Boing Boing » video games

Short film about Ralph Baer, the “Father of Video Games”

Mark Frauenfelder — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 00:59:57 +0000

PBS Digital Studios profiled Ralph Baer, the “Father of Video Games”

Ralph Baer’s inventing career began following a two-year service in the military during World War II. Returning home from Europe, he went to school on the G.I. Bill and graduated with a B.S. in Television Engineering. In 1955, he joined an electronics firm called Sanders Associates, which did work for the military. Still there in 1966, he began work on an electronic box that would allow people to play games on their televisions. The working invention was later licensed as the Magnavox Odyssey and became the first home console system for video gaming in 1972. Last year he celebrated his 90th birthday – the same year the Odyssey turned 40. Here he talks about those early days of video game history and why now, at 90 years old, he's still inventing.

Bang bang: Science, violence, and public policy

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 14:39:07 +0000

I was on CBC Radio 1's Day 6 last weekend, talking about some of the reasons why scientists can't answer key questions about guns — whether current gun policies do anything to reduce violent crime, for instance, or whether more guns cause less (or more) violence. In a related debate, you should also read the article on the science of video games and real-life violence that Brandon Keim wrote for PBS' NOVA. The truth is that this branch of science also has big problems connecting cause and effect and, as with gun policy research, the best kinds of experiments can't really be done for logistical and ethical reasons.

Buckner & Garcia's "Pac-Man Fever" (1982)

David Pescovitz — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 19:29:01 +0000

Buckner & Garcia perform "Pac-Man Fever," from the 1982 album of the same name, on American Bandstand. I had this LP and the inner sleeve featured the patterns to maximize your score on the game. The title song hit #9 on the Billboard Hot 100. The second single, "Do the Donkey Kong," didn't do quite as well. Other tracks include "Froggy's Lament," "Goin' Berzerk," and "Ode to a Centipede." Due to rights issues, the currently-available "reissue" is actually a re-recording of the original music. The original LP can be easily found for around $40 or check your local thriftshops.

North Korea uses western video game music in propaganda

Rob Beschizza — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 16:15:52 +0000

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea used Jeremy Soule's theme tune from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in a fiery propaganda video. [Kotaku] Previously: Modern Warfare 3 clips used in NK propaganda.

A helpful reminder: Video game consumption is not correlated with gun violence

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 17:12:14 +0000

The focus on video games as a source of American gun violence is driving me a bit crazy, so I just wanted to toss some evidence out there. Even though most of you have likely long suspected the two things were not related, you'll be happy to know that science agrees with you. Consider this a helpful kit for forwarding to concerned relatives. Here's a 10-country comparison that found no correlation between video game consumption and gun violence. Here's a Harvard Medical School summary that explains why some people claim video games cause violence, and why the studies behind those claims aren't actually telling us that. And here's a PBS FAQ explaining a lot of the same issues. With violent video games (as with everything else) context matters.

Happy Birthday, Walt! Oswald the Lucky Rabbit will finally get a voice (in Epic Mickey 2)!

Jamie Frevele — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 22:06:30 +0000

It's Walt Disney's 111th birthday today, and there is news from the video game world that probably would have made him smile: Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, his pre-Mickey Mouse, silent-era creation, is finally getting a voice after 85 years! Oswald has appeared as Mickey's (silent) partner in 2010's Epic Mickey, but the sequel to the game, Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two (which just came out for Wii U, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, and Mac, PC coming in January), will let him speak for the first time ever. Who will be providing the voice of Oswald? None other than the legendary voice actor, Frank Welker, who is now the official, permanent voice of Oswald for any future cartoons. My Disney-loving heart has melted. (via Mashable)

Photo credit: Disney Wiki

Atari Flashback 4 console

David Pescovitz — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 20:32:56 +0000

AT Games has released the new Atari Flashback 4 console, this time with wireless joysticks. It's loaded with Asteroids, Missile Command, Space Invaders, Jungle Hunt, Centipede and 70 more classics, but not E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Here's the menu:

