Best Music of 2012 (3/3)

10. Ikonika - I Make Lists EP

Ikonika's 2010 debut album Contact, Love, Want, Have was the best video game soundtrack never made.  While we've yet to see a full follow-up, this year's I Make Lists EP is a distinct statement on its own.  I Make Lists shows Ikonika working with a tighter palette of tools, repeating similar synths across tracks, but carving out nuanced variation.  Her synths don't even seem that far off from stock samples, but they sure are catchy; sort of leaves me wondering how no one else has capitalized on them like this before.  I Make Lists would still sound great paired with an arcade game, but it's also a workable club album and headphone experience.  Ikonika is working in a genre all her own that sounds a little like other producers, but also totally different from anything else.

9. Surkin - Lose Yourself (Rustie Remix)

Rustie is getting his props this year, mostly for his BBC Essential Mix chock full of like-minded maximalist artists.  In retrospect, I should have given Rustie more recognition last year for Glass Swords, but there it sits at #25.  Let it be known that the attention heaped upon Rustie in 2012 is well-deserved, and nothing proves that point better than his remix of Surkin's "Lose Yourself."  The original track was a decent vocal house jam, but not entirely noteworthy.  However, handing the controls over to Rustie, the resulting track is a perfect combination that highlight on the best parts of the aesthetics of both producers.

8. John Talabot - ƒIN LP

There is no one track on ƒIN that matches the emotional resonance of John Talabot's remix of Blue Daisy's "Raindrops," but it still offers a stable of heart-tugging house.  ƒIN is a very whole, complete album with a wide range, yet nothing veers off on a tangent.  The suite of opening tracks set the precedent for what's possible, weaving between open-sky vocal trance, swampland field recordings, and tribal chanting.  It's music designed to take you places, specifically places that are beautiful.  Talabot has a grace and patience to his compositions that pays huge dividends when he decides to go for a climax.  Dance music isn't difficult to anticipate in most cases, but even when Talabot crafts a track that hits the checkpoints you'd expect it too, he outdoes whatever you had in mind.

7. TNGHT -TNGHT EP

As much as I thought I didn't need another vowelless electronic production team, 2012 couldn't have been the year it was without TNGHT.  The duo's brand of bombastic instrumental hip-hop is absolutely massive – playing speedfreak juke off of seismic bass rumbles like they belong together.  Turns out they do.  I'm looking forward to TNGHT's next move more than any other group this year, probably because their EP sounds like the embodiment of hype.  It's short, loud, and satisfying the way a great movie trailer gets you excited for the full feature.  Here's hoping they can sustain their impressive level of energy.

6. Todd Terje - It's The Arps EP

"Infectious" is the key word here.  While Todd Terje's entire It's The Arps EP is worth your time, its lead-off track "Inspector Norse" is why this album ranks so high for me.  How can someone not want to dance to this song?  The very notion seems impossible.  If you've been following Terje for the past few years, you know him from his pitch-perfect disco edits of artists like Michael Jackson, Dennis Parker, and Chic, among many others.  He's well-versed in the kind of upbeat space disco most people associate with fellow Norwegians Lindstrom and Prins Thomas, but never executed quite like this.  Amazingly, "Inspector Norse" is appropriate for any occasion, capable of changing the mood of whatever environment it's introduced into to match its own, like the best kind of invasive species.

5. Underworld - And I Will Kiss (feat. Dame Evelyn Glennie)

The last time Underworld and Danny Boyle teamed up, we got "Born Slippy" in the film Trainspotting, the high watermark for big-beat festival rave.  I was elated to discover that they were collaborating again, this time on one of the world's largest theatrical stages: the Summer Olympics in London.  Production and spectacle were top-notch all around, but the interplay between Underworld's new production "And I Will Kiss" and the Industrial Revolution scene, culminating in the forging of the Olympic rings, was this pinnacle.  The track itself builds for almost 15 minutes with only one brief interlude meant to quietly symbolize and memorialize World War II.  The track on its own is exhausting in a way that melds perfectly with the visions of relentless manual labor from the performance.  The payoff at the end is signaled by whistling, the same used in the WWII memorial part.  It's the kind of whistling someone would make as they go about their work, simply trying to pass the time.  "And I Will Kiss" embodied the famous stick-to-itivness that Britain is known for.  It's a gorgeous song and empathetically expressive.

4. Burial - Kindered EP

3 tracks here, 2 tracks there, Burial has been trickling out some real gems the past couple years, but none quite as stunning and evolutionary as his Kindred EP.  Here Burial's productions are lengthy (3 tracks, 30 minutes), but also catchier and more melodic than ever.  On "Ashtray Wasp" he even breaks the song into movements.  Several times the track disintegrates into a familiar Burial-esque vinyl-static to reemerge with a new beat and backing samples and synths,  It could have been split into several tracks, but held together, the track lingers.  The subtle ticks and crackles are the types of sounds you'd only hear if you took time to just sit and listen to the world around you.  The title "Ashtray Wasp" calls to mind late-night diners occupied by wandering patrons with nowhere else to go.  They sit.  They smoke.  Cigarette clouds hover near the ceiling.  It's quiet, but there's still so much happening.  This is Burial's wheelhouse, and he's yet to misfire.

