Inspector Spacetime!

In last week's third season premiere episode, Community brilliantly (albeit briefly) parodies Doctor Who with a clip from "Inspector Spacetime", which Britta shows Abed in an attempt to distract him from the fact that Cougar Town (a show he loves so much he actually cameo'd on it) has been pushed back to mid-season replacement status. From this brief, 25-second sequence an internet fanbase was born, and although it's still only early days (and I do mean days, literally) the Inspector Spacetime meme is gathering steam like crazy. Oh internet, it's reasons like this that you're awesome.

"Inspector Spacetime" (t-shirt) by Rex Raygun

"Inspector Spacetime" (poster) by Jonny Eveson

(Click for full-size)
Selections from "Inspector Spacetime Confessions"

"Inspector Spacetime" clip from Community

Triptych: Real-World Legend of Zelda

Origin Unknown


Origin Unknown, spotted on ObviousWinner


"The Triforce" by Super Fergus

Professor Layton and the Permanent Top Hat

"Professor Layton and the Permanent Top Hat" comic by 2P Start!


Admit it, you've wondered what's under that top hat too.

Triptych: Kevin Keele

“Link and Ganon”

“God of War”

“Pyramid Head”

By Kevin Keele (~kanyn)

Triptych: In A Galaxy Far, Far Away

"Pixel People: Star Wars: A New Hope" (cross-stitch design) by weelittlestitches


"How To Use The Force" (t-shirt design) by Sean Husbands


"Build Your Own R2 Unit" by sEAn8181

Triptych: Consequences (Webcomics Editions)

Nuclear Delight (01/06/2011)


Cat Ghost Comics (01/25/2011)


ManEggs (08/05/2010)

Videogames: fun to play, hard to live through.

You Got A New Weapon!

And for my last post of the day, courtesy of 2P Start!

[2P Start!]

Use Science On Dead Crewman

A couple more pixelwerks by Andy Helmi, because I'm digging his tumblr today.

The Pit

(Click the image to view all the gory details)

Ever wonder what happens to Mario when he falls into one of the pits in World 1-1?   Artist Dash Coleman has the answer.

The National and Portal 2

Just a blurb so far, but it appears that The National (High Violent, The Boxer) are contributing an original song to the soundtrack of Portal 2. Not much else is known as of yet. As a fan of both Portal and The National, I find this to be an excellent, if somewhat odd, pairing.

In other Portal 2-related news, I forgot to post this amusing Valentine's Day gift-buying guide from Aperture Science in a timely manner, so I'll do it now.

[Forlorn Band 'The National' Pens Original Dirge for Portal 2, via Kotaku]
[thinkwithportals.com]

48 Pac-Man Ghosts

"48 Custom Pac-Man Ghosts" by coleman811

Cheat-sheet under the cut.

Triptych: 8-Bit Terrariums

"Zelda" by Jude Buffum


"Castlevania" by Jude Buffum


"Super Mario Bros" by Jude Buffum

[8-Bit Terrariums by Jude Buffum]

The Great Gatsby (NES)

I'd be remiss if I didn't bring your attention to this great "Gatsby" flash game (see what I did there?) done up in the style of an old Nintendo platformer. Particularly impressive is the attention to detail the creators (Charlie and Pete) have put into not only the game but also the faux promotional materials and manual for the game.

[The Great Gatsby for NES]

The Legend of Busting Up People's Stuff (or, Why Link Is A Jerk)

A trio of Zelda-related videos for your enjoyment.



Really makes you wonder about Link's priorities. I mean, the dude picks the worst possible time to go fishing. Then again, what's up with villagers handing out pointless busy-work to Link when there are clearly more important things to be focusing on? They should know he's got the attention span of a ten-year-old on a sugar high.



Crazy red-eyed Link ineffectually smacking a chicken with his sword makes me bust a gut every time.



I don't know why this is a thing.

Saxton Hale Will Beat You Up.

Saxton Hale.  President of Mann Company (“We Sell Products And Get In Fights”), proud Australian, and inventor of Jarate (the jar-based karate).  He fights lions, sets grizzly bears aflame, and makes sharks cry.  He is more of a man than you will ever be (especially if you’re a girl).  In fact, you could invent a machine that allows you to travel to alternate dimensions, kidnap ten of the most manly versions of yourself, tape them all together, and Saxton Hale will still punch them to death with both hands tied behind his back and wearing a blindfold.

As always, click on the image for full size.

And you can check out one of Saxton Hale’s Thrilling comic-book adventures over here!  Saxton Hale.  He’s made of stern stuff.

I haven’t played Team Fortress 2 yet, but this is exactly the sort of demented thing that will convince me to get into it.