3D Tic-Tac-Toe, Adventure, Adventure II, Air·Sea Battle, Aquaventure, Asteroids, Backgammon, Basketball, Battlezone, Black Jack, Bowling, Breakout, Canyon Bomber, Centipede, Championship Soccer, Circus Atari, Combat Two, Combat, Crystal Castles, Demons to Diamonds, Desert Falcon, Dodge 'Em, Double Dunk, Fatal Run, Flag Capture, Football, Frog Pond, Front Line, Fun with Numbers, Golf, Grand Prix, Gravitar, Hangman, Haunted House, Home Run, Human Cannonball, Jungle Hunt, Maze Craze, Miniature Golf, Missile Command, Night Driver, Off The Wall, Outlaw, Polaris, Realsports Baseball, Realsports Basketball, Realsports Soccer, Realsports Volleyball, Return to Haunted House, Saboteur, Save Mary, Sky Diver, Slot Machine, Slot Racers, Solaris, Space Invaders Space War, Sprintmaster, Star Ship, Steeplechase, Stellar Track, Street Racer, Submarine Commander, Super Baseball, Super Breakout, Super Football, Surround, Tempest, Video Checkers, Video Chess, Video Olympics, Video Pinball, Warlords, Wizard, Yars' Revenge

Atari Flashback 4 (Thanks, Charles Pescovitz!)

MoMA's new videogame collection

David Pescovitz — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 18:27:48 +0000

New York's Museum of Modern Art has acquired 14 videogames that will be playable in a gallery there beginning in March 2013. According to Paola Antonelli, the MoMA's senior curator of architecture and design, these titles are "the seedbed for an initial wish list of about 40 to be acquired in the near future, as well as for a new category of artworks." I'm delighted that my favorite game, Pac-Man (1980), was part of the initial acquisition. The others include: Tetris (1984), Another World (1991), Myst (1993), SimCity 2000 (1994), vib-ribbon (1999), The Sims (2000), Katamari Damacy (2004), EVE Online (2003), Dwarf Fortress (2006), Portal (2007), flOw (2006), Passage (2008), and Canabalt (2009). "Video Games: 14 in the Collection, for Starters"

Real Myst "linking book"

David Pescovitz — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 17:17:50 +0000

Mike Ando created a replica Myst "linking book" with an embedded screen to play realMyst. "A 'real' Myst book"

Steven Johnson's favorite video games

Mark Frauenfelder — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 15:58:26 +0000

Author Steven Johnson spoke to the Gameological Society about his latest book, Future Perfect: The Case For Progress In A Networked Age, and the games he enjoys playing.

The Gameological Society: What are you playing this weekend?

Steven Johnson: Well, I’m on book tour, so there’s very little play. When I get home, I will no doubt be watching my children—who are obsessed with Uncharted 2, or Uncharted 3, I guess—on the PlayStation. Which I might join them a little bit for. Book tour tends to suck up all your spare fun time.

Gameological: Is it a different experience for you, playing games with your kids? As opposed to gaming before they were around?

Johnson: The coolest thing that we had for a while there—they haven’t been playing it as much—we had this great thing going which one of these days I want to write about. We both were playing kind of separately that game Dawn Of Discovery. It’s a beautiful game that simulates a 14th-century trading empire. It’s a classic simulation, very complicated, with lots of variables. One of the things that’s so powerful about it as an intellectual exercise is that you have to think on all these different scales and from all these different perspectives. So you have to think like a city planner, an admiral, a spice merchant, some industrialist type who is building an iron mine, and this is what they’re doing for fun, building this little trading empire.

What are you playing this weekend? Steven Johnson (Via The A.V. club)

Ohio State Marching Band halftime show of video game theme songs

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 19:20:00 +0000

Halftime performance of The Ohio State University Marching Band during a game against Nebraska on October 6. A "video game" theme, with music from Zelda, Halo, Pokemon, Tetris, and others.