3. Andy Stott - Luxury Problems LP

I'm ecstatic to see how much press Andy Stott has gotten this year after such a strong showing in 2011 with his two EPs of gurgling dub techno.  He continued forging a unique path with Luxury Problems, adding vocals into the mix, chopping and filtering them as you'd expect him to handle any sample.  The vocals, provided by his former piano instructor, are breathy, and Stott uses this quality to make his chugging beats literally inhale and exhale as they go, especially on opener, "Numb."  We Stay Together and Passed Me By sound organic, but Luxury Problems sounds alive, like it has a skin that undulates as bass ripples through it.  What continues to be most impressive about Andy Stott's music is how accessible it is as beat-oriented electronic music, yet it sounds like nothing else.  It evokes nothing in particular.  It's singular, and that is such a rare and wonderful thing.

2. Lone - Galaxy Garden LP

Lone's "Raindance" was my go-to track this year when I thought to myself, "I need to listen to some music!"  I prefer to take in Galaxy Garden as a whole album, but there's not always time.  Somehow Lone is able to take the parts of old-school rave that I like the best and transform them into something fresh, otherworldly, and expansive.  At its heart, Galaxy Garden is awash in watery synths, skittery breaks, and piano stabs, but manages to be more than the sum of these parts and remarkably coherent as an album-listening experience.  I know there was a new Orbital album that came out this year, which was way better than a "comeback record" had any right to be, but Galaxy Garden carries on the tradition of early 90s Orbital in a new generation.  When I first began listening to Orbital, I didn't know that it was also used as dance music since it was such a rich headphone experience.  Likewise for Lone's entire output, but seeing it here in long-player format brings the point home like never before.  It's music that's perfectly suited to both environments and captures a balance that, for me, hits a pleasure center carved out by Orbital 2 that so few records are capable of striking.

1. Chromatics - Kill for Love LP

If I'm going to tout albums that express clear and calculated vision, none best Chromatics' synthesizer not-a-soundtrack, Kill for Love.  Johnny Jewel et al put on a masterclass in tone and pacing with Kill for Love, pairing the catchiest pop songs and the most beautiful ambient mood-pieces of the year together to tell a story of love, loss, suspense, and release.  If that sounds like a movie tagline, it's no coincidence; the album's inside booklet presents liner notes like credits at the end of a film trailer.  Like 2007's Night Drive, Kill for Love tells a story with what feels like a filmic arc, but lacking the restrictive qualities that come with crafting a dedicated film score.  The album evokes film in a recognizable way, but keeps its narrative from becoming too concrete, leaving room for interpretation.  It's not unlike Cindy Sherman's famous Untitled Film Still photograph series, just playing with scoring instead of cinematography.  While Kill for Love does these things very well, the unabashed blissfulness of their poppiest tracks here should not be ignored.  It's significant because hooks on "Kill for Love," "Back from the Grave," "The Page," and "Lady" are as good or better than anything getting major radio play.  That an album that could breathlessly soundtrack a sequel to the movie Drive while also bringing such a strong contingent of pop hits to the fore is a tremendous feat.  By the way, did I mention the album opens with a heart-wrending Neil Young cover?  It does, and it's incredible.  Nothing about Kill for Love isn't incredible.

Best Music of 2012 (2/3)

20. LOL Boys - Changes EP

19. Pixelord - Supaplex EP

18. Lemonade - Neptune

17. Voices From The Lake - Voices From The Lake LP

16. Squarepusher - Angel Integer / Unreal Square

15. Baauer - Harlem Shake / Yaow!

14. Fort Romeau - Kingdoms LP

13. Deadbeat - Eight LP

12. KW Griff - Bring in the Katz (feat. Pork Chop)

11. Orbital - Wonky LP

Best Music of 2012 (1/3)

30. Nguzunguzu - Warm Pulse EP

29. Blue Daisy x Unknown Shapes - Bedtime Stories EP

28. Ejeca - Reconcile EP

27. Four Tet - Pink LP

26. Ricardo Villalobos - Dependent and Happy LP

25. Kuedo - Work, Live & Sleep in Collapsing Space

24. Ricardo Donoso - Assimilating the Shadow LP

23. Lindstrom - Smalhans EP

22. Joy Orbison - Ellipsis

21. Various Artists - Xenoblade Chronicles OST

State of the Blog: 100th Post

This is the 100th post on Gold Skulltulla, and by the time this is live the blog will have racked up more than 20,000 pageviews in its nearly 6-year lifespan.  It's a nice little milestone, and the perfect opportunity to take a minute to reflect on how far the blog has come and where it needs to go.  Gold Skulltulla has always been personal in nature, serving as a platform for me to build a public portfolio of video game and music criticism, share DJ mixes, and promote my own art events.

