Brandon Boyer

Touch me I'm slick: Daniel Johnston rolls toward Laurie in Hi How Are You

There's a certain segment of the population that'll will need no introduction to Daniel Johnston -- whether they came to him via the recently released Devil And... documentary, or (more likely) through the Kurt Cobain-sported T-shirt that broke Johnston further into the public consciousness, or -- for the true-blood Texans -- simply the local lore and hometown pride Austin still holds for its long-troubled and simple-souled singer/songwriter.

And if you don't need that introduction¹, then you probably will have by now had the same reaction I had several months back when I heard whisperings that Peter 'Dr. Fun Fun' Franco and Steve 'Smashing Studios' Broumley -- former art and technical director, respectively, at the now-defunct Austin branch of Midway -- were working on a game featuring Johnston's art and music: I've more or less been waiting for this day since the early 90s.

Hi How Are You [App Store] isn't the game I imagined it would be. There's no Punching Joe boxing, there's no tilt-to-Walk-the-Cow, there isn't a single speeding motorcycle to be found. Instead, the game lands somewhere between a Mario 64 challenge level and Q-bert, where you tilt one of four characters across free-floating platforms to flip all floor tiles green.

Meanwhile, you'll be working against the clock (to gain higher level trophies and achievements), dodging any number of Johnston's demons (like his floating devil's eyeballs) and platforming your way through the alternately whimsically-innocent and hellishly-dark landscapes trying to rescue Laurie, the real-life love and muse of Johnston's early adulthood.

On reflection, these abstractions are probably for the best: what Smashing/Fun have given us is Johnston's lore injected into a game, rather than basing a game directly on one of his icons. It's probably a more tactful solution, and one that starts to work as a (very light) metaphor for his own life-long struggles.

Best of all, what it does is serve as an accessible entry point to discovering his art: Johnston's music has been licensed for use throughout the game, and each earned achievement unlocks a scale- and pan-able version of one of his illustration from throughout the years.

While it won't quite reach (and was obviously never meant to) the cultural-rocking level of the playable documentary that is The Beatles: Rock Band, it's exactly the kind of cross-media crossovers we need more of, is as loving a tribute to an artist as I've seen from a game, and if it helps introduce just one more person to Daniel, couldn't rightfully be called anything but a success.

Hi How Are You [App Store link, Dr. Fun Fun/Smashing Studios]

1. ^ [If you do, start with Johnston's Wikipedia entry, move on to his homepage, track down the aforementioned documentary sooner than later, and then move on to his Continued Story/Hi, How Are You and Yip/Jump Music CDs, or ease yourself in with the Beck, Tom Waits, Death Cab, TV on the Radio, etc. etc. covers on Discovered Covered -- use Yip Eye Tunes if you just want the MP3s.]

Brandon Boyer

Square pusher: former Spore dev gives bare minimum with iPhone's MinMe

Created as part of last month's Experimental Gameplay Project (that would also spawn Adam Saltsman's Canabalt), Chaim Gingold's MinMe [App Store] adheres strictly to the Project's "bare minimum" theme: the user has to "minimize the board," has a bare minimum of graphics, was made in 1.5 days, and costs the App Store's bare minimum of zero dollars.

The kicker: Gingold (best known as the original prototype developer of what would become Spore's Creature Creator) only had time enough to include a bare minimum 10 levels, and so it ends precisely at the point where it's just getting good.

Consider this an open plea, then, for an expansion of at least another, say, like, 60 levels. Download the game via iTunes here.

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

Fancy flights: the little big dogfights of Tak Fung's Mini Squadron

Coming soon to iPhone from former Lionhead and Sony programmer Tak 'Mr. Fung Fung' Fung (who the eagle-eyed will remember as the 'Master' in Rag Doll Kung Fu's live-action intros): Mini Squadron, an online playable multiplayer 2D dogfighter where you take down "enemy planes, bombers, UFOs, and ducks" with over 50 unlockable aircraft and "a plethora of power-ups."

See the trailer above for a quick-burst of just why this could be a recipe for fantastic success, and follow the game's progress via Fung's official blog.

