We’ve been thrilled about Shawn Smith’s Ninjatown DS game ever since we first heard about it through the grapevine. Ninjatown is based on Shawnimal’s line of plush ninja toys.
To be sure, the pixelicious sprites do blocky justice to Shawn’s character art. But is the game any good?
Kotaku’s Leigh Alexander sat down for a hands-on preview of the game, and from her description, Ninjatown sounds like a real-time strategy based on the “tower defense” template, like PixelJunk Monsters and Desktop Tower Defense before it. (And yes, she says, it’s good.)
DS owners can expect to push shinobi this October.
This is not game-related in the slightest, but here goes:
American Apparel, manufacturer and retailer of blank T-shirts, pants, skirts, and gymwear, is selling the Hitachi Magic Wand on its website. For anyone not in the know, the Hitachi Magic Wand is the most time-honored, beloved friend of self-lovin’ ladies everywhere. It’s also the housewifeyest.
The best part of the American Apparel page, though, might well be just below the ordering information. If you like vibrators, you might also like: lip gloss and pens.
Speaking of Audiosurf and its adaptability...! Yesterday, Game|Life reported on BodySurf, a script authored by Evan Jones for use with Audiosurf, your computer, GlovePIE software, and both the Wii balance board and remote.
With BodySurf, you control your ship in Audiosurf by shifting your weight from side to side using the Wii balance board. Witness Evan’s demonstration, below.
Here is what makes Audiosurf, for us, so incredible: the software manages to analyze music files and generate ‘playable tablature’ in a way no other rhythm game can even approach. Just as no two iPods are alike, the Audiosurf we play is not the same game that, say, Sharkey plays. (Sharkey—who proselytizes for Audiosurf any chance he can get—plays Audiosurf with a library full of prog-rock, for instance.)
Dylan Fitterer, the one-man team behind Audiosurf, recently spoke at a Valve press event (Audiosurf is now digitally distributed using Valve’s Steam service). Chris Remo of Gamasutra wrote up the best bits of Fitterer’s presentation, and the resulting article is Inside Audiosurf: the Indie Adaptive Steam Music Experience?
Part of Audiosurf’s success was due not just to Fitterer himself having easy access to his customers, but also due to potential customers having open communication between themselves.
The game’s design, he argues, lends itself very much to viral marketing, something Steam facilitates. For example, he saw users linking one another to the Audiosurf Steam page, which contains a convenient purchase link. Some evangelists went as far as purchasing the game for their friends with Steam’s gift function.
On the development side, he implemented a simple feature that encouraged competition between users, as well as providing automatic, but personal, encouragment keep coming back to the game.
“Dethroned” emails are sent to users when they are knocked off a song’s leaderboard, informing them of their defeat.
We love the art of Nathan Jurevicus—the pride of our Scarygirl vinyl toy collection is our Tree Dweller figurine—and that’s why we can’t wait to play this gorgeous Scarygirl online Flash game based on Jurevicus’ art and characters. Australia-based developers Touch My Pixel expect the game to launch in three months. The preview video is absolutely beautiful.
Two Player Co-op has unveiled a brand new reviews segment, in which our friend Luana’s young daughter, Lorelei, assesses a video game’s playability and overall ‘fun’ factor. In the first episode, Lorelei gives the Wii title “My Pokemon Ranch” a piece of her mind. And as game reviews go, well, this is about as succinct as podcasts get.
Here’s a screenshot of Luana and Lorelei ranching in-game:
Video game -themed shirts are a dime-a-dozen, but exceptional game shirts are our white whale. And although that metaphor doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, “Playing God” combines our deep-seated fears of determinism and the Lord’s wrath with our boundless love for vector art.
Plus, look how cute it is with pigtails!
Playing God can be yours for just 17 measly US bucks. [Via]