If you go back to the earliest posts, this blog only existed to write best-of music lists once a year among a circle of friends who did the same.  I plucked the name "Gold Skulltulla" out of the air because it sounded cool.  If you play video games you'll pick up on the allusion to Gold Skulltulas, small spider-like collectable/enemies from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, but it was never really important to understand that.  "Skulltula" is meant to be a play on "tarantula," but since I (mis)pronounced it "tull" like "Jethro Tull" I went with that spelling.  Also, by Gnarls Barkley naming logic, I thought it would avoid the copyright police in case things "got huge."  Once I began to compose DJ mixes, I figured I'd use the title for that moniker too.  Brand synergy and all that.

The music lists and mixes continued on, but if there's a point where content on the blog shifted significantly it was the addition of video game reviews almost 3 years ago.  Amidst a miasma of bad games writing, and a growing audience for intellectual discussion of the medium, I saw an opening for games criticism from an artistic, experiential perspective and decided to apply myself toward that goal.  This blog was a safe place to grow comfortable with my writing, which has come a long way since those early posts.

That brings us to some exciting news.  It's with great pleasure that I formally announce a new site dedicated solely to video games and their surrounding culture: Low Cutoff.  I invite you to check out the About page over there which has all the juicy details.  In short, Low Cutoff takes the fundamentals and the hard work I've put into Gold Skulltulla and turns it into a focused video game conversation space.  Expect more frequent posting, new kinds of content, and a fresh sense of style.

This is not the end of Gold Skulltulla though, which will remain live and with all posts left intact.  New video game posts will only show up on Low Cutoff, while pieces for Gold Skulltulla will shift  towards music exclusively.  Microgenre Moment will continue, as will best-of lists.  I'd also like to begin posting what I call Sticker Reviews: bite-sized recommendations of albums or songs that will endorse musicians that are putting out music that's worth your time.  Gold Skulltulla remains my DJ name and I will still make mixes when I find the time.

Thanks for stopping by and checking out Gold Skulltulla, and I hope you'll give Low Cutoff a look as well.  As always, feedback is welcome.  Here's to another 100!

-Dan

Deep Time

Gold Skulltulla - Deep Time by Gold_Skulltulla on Mixcloud

It's been nearly 3 years since I made a disco-house mix, but I finally put a sequel together.  "Deep Time" is not totally pure disco, but everything at least carries a notable funky vibe (slap bass, disco strings, etc.).  I wanted a chance to share some of my favorite tracks of the year ("Inspector Norse"), and also return to a few of those artists from "Building Sensation."  This new mix runs almost exactly an hour long, so strap your dancing shoes tight.  Thanks for listening.

Gold Skulltulla - Deep Time

Tracklist:

The Avalanches - A Different Feeling (Paperclip People Remix - Avalanches Edit)
MK - Burning (95 Mix)
Ejeca - Pushed
Mungolian Jetset - Smells Like Gasoline
Fort Romeau - Jack Rollin'
Shit Robot - Space Race
Todd Terje - Inspector Norse
The Avalanches - A Different Feeling (Paperclip People Remix - Avalanches Edit)
The Rapture - Sail Away (Cut Copy Remix)
Hercules & Love Affair - Falling
Miami Horror - I Look To You
In Flagranti - Effective Placebo Affect
Holy Ghost! - Hold On
Lovelock - Maybe Tonight (Morgan Geist Vocal Edit)
Golden Bug - Disco Sensation (Bonus Beats)
Jacques Renault - Tuxedo Dance
Escort - Cocaine Blues (Greg Wilson Remix)
Maya Jane Coles - Contradiction
Strip Steve - All The Time
Daft Punk - Something About Us (Cherokee Remix)
Hot Toddy - Down To Love
Roisin Murphy - Simulation
Kenneth Bager - Fragment Two (The First Picture) (Jesse Rose Remix)

Review: BIT.TRIP RUNNER (Mac)

Prerequisite: check out this video of an individual demonstrating their mastery of the game/toy Bop It.  It's best if you watch the whole thing, but I understand if you become impatient and bail early. BIT.TRIP RUNNER is a video game version of Bop It.  No, it's not an official tie-in, but the mechanics are transferred nearly verbatim.  In RUNNER you control a character who must dodge obstacles as the environment force-scrolls past.  Directional buttons trigger block, kick, slide, and vault actions while the spacebar executes a jump.  These moves are sort-of tied in to the accompanying music score, but mostly you rely on visual discernment to time and select your actions.  Like Bop It, one false move while playing will stop you in your tracks and force you to try again from the beginning.  Also like Bop It, you can beat and master RUNNER, but doing so is like learning to play a song that no one wants to listen to on an instrument that doesn't really exist.

When it came time for me to decide what I wanted to play in my grade school band, I chose percussion.  Drumming seemed more fun than brass or woodwinds, but I was also more confident in my ability to keep a beat over maintaining melody.  My sister took piano lessons, which I was encouraged to take as well, but never did.  We got a programmable electric piano at home eventually, and rather than actually play conventional music, I'd setup the percussion kit that assigned individual drums and cymbals to specific keys and make all sorts of noise.  There was also a neat trick you could do by pressing two low-octave "square lead" keys at the same time, producing some pretty satisfying bass rumbles.  I own a MPC drum machine, though it's been sorely underused.  I adore Rez and was a die-hard DDR player for several years.  In short, though I would not call myself a musician of any kind, I know my way around button/key-based beat making.  On its surface, I should love BIT.TRIP RUNNER.

