Brandon Boyer

Image: Katamari's Prince, bronz'd

Nine pounds and eight inches of an amazing, everlasting version of Katamari Damacy's Prince carrying the weight of his world, created as Mark 'everfalling' Ellis's Academy of Art University Sculpture 1 class project. See more pictures of the process here.

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Brandon Boyer

Image: Lost in 8 Bits

Adam 'Hot Meteor' Campbell -- the designer behind the vintage Dharma ads and NES boxart -- posts this image that's looking more and more suspiciously like an actual playable 8-bit Lost game, complete with cartridge, giving all now-aimless fans of the show new hope for more fictional nostalgia.

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Brandon Boyer

Image: Derek Yu does Mario

Spelunky and Aquaria creator Derek Yu does big tribute to little Mario in this image for Giant Robot's 2008 Game Over show that's somehow slipped under my radar until now. Yu's also responsible for this wicked Doom tribute in this year's show, and more than a few other fantastic illustrations (including... Lady Gaga?). [via BigTig]

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Brandon Boyer

Valve parody Apple's 1984 ad for Half-Life 2 Mac teaser

Taking their original Apple print ad parodies to the next logical level, Half Life and Portal creators Valve have just released (as in, minutes ago -- hold steady if the YouTube upload quality's still not the greatest) this teaser trailer for Half Life 2's release by giving Apple's classic 1984 ad the full City 17 treatment.

The OSX version of the game will be coming tomorrow to their new Mac version of Steam.

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Brandon Boyer

Video: A Brief History of the Modern Pixel

Simon Cottee -- the artist behind Rule, the recently noted animation created entirely inside Sleep Is Death -- has put together this thoughtful musing on the power of the pixel, talking with SiD creator Jason Rohrer, chiptune artist Dot.AY, and Studio Joho (the same behind semi-controversial pixel vid Dan the Man).

PIXEL - A pixel art documentary [Simon Cottee]

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Brandon Boyer

Gallery: Amusement imagines game consoles, architected

The ever-stunning games/art/fashion/culture mag Amusement brings us these images of inhabitable game consoles & handhelds, via their If I were President... feature. Click through for a hi-res gallery, and see Amusement's site for subscription information, which you won't regret at all. [via Rex]

READ THE REST

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Brandon Boyer

Guy Warley's Remotes

Guy Warley's 'Remotes', available as an iPhone/iPad desktop from the ever-essential Poolga, and a basically dead-on representation of what next to my bed looks like.

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Brandon Boyer

Rexbox & the BBC's Becoming Merlin

Local favorite artist Rex Crowle ('visual playfulness' designer on Media Molecule's LittleBigPlanet & Wonderland's almost-too-compulsive iPad game Godfinger) has just put up this fantastic set of sketches and art for Becoming Merlin, the interactive children's book he created for the BBC with the help of Preloaded, the studio behind compelling AND educational games for Channel 4 like Trafalgar Origins. All links provided are deserving of your further careful and attentive exploration.

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Everything but the Game: The Art Behind the Stitches of ...

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Lisa Katayama

Play Pacman on the Google home page today

In case you haven't seen it already... Google has turned its home page banner into a playable Pacman board for the game's 30th anniversary. Just insert a coin!

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Brandon Boyer

Hey Toronto: attend the free Hand Eye indie games event, May 27th

As you read this, I'll currently be en route to Toronto -- home to developers Capy, Superbrothers, Metanet, Queasy Games, RSBLSB, Jim Munroe & many more -- to do some scientific tests on its municipal water supply in hopes of identifying the magic that's been added that's turning out some of indie gaming's finest.

While I'm there, the city will be holding one of its semi-regular meetings of the creative community collective known as the Hand Eye Society, and I'll be there playing host to some still-secret activities, and very possibly some even secret-er special guest stars.

The Society meeting will be at Unit Bar, located at 1198 Queen West, starting at 7:30pm on Thursday, May 27th.

Come out and play! Hope to see you there!

