8-bit video game version of 'The Shawshank Redemption'

The Shawshank Redemption is one of the best movies ever made, so it makes sense that it should get the 8-Bit Cinema treatment.


(via Tastefully Offensive)

Pacman combined with physics

If Pacman were redesigned so that it adhered to the laws of physics, it would probably look something like this:

Want to give it a shot? You can download it here.

Ron Paul: The video game

Daniel Williams is a professional programmer and co-founder of RonPaulSwag.com. His latest project is a libertarian video game entitled "Ron Paul: The Road to Revolution."


Here's the game description from Daniel's fundraising site at Kickstarter.com:

The Road to REVOLution is a sidescrolling platformer action/adventure game, reminiscent of console classics like Super Mario Brothers and Sonic the Hedgehog.

You play the role of Ron Paul and make your way across all 50 states collecting Gold (sound money) and Delegates.

The game is full of original artwork and gameplay mechanics. Indie Game Development at its finest, the game is designed, programmed, conceived, and produced by me, D.S. Williams.

The game is built in HTML5, and will hopefully be converted into apps for i* and android platforms.

Collect Delegates to ensure your seat as the President, collect Gold Coins to unlock branches of the Federal Reserve where you defeat bosses and progress your quest to end the Federal Reserve.

Features:

• 50+ Levels designed around each of the United States
  
• 13 Boss Fights representing each branch of the Federal Reserve
  
• Challenging puzzle-platformer element. There's no 'beating up monsters until they're dead' aspect. You must guide the baddies through each level.
  
• original soundtrack
  
• bonus unlockable characters

The game will be free to play in your browser. I hope to develop mobile versions of the game as well.

I'll definitely be checking it out.

Old Soviet arcade machines

Welcome to the Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines! Currently featured: Morskoi Boi (Sea Battle).

You can play the game online here.

(via Kottke)

Chuck Norris vs. Angry Birds

If you get stuck while playing Angry Birds, forget the Mighty Eagle. Call on Chuck.

100-year-old woman doesn't know what she would do without her Nintendo DS

100-year-old Kit Connell doesn't feel a day over 80, and she credits her Nintendo DS for keeping her young:

I try to keep my brain active by playing on my Nintendo. My daughter managed to get me one on the internet, and this is the one I'm using now. And it's great. It's absolutely super. I don't know what I'd do without it. ... I can't speak highly enough of this Nintendo. It's helped to keep my brain as active as possible at my old age.

In case you kids are thinking about using this in an effort to convince your parents to buy you one, keep in mind that she mostly plays word games.

PETA now targeting fur-wearing video game characters

Those familiar with the Mario Bros. video games know what a Tanooki suit is. Making its first appearance in Super Mario Bros. 3, this unique costume gives the character wearing it super powers. It's all part of the fun.

Naturally, this has the folks at PETA upset. They expressed their outrage by creating a video game of their own. From their press release:

If PETA has its way, Mario has stolen his last tanuki skin. The mustachioed plumber is back to wearing tanuki fur ("tanuki" is the Japanese word for raccoon dogs), and now Tanooki is fighting back to reclaim what's his in Super Tanooki Skin 2D, a new side-scrolling game from PETA. In the game, which is the center of PETA's new "Mario Kills Tanooki" campaign, players direct a bloody, skinned raccoon dog as he chases a tanuki fur–suited Mario through a surreal fur farm where raccoon dogs are routinely skinned alive for their fur. [emphasis mine] Quick reflexes and jumping skills will allow Tanooki to capture Mario and reclaim his skin.

Yeah. Sounds like fun.

The bottom line is that PETA thinks the cartoon image of a raccoon-tailed plumber is offensive:

Tanooki may be just a "suit" in Mario games, but by wearing the skin of an animal, Mario is sending the message that it's OK to wear fur. We created our game to help inform people that in real life, Mario would be wearing the skin of an animal who was beaten, strangled or electrocuted, and it wouldn't give him any special powers other than the power of self-deception.

Shows you how out of the loop I am. I had no idea Mario was such a fashion icon.

If you're curious, you can play PETA's pathetic little video game here.

