Kill Screen Magazine's Blog, page 437

Shrug Song is a gorgeous glimpse into a watercolor world

A beautiful place to get lost in. 

How do you make an RPG after Dark Souls?

In the wake of the Souls games, designers rethink a genre.

An introduction to our Future of Genre series

Deconstruction and democratization, ahoy.

A fascinating video on the modern day tech that science fiction got right

Science fiction has been eerily on the money when it comes to predicting the future, which means there’s still hope for rollerball yet. Phew! I mean, technologies prophesied long ago are found all over the place. For instance, the Internet you’re now mindlessly tapping at to avoid making eye contact with your fellow commuters, well, Isaac Asimov predicted that in 1988. Ray Bradbury forecasted the flat screen monitor in your office. And if you’re reading this on a tablet, you have H.G. Wells to thank. 

It turns out this wasn’t blind guesswork, but well-hedged bets by minds deeply familiar with science, as explained in this insightful YouTube show from PBS Digital Studios. 

It makes me wonder what future events games will eventually get right. Eh, probably, zombie outbreaks. 

Push Me Pull You is like Noby Noby Boy crossed with Human Centipede

Our intern David said Push Me Pull You reminded him of Human Centipede, which kept me from clicking the link for a good two days. But it turns out this was my mistake. It’s closer in spirit to Noby Noby Boy, a weird if non-eventful game about a cuddly caterpillar-looking-thing that you could stretch and bend and tie in bows. 

Push Me Pull You is kind of like that, only rethought as a freakish multiplayer sports game. Maybe I should just quote the webpage. Ahem. “A 2v2 sports game where you and your partner control the two heads of a single elongated body. Coordinate to wrestle the other sports-monster for control of the ball.” It looks and sounds to be incredibly awkward, which, when it comes to experimental controls between two players, spells Awesome. 

Look for it later this year. Until then, try to forcibly remove those images of human centipedes playing basketball from your head.

Gone Home creator talks reading in videogames and the danger of lore

There have been many-an-editorial about whether games should have narratives at all, and, if so, how they should go about telling them. Gone Home’s beautiful answer was to wed stories to objects and environments, instead of, say, through non-interactive voiceovers and cutscenes. But it wasn’t perfect, as there was a lot of writing on the screen. 

Talking to RPS, Steve Gaynor, the designer of Gone Home, said that he isn’t married to the idea of reading in games, and that there is a fine line between a page of prose and lore-porn:

I’m as susceptible as anyone to very low thresholds for text overload. But, I think that, hopefully, what Gone Home shows is that what’s important is not necessarily how much text there is. There’s a limit. But more so, how relevant is it to the core of the player’s experience and what they need to understand. . .. When there’s a ton of optional text, it’s just like, we put this text in and it’s just lore.

As Gaynor admits, reading text isn’t very intuitive when it comes to first-person games. But they’re keeping it to a minimum, except when they’re not. 

It’s not a core value of mine. I’m not like, I must make games where you read a lot. But if it makes sense to say that you’re finding a lot of notes… I’m not going to shy away from it.

So when it comes to lore, it's like Oscar Wilde said: “Everything in moderation, including moderation.”

This Tron-inspired bike brings 80s cyberspace to street races

It’s no coincidence that Lotus’s new motorcycle the C-01 looks like a light cycle from Tron: It was designed by Daniel Simon, the automotive futurist who redesigned the iconic bikes in Tron: Legacy. Note the elongated unibody, the large prominent tires, and the severe forward position that the rider assumes. All Tron. 

This is a beautiful piece of engineering and an equally beautiful example of life influencing art, influencing art, influencing life. When Tron first appeared in theaters in the ‘80s, it was a blockbuster about virtual reality—Hollywood’s flashy attempt to predict the videogames of the future. That game-like aesthetic carried over to the remake, and now we have a street-legal bike semi-directly inspired by the vectors of ‘80s arcades. If only there was a way to make it stream colors.  

New PBS Game/Show asks if we should abandon the word “gamer”

Gamers. Can’t play Halo with ‘em. Can’t play Halo without ‘em. So, maybe we should just abandon this whole “gamer” thing. While the word once adequately described a legion of devoted hobbyists who guzzled down anything and everything videogames, now it’s just problematic. So, is it time to say adiós, muchachos?

Watch the episode to find out, and let us know what you think in the comments!

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze returns the series to its 16-bit glory

Depending on your vision, of course.

Only If considers the possibility that game narrators hate you

Only If is a game about playing games. And by that I mean you’re trying to escape from various rooms while a sociopathic narrator makes threats on your life via intercom. It’s kinda like 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors in that way, or Portal, if you push it. Then, you hook a left around the armoire and wind up chasing a disco ball through the multiverse, and this thing soon becoming a meditation on the semi-real spaces we so often find ourselves trapped in, unable to do much of anything except what the director permits. And by that I mean K-holes. Wait, I mean games. The trailer is one of the best we’ve seen in awhile, and you can play the open beta if you wanna, although the game proper drops in March.