Wicked old but a relevant and essential watch and listen following Fez‘s freshly-updated reappearance at this year’s GDC, Polytron co-founder Jason ‘6955‘ Degroot remixes his Fez title track live at Tokyo’s 8-bit music night Fami-Mode.

Fez home [Polytron]

Previously:
Indie Games Summit: Polytron debut new Fez trailer – Offworld
Poly-amory: Polytron's Polyshop v0.1 offers Fez, Portable Pro …
Happy pills: Fez, Aquaria devs collaborating on new iPhone game …
Indie Games Summit: 2D Boy/Polytron's top 10 ways to market your …

While I’ll obviously be making my way to Giant Robot/Attract Mode’s art and indie game exhibit Game Over/Continue? and the usual lineup of games industry parties, the other GDC-week event I’m most looking forward to is DUTYCYCLE II, a San Francisco showcase of chiptune artists set to take place Saturday, March 28th at the Space Gallery SF.

The DUTYCYCLE folks have also just written in to let me know that they’ve just released a free EP of the artists performing that night, which is as diverse as you’d want it to be, running the gamut from ambient bleeps to hip-hop blips.

The DUTYCYCLE site has more information on the show, which starts at 8pm at Space Gallery’s 1141 Polk St. location, and the above video offers a recap of their last show. If you’ve seen Reformat the Planet, you’ll immediately recognize the shirtless antics of now SF-based Starpause.

FREE MUSIC! Download the DUTYCYCLE II sampler now… [DUTYCYCLE, thanks Morgan!]

Previously:
8Bitpeoples/BlipFest prep Data Pop 09 SXSW chiptune party – Offworld
Kaiju artist Lamour Supreme does games design for DataPop – Offworld
Listen: Simon Mattison's chiptune dub and Bud Melvin's banjo …
BBtv: Bubblyfish at Blip Festival 2008 – Offworld
BBtv: Jellica, Mr. Spastic, and Nullsleep at Blip Festival 2008 …

While we all wait for James Kochalka’s teenage superhero team the Superf*ckers to deliver another game review after their Killzone 2 debut, you can get acquainted with their underachieving superpowered exploits via this theme song video that’s just made its way to YouTube.

Once you’ve done that, it’s highly, highly recommended that you follow up with Top Shelf’s series of comix: it’s the epitome of Kochalka Quality.

SuperF*ckers TV show Theme [americanelf]

Previously:
Only on Offworld: James Kochalka's Superf*ckers review Killzone 2 …
Offworld: Monster Mii Archives

LISTEN: THE OCARINA OF RHYME MASHES ZELDA WITH AESOP ROCK, DRE, JAY-Z

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3.16.2009

Brandon Boyer

16 Replies

It’s a secret to everybody why Team Teamwork’s “Ocarina of Rhyme” — mixing Zelda’s Nintendo 64 soundtrack with under/overground hip-hop stars like Dre, Clipse, Common, Aesop Rock and DOOM — works so phenomenally well, but it does.

Stream it below or over here, download it via this SendSpace, while it lasts.

Ocarina of Rhyme [8tracks, Team Teamwork MySpace, via .tiff and Gus]

Previously:
Listen: Tugboat's 8-bit Jay-Z, Kanye, Chamillionaire medley – Offworld
Listen: Ghostface/DOOM's Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars theme …
Offworld: Music Archives

LISTEN: YOUR TIME IS WELL SPENT LISTENING TO A LIFE WELL WASTED

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3.16.2009

Brandon Boyer

5 Replies

A confession and a high, high recommendation: for as thorough a radio junkie as I am (it was, in fact, my teenage career choice before veering wildly off onto the path that led me here), I find it almost impossible to get into a podcast groove.

Part of that is the nature of the beast itself: the usual podcast fare is limited to people I don’t know having a conversation I can’t participate in, making for an experience about as compelling as watching two amateurs gracelessly toss a frisbee back and forth for an hour.

Here’s where everything changed: the recent sale of Ziff Davis’s former games press unit to Hearst let loose one Robert Ashley, who took the opportunity to pursue his own radio journalist leanings and create his new podcast, A Life Well Wasted.

Really, podcast’s not the right term — it’s never been more apt to call something “internet radio,” because, despite the format, Ashley’s clearly a graduate of the Ira Glass school of production, and has put together as close to gaming’s version of This American Life as we’ll likely ever get.

The two episodes put together so far (the production work involved for a one-man team is so heavy that Ashley isn’t committing to more than an episode a month) aren’t about gamers and their opinions, it’s about the personal stories of This Gaming Life: the first episode introspectively devoted to the aforementioned Ziff Davis sale and the closing of U.S. games mag legacy EGM, and the second to “collectors and archivists” obsessively devoted to games.

And it’s that second in particular where you should start — near the end, Ashley pitch perfectly calls forth one of those fabled NPR ‘driveway moments’ with a tearful farewell from a game developer about to pull the final plug on an MMO server. Right there is where I knew Ashley got “it,” and where he set the high watermark for both games radio and for his own future episodes — I can’t wait to see where he goes next.

A Life Well Wasted [episode links, see also: the accompanying blog]

For the hip-hop heads, the Rappcats blog has posted both the full version and a remix of Ghostface and DOOM’s ‘CTW’, better known as the exclusive trailer music for Grand Theft Auto‘s DS debut, Chinatown Wars (due at retail in just a few short days).

