GIMME INDIE GAME: GRAVITY BONE
This is one of my biggest regrets of 2008: had I played Brendon Chung’s indie PC game Gravity Bone on first glance it would have made The Offworld 20 without question. Instead, I waited until after the new year, thinking it’d be a game I’d have to sit down and take in like a slow meal.
This turned out not to be true: you can finish Gravity Bone in about as much time as it takes to complete many games’ tutorials, and get more out of the experience than you did most games in their entirety. If Portal was gaming’s latest great novella, Gravity is its mini-comic: colorful, concise, and economical.
The less said about the actual mechanics of the game, the better, as any exposition threatens to give away its best twists. The generics, though: it’s a double-mission exotica-tinged snapshot of the life of a contract killer and his infiltration of a secret jet-set society; spy-fi by way of Fellini’s leisure life and LucasArts’ Grim Fandango. None of this is said, of course, just confidently implied through its symbols and traces of its signal drifting number-station mumblings.
Currently employed at Pandemic designing levels for EA’s just released Lord of the Rings: Conquest, Chung’s mini-game feels like an exercise in escape, a nights-and-weekends rough sketch of the kind of games he by all rights should be doing full-time. Even with its double-take ending (and for all its gnawing mysteries [what was going to be mapped to inventory slot 3?]), it’s over all too soon, and — though he’s detouring through his top-down Xbox 360 Community Game Atom Zombie Smasher — it’s something we sincerely hope he comes back home to soon.
[Bonus love: Take a closer look at its second mission office-tower directory — you might notice some familiar names.]
Gravity Bone [also at Blendo Games]
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ROLITO UNLEASHES NEW PATAPON TOY
With the release of Sony’s second installment of rhythm/strategy game Patapon due in Japan in just days, Rolito — the French designer who lent his “delicious vectorial poison” to the game — has shown off his latest related toy, a new pop-art patterned Bearbrick from Medicom.
While it lacks the contrast and visual punch of his first Bearbrick, this one has the added benefit of actually being released to the public (the first being doled out by Sony and others as promotional items), albeit as part of a blindbox series. December will also see the release of a cell strap set of individual Patapon ‘ultra detail’ figures (I’m partial to the lackluster second and the grimacing fourth).
Patapon x Medicom (3) [Rolito]
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LITTLEBIGWATCH: PLAY WITH KANDINSKY
I’ve been following KirbyKid’s delightfully obscure blog for some time, where he’s been showing an almost troubling level of dedication to deconstructing the gameplay of everything from Super Mario Bros. to Treasure’s excellent roll-your-own DS shooter Bangai-O Spirits (check his critical-glossary for an extrapolated glimpse into the madness).
It was with some interest, then, that I noted his most recent entry, in which he explains how he put LittleBigPlanet‘s level editor through its paces by attempting to bring a Kandinsky painting to life, garnished with a layer of generative and improvisational music:
# I looked to paintings like the one above for inspiration. I also looked at Kandinsky’s paintings from his “Improvisation” series.
# Another idea from the list is for a level that uses musical sounds to create a harmonizing melody. As the player moves closer to the end of the level and as the player platforms more boldly, the generated music would sound more cohesive while matching with the player’s platforming tempo and prowess.
# I decided to combine these two ideas harmonizing around the concept of improvisation. The abstract, non structured, freedom of the Kandinsky paintings (form) will influence a similar freewheeling, intersecting style of platforming. And the musical, positional sound design will blend with these two ideas to create a circular, playful flow throughout the level that moves the player in any and all directions.
Having taken the level for a spin, I can comfortably say that Jimi Hendrix’s song structures make for a happier Guitar Hero level than Kandinsky’s art makes for a platformer — its shapes too chaotic to make for pleasing play — but I sincerely applaud the attempt to break LittleBigPlanet from its traditional bonds and do something entirely unique, and will be eagerly watching further efforts.
Critical-Gaming Network – Blog – Improvisation #1 [Critical-Gaming Network]
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THE IRONY BEING NO-ONE EVEN READS THEM ANYMORE
Excellent eBay cool-hunting blog gamesniped recently linked to an auction for an original PDP-11 manual for seminal text adventure Zork, autographed by creators Mark Blank, Dave Lebling and Joel Berez, along with an original business card from developer Infocom.
Its final price? $2,348.31. The funniest part? Gamesniped’s ultra dry warning before their link: “Now, before you see the price on this auction, you should know that there is a very active collecting scene dedicated to Infocom games.” [via Waxy]
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THE WASTELAND GETS A LITTLE WIDER
The most devastating part of reaching the level 20 cap in Fallout 3 is losing that Paper Planes-like cash register ka-ching that punctuates each kill and discovery, but there’s always been something alluring about the way your Pip-boy experience meter continues on to 21 that lets you know that you’re not quite done just yet.
Which is true: Bethesda have announced the first round of downloadable content for the 360 and PC games, which will be spread throughout the first three months of next year, starting with “Operation: Anchorage” in January, which will let you “enter a military simulation and fight in one of the greatest battles of the Fallout universe – the liberation of Anchorage, Alaska from its Chinese Communist invaders.”
