You can almost hear him straining not to mention when you read back over it now: in January, Harmonix head Alex Rigopulos mentioned in an interview that the studio would love to return to its earliest music game roots, say, with a new version of Amplitude.

And while not precisely a direct connection, with the unveiling of the first trailer for their previously announced portable debut, Rock Band Unplugged, it’s clear that we’re getting something just about as close as it comes.

While they’ve dropped all of the psychotropic futuristic abstractions, it’s like reuniting with an old friend to see that familiar “carpet” of tracks (as above) stretched across Unplugged, now more literally representing the four signature Rock Band instruments.

And while the trailer always jump cuts just at the moment when they might switch lanes, you can see the approaching end of the self-contained “phrases” that, like Amplitude (presumably, anyway!), will then auto-play that instrument and allow you to build up songs in the same way.

Most importantly, though, is the press release’s mention that not only will you be able to buy songs in-game directly from the Rock Band store, but that its first selection of exclusive songs will then later propagate to the console versions, suggesting that this is the start, at least, of the unification of the Rock Band catalog as a true cross-device musical platform.

MTV Games, Harmonix and EA Hit The Road On June 9 With Rock Band Unplugged For The PSP [Harmonix]

Previously:
Sony announces LittleBigPlanet, Rock Band for PSP – Offworld
Harmonix head Rigopulos on PS3 Amplitude, iPhone plans – Offworld

Kei Houraku’s ‘Goomba’s Lifetime’ may be the deepest reflection on the inner lives of game characters ever conceived.

See also, Super Luigi Bros., a short film on the underappreciated toils of gaming’s most famous also-ran.

super mario bros. judgement world [via auntie pixelante, both]

Previously:
We're born alone, we Harvest alone, we die alone – Offworld

ONE MORE GO: RITTAI PICROSS, OR THE ONE-WORD SECRET OF GOOD GAME DESIGN

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4.8.2009

Margaret Robertson

1 Reply

Here’s a game design conundrum for you: what do Halo and football have in common? I’ll save those of you who are now deep in the process of trying to find a punchy Red Vs Blue pun the trouble. What Halo and football have in common is verbs. Or rather, a verb. Shoot.

Halo is a game about aiming a projectile, usually a bullet, to hit a target, usually someone’s jaw. Football is about aiming a projectile, usually a ball, to hit a target, usually a rectangular, poorly weatherproofed shack which is home to an angry man who jumps a lot.

Oh, wait, I should have said. That football. Real football. Sorry.

I’ve found it makes people uncomfortable when I call football a shooting game. Often this is because they fear I’m trying to be a smartarse, which is an understandable concern. Other times it’s because they’re focused on the specific meaning of ‘shooting’ in football, which they rightly point out is only a small part of the game, which is also about defending and maneuvering and passing and tackling.

For once, though, I’m not trying to be a smartarse. From my exhaustive study of the rules of football, you can only win if someone makes a projectile hit a target, and that to me is a shooting game. (more…)

In other art/game developments, designer Jude Buffum has uploaded this time-lapse video of the setup at I Am 8 Bit’s Berlin-based exhibit Ich Bin 8 Bit, put together at the Neurotitan gallery as part of the Pictoplasma character design/art conference.

The gist of this show, similar to earlier Giant Robot exhibits, was that all artwork was produced on Post-Its affixed directly to the wall from artists like Jorge R. Gutierrez, Sandra Equihua, Gabe Swarr, Jim Mahfood, My TarPit and Buffum himself.

I Am 8-Bit home

GAME/ART: SEE THE ARTWORK FROM GIANT ROBOT’S GAME OVER/CONTINUE EXHIBIT

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4.8.2009

Brandon Boyer

2 Replies

Now that I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’m probably never going to be able to pony up for the APAK piece, no matter how deep my desire, I suppose it’s safe to note that Giant Robot has published all of the artwork from its Game Over/Continue? show to peruse and purchase.

Current favorites? Apart from the APAK, Snagg’s sewn-vinyl Atari cartridges, Lawrence Yang’s ‘Apocalypse’ series (especially Pac-Man), and Cupco’s Mario Samurai Armor. Also, Jay Howell’s completely left-field ‘High Five Myself‘ (for what, beating a level? finishing a game?) is all the more brilliant when you head over to his blog and see the following:

Oh shit, just looked the flier for the GR-SF show next month and everybody did video game art. Well, mine will be something else… You get what ya get and don’t have a fit.

Game Over/Continue? gallery [Giant Robot]

Previously:
artXgame: see the 4 games of Giant Robot’s Game Over/Continue exhibit – Offworld
Giant Robot, artxgame announces Game Over/Continue? exhibit – Offworld
Only on Offworld: indie game and artist all-stars collide at Giant …

GOOD TO BE BAD: NISA’S PSP DUNGEON-MAKER HOLY INVASION OF PRIVACY, BADMAN

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4.7.2009

Brandon Boyer

Leave a reply

Inching the PSP ever closer to Sony’s long promise of the hardware du jour for the experimental and bizarre, import RPG stalwarts NIS have announced that they’ll be localizing Acquire’s Yuusha no kuse ni namaiki da. (roughly translated variously as “For a hero, you’re pretty impudent/audacious.”) with the similarly unwieldy title, Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! What Did I Do To Deserve This?

