At twelve years young, beat-riding arcade game AudioSurf just got an update out of nowhere. All casual like, Dylan Fitterer has just posted some changes to the game including some new aspect ratio goodness and an update to make corkscrew twists on the roller coaster style tracks feel cooler and more earned.
]]>As we rapidly approach the end of the year, it’s time for everyone to look back over the past twelve months of stuff and turn it into neat little lists of what was best. Like games, yes, but also telly and photos and, as we shall see, music. After all, is there a better way of celebrating the end of the year than to take 10 of the finest tunes of 2018 and run them through the finest rhythm game of 2008? I certainly can’t think of anything. Let’s Audiosurf.
]]>Perhaps the most difficult thing about demonstrating the virtues of virtual reality games is the fact that so much of the effect is lost when portrayed via flat video. With this in mind, the Fantastic Contraption guys have made some good videos recently using 'mixed reality' - a process where a combination of secondary cameras and in-game and in-headset footage is used to showcase how the game works. Audioshield [official site], successor to obstacle-dodging rhythm game Audiosurf, adopts a similar approach in its latest trailer to great effect.
]]>Audiosurf 2 [official site], the game which allows you to 'ride' your music on a neon futuristic racetrack, has left Steam Early Access today. It brings an updated Audiosurf experience, with new official game modes and skins alongside the 500+ already available on Steam Workshop. Not only that, but according to the developer the "UI is good now", which is always a plus.
]]>Audiosurf 2 [official site] is coming out on May 26th. "Oh," says whatever voice I've created for the purposes of introducing this post (sounds a bit like an old mate of yours, one you don't think about often and smile remembering, but underwater), "I thought it was out. It's not out? It is out, isn't it? No? Really?"
No, it's still on Steam Early Access. The game which turns your songs into courses to race around gathering points launched into Early Access in October 2013 and creator Dylan Fitterer has worked on it since. Now he's almost done, and mercy me I might get pulled back to old friendly rivalries.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
Girls Aloud song Biology isn't just a piece of music to me, it's a landscape. This because of the hours spent playing it over and over in Audiosurf [Steam page], an obstacle-dodging score attack game that captivated everyone in my social circle (and RPS) in 2008.
]]>We're seven years old! (Actually, we were seven years old last month, but we've never been much for punctuality.) And so by way of celebration we've curated the latest weekly Humble Bundle, and that means we've chosen some of our most beloved indie games from the past seven years for the Pay What You Want sale. An esoteric bunch, but so very beautiful, all. If only there were room for all the delights of those many wonderful years. As ever, some of the money goes to charity, too: we chose EFF and Medecins Sans Frontieres. Find out more, below, or simply click over the the bundle itself.
]]>I have an unhealthy obsession with music visualizer games. Symphony and Frequency Domain have sated my rampant beatlust in recent years, but I don't think anything will ever top my first love: Audiosurf. It's not the most involved game ever, but that's part of the charm for me. I can just zone out and dive headfirst into a neon-pulsing mouth of music, let it swallow me whole into a sea of flashing darkness. I like to play it before bed, when my brain's still too fluttery for sleep. So I've been very eagerly awaiting its sequel, Audiosurf Air, while lamenting the disheartening lack of news surrounding it. But hark, what is that, speeding over the horizon in some kind of wonderful rocket car? Could it be? ...No. But also yes! An announcement that we'll be able to play Audiosurf Air very, very soon.
]]>Girls Aloud. Biology. Ninja Mono. That was my favourite Audiosurf gig. I'm keen to see what that bounciest of pop tracks will play like in Audiosurf Air, the sequel to the rather lovely music riding puzzle racing game. It was 2008 when Audiosurf came out, a pre-Skrillex world. If there was a game that could have benefited from 'the drop' it was Audiosurf. I hope there's specific dubstep code in this version. Trailer is after the dropppppp.
