FRUSTRATION ON FABRIC: MINI CASSETTE’S 8 BIT JASON SHIRT
Mini Cassette gets a big thumb up from me for venturing way, way outside of the usual Nintendo canon for their pixelated Friday the 13th Jason sprite shirt.
Befitting their line of horror themed tees, the 8BitJason shirt is sure to recall the biggest nightmares of our youth: bad, licensed NES games. Now if only I could get a Fester’s Quest tee.
Also available in girl’s sizes.
8BitJason [Mini Cassette Tees]
Previously:
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YOUTH’S PLAYGROUND GETS WIDER: NOKIA’S RESET GENERATION COMES TO MAC, LINUX, KONGREGATE
This may be the happiest and most unexpected news I’ll run all day: back in December in my Offworld 20 list — compiling the best games of 2008 — I noted a still-too-little-played game from Nokia and Red Lynx, Reset Generation, the flagship title of Nokia’s relaunched N-Gage game service efforts.
Even as many months on, it’s still a hard game to aptly describe: I suggest my more concise efforts over at Edge Online for that, but what you do need to know here is that this many months on there’s still nothing like it on the market, and it still remains as vibrant and essential as it was back then.
And now, finally and surprisingly, Nokia’s updated the Java player to support both Macs and Linux, who classically were barred from the experience, and copied the game onto web-portal of choice, Kongregate, as well.
If you play anything this week, make it this game: it’s wonderfully familiar and deliberately obscure all at once, but it’s a fantastic design lesson in perfectly balanced quick-draw strategy.
As a bonus, and in celebration, game music remix clearinghouse ocremix.com has just posted a new contest to have your way with 8-Bit Weapon’s soundtrack to the game, with prizes including a fully loaded Nokia phone equipped with the mobile version of the game (which I’ve still kept around specifically for late-night pre-sleep sessions), and T-shirts and CDs from the Weapon, including the previously mentioned sample and loop CD just released by Sony.
Reset Generation [Nokia, Kongregate page]
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EDGE OF MADNESS: THE COPYFIGHT BETWEEN MOBIGAME AND TIM LANGDELL
Apologies for the title, as this actually refers to a trademark dispute, but I can’t think of a short-form pun that works as well (trade-lark?). Either way, there needs to be a brighter light shone on this ongoing struggle that’s been waging since the tail end of May, but has gone too overlooked due both to E3 information overload, and the long interim process of gathering all the relevant information, which now has finally come to a head.
Rather than guiding you through the sordid details in their entirety, I point you instead to fantastic summaries recently written up by both Gamasutra director Simon Carless, and Derek Yu at TIGSource — the latter’s community has been doing staggering due diligence at sniffing out the facts over the past few weeks.
But here’s the long and the short: iPhone game creators Mobigame — the French studio behind retro-future cubist platformer Edge have been locked in an ongoing battle with one Tim Langdell, trademark owner of the word ‘Edge’ since his early 80s home computer publishing house Edge Games was in operation, who has since been vociferously defending the mark at all opportunities, when clear common sense would dictate that there’d be laughably little dilution with his sparse output since the days of the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64.
A short list of the companies that have apparently settled with Langdell and licensed the name or otherwise stepped out of his way include UK magazine Edge, Namco — whose Soul Edge game would be released in the west as Soul Blade, 1997 Anthony Hopkins movie The Edge, Malibu comics character Edge and any Marvel comic with the word in the title… the list goes on, but out of all the heavy hitters that have conceded, Langdell has finally met his angriest and noisiest match in the one place he probably least expected it: the indie game community. (more…)
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LISTEN: KONAMI’S ARCADE POWER ON SELF TEST THEME, MORNING MUSIC
Also wonderfully spotted by Tiny Cartridge, this little bit of classic arcade musical trivia: a small number of Konami’s arcade machines operating on an obscure “bubble memory” hardware setup — which literally required warming up to get to fully functional — also feature this little minuet known as “Morning Music” to accompany the slow start.
The tune’s gone on to be included in tribute in some of the company’s later music games like KeyboardMania, but, as Cartridge points out, the net effect of starting up a number of the machines every morning, must have been daily cacophonous hell for arcade operators.
See more posts about: Arcade, Listen, Music, Offworld Originals
GIMME INDIE GAME: THE SILHOUETTED SLAPSTICK OF LITTLE WHEEL
The interesting thing about Little Wheel — the latest Flash game from heretofore essentially unknown Slovakian team OneClickDog — is just how fervent the studio is about making sure you finish their game.
