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101 Free Games Part 2: Nanozoa

February 16, 2007 · by · in

…continued from Part 1 of a look at 1up’s 101 Best Free Games

Nanozoa:

This is a classic example of a great design idea / tweak that really doesn’t pan out once you get down to playing it.  The game is basically Asteroids, with a few extra weapons, baddies of different sizes, and a wonderful inside-the-body medical theme.  However, the gameplay is hamstrung by the art.  The fact that everything is in black and white is gorgeous, and the backgrounds and sprites are lovely, but it’s really hard to see.  Add the fact that enemies phase into place on the field of play, and things can get really inconvenient really, really fast.  Pros are great art, great presentation, great concept.  Cons are the art & concept overwhelming gameplay concerns.  Not really recommended.

Tide Pool Is Love #2

February 15, 2007 · by · in

For those of you who rock with Proton, you can now get round 2 of Tide Pool Is Love on demand. This show features a stupendous live laptop jam from Russian Linesman, the second edition of Jetsam, featuring Limbo, Antiguru, and myself, and ‘Discocsid’, a set I did a while back.

it burns when i music

February 14, 2007 · by · in

Just a burnt CD tracklisting-dump. Continue to go about your day.

Bent – The Waters Deep (AFK Cascadia Subduction Remix) [Tide Pool]
Made Of Leaves – Karate Robot (Russian Linesman Remix) [Tide Pool]
Differnet – Caring Arms (Jesse Somfay Remix) [Kupei Musika]
Alexander Koning – Back to the Oldskool (Jesse Somfay Remix) [TBA]
Klmnt + Yann DL – Intensive (Limbo Remix) [Audio Invaders]
Neon Tetra – Upset [Tide Pool]
Neon Tetra – Surroundings [Tide Pool]
Viking 2 – Shroud Jettison [Unsigned]
Viking 2 – Centaur Deflection [Unsigned]
Viking 2 – Space Flight (305 – 355 Days) [Unsigned]
Viking 2 – Lander Sience Data [Unsigned]
UP – UP [Unsigned]

Micah – Microcosm (Austin Azua Ambient Shlubble) [Ruhn Song]
Led Zepplin – Babe I’m Gonna Leave You (PQM Melbourn Pass) [Abducted]
Gary Jules – Mad World (Stefan Anion Remix) [Proton]
CPM – Takeaway (His Boy Elroy Remix) [Proton]
CPM – Iobec Magic (Jaytech & Matt Rowan Remix) [Proton]
Stuart McKeown – Meet Me On The Corner Of Raven Hill [Proton]
One Trick Pony – Knuckles To The Floor (Fractal’s Knuckles On The Keys Version) [Guilt Records]

101 Free Games Part 1: Ray Hound and Harmotion

February 14, 2007 · by · in

The ever-loving 1up posted this article on The Best 101 Free Games. As such, I figured I should play the interesting looking ones. Duhh.

Ray Hound:

This is by the same genius who did Warning Forever, and it shows. It’s an addictive, mathematical shooter, where your teeny little spaceship gets to bounce, reflect, and redirect the baddies rays back at them. Pros are the masterful design, control, and art. Cons are no sound, no way to save your progress (yeah yeah, classic shooter, blah blah blah.), and potential repetitive stress injury from waving your mouse hand around. Recommended, but it’s very much not a long term thing.

Harmotion:

A stupidly simple twist on a shooter: You’re under attack by big fucking bubbles, and you have to shoot them and suck in the power-points to get to the next level. But three quick, genius twists make this a great game.

1: To suck things towards, you have to hold down the shoot button, so you can’t shoot.

2: Vacuuming up power-points also draws the big bubbles towards you. Hello tension-in-design.

3: Make it MULTIPLAYER. Wow. Suddenly an average, quirky little shooter becomes just a blast. Between avoiding bubbles, your opponent’s fire, absorbing power, and absorbing the one-shot powerups, you’ll never run out of things to do. Really, really, really well done.

