RUNNING FREE: THE MS PAINT PURITY OF THORSON AND SENNETT’S RUNMAN
There are few things in life that bring me joy more than doing my best, making new friends, trying new things, triumphing over adversity, and running real fast, and I get the strong sense that Matt Thorson and Tom Sennett’s RunMan — coming to PC October 1st — just might satiate every one of those desires.
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GIMME INDIE GAME: THE PSYCHO/SCHIZO PUZZLING OF MCMILLEN/GOOD/KARPEL’S TIME FCUK
I knew Time Fcuk was after my one true heart on hearing the first few melancholic melodica triplets in its title screen theme, which are nothing if not lovingly lifted from Carter Burwell’s score for the Coen Bros.’ Fargo, and perfectly peg the pathos that begins to unfold as you start your cyclical descent into the game’s world.
Created by No Quarter, Super Meat Boy, and Aether designer Edmund McMillen, programmer William Good and musician Justin Karpel — and described only via cryptically impenetrable blurbs — at its core, Time Fcuk is a fairly straightforward game to describe: it’s a block/switch/key puzzler with a twist of inter-dimensional-spatial-chronological tearing that rips you through layers of the same room you occupy.
What sets it apart, though, is the tone McMillen has set via an in-game one-way communicator that sees an unidentified narrator constantly interrupting your thought processes with ranting inanities, cries for help, and, eventually, more deeply unsettling and I.D.-confusing asides. And there’s this matter of the small growth coming from the back of your head…
The effect, if that narrator is you — and it certainly looks like you — echoes movies like the previously big-upped Timecrimes or basically pick any of your favorite schizo-persona David Lynch movies from Twin Peaks to Lost Highway to Mulholland Drive.
By being forced into “the box” from which you spend the game trying to escape (which you were pushed into by someone who claims to be you from some 20 minutes in the future) you come to realize that the interruptions more likely are echoes of every iteration of a loop in which you’re stuck: ‘you’s that have been through multiple times and no longer fear your surroundings, newer ‘you’s that haven’t yet figured out what’s happening. In the meantime, you — the you that’s playing — are acting out that transition from confusion to confidence by learning the puzzle-tricks that get you from one room to the next.
All of this is subtle subtext, and that’s precisely what makes Time Fcuk so affecting. Add to that its expertly devised level editor — which takes a page from Echochome‘s book and gives players a 20-level loop of random player-creations to rate for difficulty and fun, so that essentially no puzzle goes un-played — and the gang of three have created what is easily one of the best Flash games of the year thus far.
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VIDEO: LEE PETTY ON THE ART OF BRüTAL LEGEND
Double Fine art director Lee Petty takes you on a slightly more consumer-focused — and very much more condensed — version of the tour he gave at this year’s GDC through the basically jaw-dropping sights and sounds of the world of Brütal Legend.
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See more posts about: Brütal Legend, Double Fine, Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
JUNGLE HUNT: THE FIRST BLOOD-SMEARED PIXELS OF CACTUS’S LIFE/DEATH/ISLAND
Traces of Death Race and Cannon Fodder permeate what appears to be a you vs. zombie horde game from the ever-prolific and re-inventive Cactus, and I sincerely hope that map view is showing the blood-smeared/cleared areas where you’ve totally eliminated the threat.
Previously:
- Loveless: Cactus's latest soft-focus geometric platformer in …
- Waking up sweaty: Cactus reveals LoFi Minds' shooter/platformer …
- On the brilliant irrelevance of Cactus's Death Party backstory …
- Indie Games Summit: Play Cactus's lessons on the art of 4 hour …
- Killing joke: Cactus shows off his latest works in progress
- artXgame: see the 4 games of Giant Robot's Game Over/Continue …
See more posts about: Cactus, Offworld Originals
WICKED WEARABLES: HIGH-CONCEPT PAC-MAN/TETRIS SHIRTS
Geekologie is apparently having a hell of a time tracking down the original creator of this pair of very smart wares, and even a TinEye search didn’t help. If you or someone you know can track down the designer, please let us know, as we’d like to help hook them up with a manufacturer toot sweet. [via GamOvr]
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See more posts about: Fashion, Offworld Originals
ON GUARD: TEAM FORTRESS 2 PROBABLY NOT GETTING A DOG
The best part of the recent Team Fortress 2 Guard Dog class mystery — in which this entirely convincing but not-Valve-hosted website emerged, followed by this official and also amazing TF2 blog post riposte — is that the Valve team have become so adept at both fast community awareness and response and opaque meta-updates that from now on it’s honestly kind of impossible to tell who’s snowjobbing who.
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WOLF PARADE: KYOZO KICKS’ CUSTOM OKAMI SNEAKERS
New master of games-related custom shoes Kyozo Kicks returns with his latest Okami-la-den (get it?) sneaks, quite possibly the finest he’s turned out to date. Purchase them, or any other in-stock sets here. [via SuperPunch]
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ONE SHOT: MARIO KART MEGA-COLLABORATION
Over forty artists have collaborated for the longest magic mile stretch of re-imagined Mario Kart riders that will ever be produced. Above is a scrap of a detail: see the original via The Autumn Society to get the full scope.
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OFFWORLD GALLERY: WHEN INDIES INVADE AUSTIN
Now basically fully recovered from the week of Indie Insanity that took place during and after this year’s debut GDC Austin Indie Games Summit, I present (below the fold) a longer look inside the Summit with photos courtesy official Offworld photographer Rebekah Saltsman.
As I somewhat made mention of during this year’s main GDC, the Indie Summit is quickly becoming an essential part of the convention, perhaps less so for the material covered (which is still nearly always incisive and inspiring), but for the opportunity to meet the people behind the games, and to experience the deep sense of community that’s taken root and strengthened over the past several years.
In any industry, even outside games, it’s hard to find a quarter so uncompetitive, so supportive, and so bound by a sense of collective creative drive under the quite literal strains of basic survival without otherwise gainful employment, and it’s hard to come away without feeling like it’s something that the world could use more of.
So, all that said, behind the fold you’ll find photos of the people behind nearly all the Indie Summit talks, with more available directly from Saltsman’s official Flickr stream — though none un/fortunately, from our Saturday trip to Austin’s Eagle Peak firing range, where Cortex Command creator Dan Tabar led an expedition to give what must have looked like the motliest of indoor-kid crews their first-ish non-digital/simulated rounds on a variety of handguns and assault rifles. Maybe we’ll save that one for another day. (more…)
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, Wide
ONE SHOT: SOLID SNAKE’S DOG IS JUST A BOX
Morning chores by uber-prolific illustrator Jessica Bradley (aka Squid Bits), whose Haunted DS was also recently featured on ilikecharacters.
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, One Shot
