AUSTIN INDIE SUMMIT: MY SHOW AND TELL OF THE NEW INDIE HOTTNESS
This was the surprisingly large, warm and receptive crowd that turned out for my early-morning session at the opening day of GDC Austin’s debut Indie Game Summit, and the reason they’re all smiling will be clear by the time you reach the end of this post.
My task for the session was to give the attendees here a snapshot of the best of what indie gaming’s currently got to offer: some old and unmissable, some never before seen, and some seen, but never before played live. Here’s the run down — for reference and further research and download — of everything I showed off.
1.) Spelunky
By far the most widely played and important indie game of the past several years (even in prelude to its upcoming Xbox Live Arcade port), I found out quickly just how hard it is to play live and talk in front of an audience, in a quasi-Game Center CX series of embarrassing failures.
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2.) Glum Buster
Too few people have still taken a trip through Austin-native Justin ‘CosMind’ Leingang’s fantastically surreal world — hopefully playing it live gave everyone an even more compelling reason to.
3.) Alpinist
Even just the tiny shred of a teaser for Craig ‘SUPERBROTHERS’ Adams’ indie debut was enough to impress, with his inimitable graphic style, and the promise of its simulated grueling mountain ascension.
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4.) Time Donkey
The inherent charm of Flashbang’s latest made it one of the most popular playthroughs of the session, judging by audience reaction. I very regretfully haven’t had the time yet to do it justice here, but will surely do when GDC Austin madness dies back down.
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5.) Captain Forever
As I said before, this will probably end up topping a lot of best-of-2009 lists when word reaches out further, and a round of applause rose as soon as the name was dropped. Creator Farbs was kind enough to drop off a debug build of the game for the session, which meant that I could cheat my way into demonstrating the jaw-dropping muted disco-dance-rain-of-destruction that you’re ultimately fighting to build toward. Expect much more on this game here soon.
6.) Tuning
The first surprise of the show was the latest game from oft-mentioned Offworld favorite Cactus, with a rare sneak preview of his previously blogged and yet to be released “game about killing everything you love”, now titled Tuning. Even with early warnings from Cactus about playing through it ahead of time to be sure I could do it justice live (which I did, I swear, and I got so far), with its constant, progressively more sadistically perception-warping, it was the second time of the morning that proved how embarrassing public play can be.
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7.) Fez
And the session’s biggest surprise: Polytron’s Phil Fish made a guest appearance to give the first live demonstration of what the studio’s been cooking up for the past few years.
The game’s grown even more rich and complex than I’d expected since I last saw its 2007 Indie Games Festival debut, and impressed the crowd enough (see: the photo at top) that we cut well into the planned coffee break to hang on main star Gomez’s every dimensional shift.
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Thanks to everyone for coming out and putting up with what I can only imagine was a rambling, too-early, caffeine-addled, ranty awkward set of playthroughs!
See more posts about: Blurst, Cactus, Flashbang, Offworld Originals, Spelunky, Superbrothers
HEY LA: GO SEE NIGHT GAME MUSIC PLAYED LIVE SEPT. 17TH
Chris Schlarb — the man behind the gorgeous lullaby score for Nicalis’s Night Game, the latest from Knytt creator Nifflas — has written in to let us know that he’ll be playing 30 minutes of live music created for and inspired by the game as part of the Slow Sound Festival, this Thursday, September 17th.
The show will be accompanied by, says Schlarb, “projected footage from the game. It’s possible that some of that footage is heretofore unseen.” The Slow Sound Festival will be taking place at 2226 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA. 90814, and starts at 8pm, with a $5 entry fee.
For more details, check the Festival’s Facebook event page.
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See more posts about: Nifflas, NightSky, Offworld Originals
BUY IT NOW: ATTRACT MODE’S ATTRACTIVE SHOP OPENS ITS DOORS
Long teased since the earliest days of Offworld, Attract Mode’s Adam Robezzoli has officially opened the doors to the games/culture site’s web shop, which is already spilling over with indie/art game accoutrements.
Apart from the Harvey James Game Girl T-shirt I’ve been pining for for what seems like a year and a half now, Robezzoli has curated a collection of goods including 1″ button sets for games by Auntie Pixelante and Cactus, Tetris ice cube trays, and Anamanaguchi, YMCK, Leeni and :( CDs.
Best of all, though — and still not quite ready for shipping, is the pair of prints by Offworld-favorite illustrator SUPERBROTHERS: man-sized pixel-art works that I’m just about desperate to have hung in my office.
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See more posts about: Offworld Originals
BLOCK LIFE: FROM SOFTWARE SHOWS PIXELCRAFTING ADVENTURE 3D DOT GAME HEROES IN MOTION
Images of From Software’s PS3 exclusive adventure 3D Dot Game Heroes have been floating around for a few weeks now, but I’ve held off on mentioning it until now — until we got a better sense of how exactly it’d play, and now’s that time.
You’ll grasp almost immediately what to expect via the video above: it’s essentially precisely the game I called for last December, Tibori’s 2-plus-one-D Dotter Dotter pixelcrafts come to life in what looks to be as close to a Zelda tribute (straight down to the rhythms of its theme song) to ever land on a Sony console.
