Taylor Swift

The ongoing social gaming experiment is testing Twitch's chat infrastructure.

Imagine being stuck at sea on a cargo ship in the ’70s. Pretty scary, huh? (Especially the ’70s bit). Now imagine there’s a monster aboard and your only weapon is your righteous ‘stache. That’s the premise of Monstrum, an exciting survival horror game that would very much benefit from your vote over on Greenlight.

There’s hardly a genre left that hasn’t adopted some elements of Rogue, and Monstrum is perhaps the first survival horror game to do so in earnest. The ship’s layout is randomly generated, and the permadeath system is in full force. There are three monster types, each with different characteristics, but only one monster spawns in on the ship, so you’re never quite sure what you’re up against until you confront it. The ship itself is laden with hazards similar to a roguelike’s traps (I’m afraid OSHA didn’t have much bite in those days).

I chose the screenshot above because the others I could find were pretty dark, as these games tend to be. You can tell a lot more from seeing it in motion, so click through to the trailer below.

That flashlight effect looks almost as good as Doom 3′s. The environments remind me a bit of Doom 3 too, except monster closets here would actually be justified.

Beginner's guide to Square Enix's massively multiplayer online RPG Final Fantasy XIV, exploring the available classes on offer.

Mika is a friendly 20-year-old girl who we often see around the streets of Harajuku. This time, her red and black outfit and short blond haircut caught our eye.

Her plaid coat is from the resale shop Santa Monica, worn over a cutout Glad News dress and fishnet top from Bubbles. She is also wearing fishnet stockings, Dr. Martens boots and a Who’s Who Chico fringe backpack.

You can follow Mika on Twitter for regular updates.

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

Always-cute Rinyo is 19 years old. In addition to being a Bunka Fashion College student, she works at the popular Harajuku boutique Nadia.

Rinyo is wearing a sweatshirt from the Harajuku resale boutique Punk Cake with denim cutoffs and fishnet tights. Her haircut features both buns and braids. We also noticed her various rings, tie-dye socks and Tokyo Bopper platform shoes.

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

The publisher thinks that future Final Fantasy games will come to the PC as well.

A new game showed up on Steam last week called Card City Nights that its creator describes as combining the puzzle gameplay from Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes with Tetra Master, the card game-within-a-game from Final Fantasy IX, plus adventure beats from Professor Layton and collecting from Pokemon mixed in for good measure. The game features characters from the popular iOS Zelda-like Ittle Dew, which I didn’t play and therefore cannot crack wise about.

Eagle-eyed reader Zach Huff noted that Card City Nights is bound for iOS sometime soon and it’s already available on Android. The game is from Ludosity, the Swedish studio who helped Paradox bring the Magicka comedy action-RPG franchise to mobile with Magicka: Wizards of the Square Tablet.

The Card City Nights trailer is below.

Banished has been released!

You can get it here on the website, or on Steam, or on gog.com as well on the Humble Store.

A lot of people have asked where I prefer you buy the game – and the truth is, it doesn’t matter. Buy what makes sense for you.

Apparently the amount of traffic to the site is making it really slow, despite my trying to be ready for it. Not ready enough. Sorry about that…

Thanks for playing, enjoy, and let me know if you have any problems and we’ll try to get them worked out!

Our first game of the evening is Banished, a pastoral city-builder and the debut game of Shining Rock Software. Its premise is that a bunch of medieval refugees are exiled into the wilderness Australia-like, and need to work together to build a new home. In my imagination they fight to the death in a pre-industrial Thunderdome, but in the game their main threats are winter, disease and starvation. This is why I don’t design games. Or cities, for that matter.

Banished appears to recapture the charm of the old Impressions city-builders like Pharaoh and Zeus. It costs $19.99 and is available in quite a few places: Steam, GOG, Humble, and the developer’s own site. Trailers await below.

Doomdark’s Revenge is a freshly updated version of Mike Singleton’s 1985 ZX Spectrum game of the same name. If it looks familiar, that may be because it’s the sequel to The Lords of Midnight, another old strategy gem that was recently updated for PC and mobile. It’s $5.99 on GOG. Videos for this one are hard to come by, but this ought to give you an idea.

Eschalon Book III is the latest old-school RPG from Basilisk Games, they of such memorable hits as Eschalon: Book I and Eschalon: Book II. Apart from Spiderweb Software there’s really nobody still developing RPGs of this stripe, so if you can’t escape the feeling that this just isn’t your decade, be sure to have a look. It’s $19.99 on Steam, GOG, or straight from Basilisk Games.

Ikaruga is one of the most revered shoot-em-ups ever, and now that it’s on Steam I guess that solves the problem of having to track down a copy. The Dreamcast and Gamecube versions were renowned for their scarcity. Skip those expensive ebay auctions and grab it for $9.99 on Steam.

