Tokyo Blog

The mighty indy game devs Pixeljam, those who brought you Dino Run and Gamma Bros., are back with a new website, new games and some forthcoming project news. You can already experience the hilarious Cream Wolf and Mountain Maniac as well as some other new offerings, but check out Glorkian Warrior, currently under development.

3Waves Japan Market Research is a full-service qualitative research agency based in Tokyo that serves the overseas market exclusively with a team of bilingual and bicultural consultants, and they chose me to build their website. The project was a joy to work on because they’re great people, but I also got to build a Flash weather widget for Tokyo, as well as scrolling interfaces, dynamic XML-driven slideshows, and a component in Flash that interfaces with the Wordpress blogging platform. All-in-all it was a bit of a tour de force and we’re all over the moon with how it turned out. Have a look for yourselves, or even better, contact them about your market research requirements in Japan. Unfortunately they’re so good at what they do they’re in very high demand already so get them while you can (the launch was January 1st 2010).

Some Uniqlo news now. I was in the newly expanded Ginza branch yesterday and had the good fortune to see the new +J line of clothing at the back of the new mens’ section. I tried on some of the outerwear, and I liked it very much. Although I didn’t buy anything (yet), I was taken by the fine tailoring and the details. This lead me inevitably back to the Japanese Uniqlo website where I saw the new Flash toy launched this Autumn - Uniqlo Tunes. It plays video in time with MP3’s, and you can even upload your own. As usual you have the option of integrating it into your blog. This new music toy joins a small collection of other Uniqlo Flash virals and microsites.

Hold onto your hats, this is quite unbelievable. Some guys, who I think are German, have been able to put together an audio production environment that runs in your browser, called Audiotool. It obviously uses Flash, but I don’t know how this is possible! There doesn’t seem to be a sequencer, so it can’t really claim to give Reason a run for its money, but the visuals and the interaction design are pretty stunning. A nice tool to use to play with sounds, but not for finished tracks. Have fun, but remember to do some work!

Marui department store has a poetic and beautiful new promotion in the form of ‘All New 6 (senses)’. I didn’t have the perseverance or the time to decipher the Japanese text juxtaposed over the sepia toned stop frame animations of small model characters living out their lives in various locations in Tokyo, but that didn’t matter. The music and the atmosphere of this piece will draw you in, and then demonstrate to you a side of the marketing sensibility in Japan not often seen in other countries, certainly not in the west. One of haunting, wistful moodiness. A bit strange and sinister. It reminds me of watching those strange eastern European animations on TV when I was a kid.

I’ve got a Wii at home now, so I really want to get my hands on this game. I used to love it on the SNES/Famicom, and now it’s come to Nintendo’s newest home system and it looks even better, plus you’ve got the nunchucks and Wii-remote to use to throw your punches. Ding-ding!

Uniqlo’s continuing viral campaign perpetrated through lots of great Flash mini-sites never ceases to be awesome. The latest one to launch, called Uniqlo Calendar, features time-lapse photography of various locations in Japan given the tilt-shift photography treatment also known as miniature-faking, where a very shallow depth of field often found in macro photography is simulated thus giving pictures of life-size subject matter the appearance of a tiny model. Flawlessly executed as usual with characteristically quirky and hip background music, I’m left eagerly anticipating the screensaver (the link on the site says ‘coming soon’, unfortunately).

This newest viral joins a raft of others: Uniqlock, Uniqlo Paper, Uniqlo Grid, Uniqlo Mixplay and Uniqlo Try. I may have missed some, there’s that many.

I’ve been playing a new incarnation of an old favourite recently, the last in the series from SNK actually. Samurai Shodown V Special is the best in the entire series. You’ve got most of the best characters, plus many new ones, with additional special moves and additional techniques. In this game, you can go into Rage mode, or you can exchange your anger for ‘concentration’ by meditating in order to, at a certain time, go into Concentration One mode, where all of your enemy’s moves take place in slow motion, whereas everything you do is normal speed. This enables you to land about 10 strikes on him while he’s still drawing his sword, as well as move behind your enemy and slay him before he has time to turn around. There are many more cool features, too many to list, and it’s a pixel-art masterpiece - every frame of every sprite. As icing, Yuki and SNK Playmore added Suicides and Fatalities. If you know how, you should play it (but not if you want to be productive at any time in the near future). Oh, and get the uncensored version. That way you can see people getting sliced in half, beheaded or spraying fountains of blood.