Unfortunately for me, RUNNER plays how I always feared piano lessons would go: demanding, unforgiving, and with a slavish dedication to someone else's creativity rather than my own. In RUNNER, you can't study notes on a page to prepare, you must react in real time and memorize the level's patterns through failure.  At most, you have a full second to recognize what object is heading your way and tap the appropriate key to evade or deflect.  Each time you screw up, it's like the piano instructor wraps your knuckles with a ruler and points to the first note on the sheet.  If you play a piano piece correctly, you enjoy the satisfaction of hard-earned accomplishment along with the joy of hearing a song that you presumably like.  In RUNNER, you just earn arbitrary points and the music you've produced only occasionally sounds like a song.  There is no level editor or any way of really getting hands-on with the mechanics beyond the prescribed courses.

People have compared RUNNER to mobile games like Canabalt and Temple Run for their similar, forced running perspectives.  Both Canabalt and Temple Run use randomized obstacles and challenge players to get farther than their previous attempt, but as far as I'm aware, neither has endpoints.  RUNNER is broken up into 36 preset levels, and withholds progression until you complete the stage prior.  The big difference between RUNNER and something like Canabalt is how you feel after triggering a fail state.  With Canabalt it feels like the game playfully dares you to try it again.  You know losing is inevitable, but it's fun to try and get farther than last time.  In fact, "losing" isn't really "losing," it's just the end of the round.  Retries in RUNNER are instantaneous.  If you forget to kick a box on cue, the game zips you back to the start of the stage, and after a brief moment you're back on your way again.  I applaud Gaijin Games for making the process so snappy, but subsequent runs feel more like a matter of survival than heartfelt attempts on the part of the player. You're trapped in the gameplay loop until you either win or cry "uncle" and quit.

There are collectable gold bars throughout RUNNER that encourage a more daring style of play, but the game doesn't offer rewards that merit the effort required to snatch them all.  If you do collect every gold bar in a level you can play a bonus Pitfall-styled area, which is neat a couple times, but not 30+.  You only get one try at the bonus levels per completion of a regular stage, which means you may have spent a half hour trying to get a perfect run, only for your "prize" to last a fleeting handful of seconds.  The numerous retries on regular levels pushed me to ignore the gold bars as much as I could, eliminating several tricky maneuvers from my regimen, but also rendering the music more spartan, lacking the distinctive chimes emitted by grabbing the bars.  You could interpret the game as an incisive metaphor for the daily, 9-5 grind perpetuated by an uncompromising capitalist economy, but that's an unearned credit.  Instead, playing BIT.TRIP RUNNER feels like a really difficult motor skills exam – something for the sport stacking set.

I'm being pretty hard on RUNNER, but it does have its merits.  Visually, the game renders Atari 2600 graphics as 3D cubic blocks to grinning, stylistic effect.  If you collect enough point multipliers in a level, an old-school Activision rainbow will tail behind the titular runner as it goes – RUNNER's incentivization at its most effective.  Mechanically, the game is as sharp as it gets.  Though it asks for tight precision, failure is never the result of ambiguous design.  I could knock the effectiveness of RUNNER's musical implementation, but having listened to the soundtrack outside of the game, their track selection is appropriate and catchy.  Lastly, I began this review by comparing RUNNER to Bop It, but I should point out that I actually like Bop It.  It's a party icebreaker game that asks players to focus their attention, likely in a social situation that requires otherwise – a humorous juxtaposition.  As an unfortunate point of contrast, there just isn't much to laugh about in RUNNER.

Still, there are clearly a lot of people who dig what BIT.TRIP RUNNER brings to the table, and far be it from me to say not to like something people seem to enjoy, but the game feels masochistic for nostalgia's sake.  There's no denying its style, but you'd be hard pressed to locate any real substance here.  And if you choose to play BIT.TRIP RUNNER, make no mistake, you will be pressed...hard.

Microgenre Moment: Baggy

Ever wanted to throw down some obscure music knowledge to impress friends and strangers alike?  In Microgenre Moment I try my best pass along some basic Wikipedia overviews and links to relevant videos to get you up to speed on a specific sub-sub-genre of music.  I guarantee these posts will grant you the intellectual high ground in your next music-centered conversation.

"Baggy was a British dance-oriented music genre popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The scene was heavily influenced by Madchester, although it was not geographically confined to Manchester. Many Madchester bands could also be described as Baggy, and vice versa. Baggy was characterised by psychedelia- and acid house-influenced guitar music, often with a funky drummer beat, similar to the work of the Happy Mondays, Northside and The Stone Roses. The scene was named after the loose-fitting clothing worn by the bands and fans."