The Third Social of 2010: Thursday, May 27th. [Hand Eye Society]

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Brandon Boyer

Help raise funds for BlinkWorks documentary Indie Game: The Movie

Winnipeg filmmakers BlinkWorks have just gone live with their Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for Indie Game: The Movie, a feature length documentary chronicling and examining "independent game developers as a way to understand the medium and the theory behind video games."

As you can tell from the portion above -- a look back at the childhood of Super Meat Boy, Aether and Time Fcuk creator Edmund McMillen -- the parts already completed are gorgeously shot and animated, and put the focus precisely where it should be: on the people behind the games, and how their experiences and thought processes are distilled into their work.

For more of BlinkWorks' prior game dev documentary experience, see also this early profile on Infinite Ammo head Alec Holowka (he of Aquaria, Paper Moon and the upcoming Marian, and donate to the film for your own DVD of the finished product via Kickstarter.

Indie Game: The Movie [BlinkWorks]

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Brandon Boyer

Criterion-backed streaming film service MUBI coming to the PS3

Simultaneously the best and most heartbreaking news you'll see all day: MUBI, the indie/arthouse-focused streaming film and social network site previously known as TheAuteurs (and also as The One Site I Wish I Could Use As A Dating Site [Not For Lack Of Trying]) has announced a new partnership with Sony to bring its library of films to the PS3 as a Netflix-like downloadable application. Which is amazing!

The hitch: it's only launching in the UK, Ireland, France, Italy, Iberia, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Benelux, Nordic countries, Australia and New Zealand. Which makes me very, very sad (but I mean, awesome for you guys).

The service will be coming this fall with both pay-per-view and monthly all-you-can-watch subscriber levels. In the meantime, have a peek around the rebranded site, and marvel at the fact that it lets you stick a massive banner image of Tarkovsky's Stalker on your profile, as a default, because that's just how much they "get you".

Immerse yourself in cinema at home with MUBI [MUBI, Sony UK minisite]

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David K. Israel

Bazinga! Play now to win cool stuff and help fix the world

Play a quiz, give a dollar or more to the charity of your choice, and maybe win an iPad! All it takes is a moment of an ordinary day, and you can make a wee contribution to efforts to repair the world. Best of all, it's a race: we're in it with Treehugger, Neatorama and others.

When you're done, e-mail us at Play@QuizPlayDay.org and tell us how much you donated and to what cause. Don't forget to send us your quiz score. By doing so, you'll be automatically entered into a sweepstakes drawing where you could win one of 10 sets of Wii games; and a chance to go on national TV, talk about why you picked the charity, and chat about the whole quiz play day experience.

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Brandon Boyer

'Pay what you want' for Jason Rohrer's Sleep is Death

Jason Rohrer -- no doubt inspired by the continued and jaw-dropping success of the Humble Indie Bundle (currently up to $1.24 million raised) -- has just revealed a pay-anything deal for his free-form multiplayer storytelling game Sleep is Death. For a donation of any amount over $1.75, you'll get two copies of the game (one each for the storyteller and the storytell-ee).

If you've been on the fence with this one, the time is now (see my original feature on the game for the specifics on how it works and why it's important/valuable) and don't forget to check out previously noted third-party helper sites like SIDTube to download art packs and mediate online play.

Sleep is Death [Jason Rohrer]

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Brandon Boyer

Sword & Sworcery EP dev Superbrothers eulogizes Frank Frazetta

With the moons in alignment and the latest "teletex bulletin" released, Superbrothers -- 1/3 of the holy trinity behind upcoming iPhone adventure Sword & Sworcery EP and creator of Boing Boing feature Less Talk, More Rock -- has written a lovely eulogy for recently departed artist Frank Frazetta:

Frazetta is many things - a 20th century old master, a pop surrealist pioneer, one of the finest book illustrators who ever lived - but those descriptors can't communicate the enormity of his legacy. If a painting is awesome, if it kicks you in the teeth & grins, if the darks are dark, the skies afire, the men hard and heavy with muscle & sinew, the women voluptuous and/or diabolical, the figures masterfully sculpted, the creatures immaculately constructed, the action over-the-top, the colors vivid, the compositions bold & striking & bloody & fierce ... if an eerie moon rises above a craggy mountaintop castle, then it's likely that Frazetta lurks within... and he's probably watching the Mets.