Next will come “The Pitt,” a “journey to the industrial raider town called The Pitt, located in the remains of Pittsburgh,” and finally, the first round of content that will extend the main quest, “Broken Steel,” in March, in which you’ll “join the ranks of the Brotherhood of Steel and rid the Capital Wasteland of the Enclave remnants once and for all.”
December will also see the release of the G.E.C.K., the “official editor for Fallout 3,” which will open up the game to the modding community, which I believe means I’m going to have to start the game anew there to reap the rewards, and I’m honestly not sure I mind.
Fallout 3 [Bethesda, photo courtesy Duncan Harris’s postcard-pretty set of images]
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
FLASHBANG OPENING THE MINOTAUR CHINA SHOP
One of the most charming things about indie developers Flashbang is their no-nonsense approach to both game design and game titles. Both Off-Road Velociraptor Safari and Jetpack Brontosaurs deliver exactly what they say on the tin, and both extremely adeptly, using 3D browser plugin Unity for a near console-like experience (obligatory achievements and all) from the comfort of the web.
Following a brief diversion to the iPhone, Flashbang says its latest 3D browser game — Minotaur China Shop — is nearly ready for beta testing, and again looks from the above trailer to be — brilliantly — exactly what it sounds like.
All of Flashbang’s works available on their portal Blurst are based on playful physicality — Splume‘s physics-enhanced Puzzle Bobble-alike play, Velociraptor‘s vehicles, Jetpack‘s jetpack, and Minotaur‘s precariously placed racks of valuables.
Plus, huge bonus points to Flashbang for scoring Minotaur‘s trailer with blip-maker E*vax, one half of the excellent duo Ratatat and a perennial Offworld favorite.
Minotaur China Shop, Twitter Reminder [Blurst via IndieGames]
See more posts about: Blurst, Flashbang, Offworld Originals
ROCK BAND, EYETOY ADDED TO UK’S NATIONAL VIDEOGAME ARCHIVE
I’ve done a bad job at mentioning this thus far, but, prompted by the most recent news via GamesIndustry, I note that new submission videos have been uploaded for the UK’s National Videogame Archive. First announced in September, the founders explain:
The National Videogame Archive is a joint project between the National Media Museum and Nottingham Trent University, which aims to celebrate that culture and preserve that history for researchers, developers, game fans and the public…
The Archive is working to preserve, analyse and display the products of the global videogame industry by placing games in their historical, social, political and cultural contexts. This means treating videogames as more than inert, digital code: at the heart of the National Videogames Archive is the determination to document the full life of games, from protoypes and early sketches, through box-art, advertising and media coverage, to mods, fanart and community activities.
At the Save the Videogame site, you can see celebrity submissions from a number of noteworthy developers, including Jon ‘Lego Star Wars‘ Smith, Media Molecule’s LittleBigPlanet team, and Uncharted‘s Richard Lamarchand. As GamesIndustry points out, both Sony and Harmonix have announced new hardware submissions, with prototype versions of the EyeToy and Rock Band guitar.
Save the Videogame [National Videogame Archive]
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SPACE INVADERS ABOUT TO GET EVEN ON WIIWARE
It’s been a harrowing past two weeks waking up to the Monday morning press-release deluge and realizing that, no, it’s still not the week that the U.S. gets Space Invaders Get Even, after its European WiiWare debut. Square Enix was kind enough, though, to cut the tension and announce that December 1st will be, err.. SI-day.
Why the excitement? Long overdue (30 years!) for some payback, Get Even, as the name suggests, finally breaks from the past and this time justly plays from the vantage point of the fluorescent invaders themselves, wreaking havok on the world and the defense forces it’s assembled, and serves as a fantastic light hearted and comic-book-colorful counterpoint to the slickly retro-futuristic DS/PSP/Xbox Live Arcade’s Space Invaders Extreme.
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RODNEY ALAN GREENBLAT ORGANIZING ZEN TEMPLE FUNDRAISER
Parappa, UmJammer Lammy and Major Minor artist Rodney Alan Greenblat — now often going by his newly bestowed Buddhist name Musho — is coordinating a December 13th holiday market for his New York City Zen temple, The Village Zendo, including a table of his own prints, postcards, posters, and “a few unreleased product items too, including some funky little ceramic flower vases made in Japan.”
Greenblat’s own web store has a preview of much of that artwork, as well as a slew of import only and original Parappa and UnJammer goods, and fantastic Buddhist statuary done in his inimitable style.
Hello Zen! holiday market 2008 [Village Zendo NYC]
See more posts about: Musho Rodney Alan Greenblat, Offworld Originals, Parappa
KODYKOALA’S MUSHROOM KINGDOM CUSTOMS
Sitting (quite uncomfortably) somewhere between Japan’s Tom of Finland-esque muscle-bound Nintendo parody comics and dollar-store action figure knockoffs, the most disturbing part of ‘KodyKoala’s “custom Mario figures” might not be Toad’s icy gaze or Peach’s frozen grimace (which Kody calls ‘just right’), but Mario’s left hand just seconds away from clutching at her skirt.
KodyKoala’s Custom Mario Figures [via theBBPS]
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