TOUCH ME I’M SLICK: DANIEL JOHNSTON ROLLS TOWARD LAURIE IN HI HOW ARE YOU
There’s a certain segment of the population that’ll will need no introduction to Daniel Johnston — whether they came to him via the recently released Devil And… documentary, or (more likely) through the Kurt Cobain-sported T-shirt that broke Johnston further into the public consciousness, or — for the true-blood Texans — simply the local lore and hometown pride Austin still holds for its long-troubled and simple-souled singer/songwriter.
And if you don’t need that introduction1, then you probably will have by now had the same reaction I had several months back when I heard whisperings that Peter ‘Dr. Fun Fun’ Franco and Steve ‘Smashing Studios’ Broumley — former art and technical director, respectively, at the now-defunct Austin branch of Midway — were working on a game featuring Johnston’s art and music: I’ve more or less been waiting for this day since the early 90s.
Hi How Are You [App Store] isn’t the game I imagined it would be. There’s no Punching Joe boxing, there’s no tilt-to-Walk-the-Cow, there isn’t a single speeding motorcycle to be found. Instead, the game lands somewhere between a Mario 64 challenge level and Q-bert, where you tilt one of four characters across free-floating platforms to flip all floor tiles green.
Meanwhile, you’ll be working against the clock (to gain higher level trophies and achievements), dodging any number of Johnston’s demons (like his floating devil’s eyeballs) and platforming your way through the alternately whimsically-innocent and hellishly-dark landscapes trying to rescue Laurie, the real-life love and muse of Johnston’s early adulthood.
On reflection, these abstractions are probably for the best: what Smashing/Fun have given us is Johnston’s lore injected into a game, rather than basing a game directly on one of his icons. It’s probably a more tactful solution, and one that starts to work as a (very light) metaphor for his own life-long struggles.
Best of all, what it does is serve as an accessible entry point to discovering his art: Johnston’s music has been licensed for use throughout the game, and each earned achievement unlocks a scale- and pan-able version of one of his illustration from throughout the years.
While it won’t quite reach (and was obviously never meant to) the cultural-rocking level of the playable documentary that is The Beatles: Rock Band, it’s exactly the kind of cross-media crossovers we need more of, is as loving a tribute to an artist as I’ve seen from a game, and if it helps introduce just one more person to Daniel, couldn’t rightfully be called anything but a success.
Hi How Are You [App Store link, Dr. Fun Fun/Smashing Studios]
1. ^ [If you do, start with Johnston’s Wikipedia entry, move on to his homepage, track down the aforementioned documentary sooner than later, and then move on to his Continued Story/Hi, How Are You and Yip/Jump Music CDs, or ease yourself in with the Beck, Tom Waits, Death Cab, TV on the Radio, etc. etc. covers on Discovered Covered — use Yip Eye Tunes if you just want the MP3s.]
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TGS: MORE SATELLITE-VIEW SHOOTING IN SQUARE ENIX’S 0 DAY ATTACK ON EARTH
I don’t think I can precis 0 day Attack on Earth any more succinctly than I did in its April debut — where I called it a mashup of the metropolitan invasions of Sandlot’s brilliant Earth Defense Force and the overhead-mapped view of PlayStation Network favorite The Last Guy — and its new co-op mode and Google-Earth-ish extension of real-world locales make this one of my most anticipated XBLA shooters.
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TGS: SQUARE ENIX PREPARE XBOX LIVE ARCADE FOR DEATH BY CUBE
Originally unveiled in April as ‘Project: Cube’, Square Enix has brought this updated trailer to the Tokyo Game Show and given it its new official title, Death By Cube. While it’s almost as entirely opaque as the original, it adds a bit more mechanical depth to the original with new clean-sweeping energy swords and dash moves, but (most depressingly) appears to have lost the bass-thumping/disco light show that gave the arenas in the first trailer their disco-rave-like energy.
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TGS: SQUARE ENIX, POPCAP PARTNER FOR RPG/PUZZLER GYROMANCER
Not to be outdone, apparently, by scrappy puzzle-newcomer Infinite Interactive and their would-be casual/RPG champ Puzzle Quest, the two behemoths of their respective fields — Popcap and Square Enix — are teaming up for Gyromancer, due soon on Steam and Xbox Live Arcade.
The game will take the core of Popcap’s Bejeweled Twist and run it underneath a combat/RPG system designed by Square, and will see main character Rivel overcoming distinct challenges in each stage “from defeating beasts that block the player’s way, to solving puzzles before time runs out.”
The two companies say Rivel will eventually learn to “summon dozens of the unique beasts he encounters, bending their power to his will and commanding them in battle,” and can “search the map for items, coins and new beasts to join Rivel’s fight.”
From the trailer above, it looks to be a more compact and casual focused experience than the sprawling story laid out in Puzzle Quest or even its sci-fi spiritual sequel Galactrix. Expect more details soon as the two companies prepare for the ‘upcoming’ launch.
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KING ME, PLEASE: THE BEHEMOTH REVEAL NEW CASTLE CRASHERS FIGURE
Joining the lineup of The Behemoth’s extensive collection of vinyl figures: Castle Crashers‘ King, quite possibly my favorite if only because I’ve always been a big believer in the “one big tooth” (or three, if you’ve got them to spare) theory of character design.
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TGS: DEEPER INTO OKAMIDEN’S UKIYO-E ENVIRONMENT
Capcom’s brought to the Tokyo Game Show its most complete trailer for downsized DS sequel Okamiden to date, showing a wider range of stylus-brush interactions, more combat mode demos, and 100% more nature-restoring landscape-wide scampering.
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TGS: TWO MORE MINUTES WITH ICO CREATOR’S LAST GUARDIAN
For its Tokyo Game Show appearance, Sony’s put together a short behind the scenes look with Ico and Shadow of the Colossus creator Fumito Ueda explaining that the fantastical mix of creatures that make up his Last Guardian actually increases the gryphon’s realism.
Watching the subsequent new two minute trailer, with every talon stretch and head-scratch, it’s very hard to deny.
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FANCY FLIGHTS: THE LITTLE BIG DOGFIGHTS OF TAK FUNG’S MINI SQUADRON
Coming soon to iPhone from former Lionhead and Sony programmer Tak ‘Mr. Fung Fung’ Fung (who the eagle-eyed will remember as the ‘Master’ in Rag Doll Kung Fu‘s live-action intros): Mini Squadron, an online playable multiplayer 2D dogfighter where you take down “enemy planes, bombers, UFOs, and ducks” with over 50 unlockable aircraft and “a plethora of power-ups.”
See the trailer above for a quick-burst of just why this could be a recipe for fantastic success, and follow the game’s progress via Fung’s official blog.
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VIDEO: JAN WILLEM NIJMAN TAKES EXTREME TO ITS FURTHEST EXTREMITIES
From the creator of low-bit Id demakes QQUAK and BOOM (get it?), Jan Willem Nijman‘s upcoming game — teased here simply as EXTREME — lives up to its name via: chili peppers, cheap booze, smokin’ los Muertos skulls, bikini girls, what appears to be uzi-wielding lucha libre, Bigfoot stunt-jumpin’ and massive, fiery explosions, all set to a Ratatat score.
At this point, I don’t know anything more, and at this point, I really quite honestly don’t need to know anything more, and at this point, I’d be surprised if you weren’t already reflexively screaming the game’s name at your monitor.
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VIDEO: DOWNHILL NEON TETRIS, ON WHEELS
San Francisco at night becomes a neon-lit real-life version of a Tetris well (well, -ish, a bit more Pent-tris, actually). Music by E*rock, thanks to .tiff!
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