Yet again, Mercedes-Benze gives us another serving of what we all love best, aside or beside games. Free music. Good free music. And there's a lot of "nu" music on the newest Mixed Tape, available now.
More an interactive piece of fiction than a traditional game, Inanimate Alice: Episode 4 continues the story of the young game animator as she leaves her home in Russia and travels abroad. Inanimate Alice serves as both entertainment and a peek into the future of literature as a fusion of multimedia technologies. The haunting images and accompanying music and text weave a remarkably gripping tale that must be experienced to be believed.
Sometimes, when it's raining, I go outside and sit where I'm sure to get wet. Aside from the free shower, sitting in the rain is a great way to de-stress if Yoga just isn't your thing. Unfortunately, unless you live in Seattle, it doesn't rain every day; but rain or shine you can always find something to help you relax in the latest Mercedes-Benz Mixed Tape, available as a free download and updated every 8 weeks.
Beethoven's Hair is a psychological vignette of a game. The piece is "part of a cross media project based on the true story of a lock of hair that was cut from Beethoven's head and the story of how it passed down through history." Unlock the keyhole and you'll discover a thoughtful and intriguing take on the escape-the-room genre that infuses the usual search dynamic with free-form exploration and historical fiction.
Take this not as an announcement that Mixed Tape #15 was just released, but rather as a last call to get it while you can. While I had made a regular practice of posting an announcement here when Mercedes Benz releases a new FREE mixed tape for everyone to enjoy, I skipped it when number 15 was released in December primarily because things were already quite busy for us here.
Façade is an interactive drama that puts you in the role of a dinner guest catching up with your old college friends, a married couple named Grace and Trip. Using the mouse and keyboard, you're able to move around their apartment and manipulate objects inside, but Facade is no escape-the-room adventure game, most of the interaction involves, get this, talking to Grace and Trip.
Months in the making, the latest installment of Inanimate Alice—Episode 3: Russia—is now available through an exclusive arrangement with the Guardian in the UK. Follow Alice as she deals with life and times, at age 13, in Russia with her parents through this rich interactive narrative.
Musicovery is an interesting little web app that blurs the line between interactive toy and radio. Musicovery lets you choose and explore music by mood, style, genre, decade and much more. Mix and match filters and customize your internet radio experience to suit your tastes, even if that happens to be dark energetic pop or jazz from the 80s.
While Jayisgames is primarily about casual gameplay, many visitors to the site are Flash developers or, like me, just casual gamers who enjoy a good work of Flash now and again. Well, I'm here to say that a sequel to the Animator vs. Animation cartoon has been released over at Atom Films, and this time... it's personal.
Alexis isn't so much a game with goals and clear objectives as a rhizome open for exploration, with a human subject poised in its center. After an opening cinematic you're able to click on different underlined words in the girl's aloof break-up letter and get a sub-cinematic as a result.
TinyGrow is a captivating flash toy that lets you create a surreal garden scene by finding and dropping different types of seeds. Thick black trees sprout at random from the bottom of the screen, each with a rotating icon in the center. Click the icon to activate one of several events to discover seeds and grow more foliage.
Somewhat because I feel compelled to, but also because I do so enjoy the music that I just want to share it with the world. Mixed Tape 14 is out, and just in time to help make the weekend that much cozier.
Phase Toy is a simple Shockwave sequencer that allows you to create compositions using a point-and-click interface. Just click on a cell to have the sequencer play the corresponding tone when the 'play head' sweeps over it. Click and drag to add several tones at once. Phase Toy makes a nice little diversion that is as mesmerizing as it is relaxing.
This simple and strangely compelling toy was just released onto Web featuring a primitive drawing interface with which to create a track for a little character to slide upon. Save and load tracks and even try to attain objectives to increase the enjoyment from this creative little sandbox webtoy.
The Jackson Pollock emulator is a simple flash toy that simulates the drip style of painting popularized by Jackson Pollock. The entire browser window is a blank white canvas and your mouse becomes the paintbrush. Move the cursor over the surface to pour paint, changing colors with the left mouse button. Linger over one area for some time to leave large blotches or shake the mouse back and forth for light streams of paint. You may not create a masterpiece, but it's an engaging way to let your creativity flow.