On top of that, the game will feature a full 3D pixel editor for your hero — Qblock style — and the massively oversized weaponry you can catch a glimpse of above (which andriasang shows off in better detail, alongside its low-bit vistas), in what could be one of the best next-gen tributes to first-gen gaming.
The game’s due for release in November in Japan, and while it hasn’t been officially announced for the West just yet, the stilted English intro in the trailer is a good sign that From has its sights set for wider release in the future.
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See more posts about: Offworld Originals
DIRECT FROM FROLIC: ROBB WATERS’ SANDER COHEN BIOSHOCK FIGURE
I’ve honestly never been able to get my head fully around the inner-workings of on-demand toy manufacturer Patch Together, but what I’m pretty sure of is that with enough “likes”, Robb Waters’ official Sander Cohen figure (easily the most unforgettable character in 2K’s original BioShock) could be put up for sale in limited numbers.
That, or the site’s simply showing a gallery of the limited run 2K Boston head Ken Levine had created as gifts for studio staff in early August.
As I try to work this all out, just know 2K/Patch: I would very much like one of these on my desk.
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See more posts about: BioShock, Offworld Originals
A BETTER MARIO BUILT: ROBIN BAUMGARTEN TOPS MARIO AI COMPETITION
The very first entry into Julian Togelius and Sergey Karakovskiy’s Mario AI Competition 2009 — Robin Baumgarten’s A*-enhanced agent previously featured here — has emerged the winner, barely scraping ahead of second place.
Above is a slow-motion run of Baumgarten’s agent that shows you second by second the mindboggling array of potential moves the agent cycles through in working out what I’m almost positive would be a pretty instantaneous death for me.
Find Baumgarten’s source code and further details here, and see the competition’s final presentation notes here.
See more posts about: Offworld Originals
ONE SHOT: IGGY POP, PLASTIC PASSENGER
Sporting a heroin-chic-weathered ‘body’ decal that likely won’t be working its way backward into the company’s toy line, French game news site JeuxVideo gets the first look at Iggy Pop’s appearance in TT/Harmonix’s upcoming Lego Rock Band — click through for the full plastic performance of The Passenger. [via mbf]
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See more posts about: Harmonix, Lego, Offworld Originals, One Shot, Xbox 360
TOUCH BOY: NAMCO REVEALS WIP SCREENSHOT OF IPHONE NOBY NOBY BOY
Noby Noby BOY creator Keita Takahashi first revealed his intentions to create an iPhone version of the PS3 downloadable at this year’s Game Developers Conference, which is intended, he said, to help GIRL progress through the universe more rapidly, as both the console and handheld version work in tandem to add players’ various stretches to her overall length.
Namco’s just delivered the shot at top to Japan’s Game Watch news site, without much further detail than the concept has passed internal approval at the studio, and that, adds Takahashi, it’s somewhere around 60 percent complete.
See the video above for my shakycam footage of Takahashi’s original reveal, which shows what’s clearly not intended to be a full 3D port of the PS3 version, but will likely end up at least a similarly goal-less toy-like diversion.
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- Keita Takahashi bringing Noby Noby Boy to the iPhone
- Life on Mars: Noby Noby GIRL continues her galactic crawl
- o–D.I.Y. 5–o: Noby Noby Boy unlocks Mars, the analog version …
- Synthesizer Noby: the 29 new musical options of Noby Noby Boy …
- It's a stretch: Explaining Katamari creator's new Noby Noby Boy …
See more posts about: Noby Noby Boy, Offworld Originals
ONE SHOT: SMB-WTC 1-1
Fortuitously found in very timely fashion after stumbling across his new Twin Peaks 20th Anniversary art show print: SMB-WTC 1-1, by Austin artist Tim Doyle (previously mentioned for his Punch-Out at the Last Supper), available in three colorways from Nakatomi, and offered here without any further commentary, which I’ll leave entirely for you to do, should you so choose.
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, One Shot
BEASTLY BUSINESS: N+ DEVS METANET ANNOUNCE SKOOL DAZE-INSPIRED OFFICE YETI
Even though their wire-swinging giant-mounting game Robotology is still a good distance away (though most of its hardest technical problems are apparently now surmounted), Metanet’s Raigan Burns and Mare Sheppard — creators of real ultimate ninja simulator/platformer N — have announced their third game, Office Yeti.
And it’s (probably) not a joke! The game’s main inspiration, say Metanet, is UK ZX Spectrum classic Skool Daze, crossed with Rampage and will concern the titular Yeti as “a tiny little character in a tiny little simulated office building full of even tinier characters and objects, all of which are going about their business more or less oblivious to the fact that you are, to put it bluntly, non-human. Just like in an office in real life!”
The studio isn’t giving up much more than that at the moment, but you can support their ongoing officeplace efforts by perusing their newly restocked Etsy shop for more Metanet merch than you could possibly handle.
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See more posts about: Offworld Originals
