Multitasking, now in game form
In Multitask, you start off playing one game and then another and so on until you’re playing several games at the same time. I am horrible at this. (via waxy)
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kottke.org posts about video games
Jeremy Roenick retires as best video game hockey player ever
After 20 years in the NHL, Jeremy Roenick has decided to retire from the league. Topping the list of Roenick’s off-ice achievements are two items related to the God-like status of the then-Chicago Blackhawks center in NHL 94.
The end of The Matrix
Usually MMO games that reach the end of their usefulness are ungracefully shut down. The Matrix Online has cleverly built the closing of the game into the narrative of the world.
Ashes to ashes, decompiling sky to deletion. The Matrix Online is reminding us all that it’s slowing coming undone as the system becomes more and more unstable with each passing day. Ashes raining from the sky, eyes being seen in the clouds, zombies, agents, angels, and demons all appearing out of the system’s corruption to wreak havoc across the Mega City.
(thx, david)
Guitar Hero 5 playlist
Amazon has a mp3 listing of all the songs that will be included in the upcoming Guitar Hero 5. Lots of great stuff in there.
The economics of Flash games
As an avid player of Flash games (when I’ve got time), I found Dan Cook’s post on the economics of the Flash game platform really interesting and applicable to anyone who is offering content online and wants to get paid for it.
Flash games are currently the ghetto of the game development industry. Compared to the number of players it serves, the Flash game ecosystem makes little money, launches few careers, and sustains few developer owned businesses. Despite the vast potential of the ecosystem, Flash games contribute surprisingly little to the advancement of game design as an art or a craft.
This is just the first installment…two or three more are yet to come. (via @anildash)
BridgeCraft
Usually free Flash games take about 30-45 minutes to get through but BridgeCraft has a whopping 140 levels (70 each on easy and normal settings)! You could build actual bridges in the time it would take to finish this game.
Music Catch 2
Catch musical notes as they fly by to the rhythm of a classical soundtrack. I enjoyed this game way more than I thought I would…it’s likely my love of games where you tidy up. (thx, dylan)
Micro Olympics
Aaaaaaand if you liked Hedgehog Launch and Learn to Fly, you’ll also probably enjoy Micro Olympics and Micro Olympics on Mars.
Learn to Fly
If small addictive Flash games were advertised through Hollywoodesque trailers: if you loved Hedgehog Launch, you’ll go penguins for Learn to Fly.
Live Donkey Kong record attempt
Steve Weibe is trying to break Billy Mitchell’s Donkey Kong record live. As in right now! The pair’s exploits were chronicled in the documentary King of Kong. (via waxy)
Update: The score to beat is 1,050,200 points. (Oops, Wiebe just died as I was typing this. He’s got two guys left.) Wiebe owns the second highest score with 1,049,100 points.
Update: He just died again. He’s at ~370,000 with one guy left. Not looking good.
Update: Last guy. 457,000. Not looking good.
Update: He finally got it going but ended up short of the record with 923,400. Word is he’s got two more chances to break it today.
Update: No dice…didn’t break the score with any of his games.
Crush the Castle
A pox on thee and thine house, Andy Baio, for introducing me to Crush the Castle, which prevented me from crushing on some PHP I should have been doing tonight. BTW, if you get stuck on the last few levels, check out this video. Not that I did for the last level. Not at all. Nope. (via waxy)
Must the evil lair emanate evil?
Jim Rossignol writes about the architecture of evil lairs in video games for BLDGBLOG.
Conveniently, evil already has a visual language. Put another way: I have seen the face of evil, and it is a caricature of gothic construction. There’s barely a necromancer in existence whose dark citadel doesn’t in some way reflect real-world Romanian landmarks, such as Hunyad or Bran Castle. The visual theme of these games is so heavily dependent on previously pillaged artistic ideas from Dungeons & Dragons and Tolkien that evil ambiance is delivered by shorthand. (Of course, World of Warcraft’s Lich King gets a Stone UFO to fly around in — but it’s still the same old prefab pseudo-Medieval schtick inside). Where the enemy is extra-terrestrial, HR Giger’s influence is probably going to be felt instead.
Flight Control
I’ve caught the Flight Control bug that’s going around. According to the developer, the addictive iPhone game is doing huge business, selling over 700,000 copies (at $0.99 to $2.99 a copy) since its release in early March.