Ah, if only I had a nickel for every quarter I spent on Metal Slug 3! The classic arcade run-and-gun is one of the best of its kind, and it’s on Steam for $7.99.

Hegemony Rome: The Rise of Caesar is the latest historical strategy title from Longbow Games, now in Early Access. It focuses on Caesar’s Gallic campaigns, the fascinating prelude to his rise to power and his eventual clash with Pompey. The game’s $24.99 on Steam.

Ground Pounders is a promising hex-based strategy game set in the Sword of the Stars universe. As the name suggests it focuses on surface combat. It’s still in Early Access and costs $9.99 on Steam.

I’d never heard of 7th Legion, an RTS from 1997, until it debuted on GOG this morning. Frankly it looks like one of the many Command & Conquer imitators from that period, but games like Dark Reign and KKND prove that those weren’t all bad. It’s $5.99 on GOG, and here’s a Let’s Play of uncertain content.

 

This week's full-text RSS feed is supported by Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics.

Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art is probably one of the most informative introductions to how comics work, visually and narratively, ever written. Even if you've read comics for years, you'll learn something from this book.

(What's the deal with these links? Click here for info.)

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Crankshaft, 2/15/14

This week’s Crankshaft “plot” has been far too inane to discuss, involving a reality show called Ice Road School Bus Drivers — it’s like Ice Road Truckers, but for school bus drivers! — filming our characters in action. The producers are no doubt disappointed that Crankshaft didn’t engage in any of the property destruction or reckless endangerment of children for which he’s so famous, but nevertheless, the new reality show stars are getting their reward today: cheap giveaway hats emblazoned with the show’s logo. The drivers’ overjoyed reaction to this is probably the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. “Life doesn’t get any better than this!” proclaims Crankshaft, a man who helped defeat the Nazis in World War II, who has children and grandchildren, who played professional baseball, who overcame his own struggles and learned to read as an adult, who helped pay for a group of underprivileged kids from his bus route go to college. “Life doesn’t get any better than this.” He pulls the ill-fitting cap tightly down onto his head.

Mark Trail, 2/15/14

“I sure hope Trail is what he says he is … for his own good! If he’s a person, like he says he is, then that’s OK! But if he’s an animal, then I’m going to have to taxidermy him. I can’t stop taxidermying animals! But wait … what if a person is a kind of animal? Oh no. Oh NO. My taxidermying fingers are gettin’ itchy!”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/15/14

Well, it looks like Sarah was right to be suspicious of her editor, because her editor intends to put her in a cage and let other little kids come and gawk at her while she churns out books. This is quite frankly the best business decision anyone at the museum has made at any point during this storyline.

Mary Worth, 2/15/14

“But let’s not talk about such heavy topics now, Wilbur. Look, I’ve figured out that I can hold a full coffee cup using just my mouth! Pretty neat, huh?”

Pluggers, 2/15/14

All across America’s strife-torn inner cities, members of the Bloods and Crips put down their newspapers with stunned expressions on their faces. “Why are we fighting all the time?” they ask. “No matter what crew we roll with, we’re all pluggers. We are all pluggers.” Consider the peace increased.

This post originally appeared as "Life in the Funkyverse literally doesn’t get any better than this" on The Comics Curmudgeon, which is the best blog on the Internet.

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Good comedy writing is rare, so I’m tempted to overrate Caity Weaver’s adventures on the January 2014 Eastern Caribbean Paula Deen Cruise. The essay is funny without being cruel, which is not to say it doesn’t patronize its subjects. That Weaver acknowledges her own complicity makes the difference:

In addition to Brad, there are four paying passengers in our group who are visibly African American (not counting at least one half-black sleeper cell agent who can pass for white—me): three women and one man, split into groups of two. All four are repeat Paula cruisers. I speak to each of them, briefly, at one time or another. None of them remarks upon the fact that there are not many black people here on the Paula Deen cruise, or gives any indication that this is the sort of thought that should ever enter one’s mind. All four appear to be having a fine time, though the female couple skips many events. Their absence is easily noticed, because they are The Black People. One tells me later that people always ask them where they were.

Everyone on the boat is racist and nice. Including me.

The non-Deen cruisers are racist. The amiable mother of a former Miss Virginia is racist and has a tenuous grasp of the concept of slavery: “Don’t I see [Paula] walking around with a black fella? He’s her bodyguard or something? That right there shows she’s not racist.” The urbane gay couple visiting from Los Angeles is racist: “Filipinos are pushy,” one of them explains shortly after telling me he is “not okay with” Deen.

This prepares the audience for the conclusion: “I am racist, because I get upset at the black people in our group for not acting like I think black people should act on the Paula Deen cruise.”

Other bits:

The afternoon of Paula Deen’s Cooking Demo is chilly and windy, but the chicken is wrapped in bacon and lacquered in cream sauce.