And, on the very same day, I found this. A twisted, retro sci-fi first person shooter that seems to have been inspired by early David Lynch. Now this is worth checking out, just to hear square-head’s surreal monologues. The game is called Mondo Agency and it’s developed by a guy called Cactus. Unfortunately (for me), there’s only a PC build, and no Mac version. I ran it under Parallels but it ran pretty badly. I enjoyed watching the YouTube clips more.

After discovering some interesting independent games recently, I wanted to post about them here so people can have a look for themselves. This first game is a collaboration between distractionware and increpare, two game artists who have created an interactive narrative game for Mac and PC (and now Linux too). I don’t want to spoil anything, so just try it for yourself. It’s a dark affair, made to feel only more so by the dreary colour palette, haunting sound, and nostalgically low-res aesthetics. Games as art?

UPDATE: Don’t Look Back is also worth checking out on the distractionware site.

There’s a new creative agency in the UK called Displayground, an exceptionally talented group of designers, producers and creatives. I produced the Flash component of their new site, which involved incorporating some of the company’s ambitious ideas. You’ve got a mix of traditional stop-time animation, clay models, motion graphics, and vector shapes coming together to create a really original site. Design and photography credits go to the boys in the studio under creative director Mat Glover. The free-roaming orbs took a while to program and no mistake.

OK, I finally got my new DSi in black. I checked out the white one, but it soon looks dirty due to the fact that it’s a handheld and you’re constantly toting it around in your bag, pocket, etc. I was really amazed by it. I can really appreciate the hours that have gone into the UI and interaction design. The graphics will never be as good as on the PSP, but I bought this to help me study on the train. I’m using Tadashii Kanji Kakitori-kun (lit: Correct Chinese Characters Little Writing Bird), which is designed for school kids to use to brush-up their Kanji. It’s therefore about the right level for me, so I use it on the train on the way to work. You use the pen device to draw Kanji on the touchscreen and it has a built-in recognition system that enables it to gauge the quality of your Kanji writing. It also has meaning and reading practice. The next game I buy will be Devil Survivor.

I was watching TV last night, and I saw an advert for a new Nintendo DS RPG set in Tokyo. It’s great because the locations seem to be accurate. I recognised the Tokyu Hands store in Shibuya in one of the sections, plus you’ve got combinis in there, etc. Plus, of course, the artwork looks nice. It features regular Tokyoites taking on demons and monsters in the streets of Tokyo - looks like it might be a good game. I’m buying my DSi on Monday. More to follow…

UPDATE: I still haven’t committed to buying my DSi. I spent a fortune in Harajuku and Ginza on Monday, so I’m reluctant to fork out for one.

I was beside myself with joy today when I stumbled across the PixelJam site. They make games that are ‘neo-retro’. A term that well describes their aesthetic sensibilities. The game I played just now was Gama Bros. and it’s superb! The sound FX and background music are especially 8-bit and some of the ideas they’ve put into the games are so good. They have other games on there, and also one of the guys from PixelJam had the idea of photographing the results of incorrectly inserting Atari 2600 cartridges and posted them to a microsite called sub2600.

In other game news, the release date for the XBox 360, PS3 and PC version of the newest installment of Capcom’s Street Fighter franchise looms very close indeed. If you want to get a copy in the US and the UK, you should visit your local retailer on the 17th February - just over 1 month away!

As for the arcade release, this definitely won’t happen in the US, and I don’t think it will happen in the UK. By my calculations, it should be out in Japanese game arcades already, but only just. Don’t worry, I’m off to Akihabara as soon as I finish my work for the day - I’ll let you know what it’s like (Akihabara is a short bike ride from my apartment in Taito).