LISTEN: MISTER BEEP’S 1-BIT BLEEPS
Recently released on Berlin’s B-Hack Records is Mister Beep‘s “Monophonic Generator” album. It’s a chiptune album containing, mostly, cover versions of various songs by Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Vangelis, amongst others, that is notable for being composed entirely on a Timex 2048. That one I had to look up.
The Timex 2048 was a cousin of sorts of the British favourite Sinclair ZX Spectrum. The system was mostly compatible with the “Speccy” and was most popular in Portugal and Poland, which accounts for its somewhat obscure nature. It’s also a computer that had a one channel “Beeper” for audio production. The entire album is 1-bit, which is trumped on the label site as “the first 1 bit album ever to be released on a netlabel!!!” I can’t confirm or deny that, but either way it is certainly rare.
Monophonic Generator [Mister Beep software page, 8bitcollective profile, via the excellent True Chip Till Death]
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ONE SHOT: STEPHEN GIBSON’S STYLISH ART FOR ART STYLE DOWNLOADABLES
Stephen ‘espiox‘ Gibson dares to dream up retail packaging for Nintendo/Skip’s Art Style series of DSi downloadables, in the style of the Game Boy Advance’s Art Style predecessor, the bit Generations franchise [as shown here].
I only wish he’d taken that PictoBits art — which visually recalls the earliest cartridge art from Nintendo’s 8-bit Famicom [seen here] and broken it up into chunkier pixelated squares. [via Tiny Cartridge]
Previously:
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LISTEN: BIT SHIFTER’S 2007 BLIP FESTIVAL DRUM’N’BLEEPS
Continuing 2 Player Productions’ drip-feed of performances from the 2007 Blip Festival, they’ve just uploaded this Bit Shifter track, Rough Weather, that gets the crowd all down and dirty, including one conspicuously spotted audience member that you may recognize from another games website (see if you can find them!).
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MICROSOFT’S BUILD-YOUR-OWN-GAME PROJECT KODU DUE ON 360 IN JUNE?
Remember Kodu? Microsoft’s new 21st century LOGO Steve Ballmer demonstrated during CES that the company hopes will help children learn game/programming logic by piecing together small works of their own on the Xbox 360?
Very much lost in last week’s news was this blog update from the team that says after all its years in development, they’re finally putting the final touches on the package for its release by the end of June.
It’s still not clear how the project will be integrated into the current Xbox 360 lineup, apart from the earlier promise that it’d appear as part of the Community Games initiative: whether that’s as a separate group entirely, or as a first-party Community Games release. It’s just as unclear whether sharing of created game will still be an integral part of the experience.
See more about Kodu at its Microsoft Research project page. [via IGN]
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ONE SHOT: HARMONIX’S OWN PRIVATE ABBEY ROAD
The legendary Abbey Road studio, recreated in plastic form for E3 to promote The Beatles: Rock Band, as photographed by Harmonix creative director Josh Randall.
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THE 4 THINGS GAMERS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT APPLE’S WWDC KEYNOTE
1.) Apple will be releasing a new model iPhone on June 19th
For all those iPhone gamers that were holding their breath through the first hour and fourty-five minutes of the conference (where Apple showed off its new, lower priced MacBooks and Snow Leopard upgrades), they got what they were waiting for: the iPhone 3GS (the ‘s’ stands for ‘speed’).
Apple touted the fact that the 3GS will load SimCity 2.4 times faster than the original iPhone (among other 2-3x improvements), will support OpenGL|ES, and will include new hardware like a 3 megapixel camera (with tap-to-focus capabilities, better low-light shots, etc) and 30fps VGA video recording (with integrated YouTube uploads), a digital compass, and voice activated commands.
The new model will launch in the U.S. on June 19th at a price of $199 for the 16GB model, $299 for the 32GB model, while the standard 3G drops today to $99.
What Apple didn’t stress was the idea that games that take advantage of the faster model might soon bring about an App Store split that sees new titles created ‘for 3GS only.’
2.) Apple will also launch the 3.0 firmware on June 17th
Even for all those that aren’t planning to upgrade their hardware, the new 3.0 software will be released two days ahead of the new models (with ‘100 new features’) and will bring previously touted new advances for games like push notification, auto peer-to-peer multiplayer searching over Bluetooth, and in-game upgrade purchases, with the same 30-70 Apple/developer price cut. Developers can also now embed geolocation/the Google Maps code into any application, which could lead to new and better geo-aware games. The upgrade will be free for iPhone users, and will cost $9.95 for iPod Touch owners.