And:

Her husband, a ramrod straight-standing white-haired man recently retired from a government job, demonstrates a unique talent for being able to stare out at the horizon without moving or speaking for hours at a time. I spend the next few days considering his inner monologue, wondering exactly what I am watching him see. (Eventually I settle on: himself, in his younger days, discreetly killing people.)

Styles of the 1980s and 1990s are extremely popular in today’s Japanese street fashion scene. While smaller Tokyo neighborhoods like Koenji, Nakameguro, and Shimokitazawa lay claim to countless resale and vintage shops, Japan’s most influential vintage boutiques are located in the back streets of Harajuku. Japanese street fashion magazines and websites (including this one) are packed with mentions of trend-setting shops like Kinsella, Bubbles, G2?, and PinNap – all of which are located within a short walk. The newest member of Harajuku’s vintage inner circle opened in October of 2013. Welcome to Punk Cake!

Punk Cake specializes in 1980s and 1990s fashion, as well as stocking few selected new items. Each of the Tokyo vintage shops in this space is defined by the personal tastes of the owner. Punk Cake’s owner Kinji has years of experience as a buyer for one of Japan’s largest resale fashion chains. Leaving the corporate world behind and opening his own independent shop has meant that Kinji can let his personal interests and tastes (like early 1980s punk music) influence his buying choices. Every item at Punk Cake is hand-selected, and the store’s inventory has a strongly curated feel.

Longtime Harajuku style icon Mikki is on staff at Punk Cake, and Kinji told us that Mikki’s fiercely independent personal style has been a big influence on his vision for the womenswear carried by the shop. In addition to her work in the shop, Mikki is the main model for a series of ongoing Punk Cake photo shoots. These photo shoots, taken at various locations around Tokyo, give a strong indication of the visual concept that Kinji has for the boutique.

Punk Cake’s interior is decorated with a mix of retro items from Japan and abroad – including vinyl albums (Blue Hearts, New York Dolls, Sex Pistols. Plastics), posters (Keith Haring), manga (Akira), magazines, and even a few memorable toys of the era. Overall, the store has a very clean feel compared to some of the other vintage shops, and the pastel stripes on the front of Punk Cake also make it stand out from its peers.

Punk Cake sells vintage and resale fashion for both men and women, but the current inventory clearly tilts in favor of womenswear. We are currently in the middle of winter in Tokyo and inventory reflects that with a focus on colorful sweaters and jacket. The shop also stocks retro skirts and dresses, t-shirts, denim, footwear, hats, purses, backpacks, and lots of accessories (studded jewelry, vintage buttons, belts, sunglasses), and more.

Punk Cake is located on a small Harajuku backstreet that runs between Harajuku Dori and Omotesando Dori. It is a short walk from any number of must-visit Harajuku destinations like Nadia Harajuku, LaForet, Dog, and Tokyo Bopper. The next time you’re in the area, consider stopping in and having a look around Harajuku’s newest vintage boutique! Scroll down to the bottom of the page for business hours, address, shop map, and other important details.

Click on any of the Punk Cake pictures to enlarge them.

 

About Punk Cake Harajuku:

• What: Punk Cake Vintage Boutique
• Where: Harajuku, Tokyo, Japan
• Address: 4-28-9 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan
• Hours: Noon – 8pm daily
• Links: Official Website, Shop Blog, Twitter, Instagram
• Map: Punk Cake in Harajuku on Google Maps

 

Mikki photos courtesy of Kinji. Punk Cake photos by Kira.
***

About the photographer:
Born in Japan, educated in Japan and the US, Kira shoots exclusively with Canon DSLRs. Photography assignments include fashion, bands, sporting events, and portraiture for various companies and bands throughout Japan & the world. His portfolio can be viewed at Artist-Photo.

angelslikeyou:

Remember when Walter threw a pizza on the roof

I feel like the guys from Native America recorded this whole album with shaking hands – there’s a jittery quality in these recordings that does wonders for their alt-pop/powerpop/shoegaze sound. Take “Habits”: that jittery touch makes the trio fall head-first into a tambourine-driven groove injected with fiery blues-rock, before cutting the phrases short and letting that chaos simmer. Similar rhythmic stalls fuel “Lonely Tonight”, where thick, chugging guitar interludes are cut at just the right moment to propel the song forwards. But what’s truly interesting to me is how the Native America crew weaves together a myriad of textures, sometimes within the same song. The vocals of “Heroine” hum in octaves, and the bass and drums lay down a basic 2&4 (again, with that shaking tambourine), but the trio darkens those pop elements with deftly placed crash cymbals and tension-soaked chords; “Digital Lobotomy” lurches into ratty Krill-esque pockets but slides into a Motown waltz, complete with walking bass and swinging drum accents. As “Lull / Fate, TX” slowly rises from a jazzy moonlight ballad to gritty inverted power chords, it becomes clear that these guys aren’t afraid to cross genre boundaries – I think they relish it, actually – and as the bass flicks on the overdrive and the guitar falls further back into a whirling rotary smokescreen, all those textures coalesce into a sound that is surprisingly menacing. Stream this zinger below, follow the band on their website, and let this release spin your top.

