Our dear friend in Tyke just finished recording an EP with Finn Miles member and talented producer Scott Gratton. The music isn’t online yet, but you can see Finn Miles and Tyke live at a couple of shows over the next month. C’mon out!
The awesome indie developers at Flashbang have opened up their website Blurst (http://www.blurst.com) wto submissions of Unity games from other developers.
Hopefully this will be a big success, since we as developers really need more Unity portals out there. I’ve been working on a couple small Unity games myself and have been a little uncertain if I would be able to shop my games around much.
I even considered e-mailing the guys at Blurst to propose putting something on their site, but it looks like they’ve already done the work required to set something like this up.
More and more, it seems like Matthew Wegner and Steve Swink at Flashbang are becoming the father figures of the indie games scene. The IGF, the IGS, an indie games portal… What’s next, indie games philanthropy? An indie games school? At any rate, I salute the fine gentlemen of Flashbang for their work at building the indie community up. A Blurst portal is simply the next step for them.
I was nearly run over by a very kind lady today. I was bicycling on a sidewalk and she turned out of a parking lot and nearly beaned me. She chided me for riding on the sidewalk and said I should be on the street.
I hope the text below clears up this little misnomer:
Bicycles may be operated upon the public sidewalks in a careful and prudent manner and at a rate of speed not exceeding eight miles per hour. Every person lawfully operating a bicycle upon a public sidewalk, when approaching a pedestrian or a vehicle occupied by a child under the age of 16 years, shall either dismount or give a clear right-of-way to the full extent of such sidewalk to such pedestrian or child, and in overtaking such pedestrian or child shall give an audible signal before passing.
So…don’t run over bicycles, whether on the street or sidewalk. You just might kill one of your favorite local musicians…
I play with a lot of new artists and it seems some “get it” and others don’t. I put together this little list to help new musicians do their best right out of the gate. Enjoy!
Tips for newly gigging bands:
So, you’re in a band. Great! Your first gig has been booked and you’re looking forward to rocking out. Listed below a few tips to remember if you want your gigging career to be long and fruitful.
1. Stay on time.
FYI, you’re not the only band on the planet! A venue usually books a billing of multiple bands, each of which want their fair share of time on stage. By showing up on time, playing your allotted slot, and getting off stage quickly for the following band you’ll show your professionalism.
2. Know your stuff.
No one likes to watch a band crash and burn; it’s awkward for everyone. Double check your equipment, your lyrics, and your band line-up before playing. If you have unreliable gear, or unreliable musicians it may be wise to plan for failure, bringing backup equipment (or band-mates) if necessary.
3. Play your part.
Now that you’re playing live shows you’re part of a scene. Venues, fans, other bands, media…they’re all part of the scene too. Be gracious to the venues that are kind enough to book you. Stick around and listen to the bands that play after you. Thank the fans for coming out. Support your local music media. Be the kind of band that people want to like…it’ll pay off in the long run.
Oh, what a family! My brother, Scott Gratton is a natural talent. He’s been an asset to Finn Miles, as well as many other bands around the Midwest. Scott is finally starting to get his own splendid tunes out there. This video is from a short set played at the Mars Cafe in October, 2009. Watch this guy…he’s amazing!
Something’s going on in Des Moines right now. A talented crop of singer/songwriters are releasing new music, playing incredible shows and raising the bar on the Midwest music scene.
Danny has just released a rustic EP of original gems named “Everything Comes from Something.” It’s a wonderful precursor to what I hope is a long writing and recording career from Danny. Check out his music, and definately catch one of his live shows. It’ll be worth it!
For those of you who haven’t heard yet, Derek Yu of TIGSource fame released a freeware game recently called Spelunky. As I found out recently, you can run the game in OS X without having to boot up Windows. I’ll show you how.
Spelunky is a cave exploration / treasure-hunting game inspired by classic platform games and roguelikes, where the goal is to grab as much treasure from the cave as possible. Every time you play the cave’s layout will be different. Use your wits, your reflexes, and the items available to you to survive and go ever deeper! Perhaps at the end you may find what you’re looking for…
Don’t be afraid to die! But also don’t be afraid to live! Happy Spelunky-ing!
The game has received a lot of buzz for being a great game and doing such a good job of using procedural algorithms for replayability. Taking a look at the TIGSource forums, the feedback thread has dwarfed all other threads in terms of views by more than an order of magnitude – nearly 490,000 views (as of now). So I’m assuming there are a sizable amount of gamers that are interested in trying to run Spelunky in OS X. Those gamers can now rejoice.
Before I get started, I have an important disclaimer:
This has only been tested in Leopard 10.5.8, and I have installed a newer version of X11 that is NOT compatible with Snow Leopard. I’d suggest trying to get the game running by just changing the config settings if you’re either running Snow Leopard or before you upgrade X11 on Leopard.
Overview of How to Run Spelunky in OS X
Here’s a short rundown of the steps needed to get Spelunky running:
Set the Spelunky settings config file values to 1,1,0,0,1,15, and 15
Download and install X11 2.4.0 (not compatible with Snow Leopard, and try running the game first)
Play Spelunky using CrossOver Games
Detailed Instructions
First of all, in order to run the game, you’ll need an Intel Mac. More info after the jump.