Added to the mysteriously vacant Flash flight sim category, Goggles Flight Sim dares to let you go places where you may only have heard about. Using information collected from Google's mapping service, Mark Caswell-Daniels has created this Flash application that allows you to fly around the world to destinations of your choosing. Casual fun.
Sand Sand Sand is another entry in the Falling Sand games from Dofi-Blog. This installment incorporates some of the best elements of World of Sand and Hell of Sand into one, allowing you to play with a variety of elements in even more ways than before.
Just in case you were not already aware... 13 is out, and just in time to help make for a lovely weekend(!) Listen online, or download for later. Either way, it's always nice to get something for free. =)
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.
In Blue Suburbia, artist and flash designer Nathalie Lawhead creates a magnificently dark and dramatic world filled with striking imagery and haunting vignettes. The project began as a small animation on her website and grew to incorporate her own poetry and a number of small scenes commenting on western society and the modern school system. The application is more like an experiment in interactive poetry rather than a game, as there's no real goal, purpose or progression. Even still, Blue Suburbia is an absolutely stunning piece of artwork that you'll want to explore to its fullest.
Echo Genesis is another digital media feast for the senses with a heavy emphasis on aural stimulation. Let your mouse guide you as you float dreamily through five (5) unique environments while interacting with the elements contained within.
Somnium Orbis is "an exploration of alternative means to progress through a surreal, otherworldly scene." In other words, you must figure out how to progress through each scene of the piece. The mesmerizing and slightly disturbing work of art was created by Nate Horstmann and Peter Schmalfeldt.
Just in case you were not already aware... 12 is out. Listen online or download for another time, either way it's music. And did I mention it's FREE? =)
Apr 2006
(not enough votes yet)
What exactly is Kawa, anyway? Is it a point-and-click adventure game? An art experiment? An accidental merging of random code snippets on a website? The opening text says it all: It might be an exit; It might be a trap; It might be just a dream. Kawa is the flash-based equivalent of being stuck in an interactive MC Escher nightmare.
Here is one of my all-time favorites and it will surely be one of your favorites, too: ZomboCom. Actually there is no other place quite like it that I know of. It's unique, it's original, and it's one-of-a-kind; truly a rare swedish fish in a sea of jujubes.
Nyctalopia (Greek for night blindness) is a short, Flash-based puzzle collage by French artist Philippeloy. More than an interactive portfolio, yet less than a fully realized point-and-click adventure, Nyctalopia bills itself as "a journey into (Philippeloy's) works."
It is that time again: Time to head over to the Mercedes Benz website and download, or just listen to, the latest mixed tape that has just been released. Be the first on your block to have the freshest and the best freely available music the Web has to offer.
Alice is a game animator. She likes to draw and create games on her ba-xi, a small handheld device that both entertains and consoles her in times of need. Even her friends affectionately call her "the animator," due in part to the animations that she draws of Brad, her imaginary friend. Alice is 8 years old. Don't miss this excellent and award-winning interactive narrative experience.
Winner of the Intel Indies film contest last week, The Wand is an animated short film by artist Nick Worthey and backed by Atom Films. Ever wonder what you would do if you found a wand that granted an unlimited number of wishes? That is just what happens to the central character in this Flash movie that is both humorous and thought provoking.
By now you've probably heard or read about Google Earth, the stunning new global charting and mapping application that Google launched last June. Well, now Flash programmer-extraordinaire, Paul Neave, has concocted a Flash version of the world sightseeing app, delivering its phenomenal cosmic power in an itty bitty living space. Um, that would be your browser.
In the last century, an extraordinary man called Tulse Luper archived his entire life in 92 suitcases. It seems he was a witness to several key events in the 20th century. The Tulse Luper Journey is a game that is part of an ambitious series of multi-media projects initiated by film director Peter Greenaway and based on the adventures of this mysterious lead character. Discover new research material that appears each week.
The Dofi-Blog sand and zombie toys are making their way around the Web like a ??? explosion (inside joke), and for good reason: they are quite literally sand box games that allow for a seemingly infinite variety of creative play. And now the author, d_of_i, has released another sand world, Hell of Sand, which appears to be a combination of the previously reviewed War of the Hell and World of Sand.