The post NATIVE AMERICA – BAD WEED / BUT STILL WEED appeared first on The Boston Hassle.

A low atmospheric pressure area on the US West Coast originating just north of San Diego puzzled meteorologists this morning, but I know what it was. It was the collective sigh of relief emitted by Playdek as their Kickstarter for Unsung Story crossed the $600,000 funding threshold with just under a day to go.

So what does this actually mean for Playdek’s project to make a spiritual sequel to Final Fantasy Tactics? And for Playdek? And for us? Let’s break it down.

The game is planned to come out in 2015 for iOS and Android, but that was never in doubt. Playdek always planned to bring the game to mobile, and what this Kickstarter did was fund the development of the game for PC, Mac, Linux, and Windows tablets — assuming the latter haven’t been buried in the New Mexico desert like the E.T. cartridges come 2015. So as iOS & Android gamers, we had considerably less skin in this game than desktop people. Playdek still plan on shipping a mobile card game based in the Unsung Story universe this year.

Unsung Story’s console future is uncertain. Many of the stretch goals that Playdek laid out were intended to bring the game to PS4, Nintendo 3DS, and other consoles, and the pitch is unlikely to hit those in the next eight hours. That said, when I spoke with Playdek CEO Joel Goodman in December, he was gung-ho about the company moving into the console space whence they came — Playdek’s senior staff core are former Playstation devs.

We will see fewer digital board game conversions from Playdek. Playdek made their name by crafting excellent ports of well-known tabletop games to iOS: Ascension, Agricola, Summoner Wars. With Ascension due to wind down later this year, Playdek quietly cancelling previously planned ports, and the obvious effort that Playdek intends to put behind Unsung Story, it might be a while before we see another high-profile board game conversion from San Diego.

On the other hand, maybe not. Despite evidence to the contrary, Joel Goodman assured me in December that Playdek is still a hobby gaming company. Besides that, in response to my article concluding that Playdek had cancelled the previously announced iOS port of wargame Commands & Colors, publisher GMT’s latest newsletter included an assurance that Playdek was still engaged to make that port happen. Playdek has shipped nine games in two years — it’s entirely possible that they can keep putting out board games while they work on Unsung Story.

Digital board games alone might be too niche to support a major studio. Playdek started 2013 by taking on almost $4 million in venture funding from outside investors. Playdek’s senior staff speak of Final Fantasy Tactics and creator Yasumi Matsuno with such reverence that there can be little question as to their passion for the project — but maybe part of the impetus to make an RPG game with more mass market appeal came from investors anxious to make a return. I desperately hope this isn’t the case, but realistically speaking, it might be.

Meet Yuki, a 19-year-old Bunka Fashion College student with partially shaved hair who we snapped on the streets of Harajuku. You might remember her from our previous street snaps in Koenji.

Yuki is wearing a resale floral dress and faux fur capelet with tattoo print legwarmers. Her bag is vintage, and her spiked flip-flops are from Dog Harajuku, worn with socks. She told us her accessories were bought from GR8 and ILPKS Harajuku, and we noticed earrings, piercings and some blue rings.

Yuki likes shopping at Dog Harajuku and ILPKS, and you can follow her on Twitter.

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

Chris Randle’s review of Toni Braxton and Babyface’s Love Marriage & Divorce doubles as a farewell to an idea of R&B:

In the distant aughts, before radio tuners spun too fast for slow jams, there was Mariah’s “We Belong Together,” an R&B song colored by the experience of crying to R&B songs: “I turn the dial, trying to catch a break, and then I hear Babyface…” She subtly referenced the 1988 single “Two Occasions,” prelude to a decade’s more hits he wrote, produced or sang. I’ve become obsessed with it this week. There’s the way Babyface enters the song as if gently looping his arm around Carlos Greene’s vocal. The drums that sound like corn exploding. And the hook moves from aloof formality to plaintive emotion as abruptly and gracefully as Smokey Robinson: “I only think of you on two occasions / There’s day and night.” Somewhere between replays I discovered that “Two Occasions” peaked at #10, and realized how odd its sustained harmonizing would sound in the same position today, how welcome.

Lamenting the collapse of R&B songwriting written for women, Randle points to the Braxton-Babyface as “a synecdoche of a much larger paled void.” Harmony Samuels’ work with Keyshia Cole and Fantasia proves it still flourishes, but it’s not crossing over, and that’s the point.

I thank Randle for reminding me about “Two Occasions,” which actually got airplay on my CHR station in early ’88.

Okay, so your car is… your car likes to go to… vomit?

Oh, so it doesn’t go to vomit? Okay. That makes more sense.