Brandon Boyer

One shot: Mario Kart mega-collaboration

Over forty artists have collaborated for the longest magic mile stretch of re-imagined Mario Kart riders that will ever be produced. Above is a scrap of a detail: see the original via The Autumn Society to get the full scope.

Brandon Boyer

Q?'pid's arrow: Lumines, Meteos devs creating iPhone love-puzzle

Edge mag recently ran a report from Rez, Lumines and Meteos developer Q? Entertainment's press conference, which in general showed the art-house developer keeping up with changing times as best it can, primarily with partnerships for free-to-play microtransaction-based MMORPG games like the PS3's Angel Love Online.

The developer hasn't totally given up on its roots, with an iPhone port of Lumines due in the near future, and a video message from Rez designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi promising that work is continuing with Ubisoft on the still un-detailed (and possibly Rez related) 'Project Eden', but the biggest and most unexpected surprise of the conference was Q?'Pid Finger Puzzle.

Described as a "brand new type of 'Touch Communication' application", Q?'s iPhone app sees two players using the device's multi-touch capabilities to trace lines on the screen to 'un-fuzzify' "titilating photos", with an undercurrent of compatibility/love-testing between the pair made clear with an end-level Diagnosis that "gives you all the information you need to take it to the next level. Q'pid's got your back!"

Arch one eyebrow at more screens and info via Q?'s official Q?'pid site.

Brandon Boyer

The Offworld Guide to the 2009 Austin Game Developers Conference

With GDC Austin coming to down next Tuesday to Friday, now seems as good a time as any to do a quick guide to what you should see, and why, if you still haven't registered (with the early registration discount still running through today), you probably should.

1.) The debut of AGDC's Indie and iPhone Game Summits.

This year marks the Austin debut of the two Summits that have always brought some of the most dedicated crowds at the main GDC (many of the Indie Summit sessions this year playing to at-capacity audiences), and -- though I might be a bit biased as one of the Indie Summit's advisors -- the lineup here turned out quite good.

Yours truly will actually be speaking this year early Tuesday morning at 10 for a "New Indie Hotness" session that'll highlight (goes the description) "games and experiments that enchant or confound" -- that is, a number of the games you'll probably be familiar with from Offworld coverage, including some live demos of a few that haven't been played in front of an audience before.

But you shouldn't (and won't, probably) come just for that: the Indie Summit also includes the makers of the Bit.Trip games, World of Goo, Splosion Man, A Kingdom for Keflings, Fantastic Contraption, Minotaur China Shop, And Yet It Moves, Aquaria and Marian, Bunni, Canabalt, and Penny Arcade Adventures, and you honestly can't do too much better than that. See the full lineup and schedule at GDC's official Indie Summit page.

On the iPhone side, most notably, Tiger Style Games will be presenting an hour long look at the making of Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor (running alongside my own session -- even I can't help you choose there), with other talks by the makers of Reflexion, Booyah Society, Enigmo, FaceFighter, Words/Chess With Friends and World War Robot, and handfuls more, seen at its own Summit schedule page.

2.) The keynotes and main lineup.

Doing a full breakdown of the main conference sessions is almost too arduous to consider, but the keynotes will include Frank Pearce and J. Allen Brack talking about the Universe of World of Warcraft, Crazy Planets/Pet Society dev PlayFish's Sebastien de Halleux talking social games, Sony Online's John Smedley talking about free to play MMOs, with sessions including the writers behind Left 4 Dead, Mirror's Edge, Infamous, Fallout 3... check the full session lineup or the full speaker lineup to see everyone that's coming.

3.) The parties, game movies at The Alamo

And then also there's the real reason you're all coming: the drunken hob-knobbing, which this year will most notably be taking place at IGDA Austin's 128-bit party (with 'Gangsta-Style Rock Band' [?!]) -- GDC's got the full list of after-hour parties here .