The Science Gets Done and You Make A Neat Gun

Days like today, you realise how beautiful a place the Internet has the potential to be.

Yesterday, Valve released a Steam update for Portal, containing one new achievement and a couple dozen short audio files which play on peripheral radios throughout the game. The fact, I guess, that Valve would bother releasing an update with such minimal content got fans of the game thinking, "There has to be something else going on here."

Naturally, they got to digging, and it turns out their suspicions were right. Here's the quick rundown of what they found:

1. Hidden in the audio-file data were Morse code transmissions and SSTV (Slow Scan Television) encoded images;
1a. Some of the Morse code data were easily translated and contained a username and password;
1b. One in particular was Morse coded Morse code for 'LOL';
1c. Another was an MD5 checksum string.

2. The SSTV images looked like framegrabs from security cameras from inside Aperture Science, along with a handful of close-up shots of keyboard keys and black\whiteboards, emphasising certain digits, characters and equations.

So far so good. This is starting to look like an adventure, Encyclopedia Brown!

3. After applying the presumably Hogwarts-acquired spell Mathemagicus to this information, smarter people than I came up with a random string of characters, which itself turned out to be, wait for it...

3wtf. ...An encoded phone number for a BBS.

4. Dialing up this BBS and logging in with the given username and password provided access to the old Aperture Science board, and an impressive amount of oft-hilarious infodump, most of it written by witch-hatin' Aperture Science founder, Cave Johnson.

A short sample of one of Johnson's typical missives to his employees:

"Science isn't about why, it's about why not. You ask: Why is so much of our science dangerous? I say: Why not marry safe science if you love it so much. In fact, why not invent a special safety door that won't hit you in the butt on the way out, because you are fired."

Anyway, here's the thing: amongst the witty little system responses like "ERROR: ERROR NOT UNDETECTED" and "WARNING: BIOS INSUFFICIENTLY BASIC", company memos from the 1970s detailing policy on "Low Risk" Human Resource Acquisitions (summary: Hobos good, Orphans even better, Psychiatric Patients and Seniors unencouraged,) and low-rez ASCII art renderings of various photos and diagrams...

There's a fair amount of teaser information for Portal 2 and, quite possibly, Half-Life 3.

To begin with, the above-mentioned memo seems to delve into the reasons for GlaDOS' fractured, passive-aggressive personality more than ever before. The founder of Aperture, "Cave Johnson", is introduced. And there's one ASCII image in particular, of two robots holding hands, that hints both at potential new enemies for Portal 2 and Half-Life 3, and suggests some kind of backstory for the Aperture Science\Black Mesa animosity.

Here are a handful of screengrabs for you to pore over and try to make sense of. Click through to embiggen.

Hey, Valve? Y'all are magnificent bastards. But I like your style.

[Original post on Kotaku right here.]

Retro Flashback: EmoGame

Back in the heady days of yesteryear, yesteryear here referring specifically to that wanton, innocent time spanning from 2002 to 2004, I recall discovering and taking perhaps an inordinate amount of glee in the free-to-play EmoGame series by developer StarvingEyes.

Essentially fan-service sidescrolling platformers with deliberately retro pixellated design, reminiscent of everything from Pitfall to Sonic the Hedgehog to cult PC classic Commander Keen, EmoGame and its sequels were particularly enjoyable and novel because not only were they clever and well-designed from a gaming perspective, but they were also predicated on a staunchly devoted and surprisingly well-informed knowledge of pop culture.

Although the final installment in the series was released in 2004, the EmoGame website is still up and all of the games still available, either as a download or for browser-based play.

NOTE: Every single one of the EmoGame games are NSFW and are highly offensive to pretty much anyone, ever. You have been warned.

EMOGAME 1

The debut features the likes of Chris Carabba of Dashboard Confessional, Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes, At The Drive-In's Cedric Bixler, and Tim Kasher of Cursive as playable characters, with guest appearances by (amongst others) Jimmy Eat World and A New Found Glory (not to mention less-than-glowing cameos by Creed, Courtney Love and Fred Durst.) While the humour, both here and in the sequels, leans at times towards the puerile, the game is packed with references, subtle in-jokes, and some pretty phenomenal level and puzzle design.

That, ultimately, is the point I want to get across here: given that EmoGame is a less-than-serious undertaking and takes regular pointed jabs at everything from Hot Topic to major-label commercial rock, it's impressive just how much talent went into making it.

