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Battleblock Theater will have 200 playable characters, and at least one duck
Developer The Behemoth has been toiling away on its latest, Battleblock Theater, for a while now, and all we've learned about the game has come from a few scant glances at various industry events. But the game is finally code complete, so the developer is being a little more forthcoming with details.On the latest company blog, the team goes through the numbers on the new game: There will be over 200 characters to unlock (compared to Castle Crashers' 30), over 200 levels to play through, and over 10 "weapontools" to use. There will also be a full slate of online multiplayer modes, Achievements and avatar awards to earn, and a "soundtrack created by well-known artists and members of our community" (that community being Newgrounds, which was created by The Behemoth co-owner Tom Fulp).The dev has also shared a video (above) of artist Dan Paladin working on some of the creations in the game. The Behemoth promises more announcements later this year – here's hoping they'll finally be able to bring this long-awaited game to players soon.
KCRW launches MALCOLM music service to help indie bands in need
Being a DJ at radio station can be an embarrassment of riches. And really, who's going to listen to you complain about having too much music to listen to? Santa Monica's terrifically wonderful public radio station KCRW is looking to take a little bit of the pain of finding new music for its DJs, with the launch of MALCOLM, a site that lets artists submit their music for consideration -- a nice attempt at continued outreach in a medium so dominated by charts and major label interference. Bands can create profiles with images, bios and social media links, alongside up to three tracks. MALCOLM serves as a bit of a social network for the station's DJs, letting them share tracks and interact with profiles, alerting artists via email when someone has commented on or rated their listing. More information on the service, which borrows its name from KCRW's old internal record filing system, can be found in the press release after the break. Interested bands can submit songs in the source link below.
Wacom announces Cintiq 22HD pen display, we go hands-on (video)
Oh, to sit in a darkened room all day and get paid to do art. No phone calls, no stress, and no technology except for a PC and a brand new $1,999 Wacom Cintiq 22HD tablet display (and maybe also a pair of equally well-engineered Beyerdynamics). Alas, only our Distro magazine crew get to live like that -- the rest of the Engadget team must make do with spec sheets and quick hands-on impressions, which are precisely what you'll find after the break. %Gallery-159971% %Gallery-160012%
Dave Gross, Nat Jones join Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition team
Beamdog has announced the writer for all of that new content coming in the Enhanced Edition of Baldur's Gate: Dave Gross. A very experienced fantasy and D&D writer, Gross has worked for TSR in the past, as well as having written two Forgotten Realms novels. More recently, he says, he was "sitting in a coffee shop complaining about the lack of classic RPGs for the iPad, when [Beamdog's] Trent [Oster] appeared in a sulphurous cloud and said, 'Have I got a job for you.'" Gross will presumably work to update the old game, as well as oversee all the writing on the new content as well.Elsewhere on that team, artist Nat Jones has also joined up. He's got a background in fantasy and horror comics, and has worked on some story elements in Frank Frazetta's Death Dealer comic series as well. Good to hear there's some substantial talent working on this much-anticipated revival.
This is what artists do with their desktops
Need inspiration for a wallpaper refresh? Then you'll find plenty of treats at the source link below, which displays 51 examples of how artists customize their desktops when they just can't resist a tabula rasa. They were collected by Mac-centric creative type Adam Cruces, who wanted to echo an earlier project from 1997 (called "Desktop Is") that has since decayed into mess of broken links. Some of these new desktops are mesmerizing while others are surely too impractical to be real -- but then, who's to say?
Former Lineage II artist returns to NCsoft for new MMO project
NCsoft's prodigal son has returned, and with him the hopes and dreams of the future of gaming. Well that might be a smidge melodramatic, but fans of the company's games certainly have a good reason to celebrate today as former Lineage II artist Juno Jeong has come back to the fold. Jeong signed back on with NCsoft as of yesterday to be the art director of an unknown MMO project. This is a marked step up from his previous role in the company as a member of the character production team, and those who know Jeong's art style are already expressing excitement with his current role. Following his stint on Lineage II, Jeong worked for several other game companies including Gravity, NHN, and Npluto. While speculation is swirling over the exact nature of the project to which he's been assigned, the most common assumptions are either that he's working on another Lineage or Aion title.
It's art, baby: cover your walls in discarded QWERTY keys
Have you ever looked at your bedroom wall and felt that it was a few thousand keys short of the perfect decoration? This is the thought process of artist Sarah Frost, who has taken plethoras of keys from discarded QWERTY keyboards and covered walls with them. The masterpieces range in size from a single wall to entire rooms, consisting of parts procured from sources like individual homes, small businesses, government offices and Fortune 500 companies. Check out her website below for more information, or feel free to gaze upon one of these walls-o'-keys in person at the James Hotel at the James Hotel on Grand Street in New York City, where a permanent installation has been set up. Rent and the Statue of Liberty be damned, we know this is why you're pining to go to the Big Apple in the first place, right?
