Welcome to Sunday Sundries: a regular feature in which we try to compensate for our shameful lack of updates with a few links and videos. Tips appreciated!
You, Me & the Cubes
Here’s the trailer for the English language version of Kenji Eno's new game, You, Me & the Cubes. It’s all Eno: game design, art and audio. You can tell this is the same Eno who did art and audio for Newtonica – there’s the same minimalism; even the same red-and-blue colour scheme.
Newtonica aside, You, Me & the Cubes is Kenji Eno's first game in ten years, since D2 in 1999. It's interesting to see the effect of a decade's worth of more 'real world' jobs, and personal and artistic growth.
Dying is Easy, Comedy is Hard Hit Self-Destruct is a game blog that I like a whole lot – and posts like this one are the reason why. Duncan Fyfe's writing is crisp, concise, and crackles with insight. Videogame bloggers have a tendency to beat their points to death, using several thousand words when a few hundred would suffice. Fyfe does the opposite: even when his posts are long, they're never longer than they need to be. That's because he's a confident writer who trusts in the intelligence of his audience. In that regard, Hit Self-Destruct reminds me distinctly of Magical Wasteland – another blog of which I'm very fond.
Oh, hey, speaking of blogs, here's a special note for Destructoid's Jim Sterling: I saw what you wrote about us, Jim. I saw how you accused Patrick and I of being monocle-popping snoots too removed from our readers to understand what they want. Yes, I know you didn't say that directly, but I can read between the lines, Jim. First you butter us up by saying we're "hilarious" and then you stick in the knife.
Well, that's fine. You go ahead and enjoy those nasty insinuations, Jim. You won't think they're so great when some anonymous internet vigilante sends you a poisonous spider in the post. See how snide you are then.
(On an unrelated note: please email me your home address.)
The Lifecycle of the Mysterious Manjuu
Instead of telling you about all these cool things Derek Yu does on a weekly basis, how about I just link you to his Twitter feed now and cut out the middleman? Sound good? Okay, good.
Speaking of Lifecycles and Dying…
…excellent videogame blog 61 Frames Per Second is shutting down! This is a big shame: 61FPS was an enjoyable blog with a unique voice that deserved more attention than it received. Patrick especially likes it – partly because he admires in John Constantine the beard he can never grow, but mostly because it is (or was) an intelligent and often insightful read. Oh well. On the bright side, the archives are going to remain online, and many of the contributors will continue to write for other outlets, so it's not a total loss. Still sucks, though.
THIS IS JUST IN: Hot on the heels of its decision to sue Double Fine out of petty spite, Activision has announced plans to adopt disgraced former angel Satan as official company mascot and spokesperson. "We feel The Lord of Evil really embodies the core values of our brand," says Activision VP of Lies, Claudia Scumbag.
Today, I finally finished transcribing the second half of the Kenichi Nishi interview I conducted back in FREAKING JANUARY, JESUS. It’ll be on the site soon. Sorry for the long wait, but ten years from now, who’ll know the difference.
In the meantime, here’s some related news!
Newtonica 2
Hey, remember Newtonica? Kenichi Nishi and Kenji Eno’s iPhone thing that came out a few months ago; Ididvideos about it? Well, now there’s a sequel. That was fast! I haven’t played it yet, but going by what Ken told me, it’s more ‘videogamey’ – deeper, you might say – than its predecessor. So if you found Newtonica a bit too lightweight for your tastes, Newtonica 2 might be worth a look.
From the website: “You must use the unknown colorful space creature ‘ELPPA’ to lead the Baby Bird on the right track. Collect the doughnuts on the way. If you collect them all, see what's going to happen!?”
hikarin Animation and Exhibition
hikarin, recently ex-Skip but lead artist for Giftpia, Captain Rainbow and so on, and Hirofumi Taniguchi, composer and sound designer for those same games, collaborated on a short cartoon this year, which hikarin wrapped up a month or two ago, and is now viewable on the web right here.
It’s called Pipe no Machi 2 – the sequel to an animation made by hikarin seven years ago! You mightn’t understand what the hell is going on, but it’s pretty to look at.
To promote Pipe no Machi 2 and her work in general, hikarin is, right now and until December 14th, hosting a small exhibition at ‘Gallery Ginza Est’ in Ginza, Tokyo. See it if you can. These photos are from the opening night.
Zubola Funk Laboratory Show
And, hey, while I was typing this post, I got an email from Taniguchi, telling me that his band, Zubola Funk Laboratory, is playing a show on Tuesday the 16th, at a venue called Lush in Shibuya. Again: If you’re in Tokyo, come along! What else are you gonna do on a Tuesday night? Secretly jerk off your dog? Yeah I know all about you.
This is Taniguchi, when I told him about you jerking off your dog.