Get Spelunky
Download Spelunky and unzip it to a convenient location.
Get CrossOver Games
Download CrossOver Games (8 or higher). Double-click the DMG and drag the CrossOver app to the Apps folder (or wherever).
Set up CrossOver Games
Launch CrossOver Games. You need to create a Windows bottle first in order to run applications. Choose the menu option Configure > Manage Bottles. Then click the + (plus) button in the lower left corner above the ? icon. Name your bottle and choose a type – I chose WinXP, but feel free to try something else and let me know if it works. Click Create and CrossOver will take a minute or two to create a new bottle for you.
Select the Control Panel tab in the top right of the window and then select winecfg from the list. Click the Launch selected item button under the list. Select the Graphics tab and check Emulate a virtual desktop (it will likely be unchecked). The Desktop size field will be enabled, so set a resolution that is less than your desktop, and preferably a standard resolution for compatibility with other games. I chose 1024×768 since my laptop screen is only 900 tall. Then click OK.
Run the Spelunky config
Select the menu option Programs > Run Command. If that’s not an option, don’t worry! Select the menu option Configure > Refresh Programs Menu first. Select Run Command and it will pop up a window. In that window, click Browse and then select the config exe in the folder that was created when you unzipped Spelunky. Click Open, then click Run in the lower right of the window. You should see a window with a black background that’s the size of the resolution you set earlier. Then most likely you won’t be able to do anything. So close the large window, which will bring up some error dialogs, prompting you to Terminate Process or otherwise click OK a lot. You should come back to the Run Command window.
Set the Spelunky config settings file values
Running the config app will have created a settings.cfg file in the same folder as config and Spelunky. Just like on Linux, you’ll want to change the values in this file. Open settings.cfg in a text editor. There will be one value per line, most likely 1,1,0,0,3,15,15 right now. You want to change the 3 to a 1 such that the values are now 1,1,0,0,1,15,15. Save and close the file.
I installed a newer version of X11 before double-checking that Spelunky works after this point, so feel free to try running Spelunky. Click Browse in the Run Command window and select the Spelunky exe and Open it. Click Run and see if it works. It will most likely run, but only show part of the screen.
Make sure to let me know if this works without X11 2.4.0 or with Snow Leopard!
Download and install X11 2.4.0 (or higher)
Assuming only changing the settings file didn’t work for you, you’re most likely in the same situation I was. You want to download X11 2.4.0 and install it following the instructions. Keep in mind that 2.4.0 does not work in Snow Leopard. You’ll want to make sure X11 is installed correctly if you upgrade in the future.
Play Spelunky using CrossOver Games
You should now have everything you need to play Spelunky. You can double-click the exe in the finder, or run the game from the Run Command window.
If you want to play Spelunky in sexy zoom mode, load the System Preferences app and then click on Universal Access. Then turn the second feature Zoom on, then click Options to the right. I’ve found the best settings are to set Maximum Zoom (at the top) to 3 and Minimum Zoom to 2. Uncheck Smooth images halfway down the dialog. Toward the bottom of the dialog under When zoomed in, select the second option Only when the pointer reaches an edge. Click Done.
Now you’ll be able to zoom in using Option-Command-[=] (equals) and out using Option-Command-[-] (minus). It should zoom between 2x and 3x magnification and not using smoothing. If smoothing is turned on anyway, just press Option-Command-[\] (the slash above the return key) to disable it.
One last note: I’ve noticed that the game runs very slowly when text is being displayed on the screen. The game seems to run fine otherwise (so far). Have fun!
Where as typically mines/traps would require caution and dexterity, these will simply not respawn so even if you die you can just get through the section without worrying about the consequences.
One of my favorite things about the game is Xander’s problem – i.e. it’s not a big deal at all when you die. To me, that made dying in the game fun in itself. I reveled in the fact that I could carelessly blast forward with glee, knowing that if I would die, I’d come back to the same spot in a matter of a couple seconds.
The character design is amazing, considering they’re expressed in just a few pixels. The player has a surprising amount of life through the animations, and the Zomboid and charging rhino characters have a very distinctive personality.
Also, the game’s sound design is superb. I’m not saying that just because it’s created with SFXR, but because the sound choices made within that 8-bit limitation were very tasteful. Jumping is noticable, yet not obnoxious. The explosions are just right, the lava sounds are charming, and timer-based platforms give you a perfect feeling of urgency before they blow up.
The character design, sound design, and effects combine to form a polished feel from an otherwise minimal, low-budget aesthetic. For the past few months, I’ve been trying to take the same perspective on art direction. Vacuum Flowers has nailed it and made it look easy.
The story is presented in a minimal and pleasing way. As the image above suggests, it is simply displayed in the background of the level. There’s rarely more than 12 words to read. And the level design usually suggests what the words of the story are trying to express. It works so well that I’m sure we’ll see more of that in the future.
It’s an excellent game all around, with solid tuning to the platforming. I just wish I could get to the 8th and 9th level since there’s a random level-loading bug with the OS X version.
