Auntie Pixelante (aka “dessgeega”) has been peppering her blog with thoughtful commentary about Super Mario Bros. ROM hacks. Now, I don’t know about you, but when I think of NES ROM hacks, I usually imagine something like this (which, I have to admit, is amusing in its own terrible way). But what Auntie P. shows us is that, at least with a game as ubiquitous as Super Mario Bros., there are some more interesting and… er, subtle remixes out there.
Enigmario replaces Koji Kondo’s music with chiptune versions of Enigma’s MCMXC a.D., a concept album from the early 90’s. It gives the game a very different feel. (Auntie’s Analysis)
Super Greyscale Brothers presents a monochrome version of SMB. There’s not too much more to say about it than that, but it’s an interesting effect.
Last but not least, The Pixel Kingdom changes every sprite in the game into a single-colored rectangle. This, and Silhouette Mario, I think, really show off how iconic and well-understood the graphics in Mario are.
In conclusion: hacks can be delightful, and Super Mario Bros. 1 remains one of the most interesting conceptual playgrounds in video games (and probably elsewhere).
To play these, you need an emulator, an ips patcher, and, for The Pixel Kingdom, Super Greyscale Brothers, and Enigmario, a clean copy of the Super Mario 1 ROM, which you may or may not find if you hunt around in this thread.
Here’s a rather amusing experiment – The Naked Game is a simple, browser-based Pong reproduction that’s played by two computer AI’s. The twist is that its code is laid bare and the game allows the player to toggle each line on/off, altering the game’s mechanics in real time.
Unfortunately (in my opinion), the developer decided to cover the site with a bunch of very thinly-stretched “games as art” discussion… whether as a joke or what, it’s hard to say, but ultimately it just distracts from what is a pretty nifty idea.
I’d love to see this concept explored a bit more. It’d be kinda cool to build it into a multi-player game, where one person is playing and the other person is messing with the code in real time! Wouldn’t it?
The Graveyard is a new game by Tale of Tales, creators of The Path, which was nominated for an IGF award this year (for visuals). In it, you play an old woman on a walk through the titular cemetary. Her destination is a small bench at the foot of a mausoleum inside.
Tale of Tales’ Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn are well-regarded for their unique approach to games. In the Graveyard, they ask us to contemplate the various themes at play while we move through the cemetery. It’s a worthwhile experiment and an interesting narrative, made all the better by the lush black and white visuals. There are little details in there that are really wonderful.
But unfortunately, I think the forced linearity and lack of direct control holds the experience back significantly. This is a case where, in my opinion, a little more “gaminess” would have actually let me appreciate The Graveyard better for what it is supposed to be (“interactive poetry,” or what have you). As it is, I feel that a movie might have conveyed the experience better, almost. Almost.
The full version of the game is $5 and adds the possibility that the old woman will die. It’s a minute change. But I was happy to pay it to support the developers. I think it’s pretty cool what they’re trying to do (even though I feel they haven’t gotten it quite right yet).
Heather Kelley, aka “moboid,” aka one part of the experimental game group Kokoromi, has put together an event called “The Art of Play,” which will take place at Carnegie Mellon University on March 31st and April 1st.
The aim of this Symposium and Arcade is to survey the games that brought us to this moment with their unique creative vision, and to frame the field moving forward, as game makers finally abandon the question “CAN games be art,” and begin to ask ourselves in how many ways they WILL be.
Sounds good to me! If you’re in the Pittsburgh area, drop by – the event is free and open to the public.
Guest speakers/panelists include Phil Fish (Fez) and Jason Rohrer (Passage, Gravitation).
The latest entry, part II of his “Art of Braid” series, shows the progression from Jon Blow’s programmer art (which is quite fun!) to what you see today. I love this kind of thing! There’s some good exposition on his creative/development process, too.
Part I of the series reveals Braid Art’s abstract beginnings.