Your car also doesn’t go to vomits. Sure. Why not.

Asuka is an 18-year-old student – with a short haircut and blonde highlights – who we frequently see around Harajuku. She’s active on Twitter and Instagram.

Asuka is wearing a resale Budweiser dress, and acid wash denim jacket, scarf and sunglasses. Her backpack is from Gravis, and her platform sneakers are Converse. She is also wearing thigh-high stockings, golden rings and nail art.

Asuka likes to shop at Qosmos, and she’s a fan of Umez’ music.

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

Superdrag are a band that you may remember if you grew up in the early to mid-90s for that song with that insanely catchy chorus. “Sucked Out” is a power-pop gem, though not very representative of the rest of Superdrag’s stellar Regretfully Yours. Their ’96 major label debut was indeed a power-pop record, albeit one that fostered a distinct hazy MBV-inspired guitar sound that was both referential and unique. It is still one of my favorite records of all time.

Frontman John Davis and guitarist Brandon Fischer fully embrace the wall-of-guitars and whammy bars in their new band The Lees of Memory, immediately throwing the listener into a thick haze of sound. “We Are Siamese” blankets with tone-bended guitars and buzzy synths until Davis comes in confidently and calmly crooning over the beautiful pillow-y soundscape. Acoustic guitar and piano add to the narcotic atmosphere. “Open Your Arms” is brighter and more assertive, all shining harmonies and woozy guitars, very much reminiscent of Superdrag. I’m in heaven.

The post THE LEES OF MEMORY – WE ARE SIAMESE appeared first on The Boston Hassle.

An awful lot to say about this post:

U2′s working practise seemed to be to ride an approach till it flamed out. Just as Rattle And Hum had bounced U2 into backing down on pure revivalism, so Pop was cause for a second rethink. There’s a particular kind of 90s rock practise which gets mortally wounded on “Discotheque” – the big budget, everything-fusion album packed with superproducers and hangers-on. Taxi for Howie B, in other words. But while bands will still adopt and adapt to other music – and sometimes, like Radiohead, be loved for it – “Discotheque” also threatens to hold up as threadbare the entire vision of rock as the natural base of musical progress. If “rockism” has ever meant anything, it means what happened on this record – an assumption that other musics exist to provide new directions and stealable ideas to four rock guys in a guitar/bass/vox/drums lineup.

“Discotheque” confused my U2-admiring friends, specifically the band’s wearing Village People costumes in the video. A fan of Zooropa, I wanted U2 to record the dance album it had long threatened, and Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton’s glitzy electro “Mission: Impossible” theme suggested at least two of these blockheads understood machines. As arts editor of my college paper I commissioned a review from our editorial board’s most bono-fied U2 enthusiast. The traditional songs reassured him, if memory serves. I wrote the con review (it was a point/counterpoint package). I loved “Mofo” and “Do You Feel Loved?” I wanted more of them. According to Bill Flanagan’s excellent biography, the band rejected “Wake Up Dead Man” and “If God Will Send His Angels” for inclusion on Zooropa. Who can blame them? Calling the song “Discotheque” was a mistake; this band doesn’t do halfhearted gestures. A song called “Discotheque” was going to sound like one. They were going to dress like discothequers. But they couldn’t stop winking at the audience; they had to telegraph the ludicrousness of the gesture. Interviews featured Bono praising the likes of “The Playboy Mansion” as “hymns to trash” as if (a) this needed to be said (b) writing and responding to good pop music requires belief (c) pop music wasn’t already a collection of hymns. Apart from the stop-the-presses guitar riff that cuts through the second verse’s sluggish tempo, “Discotheque” sounds a mixing board salvage. Why Bono recorded a vocal track in his lower register and another in a higher key when the melody could not support this tension is an enigma as frustrating as the decision to tuck his jeans into his boots at Live Aid.

I went to the Pop Mart show, during which the band strove mightily to enthuse the audience and itself in a half empty Pro Player Stadium. It was over: U2 were now the Rolling Stones, condemned to record albums as excuses to tour. They’ve recorded three good songs since 2000 and I’ll be damned if I’ll remember their names.

Platform: Flash — Science! And lots of clay! The enormously satisfying Grow series of puzzle games created by Eyezmaze is expanding to the world of squishy laboratory experiments and giant robots. Grow Clay puts you in charge of the little yellow clay folk as you work on inventing new materials that can be used to fashion more technologically advanced things. Eventually you'll meet more scientists, build up the town, and maybe, just maybe conquer the world with your fantastical machine. Tagged as: browser, eyezmaze, flash, free, game, grow, linux, mac, on, puzzle, rating-g, unique, windows

Linear vs. non-linear was almost the most important battle of our time. I’ve tried most of the existing methods and created some of my own. Art reflects the crises of society. We are always writing about our world, whether we’re conscious of it or not. The best way of doing it is consciously, surely? That also helps us identify how much “self” plays in the equation. As an editor I learned how much negative self-consciousness works against creativity. Unlike the modernism of 100 years ago, contemporary artists have to find ways of forgetting about the self. Give the outside world their strictest attention. Genre fiction offers techniques for writing about the world without much self-reference. In that sense I suppose it is a reaction against modernism, but I believe what we do is more positive than that, since it works to combine a variety of techniques and approaches, rejecting nothing. This is a moment in our history where we need to look reality right in the eyes.

