.tiff

Currently superimposing Diplo into all PS2 games

*Chortles* This is a treat! You know those Tawainese Next Media Animation folks responsible for those less-than-Pixar computer animations of various celebrity drama? Well they've made it big this time with their animation for Lil Jon's "U Don't Like Me" music video. And guess what? It features playable versions of Lil Jon and Diplo in five versus trials, including an under the sea battle with a harpoon. How awesome is that? Plus they've made it really easy for me to start fantisizing about Diplo showing up in Deadly Premonition as Agent York's long lost sidekick. That would be really great.

U Don't Like Me via The Awl

Breaking: Tiff ruins all chances of founding North Chowistan

North Chowistan was within a tweet's reach... until Twitter ruined everything. 

The following series of events just took place within the last half an hour (or so):

1. @DavidHasselhoff, the verfiied Twitter account of one David Hasselfhoff, starts following me. I've heard he's been following an awful lot of game folk recently, so although I'm surprised I don't necessarily feel special. If you check his following list you'll notice a whole landslide of gaming folk. I guess he must like us.
2. I screencap and post the email notification on my Flickr & Tumblr accounts.
3. Steve, my next door cubicle neighbor, walks up to me and starts going on about how awesome it is that The Hoff is following me, and that this signfies my ripe opportunity to the begin a long saga of celebrity scandal which I should immediately initiate. It may take me five years and I may lose all of my dignity, but I could own a Hawaiian island by the end of it...
4. ...or I could establish, as Walt suggested, "North Chowistan".
5. I'm not really into the idea, so the best I can do for Steve is to ask my new twitter friend a favor, that he follow Steve. I type that tweet and send it out. No response yet.
6. Immediately after I notice that Walt has sent out the following tweet: "OH: "I'm just saying North Chowistan isn't going to happen without a David Hasselhoff scandal."
7. Oh-ho-ho, LAFFS! That's a good OH if I don't say so myself. I'm gonna favorite this. And then, retweet it!
8. WAIT, WHY DID I RETWEET??? WHAT WAS I THINKING. @DAVIDHASSELHOFF IS FOLLOWING ME. HE WILL KNOW ABOUT THE SCANDAL.
9. North Chowistan is no more.

Let it be known that mid-October was the time .tiff ruined any potential with any respective celebrities she interacted with that month (aside from Isaiah Mustafa, he smiled at me!!!). Despite the quick crumbling of the great North Chowistan nation, I'm still taking submissions for its national anthem. Anyone want to take a go?

(Okay, random. Sorry! Back to work.)

IndieCade was great.

The incredible awards from the IndieCade award ceremony. To the left we have the Innovative Gameplay award for Marc Ten Bosc's Miegakure, and to the right we have the Sublime Experience award for Steph Thirion's Faraway.

This was my second year attending the IndieCade conference down in Culver City, and as one can expect from these kinds of things, this one was even better than the last. Mingling along the ranks of courageous developers and other aspiring game makers (like myself), it's hard to leave IndieCade without the motivation to just get excited and make things. And with games spread across the city's gallery spaces while swarms of people play ARG games into the night, you become overwhelmingly charmed by the spirit of imaginative play that colors this conference like no other.

I spent the majority of my time attending lectures and playing games alongside Steph, Cory, and Maré. Of course there was plenty of buddy mingling too with the likes of Brandon Boyer, Richard Lemarchand, Adam Robezzoli of Attract Mode, and many other game folks where just standing next to them is like inspiration by osmosis. My favorite lecture was That Game Company's presentation around their upcoming game Journey, which demonstrated just how much care is put into designing a game that feels organically cooperative (The Brainy Gamer has a great summary of the talk here.) And of course, Mr. Boyer's talk "All Play is Personal" served as a loving reminder that now is really the time to make a game if you've ever want to.

The Indicade award show was also better orchestrated than last year, having the perks of Levar Burton hosting and leading an all-audience Reading Rainbow sing-a-long, Old Spice actor Isaiah Mustafa (!), and a of course Ron Gilbert awarding Tim Schafer the Trailblazer award. The fact that Steph received the "Sublime Experience" award for his game Faraway was another unexpected but delightful treat. I can't tell you how proud of him I am.

Overall, a terrific experience. Well done Indiecade! I am definitely looking forward to what's in store next year.

P.S. Aside from the live demonstration of Humanoid Asteroid, the coolest thing that I saw this past weekend by far was this awesome Out Run go car. The photo below was taken by Ted Martens (another inspiring game maker!), but you check out this video by Cory to see how fast it went! Also, random, does anyone else see Richard Lemarchand as the Tim Gunn of indie games? I'd watch Project Gamemaker the show (I would!)!

Hohokum is looking good!

A quick HH gameplay test from richard Hogg on Vimeo.

From the creators of the charming Poto & Cabenga (one of the select games showcased at this year's Gamma IV show) comes the curiously colorful Hohokum. From the demo video above one can grok that this game involves a courageous one-eyed flying worm-thing that rescues helpless sky people, and judging by how the worm quickly meanders across the screen I'm going to guess that this might be (maybe?) motion controlled (either via a handheld or a controller). (Update: My friend Bill pointed out to me that the video showcases what looks to be an Xbox 360 controller in the left-hand corner... )

That's all I can deduce about the gameplay at the moment, but I really love what artist Richard Hogg is bringing to Hohokum's game world. Oh, you love it too? Thankfully Mr. Hogg has supplied some savvy desktop art for the early-Hohokum-lovers out there. Lucky us.

Note: View the video here on vimeo if you're having trouble seeing it on the blog. Don't know what's up!

Hohokum via GameSetWatch

Vibrant sidewalk drawings of Donkey Kong, Pac Man and more.

via gamescenes

A very vibrant shot of some sidewalk chalk drawings featuring the all too familiar gaming classics, discovered on the streets of Raleigh, North Carolina during SPARKcon. Fun stuff! Photo by Dan Hacker, found on Matteo Bittani's game art blog gamescenes, which you should all be keeping an eye on.