Kill Screen Magazine's Blog, page 348

Watch in slack-jawed wonder as Trackmania plays itself

Who's driving this thing anyway?

"It’s a performance by the course designer, not the driver: every time the car flips and slides off one path, the road below unrolls to catch it."

Documentary on sound in videogames explores human/machine divide

Rage with the machine. Not against it.

"8bit captures the tug and pull between computer and player, the interaction between an unforgiving system and your racing heart."

Want people to care about the environment? Show pollution in virtual reality.

Stanford researchers want to make you think about the world in a enw way."

Foot-tall Hotline Miami toys will presumably murder your pets

Imagine this thing stalking behind your houseplants, or peering from behind the claw-foot of your bathtub. Designers Dennaton games have partnered with ESC-TOY to create this toy ("doll," I feel like some people would say) version of the protagonist of their 2012 instant-classic Hotline Miami. The character, referred to as Jacket by fans and, eventually, the developers themselves, spattered blood about the hotels and mansions of Miami using baseball bats, golf clubs, assault rifles and his bare fists. Now you can own a tiny version of him. 

The game, which has a sequel due out later this year, viewed the action from a top-down perspective, which makes this figure's "1/6th scale" oddly discomforting to me. It's not just the sense of sudden verticality but the notion of this maniac as a real-world object and not just a phantasmagorical 2D manifestation of human decay. For a game so keenly aware of the power of artifice to make such an unironic toy feels a little confused; on the other hand, this toy is extremely cool and I'll take one. 

You can holler at it on Kickstarter, where it will presumably make $600K and its stretch goals will include actual cocaine and sadness.

 

Interloper makes RTS games more approachable using aliens

Aliens = simplicity.

Viv makes artificial intelligence a little less artificial

Share a deep conversation with a robot.

Omote will paint and transform your face in real-time

Maybe she's made for it. Maybe it's this amazing face-tracking rig.

The interactive storybook that makes every kid a hero

Little girls deserve to dream of more than being a princess.

Five Nights at Freddy's won't let your fear of animatronics rest

"It's the creepiest game of musical statues I've ever played."

First virtual reality surgery takes you inside the ER

Surgeon Simulator Simulator