Posts tagged with “thatgamecompany”

At PAX I gave a talk with Robin Hunicke (thatgamecompany, Journey), Nathan Vella (Capybara Games, Critter Crunch), Dylan Fitterer (Audiosurf LLC, Audiosurf), and Andy Schatz (Pocketwatch Games, Monaco) called “In(die)credible! The best new indie games you haven’t played”. The talk was a ton of fun and we basically listed a ton of games that we thought were really interesting and discussed why they we thought they were interesting. I know a lot of people have been asking so here are the slides!

More importantly, here are links to all of the games we mentioned and discussed. I strongly recommend checking them out; most of them are free to play, and the ones that cost money are still so awesome that you should pay the $15 or so per title and give them a shot. Enjoy!

• Robin
  • Braid XBLA
  • Limbo XBLA
  • Windosill http://windosill.com/
  • Machinarium http://machinarium.net/demo/
  • Today I Die http://www.ludomancy.com/games/today.php
  • Small Worlds http://armorgames.com/play/4850/small-worlds
  • Endless Forest http://tale-of-tales.com/TheEndlessForest/
  • Passage http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/
  • Osmos www.hemispheregames.com/osmos
• Eitan
  • Aaaaa! Steam
  • Ooo! TBA – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6L8li9p5kw
  • Elude http://gambit.mit.edu/loadgame/summer2010/elude_play.php
• Nathan
  • Faraway http://www.little–eyes.com/faraway
  • Go! Underground (click yellow button) http://www.famitsu.com/freegame/act/0005.html
  • Flood the Chamber http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/platformer/flood-the-chamber/1419/v
• Dylan
  • Shoot First http://teknopants.com/games/shootfirst/
  • Desktop Dungeons http://www.qcfdesign.com/?cat=20
  • Attack of the Paper Zombies http://www.indiebird.com/blog/?page_id=376
  • Pax Galaxia http://diogames.com/PaxGalaxia.html
• Andy
  • Playpen www.playpen.farbs.org
  • The Abrubt Goodbye www.hellodotdotdotgoodbye.com
  • Manufactoria www.pleasingfungus.com
  • Avernum 6 www.spiderwebsoftware.com
  • The Journey Down http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/adventure/the-journey-down-over-the-edge/3297/

I’ll post video soon if I can find it.

Just 10 days until PAX in Seattle! We’re getting really excited, we’ll be showing off a bunch of new features including new levels, new characters, and this charming guy up top. We’re talking MADNESS, people!

If you are going to be in town for the show be sure to stop by our booth (#3834, next to Square Enix and located on the lower right hand corner of the exhibitor hall map) and say hi! We’ll have some nice schwag to give out to our fans, and of course we’ll have the game for you to play.

Also I’m on a panel along with a bunch of sexy indie devs (Robin Hunicke [thatgamecompany], Nathan Vella [Capybara Games], Dylan Fitterer [Audiosurf LLC], Andy Schatz [Pocketwatch Games]), and we’ll be talking about all sorts of fun new games worth checking out. It’s called “In(die)credible! The Best New Games You Haven’t Played”, and it’s taking place on Sunday, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM, in the Raven Theatre. Come and check it out!

Oh yeah, and we’ll be taking pictures during the show. Oh yes. PICTURES.

Vincent Diamante and Steve Johnson are two of my favorite people. They are the two sound geeks behind the music in Flower, and they are VERY good at what they do. Here is a talk they recently gave on using sound and music to create narrative in that game, and it’s a really cool listen! They discuss influences, how they went about creating music on a shifting project with an abstract goal, and what interesting things they did to make the game sound awesome. And considering that Flower is (in my opinion) one of the best sounding new games out there I’d say they did a great job?

Yes, this is only the first 8 minutes of an hour long talk. Wanna watch the whole thing? You can catch it the full talk (chopped up into 8 sections) here.

SEMI-RELATED TANGENT TIME!

1. As long as we’re talking about video game music, does anyone else think that the Bionic Commando Rearmed soundtrack was extra awesome?

2. I’d like to point out that in addition to being a composer nerd Vincent is also has a kick ass blog on photography, food, and anything else interesting that comes to mind. Definitely a fun read.

Yesterday Flower came out on PSN, the second title by thatgamecompany. The game looks absolutely beautiful, featuring some of the most stunning graphics I’ve ever seen with its fantastic grass/environment engine. In the game you control the wind and try to pick up flower petals in the breeze, and the experience is centered around relaxation and exploration more than fighting bad guys or beating levels. A highly innovative offering, I strongly recommend checking it out if you have a PS3, as does everyone else.

The game is especially interesting because it comes from a super talented team coming out of USC’s game pipe lab EA Game Innovation Lab. It’s something of a spiritual sequel to Cloud, a project that Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago (among others) worked on while pursing their masters. Congrats on the amazing title guys!