Post-apocalyptic L.A.W takes us from sketches to art to screen
Good-looking graphics don't just magically appear overnight in MMOs, delivered by the FedEx equivalent of the leprechaun community. The look and design of a game is a lengthy process full of revisions, abandoned doodles, and brainstorming -- something we end-users tend not to appreciate. Consider today your education, then, as the team behind the post-apocalyptic L.A.W -- Living After War released a whole crate of images with the intent of showing us how the iterative process works. In the gallery below you can check out different versions of the same buildings, vehicles, and mobs at various stages of their making. From sketches to concept art to in-game models, these screens are a great crash course in understanding how involved the development team has to get to make these games a reality. %Gallery-135873% [Source: ProSiebenSat.1 press release]
Artists hack Sony Ericsson's Xperia phones to see the unseen universe, use fire as a flash
For most of us, cellphones are for texting, calling and maybe the occasional tweet, but what happens when you hand them over to some of the world's most creative minds? Giving hackers, artists and intellectuals free reign to mess with the various Xperia phones, Sony found out just how capable its handsets really are. Using a few tweaks and hacks, artists were able to create an installation that breathes fire when you snap a photo, a remote-controlled boat with GPS and a bike that uses colored lights to spell out secret words only visible when captured on camera. When Sony asked astrophysicist Joshua Peek to give it a go, he took full sky maps and telescope image data to build an app with an up-close view of electromagnetic patterns in the sky. To round out the project, musician Annabel Lindquist composed a song based on the sounds of Paris she recorded with an Arc. Now, if they could just mod one to avoid dropped calls, we'd be all set. Videos of their ingenuity in action after the break.
TUAW's Daily iPhone App: Puzzle Agent 2
I've been looking forward to this one. I first enjoyed Graham Annable's Puzzle Agent last summer actually on the iPhone, even though it was also released for the Mac and PC previously. The sequel is now available on iOS, and I can't wait to play it. Annable's weird mix of homespun comedy and creepy gnomes is fascinating to me (and you'll love it too, especially if you have a taste for the weird and slightly frightening), and Puzzle Agent's puzzles were ingenious little bite-sized affairs, paced perfectly well with a story full of wacky characters and twists. There's no Game Center integration here, and the presentation might not be perfect -- the first iPhone title suffered a little from weird graphical glitches (though there were no game-breaking bugs that I found). But nevertheless, the Puzzle Agent series is much-loved by a certain crowd, myself definitely included. If you know you'll like it already, you can pick it up on the iPhone for US$4.99 or on the iPad in HD for $6.99. If you've never played the series before, you can check out the first title for the same prices, play through the free version, or just wait a bit for them to go on sale.
Music for Shuffle features music designed for the iPod shuffle
This is fascinating to me -- musician Matthew Irvine Brown has compiled a set of 18 musical tracks, about an hour of music total, designed to be played in random order on the iPod shuffle. There was a lot of care and thought put into this as he designed the music to be atmospheric pieces. Even when shuffled, they'll work together no matter which order they're played. He also designed the sound of the music to fit with the iPod shuffle, hiding the glitch heard as the iPod switches tracks. As a final bonus, Matthew designed separate cover art for each track, so as a tune plays in iTunes, the cover art shows a very rough "animation." You can see a two-minute sample of the work after the break, and download all of the music for free in a zip file if you want to give it a shot. Brown also says that the work is an example of "skip button as instrument," too. You can hit the skip button whenever you want to jump to the next track and change tempo or tone as you see fit. It's a cool composition meant specifically for Apple's smallest iPod.
NYU prof sticks camera on the back of his head, just as promised (video)
Remember when your parents told you they had eyes in the back of their heads, and part of you wanted to believe? Well, NYU professor and artist Wafaa Bilal recently had that done, though it's not as permanent as we'd hoped -- it's a removable dealie, affixed to a titanium plate implanted in the back of his skull. The resulting lifecast gets piped to a satchel at his side, which will be used in his art project The 3rd I at the Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art on December 30th... but you should be able to get a sneak peek at the images at his website in just a little over a week. No word on whether he'll also hook up the whole kit to some sweet LCD goggles. Here's hoping. Video after the break.
NYU prof installing camera in the back of his head, JW Parker Middle School teachers insanely jealous
You've wished you had a camera implant, right? We mean, it's pretty common: you've been on the bus or the incline and something went down and you were like, "I wish I was recording this right now." Well, we know of at least two folks looking to replace their prosthetic eyes with webcams, and now an artist living in New York wishes to sport an implant of his own. Wafaa Bilal, an NYU photography professor, plans on having a camera attached to a piercing on the back of his head for one year. Throughout that time, still images will be taken at one minute intervals and displayed at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar. The work, titled "The 3rd I," is billed as "a comment on the inaccessibility of time, and the inability to capture memory and experience," although it really sounds like the dream of every teacher and parent since time immemorial: to have eyes on the back of their head. Of course, the privacy of Bilal's students is being taken into consideration, although the school is not exactly sure how they're handling that one yet -- either the camera will be covered while he teaches or shut off altogether while in NYU buildings.
