Great stuff. I recomend everybody going and checking out their music. Their song probably most well known on the internet is "Get It Together" which was featured in the LittleBigPlanet Ps3 demonstration back at GDC. I've actualy heard another one of their songs before that but never looked into the band back then.
Their music definantly should find its way into more games. It would just fits so well!!!
You can listen to the songs on the website above. Just click the play buttons next to a song's name.
- My Top 3 Pick -
1) Junior Kickstart
2) Get it Together
3) Bottle Rocket (I could so see this in a 2D sonic game)
Panther Dash is also great but somewhat like Junior Kickstart (so that is why i did not rank it in top 3, or it would have been 2nd)
Just a small note, this is just a simple thing I wrote up during my lunch break. Sorry if its not have proper grammar and depth. It’s just some things that have been floating in my head since yesterday.
As I sit here during my lunch break eating a salad and listen to some music, I start visualizing how I could make a game based entirely off the music I am listening to. It makes me think back to a discussion I had with a friend recently as well as other discussions with the sound engineer at my previous job. Sometimes people don’t take audio in video games seriously. They think of it as an after thought or like a movie where the music forms around the game and not the other way around. Yet in the case where a game is entirely made based on music (and I’m not talking DDR here people). Great games that push this point are Loco Roco and Lumines (for example); games that just are not the same with the audio on mute. Also one that might not be the case but where the music just fits so well that imagining a different song would change the entire game is the LittleBigPlanet demo from GDC (Which features the song “Get it Together” by “The Go! Team”).
So referring back to my friend, we had a small discussion regarding gaming built around pieces of music. We both checked deeper into music by “The Go! Team” and already could just visualize the blocks to an entire game by just using their music alone. We already could see the first world in our game using Bottle Rocket, A cheerful level full of color (on the level of the Green Hill Zone in Sonic games). We could see the Hot Chip Remix of Ladyflash making a wicked song during tutorials and information menus. Not mention many places we could fit songs like “Junior Kickstart” & “The Ice Storm”.
During our discussions we ran into one major roadblock, what type of game do we make from this? We easily could see something like sonic using music like this (See Sonic Rush to hear great music by Hideki Naganuma & Teruhiko Nakagawa). We also could see a puzzle game resulting from this. Ultimately we settled on the idea of trying to somehow combine the two. A 2D puzzle game yet that give you a sense of urgency and speed to fly though the puzzles continuously with no disconnect between puzzle boards yet also be a challenge like playing checkers (not going to BS and say deep though provoking chess here).
So what does this have a connection to homebrew? It does to some extent. See the thing is, PSP homebrew does not have a lot of creativity going around. It’s just game clones and half baked lua ideas. I am not trying to look down on homebrew coders but I would like to see more creative ideas come out of the scene. Homebrew is probably the most perfect place to see creative, original, & innovative ideas to come together in a small game. Remember that some of our favorite games came out of simple ideas that teams pushed together with no commercial intent. flOw was done as a concept in flash, Portals was originally an idea put together by digi-pen students, Katamari Damacy was a creative idea by a Japanese student before graduating, Every Extend Extra was based on a small pc homebrew game called Every Extend, as well as many others floating out there. So why are we not seeing more of this creativity in psp homebrew?
Sorry running out of time here so I will simply wrap this up for now.
What was the whole point of this write up? Well somewhat boredom, somewhat me wanting to rant about the lack of creativity in the homebrew scene, somewhat me wanting to shoot out ideas and see what others think. Will anything come of me and my friends’ discussion? Well that is up for him to decide and so far he wants to keep toying with the idea mentally for a little longer.
Anybody have their two cents they would like to add to this?
Yes the end is near. Next week will see the release of Final Fantasy I Anniversary Ed on the PSP in japan. S-E is milking this game yet again and I exspect it to be in the top 3 sales for that week's sale charts in japan.
I am actualy somewhat looking forward to this release. I've never really beat FF1 (i tried on the nes but gave up half way, i got the gba ver but never got the chance to play it before), I did try going back and playing the gba version in antisipation and realised the game is difficult because it does not do a great job telling you where to go. :P
Anyways the official date is April 19th but some import sites like play-asia are showing the asian/HK release showing up as early as the 17th. I personaly will be getting a copy and doing a side by side with the GBA to see how they stack up.
On another related note, Final Fantasy 7 Crisis Core is said to be dated August 2nd for japan as well. That game is going to be wicked.
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Now onto a different note, I picked up Prince of Persia Rival Swords today from work and gave it a go. It's not bad but has some bad visual issues. God why does someone let the enviroment keep detailed textures yet give the player the most god awful low res texture imaginable (and he is on screen at all times). Anyways I am going to post my opinion on the game later this weekend. So keep posted on the general chat for that.
If anybody lives near a place where they can pick up Papabubble or know of a distributer in canada, could you please help me obtain some of this candy!!!! I once saw something simular (or maybe the same thing) on the show "How it is made" which airs on discovery channel. Ever since then I have been trying to find out what it was (I cought the last half of it) and where I could get some. Now kotaku posted some stuff today and this is the exact same candy demonstrated (but not sure if it's the same maker).
Anyways if someone out there can get me some of this stuff I would gladly pay shipping and purhcasing cost!!!!