King Pong

Please help yourself to some old slices of Lemon Harangue Pie while I'm on vacation. Enjoy!

King Pong
(originally posted 11/28/2006)

Now that people are trampling each other to get their hands on the new Playstation 3, I thought we should take a look back at the world's first home video game. From Pong-Story.com:

The video game history started in a strange and complicated way and it is important to avoid confusions with what happened in the 1950s and 1960s. The real video game history started with Ralph Baer as early as 1951. One very important thing to remember is how the video game has been defined in the 1960s before modern tehnologies allowed video games to be played on computers.

A video game is defined as an appartus that displays games using RASTER VIDEO equipment: a television set, a monitor, etc. In the 1950s and 1960s, computers were not only exceedingly expensive, but used a technology that could not allow integrating them into a video game system. Only mainframes could allow playing a few games. These games qualified as COMPUTER games, not VIDEO games. ...

... In 1966, Ralph Baer worked again on his 1951 TV game idea and designed a series of seven prototypes that played several video games. The first playable video game was a Chase Game: two squares chasing each other. The last prototype built in 1968 (also known as Brown Box) played Ball & Paddle games, Target Shooting games, and more. After several demonstrations to TV manufacturers, Magnavox signed an agreement in 1971 and the first video game system was released in May 1972: Odyssey. The history of PONG games and derivates just started, would spread all over the globe, and die in the early 1980s.

In the USA, it started on May 1972 with the Magnavox Odyssey (first home video game) and Atari in November 1972 (their first PONG arcade game). Atari's game was quickly copied and improved in 1973. Later in 1975, home video games became popular and were sold by numerous companies. Some like Executive Games started from a five-student MIT project. Others like First Dimension ran a poor business and did not survive the strong competition from Atari, Sears, Coleco, Magnavox and others.

I'm not that old, but I certainly don't have any childhood memories of people camping out in front of a store for three weeks to purchase a Pong game. I guess we were either smarter then or just had better things to do with our lives.

Obama's budget speech a cure for insomnia

Top 10 Culturally Significant Video Games

From the NY Times:

[Henry] Lowood and the four members of his committee--the game designers Warren Spector and Steve Meretzky; Matteo Bittanti, an academic researcher; and Christopher Grant, a game journalist--announced their list of the 10 most important video games of all time: Spacewar! (1962), Star Raiders (1979), Zork (1980), Tetris (1985), SimCity (1989), Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990), Civilization I/II (1991), Doom (1993), Warcraft series (beginning 1994) and Sensible World of Soccer (1994).

What I don't understand is how anyone with any appreciation at all for video games could put together such a list and not include Pac-Man in the top 10--not to mention Pong!

(A tip o' the fedora to Christopher Knight for this story.)

Left Behind? Yes, This Should Be

After the overwhelming success of the Left Behind series from authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, how could anyone expect to meet the public's growing demand for mediocre storytelling and questionable theology? Why, with a video game tie-in, of course!

The folks at Left Behind Games, Inc. invite you to join "the ultimate fight of Good against Evil":

Lead the Tribulation Force from the book series, including Rayford, Chloe, Buck and Bruce against Nicolae Carpathia – the AntiChrist.

Contrary to misinformation on the web, this game does not include references to any other religion. Also, there is NO killing in the name of God, and NO convert or die missions. All content has been reviewed and approved by Tyndale House Publishers prior to publication.

Conduct warfare using the power of PRAYER and WORSHIP as more powerful weapons than guns.

Recover ancient scriptures and witness spectacular Angelic and Demonic activity as a direct consequence of your choices.

Fight against negative spiritual influences against the Antichrist and his forces.

Command your forces through intense battles across a breathtaking, authentic depiction of New York City .

Control more than 30 units types - from Prayer Warrior and Worship Leaders to Spies, Special Forces and Battle Tanks!

Enjoy a robust single player experience across dozens of New York City maps in Story Mode – fighting in China Town, SoHo , Uptown and more!

Play multiplayer games with the Tribulation Forces or the AntiChrist's Global Community Peacekeepers with up to eight players via LAN or over the Internet!