So how'd they do it? A play-by-play breakdown in the Plain-Dealer:

The idea for the show came during the band’s annual brainstorming session each spring, and was first mentioned five years ago and put on the back burner until the decision was made to go for it this fall. Music arranger John Brennan helped lead the way on choosing the right video-game music and pulling it all together. Assistant director Chris Hoch guided the creation of the formations, with the final execution of the designs aided by a computer program.
The final result featured, among other things, Tetris pieces falling into place, a horse from Zelda running across the field, a Michigan flag being lowered and an Ohio State flag raised on a castle from Mario Bros. and a ghost chasing Pac-Man.
“It was a historical journey through video game music,” Waters said. “Some of the early music is a little trite, kind of tinny, so we tried to capture that in the musical arrangements. Some of the more modern stuff is very symphonic in nature and translated very well to our band. So we took all that into account and merged the music with the visual presentation we wanted to make.

In just two days, the video racked up close to 7 million views on YouTube. Insane! As a commenter points out, it's not a first: Cal did this back in 2007.

[video link; photo courtesy Ohio State University Marching Band]

3 days to go to Kickstart Sword of Fargoal 2: Classic Dungeon-Crawler Adventure

Mark Frauenfelder — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 15:52:07 +0000

The Kickstarter for Sword of Fargoal 2 has only three days to go. The developers have so far received $30,000 out of a $50,000 goal. I want this to happen, because Sword of Fargoal is one of my favorite iPhone games.

From my review of Fargoal last year on Boing Boing:

What makes roguelikes much fun for me? Part of it is finding potions and spells inside treasure chests -- a popular phrase with people who fish is, "the tug is the drug" --and there is a similar surge of euphoria when I happen upon a Detect Traps spell, a Restore potion, or a Reflective shield. The sense of discovery as I crawl through a dungeon level, pushing away the fog as I do so, compels me to keep exploring, and killing a nasty monster whets my bloodlust. The difficulty level of the game is perfect -- my character has died at least a dozen times, requiring me to restart at the beginning each time. But it's not so difficult that it's discouraging. As soon as I start a new game (the levels, monsters, and goodies are randomly generated so that no two games are the same), my level 1 character is faced with challenges and rewards suited to his experience.

Kickstarter: Sword of Fargoal 2: Classic Dungeon-Crawler Adventure

PBS Off Book video: What Are Indie Video Games

Mark Frauenfelder — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 19:50:33 +0000

[Video Link] As I've mentioned before, I love PBS's Off Book video series about Internet culture. The videos are intelligent, well produced, and often reveal things that surprise me. The newest video, released today, is about indie video games.

The video game industry is now bigger than Hollywood, with hundreds of millions of dollars spent developing these interactive experiences. But there are also small-scale developers working in the indie game realm, creating unique and experimental video games without the budgets of the larger "AAA" games. These indie game developers devote time, money, and take great risks in a quest to realize their creative vision. They deftly balance game mechanics & systems, sound & visuals, and an immersive storytelling experience to push the gaming medium into revolutionary new territory. Much like indie music or indie film, the indie gaming movement provides a creative outlet for game designers who want to work outside of the mainstream.

Zelda the kitten plays with the iPad

Mark Frauenfelder — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 17:14:23 +0000

We got a couple of kittens a few weeks ago. Louis doesn't pay much attention to Game for Cats, but Zelda (above) loves it.

Kingdom Rush available on iPhone

Mark Frauenfelder — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 16:40:50 +0000

[Video Link] My favorite tower defense game is Kingdom Rush. You can play it online for free, and there's also an iPad version. I don't want to admit how many hours I spent playing it on my iPad. (I will say that I finally finished the game by playing it the entire time I was on a plane from Los Angeles to New York and back to Los Angeles earlier this month.)

The cartoonish art is very appealing, as are the monsters and towers. The goal of the game, like all tower defense games, is to prevent the invading hordes from making it through a gate to your kingdom at one end of the display. You do this by placing towers staffed with archers, knights, magicians, and cannoneers along the path that the monsters run down (the monsters appear from a trail emanating on the opposite side of the display). As you kill the monsters, you collect gold, which can be used to buy more towers. Even though there are a few more bells and whistles, it's a simple game -- but addictive.

Today, Kingdom Rush became available as an iPhone app. I would say that the $.99 price tag is a bargain, but if take into account the otherwise productive hours you will spend playing it, the true cost is far more.

