Brandon Boyer

Retro Remakes: Monkey Island in Crysis

Both Telltale and LucasArts have done their own part to revive the latter's seminal adventure Monkey Island for a now-gen audience, but VFX artist Hannes Appell has taken it upon himself to do the same, recreating LeChuck's Revenge's Tri-Island Area in Crysis's Cryengine.

The resulting madness has sunk Appell's site, but check back later for before and after shots of his work. [via .Tiff]

Brandon Boyer

Louis v. Laa-Laa: the Left 4 Teletubbies mod

The true face of horror, available to download and play yourself here.

Brandon Boyer

His Freeman's Voice: Half-Life 2, the beat-box version

Meet the latest mod making the massive rounds over the past day: Trase's MyVoiceSounds patch, which does exactly what you expect it to, and almost, almost manages to top the Randy Savage Left 4 Dead mod for best sound-hack of all time. [via RPS, via Steve Gaynor]

Brandon Boyer

A Better Mario Built: Robin Baumgarten tops Mario AI Competition

The very first entry into Julian Togelius and Sergey Karakovskiy's Mario AI Competition 2009 -- Robin Baumgarten's A*-enhanced agent previously featured here -- has emerged the winner, barely scraping ahead of second place.

Above is a slow-motion run of Baumgarten's agent that shows you second by second the mindboggling array of potential moves the agent cycles through in working out what I'm almost positive would be a pretty instantaneous death for me.

Find Baumgarten's source code and further details here, and see the competition's final presentation notes here.

Brandon Boyer

It's thinking: Robin Baumgarten's AI-controlled Infinite Mario

And so it begins: above is the first public entry into the previously covered Mario AI contest, with Robin Baumgarten's A*-enhanced run, which pulls off a major coup halfway through when it walljumps out of a pit (he explains: "In this version of Mario, when you're jumping while sliding on a wall, you jump backwards and upwards away from it").

Read more about his solution via his site, where you can also see his entry into the DEFCON AI contest mentioned here long, long ago.

Brandon Boyer

Artificial intelligence: building a better Mario, with science

I suppose this might be a bit of a tease bringing it up this close to the deadline, but I've only just spotted Julian Togelius and Sergey Karakovskiy's Mario AI Competition 2009, a contest in association with the IEEE, to build an algorithm capable of controlling Mario in a modified, endless, randomly generated Java version of Super Mario World.

Explain the coordinators:

One of the main purposes of this competition is to be able to compare different controller development methodologies against each other, both those based on learning techniques such as artificial evolution and those that are completely hand-coded. So we hope to get submissions based on evolutionary neural networks, genetic programming, fuzzy logic, temporal difference learning, human ingenuity, hybrids of the above, etc. The more the merrier! (And better for science.)

There's two upcoming deadlines, August 18 and September 3, so it may be a bit more feasible to hit that second: check the official site for the full details and source code to enter yourself, and please, please let us know if and when you create something.

Brandon Boyer

Lylat Nights: the latest video of fan-made Star Fox sequel Shadows of Lylat

I would sincerely hate to see their alleged six years of development go down the drain, so I hope Sol Team -- the team of developers behind Shadows of Lylat, a full, story-driven fan-sequel to Star Fox created in FreeSpace's open-source engine -- pull the proper 11th hour switch and give us a game simply "inspired by Star Fox" rather than waking the sleeping IP lawyer giants. [via Stefan Constantinescu]

Brandon Boyer

One shot: Left 4 (Shaun of the) Dead

A first-pass rough draft of Shaun's living room, as modeled by the team behind Left 4 Winchester: a Shaun of the Dead mod for the PC version of Left 4 Dead which, despite some hang-ups, is apparently still on its way.

The current plan is a five-map campaign that'll take us from Shaun's Pad, to Mum's House, to Lizz's Flat, to the Winchester itself for a final showdown, where the jukebox will, of course, summon the horde. Apart from some obvious metaphorical zombie-differences to be solved, this should be a new all-time favorite mod, provided the team can manage to hold it together.

Brandon Boyer

Video: Greig Stewart's theremin-controlled Super Mario Bros hack

When last we checked in with Greig 'conquerearth' Stewart he was using his theremin-chic hacks to outwit Rock Band into thinking he was singing Portal theme Still Alive, and now, he's tricked his NES into thinking he's playing Super Mario Bros..

Adds Stewart: "Who needs a Natal when you've got a theremin!" [thanks Tiff!]

Brandon Boyer

Lonely rolling ball: Kellbot's Katamari Damacy trackball controller mod

NYC Resistor collaborator Kelly Farrell shows off her latest project: a gazing-ball trackball controller that plays Katamari Damacy the way we should have realized it was meant to be played all along.

How does it work? Kelly explains:

It uses an optical mouse to track the ball. I gathered up some cheap PS2 controllers, ripped out the potentiometers on the analog sticks, and replaced it with a digital potentiometer and an arduino. The arduino takes signals from a PS/2 mouse and adjusts the potentiometer accordingly...

Originally I wanted to use one of those giant yoga balls, to really get the scale. But it turns out those don't roll very well on ball bearings. Luckily Adam had one of those mirror balls folks put in their gardens. Or at least I assume they do, no one I know has a big enough yard to put lawn ornaments in.

Life-Size Katamari Lives [Kellbot]

Brandon Boyer

Video: Street Fighter, deconstructed

The latest in Dylan Hayes' attempts to tear down Street Fighter to its constituent parts yields what I'm assuming is nothing more than low-bit collision boxes battling underneath an abstract sky. Only the dizzy birds, blood, and one lonely fish remain. [via Mike]

Brandon Boyer

DM-Spectrum: where Unreal Tournament's killing floor meets the dance floor

Creator Matt Bradley totally gets it and submits this video of DM-Spectrum, his Unreal Tournament 3 deathmatch level that could easily be the best thing I've seen all week (Trico aside, of course).

Plus! It's not all for show: Bradley adds:

The cubes also serve a purpose. They help to keep the level paced. Each coloured cube represents a different area of the map. These areas are colour-co-ordinated to match the cubes. When a player is in one of these areas the corresponding cube lights up notifying other players. As one learns the map they should be able to find enemies without too much hardship.

Games industry: much more of this, please.