Gold_Skulltulla

What I want to know is, what real gun would best go with this map pack? Maybe EA could recommend something...

I wrote up a recap pf a recent game jam event at the New Museum in NYC here.

Last night at the New Museum, Pitchfork and Kill Screen teamed up to offer an evening of free drinks, video games, and music. The main impetus for the get together was an extension of the Soundplay project that commissions indie game talent to craft interactive experiences based on songs from indie musicians. Yes, the whole thing was pretty "indie," but that's not a bad thing. This particular event was structured around a game jam that happened over the two days prior. Four teams had 48 hours to produce games based off of music from the band Passion Pit's new album Gossamer. The night of the party was a chance for attendees to play all of the Soundplay titles, including the ones made during the jam, while also taking in a live performance by Chromatics and a DJ set by Oneohtrix Point Never. Since you're the sort of person who would read a blog entry like this, that billing should all sound pretty great.

I sat down to play all of the game jam titles, and though all four mostly matched the upbeat, candy-colored vibe of the band, each took markedly different gameplay approaches to the source material. In the first one I played, you control some Katamari-looking dudes and press the spacebar to juggle approaching objects. Higher scores are awarded for the more objects you keep off the ground until certain checkpoints in the song. The next game had a flowery, psychedelic setting with a figure on a tightrope that walks towards you as you toggle the "left" and "right" keys for balance. If you fall off, the song stops and you must start over. Beside that game was one that told the story of a sad bunny that you cover with candy to make happy again. Shelves of sweets are on both sides of the stationary rabbit, and you drag and drop them into place. The candy blocks have physics programmed into them, so making a perfect stack that doesn't tip over was quite the challenge. Music played in the background, but at climax points of the song, a quake strikes and probably undoes all your hard work. Lastly, the fourth game was a forced-scrolling don't-hit-the-walls navigation exercise that seemed like it was supposed to be incorporating video from the computer's webcam in the background, but it wasn't working when I played it.

While tonally these games kept in line with the vibe of Passion Pit music, they seemed more inclined to simply take inspiration from the music than to really incorporate it as a part of the mechanics. The notion of games as promotional material for music in the vein of music videos is a concept in its early stages. Should these games be "music games" as we understand them? They could take inspiration from the likes of Guitar Hero and Rock Band and challenge players to replicate the songs they hear. They could draw from Dance Dance Revolution and Dance Central and co-opt body movements that correspond to beats. Recently, Soundshapes has further evolved concepts born out of games like Rez where playing a more traditional genre game, such as a platformer or shooter, generates music just by going about as usual. But we're talking about game jam games here, and design docs that can be written and delivered quickly and completely are paramount. I did really like it when the music triggered screen-shake in the rabbit game though.

Nothing against the games, but I got the feeling from the crowd that the Chromatics performance was probably the main draw for most. I can't really ague with that sentiment either since Johnny Jewel et al put on a moody, energetic show. Readers of this blog can look forward to me gushing about Kill For Love come year-end list time as it's definitely one of the best albums of 2012. I didn't stay for too much of Oneohtrix Point Never's set up on the gorgeous 7th floor sky view terrace, but stuck around long enough to hear "Ghost City" mixed into some hardcore Goa trance, which was pretty amazing. The only thing that would have made the event better would have been the New Museum opening access to its Ghosts in the Machine exhibition, which would have been a nice pairing with all the games and electronic music happenings.

I'm told the game jam games will be available to play online hopefully by the end of the month along with a short documentary about their development process. I'll be writing an in-depth piece on the existing Soundplay games in the near future.

:images 1 & 2 taken by me; Chromatics pic by Eriz Avissar for Pitchfork:

:this was originally posted here. I don't know why the captions on GB don't work for me:

Using it on my desktop now, thanks!

Yeah, I made mention of the show around here when it first opened, but didn't get a ton of response. Maybe there's not a big GB contingency in DC though. The show is totally worth seeing. I mean, it's free, c'mon. I went during the opening, so it's cool to see the guest book filled in so far.

@ZombiePie I worked at the Smithsonian for 3 years (left just a month ago to move to NY) and have to say that due to the size of the Institution, individual museums make their own curatorial choices. Sounds like your beef is with the National Museum of American History, which I had very little association with. I was at the Hirshhorn (modern and contemporary art) which has really stepped up it's game this year. Sorry, had to come to the defense a little bit there.

Anyone who dismisses these because they look video game-y is missing the point. I think it's a noble pursuit to try and simulate real-world aesthetics in video game photography (you're always limited to the graphical quality of the original game), but I'd be more interested in seeing what fantastic things in-game cameras are capable of that real cameras can't do. Most "artistic" game screens are of environmental architecture, which rarely does anything for me with real-world photography, so I think the trick is actually finding subject matter in games that's worth taking pictures of. I think you're on the right track with images like 2 and 4 and the vertical one. Interesting stuff.

@Terranova: I was afraid that might be the case. Fingers crossed they hand WipeOut over to another talented team. Can Sony even cal their next console a "Playstation" if there's not a WipeOut game being developed for it?!

Anyone know for sure whether the entire staff was laid off? Seems like they're going to keep using the facilities, so maybe staff will just be moved around? Hopefully this won't be the end of WipeOut.

Yiazmat was a really great challenge. I died on its last bar of health (well over an hour of battle) before defeating it on the next go around. I remember it taking something like 2 hours on my successful attempt. Unfortunately it made the rest of that game's story and battles pitifully trivial.

Obviously I'm also a fan of Ozma, but that's more because it's a giant sphere.

I wrote up a recap of the 2012 Games For Change Festival