Kevin Renford presents … 15 tripped out video games

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Forward Instinct Midnight Ultra

‘In the American Southwest, a lone witch hunter travels across the desert, seeking to wipe out cultists of all sorts. Fight a variety of goons and ghouls, through small towns to dimension-spanning motels. Blast your way through a neon-dripped, pixelated nightmare in this high-speed, high-thrills FPS.’

Trailer

Intro & First Levels

Final Cutscene

 

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Jeremy Couillard Sometimes to Deal with the Difficulty of Being Alive, I Need to Believe There Is a Possibility That Life Is Not Real

‘A video experience, a simulation, a game that plays itself, a database of games, an absurdist, sci-fi play, emails going to nowhere, conversation starters, meditations, secret lairs, fights, break-dancing, play on a network, play by yourself, don’t play at all and just watch, set it up in a gallery, set it up at a party…’

Home FurnishingLowRes

 

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HoneyBeeSoftware Djilyaro

‘Djilyaro is a short, first-person psychedelic game. In a strange place you awake with one goal, to find all the pieces and to be set free of this strange island. Although the closer you get to completion the stranger things become.’

 

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Double Fine Presents Kids

‘At the very beginning of Kids, you help a small group of faceless bodies fall into a dark hole. You don’t have much say in the matter, either: a crowd forms around the rim of the inky pit, and as you touch the screen, they all topple over. In the next scene, those same bodies helplessly float downward into seeming nothingness. You can’t stop them, but if you hold a finger on a body, it will temporarily slow down before falling again. I’ve played through this opening multiple times, and I’m still not sure what it means. That’s kind of the point. “Depending on who is playing it, there are quite different reactions,” explains Michael Frei, a Swiss filmmaker and artist who co-created Kids. “Some see it as something dark, some find it hilarious.”’

Trailer

Gameplay

 

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Mogila Games Clinically Dead

‘It will happen eventually to all of us, but Mr. Samson is the guy who has no luck today – he’s dying. He is falling into his own mind and each next second is taking longer and longer. In the beginning, the first second felt like three seconds. Normal time was slower for him than for others. The next second one was like five minutes. He had a lot of time to rethink his life. For everyone else, this is the matter of seconds, but for him, this was taking forever. Finally, the last second of his life on earth was stretched to an infinite period of time… and this is the place where we are starting our adventure. The adventure where you are moving through a 4-dimensional system. Space and time are connected here and you are free to move not only in three directions (width, height, and depth) but also in the fourth one – time.’

Gameplay

 

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Cylne Cylne

‘Cylne is a first person surreal exploration game having a poetic and philosophical side. Explore and feel unreal worlds filled with environmental enigmas to try to achieve the chapter called “The Choice”… The meaning of the game is up to your interpretation and doesn’t impose narrative elements. Cylne is a particularly difficult game to describe. […] It renders the most basic concept of interaction unfamiliar by dropping the player in a world with its own rules, with its own sense of twisted dream-logic.’

Gameplay

 

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Rice Cooker Republic Bokida – Heartfelt Reunion

‘An open-world adventure with puzzle elements and a minimalist aesthetic. Bokida takes place on a dormant, seemingly monochromatic world of light that gradually reveals its beauty. Experience freedom while exploring a peaceful, intriguing environment.’

Trailer

Gameplay

 

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Colorfiction 0°N 0°W

‘0°N 0°W is a first person exploration game with varied visual styles. Each time you play, the available environments are shuffled around, making each playthrough a unique experience. A cross country road trip strands you in a mysterious town lost amidst towering mesas and swaying dunes, will you beckon the glowing call of its lone storefront and embark on a fantastical multidimensional walkabout through space and time?’

Trailer

Gameplay

 

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Benjamin Outram Crystal Vibes feat. Ott.

‘Experience candy-colored psychedelic sound rippling through an endless crystal universe. Crystal Vibes utilizes the cutting edge of spatial 3D audio and sound visualization that maps sound and light based on the science of the human senses, to push the frontiers of technology-mediated sensory experience in virtual reality. With the project’s predecessor described as “transcendent” and “like traveling through a psychedelic kaleidoscope” (Forbes 2016), this piece ups the ante with music from producer Ott.’

