Filed under: Awesomeness
In my experience, Picto-Chat on the DS has only been entertaining in two situations. One, when you first get your DS and the “gee-wiz factor” of wireless networking forces you to seek out another DS owning human so you can instant message them from 3 feet away.
Two, when you are forced attend a weekly lecture featuring artists who swear that rolling around on the floor with a pumpkin on their head is original, non shitty art.
My friends, I have uncovered the next big thing in Picto-Chat functionality: Collaborative Art (that you can never, ever keep in its original form)
Equal credit must be given to my dear friend Ali as well. She’s cute as a really cute button, and I always enjoy giving cute buttons their dues.
The process is simple. One person draws a set of lines (usually 3 to 5) on the top of their Picto-Chat window. They send this to the other person who then copies it to their window. Using these lines as a guide, one person is designated the top half of a creature, the other person takes the lower regions.
Provided one of you is not an idiot, the results should be entertaining! Unfortunately, one of us was an idiot (hint: not the button), so only some of the results were entertaining.
Click that big fat MORE button to see just that!
Probably the greatest way to wake up in the morning is with a UPS truck parked at your front door and a man clad in brown with a cardboard box tucked under his arm, peering through the your window.
After years of procrastination, I finally forced myself to buy it. What had held me back till this point, I really don’t know. I might have been distracted by something, something not really worth it. Maybe the price point seemed too high and I had to wait till it plummeted like an asteroid to a paltry 10 pieces. Yet there it was, and the only thing standing between us was a drafty door and the insurmountable cold.
The weather here in Ann Arbor is horrible. Imagine death and then subtract a couple degrees. As I type this, it is -13 degrees outside (celsius). The notion of glancing out the window into winter’s sarcophagus fills me with such fear and loathing, that merely opening the door to the abhorrent “outside” would only happen if something life altering were about to take place. That time was nigh!
I scrawled my name on the man’s little “signer ma-thinger computer” thing.
“I guess this kinda looks like my signature.” I quipped.
“I wouldn’t know the difference.” the brown man trumped (I realized afterwards that comments of this nature probably stopped being novel about 3 hours into this man’s career.)
I closed the door and locked the demons of winter outside. It was now just me, my box and my gigantic smile. Then a house mate came to spoil the curiously sensual moment.
“Get anything good?”
“Just a video game…”
“Cool, what game.”
“Oh, just some old one.”
He couldn’t understand, he wouldn’t! Even if I tried to explain the importance of the object that lay in my possession, he would probably nod it off and go back to whatever ex-frat guys do in their spare time, beer pong with stuffed animals or something.
Now alone and with the steadiness of a caffeine addict, I unsheathed my pen to repeatedly stab the box till the tape gave way, opening to reveal its holy splendor!
The proper avenues have been taken. The bureaucratic system that is the University of Michigan’s School of Art and Design has been navigated and Glitch Feed is officially a class (read: independent study).
It’s been a long time desire of mine to actually study game design from the artists perspective and after many months of work and negotiations with assorted faculty, Stephanie and I will finally embark on what will be a very challenging artistic, adventure.
We will be working primarily within the Unreal Tournament 2004 engine and we hope to create some pieces that go in different directions than what a mod scene might normally produce.
One major obstacle we will have to over come is our utter lack of any knowledge regarding game code (we are pretty good at everything else. pretty good.) We are learning yes, it is difficult but we will move forward!! If any body wants to lend a hand, we would relish any aid that other artists or experienced coders might want to provide.
Of course, this blog will be updated more often as progress continues to yield tastier fruit.
Read on to see our preliminary course outline.
Here is an interesting little gem that has just come through the tubes.
The game is called Limbo, and I want it.
I find the aesthetic quality of this game to be inspiring and sublime. Join that with the aged to perfection, side scrolling genre, you will find your computer wrapped in an indescribable super nova of god like brilliance. There is also a short trailer, but it only summons more questions that cannot be answered.
Digging around the interweb, I have found the masterwork is being created by an industry veteran, Arnt Jensen, a Danish artist and game designer who is/was looking to hire some C++ coders (Steph! Its your calling!)
Check it out! Now lets all hold our breath together and maybe it will come faster, than the second coming.
Limbo Game
-roos
Filed under: Awesomeness
So, who is going to be in New York on October 7th? Anybody?
Should you be in the Big Apple I recommend you hit up the MoMA and see the premiere of, 8 BIT, a documentary about art and video games.
Taken straight from the horse’s mouth:
“8 BIT is a hybrid documentary examining the influence of video games on contemporary culture.
A mélange of a rocumentary, art expose and a culture-critical investigation, 8 BIT ties together seemingly disconnected phenomena like the 80’s demo scene, chiptune music and contemporary artists using machinima and modified games…
More and trailer after the jump…
So I totally want to see this movie.
The Fountain is directed by Darren Aronofsky, who also directed Requiem for a Dream.
It looks beautiful and deals with immortality on an epic scale. Plus its got Hugh Jackman, who is great at everything he does. I imagine Hugh could make painting fingernails badass.
I’m gonna be a total schmuck and hotlink you directly to the 720p Quicktime trailer on Apple.com Right click and do that “Save as” stuff if you dont want to view it in your browser.
- roos everlasting
Some of you will hopefully recognize this image. If you don’t, go rent Blade Runner this very moment. I don’t care if you do not possess legs or have pizza hanging out of your mouth. Go get that movie and watch it!
(waits 5 hours)
Okay, now that we have had that taken care of. The images you see above and below are not in fact from the movie Blade Runner, but rather a map for Unreal Tournament 2004 by AngelH@rt, titled DM-2019-XS.
The map is not a gameplay map, rather it is a simple exploration map. I spent at least an hour exploring all the little details of this map (and there are many) and I have yet to see them all.
I officially dub this a work of art, and anybody in the mood to disagree can go on a date with the front bumper of my ‘soccer mom’ van. Look, you can fly around in a Spinner! Why would you avoid such an opportunity?
Check out this link here to read the release thread and find a download link.
- Ru Su Ta
Filed under: Awesomeness
In celebration of finally purchasing Half Life 2: Episode One, I give you the following:
Usually michimas created in HL2 using Garrys Mod merely border on palatable, but this my friends, this is conceptual GENIUS!
Expand your mind, and watch this video.
-roos
