We’re only hours in, but barring some cosmically monumental development, this week’s (and very possibly this month’s?) most delightful indie game will surely remain Crackerblocks’ Enviro-Bear 2000: Operation: Hibernation.
Created as part of TIGSource’s ongoing “cockpit” competition, the PC game sees you playing as the titular bear with five minutes to collect pre-hibernation sustenance by — naturally — driving a sedan into trees and through ponds to collect loose berries and freshwater fish.
All built around simulated physics, the challenge comes as your cab soon fills with unwanted junk — pinecones, leaves, wasps, rabid badgers and discarded bones — and quickly turns into a game of micromanaging the chaotic situation with nothing more than a single paw.
It’s fantastically manic and unapologetically absurd, and any would-be quibbles about the touchiness of its vehicular controls are instantly headed-off and negated by the bare fact that bears don’t know how to drive cars.
Mostly, anyway: while SirLondon’s version doesn’t seem to obey the letter of the node-path law (leaving a node in any direction is allowed, and other nodes don’t necessarily illuminate in the way Kochalka described), and he has added reams of new ideas to Kochalka’s framework, most admittedly quite clever, and some which still need tweaking.
Though still a work in progress (and much improved since the original v0.3 I’d originally played), the greatest thing holding it back is its masochistic difficulty and utterly opaque rules.
You’ll eventually discover, for example, that walking through nodes is necessary to advance to the next level, but 90 percent of the time offers nothing but punishment (more, faster snakes), and the default melee attack is so short-ranged and weak that it establishes a negative-double-whammy: new players are instead encouraged to wander aimlessly, avoiding everything until they accidentally stumble across the boss attack, which, at the first level, will typically kill you almost instantly.
Stick with it long enough to dig up powered up swords (the first of which should maybe be the default), new items (bombs, glasses), other members of Kochalka’s family, and various clever “bad luck” modes — the game truly is just a few difficulty-softening tweaks away from being the first best American Elf game.
The biggest reason I’m gutted to be missing Nintendo’s DSi launch party at Los Angeles’s Universal Studios’ Citywalk Gamestop: the company has very, very smartly teamed up with original game/art crossover show I Am 8-Bit to provide limited edition T-shirts, prints and sticker packs for attendees featuring Gabe Swarr, John Pham, and Matt Furie.
Above is Swarr’s print design as somehow procured by Siliconera featuring his take on a number of Nintendo icons. Swarr, Pham and Furie will be on hand to autograph the prints, and I will be any LA resident’s new best friend if someone procures at least an extra sticker pack to forward on to my Offworld home.
The launch party will take place tomorrow, April 4th from 9p-12a and will offer, you know, the actual DSi, as well (more on that next week).
Well spotted by Tiny Cartridge, the next three T-shirts in Uniqlo’s massive licensed game shirt series from Namco, with their smartly iconic Rally-X shirt, Taito with a very understated Densha De Go train simulator design, and Capcom with their excellent Phoenix Wright ‘Objection!’ design that probably would have put a dent in Way of the Rodent‘s own similar Wright design, except that it appears the Rodent store may be (temporarily?) missing in action.
Has anyone verified whether these shirts are making their way into the NYC based Uniqlo outlet?
It really honestly doesn’t get much better than this: Kotaku reader ‘Tonks’ sent in his custom pair of Noby Noby Boy sneakers which, naturally, feature a BOY made of a lace threaded entirely through the shoe.
Attn: Namco licensing department — strongly consider official versions.
You may have already spotted these in low quality form via GameSpot’s streaming version of the Independent Games Festival and Game Developer Choice Awards shows, but now offered in full res, above is Mega64‘s highlight video of the night that (co?)incidentally captured much of the underlying unspoken tension and spirit of this year’s ceremony. The unpunched ‘uhhh’ is, of course, Alien Hominid/Castle Crashers artist Dan Paladin.
Before designer Olly Moss made a name for himself around these parts for his retro Penguin Classics inspired videogame cover art series, one of his most viral designs was this ‘Shoot the Baddies’ print, featuring a series of shooting range cutouts of enemies so iconic that I probably shouldn’t even have to name them.
Created for a UK waterslide-themed competition, Tea and Cheese’s adorable 8-Bit Water Slide video needs little exposition or explanation, apart from saying that the duo apparently “desperately” needs your vote. So, as Chunnel did, I’ll add a link for you to do so.
Though clearly not explicitly a game, one of my all-time favorite iPhone apps, RjDj, is celebrating its latest update — which concludes a long undertaking to bring more social elements to the app — by giving away both the full RjDj Album app [iTunes link] and its motion-sensing RjDj Shake followup [iTunes link] for free for a limited time.
Pick apart the acronym — Reality Jockey, as much as Disc Jockey– and it shifts a bit more into focus: it’s a compilation-album-like framework divided into song-like “scenes” (each with its own cover art and individual composer), but as opposed to passively listening to each, RJDJ acts as a reality-altering real-time audio processor that modifies and enhances your surroundings.
Frank Barknecht’s Gridwalker, for instance, generates harmonious bleeps not entirely far off from Eno’s Bloom, but modifies their intensity based on the volume of the input. Sit quietly and Gridwalker slowly drips out its subtle tones, but move into a noisy crowd and it responds in kind with a more hyper pitched composition.
What’s genuinely surprising is just how potent its comparatively mild hallucinogenic powers are, particularly the ’scene’ from New Zealander (and former Sidhe staffer!) Damian Stewart. I’m (mostly) sure it’s not just the latent techno-hippie in me that’s suddenly shot into full bloom, but taking it for a test drive with a late night cigarette break was a revelation: his ‘Eargasm’ transformed every exhale into a glittering swirl of reverberating air and distant suburban dog barks into sudden colorful bursts. Essentially, if you’ve ever wanted to live directly inside that warm nostalgic analog echo that molasses-drips from every Boards of Canada album, your magic key is an App Store download away, as witnessed by this demo video above.
RjDj’s latest version allows you to open your own personalized RjDj.me homepage and share your recorded songs directly with the website, and will soon connect with social networking services like Facebook and Twitter and support blog widgets for spreading your creations.
The RjDj team will also soon support iPhone 3.0 for in-app purchases of new ‘scenes‘, and frequently host new “sprints” to build a new community of scene creators and artists.
All in all it’s a brilliant undertaking from one of the original founders of web-music mainstay last.fm, and couldn’t come more highly recommended. Be sure to share your creations with us!
