile things: Aaron Meyers' API-driven Spore skeletons – Offworld
- Nobody's poisson: Maxis's Spore rogue-like – Offworld
- EA details Spore's 2009 PC, Wii, DS expansions – Offworld
See more posts about: Offworld Originals
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]
Previously:
See more posts about: Gimme Indie Game, Offworld Originals, Stephen Lavelle, Terry Cavanagh