Of particular note: the full version contains 100% more DOOM than the cut featured in the trailer. Now, about that full album…

GHOSTFACE & DOOM – CTW [Rappcats, thanks to Stones Throw, DOOM MySpace]

Previously:
DS DOOM: Rockstar's first GTA: Chinatown Wars trailer – Offworld
Offworld: Music Archives

LISTEN: MOBIGAME’S FREE EDGE SOUNDTRACK

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3.12.2009

Brandon Boyer

2 Replies

I’ve mentioned it casually a few times, but haven’t yet given it its proper due — either way, Mobigame’s retro-futuro-cubist iPhone platformer Edge hasn’t dropped off my “page one” assortment of iPhone games since its original release.

But at this point you don’t need me to convince you: Mobigame has just released a Lite version [iTunes] of the game (alongside an update to the full version [iTunes] with 17 new levels and a global ranking leaderboard) to let you try it for yourself.

To celebrate, they’ve also released the full soundtrack to the game as a free download. The game’s up for an IGF Mobile award for best audio (and both the audience and judge awards for best game), and truly is something special: the needle wavers nicely between C64-euro-chiptune nostalgia and approaches all-out Ed Banger-type dirty disco-punk in its best moments.

But, if nothing else, you should get it just for the amazing sugar-cube version of the game that graces its cover, as above.

Edge home [full version App Store link, Lite version, soundtrack]

Previously:
Touch me I'm slick: the shape and the sound of Steph Thirion's …
Fieldrunners, Edge top 2009 IGF Mobile finalists – Offworld
Offworld: iPhone Archives
Offworld: Music Archives

During the Q&A that followed last night’s showing of Reformat the Planet, I noted a few questions that asked whether (as Lewis just reminded me) there was any slower chiptune material that wasn’t quite as, well, chipper, and acts that focused on something other than Game Boys.

Producer Paul Levering made special note of (I was happy to hear) one Dallas act in particular that I think fits both criteria: Paul Slocum and Lauren Gray’s Tree Wave, who list their MySpace ‘sounds like’s as: My Bloody Valentine / Stereolab / Lali Puna / M83 and Postal Service, and I can’t say it much better. Above is their video for their best track, Sleep.

Slocum’s a hardware hacker/music maker of some renown, in addition to creating Atari 2600 SynthCart and its C64 equivalent CynthCart, he’s also firmware hacked the Epson LQ500 dot-matrix printer you hear/see in the song as a programmable instrument (and created the excellent dual-paddle Monkey Ball/Marble Madness-esque game Marble Craze for the 2600).

You can order the duo’s debut EP Cabana via AtariAge, which it also appears has hit archive.org as a free download, albeit in abridged form (and without the hi-res version of the video above).

Tree Wave home [MySpace, qotile.net]

Previously:
Offworld: Music Archives

LISTEN: YUBABA, SMITH & FORTUNE’S FREE BIG BANG MINI BLIP-POP SOUNDTRACK

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3.6.2009

Brandon Boyer

1 Reply

With the relaunch of the website for Arkedo’s DS firework-cinder-dodging shooter Big Bang Mini (previously discussed here), now that the game is hitting European retail shelves, publisher Southpeak has also announced that they’re giving out the game’s soundtrack as a free download.

The score was done by Paris’s Xavier Thiry & Sylvain Hellio, better known as Yubaba, Smith & Fortune [MySpace], who are also behind the soundtrack for Arkedo’s DS debut Nervous Brickdown, and Offworld favorite bubble-blowing action game Soul Bubbles, from Mekensleep.

The 24 track strong soundtrack contains some fantastic stuff: give Relax, Abyss, and Challenge special attention for more ambient blips, and B.O.S.S. a listen for its more oldschool chiptune punk.

I haven’t given the game itself the proper write-up that it’s due, but next week should be an Offworld DS blowout, with more coverage of the frankly stellar line-up it’s seen over the past few weeks.

Big Bang Mini home [direct soundtrack link, via Twitter]

Previously:
I wanna be a big bang: Arkedo's Big Bang Mini demo hits the Wii …
Nintendo's Wii/DS outlook: The Offworld view – Offworld
Listen: Anamanaguchi's 8-bit punk EP, Dawn Metropolis – Offworld
Listen: Leeni's 8-bit kabuki 'Underworld' – Offworld
Listen: Konjak's Legend of Princess soundtrack – Offworld

Chiptune scene regulars and “creators of loud, fast music with a hacked NES from 1985” Anamanaguchi have just released their latest EP, Dawn Metropolis, and — thanks to this handy embed (why don’t more bands do this?) — you can listen to it in its entirety above by clicking each of the glitch-strips.

All pixel heroics videos provided by Paris Graphics.

Dawn Metropolis home [Anamanaguchi, MySpace]

Previously:
Space invaders extreme: Hexstatic/Kris Menace arcade mashup video …
Earth invaders: Röyksopp's Happy Up Here video – Offworld
Only on Offworld: Dublab debuts Adventure's vintage arcade video …
Glorious retro carnage: Wyld File's hallucinogenic video for …
Caveat Enzo: The Lost Levels' Early Sheets video – Offworld
Listen: Leeni's 8-bit kabuki 'Underworld' – Offworld
Listen: Konjak's Legend of Princess soundtrack – Offworld
Pixelz are so small: Deerhoof's new 'Buck and Judy' video – Offworld