Kingdom Rush

Getting Started with Dwarf Fortress: Learn to play the most complex video game ever made

Mark Frauenfelder — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 00:19:47 +0000

O'Reilly Media has just released what must be counted as one of the most important books of the decade: Getting Started with Dwarf Fortress

Dwarf Fortress may be the most complex video game ever made, but all that detail makes for fascinating game play, as various elements collide in interesting and challenging ways. The trick is getting started. In this guide, Fortress geek Peter Tyson takes you through the basics of this menacing realm, and helps you overcome the formidable learning curve.

The book’s focus is the game’s simulation mode, in which you’re tasked with building a dwarf city. Once you learn how to establish and maintain your very first fortress, you can consult the more advanced chapters on resource management and training a dwarf military. You’ll soon have stories to share from your interactions with the Dwarf Fortress universe.

• Create your own world, then locate a site for an underground fortress

• Equip your party of dwarves and have them build workshops and rooms

• Produce a healthy food supply so your dwarves won’t starve (or go insane)

• Retain control over a fortress and dozens of dwarves, their children, and their pets

• Expand your fortress with fortifications, stairs, bridges, and subterranean halls

• Construct fantastic traps, machines, and weapons of mass destruction

Getting Started with Dwarf Fortress

How to turn old car parts into a video game controller

Mark Frauenfelder — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 00:55:59 +0000

Jason Torchinsky of Jalopnik shows how to turn old car parts into a video game controller.

The idea came to me while adjusting the mirrors in a car, and realizing that the little mirror-control joystick was better than many video game joysticks I used. I then had a waking dream of the grand possibilities of playing old videogames with control pads sourced from cars. The dream was a beautiful, fantastical vision of a world we could all achieve. I woke up hours later behind a CVS, and headed straight to a junkyard to make this dream real.

Super-sleuth readers may note that in the final project I used a seat control panel instead of a mirror controller. There's a reason for that. When I got the mirror control pads and joysticks home and tested them, I uncovered one of the auto industry's darkest secrets: the "up" and "left" directions on mirror controllers are THE SAME DAMN THING. They're wired together! Think of all the times you've thought you were adjusting your mirror up, not left, thinking you were hot shit? IT'S ALL BEEN A FILTHY LIE. So I soon learned to look elsewhere. Luckily, 70s-80s American cars provided the solution, since they're full of funny little chrome joysticks for seat controls and other various duties.

How to turn old car parts into a video game controller

In defense of the much-ridiculed train simulator, Railworks

Mark Frauenfelder — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 16:30:58 +0000

[Video Link] Kirk Demarais (author of the great Mail Order Mysteries book) wrote a positive review of the PC train simulator Railworks, which is frequently derided for its lack of monsters, magic, aliens, or eastern european gangsters.

My respect for the Railworks community began to grow as it occurred to me that their passion does not require thrills, instead they are contented by life's subtleties. Their fantasies don't rely upon adrenaline or destruction, they just wish to peacefully command a Class 47 Triple Grey all the way from Oxford to Paddington. They bask in the sights of the uninterrupted countryside. Their serenity is found in the rhythmic valley echos of rumbling tracks. Hobbies are supposed to be relaxing, right? Most of my video gaming ends up driving me to internet walkthoughs in fits of frustration.

It wasn't just the Railworks state of mind that I envied, I also fantasized about having enough spare hours to leisurely delve into each sauntering level, gazing at my monitor blissfully, pausing only to adjust the camera angle every few minutes, or turn on the windshield wipers.

By the time Railworks 2 went on sale for eight bucks I was primed to join the ranks of the noble virtual conductors. I proudly bought a copy.

The cross-country journeys were as soothing as anticipated and I even felt like I was getting a pixelated glimpse into the United Kingdom where most of the missions take place.

Near the end of his review Kirk admits, "Such simple pleasures go a long way, but the truth is I can't say that I've been able to become one of them. I've played for twenty plus hours, but I rarely complete a level without acting on the urge to derail."

