CASTLE CRASHERS GETS KINGED
While January 21st will see the release of The Maw, Twisted Pixel’s anticipated 3D adventure recently noted in the Offworld Guide to the IGF, tomorrow’s Xbox Live Arcade update will include new downloadable content for The Behemoth’s retro-inspired beat em up Castle Crashers.
The so called ‘King Pack’ is set to add two new playable characters, the ‘Open Faced Grey Knight’ and the King himself, as well as a new healing spell via the King, three new weapons and Pelter, a new animal orb sidekick, all of which, now that the game has been properly patched and fixed issues with its online play, is as good a reason as any to discover why the game landed on our Offworld 20 best 2008 games list.
Previously:
The Behemoth talk Castle Crashers balance, ladies – Offworld
The Offworld 20: 2008's Best Indie and Overlooked – Offworld
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
ULTIMA CREATOR GARRIOTT REGALING AUSTIN ON SPACE VOYAGE
There wasn’t a very graceful way to mention it at the time, but in early December I had a serendipitous run-in with recently departed NCsoft head, legendary Ultima creator and recent space voyager Richard Garriott at a venue here in Austin, which ended with him happily monopolizing the night in front of a gaggle of curious onlookers, with candid stories of What Things Are Like On The International Space Station (‘was there booze? are the Russian parts of the ISS different than the U.S. bits? how did you poop?’) (the imagery of the latter is now irreversibly burnt into my consciousness — it’s not a pretty story).
I knew it was a special treat at the time, but now it’s got a sticker price: Austin’s Zach Theatre will be officially hosting Garriott to do the same on January 24th, with “artifacts and photos from his private collection, plus videos of aspects of space travel never seen before,” and a subsequent Q&A.
For the non-Texans, you can also catch some footage of Garriott’s expedition via film group Beef and Pie, who traveled with the trekker during his training and have the rights to his own personal space-films for the upcoming documentary Man on a Mission.
Austin, Texas > On Our Stages > Extreme Voyage [ZACH Theatre, via Massively]
See more posts about: Offworld Originals
FELTRON EIGHT DIVES INTO LIBERTY CITY MINUTAE
Designer Nicholas Felton’s annual reports have become one of my favorite year-end cappers, no matter that none of the information presented has an iota of relevance in my own personal life. The grace, beauty, and frankly slightly worrying amount of personal record-keeping that go into each collection of the minutiae of Felton’s daily life is the classiest bit of voyeurism you’ll engage in all year.
That’s why I was so happy to see that this year’s Feltron report covered not just the number of Michael J Fox sightings (one), beers consumed in public (408), or songs listened to in iTunes (just shy of 34k), but extended into his Liberty City life with an extensive breakdown of the number of miles traveled during the course of his/Niko’s Grand Theft Auto IV exploits (1,036), which, according to his timeline, he completed near the end of May (that’s dedication!).
If Felton’s reports tickle your own obsessive compulsive urges, add yourself to the invite request list at Daytum, Felton’s new service still in private beta which allows you to auto-generate Feltron-like reports based on any criteria of your choosing, and please let us know if you find creative uses for it based on your gaming life.
Feltron Eight [Thanks, .tiff!]
See more posts about: Offworld Originals
CRAYON PHYSICS GETS WALL-E-FIED
I’ve admittedly been seriously derelict in my duties to big-up Kloonigames’ Crayon Physics Deluxe following its official release last week on both PC and the iPhone, so in an effort to make right before giving a more considered verdict, I offer this video, in which ‘Jimmy Gunawan’ bridges the ball-star gap with, naturally, an elaborate counterbalanced Wall-E and Eva contraption.
Crayon Physics – That Darn Pole, featuring Wall-E [Vimeo, via Gus]
Previously:
Things We Lost In The Snow, pt 3: Crayon Physics about to hit the iPhone – Offworld
Crayon Physics Deluxe opens pre-orders – Offworld
See more posts about: Offworld Originals
LISTEN: BIZARRE GIVE US 46860 CHOICES
Bizarre Creations’ new years gift for fans of early Xbox Live Arcade flagship title Geometry Wars? ‘46860 Choices,’ a 13 minute megamix [direct mp3 link] of the series’ music done up quite nicely by Audio Antics‘s Chris Chudley — series composer, and musician for a majority of Bizarre’s output — which should tide you over until the developer manages to get the official soundtracks to iTunes.
Try as I might, I still haven’t managed to track down the inspiration for the name.
