Archive for July, 2010
Mortal Kombat on Paper
Eric Power is a filmmaker. A lot of his animations are about video games.
(Also to enjoy: Zelda on Paper, Resident Evil Paper, and so much more.)
Trubble Club: Scenes from a Mall
In the newest collaborative effort from Chicago’s own Trubble Club, the Hot Topic Counter Girl is playing some kind of 2D heart-smashing platformer.
Daily Linksplosion: Wednesday, July 14, 2010
- Joystiq – Atari’s Haunted House returns to scare PC, Xbox 360 and WiiIf there’s one thing I’m internet-famous for, it’s talking about Haunted House. Like, I talk about it a lot, and I’m not even sorry. So what do we think? Does the Haunted House remake seem promising? (P.S. Thanks to the two of ye who Tweeted me.)
- Tiny Cartridge – Hotel Dusk sequel coming to the West...or at least to Europe. But that means gorgeous, hand-drawn noir is sure to come to North American DSes, too, right? Right, you guys?
Daily Linksplosion: Tuesday, July 13, 2010
- Indie City Games – The Indie City Games July 2010 MeetingBecause the inaugural meeting was such a success, the organizers of Indie City Games have arranged a tidy, half-day symposium for current and aspiring game developers based in the Midwestern United States. Among those scheduled to speak at the July 24 event: Ben Collins-Sussman demystifies interactive fiction; Dai5ychain’s Jake Elliott demonstrates the possibilities of Flixel; Puzzle Bots designer Erin Robinson explains Adventure Game Studio.
- Game Journalists Are Incompetent Fuckwits – I think I’ve made my point, don’t you?You know, there have been other blogs before this one that subscribed to exactly the same theme, and those made me laugh. (When I worked at Ziff, a coworker constantly refreshed one such blog out of grim paranoia, scanning the page for his own name, and that also made me laugh.) This Tumblog never made me laugh, though—in fact, it made me a little bit uncomfortable—so alarmingly serious seemed its author. Which is too bad, because vitriol can be hilarious, so long as it doesn’t get personal. And I’d rather laugh and squirm uncomfortably than never ever laugh, maybe.
In any case, author Ben Paddon now writes that he is closing up shop and hiatus-ing. I have strongly mixed feelings about it because, the truth is, I and a few friends have very actively followed Paddon’s ongoing catalogue of complaints, and as a reader, I’ll miss his blog. I suspect he’s exhausted himself by caring too much, though, and I do think the good games writing is more worth caring about than the bad.
Morning edit: without so much as a dramatic pause, Paddon keeps blogging
Usborne Guide to Computer and Video Games (1982)
From The Usborne Guide to Computer and Video Games (1982):
Many more extrapolations and insights at the link.
Daily Linksplosion: Monday, July 12, 2010
- Pixel Prospector – The Big List Of Indie Game SitesWhoa. (via superlevel.de’s @Fabu)
- McSweeney’s Internet Tendency – Roland Barthes Reviews "Pac-Man."Cross-saving Mike Nowak’s (@n0wak) hilarious del.icio.us link.
- GameLife – Spooky Platformer Eversion Gets Polished Up for SteamGuilherme Töws, whom I know best as "Zaratustra" from IRC channels, now has a game on Steam! And while you can still grab the freeware ‘Eversion’ from his website, the US$5 download promises redesigned levels and better graphics. Hop to it!
- Numberless – Sight UnseenScott Jon Siegel wonders: with HD televisions and cable services, three-dee tee-vee, the iPhone 4’s "Retina Display," and now the Nintendo 3DS, how is a company supposed to market a technology that the consumer cannot see until he is, well, actually seeing it?
- Lost Levels – Review: ColorsOh, man, I can’t believe I am only just reading this. I have always dreamed of somehow getting ahold of the source code for this game, slapping it on an SD card, and loading it right up on my beloved Gizmondo. As I understood it back in 2005, ‘Colors’ was meant to be one of two planned ARGs for the Gizmondo handheld device: using cellular network service and the gadget’s built-in GPS, you were supposed to basically wardrive around town until you found another player to brutally murder in-game—kind of like foursquare for Haters. (Or, OK, the idea of cell phone drive-by social gaming is actually pretty old and, I think, Swedish.) Anyway, apparently the solo play in ‘Colors’ is not too great. Oh, well! I guess I’ll just go back to looking for the Gizmondo source code for ‘Johnny Whatever’ instead.