"Bands in the indie-dance era of pop music can be divided into two camps; the acts who could be described as baggy (usually the Madchester acts and a few others such as Flowered Up from London) — and those who can be described as indie-dance (i.e. Jesus Jones, who were more techno inspired). Some baggy bands disappeared after the scene was no longer popular, and others evolved into indie rock or Britpop bands who remained popular throughout the 1990s. The Charlatans are a good examples of an ex-baggy band who retained their popularity, although little trace of the baggy sound and look remained. The baggy style became eclipsed by the grunge and Britpop genres, with many of the lesser bands forgotten."

Review: Rayman Origins (Wii)

Let's get the critical evaluation out of the way: Rayman Origins is a fun, smartly-designed 2-D platformer that strikes a balance between the charm and detail of Kirby's Epic Yarn with the trial and error, twitch challenge of Super Meat Boy.  Sounds pretty good, right?  For the most part, it is.  Game reviewers have heaped near-universal praise upon the title using phrases like "wonderfully crafted," "gorgeous," and "controls perfectly."  I agree with all of these, and yet, Rayman Origins still comes off a bit empty.  The only reason I can think of for this disparity was the difficulty I had empathizing with the ragtag group of bohemian shit disturbers that serve as the game's protagonists.  This disconnect effectively eliminated my attachment to the characters' motivations and relegated the game to a product of craft rather than a work of art.

I do fear that this opinion could brand me as some kind of humorless square, but characters who have been created solely for mischief usually rub me the wrong way.  I have always been pretty straight-laced, staying organized and avoiding trouble whenever possible.  In elementary school, I observed conflicts and elicit conversations from a safe distance, honing my "excellent listener" skills overhearing discussions of cigarettes and R-rated movies.  I hated Michelangelo from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles because he was the idiot who always dragged the others into avoidable hostile situations.  So, when Rayman Origins opened with the full cast of layabouts harmonizing beatnik music via chewing and snoring noises that essentially annoyed the neighbors into retaliation, I felt less like exacting revenge and more thankful that somebody said something.

At least in Mario games Nintendo fabricates a premise of "rescue" for your quest.  You might not desperately need to save the princess, but you assume Mario probably does, so you oblige.  The "white knight" stereotype isn't what makes the character interesting or believable – on its own the characterization is quite shallow.  It does set a stage for you to quickly get behind the protagonist's motivation though.  This works for morally ambiguous protagonists too, just using different criteria to match the context.  In contrast Rayman and his friends are a bunch of hedonists, apathetic to current affairs except when their collective buzz is at stake.  It's like playing a game where a small party of stoners embark on a quest to find the nearest convenience store and eat day-old taquitos.  Actually, nevermind, I'd totally give that game a shot too.

The fluidity of Rayman Origins' level design and platforming controls largely make up for the shortcomings in plot establishment, but only to the extant that great mechanics can reach on their own. The moment-to-moment satisfaction in Rayman Origins is quite high.  Levels are designed for smooth runs if played precisely.  If the sensation of speed was faster you might think you were playing the Sonic the Hedgehog sequel that never was.  Better yet, you never feel like the characters are out of your control.  If you screw up, there's always something you could have done better.  After all your hard work, finally you reach the end of the level and the camera zooms in to show Rayman thrusting his limbless torso around, mouth agape.  This guy again.  In the scene that follows, one of Rayman's big-nosed pals straddles an incredibly phallic test tube as it fills up with all of the Lums (yellow, glowing collectables) you found in the level.  When other reviewers talk about this game being "unmistakably French," this is what they're actually referring to.

So what am I left with in Rayman Origins but an excellent product of gameplay craft, shouldering an otherwise driveless game.  It's a shame because so many pieces are in place for Rayman Origins to be a certifiable work of art, but it falls short on a holistic level.  The mechanics that are present are rich, but they're not deep.  The game doesn't invite immersion – I got burned out after few levels each time I came back to it.  It's great that Ubisoft recently published a strikingly similar game for mobile devices, since Rayman Origins' structure is better tuned to short gameplay bursts over long-form, sit-down experiences.  If a game/painting/song doesn't ultimately provoke questions or reflection or welcome a more intimate play of engagement, then it's just serving a specifically crafted entertainment experience.  Sometimes that's exactly what I want, but I had higher hopes for Rayman Origins.

We can talk "art v craft" inconclusively for longer than it takes to play Rayman Origins, so let's just consider the established critical baselines as laid out by Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant.  To state it plainly, Kant divided art objects into "fine art," "agreeable art," and "craft."  A great deal of intricacy goes into these categorical assignments, but the easiest way to distinguish them from one another is by the purpose of the object in question.  Craft objects serve direct practical purposes: cups are vessels for water.  Agreeable art serves to entertain: a well-written joke incites laughter.  Fine art seeks to act as, well, art: a video installation provokes a play with ideas.  Many individuals hold fast against Kant's distinctions between art, craft, and entertainment, but institutions of the art world (museums, galleries, and art schools) still hang on to them as guideposts for taste.

