FLASHBANG RELENTLESS-LY TEASE NEW GAME
Flashbang’s latest tweet on via their official Blurst account is my new maddeningly opaque “what are they building in there” tease: the company says flight404’s generative and rhythmically pulsing beast, which bursts into a jet black flock of ravens on every kick, is apparently “one of many visual inspirations” for their next game, which makes me wonder if they’ve actually kicked the “mythical/extinct creature plus outlandish physical activity/heavy machinery” habit.
[Relentless, The REV, via Blurst]
Previously:
What's he building in there: Introversion's Subversion – Offworld
Gimme Indie Game: Minotaur China Shop, happiness in shattery …
Riding the iPhone's Raptor Copter – Offworld
See more posts about: Blurst, Flashbang, Offworld Originals
RAGDOLL METAPHYSICS: SOAP OPERA & THE SIMS
Next month sees the release of The Sims 3, the second sequel to one of the most popular videogames of all time. What’s interesting about the series is not simply its success, but the fact that it has essentially created a genre of its own. There are very few social people-sim games, and none that can even pretend to rival The Sims. I think Sims 3 will be the last Sims title that will launch with that kind of comfort zone. Its time as a one-game genre will soon be up.
The Sims is a game that has, quite deliberately, tapped into the mainstream of modern life, not just mechanistically (in a game about everyday lives), but aesthetically and fictively (with stories about, er, everyday lives). All of which led me to think about where it is that The Sims connects to culture generally. Where outside games do we see similar methods? Where are the resemblances and likenesses across media? Where else does this kind of appeal-to-everyday stuff really connect with our culture? I’d say it was in soap opera. (more…)
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, Ragdoll Metaphysics
JOLT REVIVING ZORK AS BROWSER-MMO
Today’s guardedly optimistic revival: casual MMO developer Jolt (they of the recent Google Maps enhanced long-distance trucker MMO Trukz [which friend of Offworld Mathew Kumar recently detailed]) have announced a revival of Infocom’s foundational text adventure Zork as a browser-based casual MMO.
Though they haven’t yet detailed how the game itself will operate, they have said Legends of Zork will provide a persistent world for all its players, who will take the role of a “laid-off salesman and part-time loot-gatherer, as he explores the Great Underground Empire.”
Reassuringly, it looks to be as much a labor of love as any: the game’s blog notes that “Double Fanucci also makes an appearance, in the form of a full deck of 174 Fanucci cards that you can collect and use to improve your skills,” and furthermore says that its multiplayer return will extend to grouping for tougher quests and arena battles.
The young and the rookies can have a look at Matt Barton’s exhaustive History of Zork feature via Gamasutra, or play the first three games in the franchise online via ReZork to bone up as we anticipate the game’s launch.
Legends of Zork – The legendary adventure returns, to your browser.
Previously:
The irony being no-one even reads them anymore – Offworld
See more posts about: Offworld Originals
PIXELJUNK EDEN GETTING A WELL-DESERVED ENCORE
Q-Games head Dylan Cuthbert has blogged to Sony’s official PlayStation outlet to note that their previously promised patch for Offworld 20 highlight PixelJunk Eden will be available tomorrow, adding a new multiplayer camera and a still undetailed “new control system.”
Even better, Cuthbert says an “Encore” version of the game is in development, offering only a teaser that the new expansion will add “crazy stuff,” though the notion of new Baiyon tracks (note that the Eden musician/designer has just released a new EP, Tachikanae) is more than enticement enough.
PixelJunk Eden: Tending to Our Lovely Gardens [PS.blog]
Previously:
Pixeljunk Eden, Osmos top 2009 IGF nominations – Offworld
PixelJunk Eden patch promises mercy – Offworld
Sony's own inspired holiday sales – Offworld
The Offworld 20: 2008's Best Indie and Overlooked – Offworld
See more posts about: Baiyon, Offworld Originals
DOTTER DOTTER’S KIRBY REVERSI
The latest in Tibori’s Dotter Dotter series: the most adorable imagined version of Reversi ever created, featuring Kirby and rival Meta Knight.
The Kirby reversi [Dotter Dotter]
Previously:
Dotter Dotter's 3D pixelcraft – Offworld
See more posts about: Offworld Originals
GMOD THEATRE PRESENTS: ‘GRIGORI GRIMOIRE’
It’s Presto for the City 17 set: ‘fncypntz’s ‘Grigori Grimoire’ is officially my new favorite GMod happening. See also, the amazing Super Gmod Kart and Team Fortress 2 Heavy’s 2Girls1Cup Reaction.
