Snopes debunks the Scarface school play
— the YouTube user's profile and favorites were a nice touch #
I Can Hold My Breath Forever
— from the Daniel Benmergui school of poetic art games with long names #
Tim O'Reilly on the state of the Internet operating system
— like his first Web 2.0 essay, a loose collection of thoughts defining a movement #
Colorbind for the iPhone
— my new iPhone game obsession; amazingly, the whole game is playable with red-green colorblindness #
First images of Scott Pilgrim game, with music by Anamanaguchi and pixel art by Paul Robertson
— insanely awesome; don't miss the teaser trailer #
Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt get coffee
— Gizmodo asked a body language expert to analyze their poses #
SimpleGeo's visualization of SXSW checkin activity
— related: Check.in, location-aware web app in private beta to check into multiple services at once (via) #
Auto Smiley
— computer vision watches you smile, then pastes a smiley into the topmost application (via) #
Future Sounds shuts down WOXY one year after Lala sale
— it's easy to blame management, but the root cause is obscene streaming royalties #
Less Talk, More Rock
— it's worth reading, though I'm mostly linking this for the gorgeous Superbrothers art #
Paris Smaragdis' demo video of user-assisted audio selection
— mind-blowing demo; sing along with vocals or instruments to magically isolate them from the background music #
Nintendo's mini-feature on Cave Story's elusive creator Pixel
— his first public appearance; the game came out on WiiWare yesterday, go buy it! #
How a gaming community flamewar spawned a real game
— titled "Dudebro, My Shit is Fucked Up So I Got to Shoot/Slice You II: It's Straight-Up Dawg Time" #
Come On Paint Me White Again
— a conversation between UK street artist mobstr and the Newcastle City Council #
Google stops censoring Chinese search results
— they're now redirecting google.cn to the uncensored google.hk #
Pixeljam and James Kochalka's Glorkian Warrior
In the latest Kickstarter Podcast, I interviewed indie comics legend James Kochalka and Pixeljam Games’ Rich Grillotti and Miles Tilmann about Glorkian Warrior, their retro-inspired videogame that mixes hand-drawn and 8-bit pixel animation.
James Kochalka is undeniably prolific, though he balks at the word. He’s kept a daily comic diary of his life on American Elf for the last 12 years, released 40+ books, recorded 10 albums, and just appeared in a scifi film. But he’s never made a videogame, something he’d been aching to do since he was a kid.
Thanks to a chance meeting at a chiptune concert, Kochalka’s collaborating with Pixeljam Games to make it happen. Pixeljam’s responsible for some of my all-time favorite Flash games, such as Dino Run, Gamma Bros., Ratmaze, and Mountain Maniac. It’s a match made in geek heaven.
Their Kickstarter project ends tonight, so get the Glorkian Warrior game, mini-comic, and other exclusive rewards while you can.
Bonus track, for hardcore Kochalka fans:
MC Frontalot released Zero Day for digital download
— it has quite possibly the most insane secret track ever committed to disc, spoilers ahoy #
Ben Folds' live piano improv on Chat Roulette
— a tribute to his doppelganger during last night's concert in Charlotte, NC #
Brandon Boyer plays with Jason Rohrer's Sleep Is Death
— collaborative game, where one person manipulates the world for another #
Soren Johnson's "Fear and Loathing in Farmville," notes from GDC 2010
— best summary of the turmoil social gaming's causing in the gaming industry (via) #
Jane McGonigal's TED talk on using games to save the world
— games can motivate you to do mundane tasks or something meaningful, choose wisely #
Newspaper Club designs, prints, distributes overnight newspaper at SXSW
— I was lucky enough to grab one of the hand-numbered issues #
Kickstarter at SXSW 2010
Yancey rounded up our SXSW appearances over at the Kickstarter blog, but I thought I should mention it here…
On Saturday night, Kickstarter, Tumblr, and SoundCloud welcome you to F*CK YEAH! SXSW, a party with music/visuals by Eclectic Method sponsored by the nice folks at ThePlanet. It’s at Emo’s on Saturday night, from 6:30pm until late.
On Sunday 11am, I’m doing a solo talk about a mish-mash of my interests, focused around metagames — both games about games, and games built on games. Quite possibly the only talk at SXSW to mention Mechanical Turk, Desert Bus, Barack Obama, VVVVVV, and Metafilter.
Also in amazing panels, Kickstarter’s own Perry Chen (Monday w/Robin Sloan), Yancey Strickler (Wednesday w/Allison Weiss), and Fred Benenson. You should go to every one. More details here.
See you in Austin!
Danc on the release of Ribbon Hero
— turning Microsoft Office into a game, with competition against your friends (via) #
El Fin Del Mundo by Alberto González Vázquez
— there's so much I love about this, I can't quantify it all (via) #
Wired Reread, blogging the best ads from '90s-era Wired
— also, the complete SPIN archives are on Google Books #