In this third and final video, Kenichi Nishi tells us about Newtonica’s ‘space chick’ – the little bird that flies past every so often, bearing bonus points. We learn how it came to be, what it might signify, and what Kenji Eno had to do with it.
This is probably my favourite part of the interview! I asked a silly question about the space chick, but didn’t expect there to be a real answer. I hope you enjoy these AMAZING INSIGHTS from a REAL GAME DEVELOPER.
Games journalism!
* * *
FAKE EDIT: Oh and hey, look what just appeared; how's that for timing: It's the official (and very silly) promotional video for Newtonica:
It’s a few days later than I’d planned, but here is part two of Kenichi Nishi talking about Newtonica, in a karaoke room in Ebisu. This time, Kenichi explains the deeper meaning of this simple iPhone app, and how, ultimately, it connects to the Buddhist concept of ‘shogyou mujou’. No, really!
The video is a little long, since almost everything is said twice – once in Japanese, and once in English. But the advantage of that is, you can send this video to your hundreds of Japanese friends!
A little later today, I’ll post the third and final video, which is all about the ‘space chick’ in Newtonica.
On Friday night, in Ebisu, I met with Kenichi Nishi and his partner Hikaru, for a demonstration of his iPhone game, Newtonica. But first we had dinner – and Kenji Eno turned up too! (Eno is responsible for Newtonica’s music.) The dinner is mostly irrelevant, except for a couple of pieces of trivia I can remember that came up in conversation, that may interest you:
Despite having left Skip, Kenichi was involved with Captain Rainbow (as its scenario designer), since the game began development before he left. (Speaking of Captain Rainbow, it’s soundingfantastic.)
Ko Takeuchi, one of the key designers of Rhythm Tengoku (among other things), used to work for Kenji Eno at Warp.
Following dinner, we – minus Eno, who was very busy – went to a karaoke room, where we recorded this demonstration of Newtonica. This one right here:
Then Ken performed some Oasis songs, complete with air guitar. (I didn’t film it; sorry.)
As you can see, Newtonica is a very, very simple, though fun, game; definitely worth getting if you have an iPhone, but definitely not worth getting an iPhone for.
That was the demonstration – come back later this week for the explanation: Kenichi explains the deeper meaning of Newtonica, and tells us a bit about the game’s development.
DISCLOSURE-TYPE ADDENDUM: Yes, this post originally featured more, and more detailed, bits of trivia. Turns out they weren’t ‘extra information’ so much as ‘personal information’, and weren’t meant to be passed on – so, on request, I’ve removed them. This would make me a terrible, soft, journalist, if I were a journalist, which I’m not.
That means news about Newtonica – get it? Pretty clever, right?
Pretty clever.
Newtonica, as you may remember, is the new game from Route 24, aka Kenichi Nishi, formerly of Skip and Lovedelic, and designer of Chibi-Robo, Archime-DS/LOL/Bakushow, and so on. Newtonica is made for the iPhone, and will be released worldwide very, very soon. Even Kenichi doesn’t know when, but the game went ‘gold’ recently, and has been submitted to Apple for approval, or whatever it is that you do, so it shouldn’t be long now.
I was going to interview Kenichi about the game, but a website called Core Gamers beat me to the punch with an interview of their own, which is fine by me because they asked all the questions I would have asked, and got better answers than I would have because my Japanese is so awful. Thanks, Core Gamers!
The interview reveals some interesting facts about Newtonica – for example, that the background music was composed by none other than Kenji Eno (Kenichi’s good friend), and the game itself was inspired by an iPhone wallpaper that Eno designed. So those of you waiting for Kenji Eno’s big comeback – well, maybe this little comeback will do for now.
I’ll be meeting with Kenichi sometime this week for a proper look at Newtonica, and I intend to get VIDEO FOOTAGE of the game in action, so stay tuned for that! (Also stay tuned for the second half of my months-old interview with Kenichi which I swear to christ I’m in the process of transcribing.)
On the subject of interviews, here's an excellent one with Kenji Eno, who unlike some radical and brilliant game designers is not too good to be pals with me. Kenji Eno, if you don't know the name, is the rock-n-roll bad boy of Japanese game designers.
Some of you are about to correct me! "No, Patrick," you are about to say, "Tomonobu Itagaki is the rock-n-roll bad boy of Japanese game designers. Everyone knows that."
NO! WRONG! YOU ARE WRONG! Kung-fu titty games? Sexual harassment? WOW, WHAT A REBEL, GOLLY JESUS.
Now, here's Kenji Eno:
So I was talking to a guy at Sony, and this was toward the end of the year, and I said, "OK, I'm going to go to [Japanese electronics retailer] Bic Camera, and if I don't see my game there, I'm going to punch you." and they said, "No don't worry about it. It's going to be there." And I went to Bic Camera and didn't find it, so I actually did punch this guy -- so that should tell you how mad I was.
On the subject of interviews, 