Also new for 2009, AMODA and local-treasure theater chain Alamo Drafthouse will be hosting two nights of game movies: Tuesday at 10:15 pm they'll be screening the previously-blogged German TV special that brought together Jason Rohrer and Chris Crawford, and Thursday at 10:20 pm they'll be showing the documentary TILT: the Battle to Save Pinball. Both of these are open to the public, so even if you aren't making it to the conference proper, you should come say hello there, and drink beer and eat excellent food.

I'll be doing my damndest throughout the four days to bring you as much coverage of the conference as I can -- look for that all throughout next week.

Official GDC Austin site [Think Services]

Brandon Boyer

Touch BOY: Namco reveals WIP screenshot of iPhone Noby Noby BOY

Noby Noby BOY creator Keita Takahashi first revealed his intentions to create an iPhone version of the PS3 downloadable at this year's Game Developers Conference, which is intended, he said, to help GIRL progress through the universe more rapidly, as both the console and handheld version work in tandem to add players' various stretches to her overall length.

Namco's just delivered the shot at top to Japan's Game Watch news site, without much further detail than the concept has passed internal approval at the studio, and that, adds Takahashi, it's somewhere around 60 percent complete.

See the video above for my shakycam footage of Takahashi's original reveal, which shows what's clearly not intended to be a full 3D port of the PS3 version, but will likely end up at least a similarly goal-less toy-like diversion.

Brandon Boyer

The 4 things gamers need to know about Apple's Rock 'n' Roll keynote

Though today's Apple 'rock 'n' roll' themed keynote was meant to address a number of improvements on its musical fronts -- from DVD-menu-like interactive album art now available in iTunes, to the new models of video/camera-added traditional iPods -- the company still had a number of games-related announcements up the sleeves of the newly returned Steve Jobs (event images borrowed from GDGT's excellent live coverage):

1.) Apple is finally making improvements to the iPhone/App Store experience with 'top grossing' lists, PC-based App arranging

The new version 9 iTunes and iPhone OS 3.1, now available -- alongside the updated iTunes store experience -- bring with them a number of new ways to sort and catalog your iPhone Apps, chief amongst them (for me, anyway, finally a way to organize your iPhone without arranging them via fiddly on-device drag and drop (the bane of my multi-multi-full-page existence).

But while the current version of iTunes 9 seems to be missing sub-categories for apps (there's no way to access the action/puzzle/etc. sections on your PC -- presumably this will be fixed soon), you can see a new top 25+ assortment of the top paid apps by gross, rather than by unit sales.

That sounds like a fine distinction, but what it means is better visibility for games and apps that don't succumb to the 99-cent siren song, which traditionally have been drowned out by higher unit sales for low-priced apps -- the hope being that as time goes on this will allow better, premium apps to fight against the tide (especially when Apple allows us to view this list in some form other than App Store-wide).

2.) Apple has begun to use Genius recommendations for apps

Apple's turned on 'Genius' recommendations for apps, as they've experimented with for a year-ish now on the music side of iTunes, available as a new list in the on-device App Store. Quick tests show that its algorithms will need some finessing over the coming months -- app preferences not being quite as tightly linked to genre/artist similarity as naturally as music preferences.

While recommendations based on Lucky Frame's beautifully illustrated sequencer Mujik turned up a decent amount of similar music apps, apps like Booyah Society or Skyvoyager -- free apps, or apps that saw hundreds of thousands of downloads over free weekends -- lead to essentially non-sequiter applications simply because they, too, have been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times for free. Game recommendations don't so much lead to similar games, as much as games that might float in similar impulse-buy price ranges.

3.) Apple's not joking around about its approach to the iPhone/iPod Touch as a true handheld games contender

See, for instance, this honestly entirely mis-leading bar chart comparing available games on all platforms, which, over the next year, may not seem quite as misleading as the PSP Minis and similar indie DSiWare initiatives start to blossom for Sony and Nintendo. Comparisons that neither the DS nor the PSP had an "App Store" or an "iPod" were obviously similarly off the mark, trademark names withstanding.

