There is something so perfectly Wareheim-ian about this video from last weekend’s Brooklyn chiptunes dance party at The Brick that I can’t help but post it: it’s got an amazingly un-contrived 80’s public access feel, with what looks like an attendance I can count on both hands (maybe the rest were all at the Mario Kart kiosk?), all doing awkward Charlie Brown Xmas drunk-dancing to what is honestly a wicked set by both Kurisu Bearcub and especially OxygenStar, in the wig, on the drums.

Just don’t get me wrong: this is totally my idea of a good time, and was a far better Saturday night than I had down here. [via TCTD]

From the “where you least expect them” dept.: McSweeney’s offshoot DVD magazine Wholphin is currently screening the first episode of The Adventures of Ledo & Ix online — a low-tech/high-brow five minute faux-16-bit short by Emily ‘Kid Can Drive‘ Carmichael.

I won’t over-explain the purpose of the short (the teaser trailer is above), except to excerpt this bit of the subsequent interview with Carmichael:

I wanted that sense of lieu vague, a term that Wikipedia has just told me describes the “nonspecific setting” of Waiting for Godot. Even the vagueness is vague, no one says, for instance: “It’s weird we don’t know where we’re going, and we should perhaps consult some sort of reference material”… One of the main things Ledo and Ix are up against is a world which is anti-climactic at every turn.

Watch the episode in its entirety via Wholphin — and consider a subscription, it’s one of the consistently best curated video collections in recent years.

UBISOFT GETS IT TOGETHER, OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCES SCOTT PILGRIM, THE GAME

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7.28.2009

Brandon Boyer

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Ubisoft have officially announced our previously mentioned Comic-Con news that they’re developing a game based on Bryan Lee O’Malley’s comic series Scott Pilgrim — and have subsequently added absolutely no further details. As mentioned late last week, IGN and /Film reported from O’Malley’s panel which dropped news that the game would be “a side-scrolling brawler that will retain the look of the comic” — and IGN went further with now-apparently-rescinded details that the game would be a PS3/Xbox 360 downloadable.

O’Malley himself has said that any platform news was overstated, and Ubisoft’s press release offers nothing more of note apart from a flurry of background details on Edgar Wright’s film adaptation, and licensing VP Christian Salomon promising the game will “provide a fun and unique experience to players and combine all the important elements seen in the film–action, romance, irreverent pop culture references and rock-n-roll.”

But, the most heartening news out of all the non-news, a presser quote from O’Malley (who is otherwise remaining mum on the project) that at least generically hints that he’s “work[ing] closely” with Ubisoft on the game.

ONE SHOT: WASTELAND CLUTTER, IN REAL LIFE

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7.28.2009

Brandon Boyer

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Even with all the hard work gone into creating real live working Pip-Boys, the devil’s in the details, and Weekly Geek‘s Chris Furniss provides templates for and hints on creating your own Fallout 3 Buffout, Med-X syringes and Nuka Cola caps, which I believe are the official currency of PAX, for which these cosplay accoutrements are being created.

Though work appears to be continuing on his El Lissitzky-inspired game, Protonaut, Intuition Games’ Greg Wohlwend has also just published this latest look at a game he’s been recently teasing on flickr: Fig. 8, a game (based on an art installation of Wohlwend’s) where players are “rewarded for keeping [a bicycle’s] tracks together while navigating through the surreal world of an ‘architectural’ diagram.”

It’s wholly atypical graphic and level design is actually not quite as surprising when you realize Wohlwend’s one of the designers behind Effing Hail, the previously covered game that played as an interactive version of a retro-textbook infographic.

Wohlwend’s hoping that showing off this much of the game will net him a sponsor — follow his progress via his newly unveiled LOGO-inspired website, Twitter feed, or Intuition Games blog.

Alex Austin updates the Cryptic Sea blog to show off the latest look at No Quarter — the six-game “compilation” in development with Gish and Super Meat Boy‘s Edmund McMillen — specifically, the first long-form look at Odyssey, the Lunar Lander-esque sixth of the game which terrifies me a little, but I’ve got that nightmare thing about the dead, empty expanse of the universe.

As a bonus, if you click through, Austin paints an accurate picture of the indie-gaming all-star party Cryptic Sea held to help test the game as it approaches release: pictured are Braid‘s Jonathan Blow, World of Goo‘s Kyle Gabler, Bit.Trip‘s Alex Neuse and Chris Osborn, Reflect‘s Mike Treanor and Spelunky‘s Derek Yu.

McMillen says the game will be released for PC “soon(ish)”, on Steam.

CHU ON THIS: SOMETHINGAWFUL’S MSPAINT-A-PIKA

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7.28.2009

Brandon Boyer

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As usual, SomethingAwful’s latest Photoshop busywork — which asked readers to MSPaint-a-Pika — is equal parts forgettable, disturbing, surprising, and sublime.

It’s the game that’s got other publishers pushing all of their late-year release dates out of its way into 2010, and it’s more guns and ammo than I normally might cotton to, but as I’ve said before, the persistence and leveling achievements that constituted Call of Duty 4‘s multiplayer made it easily one of the best faux-MMOs of 2007/2008, and developer Infinity Ward has just published a look at its online successor.

The biggest change you’ll see here: the ability for players to take control of the AC130 gunship in the midst of your skirmish and pick people off from a distance, precisely in the same way as you could in one of the most quietly disturbing and sobering sequences of CoD4‘s single-player mode.

As you will have seen, will see above, and will probably see many times across all media in the coming months: the game is due for release on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC on November 10th.

ABOUT TIME: FLASHBANG REVEAL FIRST TIME DONKEY CONCEPT ART

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7.27.2009

Brandon Boyer

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Back in March we got the first look at a 5-day prototype kicking around the Flashbang offices in the form of Time Donkey, the Minotaur China Shop creator’s self-described “Cursor*10 meets WarioWare meets Raving Rabbids” time-warping platform game.

Though we had — as usual — pretty strong hints that this would be the next official Blurst game via the studio’s changelog twitter feed (and the next that would return Flashbang to their ‘action/machinery + animal’ roots after Blush, Paper Moon and Crane Wars), they’ve just made the news official via an in-depth look at the art direction behind the game.

Specifically, they’ve just showed off the first concept image from new contract artist Justin Messner that illustrates the more cartoonish direction the game is headed, and art director Ben Ruiz lists a number of the aesthetic influences the game’s had, primarily GameCube Zelda entry WindWaker, Capcom’s Wii puzzle game Zack and Wiki, and long-time favorite debut WiiWare game Lost Winds, all examples of limited palettes and blue-sky super-saturated colors.

Flashbang promise more inside-views of the game as it pulls itself together over the coming weeks, but the one-two punch of the video’s mechanics and properly cheery art direction has already got me hooked.