The String Arcade, game music for string quartet

Posted on February 26, 2014 by Peter (Devee)

A couple weeks ago I reviewed The String Arcade for Game Boyz. The String Arcade is an album of music arranged for string quartet all based on songs from video games. It’s pretty cool, so I thought I’d share a link to my review here.

Creating a new variation on some classic video game music, the recently release album, The String Arcade, reimagines fifteen video game songs (seventeen if you buy the physical CD) arranged for string quartet. The album was arranged by Dren McDonald and Jason Poss. The proceeds go to the Alameda Music Project, an after-school music program starting in September that features strings, chorus, and percussion for children in grades K-5.

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You can read more about The String Arcade on their website at TheStringArcade.com where you can also find links to purchase the album. The digital download is $9.99, and the CD is $11.99, which comes with the two bonus tracks – Tron Arcade Medley and Altered Beast Title Theme. Now I find myself wondering how I can find more string quartet music, because I loved The String Arcade. Any suggestions?

via The String Arcade, game music for string quartet | Reviews, Rhythm.

Evolve is looking interesting

Posted on February 17, 2014 by Peter (Devee)

I saw this trailer for Evolve last week and was immediately intrigued. I’ll admit, the first thing I noticed was the awesome song – Mother by Lissie, originally by Danzig. The game’s developed by Turtle Rock Studios, the developer behind Left 4 Dead.

Evolve is a 4v1 shooter in which four players control human hunters and one controls a monster. It’s sort of like a boss battle if the boss was controlled by a player. The monster can evolve by hiding from the hunters and eating smaller monsters, and as it evolves, it gets stronger. This means the hunters want to find the monster quickly; the monster wants to hide and evolve until it’s strong enough to face the players.

This second video has a little more information about the game itself and includes actual gameplay. I can’t say with any certainty if it’ll actually be good, but it sounds pretty cool!

What happened to Cave Johnson? GLaDOS answers in Poker Night 2

Posted on February 11, 2014 by Peter (Devee)

I unlocked the Portal felt, deck, and chips in Poker Night 2 recently, which gives Poker Night 2 a little more of a science feel! As a lover of Portal, this made me pretty happy. Of course, when Brock asked GLaDOS about Cave Johnson, I got even more excited.

Here’s a video I found capturing the conversation. Poker Night 2 doesn’t have much a story, so I wouldn’t really consider this a spoiler. However, I recommend avoiding the video if you haven’t beat Portal and Portal 2. The Portal series is my favorite series, and I consider Portal to be the best game I’ve ever played. Please don’t watch it if you haven’t played those games!

January gaming

Posted on February 7, 2014 by Peter (Devee)

I thought it might be time to recap what I’ve been playing. As I mentioned in my last post, I began playing a lot of Poker Night 2. I found it a lot more difficult than Poker Night at the Inventory but still just as fun.

Surprise, surprise. I’ve also been playing more World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria in Patch 5.4: Siege of Orgrimmar. I won’t go into too many details since I blog in depth about WoW at Kor’kron 501st, but I did make some good progression. I got some pets, hit exalted with the Brood of Nozdormu, finished the introduction zone on my Forsaken warlock, earned Glory of the Hero, obtained the Twilight Drake from OS 3D 25-man, and began running older content with a new WoW buddy. As for raiding, I killed Garrosh in flex and in normal saw a lot of progression – Kor’kron Dark Shaman, General Nazgrim, Malkorok, Spoils of Pandaria, and Thok the Bloodthirsty!

I’ve been spending a couple minutes with Dr. Mario Express almost every night and set a high score.

I can’t explain why Star Wars: Tiny Death Star is so fun, but it is. This screenshot is outdated as well. In January I finished all the non-Imperial floors and got a lot more bitizens. I’m sure I’ll be done with all the floors this month.

For a series I really loved, I was bad at playing the Phoenix Wright games. January saw me finish the first case of Justice for All in the Phoenix Wright Trilogy for iOS.

Cause of Death is a super exciting visual novel about a detective and FBI agent. I continued playing Volume 2 in January. I own five volumes, so I should get on that.

This screenshot is dated, but I’ve also played a little bit of World of Tanks. My highest tank is a tier VI, the TOG II, which is a gold tank. I’ve been working on the US tank destroyer line, and my highest is the M10 Wolverine, a tier V.

And then there was some crap. I tried Tanktastic on iOS, which is basically a World of Tanks clone. It was terrible. I also tried Tiny Tower. It should be great if I love Tiny Death Star, right? Wrong. Boring.

Playing Poker Night 2

Posted on February 6, 2014 by Peter (Devee)

I’ve been playing Telltale’s Poker Night 2 recently and was finding it much harder than the original, Poker Night at the Inventory. I don’t know if it’s actually harder or if I just needed to get into the swing of things. Just as with the first game, the banter in the second is pretty great. Of course, Poker Night at the Inventory didn’t have GLADoS, so it pales in comparison.

Each character has a bounty you can win, although there’s an outline of a fifth – what’s obviously a personality core. I don’t yet know how you earn it, but earn it I shall. I have Sam’s banjo currently. Hopefully I’ll begin to pick up on their tells, but I didn’t really notice any in the original, so I wouldn’t count on it (and I’d rather not look it up).

Robert Pelloni releases and retracts background on bob’s game development

Posted on February 5, 2014 by Peter (Devee)

On January 30th, reader anonymouse commented that Robert had a new page that gave what he called “disturbing insight into the history of ‘bob’s game‘.” Personally, I think calling it disturbing is too strong, but I did find it very interesting. It was available from http://bobsgame.com/faq/ but has since been removed. It’s been replaced with a simple message. “Please wait for the full story and don’t post what was already here. Thank you.”

I’ll admit that I did save a .PDF copy, but I’ll respect his wishes. I hope he wouldn’t mind if I do at least say that it provided a bit of history and context to his development of bob’s game, and it reassured me that he really was trying to get this released. I’m looking forward to the “full story.”

I also received two comments (here and here) from reader shicky256 / Nathan M. on January 28th that Robert uploaded some new YouTube videos. While they weren’t all interesting to me, a few were and showed the location at which he did some of the development it seems.

February 2nd brought a comment by a reader who simply used the name “Who is Bob???” He points out that the bob’s game OUYA game was released. He links to a review of the game on OUYAbrew.com. To be clear, this bob’s game is simply a single puzzle game that’s supposedly a minigame from the RPG. (Although it is pretty complex and changes rulesets, so maybe calling it “simply a single puzzle game” is an understatement.) I’d just like to be clear that this bob’s game is distinct from the bob’s game RPG and from the bob’s game within the bob’s game RPG.

The strange tale of “bob’s game” attempts to keep the entire story of Robert Pelloni and his game organized. I’m going to consider these updates part of Act IX and update the article accordingly.

To everyone who’s following along or contributing to the conversation here on this blog, thank you! I appreciate all the comments, and I’m glad that there are still people interested in bob’s game. I know I don’t always update immediately when I receive a tip, but I’m glad to receive them!

Polygons and Pixels

…the building blocks of games

Monthly Archives: February 2014