oh please let this be my future

In a post-apocalyptic, super sexy and leggy world, rebel models battle cop models on motorcycles.

kids drawings transformed into real life

yeon doo jung

coleco music

Argentinian chip music sounds like this:

coleco says:how are you?
and this:
honey, we are chatting.

gamewave

gamewave podcast

effects creators

Found some pretty cool particle effect creation tools on the yo yo games website. Pretty handy visualization tools.

effects creator
explogen v2
pattern creator
particle designer

Snazzy.

Papercraft art

DIY Pet Architecture
I'll be buying this book... if I can figure out how. Amazingly awesome papercraft art style.

papcio chmiel!

Tytus Romek i Atomek was/is the most amazing comic book ever. It pretty much defined my childhood back in the mother country, and looking back at it now... holy smokes is it every fucking crazy. The art style alone is enough to shape a child's mind. I remember being completely blown away by every issue Papcio Chmiel put out. I think I'm gonna try to find all 23 books the next time I visit the mother country.

tasty wallpapers

Just stumbled upon a cache of incredible FFT wallpapers.

kojima doing kojima-type stuff

all of these new clips are so awesome.

fresh chips

I am huge fan of chip tunes. Today I discovered Mesu Kasumai. So, so so good.
After Mars

rewards

I've been doing some research on reward systems and I found these two articles pretty interesting:

Designing Rewards in Games

The Reward Series, Part 1: The Basics of Reward

A particularly terrifying quote from the first article:

Good game mechanics can aid a game by eliminating rough edges and inconsistencies, and some players are actively drawn to elegant game mechanics - but it is the delivery of rewards, and not the quality of the game mechanics, which maintains a player's interest.

I honestly not sure if I can believe that. Or at least, goddammit, I hope that isn't totally true. It would mean that designers should spend more time designing the reward system then the game itself... shurg...  Though I guess this is probably why I played WOW for hundreds of hours, solo, even though I was barely doing anything more than grinding and walking around.

alea and agon

The Rituals of Alea

This article discusses Alea,which is a fancy word for Chance in games. It makes me feel good about the game I am currently working on because our battle system doesn't always favor the veteran player, which actually worried me quite a bit at the start. Now I've started to warm up to the idea that a total newb could still potentially triumph just by being dealt a "better hand". Also, I've been playing a lot of Mario Kart on the Wii online these days, and I swear that the only reason I keep coming back is the knowledge that there's always a chance I may be dealt 3 Bullet Bill Power Ups in a row and maybe win the race at the very end. If Mario Kart didn't have this "Alea" built into it, I would have long given up on online play due to sucking way too much balls to be a true competitor.

progressive quest

beware, thy rpg may be nothing but a progressive quest.

clothes of the future, now

just you

relevant games

I've been thinking about "relevant" games for while now, and this kotaku post nails the issue right on the head. From the post:

So why am I writing about PixelJunk Eden first? Probably for the same reason that, at the end of the day, while Killzone 2 demo stations were available with no waiting, the wait to get hands on a DualShock to play more PixelJunk Eden was a good 15 minutes.

Killzone 2 is going to be a smoking hot game, I have no doubt. But it's going to be, by and large, completely irrelevant to the game medium. Aside from pushing graphics, it won't be doing anything to push the scene forward and I think it's a testament to the growth of the game medium when a small PSN game like Eden can essentially steal the show from its multi-gillion-dollar counterpart. I honestly cannot wait until our first PSN and DS games are completed so that we can push it forward with our next batch.

desert bus

In my humble opinion, Desert Bus a very important and relevant piece of work, even if it may have been created as a joke. It's really doing something that dips deep into the art sphere. Not quite Passage, but in that same space.

holy smokes

this is so amazing.

signalnoise

James White makes cool stuff. Here is his blog.

iso50

For when we redo our logo:
iso50

manual imput session

really crazy art/music thing

shadows demos

pretty neat dynamic shadows demo.

And another, slightly more cool looking one here.

deadly dash

I really like this game. It's just jumping, but for sooommee reason...

gish 2 makes me think

Really cool shadow magic 1:35 into the clip.

time for a R4

Two good reasons to get a R4 which are not related to DS game piracy:
1)Um, hello... Snatcher for my DS?
2)Old news, but yes, I do want to play Cave Story on my DS, thank you.

housing complexes

Ken Oyama: From Housing Complexes with Love

I grew up in a similar, albeit communist-style housing complex in polska and there really is something about them. Maybe also the reason why I love Domu so much, who knows...

iron sky

color me intrigued.

art art

Jordan Awan makes art I like as well.

the hug monster

Ben Woodward makes art I like.

the REAL Oregon Trail remake

on mobile of all places.... shrug... I actually can't wait!