Games, and obviously video games, weren't a part of this discussion in the 18th century, but Rayman Origins was clearly built for entertainment.  That said, entertainment itself could be interpreted as a practical purpose too, thus placing the game into the "craft" category as well.  You could argue that even if I absolutely adored Rayman and his buds, the game would still be "agreeable," not "fine," art.  Who knows whether that would actually be true though?  If art was just a matter of pushing sliders more to the left or right, then the answers to these questions would be obvious.  But I digress.  My point isn't to trudge around in semantic minutiae, but simply to concretize why my time with Rayman Origins left me lukewarm when most signs within and around the game seemed to be pointing in a more prestigious direction.

I want games that match the mechanical challenge they're so clearly capable of with intellectual challenge, or at least stimulation. I'd love to see developers use the gameplay systems from Rayman Origins as building blocks.  The side-scrolling action/platformer can be considered perfected at this point.  That's a milestone achievement, and deserving of serious praise, along with the economical UBIart framework used to create Rayman Origins' visual assets.  But what of it?  I've spent years playing games where I move a character to the right, so here's hoping that the next Rayman game will return the favor and actually move me.

Gold Skulltulla on Medium Difficulty

Hey there.  I wrote a review of Xenoblade Chronicles for Wii, and the folks over at gaming blog Medium Difficulty were kind enough to publish it.  Here it is!  In the review I examine the role that extensive game length has in terms of interactive storytelling.  Hope you like it, and thanks for reading.

Review: Digital: A Love Story (Mac)

It's often taken for granted that people who play a lot of video games know a lot about technology.  I'll attest that there is generally aptitude in these circles beyond that of the non-gamer crowd, but it's not something that comes entirely natural.  Maybe I'm just being defensive because I was always late to the party on so many aspects of new and emerging technological trends in the past 3 decades.  I didn't send an email or use AIM until I started college in 2002.  Same goes for having a cell phone for more than emergency calls.  I would have needed to be unrealistically aware of the personal computer scene at a very early age to feel nostalgic about the interface of the Amie Workbench, an Amiga analogue, and Bulletin Board System (BBS) communications represented in the game, Digital: A Love Story.  Since I wasn't, few of the game's techie in-jokes and references stick.  However, since Digital places you in a sort of 1988 simulation mode, the unfamiliarity lent itself to a more personally authentic experience.

You begin Digital as a someone who's using, for all intents and purposes, the Internet for the first time, but through the very limited lens of the Amie Workbench.  Visually, the game is the computer screen: everything fits the blue/white/orange color scheme, the monitor has heavy scanlines, and the cursor is a big, fat, red arrow.  You receive a message from a friend of your dad that tells you what to do to get on BBSes and chatting with folks.  Where instructions in a game can often remove you from the experience, here everything is presented in proper context and actually reads like messages real people would send.  Because the connection between using a computer to play and the game virtualizing a specific operating system is so direct, very little suspension of disbelief is needed to jump into the narrative.

As the title suggests, Digital is a love story, but it's also a mystery.  You're introduced to the "love interest" character, *Emilia, early on, and when she disappears, it's up to you to figure out what happened.  The narrative convention, which is also the primary game mechanic, is the exchange of BBS posts and private messages.  Everyone you interact with has a unique voice and motivation, creating conversations that reach far beyond typical NPC fare.  You never actually type any messages, instead simply hitting reply and reading contacts' responses.  This string of communication works best when you're in "conversation" with one or two other people and the back and forth is readily apparent.  At other times you'll just callously reply or send PMs to everyone on your list, making sure you're doing everything necessary to trigger the text that will allow you to progress further in the story.  The introduction to *Emilia follows the better of those two paths, and though it's clear that I was just messaging a fictional character as part of an interactive short story, I did develop an attachment to that character; enough of an attachment to drive the mystery plot forward with a degree of urgency.

The writing in Digital is very consistent, believable, and emotionally affecting.   Digital's designer and author, Christine Love, bills herself as a writer first, and it shows.  That's meant as a compliment to her writing skills, not a knock on her game design abilities.  Truly well written games are few and far between, but even fewer are as dependent on quality writing as Digital.  Characters' messages vary in articulation and sophistication, as you'd expect from a bunch of random people on the Internet.  I'm reminded of Gus Van Sant's teenager-starring Paranoid Park for how real its characters felt despite, or perhaps because of, the amateur statuses of its actors.  Love is likewise able to find a tone that is reflective of the production process, and somehow more authentic in doing so. 

Digital plops you into the world of BBSes, stranger-in-a-strange-land style.  Yes, there's a missing person mystery to solve, but navigating the uncharted online world is a mysterious voyage in its own right.  Imagine a game that has a clear story objective, but in order to proceed you need to drive a tractor, and before you can drive the it you have to figure out how it works.  Do you need keys to start it?  Where are the keys?  Which lever is for reverse?  Oh wait, does this run on gas?!  BBSes are just as foreign to me as tractors, and I appreciated how Digital didn't assume any prior knowledge.  If there's a tendency nowadays to forget just how open the Internet is, typing in phone numbers in hopes of connecting to a heretofore unseen places is a healthy reminder.  No one even dials numbers to place phone calls anymore, further distancing us from the real technological processes happening in the background.  If you did hand-dial phone numbers, you might mess up and call a random bystander by mistake.  In Digital, instead of hanging up and correcting the error, every number has an unknown on the other end; there's a sense of discovery.

