Culture
Brandon Boyer
Why I'm going to Indiecade (and you probably should, too): Pt. 3
For my final entry this week on why I've decided to go to LA for the Oct. 1-4th Indiecade conference/festival (and why you should come, too): a quick and dirty run down of all the games that have been selected as finalists for this year's show runs below, and continues below the fold.
All of these games will be playable every day from 10am to 7pm at three Culver City locations: Wonderful World of Art Gallery, Culver Hotel Mezzanine and Gregg Fleishman Gallery.
See my earlier entries (pt. 1 and pt. 2) for more information on the star-studded keynotes and sessions that will make up the main Indiecade conference, and see the official Indiecade site for information on attending.
On to the list:
Aether (pictured at top), Edmund McMillen and Tyler Glaiel
Brandon Boyer
Hey Montreal: go see the debut of Polytron/Infinite Ammo's Power Pill Sept. 30th
As part of Montreal's latest Pecha Kucha Night, coming Wednesday, September 30th to the SAT (1195 Saint-Laurent), Fez creators Polytron will be on hand to talk about the "highs and lows of designing a multi-touch game for fun and profit": specifically, their long-teased Infinite Ammo collaboration Power Pill. If you go, take lots of photos and forward them kindly to brandon@offworld.com, please.
Brandon Boyer
Retro Remakes: GameCity goes Elite with papercraft ships
Continuing in this week's celebration of 25 years of seminal space game Elite, Nottingham, UK festival GameCity has just announced a special 'My Life with Elite' session that will not only feature appearances by 'very special guests... responsible for creating the game itself', but also, amazingly, a reading of C64 Elite novella 'The Dark Wheel' by author Robert Holdstock, "whilst the Nottingham Trent University Choir perform a new arrangement of Strauss' Blue Danube waltz."
And just to make the event that much more surreal, GameCity has teamed up with Mark 'creaselightning' Bolitho -- a friend, it turns out, of Elite co-creator Ian Bell -- to release a series of papercraft starships from the game, which were originally designed to be sold as part of the C64 package but never made it in.
The first of the 'crafts, the Escape Pod, is already available on the GameCity site (direct .pdf link), with more coming weekly, and all the ships will be hung for the above reading to create "a kind of paper-universe of Elite craft."
One more reason I'm gutted to be missing GameCity this year (and yet another why you shouldn't) -- see the festival's official site for specifics on attending.
Brandon Boyer
Video: Downhill neon Tetris, on wheels
San Francisco at night becomes a neon-lit real-life version of a Tetris well (well, -ish, a bit more Pent-tris, actually). Music by E*rock, thanks to .tiff!
Brandon Boyer
Why I'm going to Indiecade (and you probably should, too): Pt. 1
What with all the vacation and GDC Austin goings on the past several weeks, it's been far too long since I last made mention of the upcoming Indiecade festival/conference coming to Los Angeles (Culver City, really) October 1st through 4th.
What that means is that while the time's growing close, there's still plenty of it to consider coming down, as I will be, to see what's frankly an impressive lineup of guests and exhibited games for this year's festival.
Indiecade's doing a slow-strip reveal of exactly who and what will be on display for the long-weekend happenings, but for my first post on the goings-on and why I've decided this could be unmissable, here's what we know for sure:
Friday will see a full day of conference sessions, including Greg Wohlwend and Mike Boxleiter of Intuition (behind games like Fig. 8 and Protonaut, I Wish I Were The Moon and Today I Die's Dan Benmergui, former MIT media studies program director Henry Jenkins on "expression and game literacy", and, best of all, a conversation between Katamari Damacy's Keita Takahashi and flOw/Flower creator Jenova Chen, moderated by new thatgamecompany dev Robin Hunicke.
Tomorrow I'll take another look at what Indiecade has in store, but for more specifics on attending either the conference/festival or both, see the official Indiecade website.
Brandon Boyer
The horror: Seakitten mashes Cloverfield and, well, pretty much every game
LittleBigRevenge creators Seakitten Collective return with an epic 20 minute movie mashing Left 4 Dead, Mario, Silent Hill, F-Zero, and like just about everything else you can imagine into one low-budget/high-concept live-action Cloverfield horror. Part two below the fold. [via James Kochalka]
Brandon Boyer
One shot: Meet Spacesick's Game Buddy
Scott Pilgrim creator Bryan Lee O'Malley shows off the Game Buddy, the hand-stamped order box that accompanies any purchase of $20 or more at the just-opened Attract Mode shop, awesomely designed by friend of Offworld Spacesick.
Brandon Boyer
One shot: Our childhoods, well spent
Comic artist Nick Derington captures the spirit of our collective youth for Robert Ashley's essential podcast, which we all know was time well spent.
Brandon Boyer
One shot: Charlie Brooker's in games
Our UK readers and a select few otherwise will know Charlie Brooker from his Screenwipe TV series (and even more should know him for his hipster-eviscerating Nathan Barley and his excellent Big Brother/zombie apocalypse mashup mini-series Dead Set), but he's someone you'll probably be hearing much more about soon as he announces that his new series Gameswipe has officially been completed.
Brandon Boyer
Buy it now: Attract Mode's attractive shop opens its doors
Long teased since the earliest days of Offworld, Attract Mode's Adam Robezzoli has officially opened the doors to the games/culture site's web shop, which is already spilling over with indie/art game accoutrements.
Apart from the Harvey James Game Girl T-shirt I've been pining for for what seems like a year and a half now, Robezzoli has curated a collection of goods including 1" button sets for games by Auntie Pixelante and Cactus, Tetris ice cube trays, and Anamanaguchi, YMCK, Leeni and :( CDs.
Best of all, though -- and still not quite ready for shipping, is the pair of prints by Offworld-favorite illustrator SUPERBROTHERS: man-sized pixel-art works that I'm just about desperate to have hung in my office.
Xeni Jardin
Swine flu fears from Penny Arcade Expo
I'm seeing a number of tweets from participants and organizers of the recent PAX (Penny Arcade Expo) which indicate at least one case of swine flu has been confirmed, and more feared.
PAX is a three-day game fest for tabletop, videogame, and PC gamers, and took place September 4-6 in Seattle. Perhaps folks more familiar with the details than I can update us in the comments here. Organizers are using the hashtag #paxflu to track updates on Twitter. Of course, this could also be a very crafty viral marketing campaign. Seriously, though: to those who contracted it or are at risk, get health care pronto, and get well soon. (via @willsmith)
[Brandon adds: our own Offworld pal Tiff Chow is currently donning a post-PAX 'sad sick panda face', which hopefully is entirely coincidental -- we all wish her better soon!]
Brandon Boyer
State your 8-bit business: Banpresto's Famicom, Pac-Man business card holders
My Game & Watch card holder (Octopus, if you're wondering) has been showing its age for years now, and if it hadn't have been the hit of every card-exchange since E3 2005 (where it was first wide-eyed well-received by none less than Suda 51), I might have been more apt to retire it already.
It's looking like I won't have to fall too far from the 8-bit geek tree when and if I do, though, as Banpresto re-introduces its line of Famicom controller holders (detailed down to P2's mic volume slider), and just announces a line of 30th anniversary Pac-Man holders available in both cocktail table and game-screen designs. Start your eBay/import site scouring now.