Trailer

Gameplay

 

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Colin Northway Deep Under the Sky

‘Try life as a strange jellyfish on a remarkable world. Learn to fly through the skies of a psychedelic Venus, to explore and flourish. Fling, jet, grapple and roll your way through 80 levels of tentacle-flying physics fun. Time your bursts just right to explore every cleft and cranny of the floating beasts inhabiting the mysterious dark side of Venus. This game uses only one button but don’t be fooled – you’ll have to think like a jellyfish and zen to the heady biorhythms of the planet before you learn its secrets.’

Trailer

Gameplay

 

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Darjeeling Californium

‘Californium is a first-person exploration game created as a homage to the American science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. Dick is well known for his many written works including The Man in the High Castle, A Scanner Darkly, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep? which inspired the movie Blade Runner. He is also widely recognised as the author of the short stories that inspired other such films as Minority Report and Total Recall. For those familiar with Dick’s work it is easy to see how Californium was created with his unique style in mind; Dick often focuses on the issues of drug abuse and paranoia, both of which are touched upon in the game.’

Trailer

Gameplay

 

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McKenna Sanderson Ethereality

‘Ethereality is an experimental graphic design project. The overall concept is a “three-dimensional” interactive rave flyer in the format of a simple game. Once the player has collected all 100 kandi, they will gain entry to the “real-life” rave – the door will disappear, revealing all the necessary information to make it to the rave (all that would normally be found on a flyer.) The different music throughout the environment is intended to mimic the feeling of being at a party, or club. The overall look and feel is based on the sensory overload often experienced at a rave. This project was heavily inspired by 90s rave culture and graphic design on rave flyers found on ravepreservationproject.com’

Gameplay

 

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Dreaming Methods Wallpaper

‘A US-based computer engineer and innovator returns to his remote family home in rural England following the death of his elderly mother. His agenda: to close the place down and sell it. But not before he tries out an experimental Augmented Reality device he’s been working on, primed to help him uncover the history behind one particularly enigmatic room in the house – a room that has remained locked since his childhood. Part of a research project called Reading Digital Fiction led by Professor Alice Bell from Sheffield Hallam University, Wallpaper was designed, written and coded by digital artists Andy Campbell and Judi Alston.’

Gameplay

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Nathan Whitmore GPT Adventure

‘I just got hopelessly lost in a bizarre new text adventure game, but for once it wasn’t entirely my fault. That’s because the game, appropriately named GPT Adventure, is generated as I play by a neural network that was trained on transcripts of existing text adventure games. It’s like a strange, dreamlike version of 1970s text adventures like “Zork” or “Adventureland.”

‘The game was created by Northwestern University neuroscience graduate student Nathan Whitmore. In his blog, Whitmore writes that he was inspired by the Mind Game, a fictional game generated in real-time by AI in the sci-fi novel “Ender’s Game.” GPT Adventure — which you can play here — isn’t that sophisticated, but the experiment is a fascinating glimpse into the future of procedurally-generated video games.

‘The game uses GPT-2, the infamous fake news-writing algorithm created by OpenAI. Like most AI systems, the game tends to forget what it already told the player, transporting them willy-nilly through various chambers and corridors whether they like it or not.’

 

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Asmik Ace Entertainment LSD: Dream Emulator

‘”LSD: Dream Emulator” is an obscure Playstation game released only in Japan. The game lives up to half its title – the people who made it clearly overdosed on hallucinogens. The “Dream Emulator” part fares a little worse. Imagine, for a moment, that your dream world is a Nintendo 64. This game’s emulation of that world would consist of taping the N64 controller to a washing machine and having you watch your laundry while a Japanese guy hums the Mario theme in the background.’

Gameplay

Gameplay

 

 

