Mersey Remakes

Ah, it’s that time again.

Whilst I sit here and on one hand wonder how complaints about Limbo are “3 hours for £10″ instead of “£10 for Fat Bob Smith’s Another World Emo Edition Extreme” and on the other hand try and suppress the urge to shout out “WHY DID YOU KILL IANTO?” at James Moran at this Friday’s GameCity Nights entirely for my own amusement, it’s time to do some links.

Because I like links.

Pixels At An Exhibition – Magical Wasteland

“Even the most beautifully pioneering ones have clear points of inspiration, still the result of a non-gaming lineage”

Lovely piece and bang on the nail.

A New Challenger Appears

Excite Mike vs Dejobaan at Indie Kombat.

As myself and Farbs are close to wrapping up our bout, it’s time to get in the ring once more with two kings of the indie frontier.

And watch them beat the shit out of each other, obv.

Benchmark Reviews Busted.

Note to editors. A cursory google search of who you’re actually emailing might help in future.

Gillen on the Develop Micro Studio panel.

Well, not on it but writing about it.

Also, this is why I read RPS.

Edge go Bullshit Hunting.

And find some. SCIENCE FACT!

The Stifling Of Creativity

SCIENCE FACT! No wait, the other one. FALSE PREMISE! I’m not sure whether to be confused, irritated or angry over this one. But that was last week and it’s a new happier day now!

Ehhhhhhhh [stop with the Fonz - Ed]

…it may come up and surprise you.

So sang Ian Mcnabb and for once in his life, he was actually right.

Theory:

Games do music wrong. Ok, ok, not wrong but we’re very much stuck in a tried and tested formula which we rinse and repeat ad infinitum.

There are notable exceptions. Runman: Race Around The World gets it right. The bar scene in Prey gets it right. The end of Portal gets it right. Music is emotive and wonderful, it doesn’t have to be variations on a techno theme, aping John Williams or generic movie score #21 or some bleeps and bloops.

The right soundtrack can elevate something into the wonderful more often than not, we get a soundtrack that just fits. It doesn’t elevate.

I have been equally guilty of this in the past.

Experiment:

If you have both Left4Dead (the first) and Spotify. Turn the default music down and play through a campaign with this playlist.

You will, naturally, lose a number of audio cues so be on your guard. Despite playing the exact same game you normally would, the experience is drastically different from normal.

Proof:

via the lovely Mike Meyer. A request from earlier in the week from myself. Fulfilled for Klik Of The Month. Give it time to load.

The simple addition of Moroder porn ‘tache disco makes all the difference.

Conclusion:

More games need disco.

Right, erm, that was a bit mad and Capra-esque and sincerely, cheers.

I’m still reeling a bit because y’know, I didn’t actually expect to raise enough money for a monitor and sort of vaguely hoped I might cadge enough to offset the costs a bit. Yet, thanks to some lovely wonderful people I’m sitting here typing this on a new monitor. Ok, I’m not typing on the monitor, I’m typing on a keyboard and looking at the results on a monitor.

Which is totally awesome and amazing.

After a bit of mad financial wangling involving mailing the hosts and getting a couple of days grace (this week is hosting monies week) and the magic of a Paypal top up card (and the switching of hosting payments onto said top up card) and then using the hosting money to peg it out at the last minute to go and get a monitor, I can has visuals. Which is crazy stuff.

Bit of bargaining on an ex display model to come away with a pretty decent size considering and yeah. Bloody hell. Thank you.

Rolled back in and starting wending my way through the thank you emails and working out who I need to send “a special drawing” too with a monitor that actually turns on! If I’ve not gotten back to you yet, sorry – it’s been a bit crazy and it took me a while to actually let what just happened sink in too.

After a few days of the old thing thing barely starting before killing itself this morning, that’s weirdly special. Especially given the month or so I’ve had where you sit tight thinking “as long as nothing blows up, I’ll see the other side of this in no time”, it was crushing to actually have something give up the ghost when you know there’s nothing you can do to sort it. And then admit to that in public.

I sorta kept shtum about the hows and whys of having to drop out of World Of Love, it wasn’t just the money as I said there were care-y concerns I had to factor in too but being hit by a pair of bills that wiped me out the day after I’d spent hours writing out the talk and doing the slides was harsh and made the difference between “I could still pull it off with a bit of a wangle” to “oh, nuts – I haven’t got a hope in hell”.

Really, I can’t thank everyone enough and y’know, the download link and a scribbled cock doesn’t seem like nearly enough to express my gratitude. Yet, grateful and humbled I am.

So, yeah, thank you. All of you who tried to rustle up a monitor or chucked in and dug me out of a hole or just offered words of support. You’re lovely and wonderful.

I guess I better get on and make some games then. Starting with beating the hell out of Farbs.

<3