3.) Games took a relative back-seat during this keynote
Compared to previous keynotes, which introduced the iPhone and its competitive strengths via game demonstrations (think Monkey Ball and Spore), the game demos this time ’round were on the light side.
Apart from mentioning Dizzy Bee developer Nathan Hunley in a lineup of developer profiles, and bringing Gameloft on stage to demo their racer Asphalt 5 (with Bluetooth multiplayer), the biggest star of the game show was ngmoco, who took the spotlight to show off their just released (App Store link) spherical tower defense game Star Defense (previously featured several times, and more on that later).
In particular, ngmoco showed the upcoming in-game expansion store coming soon to the game, where users can purchase additional maps (as above, via gdgt’s liveblog of the event).
4.) Here’s what Apple didn’t mention: improvements to the App Store experience
Talk to any App Store developer and what you won’t hear is any complaints about the current iPhone’s hardware. The mounting problem and pressure for indie devs isn’t one of performance, but of exposure.
Apple was very happy to note that there are 50,000 apps on the store, miles ahead of the competition (photo again via gdgt’s liveblog), an install base of 40 million, and a billion apps sold. Developers are just as unhappy to note that, as one recently put it to me, the App Store experience is like “the world’s biggest Wal-mart with one single aisle.”
Until Apple addresses UI concerns — the ability to sort by rating? Further granularity in its sub-sections? The rumored ‘Premium App’ split? More transparency on who becomes ‘Featured’ and why? — all the speed in the world isn’t going to increase a developer’s chance to stay afloat in a sea of garbage.
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A SIMPLE PLAN FOR YOUR SIMPLE HOME: THREADLESS/BLIK VINYL DECALS
The studious invaders of Neil Gregory’s A Simple Plan T-shirt are now available as a full-size sticky vinyl wall decoration as part of the Threadless crossover efforts at wall-decor clearinghouse Blik, the same company that offers official Nintendo vinyl, more i-am-8-bit and traditional invaders, and, of all things, an exclusive Of Montreal set. [via technabob]
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LITTLEBIGWATCH: MEDIA MOLECULE REVEAL ICO, YORDA COSTUMES
Handily tidying up any lingering questions I had about this week’s LittleBigPlanet crossover DLC pack, Media Molecule have revealed that it will contain stickers, sounds, and costumes not only for Shadow of the Colossus, as teased last week, but Ico as well, as teased even earlier.
While the pack doesn’t seem to be as much of a game changer as the Metal Gear Solid blowout (which also introduced guns to the game, giving everyone big hopes for Wander’s sword in this), I’m still very much looking forward to seeing both games’ iconic imagery run through the lens of MM’s artists.
Previously:
- LittleBigWatch: official Ico/LittleBigPlanet crossover …
- LittleBigMegaton: Shadow of the Colossus DLC coming to LBP
- LittleBigWatch: Media Molecule Adds Metal Gear – Offworld
- LittleBigWatch: the NeoGAF hive-mind's LittleBigContra – Offworld
- LittleBigWatch: danteneverdies' Little Daft Punk video – Offworld
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TWEET MY GAMING: THE TWITTER TOOL FOR TRACKING TOP TITLES
The latest, and as always, ridiculously named, games/twitter mashup: Tweet My Gaming, gamerDNA’s new tool to track games trends by tweet mentions.
The tool does show, if nothing else, that the reported figures from the weekend launch of Maxis’s Sims 3 — which, as noted by Edge, EA says was the UK’s fourth biggest PC game launch — seem to be borne out amongst twitter’s hoi polloi as well: it sits above E3 standouts Left 4 Dead 2, The Beatles: Rock Band and even World of Warcraft as the current most mentioned game.
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ONE SHOT: MIKKO WALAMIES’ ROLANDO 2 IPHONE WALLPAPER STACKUP
Hand Circus have released the first in a promised series of wallpapers to promote their upcoming iPhone sequel Rolando 2.
With all the game’s characters now revealed we can see that it’ll retain all of its easy vector charm, but there’s something edgier and scrappier about Walamies’ hand-drawn versions that makes them even more appealing.
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