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Barely Related: The Millennium Falcon's Batmobile baby
A happy weekend tip from us, your pals: Take a walk. Enjoy the sun, the shade and the way your new iPhone screen looks in both of those lighting situations. Welcome to Barely Related, a conversational Friday column that presents the non-gaming news stories that we, the Joystiq staff, have been talking about over the past week. And no, we're not stopping our focus on industry and gaming news. Think of this as your casual weekly recap of interesting (and mostly geeky) news, presented just in time to fill your brain with things to discuss at all of those weekend shindigs. Grab a fresh drink, lean back in your armchair, and get ready to talk nerdy with us.
Barely Related: Doctor Who on Aug. 23, Japan's realistic robots
What a week. Let's all chill out, cool down and enjoy some nerdy news. Welcome to Barely Related, a conversational Friday column that presents the non-gaming news stories that we, the Joystiq staff, have been talking about over the past week. And no, we're not stopping our focus on industry and gaming news. Think of this as your casual weekly recap of interesting (and mostly geeky) news, presented just in time to fill your brain with things to discuss at all of those weekend shindigs. Grab a fresh drink, lean back in your armchair, and get ready to talk nerdy with us.
The Hunger Games sprints for its life in endless runner on iOS, Android
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire came out yesterday, but before you run off to your local theaters to learn the fate of Katniss, Peeta and the gang, you can start running (and never stop) with an official tie-in app on Android and iOS. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire - Panem Run by Reliance Games lets you play as characters from the Hunger Games trilogy as you sprint across Panem, inspiring the various Districts. The Hunger Games is a series ripe for endless runners, it seems - before the first film was released in March 2012, Canabalt creator Adam Saltsman created The Hunger Games: Girl on Fire, a 2D endless runner with art from Super Crate Box's Paul Veer and music by Super Meat Boy's Daniel Baranowsky. It was much cuter than the film or book which, if you haven't seen or read yet, you should probably do. They're kind of a thing.
Daily iPad App: Stretch your legs with The Hunger Games: Panem Run
First thing's first: Panem Run doesn't have a lot to do with The Hunger Games at all. As an "endless runner" game, it has about as little connection to the franchise as you could imagine. You play as a non-movie character and run through various environments modeled after the different districts in the Hunger Games movies and books. But while the game is thin on lore, it remains an enjoyable entry into an increasingly crowded genre. As in other similar titles (most notably Temple Run), your character sprints forward with reckless abandon, and it's up to you to provide timed input to bypass obstacles while collecting money and loot. Swiping upward prompts a jump, swiping downward leads to a slide, and swiping left or right controls your position on the track. The challenge comes with trying to combine these commands in close succession, and if you're tasked with jumping, moving sideways and sliding within a second or two, there's a good chance you're going to mess something up. When this inevitably happens, your run stops, and you are offered the option to pay a bit of your winnings for the ability to restart in the same area, or simply end the run and start fresh. The fee for getting back on your feet grows with each failure, so sooner or later you're going to need to throw in the towel and start a fresh run. There's a relatively deep skill system that lets you level up certain abilities by collecting various supplies found on the track, but this can also be bypassed by simply paying for the upgrades using the in-game currency. None of the upgrades provide a drastic change to the overall gameplay, so if you choose to ignore this part of the game menu entirely you'll likely not notice too much. It's a free-to-play game, which means there are also in-app purchases. Thankfully the store options at this point are simply coin packs, and since the game rewards you handsomely for even the most modest of runs, you probably won't find a huge need to crack open your real-world bank account. As I mentioned above, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire: Panem Run (yes, that's its actual full title) doesn't do a whole lot to provide an extra thread to the Hunger Games story, but the mechanics of the game itself are solid enough that you'll likely get a good bit of playtime out of it. It's a fine time-waster while you're waiting in line for tickets to the new Hunger Games flick, just don't expect it to catch fire.
Walk through WoW pop culture with Panser from TradeChat
Who doesn't love some pop culture? I mean, seriously -- that stuff is like the internet's bread and butter. We get to the choppa on the back of a lolcat, just in time to catch The Hunger Games out on DVD. And just like a microcosm of real life, WoW is stocked full with plenty of pop culture references. In this video, Panser of TradeChat (and our weekly news roundup) takes you on a guided tour through the annals of pop culture in Azeroth. She lists dozens of references, many of which will probably surprise even the most veteran WoW players, especially if you don't play both factions.
PSA: Hunger Games: Girl on Fire out today
The Hunger Games: Girl on Fire, the iOS adaptation of Suzanne Collins' breakout young-adult sensation, is now available for free on the App Store. As you'll recall, Girl on Fire was developed by a Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young-esque indie-games supergroup captained by Adam Saltsman of Canabalt fame, featuring artwork by Super Crate Box's Paul Veer and music by Super Meat Boy composer Daniel Baranowsky.The above trailer was actually created before the game was in a playable state, using a combination of the game's art assets, Adobe After Effects and a powerful amount of ingenuity. Hopefully Lionsgate's film version of The Hunger Games, which hits theaters tomorrow, will have as much effort put into it.
Adam Saltsman on making a game out of The Hunger Games
The Hunger Games: Girl on Fire is what film company Lionsgate calls a "teaser game" for the upcoming movie, based on the popular books. iOS indie superstar Adam Saltsman (Canabalt, Capsule) is leading a team of other indie superstars for the App Store release, including Mark Johns and Kevin Coulton (aka DOOMLASER), Paul Veer, and composer Danny Baranowsky.It's a different world now, one in which the official tie-in video game for a major motion picture is a game for phones, designed by a tiny team of people best known for games they made without publishers. It's a game with a deliberate retro aesthetic, as you can see in the new "pixel poster" for the upcoming game (visible in full after the break). Author Suzanne Collins even chimed in with suggestions. How on earth did this all happen?The rise of iOS gaming is a separate, and larger topic, but pinpointing the design of this particular one was much simpler. "From the get-go my inspiration and motivation for this, aesthetically, has been to just pretend I am making a movie tie-in game for the Super Nintendo, only actually fun to play," Saltsman told Joystiq, explaining the look.
Indie dream team building The Hunger Games: Girl on Fire for iOS
Adam Saltsman, the mastermind behind Canabalt, Gravity Hook and Capsule, has rallied an indie dream team to make an original iOS title based on The Hunger Games movie. The Hunger Games: Girl on Fire is Saltsman's brainchild, backed by production company Lionsgate, and in collaboration with designers/programmers Mark Johns (Tap Tap Dance) and Kevin Coulton (Hot Throttle), lead artist and animator Paul Veer (Super Crate Box), and composer Daniel Baranowsky (Super Meat Boy, Canabalt).Saltsman says he was skeptical about taking on the adaptation, as most companies who approach him want to re-skin Canabalt and call it a day. Not Lionsgate though. "I pitched them on an original touch-based action game instead," Saltsman said. "It does feature a running character, but the focus of the game is more on marksmanship and strategy... but we'll have more to say and show about that later! It's a small idea, but a tight one too."The Hunger Games: Girl on Fire will launch for iOS devices "timed to the theatrical release," which is March 23.
