The Click Heard Round the World

DJ's Epic Super Mario / Duck Hunt Tattoo (pic)

 My friend DJ gave me permission to share this pic of this nerdtastic tattoo he got on his back about a week ago.  Yes, those are the guns from NES game "Duck Hunt" and the coins and plant from "Super Mario," all together in a western motif.  Lovely work (in progress) by tattoo artist Liaa Walter at Cirque du Rouge in DC.

Holy cats, that's epic.  I wish had the cojones to get something as large and elaborate as that.  Well played, sir, well played.

 

RikBlock: My First Game on Stencyl

Here's my first iOS game I created / modded using the fun Stencyl game development system.  Obviously a work-in-progress.  But it's already pretty fun to play!

Things I Learned while Glitching with My Girlfriend

For the past couple of months I've been playing the MMO Glitch with my girlfriend. I've never had a gamer girlfriend before, so it's been an interesting experience for me. I've learned a few things about online gaming with an S.O. that you might want to keep in mind:

When she asks for the keys to your house, it might mean that she really likes you, or it might mean that she wants to re-organize your messy home.

 

Manu and his son playing "DJ Hero 2"

 

Here's my buddy Manu and his son Micah playing "DJ Hero 2" for the X-Box.  

Okay, well Micah thinks he's playing. Go DJ Micah on the ones and twoes!

Ready Player One: 80s Era Gaming Meets Snow Crash (review)

"Everyone my age remembers where they were and what they were doing when they learned about the contest."

 -- Opening sentence of Ready Player One

 

I finally got around to reading Ready Player One, by Earnest Cline, after friends told me I had to read it. A near future scifi adventure, Ready Player One imagines a world that has become so polluted, poverty-stricken and corrupt that the only escape is in the virtual world. 

"Oasis" is the name of a global immersive online universe that is a combination of an open ended virtual world like Second Life and a massively multiplayer online game like World of Warcraft. People lead their entire lives inside of Oasis, going to school, socializing with their friends, and holding jobs there.

The story revolves around the search for an "Easter Egg" in the game of unimaginable value.  One young man who lives in a trailer park dreams of finding the Egg, but he competes against millions of other players who seek it.

Spuds' Homemade Virtual Pinball Machine

 

Yesterday I finally got to try out the handmade virtual pinball machine created by my buddy Spuds that he calls "iPin3K".  It's ridiculously cool.

From afar it looks like your standard (if a bit wide) pinball machine, complete with flippers, a ball shooter, and flashing lights.  Which is already so cool to have in your home.  Only on closer inspection do you realize that the entire game is simulated, created with three different different computer monitors and a homebrew Windows PC running pinball emulation software.  

Despite this, the games felt totally real and convincing, from the "clack clack" of the flippers to blur of the ball whizzing around the board to the cheesy voice-overs from Arnold Swartzanegger and Patrick Stewart.    

Spuds spent the past four months building the cabinet, assembling the computer components, installing the 3 monitors, connecting the buttons, flippers and ball shooter, and troubleshooting the software.  It's already really impressive and Spuds tells me he's about "halfway there."  Apparently he still needs to add lights, physical feedback for the bumpers, and other physical electronics.

The video above shows me blowing away Spuds' high score on the classic game Abra Ca Dabra. Which just means he hasn't played it very much.  After all, he's got 50+ other pinball games loaded up on his virtual machine!

I'm totally blown away... and can't wait to come back and play some more!

Super Mario Meets the Lindy Hop (video)

 

Dancers Morgan Day and Emily Wigger danced an incredible homage to Super Mario Brothers at the Camp Hollywood lindy hop event last weekend.  You can see lots of fun references to the game play, from the hilarious costumes, sound effects, music and action.  And all done with top notch lindy hopping!  So creative and impressive.

Even more impressive is their recovery from a potentially disastrous error by the DJ, who cut off their song in the middle.  Check it out in this alternative video. The mistake and their admirable recovery come at about the 2:24 mark.  Do over!

Well done, Morgan and Emily / Mario and Luigi.

And the gaming references at Camp Hollywood don't end there!   Doug Silton and Angel Jenkins did their dance tribute to the "Plants Vs Zombies" game.  There are lots of lindy hoppers who are gamers and geeks, so it's perhaps natural that these are the cultural references that resonate the strongest for the audience.

"Real Virtuality": the Museum of the Moving Image Pixellates Reality with Mixed Results

The Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, is one of those New York cultural treasures that I've been hearing about for years and years and just never got around to visiting. First off, it's in Queens, which is still somewhat opaque and mysterious to me.  Secondly, uh, it's been a busy 15 years. And then it closed for renovations in 2008, reopening on January 15th.

I visited the museum with Global Kids co-workers Barry and Sarah on a snowy Wednesday afternoon, the perfect geeky companions for exploring the very hands-on exhibits. The Museum has a very clean, white, modernist design, occupying just three floors, with the first floor taken up by a large movie theater.  But surprisingly there was hours of exhibits, films, games and things to play with there.

Our main reason we were there was to visit their showcase exhibit "Real Virtuality."  The show presents six installations created by various artists and technologists to "create simulated worlds that extend, augment, or disrupt the physical environment of the Museum space." Since Global Kids is a pioneer in virtual worlds for education, this seemed like a natural for us.

Rik Rides the Train: Playing Dance Central for First Time! (video)

Here's a somewhat embarassing video of me playing "Dance Central" on the XBox 360 for the first time at Spud's place.  The song: "Com'n Ride It" by the Quad City DJs (1995.) The level: Medium.  The experience: AWESOME.

Damn, I really want this game now.

 

Mini-review: Red Bull BC-One B-boy Game for iPhone / iPad / iTouch

Red Bull BC-One has in the past few years established itself as the gold standard of b-boy / breaking competitions, with top notch events, world class dancers, and film quality videos.  Now the BC-One folks have added gaming to their offerings, with games for the Nintendo-DS, online, and now for the iPhone / iPad / iTouch.

I downloaded the iPhone version today, cause what b-boy who could resist at only $2? 

I should have resisted...