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The iam8bit Entertainment System's homemade console premieres in Los Angeles
The iam8bit gallery in Los Angeles premiered its latest video game-related art show last night, called the iam8bit Entertainment System. The centerpiece of the show was Travis Chen's homemade two-player console, which is a custom-made PC running MAME encased in natural bamboo, with two homemade controller boxes playing three different indie games: Canabalt's two-player version, the Sportsfriends bundle's BaraBariBall, and Chen's own Adventure Time game jam game, Bad Atticube. Chen is a former Neversoft developer who now works on both iOS games with Scopely and his own indie creations, including the recent Typing Karaoke. iam8bit pitched the new show to him as "being kind of like a mock release of a game console" (in the shadow of next week's E3 and its two new consoles), and Chen said he emailed iam8bit co-founder Jon Gibson to say, "Jon, I'm building the console." Chen's work is impressive: The "iES" wood case was laser-cut (though Chen says some sanding was needed to bring it all together), and the front of the console has an LED screen that shows various ASCII text. There are colored buttons on the top of the main unit, and pressing those changes whatever's shown on the screen, from crazy visualizers to a running dialogue between the console and its player. The console is being offered for sale in the gallery, and Chen says if it does sell he wants to customize it for the buyer. But if it doesn't sell, Chen has other plans in mind. "I want to enter it into Indiecade and maybe even the IGF," he says. "Not too many guys are entering hardware, and I think that's really interesting; the idea of indie hardware." The iam8bit Entertainment System, and the rest of the work in the show, will be on display through June 30 at iam8bit.%Gallery-190691%
LG Cinema Screen LCD HDTVs slice bezel to 1mm, let two players share one TV
LG has been pushing its flavor of 3DTV as Cinema 3D, and now it has slipped the theater related nomenclature onto another feature, the 1mm thin LCD bezels it has dubbed "Cinema Screen". It claims this move brings the experience closer to the theater, but that's not the only new feature for 2012. LG announced it will offer Dual Play, where it uses polarized glasses to let two different players see only their perspective on the full screen at once in games that support it. Vizio demonstrated the feature last year as Versus and Sony brought it to market in the PlayStation 3D display. We'll likely get more time with those razor thin bezels once CES is truly underway, for now check after the break for the press release.
Leedmees preview: Like a bridge
Leedmees was a nice surprise in the Konami suite at Comic-Con this week -- we haven't posted about it yet at all, and while Fruit Ninja Kinect has gotten a lot of the press as the first downloadable Kinect title, this one looks like it might be the more original. The game describes, during a dreamy little introduction, the player wandering into a secret magical door somewhere, where little white creatures (called Leedmees, presumably) march in step from one little spinning portal to another. Like the old Lemmings games, Leadmees mindlessly walk forward, and it's up to the player to make sure they get home safely. But there's one important twist: In Lemmings, you controlled the little creatures, using their abilities to get through the environment. In Leedmees, you are the environment.
It takes two to duo content
Spinksville has a great post up about the great benefits and joy of duoing in MMOs, or playing alongside one other person as you level your way up. I haven't been able to duo in a while, but I have done one character with a good friend -- he played a Priest and I tanked on my Warrior, and we shot up through to max level (even before the leveling changes) just because not only did our characters compliment each other, but we knew each others' play styles and were able to take on lots of big mobs and quests without a problem. I agree with Spinks: playing the game alongside someone you know well is the perfect mix of a singleplayer and MMO game.There are certainly issues -- if one of you plays more than the other and pulls ahead or falls behind, it's not quite as fun for either of you. But especially if you're both playing alts and you've got good, regular amounts of time to play together, it can be really fun. In fact, it's kind of surprising that Blizzard and other MMO companies haven't gone in for more of the very-small group play -- singleplayer instances got a pass, but then again, phasing has changed things since then, and the LFG system has improved, so maybe it's time for Blizzard to put some two-player content in the mix.It would definitely be great to see some official support for two-player content -- not everyone has a partner to play with all the time, but I think you'll find way more two-player groups in the game than you will find full raids of 25 people, and that group certainly gets their share of things to do. Spinks makes some great suggestions about duo content, and it's definitely a realm of gameplay that a lot of MMOs haven't yet officially explored.