Read the full version here, and sign up here for future Superbrothers teletex transmissions.

ART LEGEND ASCENDS TO VALHALLA [Superbrothers]

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Brandon Boyer

Portal, the corporate training success video

Aperture Scie-- err, Valve just put together this video highlighting the successes of their "Portal recruitment program", and yesterday's announcement that the game is free on both Windows and Mac through May 24th. The video's highlight: the tramp-stamp dig at Half-Life universe corporate rivals Black Mesa.

Also noteworthy for people who haven't been following its progress closely: Aperture's assertion that the Free Portal initiative is crucial for helping find skilled partners for the upcoming sequel's co-op mode.

Portal is FREE! [Valve]

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Brandon Boyer

Brandon named Independent Games Festival chairman

I'm not the greatest at this whole self-promotion gig, but a quick update to note that it's just been announced that I'll be joining the 2011 Independent Games Festival as its new chairman, taking over for Simon Carless, who's done a fantastic job of making the festival the premiere place to showcase the home-grown talent that's changing the way we think about games, year after year.

I've been doing my best over the past couple years (primarily thanks to Boing Boing and their help getting Offworld off the ground) to shine as strong a light as possible on the people struggling to make beautiful things every day, and needless to say I'm thrilled that I get to be a part of the organization that made World of Goo, Crayon Physics, Fez, Braid and -- via Student Showcase winner Narbacular Drop -- even Valve's Portal the notable names and successes they are today.

All my usual writing work will continue, as will a few other upcoming tricks I've got up my sleeve for bringing amazing new games to light! Anyway, OK!

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Brandon Boyer

Valve release Steam for Mac, includes free Portal

As promised, Valve have just announced that the debut Mac version of their digital download game platform Steam is now available, alongside a batch of nearly 60 games, including a free download of Valve's own Portal (through May 24th).

While the selection of AAA 3D titles is more limited than its Windows counterpart for now, it does include good representation from the adventure game set, like LucasArts and Telltale, and by the indies, including Braid and a discount 5-pack of World of Goo, And Yet It Moves, Galcon Fusion, Osmos and Machinarium.

Also, "Steamplay" titles previously bought through the Windows version of the client are automatically activated in your new Mac account -- the company promises more of those every Wednesday through the coming months. Download the client here [.dmg link], and see Valve's Mac section here.

Click through for the full list of launch titles.

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Gallery: Valve tease Steam/Half-Life/Left 4 Dead for Macs, in ...

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Brandon Boyer

Humble Indie Bundle hits $1m, goes open-source, gets 4 day extension

There'll be a lot of good, necessary beard-stroking over the next few weeks to figure out exactly what the organizers of the Humble Indie Bundle -- a six-game pay-anything collection that's just managed to top a million dollars in sales in a week -- did right, because it's something that seems it could and should be repeated.

The nitty gritty: as of the time of writing, nearly 116,000 people have donated nearly $1.05 million, nearly 31 percent of which will be going to the Bundle's selected charities the EFF and children's hospital focused Child's Play. Full techie stats are available here, but that amounts to roughly $137,000 to each developer in a week, all of whom had seen sales of their years-old games dwindle.

To celebrate the landmark, the devs are extending the sale for the rest of this week for any latecomers, and are beginning to make good on their GPL-licensed open source promise, beginning with Wolfire's Lugaru HD. Gish and Penumbra will soon be following suit, and Aquaria has made the surprise announcement that they're coming on-board with the open source promise, as well.

See Wolfire's breakdown at the top of the project's page, their tech stats here, and click here to continue to donate to the cause.

The Humble Indie Bundle [Wolfire]

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Lisa Katayama

Michelangelo-esque sculpture of Mario and Peach

There's something so quiet and sad about this sculpture of Mario dying in the arms of Peach. It's carved out of styrofoam, and it's called "Game Over".

Artist's page (Thanks, Mitchell!)

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