Jason Rohrer, the creator of the moving and bittersweet Passage, has released a new game, called Gravitation. The basic theme behind Gravitation is “mania, melancholia, and the creative process.” To say any more, of course, could potentially ruin the experience, but I can recommend it highly.
Below are several music games akin to Electroplanton. However, they are free and playable in Windows, so you can more easily use a streaming audio recorder to save any enjoyable, random music you might generate.
Kanoguti’s most spectrally encompassing of them is Mono World (pictured to the right). It contains 10 gameplay variations (aka worlds) that can be selected at the top of the menu screen. The mouse is used as the main inface (left-click adds to most worlds and right-click usually resets a world). Pressing “enter” returns to the menu. Note: the download link is at the bottom of Freem’s page next to the drive icon that has an arrow pointing down into it. In other words, look for the link with this icon to its left:
A few of Kanoguti’s similar games are Glass Park (No71), Seasons (No66), and
Q.q (No84). Then there are Wave Searcher, Sound Collage Wave, and Sound Collage Electron, each of which only have one form of play, but the wave files they use can be augmented or replace, which makes them more customizable. The controls are usually similar amongst all these games: some use “esc” instead of “enter” to return to the menu and the last part of Glass Park uses the left mouse button to select creation points while the arrow keys are used to spawn musical elements.
Check the extended for images of the other games.
Edit: Since the direct downloads didn’t work, the post has been changed to help those who had trouble figuring out how to download Kanoguti’s games from his software page. Also, (for those who had trouble with the description for finding them) here are the links to the auto-download pages of Kanoguti’s games on Freem: Mono World and Wave Searcher.
I realize that some may be irritated that I’m not posting something that’s directly about games, although I think it’s very appropriate. But forgive me if it’s not to your taste.
Dan “Data” Tabar sent me a link to this, a shortened version of Kurt Vonnegut’s final interview, and told me that he found it very much in tune with his experience as a game developer. With that in mind, I read the interview, and was struck by how right he was about that. Though Vonnegut did not mention games once, you can bet that what he says rings just as true for this creative pursuit as any other.
“I’ve said that to open a novel is to arrive in a music hall and be handed a viola. You have to perform. [Laughs.] To stare at horizontal lines of phonetic symbols and Arabic numbers and to be able to put a show on in your head, it requires the reader to perform. If you can do it, you can go whaling in the South Pacific with Herman Melville, or you can watch Madame Bovary make a mess of her life in Paris. With pictures and movies, all you have to do is sit there and look at them and it happens to you.”
That’s a really interesting analogy. I feel like games, to a certain extent, hand you that viola, but are also there to play with you, and guide you through the music. In essence, it is both happening to you and you are creating it. I wonder what he would have thought of that.
Anyway, I’ve always looked up to Vonnegut. His plain way of writing and speaking, his insight, and his sense of humor have all appealed to me as an artist and a person. I hope you find some inspiration from him, too.
When a trailer begins with the words “Awake now the sleepy artist / To an insane world of strife” and there is a vicious man cooing about finger painting in the background, you know it’s probably not going to be your average mod for Unreal Tournament 2004.
Introspect puts you in control of an insane artist named Gabriel. In the game, you’ll be exploring Gabriel’s demented psyche, a metaphorical world whose visual style is influenced by American McGee’s Alice. Despite the dark themes, the game is purportedly non-violent, and trades in the flak cannons and link guns of UT2004 for an artist’s palette, which you can use to manipulate your surroundings.
Unfortunately, I can’t play the mod, but for what is ostensibly an “arthouse” game, Introspect seems like it has some actual substance.
The game itself is a mix of Neverhood and Samorost, and has pretty rocking music. Its 600 MB file size accounts for room transitions and cutscenes.
Web site’s currently down, probably because there’s a 1GB monthly bandwidth or something. Guess you can chalk this up as one of those super-rare games that only three people in the world would have. I can host the manual, but definitely not the entire game. (Sorry!)