]]>Once upon a time, Audiosurf was briefly RPS' favourite game ever (although not in the case of John, who only likes beat-free music featuring men with nasal American accents*. Or Jim, who doesn't like emotions). We put in our songs, we turned them into blissfully surreal racetracks/match-3 puzzles, we fought endlessly for higher scores to prove we knew our most beloved songs better than anyone else did. And then we stopped. Why? Oh, there's probably an essay in that, but the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long, basically.
I earnestly hope that newly-announced sequel Audiosurf Air will bring about a new fever for digital synesthesia, though: I have almost a half-year of new music that was never Audiosurfed, all manner of new colour-explosions, rollercoaster drops and giddy undulations potentially awaiting me.
]]>In the light of recent events the RPS team has been taking a look at various games involved in the Potato Sack. Of these we'd suggest playing Audiosurf. It's quite the thing.
]]>What are you doing right now? Working? Smiling? Breathing? Well, stop with that nonsense and go straight over to the Steam page for The Potato Sack, a new bundle of indie games offering £108's worth of great indie games, including Amnesia, Super Meat Boy, Toki Tori (which you can read Kieron shouting about here), The Ball (which Jim and John talk about here) and Defense Grid: The Awakening, for a paltry £27. I'd eagerly pay £30 for those five games alone, and there are another eight in the pack.
]]>Whatever could be beneath that tasteful festive wrapping paper? It might be a shiny red bicycle, or a Scaletrix set, or perhaps a partially asphyxiated puppy. It's probably some sort of videogame, though. Be a bit silly if not, really.
So, for the fifth game of Christmas, my true blog gave to me...
]]>If you're American, you may not understand the curious institution we Britishers call bank holidays. Because of a general agreement that UK weather is so hideous that it's not worth going outside except during the third week of June, instead families and friends choose to holiday inside their favourite bank for a long weekend. Lloyds TSB is famed for its indoor beaches, while Halifax really does excel at pony trekking tours of the vaults. In the evenings, we all drink tea and discuss the decline of the gold standard.
Also we go shopping. There's an awful lot of discounted barbecue sets to be had this weekend. Fortunately the internet seems to have caught on. Of course, Audiosurf being reduced to just $5 (about £2.50, Britishians!) this weekend has absolutely nothing to do with it being a bank holiday here, but it's nice to pretend our weird customs have some some tiny relevance in Americaland.
]]>Dylan Fitterer just dropped us a line to say how pleased he is with the latest act on his Audiosurf radio. It's Godheads of Nineties Sex-infused electronic rock, Girls Vs Boys. He loves them. Hey - I love them. But I didn't love them enough to reprogram some extra variation into the free tracks when you play them, which Fitterer did. Go Basstation and you've four lanes to deal with. All the Rage makes you face three times as many blanks as usual. The Come Down only lets you play mono, with no Stealth possible. Let it Breath demands a minimum of five blocks for a match. And - finally - you're able to play all the four tracks in a first person mode.
]]>If I actually had any old flames of such calibre that, upon re-encountering them some years later, I was so blown away by their charm and beauty that I wondered why I'd ever broken up with them in the first place, I would surely have a most excellent analogy for how it felt to play Audiosurf for the first time in months. But I don't, so I don't.
What I do have is Audiosurf back in my life (and the rather surprising discovery that I hadn't yet played any LCD Soundsystem on it. This has now been corrected), and lo, I am happy. The reason for this slight return is the release of a meaty free update to the MP3-racing synaesthesia supremo. Sexy details on this sexy so-called 'FM Update' are waiting sexily beneath the sexy cut...
]]>Audiosurf, in terms of both commercial and critical success, is the indie-hit of the year so far. It managed to pick up an IGF award at the same time it was sitting at the top of the Steam charts for all of February. It's caused more listening to eighties-pop music than is strictly healthy at RPS towers, and we love it still. We grabbed an opportunity to speak to its creator, Dylan Fitterer. We talk about music, people's physical response to music and whether he's incredibly rich. But we start with the core of things; that is, how Audiosurf works anyway...
]]>Sorry, it's a bit of a deluge of PC Gamer today, as they've just thrown a mega-ton of last-issue content up onto their site. Think of it as like visiting relatives on the other side of the country.