Put off from point and click adventures for their 2×2 pixel hot-spot hunts? OneClickDog’s happy to encircle every possible interactive point in glowing grey. Even with that, not sure which order to click things in? Have a peek at the upper right of the screen, where they’ve got a button marked WALKTHROUGH.
But that’s not to say that there’s that much challenge there for a seasoned adventure vet, and even that’s not to say that the game is an out and out breeze.
What the game is is probably the most easily accessible and effortlessly charming little adventure since we last left off with Windosill: all drawn out in silhouette, 10,000 years after a power generator failure knocked out an entire planet of worker drones, your little accidentally awoken bot makes his way through a handful of screens to restore order.
And the best part of Little Wheel? It’s that for a hero, and even in the short amount of time it takes, he manages to make a hell of a mess along the way in cute slapstick fashion. Give the game 20 minutes of your day: that’s about all it asks, and it gives a lot back in return.
Little Wheel [OneClickDog, who apparently, one day after the game premiered, have a new adventure on the verge of launching that I now anxiously await]
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WICKED AS DUCK: POKE LONDON’S AUGMENTED REALITY RUBBERDUCKZILLA MINI-GAMES
New from UK creative agency Poke London, with graphics help by LittleBigPlanet artist Rex Crowle: RubberDuckZilla, a collection of augmented reality mini-games created to promote Coca-Cola’s fruit drink Oasis.
Using screenshots doesn’t quite do justice to the games, so, above, Poke London’s Chris giving a live demonstration. Print the necessary symbols and play the games at RubberDuckZilla.com — with extras unlockable with a copy of yesterday’s Sun newspaper (which I’m probably too late on, sorry). [via Rex, see also: the RDZ TV ad]
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OFFWORLD GALLERY: FIRST SCREENSHOTS OF TEAM ICO’S THE LAST GUARDIAN
Shh, let’s not talk. Just click through for Sony’s first unveiling of twelve gorgeous high resolution shots of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus followup The Last Guardian. (more…)
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WWDC09: HANDS ON WITH NGMOCO’S ROLANDO 2, TOUCH PETS: DOGS, LIVEFIRE
Following the release of their Star Defense alongside Apple’s WWDC keynote, iPhone publisher Ngmoco recently held a showcase of their upcoming games in the pipeline at the W’s XYZ bar, including Rolando 2, Touch Pets: Dogs, and their still-unnamed touch-and-shoot FPS.
Peering over Simon Oliver of Hand Circus’ shoulder, I watched as he demonstrated some of the newfangled treats coming to the much anticipated Rolando 2. Expanding upon its original cast to include a colorful bunch that range in character and physicality, the game has teamed up with writer Micah Wright (scriptwriter behind the Destroy All Humans series, and, interestingly enough, a handful of episodes of the 90’s Nickelodeon show The Angry Beavers) to bring a more developed narrative with quirkier character personalities.
Oliver simulated how girthier Rolandos will be of great use in some of the new water-oriented puzzles (whereas smaller Rolandos bob helplessly at the water’s surface) and gas-filled Rolandos take to the levels floating instead of rolling for a unique range of physic-based puzzles. New power-up fruits will provide a variety of abilities, and new vehicles like the revenge-fueled “Spikey Death Ball” will allow players to obliterate level enemies when they couldn’t do so before. Aside from the “Boom Finger”, which upon charging allows players to tap-bomb pathway obstructions, it would be a shame to spoil too many of the terrific goodies in Rolando 2, due for a release sometime soon this summer. (more…)
See more posts about: Hand Circus, Offworld Originals, Rolando
ONE SHOT: BAYONETTA’S SCARBOROUGH FAIR, GUNS TO LOOK HOT IN A GIRL’S HAND
Platinum Games weapon designer Muneyuki “Johnny” Kotegawa discusses the staggering amount of detailed attention that went into the design of Scarborough Fair, the guns used by the eponymous Bayonetta in her upcoming sexually charged (no, really) PS3/360 debut.
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, One Shot, Xbox 360
LISTEN: THE POST-IT PIXELS OF BANG-YAO LIU’S DEADLINE
There’s something about Röyksopp that brings out the best in everyone, as with Bang-yao Liu’s Savannah College senior project DEADLINE, which sees Liu procrastinating via low-bit post-it pixel versions of Breakout, Pole Position, et al. See also: the making-of. [thanks, Tom!]
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