Punch-Out for Wii
Punch-Out is coming to the Wii (@ Amazon)…the teaser commercial features Isiah Whitlock, Jr., who played Clay Davis on The Wire, as Little Mac’s trainer. It’s worth watching to hear Whitlock’s comparison of comebacks and yo-yos. (thx, rob)
8-Bit Fatalities
The 8-Bit Fatalities project presents the abstract killing in pixelated video games (Pac-Man eating the ghosts, Dig Dug blowing up his enemies) as realistic illustrations.
The Kirby one is the best…and most graphic. (via clusterflock)
Effing Hail
Keep hail afloat with your mouse’s wind to grow it large enough that it can crush houses, skyscrapers, and buildings. Effing Hail! Addiction level: my eyes are bleeding.
The Game Boy is 20
The Game Boy just turned 20; here are six reasons why it was so successful. Surprisingly, the list is not:
1. Tetris
2. Tetris
3. Tetris
4. Tetris
5. Tetris
6. Tetris
Tetris didn’t start with the Game Boy, of course (Pajitnov created it for the PC in 1985), but the Game Boy made it mainstream. Ultimately, Tetris proved so popular that it quickly drove sales of Nintendo’s handheld console into the millions. Tetris’s grown-up gameplay also attracted adults to Nintendo’s new platform, expanding Game Boy’s potential audience beyond the usual adolescent NES set.
Somewhere, I still have an original Game Boy with a Tetris cart wedged into it.
BallDroppings
BallDroppings might be the next Line Rider. Or maybe it was the original Line Rider. If you don’t know what that means, congratulations and go play this fun thing with musical balls and lines. You can also get it for Windows or the Mac. Has anyone made actual music with this sucker? If you take a crack at it, send me a link to a video of the results. (via this is that)
Game (almost) Neverending
Even after two weeks of letting Tetris HD play by itself, the screen is only about 2/3rds full. It’s a fun image to see but the browser chrome is perhaps just as interesting…the Google search for “fuck fuck fuck” and a tab containing the Wikipedia page for “Anal sex” for example. (thx, my main man dj jacob)
8-bit hip hop
Rap and hip hop tunes played with sounds from 8-bit Nintendo games. Ocarina of Rhyme is a similar effort with a better name but not as good, IMO.
Eliss
People on the internet seem to be enjoying a game for the iPhone called Eliss. Offworld:
It was exactly one week ago last night that I fell in love, and to be quite honest I’m still at a little bit of a loss for words. The new object of my desire? She’s Eliss, an iPhone game, and I say that only slightly facetiously, because I’m not entirely exaggerating when I admit to getting goosebumps every time I even just see her in the video above.
And Touch Arcade:
Simply stated, Eliss perfectly demonstrates what iPhone gaming can be. It’s a highly challenging game that’s near impossible to put down and it could not exist on any other platform.
I just d/led it and have only played it a little. The aesthetic is great…it feels more like art than a game. The game’s developer, one Steph Thirion, is up for an award for Innovation in Mobile Game Design for Eliss.
Tetris HD
Who knew that radically expanding the size of the game board in Tetris makes the game almost completely unplayable, unless the object is to die in the least amount of time possible. Reports, which I have sadly corroborated with my own play, say that it take 15 minutes to complete one line. OCD, anyone? (via waxy)
The Space Game
From the folks who brought you Desktop Tower Defense comes The Space Game. The gameplay looks daunting (a huge mistake for online embeddable games like this) but skip the training crap and click on the missions tab to get right into it. Playing The Space Game, I’m fondly reminded of Dune II…loved that game. (via buzzfeed)
Balance game
Perfect Balance is one of those “I’ll just play it for a bit” games and then you’re all like, wait, it’s 2:30am? (via waxy)
Two Rooms game
Two Rooms is a simple Flash game, part puzzle and part fast-twitch, in which you move items around in two adjacent rooms in order to get one of your movers to a goal. (via buzzfeed)
Auditorium
Your next 45 minutes are spoken for: Auditorium. I wish this game went on forever but it’s only a demo for an eventual larger game.
Video game physics
An examination of gravity in the Super Mario Bros series.
We determined that, generally speaking, the gravity in each Mario game, as game hardware has increased, is getting closer to the true value of gravity on earth of 9.8 m/s^2. However, gravity, even on the newest consoles, is still extreme.
In Super Mario 2, Mario experiences a g-force of 11 each time he falls from a ledge, a force that would cause mere humans to black out. In Madden 2006, the game’s fastest cornerbacks can run the 40 in 2.6 seconds. (via waxy)
Dotter Dotter
Dotter Dotter features 3-D representations of 2-D games like Super Mario Bros, Legend of Zelda, and Excitebike.
(via clusterflock)
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