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p.s. Hey. Today a kind reader of this blog named Kevin Renford has provided us with a guest-post that just happens to be insanely up my alley. If you’re interested in gaming and/or in aesthetic wildness, you might just have a post-shaped husband for a day too. Your call entirely. Me, I’m a pig in clover/code. Thank you ever so much, Kevin! ** Ferdinand, Hi. Yes, I know and have the FFS collab thing. Thanks for the hook up with the TV clips. Well, you are extremely welcome and heavily encouraged to make that guest-post. That would be amazing. Thank you for the wonderful offer, sir. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. What I meant was that those thematic posts concentrate on visual artists (painters, sculptors, photographers, installation/ video/ performance artists, etc.) aka artists who primarily show their work in galleries, museums, etc. As R-G is a film director and writer, he wouldn’t have work in those posts. ** cal, Hi, Cal. Thanks again for you-know-what. Well, work travails aside, and that’s no small thing, obviously, I’m happy you’re writing and have a first draft no less! Editing … That’s my favorite part. I wish I could skip the writing part and go straight to editing. Hm, I’m big on cutting to the near-bone, leaving only things that need to be there to make the entirety function in precisely the way you want. Try to get in the head of an ideal reader or something. Hard to advise because I just kind of fall on my drafts and go nuts or something. I’ve heard the name Kim Noble, but I don’t … think I had seen the work before those links you provided. Looks very interesting indeed. Yes, I’ll definitely investigate that work. Thanks a lot for the great tip. ** _Black_Acrylic, They are beacons in the fog of music. Or something. ** Ian, Hi, Ian. Thank you so much about ‘God Jr’, and especially about ‘The Childish Scrawl’. That section is my favorite thing I’ve ever written. The game in the novel isn’t entirely based on ‘Banjo Kazooie’, but it’s heavily influenced by my love of that game and the sequel ‘Banjo Tooie’. And by ‘Conker’s Bad Fur Day’ a bit too. Thank you, you’re very kind. I hope your own work goes really well and that you can find time to concentrate on it. Yeah, it’s so very much about voice, about finding your own particular voice and, thereby, originality. I look forward to reading your new entry. Everyone, Ian has some new writing on his blog Nitepain Incorporated, and getting it in your head is highly recommended. Here. ** Tosh Berman, Ha, the Sparks master! I’m still overcome with envy that you saw those 21 shows. What a dream! That’s very interesting about your food intake. Wow, you’re like the opposite of me. In how many ways does Lun*na rule? Infinitely? Thanks a ton, Tosh. ** Sypha, Well, I personally recommend you do one your entire oeuvre-exploring musical adventures with Sparks a la your Sonic Youth completism. A Swans journey should be something else. I wish I liked the post-reformation albums more than I do, which is not to say they’re bad by any means. Yes, I saw your Gaga review. I thought it was very level headed. Back to work! ** Dominik, Hey, Dominik!!! Ooh, a video game company, yum. Fingers very crossed for that. I’m very romantic about video games. I’ve never been to Futuroscope. It’s not, like, a dream come true kind of park from what I can see — only one roller coaster! — but it’s nearby and Zac and I are starving. I don’t know of ‘Withdrawn Traces’. That book is totally new to me. Let me know how they satisfy your itch. Aw, I miss 17 year old Bill Kaulitz. I did a big, wild post about him years ago called ‘If I was a 12 year-old German boy, my blog would look like this, but I’m not a 12 year-old German boy, okay?’ that I really need to (and will) restore. Love so innocent it faints at the sight of Jimmy McNichol. ** Thomas Moronic, Yep, big thumbs up. I got the missing stuff, thank you! Everything is set to go. Have a big day, pal. ** Jeff J, Hi. Certainly extremely looking forward to the Carax/Sparks shebang. Some years ago, one too many psychodramas erupted in the commenting arena, and I decided that I was either going to stop doing the blog entirely or depersonalise it, and I chose the latter option, obviously. I don’t have a policy against writing in the post space, but I haven’t felt any inclination to in a long time. I think the weirder, more mysterious question is why almost no bands/artists can maintain the high quality of their work as time goes on. Sparks’ high maintained standards makes much more sense to me than why 90% of still extant bands from that era or before can now crank out such diminished work and still live with themselves. Didn’t see ‘Madeline’s Madeline’, no, and I’m still waiting for the 90 minutes when I can watch ‘Shirley’. Feel better, sir. ** Bill, My pleasure, of course. No, my Switch got returned. I have to buy a new one, and I just haven’t done so yet. A bit afraid of how having it will eat me up, but I’ll get it this week, I’m pretty sure. I didn’t know about the Ken Baumann Zoom, but I’ll go find and watch it. Very cool. Thank you. I don’t have Kanopy. No library card. And I’m pretty sure it’s not available over here. But I’ll see if there’s another way to watch that Patricia Piccinini doc. Bon day! ** Misanthrope, Sparks rules. Few things are certain in this crazy world of ours, but that’s a fact right there. I … don’t believe there are photos of me camping. Maybe in some photo album in my mom’s storage space wherever that is. Tomorrow … wait, today’s evening! Narcissism has become one of those catch all, generalising terms that people love because it makes thinking easier. If people don’t want to use their brains they should donate them to Goodwill or something. Bowles’ stories are excellent! Well, a lot of them. That’s a good read. ** Okay. The post has been laid out and introduced already, so do have at it. There’s all kinds of fun shit up there. See you tomorrow.