Electron Dance Highlights
Fearful Beauty
No, this isn't a new Electron Dance film but, guess what, I did lend my vocal talents to fifteen seconds of someone else's video. If you like my films you'll likely dig this, too.
In this smart 25-minute video essay, Pixel a Day discusses the Romantic concept of "the sublime" in the context of Subnautica and The Long Dark. Don't worry, we've already made some noise in her YouTube comments about Outer Wilds.
Watch below or direct on YouTube.
Discussion: Towers
Welcome to the woefully late August newsletter (sign up if you want to read it):
During the halcyon days of FPS mods, not a week seemed to go by without someone showing off a cool gun render. That was the most boring thing about a mod I could imagine. I understood it was helpful to distance themselves from the source material but a hunger for weapon renders, particularly the more realistic, was baffling.
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Puzzleworks, 3: Akurra
In April, good Electron Dance friend Maurycy Zarzycki, who designed the short, free puzzle game Machine at the Heart of the World (Evidently Cube, 2018), tweeted this right at my face: "You should check the demo of Akurra if you haven't yet heard about it. It's a bit of a cross between Sokoban, Legend of Zelda and The Witness - a freeroam puzzle game by [Jason Newman]. Something tells me you'll like it."
Come on, you can't namedrop The Witness carelessly like that in a tweet. That's like saying "if you like Citizen Kane, you might enjoy this film." Bwahahaha. Anyway joke's on me because I had far too much fun with Akurra.
Nutshell: Open-world Sokoban-variant rife with secrets to discover, still in development.
The Sun Always Rises
Hello. If you are fortunate enough not to have played Outer Wilds (Mobius Digital, 2019), then here is everything you need to know right now:
- You should play Outer Wilds.
- When you start Outer Wilds, you will struggle to understand why people say “you should play Outer Wilds”.
- When you finish Outer Wilds, you will tell others “you should play Outer Wilds”.
- You should not read the rest of this spoiler-rich post.
Discussion: Patience of a Thief
Welcome to the July newsletter (sign up if you want to read it):
I didn’t finish the demo, unwilling to risk the wrath of whatever stalked the dank and uninspiring Gloomsewers. I felt I had been toiling within its systems rather than dancing with them - and the demo was graveyarded.
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Transmission: Yedoma Globula, Akurra
60 minutes-ish. Four games.
Stream this week - Sunday 12 July - and will begin at 9:30PM UK, 10:30PM Central Europe, 4:30PM EST. My Twitch channel can be found at twitch.tv/electrondance.
I will discuss the following titles:
- Puzzle Pelago (key received for free)
- Discolored
- Akurra
- Yedoma Globula
Previous Transmissions are available on the dedicated E/TX YouTube channel.
Update 13 Jul 2020. The stream has now been archived on YouTube:
Discussion: Charity Begins At Game
Welcome to the June newsletter (sign up if you want to read it):
Many of the 1,700 items were tools (Hex Kit), assets (Kenney Game Assets 1) and PDFs outlining paper-and-pen RPG systems (The Colors of Magic). However, the strangest aspect of the bundle, which was unlikely to fly for any other bundle, was the inclusion of free games.
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Not So Far
There was a lady in the village of Lyndow. Tifa her name was and she offered me a ride on the back of her cart to the city of Nava. But when I tried to take her up on her kind offer, she admonished me. I asked why.
“You’re a newcomer and you’ve never been to Nava! It’s not so far and the walk is lovely. Everyone going to Nava for their first time should approach by foot. I won’t be the one to cheat you out of an enriching experience.”
Eastshade, you know me very well. More than you think.
Discussion: Lest Ye Be Judged
Welcome to the slightly late May newsletter (sign up if you want to read it):
You might want to set a limit of a couple of hours for your child, but apparently her friends are allowed to play four hours of Animal Crossing: New Horizons straight. Then there’s the kid who seemingly plays whenever he wants. When he wakes up. When it’s time for lunch. When it’s time for bed. When it’s morning in Tokyo.
Dear subscribers, if you feel like chatting about anything at all from the newsletter, please speak your mind in the comments here.
Puzzleworks, 2: Tametsi
There was some excitement over a Sudoku video last week, the "Miracle Sudoku", where a handful of arcane rules and just two numbers allows a Sudoku expert to fill the board. And it blows him away after he initially thought it was a joke.
And I thought, well, that's how Tametsi makes me feel.
Nutshell: Hard Minesweeper with interesting ruleset. Later levels take me an hour per board. Unfinished.
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Recent Comments
"I'm going to play this demo. Sokoban leaves me cold but this does look and sound lovely. I appreciate the spoiler-free full-blooded endorsement (as well..." – Puzzleworks, 3: Akurra
"With Monster’s Expedition, Baba Is You (which I’ve been revisiting via an LP for the past few weeks) and Akurra all swirling around in my..." – Puzzleworks, 3: Akurra
"The video captured its intended definition of "sublime" in the clip from Shadow of the Colossus, that first moment when you, even knowing generally what..." – Fearful Beauty
"Ok, yeah, I totally went into the associative drift mode that got me through all those seminars that I was always under-prepared for, and ended..." – Discussion: Towers
"Thanks Steerpike. Although you were spared my Irish takes which I attempted because Burke was a Dubliner, it seems. As you infer with your Elite..." – Fearful Beauty
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