Artist creates real-life home icon
Artist Johannes P. Osterhoff (whom you may remember from his paintings using OS X elements) has been reusing Apple's interface elements again. His latest project is a real-life construction of the Home icon from OS X, which he's made into a wearable display. The doors and shutters are actually real (if a little small), there are real curtains in the windows, and there are two straps on the back to haul the piece of art around. It looks great -- it's really wild to see something that's only ever existed in pixels translated into real-life materials from actual plans and blueprints. The piece itself is called Home Sweet Home, which seems fitting. We'll have to keep an eye out for Osterhoff and see what else can do with Apple's little bits of interface. [via Cult of Mac]
Pixel artist releases free pack of gaming-related Minecraft character skins
Sure, you've created a working computer in Minecraft, or recreated a Mega Man game, but maybe you should spend a little time customizing the most important part of that blocky world: yourself. Pixel artist Gary Lucken, also known as Army of Trolls, has created a pack of 15 different Minecraft character skins featuring video game luminaries like Mario Link and Viewtiful Joe, plus Street Fighter's Ken and Ryu. The pack also has a few Star Wars characters in it, along with some Halloween and miscellaneous skins. Of course, given that Minecraft is basically a first-person game, you won't be able to tell what you look like, but we're sure everyone else on your server will appreciate seeing you bounding around as a Cactuar. The pack is a free download from Lucken's website -- just grab the skin you want and upload it right into Minecraft to use.
The Daily Grind: What would your MMO dream job be?
I'll be Frank and you'll be Ernest, and we'll both admit that we as players have the tendency to be armchair game designers. No, no, don't deny it; it just makes you look defensive. If there's a single theme that pervades every official MMO forum out there, it's that the players think they know what's best for the game, even more than the devs themselves, and if they were making the calls, Game X would be mopping the floor with World of Warcraft. So hey, why not indulge in the daydream -- what if tomorrow you could have any job in the MMO industry? If you could make a very real, very direct impact on the games that are being made or are operating in live mode, what would it be? Would you be a writer, finally free to pen the perfect quest? Would you be a project manager, in charge of the direction and goals of the teams at your disposal? Would you be a big-shot CEO, making the major calls and shaping the future of the company? Or would you settle into a creative role as an artist or composer, helping to contribute to the game's frills? No, wait, I got it. You'd totally want to be a quality assurance tester. Those guys and gals get all the glory, am I right?
Shawn Smith brings 8-bit art into three dimensions, one tiny block of wood at a time
Austin, Texas-based artist Shawn Smith creates sculptures of things like vultures, sharks and hats on fire, and they're seriously awesome, 8-bit style extravaganzas. The pieces are largely created out of small blocks of wood, and then painted. Hit the source (the artist's website) to see many, many examples of his stunning and beautiful work.
Finger painting on the iPad
We've speculated before about what artists could do with the iPad's bigger screen, and here's an answer. In the video above, portrait artist David Kassan uses the Brushes app to create a painting from a live model. I don't know what the fingerless gloves are all about, but you can definitely see how the iPad helps -- he can make bigger swipes across the screen, match colors with the extra screen space, and run touchups on a few different parts of the work at a time. According to the video's description, the whole thing took about three hours, and the end result looks great. I like one of the YouTube comments on this one, too: Who needs a camera on the iPad, anyway?
Holiday weekend giveaway: Type Drawing for iPad
There's a lot of great drawing apps for the iPad out there, but Type Drawing puts a unique spin on things. With Type Drawing, you can sketch anything your mind can conceive of, but your brush strokes are made up of words instead of lines. I've been playing around with the app for a while now, and it's really quite fun. Enter the word or phrase you want to draw with, choose the font and color, and then sketch away! There's even a Flickr group where you can show of your Type Drawing skills (some drawings are very impressive). Type Drawing is the brain child of Hansol Huh and sells on the App Store for the low price of $2.99, but we've got 10 copies to give away to TUAW readers. To enter the giveaway, simply leave a comment on this post. Ten people will be chosen at random (sorry, readers outside the US; app promo codes are geographically constrained). Good luck everyone! Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia. To enter leave a comment on this post. The comment must be left before Wednesday June 2, 11:59PM Eastern Daylight Time. You may enter only once. Ten winners will be selected in a random drawing. Prize: One (1) promo code for Type Drawing for iPad per winner. Retail value $2.99. Click here for complete official rules. Update: Replaced original image with current Type Drawing icon.
Found Footage: Creating manga on the iPad
In the video above, artist Yoshitoshi Abe uses LiveSketch HD [$0.99] to sketch one of his characters named Ain. Yoshitoshi's normal medium is pencil and paper, but you can see that the detail he achieves in the sketch on the iPad is almost in parity with his pencil sketches. What's even more impressive is that he does the sketch in under four minutes and uses only one hand. As you can see in the video, his other hand is busy holding his iPhone 3GS, which he is using to record his creation. Ah, when talent and technology meet. [via ZanyPickle]