Wow! This game has it all!

I especially like some of the items in the FAQ section:

Are you concerned that the Christian community won't want a game in their home where lives are taken and people get killed? Absolutely not. How often do you hear about the Christian community up in arms about PG-13 movies? I suppose there might be a very small number that do, but we do not expect this represents the majority of the mainstream and Christian marketplace. What is the most important thing players will "take away" with them after having played the game? We expect gamers will find themselves "having a great time" while "thinking and talking" about matters of eternal importance. What is the level of violence in the game? Our game includes violence, but excludes blood, decapitation, killing of police officers, etc. Our game is expected to be widely accepted by the mainstream and Christian marketplaces, just as they have accepted Star Wars games which are "T" for teen rated. We have taken great care to make certain that consequences for poor gamer behavior will adequately reflect the gamers actions. Accordingly, unnecessary killing will result in lower Spirit points. Are guns used by Christians against non-Christians? Why or why not? The storyline in the game begins just after the Rapture has occurred – when all adult Christians, all infants, and many children were instantly swept home to Heaven and off the Earth by God. The remaining population – those who were left behind – are then poised to make a decision at some point. They cannot remain neutral. Their choice is to either join the AntiChrist – which is an imposturous one world government seeking peace for all of mankind, or they may join the Tribulation Force – which seeks to expose the truth and defend themselves against the forces of the AntiChrist. Does the violence depicted in the game run contrary to Jesus' message on "love your enemy"? Absolutely not. Christians are quite clearly taught to turn the other cheek and to love their enemies. It is equally true that no one should forfeit their lives to an aggressor who is bent on inflicting death. Forgiveness does not require absolute defenselessness. Apparent contradictions on behalf of Christians are often the result of them placing greater importance on the message, than in caring for others. LEFT BEHIND: Eternal Forces is a game which provides great entertainment while encouraging fascinating discussions about matters of eternal importance.

The lesson for Christians, it seems, is this: If you can't win souls with the truth, twist it into a disturbing futuristic novel in the hope of scaring people into the Kingdom. If that doesn't work, keep them glued to the TV by dazzling them with an action-packed video game and pray that it might one day get them "thinking and talking about matters of eternal importance."

What's that? The Gospel? Yeah, I suppose we could give it a try. Do you know if that's available for PlayStation 3?

King Pong

Now that people are trampling each other to get their hands on the new Playstation 3, I thought we should take a look back at the world's first home video game. From Pong-Story.com:

The video game history started in a strange and complicated way and it is important to avoid confusions with what happened in the 1950s and 1960s. The real video game history started with Ralph Baer as early as 1951. One very important thing to remember is how the video game has been defined in the 1960s before modern tehnologies allowed video games to be played on computers.

A video game is defined as an appartus that displays games using RASTER VIDEO equipment: a television set, a monitor, etc. In the 1950s and 1960s, computers were not only exceedingly expensive, but used a technology that could not allow integrating them into a video game system. Only mainframes could allow playing a few games. These games qualified as COMPUTER games, not VIDEO games. ...

... In 1966, Ralph Baer worked again on his 1951 TV game idea and designed a series of seven prototypes that played several video games. The first playable video game was a Chase Game: two squares chasing each other. The last prototype built in 1968 (also known as Brown Box) played Ball & Paddle games, Target Shooting games, and more. After several demonstrations to TV manufacturers, Magnavox signed an agreement in 1971 and the first video game system was released in May 1972: Odyssey. The history of PONG games and derivates just started, would spread all over the globe, and die in the early 1980s.

In the USA, it started on May 1972 with the Magnavox Odyssey (first home video game) and Atari in November 1972 (their first PONG arcade game). Atari's game was quickly copied and improved in 1973. Later in 1975, home video games became popular and were sold by numerous companies. Some like Executive Games started from a five-student MIT project. Others like First Dimension ran a poor business and did not survive the strong competition from Atari, Sears, Coleco, Magnavox and others.

I'm not that old, but I certainly don't have any childhood memories of people camping out in front of a store for three weeks to purchase a Pong game. I guess we were either smarter then or just had better things to do with our lives.