--Michael Moorcock, interviewed in the LARB

In the introduction my list of best singles of 1997, published in my college paper, I praised “2 Become 1″ as the best of the three top five Spice Girls singles. Then and now I prefer uptempo numbers except when they’re as good as this. I’m happy Tom Ewing agrees:

The situation, first – an encounter in which the guy is hesitant, maybe feels guilty, and certainly is in need of reassurance. (I’m assuming it’s a guy because of the “put it on” safe sex line, though the group sensibly dropped Geri’s clumsy “Boys and girls do good together” line from the LP mix.) This is an unusual setup for pop as we’ve encountered it: men present themselves as vulnerable, but its rarer to see that from a woman’s perspective. Refreshing, too: as with “Say You’ll Be There”, the Spice Girls have taken a classic pop premise and tweaked it to give themselves a lot more autonomy. The soft-focus strings and Tinkerbell keyboard twinkles code this firmly as “slushy romantic ballad” – and it is – but it’s one in which the woman is unwaveringly in control of the situation, and just trying to get her partner to come to the same conclusion she has about what’s going to happen next. It’s a ballad with no tension, just anticipation.

The rumbling three-note string hook after “Set your spirit free/It’s the only way to be” introduces an unexpected ominousness; it’s my favorite of this song’s filigrees.

What could be more exciting than Broken Age creators Double Fine announcing another round of its Amnesia Fortnight game jam? Here’s the easy answer: another round of Amnesia Fortnight where one team has already been chosen to create a new game led by Adventure Time creator Pendleton Ward.

Like last time, the Fortnight — a two-week long jam that’s previously given birth to Double Fine games like Costume Quest, Stacking and Spacebase DF-9 — will be funded by the public via the studio’s just launched Humble Bundle page, and funders will ultimately decide which of the nearly 30 pitches Double Fine will focus on, all of which will be again fully video documented by studio stalwarts 2 Player Productions.

But this year’s twist is that Ward is also pitching four of his own game ideas for the studio to produce, which will also be voted on by the public. Outside his story & design input on the console and mobile Adventure Time games (and Cheque Please, his still forthcoming collaboration with QWOP creator Bennett Foddy), the resulting prototype will be the first original concept he’ll have released in actual game form, and all four pitches are as honestly super hilarious & creatively unbridled as you’d expect.

And so, below he’s given Venus Patrol the extra special horse’s-mouth skinny on (and new doodles for) all four of the concepts — from a stab-happy cupid, to an entire town’s least favorite human-pyramid topper, to the fantastically ambitious zombie thriller he’s wanted to create since high school, which we might as well call right now as totally the one everyone is going to vote for, aren’t they.

Cupid, You Fat Little Scamp

Says Ward: This is a 2D sidescrolling platformer where you play as a fatty little cupid that stabs angry guys in the ass with love arrows because he broke his bow. He probably rolled onto it while he was sleeping and crushed it with his booty.

Everybody’s angry, and cupid’s so bummed out about it. He’s gotta stab everyone with those arrows and make them love somethin’ — at least get them to stop fighting, for sure. Some guys have guns and will be shooting and cupid’s gonna have to dodge those bullets, man. He’s chubby so he can’t fly very well… you’ll have a floaty jump at best.

Cupid’s cute!

Little Pink Best Buds

Says Ward: This one’s a mystery. It’s a first person story adventure with a mechanic similar to the game Façade. You’re dropped into a grassy field surrounded by tiny pink dudes who all want to be your best friend. One of these dudes has a boombox, one has a dog, one has an oversized leg…

You get to choose which one will be your best friend and which ones will be jealouussss… so jealous of wanting to be your best friend that they might hurt you. Watch what you say and play the field, Little Pink Best Buds.

No More McDonalds

Says Ward: This is a zombie game. You play as humans or zombies. Humans focus on using ranged weapons, crafting shelters and hoarding supplies while hiding in small discrete safe-houses. Zombies use beefed up attributes to kick ass, leap between buildings, scream to call other zombies to their location and head-butt down barricades.

I love zombies so much. I want to live in the most perfect zombied out simulation. I want to grappling-hook up buildings as a human survivor in an apocalyptic cityscape wasteland. I want to spraypaint the walls, “Suck my knees, ZOMBIES!” I want it so bad.

