Yesterday I discovered a very lovely game. It is “Corpse Craft” and although the game is about killing, it is very very cartoony and sweet. The style is oriented on vintage horror, like Edgar Ellen Poe or the game Alone in the Dark, but in a plain illustrated hand-drawn style. With extreme charming details. Just have a look at this detail:

Detail: You against your enemy, zoomed x 2

Even the gameplay is somehow inventive, but foremost addictive. It features a combination of various game-genres and mixes them together into a whole gaming experience. The most basic gameplay is in an arcade-puzzle-style with game-mechanics, you should be familiar with. But… you do not solve the puzzle all the time just for the fun itself, but in order to fill up your energy-portions. If you have enough of them, you can send zombies into the arena, because your primary goal is to defeat your enemy. This is where also a strategic component comes into play. As the levels progress, you are able to collect points on a meta-layer and exchange them into special items. The games uses the “Whirled“-API to manage the transaction, that is relative new, I think, it’s in beta-phase. You can even play against others with the integrated multiplayer mode.

Nevertheless, just try out this game. And be sure… you will be entertained! Play it on Kongregate or Whirled.

Artwork by Nazilla

Johan from Da ! Heard It Records was so kind to point me to their latest release “Kickstart” from Tom Woxom. The entire album is made with the good old Amiga 500 and features kicking beats, sweeps and overall decelerated madness. Not only the music, but also the artwork was a factor, that convinced me to download. It seems, that Tom Woxom is living here in the surroundings, in the Ruhrarea. But hey? Are the Germans not the most active Amiga-users still? I remember it was Germany and Sweden, but are not sure about it.

Anyway, don’t expect retro-battles or screaming 8-bit inferno on this one. The album is very gentle and it hears to me like a slow-motion ride of all the other 8-bit music.

Some more words on “Da ! Heard It Records”. This is nerd-stuff, that fits good. Quality is high and their love for “dirty” pixel-artworks is somehow charming. The main organisers are French-people. Check out the catalogue.

It’s been a while, since we I homebrew on this blog. By coincidence I came across an interesting port of the old Atari-speech synthesizer for the Nintendo DS. This is not new, was made for the Neoflash NDS coding competition in 2005. With it, you can type any text in the the DS and let it speak by the machine. Unfortunately some important details on the implementation are terribly wrong, pulling the fun of use down. But first.. what is DS Speech? We read in the about-section:

“Based on Atari ST Speech Synthesizer “STSpeech” by A.D.Beveridge & M.N.Day, ported from 68k assembly by Stefan Stenzel and using Starscream 680×0 emulation library by Neill Corlett the first Win32 version of STSpeech was an authentic rendition of the Atarti ST Speech Synthesizer. Stefan Stenzel removed the emulation library dependancy and re-wrote the entire synth engine to be stand-alone. The difference between the original port of STSpeech and Stefan’s reworking and changes brought STSpeech Win32 from a harsh sound to a much smoother and professional sounding voice synth. The Synth in it’s current form is far removed from the original. Much credit should be given to Stefan Stenzel for his major modifications. He is a professional in audio synthesizers, so it’s understandable the journey of change STSpeech has undergone.”

And to be sure, that thing really sounds good! But unfortunately with some drawbacks. First I loaded the Version 1.2, where the onscreen-keyboard (where you type the text) was on the wrong screen! Hitting the keys was a cat and mouse game on a black screen. No option to swap the screens. Than I found the recent V 1.5 without this bug. But two details really pull at the nerves in long time use… and they also disqualify this magical oldschool sounding speech synthesizer tool for the use on stages for live-performing. First, when you type in the text, it makes a *click, click, click* sound on every keystroke. Why? Imagine a performer on stage, boosting this clicking keys through a 120 dB soundsystem. Wheew. I don’t think, that the audience would like it. Other way would be to pull down the volume each time on typing. The next big issue: there is no hotkey, for bringing back and editing the last phrase you have entered. So if you want repeat a phrase often (this could for example happen on stage), you always have to enter the whole text again, key by key.

Please! Changing this little details should be no problem at all, but would boost the fun of using DS Speech by minimum 300 percent. If this issues would be fixed, this could become one of the most entertaining homebrew sound-tools for the Nintendo DS, where even artists could perform with. It would become a real insider tip. At least the speech is sounding oldschool and good. And can be enjoyed about.

The finalists for the Independent Games Festival student awards have been announced. There are also two contributions from Germany: Where is my heart and Zeit2. But my attention fell to this two games, that look fresh and interesting:

City Rain

This is some kind of Sim City meets Tetris meets hints and thoughts on sustainable city-development. Go to the website.

Feist

Dark, moody and with a dense atmosphere and astounding graphics – this is what Feist is about. It is a mixture of platformer and adventure. Go to the website.

Frequon Invaders 2.0 Ingame

Well, Frequon Invaders is different. It is something, that would not come out of a normal game-designers head without going through deep fundamentals of complex math. It is experimental gameplay in the deep sense of meaning of the term “experimental”. And it seems, that the game popped out of the head of a mathematician. So, how is the gameplay like?

You are your”self”, represented by a circle, controlled by mouse. Your aim is to catch “Frequons” on a psychedelic colored playfield. But… you can’t see them. There are several visual clues that will help you finding the “Frequons”. The game makes use of Fourier Analysis and complex patterns and derive the gameplay from it. The display shows your”self” and any launched Frequons in this Fourier Domain, where they become wave patterns. If you do not understand anything, than it’s pretty fine. Me was too.

Now, what you actually have to do in the game, looks like this: Move around your cursor with the mouse, while the psychedelic color pattern changes. The “Frequons” are hiding, but you come close to them, if the “pits” in the background-patters get larger (or lesser) and darker. You will search for places, where the pattern gets more simple. If you are near them, they show up until you hit them.. and the Frequon disappears. Some Freqons are also moving arcoss the playfield and in later levels the patterns are getting more weired, while up to four Freqons at the same time appear on screen. The pattern in the background is always a calculation of the Fourier field, the Frequons and your self. Once again: this is the first game, that plays on the 2 dimensional Fourier Space!

via Auntiepixelante

Well, this here is a secret insider tip for everyone who is into gamedesign. It is a old and vintage board game, that simply was ahead of its time! You have to “interact” on the board with springy elements, in order to “re-arrange” your enemy. I bet the designers of this “Ball Buster Game” just wished to have automated object tracking, full animation control and much more soundeffects. To be honest… I can’t imagine, that this game really made fun. But strange gameplay and atmosphere, that surrounds this game, is nothing less, than things that abstract arcade games have today. Even the sounds of this analogue goodness is worth listening to. I wonder how long it would take for anyonw, to make a computer-game version out of this.

I figured out, that the game “Ball Buster” was produced by the Mego Company. They have a neat museum online, and are responsible for tons of strange toys. For example this kind of action figure. I am not sure if this Vac Man is also by Mego, but the video is worth watching, promised.

Great music from the chipmusic-scene, this time from Leeni (Leeni’s submissions at 8-bitcollective). And this is star-music, meant in terms of popularity and outer space as well. Heartful melodies, that are sort of indie-rock and songwriter stuff, all mixed up with charming pixels and a good dish of japanese pop. Well, yes. A little bit of everything. And it’s great.

Leeni – Headphones On Your Heart. Video by Radio Gosha.

Leeni – Underworld. Video by Niina Koivusalo and Ville Konttinen.