FOLD ME: HARLANCORE’S PAPERCRAFT CONSOLE SPEAKERDOG

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7.31.2009

Brandon Boyer

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Ben O’Brien has just revealed the latest series of his curated line of “Speakerdog” papercraft models, and the local fave is, of course, Jason ‘harlancore‘ Harlan’s ‘Play Me’, which comes with A/V and controller port jacks, and its very own Key Quest Saga cart (direct fetch the PDF here).

Harlan is the ‘boxpunx’ creator whose My Virtual Memory line I featured back in March: a paper series dedicated to his favorite gaming memories. He’s been dutifully cranking out model after model since: see especially his ‘Innocence and Rainbows’ lineup of retro-inspired mods/swingers/hippies/disco-freaks/blaxploitation models, and, more on the gaming tip, his (Persona sister spinoff series) Devil Summoner meets Darkstalkers line.

Follow Harlan’s blog here, and let your eyes bulge a little over all the information presented to you at once on his Boxpunx site.

‘GORE-ILLA VS. BEAR: ENVIRO-BEAR COMING TO IPHONE SHOOTER MINIGORE

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7.31.2009

Brandon Boyer

2 Replies

My to-do list for the weekend already included having a look at Minigore [App Store link] — the just debuted iPhone game from Finnish developer Mountain Sheep — but I think that just got bumped straight up to now as friend of Offworld Doc Pop writes in to note a forthcoming cameo that’s truly after my one true heart.

Just submitted for a future update: an achievement that will unlock everyone’s favorite ursine motorist, the Enviro-Bear — star of Crackerblocks’ Offworld fave indie PC game and iPhone viral hit Eviro-Bear 2010 — for co-op multiplayer play.

That makes it officially the second indie-gaming crossover in as many weeks: earlier this month, Gratiuitous Space Battles creator Cliff Harris noted that special bunny battleships would be coming to the game in cross-promotion with Wolfire’s upcoming leporine/lupine battler Overgrowth, along with this heartening testimonial to Indie Spirit:

When I suggested we stick a rabbit ship in GSB to see how it could work, I didn’t need to get my lawyer to talk to Wolfire’s lawyer. I didn’t need a strategic planning meeting with the head of corporate strategy, or have to justify to shareholders why we should help out what they would see as our competitors…

This is what I like about the Indie attitude. Indie devs often share tips on game coding, getting decent contract work done, promoting websites and running forums, even the financial side of the best payment providers and who knows a decent accountant etc.

Can you imagine the head of EA giving the head of Activision tips on how to save on their bandwidth bill?

This is the indie attitude, and the indie advantage. We tend to take it for granted, because at the end of the day, me and Jeff are two guys who love games and love making games. Somewhere along the line, the mainstream industry forgot that.

Minigore [App Store, Mountain Sheep, thanks Doc!]

It’s been several months since we last checked in with Hugo Smits and his forthcoming DSiWare downloadable puzzle game Flipper, and since then he’s moved forward with his home-grown voxel engine that ensures nothing stands in the path between the main character and his titular goldfish.

In addition to the new trailer at top, Smits has just announced the hiring of pixel artist Paul Veer who’s entirely recreated your hero, “because nobody (including us – me and Paul) seemed to love the nerd-character.”

Still no prospective release date, but you can follow the game’s progress at Smits’ official Goodbye Galaxy blog, or see new concept art at the game’s newly updated site.

MY, LORD: IT’S EVONY VS. PLANTS VS. ZOMBIES, PART 2

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7.30.2009

Brandon Boyer

3 Replies

PopCap sends in the second version of their Evony-busting busty ads, which shows our zombie-concubine in her fully cleaved “glory.”

COINLESS: THE RECESSION HITS THE MUSHROOM KINGDOM

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7.30.2009

Brandon Boyer

2 Replies

Is the upcoming Autumn Society show going to trump I Am 8-bit and Game Over for the games/art crown? If the submissions keep coming in as strong as we’ve seen so far, it’s got a very good chance. The latest, from our oft-featured Jude Buffum, is “Mushroom Recession” (tying in nicely with this earlier post), is intended to reflect, he says, “the current state of the economy.”

The most interesting part, though, is its double-play on Super Mario Bros. itself, showing what’s actually happening in the pits below the game’s screen.

Phillie chiptune megagroup Chromelodeon taps artist Johnny ‘New Jedi Order‘ Rogers for their Polygon Sun video, which must be the fastest ticket to a mouth-foaming seizure I’ve ever narrowly avoided. If you survive, though, they’ll land you on a glorious glitch-landscape, and it doesn’t hurt that the music’s good, too. [via Nerd Music]

THREEPWOOD COITURE: LUCASARTS’ OFFICIAL MONKEY ISLAND T-SHIRTS

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7.30.2009

Brandon Boyer

5 Replies

Just added to LucasArts’ official web-store for pre-orders: these two T-shirts — Evolution of Guybrush and Guybrush and LeChuck Fight — alongside this button set.

As Joystiq notes, the glaring omission? A Treasure of Mêlée Island tee that apparently Lucas was handing out at this year’s E3, as submitted by one of their readers. We hope, as Joystiq does, that the company will see the light and offer it to the public in the future, especially because our only alternatives are artless Cafe Press and Zazzle clones.

Resident favorite pixel-videographers Garth + Ginny effortlessly sink the third installment of their fantastically expressive < 30 second video series, particularly with that teeeentative gator bite near the end. Someone please get them a deal to keep cranking these out more regularly. See also, if you haven't already, their animation for sensitive comic artist Jeffrey Brown.

FACEBOOK CONNECT COMES TO THE NINTENDO DSI: A GUIDED TOUR

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7.29.2009

Brandon Boyer

3 Replies

A surprise firmware update went live last night for Japanese DSi owners: the Facebook Connect functionality Nintendo announced at their E3 conference — let’s have a quick poke around how it works.

First, as above, as you browse through your album of various photos — say, for example, of your 4:30am (adjusted for PST) drunk-Denny’s visit on the second-longest night of the Game Developer’s Conference — you’ll notice a new Facebook icon next to the standard card-suit flags.

Tapping this then leads you to the e-mail/password entry menu. Your email address is saved by default, but you’ll have to enter your password again each time, which lights up the Login box at bottom. Tap that, and the magic unfolds:

Like your ‘mobile uploads’ album, when sending photos via txt or mobile email, the DSi automatically creates a new “Nintendo DSi’s Photos” album, which all subsequent photos are uploaded to. Currently, there are no additional prompts for photo captions.

The DSi’s cameras are decidedly an as-yet underutilized hardware upgrade — the DS too large and un-connected to replace your cell as the snapshot tool of choice — but this brings us one step closer to bridging that gap, however incrementally. Expect it to have the side-effect of flooding the service with WindWaker-Link-eyed/pig-nosed/kaleidoscopic close-ups when the firmware update propagates out west-ward in the coming weeks.

All 5th Cell have to do at this point is sit back and let the hype for their upcoming say-anything DS puzzle game Scribblenauts generate itself. G4TV gave the game a whirl at this year’s Comic-Con, and, apart from re-confirming Keyboard Cat’s presence, proved its amazingly broad vocabulary best by summoning a treasure, and then — and I honestly didn’t believe it was going to work — a ‘kleptomaniac’, who rightly and dutifully appeared to steal the treasure and steal away.

The only notable failure, an Ark of the Covenant, which G4 surmises was due to trademark issues [?! ™© God, Inc?].