In defense of Train Simulator

SimCity E3 Gameplay Trailer

Mark Frauenfelder — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 16:16:51 +0000

[Video Link] The upcoming SimCity looks cool. It uses something called the GlassBox Simulation Engine to run the simulation. I won't pretend to understand how it works, but here's Maxis' Andrew Willmott's GDG 2012 "Inside Glassbox" presentation that goes into detail about it.

Inside GlassBox

Gweek 052: Mystery in Space

Mark Frauenfelder — Fri, 18 May 2012 00:37:19 +0000

Click here to play this episode. Gweek is Boing Boing's podcast about comic books, science fiction and fantasy, video games, board games, tools, gadgets, apps, and other neat stuff. My co-hosts for episode 52 are:

Maggie Koerth-Baker: BoingBoing’s science editor, journalist, and author of Before the Lights Go Out, a new book about electric infrastructure and the future of energy.

Michael Pusateri, a lifelong tinkerer and former television tech executive for Disney who blogs at cruftbox.com

and our special guest Andy Ihnatko, technology journalist for the Chicago Sun-Times, and host of The Ihnatko Almanac podcast on the 5by5 network.

In this episode:

645 Pro, a camera app for iPhone.

Orbital, a one-thumb game for iPhone.

Hipmunk, a great comparative airline pricing site.

Battle of the X-Planes: Nova

Rachele Gilmore’s 100 MPH fastball

Coloraturas - Opera Arias

Young Men of a Certain Mind, a graphic novel ebook by Lars Martinson

Avengers: West Coast Avengers: Lost in Space and Time

Berkeley Science Review

Performing Flea, by P.G. Wodehouse

Nerd Nite magazine

Mystery in Space, science fiction comic book.

Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker, by Kevin Mitnick

Sound of My Voice

Character Model

Portal companion cube puzzle box

Xeni Jardin — Mon, 14 May 2012 13:29:19 +0000

[Video Link]

Genius animator Joaquin Baldwin, whose 3D-printed projects I've featured here before, says:

For the fans of the Portal games, this is the latest 3d-printed weirdness I made, a puzzle box. It was much harder than I expected, went through 2 prototypes to get it to work out, and I still had to fix a lot of things with a knife and sandpaper to get this model to work just right. Not for sale though, unless you wanna do the delicate carvings to fix it yourself :)

Gweek 051: Blair Butler of G4's Fresh Ink

Mark Frauenfelder — Fri, 11 May 2012 20:29:51 +0000

Michael Pusateri: a lifelong tinkerer and former television tech executive for Disney who blogs at cruftbox.com

Blair Butler: Writer, comedian, and G4's geek goddess and resident comic book expert. She hosts the "Fresh Ink" comic book segment on the G4 TV program, Attack of the Show!

In this episode:

The upcoming SpaceX launch

Blair Butler's comic book, Heart.

Womanthology, a comics anthology completely funded by Kickstarter. Blair has a story in it.

Dial H for Heroes, a comic book written by China Mieville.

Blair: Why the new John Carter: The Gods of Mars comic is better than the movie.

Blair's comic picks: Fatale, Saga, Mind the Gap, Scott Snyder’s Batman, Greg Rucka’s Punisher.

National Geographic’s Angry Birds Space book is a lot better than Mark would have thought.

And lots more about movies, video games, apps, and gadgets!

Gym machine modified to play Portal theme song (video)

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 02 May 2012 21:26:40 +0000

[Video Link] A student modified this gym machine's CPU to play the theme song from Portal. Modding unlikely machines to play Portal is kind of a thing!

(thanks, jennybean42!)

Meet Japanese "human beatboxer" Hikakin (and prepare to be blown away by his video game theme remakes)

Xeni Jardin — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 17:48:06 +0000

Video Link to a short feature on the very popular "human sound machine" Hikakin, who has a growing following within and beyond his native Japan. His YouTube channel is here, and well worth a subscribe. Below, his take on the Donkey Kong theme song.

TOM THE DANCING BUG: Super-Fun-Pak Comix Reveals the Mystery of Dark Matter!!

Ruben Bolling — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:05:02 +0000

RECOMMEND: Follow RUBEN BOLLING on TWITTER.

Brain Rot: Nostalgic Memories of the NES

Ed Piskor — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 18:00:16 +0000