Pros: Super graceful design, multiplayer is a blast, the four different ships play just differently enough, multiplayer is a blast. Cons: Kinda laggy. For a game that brags about “interactive music”, the music and sonic interactvity is just fucking awful. There’s also no easy, fast way to get back into an online game short of restarting and picking up the first “radar” power-up, which acts as a matchmaker. Why should it take me ages to get back to the best part of the game? With that said, this one is highly recommended, highly addictive, and *much* deeper than it looks.

an obligatory remix (work in progress)

February 11, 2007 · by · in

ANOTHER CLIP UPDATE – the mix isn’t a total embarrassment and the choirs are as close to on time.  HOWEVER, i had the drum FX turned off when I bounced it out.  How you suffer.
With the full knowledge that it’s a massive cliche, and that it will be very, very tough to top the Adam Freeland version, I started a remix of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ tonight. But! I am using the amazing yet slightly ridiculous Scala Youth Choir vocal + piano version as the main hook.

I also reserve the right to use the Tori Amos version, and maybe even find someone with an acoustic guitar to play me the riff. We shall see. Also, thanks are in order to Leenie for sending me the YouTube clip of the choir’s performance.

the loop

February 8, 2007 · by · in

I will be playing in-store at the mighty Boomtown this coming Tuesday, the 13th, from about 3 PM to 6 PM or so – do come down and listen to odd noises. I am also going to be trying a *very* pretentious, semi-live, looptronica set, using my EFX 500. That’ll probably be for about an hour at the beginning, and maybe a bit near the end. We shall see. The rest will be me DJing ambient, pretty breaks, odd, light techno, and sundry other wonders.

csound won’t

February 8, 2007 · by · in ,

I have a love / hate relationship with open source.  I have OpenOffice and love it, run WordPress and love it, am slowly learning Python, and love it.  But I get frustrated with Csound, and hate it, on a regular basis.  If anyone knows how to get MIDI output to work, let me know.  I have the ‘MIDI’ box checked, and I get blank MIDI files.  It’s pretty cool, let me tell you.

That said, Csound + Python will also, eventually, let me do things like The Random Break Generator (enter 4 to 8 samples and a tempo, and get a two-bar beat in return), and The Random Melody Generator (give it a key and a tempo, and stand back).  Generative music, and especially interactive generative music, makes me all fuzzy inside.

where did the djing go?

February 5, 2007 · by · in

Just a quick word to update the two or three of you who regularly troll this page for DJ sets: I am currently working on a back-and-forth, over-the-internet mix set with local drum & bass legend Sinesthetix / Dr. Gonzo / Matt Saunders. It is, of course, hushmost secret, but I’ll give you a look at the art for it so far:

The other cool thing about this mix (in addition to the fact that we’re sending chunks back and forth over the interweb, and that he plays drum & bass and I play techno) is that we’re scaling it so that, hopefully, it won’t feel like a collection of disparate minisets. I did the first 5 minutes, he gets the next 10, I do 15, he does 25, I do 25, he does 15, and so on down. Hopefully the end result will be suitably epic.

Boomtown Victoria Is Closing…

January 25, 2007 · by · in ,

…And the sound of weeping was stunning in its overwhelming silence. I’ve been buying music from there for the past 6 years, they just ordered in Holden’s EP for me, and they’re basically the best organized shop in town, and the only one that order any quantity of anything other than drum & bass or breaks.

And then there was the Reese’s Pieces machine. Mmm. Delicious.

It hurts when “the future” hits home like this. On the one hand, digital distribution is pretty hep, but on the other, the financial destruction of iconic local music shops is an unpleasant thing. I will miss being looked down up by Liam, being directed to excellent music by Paddy, chatting with Scott, listening to scary music with Nathan, and debating the meaning of life with Charles. I will miss lining up at 1000 hours to be the first in the door on new record day. I will miss buying a Sly Stone record, and having the staff members treat me with respect for the first time.

I will, in short, miss having a record store. So it goes.

the idiot

January 24, 2007 · by · in

The best record of 2006 AND of 2007 is The Idiots Are Winning, by James Holden.  And the best track on the best record is Idiot, played at a neuron-melding +7 or so.  Holden is a man among boys and a god among men.