But Apple's ensuring that all models across the range are up to the competitive task, adding OpenGL ES 2.0 compatibility to speed up 3D games for its iPod Touch line (bringing it up to par with the iPhone 3GS), and dropping the entry-level price for its 8-gig Touch by $50 to $199, where it hopes to sit better alongside the $169 DSi and the $249 PSP Go.

And all this leads to:

4.) Major publishers continue to see the App Store as a viable platform

The games represented at today's keynote by and large weren't the scrappy-indies-that-could: apart from Tap Tap Revolution devs Tapulous, who showed off their latest music game Riddim Ribbon (above, which sees you racing/balancing along that titular ribbon in order to keep your music playing), the invited stage guests were all big-business.

Mobile giant Gameloft showed off their new single/multiplayer first person shooter N.O.V.A., above, while Ubisoft and EA were on hand to show off Assassin's Creed and Madden '10 (the latter of which is currently live).

See Lisa's summary over at Boing Boing Gadgets for more less-games-related tech-talk on what Apple had in store.

Brandon Boyer

Get Settled: first iPhone Catan screenshot, beta applications open

The official Catan site has updated with news that beta applications are now open to test out the forthcoming iPhone port of the board game (which, going off rote number of re-tweets of the original announcement, appears to be one of Offworld readers' most anticipated upcoming games), which also includes the first screenshot of the game, at right.

Developer Exozet expects testers to undergo the usual loop of feedback to and questions from the studio, but if you're willing and able, you can apply to get early access to the game via this site, where you'll need your phone's UDID (which you can get in iTunes by selecting your iPhone and finding the 'serial number' under the 'summary' tab, or by using free apps like Ad Hoc Helper [iTunes link] to email the 40 character string to yourself).

Brandon Boyer

Ngmoco officially announce online arena iPhone FPS Eliminate

After a long gestation period and a number of rotated codenames, ngmoco have officially announced Eliminate (nee KillTest nee LiveFire), their WiFi-enabled online arena shooter, and, in so doing, have also officially solidified their microtransactional stance.

As you can see from the video above, the studio's taken a page from the social-app/My Brute-ish playbook and set up a system in which players can only participate for 'credits' -- the in-game currency which allows you to upgrade your player's abilities -- a certain number of times per day.

That is, unless they prefer to purchase additional "energy" via microtransactions to continue their credit earning -- otherwise, you can play for as long/as many times as you'd like, but not earn any credit rewards.

It's a more graceful and smarter solution than allowing for the rote real-money purchasing of upgrades -- giving those more financially-abled a performance-enhancing edge -- though no where have they outright backed down on their previous plans to do just that.

Either way, the addition of the trailer's super-dryly ironic and slightly Portal-ish corporate backdrop humor is very welcome from what's otherwise seemed like a fairly staid setup.

Brandon Boyer

Rapid runner: Semi Secret porting Canabalt to the iPhone

It's been somewhere just past two months since Kyle Gabler and Kyle Grey re-launched their old Carnegie Mellon Experimental Gameplay Project, and already it's re-proving what an invaluable technique rapid prototyping can be.

Case in point: Fathom and Flixel dev Adam 'Atomic' Saltsman goes bare-bones for his brilliant one-button run-for-your-life stunt-man sim Canabalt, and its resulting release goes viral, aided by the terribly smart social-service add-ons Saltsman appends after its original debut.

And then this: already working on a number of additional iPhone projects (including his classic arcade inspired Retro Racer Revival) via his Semi Secret imprint, he rides the word-of-mouth-wave and quickly decides to port Canabalt to the platform, in what will surely be your new favorite buck-or-three time passer.

Saltsman talked to the IndieGames blog and said the initial iPhone version won't yet contain any of those social aspects that have helped drive its success (though he "doesn't rule out other crazy new features"), but he does say that contributing to the game now via its Donate button will very likely net you a free promo code for the iPhone version, alongside the desktop wallpapers and soundtrack mp3 you currently receive.

All this from five-days of dev time, tossed out like a diversion-in-a-bottle which, happily, washed up on lucrative shores.

Canabalt [AdamAtomic, iPhone port demo, Semi Secret]