Daxo is an interactive portfolio created by musician and designer Hans Reichel. 
The style is similar to Blue Suburbia, another non-game we featured recently on JIG, and pulls together sound and image in a fusion of interactive multimedia.
Stuck somewhere between a portfolio and a game, Daxo showcases the creative talent of Mr. Reichel in many areas, including flash design, font creation and composing. After a short intro you're presented with a list of twelve different pages you can explore in any order you like:
- Erdmaennchen - Toy around with pictures of prairie dogs.
- Font Design 1 - A piece about designing fonts.
- Tongues - Listen to a looping musical score while you play with on-screen visuals.
- Join the Band - Play a "game" by making sounds with little blobs.
- Heads - A psychadellic experience with smiling heads and bats.
- Font Design 2 - About Hans' FF Dax font.
- The Island - A clip from the movie Hyperdax.
- Problems - A soundboard toys with you.
- Some Guitars - About full-fret guitars.
- The Secret - About the Daxophone.
- Downloads - Grab a font, image and pdf info file or two.
- Thanks - and more news - Find out what Hans has been up to lately.
Some of the pieces are truly stunning while a few are a little too long if you aren't interested in the subject matter. You can always skip a scene by changing the page number in the address bar. Hans Reichel's site is a great example of what creativity can do when given a little time and a flexible outlet such as Flash.
If I had made something like that, I would think I was going insane.
so called "designer". It's horrible.
great!
they are really good ideas. I feel that If one of these 'experieces' in flash where combined with a good game idea....
the result would be mindblowing!
That was the most messed up wack game or whatever ive ever seen probally best seen while high... WTF
Cool!
I didnt find where I could download the fonts. Only a picture of those cool sculptures, a picture a guy and a weird type of font where every letter is represented by one of the statue things.
I'm pretty sure you have to buy the fonts at fontfont.com. If anyone finds out if you can download them, post how.
Thanks
Hmm...
Odd, I don't really understand it, but a nice piece of work nonetheless...
While not as breathtaking as Blue Suburbia, I enjoyed this a little.
From what I can tell, the entire site is dedicated to two things, the daxophone and his dax fonts. The only reason it is so trippy is to A) mess with you, and B) represent the entire contradicting attitude of the site. (For example, music that is not music, as it is uncontrolled.)
The dax fonts are, apparantly, space-conserving and oppositional to normal fonts. It gets rid of anything sticking out and rounds off otherwise flat tops and bottoms.
As for "the weird statue things", you can get all your information on the eleventh page. It includes downloadable fonts, pictures, and a Adobe PDF file containing information on the daxophone.
The "statue" objects represent sticks used by the daxophone to produce various sounds. Depending on prongs, angles, curves, and holes, the stick reacts differently to the "dax" and to the bow or other instrument you use to vibrate it.
The dax has two sides, one with metal insertions and one smooth. The smooth side, when rocked over the wooden stick, produces a flowing procession through a scale. The side made uneven with metal insertions instead produce individual notes.
The reason the sticks are included in a font is so that you may enlarge them and use them to cut out sticks of your own.
Oh, I should add. Those "sticks" are called "tongues".
I was looking at the 4th item at the menu, "Join the Band", and it said I was at the top and I had the highscore. What's up with that?
I think there is no "real" high score. Now matter who you are or which of the node-like openings you click on, you will still end up with some kind of musical composition and will gain an ungodly amount of points, therefore asserting that anyone who plays the game gets the high score.
I believe that's just one more of the ways that the website was made to mess with your head. The simple fact is that the website is not crazy, the creator is not crazy, in fact the website, fonts, and instrument are as simple as can be, but your preset beliefs make it SEEM a little odd, to you at least, and therefore, it's YOU that makes it odd, because you believe it is.
And that's the beauty of it. You odd bunch you.
Update