If you’ve been following Offworld for any amount of time, you’re probably well familiar with Steph Thirion’s iPhone debut, Eliss, one of my first (and, alongside Drop7, still most fervent) recommendations for the platform — especially now in its kinder, gentler state.

As Thirion himself will admit, though, it’s not the easiest game idea to get across in words, images, or even video (above) alone: it’s something that you really have to touch for yourself. And so: he’s just sent on word that a Lite version has just made its debut in the App Store (iTunes link) that’ll give you the first three sectors of the game, so you can see for yourself why it set my heart all a-flutter way back when.

Eliss home [Lite version App Store link, Full version App Store link, Cloud Fields]

The last post where I featured Bit Shifter‘s 2007 BlipFest performance didn’t quite go over so hotly with a few of you, apparently, so try this one — freshly published from 2 Player Productions — on for size instead. It’s from a Tank performance several months later in Spring of 2008, and is a bit more classically melodic. Now do you get why the kids are dancing?

ONE SHOT: MEDIA MOLECULE’S LITTLEBIGDRUID DISAPPEARS

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6.18.2009

Brandon Boyer

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News that Media Molecule’s just-announced beardy Druid SackBoy costume has been delayed to next week isn’t exactly earth-shattering, but their accompanying photo — titled sad_druid.jpg — is so tragicomic, after all the smiley sunflower-picking Solstice-celebrating optimism of the original, that I had to mention it here.

SIDE-SCROLLS: 8-BIT NINJA GAIDEN IN PAPER

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6.18.2009

Brandon Boyer

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Officially one of the more insanely detailed papercrafts I’ve seen in recent months, ‘Papercity’ links this Ninja Gaiden diorama (rar’d PDF), that makes a strong case for a 2.5D resurrection of the game ala Bionic Commando Rearmed. [via ALBOTAS]

EDEN: LARS VON TRIER’S ANTICHRIST, THE VIDEOGAME, ONLY FOR REAL

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6.18.2009

Brandon Boyer

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Ah wait, you thought the idea of a Lars Von Trier videogame was someone’s idea of a bad joke? Surprise!

/Film, via Danish news source Politiken, by way of friend of Offworld Gus Mastrapa, brings news that Von Trier’s latest — the Willem DaFoe/Charlotte Gainsbourg-starring Antichrist — will be adapted in game form as the PC title Eden.

Von Trier’s Zentropa film company officially lists Morten Iversen — former script writer for the Hitman games, and now head of Copenhagen-based studio ZeitGuyz — as the game’s director. /Film’s translation of the original Politiken article says the game will be about conquering your own fears, adjusted to the fears you tell the game you have in real life.

It will also, despite starring DaFoe, follow the events of the film itself, which means prrrrrrobably none of the film’s “unhinged female madness, female-inflicted penis bashing and female self-inflicted genital mutilation” that made it “the talk” of Cannes, to say the least (unless you list it as a fear?).

Hit the jump for the film’s trailer, which is also prrrrobably a little NSFW right at the tail end there (so to speak). [Thanks Gus!] (more…)

ONE SHOT: INGRES MEETS INVADER IN MONTAUBAN

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6.18.2009

Brandon Boyer

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Guerrilla artist Invader invades Montauban, France on the eve of joining the “Ingres et les Modernes” gallery exhibition, dedicated to the modern legacy of the city’s own Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres.

Inside the exhibit, he shows his “Rubik Odalisque” (a tribute to Ingres’ Grand original), and elsewhere in town, the similar ‘La Source‘-inspired mosaic above (alongside more traditional invasions).

Hit the jump for the prettier — but NSFW, I suppose (does art still count?) — version from the gallery invitation that traces the image’s lineage: I’m still trying to track down the artist that created the image in the middle.

(more…)

DOUBLE PLUS ENHANCED: 3.0 SOFTWARE OFFICIALLY UNLOCKS IPHONE SOCIAL GAMING

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6.17.2009

Brandon Boyer

4 Replies

After some seven hours (really!) spent giving iTunes and its glacially creeping progress bars the evil eye, the long awaited iPhone 3.0 firmware is now firmly in my hot little hands, and with it comes all the first traces of the device’s own version of social networking that’s made Xbox Live, the PlayStation Network, and N-Gage such an engaging experience.

It’s anything but device integrated, mind, and expect to see the splintering grow before it consolidates. First, OpenFeint, the social networking solution first announced in February from the AuroraFeint developers (and currently implemented games like Studio Radiolaris’ Radio Flare) have duly said they’ll be supporting push notifications and in-app microtransactions in their latest version of the platform now available for developers working on games for July onward.

But, more intriguingly, ngmoco stealthily announced earlier this week a new initiative called Plus+. Unlike the current iteration of OpenFeint’s chatroom/leaderboard system, Plus+ comes much closer to Xbox Live in implementing a unified cross-game interface and profile (mine at top, feel free to add me!) that tracks your various achievements, lets you add and compare them against friends (and see which games your friends own), set status updates ala twitter/facebook (both of which will be fully integrated in a future platform update).

The system also tallies an overall point score for both unlocking said achievements or simply involving yourself in the community via invites and challenges, and — company head Neil Young told IGN — there are plans to use those points as a reward system for discounts on games and in-game items.

Currently only their Star Defense contains the Plus+ platform, but, Young said, it will be available in all games from Rolando 2 on, and there are plans to retrofit past ngmoco games with Plus+. The platform won’t be restricted to first-party published games, either: the company made its stealthy announcement alongside news that former Sega president Simon Jeffery had been hired on to head its Plus+ Publishing Group, where he’ll oversee the expansion of the system across more partner games.

And yes, that sound you heard with Jeffery’s hiring was that of the iPhone coming that much closer to the Third Handheld alongside the DS and PSP, just in case you were one of the last few who still weren’t convinced.

Isometric infographic living-room pulsating 8-bit techno from Montreal’s Aliceffekt (MySpace), who has gone on to do much, much more fantastic ‘3D doodles’ and digital art in the intervening two years since this was first uploaded — see it all via Vimeo.

LITTLEBIGWATCH: SACKBOY GETS BEARDY

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6.17.2009

Brandon Boyer

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I don’t think anyone doubted that last week’s Ico/Shadow of the Colossus blowout would be a tough act to follow, so instead Media Molecule are going seasonal and celebrating the summer solstice with a druidically bearded Sackboy costume (stuffed felt Stonehenge not included), who’ll land on the UK’s PlayStation Network this Thursday, followed by a June 25th appearance in North America, “just after Midsummer’s Day.”

THE NAME GAME: TRACING THE ETYMOLOGY OF GAME CHARACTER NAMES

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6.17.2009

Brandon Boyer

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Drew ‘kidicarus222‘ Mackie posts this overwhelmingly exhaustive article that traces the hidden origins of about a billion different characters from a wide range of Zelda and Mario main and supporting cast members, to Sonic, Street Fighter, Final Fight and Fantasy, Earthbound, Chrono Trigger and on and on and on.

A sample? Based partly on conjecture, the names of boss Bowser’s children (as above) traced to Plasmatics singer Wendy O. Williams, Iggy Pop, Roy Orbison, Motörhead’s Lemmy, Ludwig von Beethoven, Morton Downey Jr., Larry King, with a followup Super Mario World boss unmistakably recognizable: Reznor. [via, again, Tiff]