For those who still are not on the MB mixed tape mailing list, and because I really enjoy turning people on to really good, free music. Number 10 now available for download. Listen online or download all of the tracks, and share the music freely as you please. All courtesy of Mercedes Benz.
Frappr, which is short for Friend Mapper, is a new Google Maps powered site that lets you map the zip codes for locations of anything you like, even a group of people such as the visitors of this site. So, why don't you add your zip code, and a nickname that you go by here, to the Jayisgames map and we'll see how many different countries are represented and where everyone who visits is from, hmm?
Although not a game, this is just too much fun not to share. Behold the magic of the Blue Ball Machine. Watch the tiny blue balls make their way around the huge machine. And the music that goes along with it is perfect. Rube Goldberg would be very pleased.
Just a quick note to tell you that Mercedes Benz has just released their ninth Mixed Tape online.
Listen online or download all of the tracks, and share the music freely as you please. All courtesy of Mercedes Benz. Click....
Flyguy is a delightfully interactive Flash piece that is full of surprises. Use the arrow keys to navigate the flyguy around the environment and uncover the entertaining vignettes that await you. Created by TVM at Trevorvanmeter.com. Not a game, but fun just the same.
A good movie is worth watching. Spin is a good movie. Well, it is not really a movie. It is more like a short film, but that is not the point. Just go watch it.
In case you haven't yet put yourself on the mailing list to be alerted each time a new one becomes available, Mercedes Benz has just released their eighth Mixed Tape online.
Just surf on over to their website to listen via a very nice Flash player interface. Or, download all 15 tracks in mp3 format to burn onto a disc, import into iTunes, share ...
Hanamushi is an absolutely gorgeous Japanese website filled with beautiful artwork and even a couple of Flash point-and-click adventures to discover. Simply amazing. And yet there is a dark side to the shapes that lurk in the shadows, so watch where you step. For the truly adventurous.
99 Rooms is a beautiful Flash point-and-click adventure of the 'escape the room' variety. The object is to make it through all 99 rooms to the end. The game makes use of gorgeous photography for visuals, and a moody atmospheric soundtrack for effect.
There was an extensive array of audio-visual equipment, including video cameras and a sound booth, at Will Wright's "The Future of Content" presentation at GDC in March. It was during that presentation that he revealed Spore to the world in great detail. Well, they have finally made a streaming video of that presentation available at the GDC-TV site.
A website for Will Wright's next sim titled "Spore" popped up this week in conjunction with E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, currently happening in Los Angeles. The website has a simple animation trailer that introduces the multi-tiered evolutionary gameplay featured in the ambitious new game, for which a release date has yet to be announced.
Filed under music, this is to remind anyone who appreciates excellent free music to check out the latest Mercedes Benz Mixed Tape now online. Providing both streaming feeds and mp3 tracks to download separately or in its entirety, Mercedes Benz proves time and time again they care about their present (and potential) customers. With each new mixed...
Zoom Quilt is the collaborative art project of 15 talented artists, all contributing to a final media presentation that is both beautiful and mesmerizing. The piece is available in 3 different media formats: HTML via a series of static jpeg images; AVI compressed video; or the best format, a Flash interactive movie.
This well-crafted Flash game is a simple shmup that is fast and furious, as well as addictive. He's done a nice job with implementing power-ups, bonus multipliers, smooth animation particle effects, and a high score list, too. So, if you like shmups, you're gonna love SpaceFighta.
Here's a beautifully crafted Flash multimedia piece by Drew Cope and Sam Lanyon Jones from their multi-award winning site called TokyoPlastic where they will be rolling out version two in May. Not new, I just think it's cool. Enjoy. Click....
Lately I've been working on one of the coolest projects so far in my RIT education, and it's for Multi-User Media Spaces (MUMS) taught by Professors Nancy Doubleday and Steve Kurtz. The project aims to simulate flocking behavior by implementing behavioral rules, though I guess it should be dubbed "schooling" behavior since we are using fish - and yet these same rules apply to birds and herds as well.
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