- Drunken Moogle – The Rainbow Road Shot ChallengeThe best looking worst idea ever.
- GameLife – Next post UK’s Channel 4 Uses Games to Teach Teens HappinessGames for good.
- Artful Gamer – The Changing Nature of Gaming InterfacesExcellent read that elegantly conveys, ultimately, my own horror at touch screen devices. Here’s Chris Lepine’s footnote on button-mashing: "I am using a very special meaning of the word ‘repression’ that Merleau-Ponty introduces in his phenomenology of the body. ... For more details see Lawrence Hass’s book Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy, pp. 89-90."
Awesome custom Samus at LA’s Toy Art Gallery
That incredible Samus Aran figurine (with LIGHT-UP HELMET and CANNON ARM) is, bafflingly, a customized Celsius vinyl toy, executed by artist Dave Quiles. Look at the details on her Varia suit!
This lovely bounty hunter is just one custom vinyl toy at the Ganmettal Celsius Custom Show, which opened July 10 at LA’s Toy Art Gallery.
The show also featured at least one Mega Man custom (well, duh, right?).
Kill Screen, issue #1: the No Fun Issue
Hi, mom. Hi! It’s me! Yeah, hi!
What? No, I haven’t taken the GRE yet. Hang on, hey, I was calling to tell you—hmm? My driver’s license? Um, nuh-uh, I didn’t renew it. But I—huh? Well, I mean, probably. No, I mean, I’ll get the oil changed, I think I can do that for twenty bucks at the Car-X. What? Yes, we are. No. Yes. Yes. Probably a movie or something. No, I think I’ve actually stopped losing weight. What? Well, ramen and granola, mostly. OK. OK. OK. I don’t think so? OK.
Hey, I was actually phoning to tell you about my article in the magazine. What? No, my article. Well, the magazine is called Kill Screen—uh, no, it’s a video game magazine, I guess “kill screen” is like a video game, uh, term.
But it’s Kill Screen, issue number one, the “No Fun Issue,” and my column is about gender and sex and sexism and uh genderism, and the magazine is twenty dollars. What? No, I get one copy. No, I just get the one copy of it. No. No, I’m keeping my copy. You have to buy your own copy. No. No. Yes. Hmm? Well, even though you can kind of already read my piece online for free, you know, the magazine is published like quarterly, and it’s ad-free and glossy and ninety-six pages long, so since this is a really nice magazine or whatever, like, I couldn’t just publish the old version of the column. So I added a lot to the original piece and we all workshopped it, and so it’s like a really different article now, in some ways, but I think in good ways.
Anyway, I guess that’s all. OK. OK. I will. Mhm. Yes. OK. I will. I will. OK! Talk to you later. OK. OK. Talk to you later. Bye! OK. OK, bye! Yes. I will. Bye!
Daily Linksplosion: Wednesday, July 07, 2010
- Kotaku – When Instant Death Was Only A Step AwayThe blargh is about Space Quest, but hang out the comments section afterward for some really cool videos (like Waxworks which, let’s face it, you’re basically playing to see how graphic your deaths can be, but that game is totally impossible, so, oh cool someone made an age-gated YouTube video).
- Boing Boing – This Gaming Life free onlineLet’s all read a book, for free! Oh, look. Here is a book I have always wanted to read.
Kingdom of Loathing: still exists, misses you
I’ve actually had the online dungeon-crawl Kingdom of Loathing back on the brain for a little while now.
Last month, I idly wondered if there would ever be a Kingdom of Loathing iPhone app, because even though its frames-based web gameplay is part of the RPG’s rough-hewn appeal, I’d certainly play the shit out of it during lunch breaks or on the toilet.
Then, maybe a week ago, I logged in and tried to remember where my well-dressed drunk of a Pastamancer had left off on her quest. I even hopped into an IRC channel and therefore hung out in two KoL chat rooms concurrently.
But Kingdom of Loathing knows—the game knows—you have forsaken it. And in Pete Davison’s case, the game sent him a love letter:
I mean, I know things got kind of messed up at the end, and believe me, I’m sorry. If I could take any of that back, I totally would. And I know people grow and change, and you’re not the same person you were then, but hey—I’ve changed, too! I thought and thought about how to win you back. I figured I’d make you a mix CD, but I couldn’t decide what “our song” was. So I just concentrated on becoming a better game for you, and here’s what I came up with.
Oh, my god.
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