I want to build bridges between rooftops. I want to have AI babies in the game that could be equipped with rifles to act as sentries. I want loud sounds to alert nearby NPC zombies. I want to live out my zombie fighting fantasy.

I’m also scared of how large this idea is. I don’t know if it’s realistic to take on this idea. I originally was imagining it as an MMO with simple cartoony graphics, and building the world using satellite photos of San Francisco.

I’m kinda hoping that people don’t vote for this game because it’s the most complicated idea that I have. I’ve been thinking about playing this game since high school, man.

Damnit Jerry

Says Ward: This is a simple puzzle game where you play as a big fat guy named Jerry. The town that Jerry lives in has a King, and the King always wants Jerry to be on top of a human pyramid made up of all the townspeople in the kingdom.

Oh man, the townspeople are hell-of frustrated by this situation. The townspeople say “DAMNIT JERRY!” all the livelong day. But what the King decrees MUST BE SO! The King loves Jerry, he loves him THE BEST!

As you help Jerry climb the human pyramid without toppling it over, there’ll be obstacles. Somebody might offer Jerry a donut and your controls will go CRAZY! Or maybe Jerry’s mother will be in the center of the human pyramid, and she’ll be crying about how proud she is of Jerry, and you have to give her a hug until she stops crying, otherwise it’ll make EVERYBODY START CRYING!

You know, lots of hurdles, man, Jerry has a hard life, but no matter what, the King will always love him more than any other townsperson.

“FUCK YOU JERRY,” say the townspeople. “You’re my favorite, Jerry.” says the King. Jerry smiles.

Visit the Double Fine Amnesia Fortnight site right now to find more information on all the pitches — including more video of the four games above — and donate to get video updates & downloadable prototypes as they are made available. Over-average spenders get access to Ward’s eventual game from the pool above, and a DVD/Blu-ray combo available for people who spend $35 or above.

The post Venus Patrol Presents: The Four Games Pendleton Ward Really Wants To Make with Double Fine appeared first on VENUS PATROL.

Today’s releases all share an antique theme: we’ve got old genres represented anew, weathered games given new coats of paint, and cult classics resurrected for new markets.

Oh, and then there’s Octodad.

But first, ad astra! Despite its distinctly planet-bound name, Horizon is a 4X space game in the vein of Master of Orion or Galactic Civilizations. It claims a lot of the same features that made those games great, like turn-based tactical combat, ship customization, and interspecies diplomacy. For the next week it’s $26.99 on Steam.

There’s no real launch trailer as yet–at least, none with actual gameplay–so after the jump you’ll find a gameplay overview from last summer, plus the rest of today’s trailers.

I find shmups a bit unapproachable these days, mainly because after the 16-bit era they all seem to have descended into spasmodic, seizure-inducing chaos. 2004′s Jets’n'Guns Gold is among the very few I’ve enjoyed. It’s an irreverent Czech production with pre-mission ship loadouts, solid mechanics and a great soundtrack, and it’s great to see it finally on Steam. For just $3.49 you really can’t go wrong.

SiN Gold is the last major FPS released before Half-Life came along and crowbarred the genre forward into modernity. Even in that simpler era nobody regarded it as a great game–it was ruinously bugged at release, and Epic’s Unreal had stolen much of its thunder–but Richard “Levelord” Gray’s level designs are fun to explore even today. At $9.99 it’s a welcome, if mindless addition to GOG.

Depths of Peril is an ARPG with a simple but fundamental twist: you have to compete in the field against other AI-controlled heroes. If an AI hero beats you to a quest, it’s gone for good. In town various factions of heroes operate from their own war tents, and they can either strike up alliances or compete for dominance. That’s the kind of shake-up that the genre really needs, and it’s a shame Depths of Peril didn’t make a bigger splash when it was released in 2007. It’s long been available on Steam but it’s new this week to GOG, where at $9.99 it’s also $5 cheaper.

Speaking of old Steam games new to GOG, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series is now available there DRM-free. They’re all 50% off, or 70% off if you buy the $14.97  package deal. Set in the ruined environs of Chernobyl, they’re as immersive and deep as any FPS to date. An active mod scene tends to the graphics, gameplay systems and more.

Octodad: Dadliest Catch is a surreal new adventure game that explores the cruel physics of life without an internal skeleton. The early word is that the charm wears off quickly, but whoever said life as a terrestrial cephalopod would be easy? On Steam the game features Steam Workshop support, but on GOG it comes packaged with the first Octodad game. Either way it’s $14.99.

RealMyst: Masterpiece Edition is an updated version of RealMyst, itself an updated version of the most disastrous bestseller in the history of PC gaming. I suppose if you absolutely must walk down that road, this is the version to play. It clocks in at $17.99 on Steam. Seeing as Cyan is still living in the ’90s there’s no trailer, so here’s a Let’s Play to warn you off.

