Colorful, energetic and upfront dance-grooves. This is how we like it. The creator of this video said about the clip at YouTube:
“I basically filmed footage off my computer screen with my mobile, sent it back to my mac and then edited the crap out of it. Not bad for a first effort in video editing.”
Indeed, not bad. Found via Twitter of Torley, thanks!!
The GameBoy was released in Japan on the 21. April 1989, so almost exactly twenty years ago. Who had thought, that this “minimal gaming console” would be such a success: limited in hardware, but unleashed in creativity and optimized on portability. And who had thought, that 18 years later they would repeat this success with the Nintendo DS and somehow similar with the Wii? And when we talk about games… Is Wii Sports is the new Tetris?
After the big GameBoy success there was an era, that did not felt really Nintendo. Namely GameCube and early N64. It seems that also lead developer, senior managing director and legend Shigera Miyamoto felt somehow unfamiliar during the “GameCube era”. He said:
“There was an era when Nintendo was going in the direction of doing the same things other companies did. The more we competed with new companies entering the market, the more we started acting similar to them. But is being number one in that competition the same as being number one with the general public? That’s the question we had.”
But let’s do a rewind and take a look at two of the awful advertisements, that Nintendo did at that time on TV to introduce and push the GameBoy.
1990
1991
The Webzine Gamasutra released a great article on “what makes a game sticky and persuasive”. A recommended read for anyone making games. There is always time to think about this issues, and always new things to explore. One thing for example is this. Try to reach: “Familiarity, not Simplicity!”
Scene from “The Spring of Ants”
Wait, what? Weekly open-source mini-games in Processing? This sounds fantastic, and surely it is. Every week the people from The Croopier release a fresh new game in Processing, also with the source-codes provided – free to share and build upon. If this were not cool enough, but there is also more: The mini-games are an exploration of the art of narratives in the new media format “games”. They take everyday situations and time we live in and try to make games out of it. I tested some of the games, and also the gameplay of the pieces is innovative and interesting. Feel free to get inspired by the project!
Abelardo Gil-Fournier from The Croopier wrote me:
“The project itself is considered to be part of a research on new communication and narrative formats. We come from an art, technology and new media background, and the project may also be considered as an experimentation with the micro-game format.”
Nothing more to say.
Scene from “A Clockmaker’s Fantasy”
Pacman physics is a Pacman remake. Or better a deconstruction of the game. If we already talk of “games as art“, there could be nothing better than this game, to show some aspects, that are at least important to me.
Pacman Physics short after start of the game.
A Korean developer made this fun version of Pacman. He applied all static elements of the regular Pacman game with gravity. That means, that walls, pellets, ghosts and pacman itself will fall to the ground. The ghosts are still chasing pacman. Pacman still have to collect all pellets. One difference was made with the wonderpills. The do not make the ghosts eatable, but changes the direction of gravity. Good, that’s for the concepts. But… what about gameplay? What about fun?
I think that is the biggest drawback in the game. The concept, design and implementation is quite good. The result you will definitely consider as art. But for my very taste, art games also have to be fun at playing. That is what gaming is about, isn’t it? What do I need a game, that is fun to look at, but does not have a replay value? I think this is a new, if not the new area, that art has to come for. To get into. Just besides pixelling retro-characters on walls or paintings. But… to give respect to the developer: Pacman Physics was made on one day, so everything is fine in the end.
Unless you like to fiddle with this Korean website, until you find the green download-link, you better take on with that mirror-file of Pacman Physics.
(via Indiegames)
The journey of an apple-seed. Simply beautiful and much too short! Anyway.. there is also a making of available.
(via Grafikjungs)