EMOGAME 1.5: Alkaline Trio vs. Hell

Following on the original, EmoGame 1.5 is considerably shorter in length and focuses on Alkaline Trio rather than a revolving cast of playable characters. The story has something to do with the band dying, cutting a deal with God (who apparently is Bob Sagat) to get a second chance by killing the devil (who apparently is Skeletor,) and embarking on a journey through Hell to accomplish said goal. It makes about as much sense as any of the EmoGame plotlines, and is mainly just an excuse to toss in as many cute pixelly renderings of recognisable cultural icons as possible... In other words, if you haven't been sold on this yet, EmoGame 1.5 won't sway you, but if you played the first one and are totally stoked on the notion, it's as entertaining as the first.

EMOGAME 2: The Epic Quest Continues

A proper sequel to the original, with more than twice the number of playable characters, improved design both graphically and structurally, and more obscure shout-outs than you can shake a stick at. Conor Oberst and Matt Skiba return from EG1 and 1.5, respectively, along with Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie, Claudio Sanchez of Coheed and Cambria, Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley and "The Wizard", Blake Schwartzenbach of Jawbreaker\Jets To Brazil, and tons more. It has something to do with Enrique Iglesias kidnapping a bunch of people in order to have sex with them, and the cast of Friends starting a band in order to brainwash the masses into a cult, and... You know what, fuck it, I don't even know.

EMOGAME 2.5: The Anti-Bush Game

Let's be honest, games are not a medium well-known for tackling political issues - and when they do, they tend to be as neutral and message-free as possible to avoid alienating anyone. Foregoing the musical premise of the previous games, EmoGame 2.5 allows you to play, for some reason, as Hulk Hogan, Mr. T, and a fat-ass He-Man as they battle the evil villainy of the Bush Administration. While it's certainly no less offensive (and is unabashedly polarised in its stance,) the in-game political critique is nevertheless reasonably well-informed and sincere. It's not likely to convince anyone who might hold a differing opinion, but it remains an interesting and mostly-successful experiment in combining the disparate world of politics and videogames.

SUPER EMOGAME III

Sadly unlikely to ever be completed, Super EmoGame III never got past the demo stage (the demo, Purvolume vs. The Podicons, was available from the website for a while but looks to have gone the way of Internet purgatory.) There isn't a whole lot of information available on it, but from what I've been able to glean, it would have implemented some sort of fighting-game mechanic alongside the classic platformer engine. Unfortunately, it looks like we'll never know for sure.

StarvingEyes has now moved on to website and album design, and something they're calling "advergaming" - essentially, promotional minigames for bands, albums and media sites like Atom Films. It's a natural move for them - given their overtly fannish love of certain bands in the EmoGame series - and brings up a number of compelling questions on the nature of a medium which, while it likes to cultivate the impression that games stand on their own as consistently artistic ventures, has been commercial right from the start. I mean, with the emergence of product placement in the likes of Test Drive Unlimited and Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow, why not just openly craft games that are intended to market something right from the get-go?

EDIT: My mistake, I was under the impression that all of these were available to download for offline play when, in fact, at least the first (and possibly some of the others) are entirely Flash-based.

I don't want to irritate starvingeyes by offering up the following sneaky, ninja-like method for obtaining his Emogame series for offline play - so if this is completely uncool, starvingeyes, and there's an alternative in place, let me know and I'll announce it here.

Having said that, the Emogame site hasn't been updated in a couple of years and so I think this is probably justifiable.

1. Download emogame1.swf.
2. Download the free Swiff Player 1.5.
3. Install Swiff Player.
4. Rock out.

Alternately, you can head on over to File2HD.com, plunk in the URL of whatever Flash-based game you want to download, click on the "Objects" tickbox, and right-click and save the appropriate .SWF file that comes up. Again, you'll want to grab Swiff Player as well.

Dragon Quest: The Bar

A Dragon Quest-themed restaurant called Luida's Bar has opened in Tokyo's Roppongi District. I'd have more to say but I'm busy booking a one-way flight to Japan as we speak.

(Yes. I plan to live there, in the restaurant itself, lurking under tables and gathering scraps of fallen food until I have enough material to craft a liquid metal sword. You heard me.)

This is simultaneously the greatest news I've heard all day, and the worst. The greatest, because clearly my daily prayers to the Goddess have not only been heard, but answered; the worst, because I promised to sacrifice my first-born child (as yet unconceived) for it to happen.

Hitler's Revenge Contains Neither Adolf Hitler Nor Vendettas.

This is a perfect example of the kind of nonsense we as gamers had to put up with during the 8-bit NES era.

First Person Tetris.

You should play First Person Tetris. Here are some glowing first impressions from people who have happened to stumble into the room while I've been playing it:

"No. That hurts my brain."
- Cait (my roommate)

"It satisfies some strange primal adaptive mechanism... That part of the brain that separates us from the reptiles..."
- Doctor Strange

[First Person Tetris: A Dizzying Take On The Classic Puzzler, via terminalgamer.com]