Kill Screen Magazine's Blog, page 447

Jeff Minter's new Vita game furthers his obsession with Tempest

Jeff Minter’s legacy is shaping up to be that guy who took Tempest and pushed it to its rave-y, trance-inducing, crystalline extreme. That, or sheep. We see this with TxK, coming later in February, which, well, looks like bliss. (He apologized for the trailer’s compressed video quality, which will look much crisper on a pristine Vita screen.) 

There’s an epic long-read of the evolution of TxK on his blog, which began when he did an official sequel way back with Tempest 2000 for the Jaguar, then, evolving into the Xbox Arcade exclusive Space Giraffe, then this.

This is good for all kind of reasons: because Tempest should never be forgotten; because the Vita needs more cool games; because Minter is a great developer but maybe needed some focus. Hopefully, Sony will sponsor a sequel to Minotaur Rescue next.

The fancy camera tech that will make League of Legends easier to watch

Riot Games are working on smart cameras that automatically follow the action on-screen in League of Legends, because sometimes you just want to kick back and watch esports, the way you would any other sport. This new feature, which they’ve been granted a patent for, aims to improve Spectator Mode, which allows onlookers to peek in on matches, but would also help with live broadcasting.

We’ve talked at length before about how the prospect of casually watching esports can be daunting. There’s so much visual information that it repels the casual fan, who are a big part of the success of major sports. (i.e. you don’t have to have played football, or even be particularly athletic, to be a diehard football fan; but not true with League of Legends.) Although fans packed the Staples Center at the World Championship last year, there’s still considerable room for the sport to expand, but to do so it will need to become more palatable. We're stoked to hear Riot is working on making their premier champion-battler easier to take in for everyone.

Paris’ abandoned subways to be turned into awesome underground entertainment venues

Mayoral candidate Nathalie Kosciusk-Morizet has proposed to turn the city's ghost stations into a restaurant, nightclub, and even a theater.

Persona 5 director reveals that, yes, the game will be dark

If you’re like me you spent a half-morning back in November watching and re-watching the mysterious announcement trailer for Persona 5, trying to cut through the thick layer of symbolism, and still thinking about it later that day on a quiet car ride. A new interview with longstanding Persona director Katsura Hashino, translated from Japanese by Pepsiman (you can find it in its entirety on his Tumblr), somewhat explains things—although he is a master at speaking cryptically. 

When asked what’s up with the imagery of empty chairs with their legs being shackled by a ball and chain, Hashino said:

I feel that in today’s world, there’s no shortage of people that are bored and discontent with their lives. They’re at a dead end, chained down to a world of which they resent being a part of.

Heavy stuff, but something that should be expected coming from a modern Persona title, which often plunge into far more complex issues than the top layer of anime-high-school-drama lets on. He continues:

The shackles you see in it are especially important. They naturally represent the idea of a person’s immobility, of being unable to move ahead from their current position in life…. We live in a time here in Japan when both teenagers and adults, regardless of who they are, can’t be idling their way through their lives…. We want them to play our game and come away feeling like they’ve found a renewed sense of self and understanding that they can’t be apathetic towards what’s going on in society.

So what about all that red everywhere? Does that mean anything? Not really, Hashino says. It was just chosen because they went with yellow and blue in the previous two games. While it does make for a striking teaser, he says they’re having difficulty making menus that aren’t blinding. Anyway, there goes my theory that it would be vampire-themed. I never get this stuff right.

Find out what happens when you kill time in Sluggish Morss: Ad Infinitum

Hang out responsibly. 

Bravely Default is, for better or worse, a pretty good '90s RPG

Turning back the immaculately rendered 3D steam-powered clock with Square Enix. 

Fract is what a videogame by Kraftwerk would probably look like

Partly a synthesizer, and partly a puzzle game, Fract is essentially Portal meets Kraftwerk. What I mean by that is you’re lost in a broken machine-world and play with glow-y neon sounds. And while it’s hard to compare any electronic music anywhere to the canonized output of Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider, the synth sounds in the new trailer definitely have that mid-70s German electronic music vibe. 

What’s so compelling about games like Fract, aside from all the inherent awesomeness, is that they can double as unprecedented musical tools. As we saw with David Kanaga’s album Dyad OGST, which used the synesthesic properties of the tube racer Dyad to create musical bliss (really, it’s that good, just don’t listen while driving), this new wind of music creation games have the potential to create wicked, rhythmic sounds. Fract has been on our radar for forever and it looks like it’s finally making headway, so check it out.

The flat humanity of Jazzpunk

Joke’s on everything.

Videogame design in an age of biological feedback

How a surplus of data can help and hurt creators.

This asteroid-zapping game might cure cancer

The free mobile game Play to Cure: Genes in Space was created at a madcap game jam hosted by Cancer Research UK to do just that: research cancer. You can get it for Android here and iPhone there and start blasting your way towards a cure. But listen how it works first.

The human genome is teeny tiny, but has generated a ton of data, and that’s where this game comes in. By flying through hoops and shooting down space debris, you’re actually helping researchers analyze which sections of the genome cause cancer. I gave it a whirl, and frankly, Starfox it ain't. But it's still a marked improvement over health games in the past, such as neuro-games that maps the nervous system. These games are starting to feel very close to Flappy Bird level of quality. And that’s great news, as I’m pretty certain that if Flappy Bird traced genomes, we’d be dancing on cancer’s grave.