Originally released in Japan in late 2007 (and having already seen a 2008 sequel), its hook lies somewhere along the same line of games like Bullfrog’s Dungeon Keeper or (vaguely) the PSP’s Dungeon Maker, albeit refreshed with more obvious retro-graphic appeal.

In it, you play the unseen creator of a subterranean dungeon (represented by a pickaxe that can carve out the labyrinthine tunnels) all in an effort to create an ecosystem of monsters that can resist a chain of invading heroes all trying to bring the dungeon’s overlord (the titular Badman) back to the surface.

It’s all slightly more intuitive and approachable as it sounds — having played through the original import demo version a number of times — and should be one of the handheld’s most interesting titles of the year (particularly given the PSP’s relatively light lineup detailed so far): at very least, it’s a game now solidly on my radar.

Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! What Did I Do To Deserve This? [NIS America]

It might not be a game, per se (he calls it a “software environment”), but either way it’s my favorite place to play today: if you were around and following the birth of Flash as a legitimized art tool nearly a decade ago, you’re probably familiar with the work of James “Presstube” Paterson.

Most notably, Paterson and then frequent collaborator Amit Pitaru made several forays into the music world with their insertsilence work, creating an interactive video for Bjork’s Pagan Poetry, and working with anticon-related bands like Buck 65 (both on his fantastic Pope video, and later the entire packaging for his Square album) and Sixtoo (Paterson formerly did the visuals for Sixtoo’s Ninja Tunes showcase tour, and collaborated on an ambient DVD with both Six and Evil Pupil, viewable here).

Paterson’s latest creation, shown above, is The Rotten Fruit Tardis, which you can interact with fully here and which will be updated continually as the latest full incarnation of his presstube site.

It’s organic, vaguely disquieting, and not entirely outside the visual realms of, say, Edmund McMillen and his work on Coil and Aether, and it’s one of the best spaces I’ve recently explored.

The Rotten Fruit Tardis [Presstube]

Previously:
Gimme Indie Game: Glaiel and Schubbe give us Closure – Offworld
Edmund McMillen gives us No Quarter – Offworld
Offworld: The Offworld Guide to IGF 2009 (pg. 2)

According to Netherlands-based developer Hugo Smits, a publishing deal gone bunk due to bankruptcy threatened the death of his first DS project, Flipper, but heartened by the DSiWare channel Nintendo has just opened, he’s decided to retool it as his debut downloadable.

Built around a voxel engine of his own design, as you can see above, Flipper‘s hook is exploding and repairing the landscape in each of the game’s levels in order to find a way to your lost goldfish — and Smits adds that the game will feature “multiple themed worlds… a time mode, and bonus levels.”

It’s not entirely clear how far down the official channels he’s taken the game and if it’s already been approved for later release, or if this is part of a campaign to do so, but either way, you can see more screenshots of the game here, and follow its progress via his blog.

Flipper home [Goodbye Galaxy, via TIGSource]

Previously:
Nintendo's DSiWare makes holiday debut – Offworld
DSi, Rhythm Heaven getting April 5th U.S. launch – Offworld
DSiWare getting double cubic Art Style games, Animal Crossing …
DSi getting more downloadable Art Style, Tetris Attack – Offworld

ARTXGAME: SEE THE 4 GAMES OF GIANT ROBOT’S GAME OVER/CONTINUE EXHIBIT

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4.6.2009

Brandon Boyer

6 Replies

If you missed the opening of Offworld’s oft-blogged Giant Robot/Attract Mode exhibit Game Over/Continue? (though, judging by the overwhelming turnout, not many of you did), you may have missed your chance for some time to play the four collaborative ‘artxgame‘ games created for the show.

While the games were up and running on opening night — and continually swamped, even if you could move through the thick of the crowd to get to them — they’ve subsequently left the scene for the time being (though the rest of the art remains).

So, for the rest of you then, a quick recap of what the four artist/indie dev teams (Hellen Jo/Derek Yu, Saelee Oh/Anna Anthropy, Souther Salazar/Petri Purho, and Deth P. Sun/Jonatan “Cactus” Soderstrom) produced. (more…)

In other hardware hackery news, larppodcast-er Joe has won today’s master-of-the-obvious award by creating a real-world Pip-Boy out of an iPod Touch and the Fallout 3 Survival Edition’s included wrist-mountable clock.

He is, perhaps, just a few months too soon: with firmware 3.0’s newly added support for peripherals, the promise of hooking this up to bio and, err, radiation monitors (surely?) is too tempting, and a more logical use than displaying what appears to be a slideshow of game screenshots, though kudos for using the game’s soundtrack in the background as a faux Three Dog radio broadcast.

Pip Boy 3000 + iTouch [larppodcast YouTube, via Kotaku]

Previously:
Fallout 3 Survival Edition ships with real-life Pip Boy for your …
Three Dog's iTunes mix tape – Offworld
The Glow, Pt. 3: Literally the best Fallout 3 T-shirts ever made …
Before and After: the Capital Wastelands – Offworld
Fallout 3: Everybody Dance! edition – Offworld