Garth and Ginny‘s “Pixel Films” are about as high resolution as you’re likely to get from a 50×50 pixel square. The latest animation, coming by way of the Brighton Fringe Festival, follows up their first Pixel Film (below) which screened at the famed Pictoplasma festival last year.
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Also new on the 8-bit front: Seth and Michelle ‘ComputeHer‘ Sternberger of 8-bit Weapon (who you’ll recognize from Reset Generation‘s excellent score) have also written in with news that Sony has just officially released “8 Bit Weapon: A Chiptune Odyssey“, their loop and sample sound library.
Says the Weapons:
The library contains real sounds from each of the following computers/consoles: Apple II, Commodore 64, NES, Gameboy, and the Atari 2600. Each system library has everything from drums, bass and synth to special effects. Both Michelle and I have featured song demos built into the collection to boot! The sound library works with ACID, Ableton Live, Cubase, Garage Band, Logic, Soundtrack, and more!
As a bonus, Sony’s also throwing in MP3s of their Electric High EP, along with an exclusive track, for anyone who orders online. Listen to samples of the samples via Sony’s product page, and drop me a note via that ‘Send a Tip’ button at the top of the page when you’ve finished your latest EP/album.
8 Bit Weapon: A Chiptune Odyssey [Sony Creative Software, 8-bit Weapon, ComputeHer]
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Japan’s finest chiptune label (and accompanying 8-bit news network), VORC, has written in with word of their latest collection, 8-BIT PROPHET: a tribute to Japanese 80’s “techno-pop”/new wave band TM Network, with a particular twist: rather than instrumental covers, all vocals on the album have been produced using Yamaha’s singing speech-synth Vocaloid.
As noted earlier, Vocaloid’s spawned its own personified singing idol named Hatsune Miku, made famous by endless versions of popular songs spread on Japan’s YouTube equivalent, NicoNicoDouga (hear her version of Portal’s ‘Still Alive’, though her pronunciation’s obviously a bit stilted in English), and the combined style of her signature sound with 8-bit backing is actually not a half-step off of YMCK‘s own happy low-bit pop.
The album will be out June 3rd, with Posca handling the CDs and hearjapan handling worldwide digital distribution: they’ve currently got a two-song sampler available now.
While you’re visiting VORC, also see: their Squarewave Surfers compilation, with 8-bit musicians worldwide covering songs like Tequila and Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini (!), and Holy 8bit Night+, which gives Octoroc’s 8-bit Jesus a serious run for its holiday money.
「8-BIT PROPHET – TM Network Tribute Generated by Chiptune + Vocaloid」 [VORC Records, MySpace, YouTube]
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I have a happy, long-running argument with one of the nicest game developers in the world about whether or not games can do subtle emotions. It’s a familiar debate: games can deliver big, bold visceral emotions – fright, frustration, triumph – but are subtler sensations – regret, embarrassment, alienation – beyond their remit?
As ever, what puts the kibosh on this whole discussion is that games don’t contain emotions at all. The emotions are supplied by each individual player, and since each individual player will respond to a game in a unique way, there’s no empirical answer to be had. Our happy argument has been bubbling along for years, but all that’s really happening is that he’s saying ‘here are the emotions I experience when gaming’ and I’m saying ‘and here are mine’.
So I shall not, in this column, be telling you about how Passage proves that games can somehow inject into their players the kind of oblique, mutating emotions we struggle to find words for. If that’s a disappointment to you, then a quick Google will provide satisfaction: hundreds of people have written movingly about their experiences of this little game about the biggest of ideas. I went back to it this week, as I often have before, for a refill of the ammunition needed to convince yet another friendly, clever, skeptical non-gamer about the potential of the medium. It worked: after talking her through Bioshock, Bejewelled, World of Warcraft and Passage, it was Passage she wanted to play. (more…)
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The team behind just-released action game Battlestations: Pacific provide a crazy charming Harper’s Index-style breakdown of their development process by the numbers. An excerpt:
Oldest member of the dev team: 49yrs
Youngest member of the dev team: 23yrs
Average age at Eidos Hungary: 31.41yrs
Official Eidos Hungary Parties: 5
Average number of coffee mugs left on the balcony overnight: 12
Number of devs playing guitar: 6
Number of monitors per developer: 1.5
Biggest TV screen in the office: 62 inch
Number of Imperial Japanese naval flags in the office: 3
Number of 48-star US flags in the office: 3
Number of British White Ensign flags in the office: 2
Amount of milk used for coffees during development: 3240 litres/856 US gallons
Amount of bottled water consumed in the office during development: 17680 litres/4670 US gallons
Number of developers who created all FMV’s in the game: 6
Devs reading Battlestations.net & other forums at least once a day: 16
See the full breakdown for more, including a log of Total Gross Register Tonnage resulting from sunken ships during dev and testing.
Battlestations: Pacific – The Facts, The Stats, The Truth. [Battlestations.net, via Margaret]
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A new perspective and a new style manages to make Shy-guys as gnarled and horrifying as maybe we should have seen them all along. Art by Winona Nelson, concept artist at Giants, MDK and Armed and Dangerous developer Planet Moon. Nelson offers offers prints for sale here, but released this image in ultra hi-res for you to print yourself, spotted by Infinite Lives.
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Console-less and PC-less Mac user still waiting for your chance to play Number None’s time-shifting platformer Braid? The wait is over: Penny Arcade Adventure devs Hothead have just announced the release of the game to their digital download service Greenhouse, alongside a free demo.
Braid [Greenhouse, Number None]
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Hit the UFO, win a giant stuffed Gloomy Bear invader. Created for Red Bull Music Academy’s Guten Touch interactive art installation by Multitouch Barcelona, the group behind the recent ‘Hi’ human interface project, and who are chasing my one true heart by consistently using Lullatone as their video soundtracks.
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Bit.Trip creators Gaijin Games have just let slip that NYC chiptune star Haeyoung ‘Bubblyfish‘ Kim will be bookending their latest WiiWare rhythm-pong game, Core, doing the same title- and end-screen musical duties that Bitshifter did for their debut game Beat.
Above: my video of Bubblyfish performing at Kokoromi’s 2007 Gamma256 show in Montreal — give it a minute or so to really hot up. To hear more, see Kim’s home page and MySpace, and BBTV’s BlipFest 2008 coverage and interview.
Special Guest Star for BIT.TRIP CORE! [Gaijin Games]
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Just when it’d almost fully receded from your memory (the last we heard of it was in January of 2007), andriasang notes a new article on the Korean-exclusive massively multiplayer Katamari Damacy Online.
Unfortunately, the update only goes so far as to profile two new playable cousin characters, and a vague storyline, as translated by andriasang, that concerns “a black hole that forms after the King decides to hold a picnic,” which players will seal off with their rolled up katamari.
The game is apparently, though, due for release in Korea this year by local external developer Windysoft, with no word from anyone on when or how or if it might make it out of that country.
Katamari Damacy Online Resurfaces [andriasang]
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