Tag: Linux

#WeeklyGameMusic: Undertale (Undertale)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

This theme needs no introduction: it’s Undertale by Tobi Fox. This particular piece of music is a bit of a stand-out for #WeeklyGameMusic, given its clear story-driven composition. The gradual crescendo in this theme helps build up to the final moments of your character journey.

Undertale starts with a bit of a legend: long ago, after a war broke out between the monsters and the humans, the monsters lost and ended up hiding under a deep cave. The two specious never encountered each other again. There’s still a hole, however, that humans sometimes accidentally stumble upon, and as luck may have it, today’s lucky winner to fall into said hole is you, the player!

Advertising itself like an old-school JRPG, Undertale utilizes a turn-based battle system when fighting against random encounters. Unlike old-school JRPGs, the battles plays out more like a visual novel where the player negotiates with the monsters. Monsters can attack via a shoot’em-up-like play-field where the player must dodge the bullets being fired. Ultimately, the player can choose to kill or befriend the monsters they encounter, with the latter concluding the fight peacefully. Naturally, the narrative updates itself to take these information into account in subtle ways.

Undertale is available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Nintendo Switch, PC, Mac, and Linux via Steam.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: Whetfahrt Cheesefunk (Bit.Trip Presents…Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

You’d think a jazzy composition wouldn’t work too well on a game that requires paying close attention to the music’s rhythm, but the auto-runner Bit.Trip Presents…Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien (phew!), developed by Choice Provisions, throws away all common sense and just makes it happen. Whetfahrt Cheesefunk, composed by Matthew Harwood, takes a nice, soft swinging beat, and crescendos it to a deliciously chaotic composition. An interesting decision for a game that demands every single fiber of the player’s attention, lest they get hit, and be forced to replay from the beginning of the level.

The game’s album is available on Bandcamp, by the way: choiceprovisions.bandcamp.com/track/whetfahrt-cheesefunk

Runner2 is a bizarre side-story the happens between two Bit.Trip series entries, Runner and Fate. In short, series villain Mingrawn Timbletot fires a laser at Commander Video, thus whisking him away into a new dimension…the 3D realm! Tired plot point aside, this leaves Commander Video doing what he already does best in Bit.Trip Runner: keep running right in hopes of finding an exit out of this world.

While an auto-runner in the same vain as Canabult, Runner2 has multiple levels with a clear ending, collectibles, and even boss battles. Naturally as the music would imply, the audio design is the primary highlight of Runner2, making it a stand-out among other games in the same genre. Obstacles and collectibles are deliberately placed to create a sense of rhythm and memorization one would expect from music games. On top of this, each successful action is awarded with a note that, stung together, creates a procedurally generated music matching with the composition already playing in the background. In essence, the player gets to feel like they’re composing music.

Runner2 is available on Windows, OS X, and Linux via Steam; Playstation Vita, 3, and 4; iOS, Xbox 360, and finally, Wii U.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: Discothéque Rouge, After Hours (Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

Need a little more chiptune in your life? The absolutely talented Chipzel has you covered with this week’s #WeeklyGameMusic. Her remix of Discothéque Rouge, After Hours, from Pocketwatch Games’s multiplayer heist game, Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine is some of the tastiest gems out their to savior. Enjoy it…while it lasts…

They can’t keep us locked in! Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine begins with a group of criminals breaking out of prison, and sneaking out. The triumph is short-lived, however, when the company realizes they’re penniless and wanted. After much deliberation, the party comes to a decision: escape to Monaco, by every means possible. Thus begins their long journey of gathering more criminal connections to assist their freedom.

Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine is an award-winning cooperative heist game. You and three other skilled thieves infiltrate heavily guarded buildings to — what else? — steal everything valuable. The innovation kicks in when every player realizes they’ll need to share information between each other as they deal with each character’s limited vision and hyper-specialized abilities. It’s pretty normal for something to go wrong during the heist: alarms triggering, guards taking notice, etc. After all, much of the fun is trying to figure out how to deal with the escalating situation amongst your group of friends.

Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine is released on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Xbox 360, and Nintendo Switch. It’s also available on Steam.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: Turn Back (The Beginner’s Guide)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

Note: this week’s #WeeklyGameMusic is a pretty big spoiler for the indie walking simulator, The Beginner’s Guide. This blog post itself will keep spoilers to a minimum, but if you want to listen to the track, proceed with caution. Besides, the game’s brilliant, so take this as an incentive to play it soon!

Turn Back, written and performed by Halina Heron, puts a neat bow to the deep story one walks through in The Beginner’s Guide. Everything Unlimited Ltd.’s follow-up to The Stanley Parable takes an unexpected direction: where as Stanley sets up a meta narrative commentary about games, The Beginner’s Guide is a commentary with no fourth wall to begin with. It’s a bold decision from the developers with a huge pay-off at the very end; an experience you don’t want to miss!

(Before getting into the game itself, I had trouble adding the rest of credits for this track anywhere else, so here it is: Turn Back is published by Ryan Roth, and its lyrics were written from both Halina and Davey Wreden himself.)

The Beginner’s Guide is a game where its gameplay is extremely easy to describe, but its narrative is much more complex than it first appears. It’s a classic, hour-long walking simulator where one explores the world through typical first-person controls. And indeed, the first level is a lightly edited copy of a map from Counter-Strike, as famed indie game developer and narrator of this game, Davey Wreden describes its history. According to Mr. Wreden, this remixed level is created by another experimental developer, Coda, and encourages the player to explore other games Coda has made. Aaand that’s about as far as I’m willing to introduce about the story.

The Beginner’s Guide is available on Steam for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: AIN’T NOTHIN’ LIKE A FUNKY BEAT (Lethal League Blaze)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

Need a little more funk this week? We’ve got you covered! This week’s #WeeklyGameMusic is from Team Reptile’s Lethal League Blaze. The highlight? AIN’T NOTHIN’ LIKE A FUNKY BEAT, composed by Hideki Naganuma, of Jet Set Radio fame. Definitely keep those ears peeled, because the moment you blink, you’l-

Lethal League Blaze is a fast-paced, innovative fighting game that’s shockingly easy-to-learn (even simpler than Super Smash Bros.!), yet hard to master. First, the iconic weapons each selectable cast member wields cannot be used to hit the other opponents directly. Instead, the objective is to hit a PONG-like anti-gravity ball into three (or less) other players like a baseball. Players who gets hit will lose health: when it reaches zero, it’s game-over.

But wait, there’s more! The move-set all characters share — strike, bunt, and throw — effectively acts as rock, paper, and scissors: useful for catching your opponents off-guard. Furthermore, each time the ball gets hit, it’s velocity increases. Meaning as time marches on, the ball will get faster, and the matches become less predictable. Lastly, every character has their own special, which spices up the way they hit the ball in unexpected ways. Utilizing all these tools effectively should help you overwhelm your opponents!

Lethal League Blaze is available on PC, Mac, and Linux via Steam. It’s also available for download and purchase on Playstation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. Finally, the game has quite a following, including competitive tourneys. For more info, I highly recommend checking out Akshon Esports’s primer on it.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: Lovely City (Lovely Planet)

Posted on by Taro Omiya

#WeeklyGameMusic: New week, new music. I’m excited to introduce to you all Lovely City, composed by one of my favorite composers, Calum Bowen. This absolutely jamming track is from the hectic (and Indian!) first-person action game, Lovely Planet.

Lovely Planet is a fast-paced first-person shooter and platformer where all red enemies needs to be eliminated before touching the goal pole. Despite the simple premise, cartoony world, and lack of story, the game is actually designed as a speed-running game. Much of the appeal of the game is optimizing your route to beat your prior–and the world’s–score.

Lovely Planet is available on Windows, Mac, and Linux via Steam.

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