Moonbase Commander may sound like Derek Smart’s latest sobriquet, but it’s actually a turn-based strategy game that was almost completely neglected upon its release in 2002. Despite both those facts it has some devoted adherents. Here it is new to Steam for $5.99, and don’t forget it’s also on GOG.

Around the time I came to The Atlantic, and just after my first book was published, I started seriously doing television and radio for the first time. It was not then uncommon for people to comment on my accent, my syntax, and my all-around need to "Think Of The Children" whenever I spoke. I never came up worrying about any of this. There's a kind of black household where speech is obsessed over, where grandmothers make you deposit a nickel for every "ain't" and "finna," where aunts respond to "Where they at?" with "right behind that preposition."

I actually never understood that one. 

When I started writing it was as an MC. After Rakim, my greatest influences were the rhythms inherent in the common speech all around me. There were drums, as Zora Neale Hurston would say, tucked into these voices, and I have tried since those days as a five-foot MC to bring those same drums to anything I write. I never had much reason to "speak proper," as very few poets, and very few print journalists, cared about such things. In general, I thought that what was "proper" on the basketball court was not what was "proper" in a job interview, and that was not what was "proper" for writers, like me, and that, still, would never be proper for the lawyer approaching the bench. I believe my son should learn "standard English," much for the same reason I believe he should learn "standard French" and "standard Spanish." On the whole, knowledge beats ignorance every time. 

The other day, I watched an episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee for the first, and regrettably last, time. (Jerry, how I used to love you.) The episode featured the Francophone comedian Gad Elmaleh. At one point Elmaleh said to Seinfeld, "I don't understand baseball and I know you would never explain me how it works." In many African-American homes, Gad would have been out of a nickel. I found it amusing. In French, to ask someone to explain something, you can say, "Expliquez-moi"—which literally reads in English as "Explain me." There was nothing wrong about Elmaleh's actual thoughts, nor the message he was trying to convey. He was not speaking bad English, he was speaking in French grammar and using English words.  And this—like a man driving to the hoop in coat and tails—was amusing. 

This has been one of the small great lessons in studying French. People don't so much speak bad English, or bad "any language," as they resort to their familiar clothes, activity be damned. When the Ukrainian says "Why always Boris?" instead of "Why do they always call me Boris?" he is not being immoral, nor corrupting the children, so much as he is telling you something about his native tongue. And when the African-American tells you, "My wife been done gone" he too, is carrying other languages, though we are not yet sure which. But packaging matters to us, and language is but a specimen of this fact. 

I was reading some pages from Anne Applebaum, the other day, on perceptions of the Russians as they drove the Germans back through Poland and then into Germany at the end of World War II.

Dig this:

When describing what happened, many spoke of a “new Mongol invasion,” using language tinged with xenophobia to evoke the unprecedented scale of the violence. George Kennan was reminded of the “Asiatic hordes.” Sándor Márai remembered them being “like a completely different human race whose reflexes and responses didn’t make any sense.” John Lukacs recalled “dark, round, Mongol faces, with narrow eyes, incurious and hostile.

Kennan thought that Soviet brutality had no parallel in modern Europe. The Red Army certainly was brutal, but not unparalleled. In under a decade, Hitler murdered some 11 million people. I'm not sure that his victims ever saw much sense in their executioners, either. And one need not go back to the time of Asiatic hordes to find devastation in Europe. It was Count Tilly,  hailing from modern-day Belgium, who gave us the phrase "Magdeburg Justice," an episode born in a conflict at the very heart of Europe which served to reduce the German population by as much as one quarter. A consistent theme in my reading is that of a "Western Europe," where brutality is logical, if immoral, and "Eastern Europe," where brutality hints at something inexplicable, Oriental, dark, and primitive. I think I know something of that.

If you get a chance, check out this video of Pussy Riot on The Colbert Show. It's cool to watch the translations back and forth. (I suspect they have some English skills also, but prefer to speak in Russian.) The humor is never lost, which is to say the thoughts are never lost and are, on some level, the same. Humor sometimes depends on culture, but culture is not inexplicable and the thoughts undergirding humor do not pause for geography.

Why do we impute morality into language? I suspect for the same reasons we need to see the Russian "hordes" as Asiatic aliens, and Stalin, not simply as evil, but as evil that defies comprehension. But if you look closely, there is always science, there is always a method. Applebaum's great success is that instead of offering a litany of Soviet evils, she explains them. Soviet communism functioned like missionary Christianity—a veneer of respectability for a ruthless imperialism. And reading this, I can see how I too might have been swept away.

Yesterday it was a chapter where Applebaum discusses the secret camps in the Soviet Union where international communists were educated. The international communists felt privileged by the allure of clandestine knowledge held in the inner sanctums of the party. I thought, "That could have been me, too." And, as I've said before,  I think that's the point of it all. To find yourself there, in another language, in another place, and feel the fragility of your morality, to feel the common nature in even your most treasured thoughts.