Tag: gaming
Gaming as Art – Tag: The Power of Paint
Click play on the video above. You’re watching a walkthrough of an innovative indie game called Tag: The Power of Paint, developed by a group of students from the DigiPen Institute of Technology.
It’s a first-person platformer where you spray your surroundings with different coloured paint to progress. Green paint makes you jump, red paint makes you go faster, and blue paint allows you to climb walls. It’s all cel-shaded, and looks like a wonderful cross between Mirror’s Edge and The Unfinished Swan.
It’s a free 55MB download from here (via Game:Life).
More Games/Art crossover: Counterstrike map based on Van Gogh painting | The Unfinished Swan
Amazon quietly launches casual game downloads
Suddenly, unannounced, Amazon has enabled a casual games download service in the States. It’s got more than 600 available, each costs less than $10, and there’s a try-before-you-buy service available to, where you can play a game for 30 minutes before you buy it.
No sign of anything more hardcore, this is so far just limited to Bejewelled and the like, but if this is a sign of things to come then it could be the shot in the arm that PC gaming needs. Especially if recent figures suggesting that half of PC game purchases are digital is true.
Amazon Games Downloads (via Kotaku)
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Flash Game Challenge: Winterbells
Last week’s Flash Game Challenge was won by the illustrious, the magisterial, the benevolent and formidable commenter David. He rules, ladies and gentlemen. For a week anyway. Want to take his crown? Well then you better be good at making little rabbit sprites jump into bells.
That’s right, this week, the game I’ve picked is Winterbells. To coincide with the mountains of snow outside, this game features frozen water too. Tonnes of it. I managed a top score of 4690, but I just know that you can do a lot better than that. Prove me right in the comments below.
Previous challenges: Armour Academy | The Crossing
DJ Hero coming this year
Not really into guitars? More a fan of the humble DJ? Well, don’t worry – Activision’s got a videogame for you too. The games publisher’s CEO, Bobby Kotick, has confirmed that DJ Hero is in production. He told CNBC:
“We have this product called DJ Hero coming out later this year which is a turntable that you can actually play competitively, spin discs and mix on”
He also talked up the benefits of online play and tacky plastic peripherals. I’m with him on the former, but I’m not sure about the latter. I’m hoping that DJ hero will cater for Indie DJs, too.
(via Gamesindustry.biz)
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Samsung cranks out 32GB DDR3 RAM sticks
Samsung has managed to cram 32GB of memory onto a single RAM stick, by developing a 4Gb RAM chip (4Gb = 512MB). The 32GB capacity is possible by shoehorning two 16GB modules onto one unit. Of course the real effect will probably be an increase in the availability of 16GB RAM sticks, which are much easier and cheaper to create.
Considering most people still run 32-bit operating systems, which can cope with a maximum of 3.8GB of RAM, this development is one to file under ‘wait a few years’, especially as most people will likely plump for 32-bit Windows 7 for compatibility reasons. Despite the scientific progress, the market is still stuck in the 2GB – 4GB range that it has been for a couple of years.
(via Gizmodo)
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World of Warcraft – a religion?
A student from Colorado University has a rather left-field suggestion regarding Blizzard’s insanely popular MMO – it’s a religion.
Invoking French sociologist Danil Hervieu-Lger’s definition of a religion as consisting of community, ethics, culture and emotion, Theo Zijderveld determined that World of Warcraft fits the bill. Find out how over the jump.
Study shows that virtual worlds can influence real-world decisions
A group of scientists at Cambridge University has conducted a study that shows that associations in videogames transfer directly to the real world. A group of volunteers played a (rather basic, from the look of it) cycling game, where they would be given a slurp of fruit juice if a cyclist from their team passed them, but a slurp of salty tea if a rival cyclist passed them.
A few days later, the participants were invited back and given the choice of two chairs in the waiting room, one with the logo of their team, and one with the logo of the rival team. Three quarters of participants picked the chair with their team’s logo, despite most people claiming not to notice the design.
Wii Fit add on to bring real live medical advice to the comfort of your own console
Now it’s not just the gym that needs to worry about what Mario and his pals are up to in your home. Yes, medical practioners of the world need now fear for their jobs, or more likely the ones in private healthcare better start saving, because Nintendo is planning an add on for the Wii Fit apparently called the “Check-Up”.
NEC, Hitachi and Panasonic have got it in development and what it does is to forward on the results from your Wii Fit activities to a medical professional…
FLASH GAME CHALLENGE: Armour Academy
Last week’s Flash Game Challenge victor was won by Neil, with a world-beating score of 16,045,290 on his 3rd try. Not bad at all. Give yourself a pat on the back, Neil.
This week, there’s a more cerebral game for you. It’s a bit like a budget version of amazing TV gameshow Catchphrase, where it presents you with a phrase depicted graphically, and you have to work out which one, of three, it’s supposed to be,
You’ll need your thinking cap on for this – get it wrong, and you lose a life. Lose three lives and you’re out. I scored 24 in 112 seconds on my second go. Beat that, and post your winning score in the comments below.
Armour Academy
Previous Challenges: The Crossing | Topspinner
NES controller varsity jacket will get you punched in the playground
Would you wear this? Even if it was 1987 and the console was at the height of its powers? No, nor me. You’d get a smack in the face just walking down to the corner shop. But it’d be awesome to wear to a fancy dress party. Wait… how much? $200 (£135)!? You can sod right off, even if it does have a thermal-insulated lining.
80s Tees (via Technabob)
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