The feeling of openness makes for an ideal learning space, which goes as much for the in-game world as the one outside of it.  Digital teaches you about BBSes and early Internet history through message texts, but in allowing you to actually dial the numbers and direct message other users, you learn by doing.  The mystery/love story paces you through the learning process, heightening the meaning behind your actions.  Later on, the Internet "history lesson" takes some sensationalist turns, but it makes for a great moment of culmination when you finally gain access to the fabled University BBS where they don't just have direct messages, they have email!  A story that's willing to go a little over the top is helpful to make up for the potential dryness of a game centered around an archaic computer interface. The online communications depicted in Digital remain the foundation that our modern Internet is built upon, reminding us of the vast expanses available to users at increasing speeds and densities.  It's up to us to make the stories real.

Digital: A Love Story is available to download for free here.

Recap: Bennett Foddy at NYU Game Center

Last night at NYU Game Center, indie developer and ex-Cut Copy bassist Bennett Foddy gave a presentation wherein he detailed several core principles he strives for when creating games.  If somehow you've never played any of Foddy's games, do yourself a favor and head over to his website where you can play them all for free.  Foddy is most known for QWOP, the game where you use four keyboard buttons in rhythm to propel an Oympic runner 100 meters.  Or at least that's the premise.  You'll probably spend most of your time banging the runner's head against the ground trying to take your first step.  The results are quite hilarious as limbs fly all over the place, but there's always a modicum of understanding that you're figuring out how the system works and could maybe, actually get the runner to, well, run.

QWOP has gained a high enough profile to be visible in mainstream pop culture (making a cameo in this year's season premiere of NBC's The Office, for one), but Foddy's other games operate in similar fashion, enlightening players of the physical actions needed to control the characters in the games.  The immediacy of these games, one of the subjects Foddy's lecture focused on, allows for even a simple button press to result in a satisfying in-game consequence.  In CLOP, a QWOP-like game with a unicorn, each of the four control buttons kicks out one of the unicorn's corresponding four legs.  The animation of even one leg kicking out is so unlike anything that a real horse would do that I can't help but crack up at the mere sight of it, not to mention once you really get the beast "going."  I found it interesting that Foddy didn't directly mention humor in his discussion, since I find it to be part of the prominent appeal of his titles.

Foddy's outlook on game design shares much in common with contemporary art practice, conjuring the notion that there is a rich middleground between the two that takes into account player interactivity and artistic practice in corollary measure.  In games, designers have to choose their controller/platform.  In art, artists select their medium, which for the past half century could acceptably be pretty much anything.  Only recently have game designers been fiddling with new ways of using traditional and standardized controllers in new and exciting ways (see Johan Sebastian Joust).  Yet, art has often struggled to stretch out of the austere, institutional art/viewer relationship by limiting patrons to actions like "standing," "looking," and "walking around,"  A game/artwork that bridges the gap between the two would likely also confront these issues from both sides.  Foddy seems to be on this track as he's been hanging out with some of the JS Joust creators, developing some kind of trampoline-powered Move controller game.

The principles Foddy presented weren't without their own self-conflict though, making them more aspirations than hard and fast rules. For example, if a designer is creating a game that asks players to hold DualShock controllers backwards, a prompt to inform them of how this is supposed to work might be needed, but that would sacrifice some degree of immediacy.  A minor criticism of Journey was that an outline of a controller with some arrows is displayed at the beginning of the game to let players know that they can tilt the controller to rotate the camera.  The necessity of these sorts of prompts is debatable; the point being that there is no one correct solution.  However, I think Foddy would argue that it's best to attempt the game that adheres to principles of immediacy and fully-integrated worlds, and only make concessions when there don't seem to be any better options.

Foddy came off as a game designer on the bleeding edge of the medium, in terms of his games as well as his production practice.  He said that he hopes to show the trampoline game at Indiecade, so keep an eye out for that. In the meantime you can always try and get to the top of this wall.  Um, good luck?

Photo by Finn Taylor for Wired

Microgenre Moment: Florida Breaks

Ever wanted to throw down some obscure music knowledge to impress friends and strangers alike?  In Microgenre Moment I try my best pass along some basic Wikipedia overviews and links to relevant videos to get you up to speed on a specific sub-sub-genre of music.  I guarantee these posts will grant you the intellectual high ground in your next music-centered conversation.

"Florida breaks, also referred to as Florida breakbeat, is a genre of breakbeat music which, as the name suggests, is most popular in the areas around the US state of Florida but is recognized as a unique sound around the world. Florida breaks became popular in the club culture of the southeast United States during the mid and late 90s. Its sound at that time was described as 'funky' and often included recognizable samples from 80s pop, funk, and hip hop. Its current sound has a lot in common with nu skool breaks although it is also influenced by other music popular in the same area such as freestyle, electro and Miami bass. Its largest influence was in the clubs of Tampa as the more popular DJs in this genre hail from that city. More recently, Floridians have taken to calling the genre electro breaks despite the lack of electro characteristics included in the tracks, but this is most likely due to the parallel electronic dance music sub-genre of electro bass being billed at many of the same events as Florida breaks."

