Two Cents

The Fires Will Consume You In Igneous

Nabeel Burney Leave a comment

IgneousRichard linked me to a video of this today, and I felt compelled to pass it on. Igneous is short little game by a group of DigiPen Institute seniors calling themselves Going Down In Flames. Inadequately described as an “action platformer”, the game has you rolling a little stone totem guy through a vast underground cavern, with flowing lava bearing down on you all the way. There are four main areas – any of which you can pick from a chapter menu – and two difficulty settings. The graphics and physics are impressive considering it has all been done from scratch in 16 months; the game is definitely worth a look.

It may seem like there isn’t much more to the game than vaulting forward at top speed, but it isn’t as simple as that. Not only must you keep up the pace so as to stay ahead of the lava and crumbling floor, but you must jump over cracks and chasms – some of which may be created suddenly by falling rocks. Add to this a thumping soundtrack of tribal drums that brings a certain urgency, and you have a game with a real sense of speed not unlike that found in the Burnout games.

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The download clocks in at 114MB, and can be obtained here, but do have a look at the hefty system requirements first. The video trailer that enticed me is embedded after the jump.

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Small Worlds

Nabeel Burney Leave a comment

Thanks to @SorenJohnson for the heads-up on this lovely little game. Small Worlds is a pixely exploration game with the most rudimentary graphics and controls, created by David Shute for the Casual Gameplay Design competition. You play as a three-pixel-high sprite that could pass as a human if you squint hard enough, moving him around an environment that slowly reveals itself as you progress.

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At first there is nothing remarkable about finding the way forward, with indistinct backgrounds and no clear goal. But as you play the black fog of war clears away, and view pulls out, making the pixels smaller and more defined. At a certain distance you realise that the three pixels are enough to describe your protagonist and the low-def world has a charm all of its own.

The way the game leads you along a path that winds back and forth and up and around and over things, makes the deliberate revelation of the background more evident. Stepping into a flashing object sends you to a new place, and completing that area brings you back, now with a goal in mind. The haunting and thematic music complements the quiet and atmospheric environments, and you feel there is a story being told even if it’s not quite so straightforward.

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Slowdown Slowdown

Martyn Zachary Leave a comment

While you have probably noticed the tell-tale signs of a steady stream of “Quote of the Day” posts (as fun as they are to post…!), I would just like to take a moment to clarify the situation somewhat: Richard, Nabeel and I have all been beyond busy lately. I’m telling you, it feels so good to be able to write that down, even if it doesn’t change a thing: Busy!

(Kinda dig the earlier one – it doesn’t read “TORMENT” all over it…)

To write about games, you have to think about games. To do that, you do have to read and discuss them, too. Doing that properly means you have to play them first. The problem? The above chain of events simply never even gets rolling when you’re pressed for time! We try to take each and every post seriously and this sometimes means more work and delays.

Right now, our @slowdownvg Twitter feed is slightly more active than the front page, as is my own @martynzachary – if only barely.

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The Celeb Pong Trap

Martyn Zachary 2 Comments

pongThere’s a recurring pattern to interviews that never fails to amuse us me: Often, when musicians, actors, artists or other celebrities get polled for their favourite video games, there is a great, great tendency on the interviewers’ part to home in on their formative experiences.

“What was the first game you played?”, we often ask.

This is all fine and dandy – that is, up until someone falls prey to Pong. Don’t get me wrong; having to quickly bring up a childhood experience can be extremely difficult, especially so in the context of a fast-paced interview, and it’s only natural that these factors result in the interviewee resorting to examples that seem both fitting and illustrative. Only, due to the very relative age of the video game landscape, this effectively means games such as Pong, Space Invaders, Mario or Zelda, all suitably ubiquitous, canonized and readily accepted.

“…Pong. We were obsessed with it. That was it, man.” 1)http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2009/03/21/metallicas-james-hetfield-calls-guitar-hero-a-gateway-drug-inside-the-bands-new-game/ –James Hetfield

“Let’s go back to the beginning…Pong.” 2)http://videogames.yahoo.com/celebrity-byte/dwayne-the-rock-johnson/532302 “I looooove video games, absolutely. POOONG!” 3)http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2009/03/13/dwayne-the-rock-johnson-honestly-discusses-infamous-doom-movie/ –Dwayne Johnson

Part of the problem is the established practice of luring interviewees with leading questions. The other part, then, might have to do with the interviewee’s need to satiate the perceived target group of the interview. And heck, we gamers are notoriously hard to please!

“I’m still playing Pong.” 4)http://www.latinoreview.com/news/interview-michael-clarke-duncan-neal-mcdonough-and-taboo-on-street-fighter-the-legend-of-chun-li-6259 –Neal McDonough

“Frankly I would rather go fishing than play Pac-Man, or I’d rather go play golf with Alice Cooper than play Pac-Man. And I hate golf and everything to do with it. I hate golfers. [laughs] I’m just not a game kind of guy.” 5)http://www.rockband.com/zine/tull-interview-part-two –Ian Anderson

Surely, we still boot our NES from time, but whoever plays Pong these days? In this way, it’s ultimately our fault that our questions do not allow for more breathing space and room to our interviewees. Should we not allow our interviewees to cite games that we’ve never played ourselves, games that we have never even heard of? Games not called Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Halo or Grand Theft Auto? After all, there has to be someone out there to cite a Russian real-time strategy, or a German-only point and click.

“Galaga, Space Invaders, Pac-Man … I’m not much into games now” 6)http://videogames.yahoo.com/celebrity-byte/hugh-jackman/1308738 –Hugh Jackman

“I was a huge Defender, Galaxian and Space Invaders fan back in the day.” 7)http://videogames.yahoo.com/celebrity-byte/slash/1158324 –Slash

Next time you read or hear anybody cite a game in this manner, you’ll knowingly shake your head, smirk and think to yourself: It’s a trap – the celeb Pong trap!

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