games

by doc on chiptune, music, sweet ride

Happy 808 day, hear some new songs and demos from Sweet Ride

I’ve been cranking out a bunch of songs lately, on both acoustic and electronic devices. It’s been a blast to be diving into music again. Most of the electronic tunes I’ve been working on were intended to be used for our Sweet Ride video game (which is still in the works), but I’ve already got more than I need for that. So maybe these will appear somewhere else. These tunes are created with hard hitting drums, lots of bass, lo-fi synths, and acoustic toy samples. Here are a few previews of those new tracks:

Bonus, today is #808day (named after the famous 808 drum machine, known for it’s low tuned kickdrum). So it’s a perfect day to share these tracks.

 
by doc on games, gif

GIFs from Akira, the 1988 video game for Nintendo’s Famicom system

Last night I booted up Akira on an NES emulator and did my best to live-GIF the experience. Akira is one of my all-time favorite films and I remember hearing rumors of a 8-bit videogame version released in 1988, but it was only released in Japan for the Famicom. 25 years later, some volunteers worked their asses off to create an updated NES version of the ROM with english translations.

The game sucks. It’s filled with amazing pixel art and a really interesting (and at times experimental) chiptune soundtrack, but it’s downright painful to play without step by step instructions. It often requires clicking on an option that is hard to find (or off screen), or some convoluted sequence of clicks that require clicking on the same option a number of times even though the answers don’t change. At some point it briefly turns into a 1st person shooter, as you dodge bullets in the sewer, that’s super twitchy and kills you instantly, requiring a long slog through various dialogue options just to instantly die again. I hate this game so much.

But the graphics are incredible, so I captured a bunch of GIFs of the game’s best moments. You can download the ROM here and follow this guide for the best experience. FYI, I made it all the way to the final “boss fight” with Tetsuo and Kaneda before the game just glitched out. I’ll have to try another play through to get the ending animations, which I assume are beautiful.


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by doc on ROM, The Lonely Dungeon

How to find me at Protospiel San Jose this weekend

I’ll be demoing my two newest board games, ROM and The Lonely Dungeon, at Protospiel San Jose this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. My personal goal is to get gage interest in the games and maybe even find a publisher for one of them. I’ll be running a raffle throughout the event and giving away one copy of each game after the event is over.

The event will be at Game Kastle in Mountain View and is free and open to the public. I’ll be sharing table #39 with Jamus Thayne, who will be demoing his cyberpunk adventure game while I’m away. Here is our schedule for the weekend:

Friday:
10-2 Doc
2-6 Jamus

Saturday:
10-2 Doc
2-6 Jamus
6-10 Doc

Sunday:
10-2 Jamus
2-6 Doc
6-10 Jamus

protospiel san jose table map in Mountain view

 
by doc on games, ROM, The Lonely Dungeon

Demoing my new board games at Protospiel San Jose 2017

Many of you may know that I’ve been working on two board games for the past year, The Lonely Dungeon and ROM. After a ton of work, both of these games are nearing completion, so I’ll be heading down to Protospiel San Jose 2017 to demo what I have and get feedback from players. If things go well, I might even sell one of them to a publisher. If not, at least I’ll get some great feedback from players and maybe be ready to Kickstart one of these games.

If you live in the South Bay and love gaming, please come and say hi. You can see what games will be demoed here, and if you are interested, you mark yourself as interested in ROM or The Lonely Dungeon too.