"While Kimball Collins and Dave Cannalte were promoting the sounds of progressive house and trance at the legendary Ahzz, DJ Stylus & D-Xtreme are considered the pioneers since it is they who inspired and introduced countless patrons of the Abyss to the genre of Breakbeat. Brad Smith and Huda Hudia were regular guest DJ's at the Abyss as they too were promoting and playing breakbeat at residencies in Tampa. The first production in Florida Breaks can be attributed to DJ Icee or now known as DJ Icey. His numerous labels and countless releases served as the pioneering sound of Florida Breaks, and he was the first to put Florida Breaks on the map globally. Later successful productions were followed by Brad Smith, Huda Hudia, & Dave London out of Tampa. It was the efforts of these first 6 artists that paved the way for other artists, who in their own right, successfully followed."

Interview at Other People's Pixels

The good folks over at Other People's Pixels (the web-hosting/template service for artists that I use for dansolberg.com) recently did an interview with me for their blog.  They asked me questions about my practice and the ideas behind some of my more recent pieces, and I, well, answered them.  New work out of my recently established Brooklyn studio is soon to follow, so check back soon!

Link to the interview: http://blog.otherpeoplespixels.com/otherpeoplespixels-interviews-dan-solberg

Recap: Soundplay Game Jam

Last night at the New Museum, Pitchfork and Kill Screen teamed up to offer an evening of free drinks, video games, and music.  The main impetus for the get together was an extension of the Soundplay project that commissions indie game talent to craft interactive experiences based on songs from indie musicians.  Yes, the whole thing was pretty "indie," but that's not a bad thing.  This particular event was structured around a game jam that happened over the two days prior.  Four teams had 48 hours to produce games based off of music from the band Passion Pit's new album Gossamer.  The night of the party was a chance for attendees to play all of the Soundplay titles, including the ones made during the jam, while also taking in a live performance by Chromatics and a DJ set by Oneohtrix Point Never.  Since you're the sort of person who would read a blog entry like this, that billing should all sound pretty great.

Neon sign at the entrance was a nice touch.

 I sat down to play all of the game jam titles, and though all four mostly matched the upbeat, candy-colored vibe of the band, each took markedly different gameplay approaches to the source material.  In the first one I played, you control some Katamari-looking dudes and press the spacebar to juggle approaching objects.  Higher scores are awarded for the more objects you keep off the ground until certain checkpoints in the song.  The next game had a flowery, psychedelic setting with a figure on a tightrope that walks towards you as you toggle the "left" and "right" keys for balance.  If you fall off, the song stops and you must start over.  Beside that game was one that told the story of a sad bunny that you cover with candy to make happy again.  Shelves of sweets are on both sides of the stationary rabbit, and you drag and drop them into place.  The candy blocks have physics programmed into them, so making a perfect stack that doesn't tip over was quite the challenge.  Music played in the background, but at climax points of the song, a quake strikes and probably undoes all your hard work.  Lastly, the fourth game was a forced-scrolling don't-hit-the-walls navigation exercise that seemed like it was supposed to be incorporating video from the computer's webcam in the background, but it wasn't working when I played it.

Attendees getting their hands on the Jam games, plus previous Soundplay entries.

While tonally these games kept in line with the vibe of Passion Pit music, they seemed more inclined to simply take inspiration from the music than to really incorporate it as a part of the mechanics.  The notion of games as promotional material for music in the vein of music videos is a concept in its early stages.  Should these games be "music games" as we understand them?  They could take inspiration from the likes of Guitar Hero and Rock Band and challenge players to replicate the songs they hear.  They could draw from Dance Dance Revolution and Dance Central and co-opt body movements that correspond to beats.  Recently, Soundshapes has further evolved concepts born out of games like Rez where playing a more traditional genre game, such as a platformer or shooter, generates music just by going about as usual.  But we're talking about game jam games here, and design docs that can be written and delivered quickly and completely are paramount.  I did really like it when the music triggered screen-shake in the rabbit game though.

Chromatics performing live

Nothing against the games, but I got the feeling from the crowd that the Chromatics performance was probably the main draw for most.  I can't really ague with that sentiment either since Johnny Jewel et al put on a moody, energetic show.  Readers of this blog can look forward to me gushing about Kill For Love come year-end list time as it's definitely one of the best albums of 2012.  I didn't stay for too much of Oneohtrix Point Never's set up on the gorgeous 7th floor sky view terrace, but stuck around long enough to hear "Ghost City" mixed into some hardcore Goa trance, which was pretty amazing.  The only thing that would have made the event better would have been the New Museum opening access to its Ghosts in the Machine exhibition, which would have been a nice pairing with all the games and electronic music happenings.

I'm told the game jam games will be available to play online hopefully by the end of the month along with a short documentary about their development process.  I'll be writing an in-depth piece on the existing Soundplay games in the near future.

:images 1 & 2 taken by me; Chromatics pic by Eriz Avissar for Pitchfork: