This week it’s time for the ill shit – a perfect summer hip-hop beat, oozing with bossa charm:
Hot daaaamn!! I seriously can’t get enough of this. The track features Ohmega Watts, who has also done some excellent work with Lightheaded on Tres Records.
The whole album, by Mental Abstrato, is really stellar. If you like your hip-hop jazzy, look no further.
There’s been a lot of good hip-hop this year, but for me, this track is one of the standouts. Ace!
As a token effort towards putting the bi-weekly back in the cphgc erotic game blogging, I’ve been asked to do a short post on an erotic game. Since I’m not much of an erotic gamer myself, I’ve chosen to give a short overview of a game that’s, if not erotic, at least containing some adult imagery.
The game is Space Phallus from Charlie’s Games. Trailer here:
Bernie has been hard at work on his upcoming PSP game, Where Is My Heart?
He’s just released four “mini-trailers” to tease some of the new features he’s been working on. Here’s my favorite one:
I’ve been lucky enough to try the new build here at the office. The new rotation mechanic is very satisfying to play around with! It takes the core idea of the game – the fragmented viewport – and forefronts it in a way that forces the player to think about the game space in a strange new way. Ingenious stuff.
Check out the other three trailers after the jump.
Here’s a perfect beat for hot summer nights in the city:
That’s Photek, all the way back from 1994. Man, it brings back memories. I’ve had this beat on repeat as I sit here and try to get some work done.
Coldcut picks up on this same beat on his legendary 70 Minutes of Madness mix. He drops it in my very favorite part of the mix:
That whole segment is just so brilliant. It starts with Luke Slater’s “Grace” – one of the great ambient techno tunes of all time – mixed together with a cheesy but beautiful Joanna Law song. Then, after some Harold Budd (man, what a perfect bridge), Coldcut eventually settles into the Photek beat. Those “summer evening, summer evening” samples he throws into the mix really nail the whole vibe of that track. Perfection.
And I love how Coldcut ends that segment by bringing back the Photek beat over an old BDP cut. It colors that rap in such a wonderful way.
Summer evening indeed.
Two years ago, our very own Nils Deneken premiered his small adventure game, Rückblende, at IGF and IndieCade.
The download links have been down for a while, but Copenhagen Game Collective is happy to report that we’re now hosting the files!
Rückblende is a must-try for anyone interested in games, or atmospheric interactive environments more generally.
Nils built the entire game environment in the real physical world, as a large diorama. Then he filmed the set and layered the various “memory” sketches on top of that footage. The aesthetic effect is stunning, to say the least. Plus, the game features a very tasteful and poignant use of Billie Holiday’s “Without Your Love,” which of course won me over instantly.
In the interest of full disclosure, Nils is a close friend and a colleague. Still, I fell in love with the game even before I knew him personally. It was my favorite game at IndieCade 2008.
I see Rückblende as a kind of Geogaddi of videogames – very wistful but also very ambiguous (a little disturbing, even), filled with dark little secrets, anchored around themes of memory and childhood, and crafted with great care and attention to detail. It brings to mind some of my most memorable gaming experiences – Myst, Knytt, and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, for example.
Seriously, I can’t recommend the game highly enough. Of all the games that have had a lasting affect on me, Rückblende ranks somewhere near the top, right alongside the best of ‘em.
Happy Independence Day from overseas!
As the token American on the team, I feel like it’s my duty to mark the occasion somehow. So, here’s a very special Weekly Music Tip – two iconic “American” songs that come with my highest recommendations.
It’s been a quiet week for Copenhagen Game Collective. The whole gang has been away at Roskilde Festival – everyone but me and Bernie, that is.
To fill the time, we’ve been watching the World Cup. Yes, this year’s tournament has been full of drama. But even this World Cup can’t compare to this insane story, about a 1994 match between Barbados and Grenada. Some footage here:
There’s a lesson here for game designers: a game system might sound good on paper, but remember to carefully think through what kind of nutty game theoretical incentives might emerge from it.
The World Cup, of course, learned this the hard way from the infamous 1982 West Germany v Austria match, in which the two teams colluded to let Germany win. After this incident, the tournament was changed so that the final pair of matches within each group are now played simultaneously.
More recently, at Euro 2004, Denmark and Sweden were accused of intentionally tying in order to ensure that both Scandinavian teams would advance, at the expense of Italy. This scenario is sometimes used to justify why FIFA, unlike UEFA, prioritizes “goal difference” over “head-to-head play” in its tie break criteria. But as the Wikipedia page on match fixing cogently argues, there’s no one perfectly satisfactory solution to these issues. These are problems that no technology, e.g. instant replay, can “solve.”
My adviser, TL Taylor, gave an excellent paper at DiGRA 2009 on this same topic, as it relates to e-sports. She argues that even through the computer game “handles” the rules through code, there will always be objections to and negotiations around the way the participants play. “Technology” is not a panacea.
An interesting example from this year’s World Cup is Uruguay’s Luis Suarez and his intentional handball against Ghana. Ghana went on to miss the penalty kick, and ended up losing the game. Call Suarez a cheater if you want, but his infraction was completely rational. He quite literally won the game for his team. Still, the handball feels especially cheap because it robbed Africa of its first-ever berth into the World Cup semifinals.
I’ve heard one good suggestion for a rule change: some commentators argue that this kind of clearly intentional handball should result in an automatic goal, rather than a PK. There is certainly precedent behind this suggestion, e.g. goal-tending in professional basketball leads to an automatic basket. But how does one define “clearly intentional”? The suggestion is a good one, but it certainly doesn’t “fix” the problem entirely.
Again: there is no such thing as a perfect rule-set or system. The job of a game designer is tough!
Update: Check out this New York Times article about Suarez’ handball. Apparently, Suarez is now boasting that he has the “Hand of God,” not Maradona. The nerve!
Those photos of LeVar Burton playing B.U.T.T.O.N. got me thinking about the old PBS television show Reading Rainbow (which Burton famously produced and hosted). So, I thought I’d theme this week’s music tip accordingly – with a chip tune remix of the Reading Rainbow theme song!
This one goes out to all of you who grew up in the United States in the 80’s:
To be totally honest, I never cared much for the show. My teachers used to force the show on us when I was a 1st grader, on days when it was too rainy to go outside. To this day, I remember suffering through some of those episodes. I feel bad admitting this, especially because I admire Burton and what the show was trying to do. But to my discredit, I was never much of a reader.
Still, I’m a sucker for nostalgia, and it feels good to hear the old theme song, especially in an absurd 8-bit incarnation.
Lastly, as a bonus, here’s an obscure Burton-related music factoid:
Have you ever heard The Orb’s legendary ambient-house track, “Little Fluffy Clouds“? The song famously samples Rickie Lee Jones reminiscing about the skies in Arizona when she was a child. Popular myth holds it that the interview comes from an episode of Reading Rainbow, and therefore that the person asking the question (“What were the skies like when you were young?”) is none other than LeVar Burton.
Just this week, I learned that the speaker in question is not, in fact, Burton. Apparently, the interview doesn’t come from Reading Rainbow, but from a bonus interview disc as included with a promotional copy of Jones’ “Flying Cowboys.”
Like my friend Matt put it: “Just when I thought I had no more illusions to shatter.”
Boy, am I jealous that I didn’t make it out to E3! Lau was on hand to demo our party game, B.U.T.T.O.N., at the IndieCade showcase.
LeVar Burton, with Lau and Sam
LeVar Burton – who is apparently an avid fan of gaming – stopped by to try some of the games. Lau even got to play B.U.T.T.O.N. with him! Burton, of course, is a geek idol for his starring roles on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Reading Rainbow.
Rumor has it that Burton will be MCing the IndieCade award show in October. Wild!
This round's task: "Pose like a ninja!"
Thanks to Elliot Trinidad and IndieCade for the excellent photos! You can find the full flickr set here.