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April 15, 2014 Brandon Soderberg

Rjyan Kidwell’s work as Cex has long been fueled by provocation. Consider a performance the electronic musician, Tigerbeat6 cofounder, and turn-of-the-millennium internet hero gave in 2007, opening for Dan Deacon and Girl Talk. After he was lifted on stage in a wheelchair, Cex told the crowd he was a contest-winner hoping to raise awareness for […]

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April 7, 2014 Andy Cush

Have nine hours to spare? Consider spending some of it on SUPER PRESS START, a compilation of start screens from every game ever to grace the Super Nintendo. Titles range from iconic — Mortal Kombat, Super Mario Bros., and Mega Man games — to hyper-obscure — Solid Runner, anyone? My favorite part is listening to the various games’ title music, which, […]

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April 3, 2014 Michael Rougeau

ANIMAL’s feature Game Plan asks video game developers to share a bit about their process and some working images from the creation of a recent game. This week, we spoke with Aran Koning about Please Be Nice 🙁, a game that demonstrates exactly why we can’t have nice things. The creator of Please Be Nice […]

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March 26, 2014 Michael Rougeau

I’ve played wizard chess against a demon king. I’ve had space ship battles that rival Star Wars. I’ve “sat” in a virtual movie theater with my actual butt planted firmly in a chair in a back room at a technology conference. I’ve even ascended Game of Thrones’ towering wall—and fallen down the other side. I’ve […]

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March 20, 2014 Michael Rougeau

ANIMAL’s feature Game Plan asks video game developers to share a bit about their process and some working images from the creation of a recent game. This week, we spoke with Shelly Alon about Olav & the Lute, a game about gods and a magic musical instrument. Shelly Alon is a man. He lived the […]

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March 17, 2014 Andy Cush

If you want to to get in on the Flappy Bird clone craze but lack the skills to build a proper game, try build-a-bird, a Tumblr-based web app that lets you choose a set of images with which to recreate the notoriously difficult game. Above, my Twitter avatar navigates a hideous landscape filled with Guy […]

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March 14, 2014 Andy Cush

A god game where you drive trucks with ghosts while stranded on an island. A simulation game where you plop down fish to create a sprawling industry. An FPS where you wander around a world without the government to unlock achievements. All are video game ideas generated by this random generator, and soon, they could become actual […]

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March 12, 2014 Michael Rougeau

Between 100 and 200 video game consoles have existed over the last several decades, depending who you ask. One Wikipedia page lists 143, but doesn’t include handheld systems like Nintendo’s Game Boy and 3DS. Michael Thomasson, a noted collector of vintage games, has 108 different systems, and says his lot would be complete but for […]

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March 6, 2014 Andy Cush

Christopher Mitchell, a computer science PhD student, is making it his quest to build a 1:1 scale model of Manhattan in Minecraft. So far, he’s only been able to replicate landmarks using models from Google’s 3D Warehouse and the U.S. Geological Survey, but eventually, he’d like to make a software copy of every single structure on the […]

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March 5, 2014 Andy Cush

Here’s video of the Korean multimedia performance collective Tacit Group created performing Six Pac-Men, an audiovisual piece that combines Steve Reich’s 1973 minimalist composition Six Pianos with the titular arcade game. Here’s how it works, via Prosthetic Knowledge. “Six Pacmen” is a work of art made by utilizing Pacman, the video game which was released in 1980, and Six […]

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