View from my window

Very Canabaltish

I know this is just silly, but I have woken up recently and saw this from my window in the morning:


All right, so there wasn't this little dude in sight (no huge robots or alien ships either), but the colours and cranes and the overall ambiance immediately made me recall Canabalt:


I am sharing it here, because where else could the serious, young IT professional admit having games flashbacks in real life than on his small gaming blog, eh?

Also, I have found Canabalt fanarts that I wanted to link to. Still love MRW's one, but some of those are pretty neat, too.

More Window Pixel Art in Project P.I.W.O.

Project B.E.E.R. in English, you know them students

Remember that post on window pixel art I wrote long time ago? Among other things, I mentioned there Project P.I.W.O. - huge kick-ass display made of student dormitory windows. Just recently I have stumbled upon the information on its fourth edition: it seems that the project is alive and kicking, and what is more it is expanding.


Truth be told, after watching the videos from this edition, I can't shake off the feeling that there is only so much one can do with limited resolution display such as the one available and that the guys are slowly running out of ideas. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the Matrix effect and stick people fighting. It all starts here, the second and third parts are available here and here, and the final part (includes Knightrider theme!) can be watched here.

[ via Polygamia ]

The Humble Indie Bundle wrap up

Those with free system coughed up the most

The promotion called the Humble Indie Bundle, in which for five indie titles were available for grabs in "pay what you want" scheme and part of money went to charity, has ended on last Saturday. As soon as the event came to my attention, I wrote about it on Barts News and everywhere else I could, including Polish gaming site Polygamia. Now that the whole thing is over, it is time for wrap-up.


As for the results, the authors say that:

The Humble Indie Bundle experiment has been a massive success beyond our craziest expectations. So far, 138,813 generous contributors have put down an incredible $1,273,613. Of this, contributors chose to allocate 30.85% to charity: $392,953 for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Child's Play Charity.

It is true that in the meantime one small game was added (Samorost 2 by Czech studio Amanita Design, creators of Machinarium) and that the whole event run for a little longer than initially intended, but even so, the amount of money collected is just staggering. Of course, there were some bastards pirating the whole thing despite the fact they could pay whatever, but the guys behind the Humble Indie Bundle remained relatively unfazed.

Interestingly, while the market of operating systems is split between Windows, Mac and Linux by respectively ninety one, six and one percent (it differs by source, I used estimates from Wikipedia), these proportions were different among the Humble Indie Bundle participants, namely: sixty two, twenty two and sixteen percent. Furthermore, the average donated money also varied among the population with Linux users leading with fourteen and half dollars, Mac users following with ten dollars and Windows users coughing up eight dollars per capita. This lead to the total amount of money coming roughly in two quarters from the followers of Steve Jobs and Linus Torvalds with the remaining half being donated by the followers of Bill Gates.


Four Color Rebelion has some interesting thoughts on the matter. As a former Linux user currently using both Windows and MacOSX, I would just add that Linux gamers don't have much choice when it comes to games and will therefore respond much more strongly to anyone presenting them a good offer, especially if treated with respect (as it was the case here). It also applies to some extent to Mac crowd, but a little less so, since they have more alternatives and are more used to quality products. As for Windows gamers, they are spoilt with the overabundance of games available, including discounted triple A titles in ridiculous prices - hence less rush to get some indie thingies.

Whatever the explanations, the important thing is that "pay what you want" model got popularized, indie game creators made significant amounts of money, publishers were shown that restrictive DRM is not necessary in order to meet good sales, two charities received unexpected financial injections and almost one hundred fourty thousand of gamers got quality games to play. I reckon it is safe to be making a note here: huge success.

Also, if you can read Polish, then you can also have a look at the wrap-up that I wrote for Polygamia. If not, then I am afraid this post will have to do. Don't worry though, they are similar enough.

Adler and Androids

Sounds like a band from the eighties

Do you remember the news about Robert Adler drawing new Blade Runner comic? More details have emerged: Wikipedia already has updated information (including a couple of interesting links) and the comic website Broken Frontier has images of first couple of pages. And they are looking good:


If at any time these images disappear or the site goes down, let me know via comments - I have copied them all to a special folder I have dedicated to Robert Adler's work and will share them here. Not a complete scan of the comic, because that would be thievery, but a teaser trailer in form of first couple pages to spread the word.

I have to confess that I am really excited about it - I always though that Adler, Piatkowski (not sure who that is? check the previous post and the go see his blog), Sledzinski (also known as MrHerring) and some other Polish artists deserve world-wide recognition. I am really glad at least some of them do now, but when I first heard about Robert drawing "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" I admit I was cautiously optimistic. To be honest, I had some doubts as to whether this is for real. But seeing it take shape I am now positively thrilled and can't wait to buy a copy. Or two. And get them signed.

And if you want to see more art from Robert Adler after seeing this preview, be sure to check his official blog and his less official blog - there's a lot of images of big guns and pretty naked girls to keep you entertained until the comic book arrives.

[ via BrokenFrontier ]

Zeno Clash Ultimate Edition OST available for free

Unfortunately the offer is time-limited

Zeno Clash is a strange first person beat'em up PC game set in a surrealist world. Its weirdness and indie-like aesthetic has caught my attention, but I have to admit that unfortunately the box still sits unsealed on my shelf due to lack of time. Blame Starcraft II Beta for that.


The updated version of the game, Zeno Clash Ultimate Edition, has recently been released on Xbox Live Arcade by Atlus (you can see the trailer here). To celebrate the occasion the soundtrack by Patricio Meneses is up for grabs on the official website, but only until the 31th of May. Hurry while the offer lasts, because it is good - I did download the OST just in case I'd fall in love with game and I am now listening to it. It might actually persuade me to finally unwrap Zeno Clash and start playing, who knows...

[ via IndieGames ]

Remixed Fallout music available for free

Ah, the nostalgy

A very talented Mark Morgan, author of game music to titles such as Planescape Torment (which I wrote about here), two first Fallouts and Zork series, has just released remastered and remixed tracks from the aforementioned Fallout I and II.


The music can be downloaded from Aural Network website (direct link is available here). It weights hefty 170Mb, so be sure to at least thank them for consuming their bandwidth. It would probably be nice to thank the author, too.

Now I just need to actually finish both Fallouts. I admit to not getting very far and giving up. If only I had some more time... Still, the music is very beautiful and an excellent ambient background for work. For those that have more vivid memories related to Fallout, these tracks surely must resonate more. Thanks a lot, Mark!

[ via Polygamia.pl ]

The Humble Indie Bundle

Indie games for charity

If, by any chance, you have been considering buying World of Goo, Aquaria, Gish, Penumbra or Lugaru and haven't done it yet, now's your chance to do that and at the same time contribute to charity. The Humble Indie Bundle is a game package that contains all these titles and is currently on sale in "name your own price" scheme, similarly to what Radiohead did with their album in 2007.


What's different this time is the fact that part of the money goes to two charity organisations, namely Electronic Frontier Foundation (they forced Sony to stop using and pay up for rootkits in audio CDs) and Child's Play (founded by Penny Arcade's Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins, this foundation donates toys, games and books to child hospitals around the world).

The titles in the package are all excellent: the first three games (World of Goo, Aquaria and Gish) scored over 80% on Metacritic and received many awards. I have heard good things about the Lugaru and Penumbra as well. Furthermore, they all come without DRM and in Windows, MacOSX and Linux versions. Additionally, the percentage of money going to developers and charity can be tweaked to everyone's liking.

With "pay what you want" model and all the aforementioned cool things, I think this is a real bargain. I did spend last dollars I had on my PayPal account yesterday and have been spreading the word ever since (other than Barts News, also here, here, here, and here). I think you, dear reader, should do the same, if you like indie games and idea of charity. Just remember that there are only six five days left to grab it!

[ via RockPaperShotgun ]

From Pohl to Lem via Tetrix

Or the other way round

When I started Barts News, I wrote in my initial note that there might be book reviews appearing on this blog. I have abandoned the idea, because describing in English books that I read in Polish seemed a little weird. I did recommend a few books in my other blog in Polish, though, but somehow after a year I lost the drive to do it. Nevertheless, this post will be the first one to bring up the topic of books and writers other than strictly game-related or to which I have contributed.

This story starts with a discovery of unpublished work of Stanislaw Lem, famous Polish science-fiction author. If you don't know who he was, shame on you, go and read this note on Wikipedia (I love the fragment about Philip K. Dick considering Lem to be "a composite committee operating on orders of the Communist party to gain control over public opinion" and writing about it to FBI) or visit his official website. Or better yet, fetch any of Lem's books and give it a try, they have been translated into gazillion of languages. I kid you not, when I was working in a telecommunications laboratory in Japan, I found out that one of my geeky coworkers was a fan and had many of Lem's books in Japanese version.

"Until I used the internet, I didn't realise there are so many idiots in the world."
Quote from Stanislaw Lem, image courtesy of Piksele.

Following the mention of the discovery, Frederick Pohl (if you don't know who HE is then double shame on you and perhaps you should be reading some other blog) expressed interest in seeing the translation of Lem's new found work on his blog. A gentleman hiding under online moniker Tetrix came to rescue and translated the aforementioned piece of literature so that one of the fathers of science-fiction as we know it could read it in his mother tongue. I have learnt about it from my buddy Marceli who in turn is buddy of Tetrix and now I am spreading the word, because it would be a shame not to.

So if you want to read a lost satirical piece from the communist era by one of the greatest Polish science-fiction authors ever, click on this link and scroll down. I could probably copy it here, as Marceli's blog is using Creative Commons license, but the text is a little too long and would break my main page's structure, so read it there.

As for me, I will reveal a little glimpse of my reading tastes and share with you that my personal favourite among Lem's works are Tales of Pirx the Pilot, especially the story called Terminus. It is an incredibly atmospheric piece in retro sci-fi setting with a twist that is worth of Philip K. Dick's Ubik. Do yourself a favour and read it - it is as good as science-fiction can get.

Four game-related movies

For four-day weekend

More serious posts are cooking, there should be a long feature of mine appearing on one of the biggest game portals in Poland any time soon - and in the meantime here are four really neat game-related movies to keep you busy during four days of this long weekend (in Poland 1st and 3rd May are national holidays, plus my company grants me an extra day, so I am having an extra long weekend).

Recently, I have stopped embedding videos in my posts for two reasons: firstly, because I can't shake off the feeling it detracts from the quality of the blog, which should, after all, mostly be about written text, and secondly, I have grown tired of YouTube videos disappearing without a warning, thus leaving empty posts, which makes a very bad impression on readers.

However, these four movies are all very strongly related to games, as well as very imaginative and creative, hence my decision of sharing them here. Having learnt a lesson on disappearing videos, this time I will post clickable screens that will take you to each video, as well as the author, title and short description. Therefore, if at some point in the future someone reads this post, they won't see black square saying "video removed" and will be able to track these movies on some other service (my favourite Vimeo, perhaps?). After this short explanation, let's move on to the videos in question.

Pixels

Excellent short movie by very talented Patrick Jean, in which evil video game characters from classic titles invade New York and planet Earth, progressively changing everything into pixelized forms in their likeness. Other than Space Invaders, there is Donkey Kong raging on top of Empire State Building (not unlike a certain other big monkey), as well as other famous game icons making cameo appearences - seeing Arkanoid paddle demolish Brooklyn Bridge made me chuckle a bit.

8-bit trip

Other than old school games, there is other thing that all nerds and geeks love - LEGO! This ingenious videoclip by Swedish duo Rymdreglage is a stop-motion animation made in Lego bricks that references numerous retro game motives. It features excellent chiptune music and is indeed quite trippy.

Dan The Man

This very clever and funny movie made in classic video game style tackles a very serious topic: unhealthy relationship with a shallow girl coveting more and more earthly goods. It is about happy endings and the lack thereof. Have you ever wondered what happens after archetypal male game character have beaten the final boss and reclaimed his love interest? Now you can find out in this excellent animation from Studio Joho.

My animated world

This movie is the oldest among the four, dating back to July 2006, prehistoric times when this blog did not exist yet. Nevertheless, it is an instant classic, definitely worth seeing. Created by just one person, a very gifted Jelle van Dun, this stop-motion video tells the story of one day from life of a young man infatuated with games. I still am giggling at some of the scenes, such as the one where his food starts playing Pong...

Enjoy these movies and come back soon, there will definitely be something new to read!