A late Happy New Year! [via everywhere, it seems, including NeoGAF]
See more posts about: Listen, Music, Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
UNIQLO TEASES NEW GAMES FINERY
Following on their brilliant Metal Gear crossover with Konami (I still covet the box-head shirt), Japan’s UNIQLO offers this teaser for new games related shirts coming in March of this year, in partnership with a number of Japan’s biggest publishers.
Each is kept a surprise, but it should be fairly easy to suss out each one (here’s a hint, it goes S, M, A, P, G, B from top left to bottom right), and I’m obviously quite excited for lower left.
ユニクロ UT: UT×Japan Game [via Kotaku]
See more posts about: Offworld Originals
LEFT 4 DEAD: SAVAGE BEYOND BELIEF
This month’s greatest superfluous game-mod: ‘Guido-Anchovy’s Left 4 Dead hack, which, apropos of nothing, replaces all infected clips with the sounds of Randy ‘Macho Man’ Savage, creating something that’s way, way funnier than it needs to be.
Left 4 Dead – Randy Savage Infected Sound Mod addon [Mod DB, via Shacknews]
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
PINBALL DESIGNER LAWLOR ON THE KINETICS OF THE SILVER BALL
Speaking of lost arts, GameSetWatch has a great interview with pinball designer Pat Lawlor (Funhouse, The Addams Family) that veers comfortably wildly around all topics of the modern pinball industry, but is at its best when discussing just how pin-boards are designed — a topic closely related to videogame design but so tactile at its core that it slightly boggles my mind:
There are obviously many aspects involved in kinetics. Every designer has differing goals for the “feel” of the game. Usually these goals are a result of the kinds of games the designers like
personally.Things to consider are, in no particular order:
1) Middle shots are easier for beginners.
2) How to mix stop and go shots with nice return flow shots.
3) How fast is the overall game? Very fast games are very difficult for beginners.
4) When a shot is missed, what happens to the ball? Is it a bad, clunky thing? Does the ball come back in my face?
5) Are these shots just “there,” or do they represent something from the theme?
Hit the link for more on the inescapable draw of wolloping Funhouse’s ‘Rudy’ head, and why pinball has “not adequately adapted to the 21st century.”
GameSetInterview: ‘Rudy’s Father Speaks – The Pat Lawlor Interview’ [GameSetWatch]
See more posts about: Arcade, Offworld Originals
COVERING THE COVERS
Only six days into the new year and we’ve got a handful of nice projects launching: first Today’s Free Game, which could quickly make itself quite useful, and now, Simon Parkin’s laser-focused Box Art, a new Tumblr blog that does daily just what you think it will:
Box art is a dying art and I think we’ll be all the poorer for its inevitable demise, even if the reduction of humanity’s bulk of packaging can only be a good thing in wider terms. This site then is a place to celebrate the most interesting box art of games past and present from across the world.
The glory days of the likes of Roger Dean‘s Psygnosis covers
are surely all but buried (a legacy I’m sure Parkin will get to in good time), but maybe in some small way Box Art will re-invigorate the practice.
Bonus points, too, for Parkin’s choice in favicons: the eagle-eyed will notice that it’s a detail from my favorite box art of all time, the original PlayStation’s fantastically bizarre Jounetsu Nekketsu Athletes (an art-piece I’d like to believe I had a small part in championing, if only because the first google image result I found for it used my same original filename).
See more posts about: Offworld Originals
GAIJIN GAMES TAKING THE WII ON A BIT.TRIP
Several weeks back this suitably ridiculous viral video made the rounds, along with speculation that it related to an announcement for a forthcoming Wii exclusive, and it seems Nintendo Power (via a spy-cam shot supplied to GoNintendo) has prematurely solved the riddle.
Upstart developer Gaijin Games, it turns out, has been quietly at work on the WiiWare’s answer to Q-Games’s PixelJunk series (or Skip/Nintendo’s own ArtStyle/bit Generations franchise): a set of six games under the “Bit.Trip” label, starting with Beat, a retro-futurist rhythm-based Pong-alike that you can catch a momentary glimpse of during the flickering montage above, or via Gaijin’s official CommanderVideo site.
Beat‘s twist, the magazine revealed, is its evolution based on how well you play: get yourself on a winning streak and the game responds with increasingly complex synced up color and sound, but falter and it returns to its original monochrome form.
The series is due for a release later this year, published by traditionally niche RPG house Aksys, and is a very welcome surprise for 2009’s WiiWare outlook.
Where’s the Cat? [Gaijin Games]
See more posts about: Bit.Trip, Gaijin, Offworld Originals
