Kill Screen Magazine's Blog, page 337

Kim Kardashian Hollywood isn’t a fantasy—it’s real

The monster social game breaks the fourth wall.

Blood-powered lamp will hopefully remind you to turn off the damn lights

Would we be less wasteful if light came at a personal cost?

We interviewed 3-year-old internet artist Yung Jake via text

None of this is real; all of it is.

Rituals presents the surreal fragmentation of narrative in a post-colonial India

In Ritual, you are the invasion on identity that defines colonization.

Ritual reveals that fictions construct the reality around us,

Antbassdor is a finger-sized comedy by the Octodad team

The return of jankiness. 

The ridiculous ads of Eve Online’s Alliance Tournament

A peek into the roiling hivemind.

Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call is a trip through stolen time

On finding your way home.

A passel of new videogames that you might play, friend

A walk through psychedelic woods.

Check out the first trailer for the lovely, lo-fi platformer The Sun & Moon

You might recognize Daniel Linssen's minimalist art style from the rogue-like Roguelight, featured on our playlist a few weeks ago. Now he's back, with The Sun & Moon, a 2D action platformer that invites you to literally sink into the levels.

The Sun & Moon originated in the 29th Ludum Dare competition back in April as as an entry into the "Beneath the Surface" theme. Though it only took 24 hours to make using Gamemaker, the game ended up winning first place overall, 1st in theme, 2nd in fun, and 3rd innovation. Which lead Linssen to suspect that, hey, this game might not do so bad in a commercial release.

The game is intuitive enough: you move across the levels collecting all the little bits before going through the wormhole to complete each level, awarding you a medal from gold to bronze depending on your time. But the real twist, and what won Sun & Moon first place in theme, is the mechanic that allows the player to dive into the level's platform, reversing gravity and shooting the player upward.

Linssen describes the levels as ranging from "easy to punching-yourself-in-the-face-with-a-brick difficult." They use a non-linear unlocking system, allowing players to choose how they work through the massive amount of levels. As the trailer reveals, levels range in palette and theme while maintaining the minimalist style. It plays with an addicting pace, the momentum mechanic providing a liberating sense of movement.

Sun & Moon will be hitting Steam this October and Vita sometime next year. You can play the early Ludum Dare build here on your browser or download it on Windows.

The garish psychotronic madness of Uriel's Chasm nods to early Swans

The band Swans have two distinct phases. The first is grimy, industrial no-wave that churns and roils Tetsuo-like with dystopic paranoia and twisted sexuality. The second phase—their current one—is patient, unfurling twenty-minute art rock tapestries largely devoid of distorted guitars and far more expansive than the claustrophobia of their early work. 

Also, when the songs aren't firing on all cylinders, late Swans can feel a bit like homework—stentorian bandleader Michael Gira isn't the most dynamic presence on the mic, and the arrangements on their longer tracks often collapse into the hit-everything cacophony of bored band members switching instruments.

RAILSLAVEGAMES' Uriel's Chasm nods to the deviant madness of early Swans while roping in former member and no-wave goddess Jarboe (she of The Path soundtrack and collaborations with everyone from sludge titans Neurosis to Godflesh shoegaze spin-off Jesu) for voiceover work. What, exactly, Jarboe will be narrating is left unclear by the information available on the game. If you can reconcile "the Unlicensed Bible game that should have been buried in the desert is back !!" and "Ancient Hebrew storytelling techniques of Allegory and Typology" with what looks like a fairly comprehensible bullet-hell shooter, let me know. 

Or maybe, in an appropriately Swans-esque fashion, my mind simply cannot accept the awesome insanity of Uriel's Chasm at face value, and rebels to save itself. Take a look below.

NB: there will also be a "pulsing keytar soundtrack."