Fncypntz’s channel [YouTube, via WeGame via Oddbob]
Previously:
Garry's Mod life – Offworld
Doom 3: Repercussions of Evil: another Garry's Mod masterpiece …
See more posts about: Offworld Originals
MOTHER 3: BEHIND THE MUSIC
In what can only be described as a heroically meticulous post (and an early front-runner for games-related blog post of the year), Dan Bruno (QA tester, coincidentally, for Rock Band creator Harmonix) has dissected the battle music in the recently fan-translated Mother 3 to better come to grips with its combo system.
It was one of the game’s most surprising secrets: each enemy you come across in its turn based battles has a unique theme song, and their own signature ‘heart beat’ that coincides with the theme. As you attack the enemy, continuing to press the button along to their beat results in continued combo attacks that, if sustained, lands some 50 percent more damage.
The trick, though, is that harder enemies come with harder beats and sadistic time signature trickery. Bruno transcribes one of the most difficult, “Strong One (Masked Man)”s 29/16 signature, and quips that its rhythm “would make Dave Brubeck cry.”
Mother 3’s battle music [Cruise Elroy, via Waxy]
Previously:
Mother 3 translators start Earthbound Central blog – Offworld
Harvey James's Mother 3 fan art vanguard – Offworld
Tomato releases Earthbound Zero 'easy patch' – Offworld
See more posts about: Offworld Originals
BEAT: MY GOD, IT’S FULL OF BITS
Today’s biggest treat: following yesterday’s scraps on forthcoming WiiWare series Bit.Trip and its initial block bouncer Beat, publisher Aksys has lifted the veil and let loose full gameplay video, which is even more wonderful than I had imagined.
Less a tennis-for-two and perhaps a bit more Breakout 2600: The Musical (well, minus the actual block-smashing, and then filtered through Stephen Malinowski’s fantastic Music Animation Machine), Gaijin seem to have beat Taito at their own game and given us the Space Invaders Extreme-esque retro-futurist version of Arkanoid we’d hoped their DS port might be.
Even better, Aksys have uploaded Desention, the video clip’s phoned-home chiptune, as an mp3 [direct link]: every part of this Bit.Trip seems custom built specifically to tickle Offworld’s fancy.
BIT.TRIP BEAT [Aksys Games]
Previously:
Gaijin Games taking the Wii on a Bit.Trip – Offworld
See more posts about: Bit.Trip, Gaijin, Offworld Originals
LITTLEBIGWATCH: FREE INSTRUCTIONS FOR YOUR SACKBOY STITCH-UP
In early December, UK craft mag Simply Knitting announced that it’d be publishing a pattern to create your own custom version of LittleBigPlanet‘s Sackboy, which was amazing, but also disappointing in that a.) importing a single issue of a magazine sounded like a ridiculous trial (see also: Vice’s LittleBig issue, and I’d still love to find a kind UK soul to help me get my grubby mitts on that [hint]), b.) as much a modern man as I might try to be, going to any length to eagerly snatch up a knitting magazine might’ve been just the tiniest bit shameful.
So I’m happy to report that UK tabloid the Sun has partnered with the mag to offer the pattern as a free download (direct PDF link), an unusual pairing, given the Sun’s traditional beat covering, as Wonderland’s Alice Taylor puts it, “topless ladies, celeb gossip, salacious murder details, assorted other painful deaths, surgery gone wrong, football transfers and astrology predictions.”
Knit your own little Sackboy [The Sun, via Wonderland]
Previously:
More like LittleBigDeathOfInnocence – Offworld
See more posts about: Offworld Originals
DANGEROUS HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS GETS WRITER’S GUILD NOD
Variety reports that the Writers Guild of America have nominated this year’s videogame selection for the best writing of 2008, the second year since it founded the new category. The selections are always somewhat slanted, with their prerequisite that nominees be part of the WGA itself (leading to last year’s left-field winner, Vicious Cycle’s otherwise lovely PSP action title Dead Head Fred).
This year’s nominees included EA’s Red Alert 3, Bethesda’s Fallout 3, LucasArts’ Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Eidos’s Tomb Raider Underworld, and this year’s curiosity, indie dev Mousechief’s Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble!.
The last game, an IGF entrant two years running, actually, is primarily the reason I wanted to call attention to the list. It’s a game we haven’t yet mentioned here, and we’re pleased to find that certifiable friend of Offworld Leigh Alexander has an extensive writeup from late 2007 over at Play This Thing on the “charmingly stylish, elegantly macabre” game about the most terrifying of all creatures, the high school girl.
Writers Guild videogame award nominees announced [Variety]
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
