#jack king-spooner

[scottishgames]

ABIDE, the latest stop-motion title from the talented team behind indie hits Judero & MASHINA, is now crowd-funding. Support them here!

Handmade Horrors: Jack King-Spooner Unveils Stop-Motion Nightmare ‘ABIDE’

[knitbull]

Dujanah

[sorenblr]

How's this for an ask: name your favourite videogame visual artists (character designers, environment artists, etc.) and if possible, why you like them in brief

Love the opener on this ask. More of these should have a 'hook'.

I'll try to hit a few that aren't total bank shots. Not going to waste your time with Toriyama, Amano, Kaneko etc., since their work and appeal is already extensively documented. Here are a few from outside the canon:

Mitsuru Nakamura

Perfect expression of the millennial (as in, 'relating to the new millenium') fascination with maximalist pop aesthetics. Flawless 'cute-cool' balance. Playing Gitaroo Man and being exposed to FLCL at approximately the same time made me feel like a fucking god.

I would love for another game with his involvement but I'm aware that a graphical fidelity superior to that of the PS2 would diminish the effect.

Hitoshi Yoneda

Prior to the millennium there was a more liberal crossover between the medium and artists from other commercial disciplines. It was simply more expedient to contract established illustrators like Jun Suemi et al. to decorate covers with lavish oil paints. My favorite work from that era was produced under Yoneda's fairly brief partnership with Sega. All the baroque genre fixings captured with a delicate line. The amount of brilliant watercolor work that was being done at the end of the century is staggering to look back on.

Rika should have that giant robot prosthetic in the actual game and it should take up 30-40% of the frame in every cutscene.

Jack King-Spooner

Jack King-Spooner has been spitting out these fantastic mixed-media works for over a decade. Claymation, line-drawings, watercolors, collage, everything administered with virtuoso ease. Inspiring magnifications of what a game can look and feel like.

His most recent work, Judero, a radical pastiche of folklore from the Scottish borderlands, is the only Kickstarter that I've ever contributed to. Will you wishlist it, or are you some sort of piece of shit...?

[iloveabunchofgames]

#JakeReviewsItch

An Outcry, prelude

by Quinn K.

Price (US): $1

Included In: Bundle for Ukraine

Genre: Interactive Fiction, Visual Novel

Pitch: The story of what happened before Outcry, which appears to be a spooky RPG.

My expectations: It claims to be 10 minutes long, and it costs $1. I got it in a bundle, but who is buying this at full price? Outcry fans who couldn't get enough, or people who want a taste of Outcry, but aren't ready to invest $10? Do either of those people exist? I feel like I'm about to play a demo from a couple developers who think they're the Hideo Kojima of indie visual novels.

Review:

“...they got a visit of terrific birdness.”

That is An Outcry, prologue. It is the story of a formless lump of clay getting a visit of terrific birdness.

A person who seems to be wearing a face on his face (à la Hannibal Lecter) says, “Kekekaykaykikikoo,” by which I mean you hear a recording of writer/actor Quinn K. speaking as if each of those syllables is a complete sentence, before talking about some bird things. You know, beaks and feathers. Their delivery is ponderous, leaving space for a bathroom break each time he reaches a comma.

Hannibal lets Clayface know that the world is poo, everyone stinks, and the only recourse is to embrace birdness. Clayface (voiced in a slightly higher, weaker register by Quinn K.) is given two “choices” over the course of the conversation, and neither affects so much as a single line of dialogue. Wisps of fog and a droning tone set an unsettling mood, and the credits music sounds like a filthy rave, in a good way. I don’t know what else to say. There’s a visit of terrific birdness, several minutes of inscrutable bird talk happen, and then it’s over. Don’t play it.

+ A visit of terrific birdness. + A visit of terrific visual elements. (Not a lot of them. Could be birdier.) + A visit of terrific music. + Kekekaykaykikikoo

– I have no idea what any of this is, and it's done nothing to pique my interest in whatever Outcry might be. – Allergic to apostrophes. – Fake choices. – No, seriously, what is this?

🧡🤍🤍🤍🤍 Bottom Line: Bird is not the word.

#JakeReviewsItch is a series of daily game reviews. You can learn more here. You can also browse past reviews...

• By name • By rating • By genre

[gebo4482]

Sluggish Morss: Pattern Circus Kickstarter Video

Teaser 

Teaser 2

Teaser X

Kickstarter Page

[overthinkingvideogames]

There's a responsibility that comes with using the art, language and symbolism of another culture.

The upcoming game Donut County, by Ben Esposito, was originally called Kachina, and featured Native-American-inspired artwork like totem poles and carved statues. After being called out for his ignorance on the subject by a teacher writing for the American Indians In Children’s Literature website, Esposito decided he would prove her wrong by properly researching the game’s visual influences. After reaching out to members of the Hopi tribe for help, he realized, “A lot of what I was doing was hurting them. I couldn’t do it justice, because they didn’t want me to do it justice.” Ultimately, he concluded that, “if it’s really important to tell someone’s narrative,” to “let them tell it,” and changed the game’s art style, setting and name.

After all, according to Esposito, “research does not equal lived experience.” There’s something uniquely compelling about playing a game that’s solidly about a place and an experience as opposed to art which has been “driven back inside the mind,” and which can “no longer look directly out of its eyes at the real world for the referent but must, as in Plato’s cave, trace its mental images of the world on its confining walls.” as Jameson writes in his essay.

Comparing Dujanah to its predecessor, Beeswing highlights this distinction.

On pastiche of the Middle East, and Dujanah.

[mister-lucky-bunny]

My Sluggish Morss book came in let’s gooooooo!!!!

[charlezarrd]

I joined the Sluggish Morss discord but there were fewer people in there than I expected, and I couldn’t think of the right thing to say to Jack King-Spooner,

Why does words have to be hard?

He’s only one of my creative idols, this should be easier!!