In the many months that’ve passed, I still haven’t managed to dig up many gems in Xbox 360’s Community Games section that have instantly hooked me quite as much as Mommy’s Best’s previously previewed Weapon of Choice, and I’ve just become as quickly intrigued by one-man-team Nathan Fouts’ Grapple Buggy, his next game due on the console by the end of the year.

As the name implies, Buggy promises to take all of the fantastically grotesque alien landscapes of Weapon and combine it with both physics enhanced vehicular platforming ala underdog NES game Blaster Master and a Bionic Commando-esque dual-grappling hook, in some dual-punch combo of under-utilized mechanical excellence.

Here’s Fouts’ again-perfectly ludicrous sci-fi pitch:

Take control of the prototype Grapple Buggy piloted by Nova Commander Javeya, and her alien co-pilot Drozo to explore the newly discovered VALD-END 317.

The distant planet seems to house massive amounts of Tetravaldisae, known to its harvesters as ‘Vald’. Used to create fuel for faster-than-light travel, Vald is the single most valuable commodity in the known universe. The New Homeworld Armada and the Drozo Empire have formed a strained alliance to confirm these portentous readings sending the Grapple Buggy and its team into action for the first time.

Can the Drozo Empire be trusted? Has Javeya’s government thrust her into a compromised situation? Will VALD-END thwart both species schemes? Swing into action with Grapple Buggy!

Fouts has set up a site for the game here, and you can follow his progress via the Mommy’s Best devblog here.

Grapple Buggy [Mommy’s Best, devblog, via XNAplay]

SHOW-CASE: EVERY IMAGINARY 8-BIT FAMICASE GAME EVER DESIGNED

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5.12.2009

Brandon Boyer

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Continuing my coverage of Tokyo hipster retro/game store Meteor’s Famicase art exhibit, in which designers and artists create label artwork for their best 8-bit NES games never made, the store has just put together Famicase Chronicle, an interactive Flash piece that showcases all 140 artists and 216 cases from all of the past years of Meteor’s exhibit.

It’s a slow load to bring in thumbnails of all 200+ cases, and a relatively fiddly piece to navigate: my suggestion is to scroll down to the tiny ‘Auto View’ text button at bottom, sit back and enjoy the show, with its corrupted-ambient 8-bit soundtrack provided by Polytron’s Jason ‘6955’ DeGroot.

Also noteworthy: next to the Auto View button is a link called Video Report, which will load an episode of Points — DeGroot’s short-lived (but very Offworld-ian) video series dedicated to art/game culture — that covered a previous Famicase exhibit live.

Famicase Chronicle [Meteor]

IGN contributor Anoop Gantayat has uploaded video of the just released Contra revival Konami recently surprise-announced as a WiiWare downloadable, and it took no more than seeing the robo-decapitation in the first 10 seconds of the video above for me to decide that I’m going to need this game soon.

See Gantaya’s andriasang blog for a full breakdown of what the game entails.

Contra ReBirth Impressions [andriasang]

ONE SHOT: JEREMIAH JOHNSON’S TORN-CODE DATA SPILLS

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5.12.2009

Brandon Boyer

2 Replies

What happens when one slashes a program or piece of software? Code does not tear like a stretched canvas, but it does break in its own visually unique way.

Jeremiah ‘nullsleep‘ Johnson conjures Lucio Fontana‘s ‘slash paintings’ via the NES in his NYU Data Spills show. [via pixelstyle, I want one of the posters]

Alongside Data Spills is another ITP-NYU Thesis well worth mentioning: José Olivares Ancient Pixels, which makes the very logical leap in crossing low-bit game iconography (read: Atari 2600-esque graphics) with traditional Andean textile art for an installation backed by psych-pop visuals.

For the proposed installation, Olivares created three Andean “rugs” with projected animations that blur the line between outsider and pixel art, each with their own specific symbology.

Olivares — who, as Balún, is also part of the NYC Pulsewave/chiptune scene — has collected all of his research materials on his Ancient Pixels tumblr, where you can see a mockup of the entire ‘temple’ installation and a video of his presentation.

Ancient Pixels [tumblr, Balún, Olivares’ portfolio]

Gaijin Games shows off the latest video of their next WiiWare retro-future rhythm game, Bit.Trip: Core, this time adding a touch more intrigue with the first mention of its multi-beam powerup, which doesn’t look helpful so much as downright necessary in fending off the constant omni-directional onslaught of pixels.

WAYFARER: BEN HEMMENDINGER’S DANGEROUSLY ADDICTIVE PROCESSING ROGUE-LIKE

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5.11.2009

Brandon Boyer

16 Replies

Full disclosure: I’m about as far from an aficionado of Rogue and its various -likes as they come, certainly compared to the ongoing work of people like Andrew Doull and John Harris, but maybe it’s to Wayfarer‘s credit, then, that one quick “oh, what’s this Processing-built game all about, then” test click turned into an entirely lost hour.

Ben Hemmendinger’s take on the genre (still in alpha) is just the perfect amount removed from the ASCII-abstractions of usual rogue-likes to make it both accessible (especially with that 3D tilt-shift) and still hold retro charm, has just the right amount of humor and subtle touches (the pixel-blood-trails of escaping wounded beasts), and is just kind enough at its lowest levels (read: I didn’t instantly die) to very easily make it my new favorite web-time-sink, and the latest of its kind to hook me since I first discovered DND in my innocent youth.

Wayfarer (alpha) [Benhem, via Wiley Wiggins]

Klei Entertainment — creators of original Xbox Live Arcade game Eets and the studio that helped bring Metanet’s N to Live Arcade — calls this footage of their next console game, Shank, “pre-pre-pre-alpha”, but it’s hard to see how much better it can get.

Done up in traditional animation style, it’s already promising some seriously weighty and solid brawler mechanics: check the official Shank blog for more concept, character and storyboard art (and a hat-tip to Wolverine) from the team.

Shank [Klei Entertainment]

PRICED TO MOVE: LAST CHANCE TO PICK UP ALIEN HOMINID ON GAMECUBE/PS2

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5.11.2009

Brandon Boyer

1 Reply

A note as quick as theirs: The Behemoth has announced via their Twitter that the direct-sale GameCube and PS2 copies of their debut shooter Alien Hominid are the last available for good, so if — for some reason — you haven’t already made the jump to Xbox Live Arcade’s HD version, the Wii/mostly-PS3 playable versions are just $10 away.

The same goes for the fantastic vinyl toy five-pack, which comes as highly recommended.

The Behemoth store [via Twitter]

ONE SHOT: BROWN BOX CREATOR BAER’S BIT.TRIP

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5.11.2009

Brandon Boyer

3 Replies

How confident is Odyssey/’ping-pong’/videogame grandfather Ralph Baer at his own game? When he recently took on ‘pong’s neo-retro WiiWare remake Bit.Trip:Beat, he did it (and quite well, by the looks of the screen) holding the controller upside down. [via GaiijnGames]