On my part, there's my Audiosurf review, replete with entirely gratuitous Vonnegut quotation. It's a significantly more upbeat take on the game than the RPS verdict (more Verdicts soon, promise), which arguably got a little sidetracked onto picking holes in the game - probably because by that point we'd already fired our happier hyperbole at each other at some length. And also because my own interest in Audiosurf tends towards the blissful edification of my ears and eyes, rather than trying to perfect the match-3 element. It's not often that I stay with a game for a significant time after the review's filed, but my most intense Audiosurf playing came in the fortnight following my word-fart. I suspect I'll be voting it slightly higher in the year-end polls than most folks.
]]>Like some sort of lumbering clockwork giant, the RPS Hivemind has duly constructed the second instalment of its new Monday feature - discussing a recent game of note, then casting a vote upon its worth. No ludicrous letter-based scoring systems here, though - simply, to buy, or not to buy? That is our question.
This time around, it's award-winning synaesthesia game Audiosurf. We've waffled about it a fair bit on RPS previously, so you'd presume we all loved it, right? You may be surprised. You may be less surprised to see our thin veil of camaraderie ripped aside to reveal the snidey barbs, self-interest and hypocrisy beneath. Rock, Paper, Shotgun - like an old, married couple arguing about groceries.
]]>There are plenty of plausible reasons to criticise Audiosurf. Unfortunately I'm almost entirely oblivious to them, as it's doing such a wonderful job of fulfilling a very important purpose in my life - giving me a reason to do nothing other than listen to music while still feeling like I'm achieving something. I suspect I'd still be spending too long staring vacantly at iTunes visualisations if I didn't own Audiosurf. It's made me a better man.
Part of its charm is the never-know-what-you're-gonna-get-next element. You'll pick a song with a fair idea of whether it's suitable, but often enough it'll surprise- presenting a track that's more elegantly undulated than expected, or instead a jerky, sick-making mess (I'd strongly advise against trying The Specials). Evan Merz, though, has gone beyond the guesstimation the rest of us use, paintstakingly creating midi music designed to specifically provoke certain track shapes and effects in the game.
]]>The results are in, with the winners announced for the 2008 IGF Awards.
The standard of entries this year was just stunning, and when we've tried to pick out our favourite of the top prize entries, it's been impossible. For us it came down to three. Audiosurf has taken over our lunchtimes (and mornings and afternoons and evenings) this week, and is obviously a triumphant achievement. Crayon Physics Deluxe is so charming and serene, while letting you feel like a wizard as your drawings come to life. And World of Goo evoked memories in us of the first time we played Lemmings (a high compliment indeed). Winners lie beyond.
]]>[Updated throughout the day, petulant children that we are]
Gillen's Brem, I'm Ento:
I relish this brief victory whilst I still can. Gauntlet thrown - responses below.
]]>We've all obviously bought our copies of Audiosurf from Steam now, so what we want to know from you is which songs make the best tracks?
]]>News reaches us, courtesy of our comrades at PC Gamer, that Audiosurf will be available to pre-order on Steam from later today, with the full version available on Friday for those who fancy canoodling with a Game as a Valentines day come-down. Also, it'll come with Valve pop hits like Still Alive, TF2's retro-jingles and the electro-bleeps of Half-life 2. And, tech-watchers should note, it's the first game including the Steamworks tech.
Our love for Audiosurf remains undimmed since Jim looked at it a few weeks ago. Having played most of the IGF grand finalists, my position is that while World of Goo is the best game per se and probably should be the winner and Crayon Physics is simply the most magical, Audiosurf will make the most money. Getting on Steam's a good start for making that prediction come true, yeah? Oh - and PCG have an interview with creator Dylan Fitterer too...
]]>Those handsome rakes over at Eurogamer are previewing the IGF finalists and they were kind enough to ask me to take a look at psychedelic music-morpher, Audiosurf. It's a game that turns your MP3 collection into a kind of Wipeout-moulded puzzle game. Neat trick, I thought, and then proceeded to encapsulate my glee and mild bafflement in a moderately long-winded description:
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