SOUND SHAPES, SUPER HEXAGON MUSICIANS PLAYING VENUS PATROL, WILD RUMPUS PARTY

With just two weeks to go until the full Game Developers Conference madness officially kicks in, Wild Rumpus & Venus Patrol have just released the first wave of lineup announcements for our 2013 party, with both some familiar faces and some brand new additions.

Sound Shapes co-creator & star I Am Robot And Proud will be performing a live set including his own brand-new reactive visuals (get a little sneak peek of that here), and Super Hexagon‘s own Chipzel (above) will be part of a lineup that also includes Dyad/Proteus musician David Kanaga, and Gun Godz & Luftrausers‘ Kozilek.

Also returning will be Anticon superstar Dose One, now with his Themselves, 13&God & Subtle bandmate Jel (see why he’s the “MPC emperor” in the video above). After the performances, Fez‘s Phil Fish & former Uncharted designer Rich Lemarchand will be playing out the night with their usual fantastic dance set as Phillipe Lemarchand.

On the games side, not only will we be debuting the previously mentioned new game from Keita Takahashi (which we are now also teasing as a game about “love, hygiene, monsters, and finding discarded erotic magazines in the woods”), but showcasing Super Space ____, the ever-amazing Samurai Gunn, and a new mashed-up version of Panoramical & SoundSelf (above), the latter just announced from Capsule & Antichamber sound artist Robin Arnott.

If you’ll be around the Bay Area on March 27th & haven’t yet purchased tickets, we’ve just opened up another round which can be purchased by clicking right over here. We’ll have more info coming soon as the date draws even more dangerously near!

GAMETOILET#504: 32 SHORT FILMS ABOUT Q*BERT – @!#?@! THAT!

[Wednesdays on Venus Patrol are GameToilet Days, where we feature new installments of the brilliant comic series from artist & game dev Jerry ‘King Baggot‘ Carpenter. You can find hundreds more entries in the series at the comic's new permanent home, gametoilet.venuspatrol.com!]

My original post for this one looked like a toddler’s drawing of an Echochrome level – but I then lost it on the train.

Also missing from the above is ‘J*Bert’, which is, of course, the J-pop remix with shitloads of kittens & a banging Morning Musume soundtrack.

HEY AUSTIN: NEXT THURSDAY, MEET THE CREATORS OF LITTLEBIGPLANET & MORE

[This post is re-blogged from Venus Patrol sister-organization JUEGOS RANCHEROS, our local Austin indie game collective.]

LittleBigPlanet and the upcoming Tearaway are among the most creative & beautiful games to land on the PlayStation platform, and their creators, Media Molecule, will be right here in Austin Thursday, March 7th, at 7:00PM at the North Door.

[ RSVP FOR THIS EVENT AND INVITE YOUR FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK BY CLICKING HERE! ]

Flying in all the way from Guildford, UK, the Media Molecule team will be presenting — for the first time ever — the results of its own first-ever internal game jam, with, says the company, “photos and videos of things we made — games yes, but a whole load of weirdness, too.”

The team will talk through the process of running a game jam and the weird stuff they did alongside it, and then “a bit about how we applied it to our real dev process.”

Before that, the night will open with the first look at the upcoming SoundSelf, a game that “combines your own voice with evolving fractal graphics and mind-altering auditory feedback” being created by local sound designer Robin Arnott, with live musical accompaniment by Austin electronic guitarist Michael Garfield.

Following the presentations, the night will conclude with more music by JUEGOS RANCHEROS’ own resident Cosmic DJ, and more! Everything will be kicking off Thursday, March 7th, at 7:00PM at North Door, 501 Brushy Street, Austin, TX 78702! The show is free and open to all the public — come drink, dance, and meet the people changing the way you think about videogames!

GAMETOILET#503: CAPTAIN AUTASTIC – HE’S THE HIGH FUNCTIONING HERO

[Wednesdays on Venus Patrol are GameToilet Days, where we feature new installments of the brilliant comic series from artist & game dev Jerry ‘King Baggot‘ Carpenter. You can find hundreds more entries in the series at the comic's new permanent home, gametoilet.venuspatrol.com!]

There are looooads of games/apps designed for autistic children, but not enough for the parents of said kids – and so that’s where this one comes from.

When I pester my youngest, who has recently received his official ASD badge-of-honour, about what he thinks he should be playing, he plumps for “Pac-Man! With Guns!” So that’s next week’s sorted then.

TIGSOURCE DEVLOG: DOM2D’S VISUAL SHOWCASE OF AWESOME NEW GAMES, ISSUE #13

[Fridays on Venus Patrol are designer Dominique 'Dom2D' Ferland's day to present TIGSource DevLog Magazine, a visual guide to the newest & most interesting in-development games making the rounds on the invaluable TIGSource forums. Looking for inspiration, or just the very first look at the amazing games we'll be talking about in the future? Click any image to learn more, and come back on Fridays for the latest picks!]

This week’s issue showcases a whopping sixteen new games in development, in all genres and styles. Catching up on the craziness I missed in the past couple weeks, I’ve been through a lot of emotions. I was amazed by the gloomy environment art of Aliceffekt’s iOS adventure game Hiversaires, intrigued by Red Rover‘s mysterious screenshots of looming space stations, excited by the thought of becoming a jousting knight in Pixelry… and strangely aroused by the pixelated sexual content of minimalist pulp adventure game After the Comet.

Also, the 16-bit style action adventure game Anodyne has finally been released – check out its 32 page long forum thread to know everything about its development, from early concept art to completion.

HEY TORONTO: SPEND YOUR WEEKEND WITH THE VECTOR GAME+ART FESTIVAL

I’m only slightly late in recommending that everyone in the Toronto area investigate the goings-on at the weekend-long Vector festival, which will bring together a sort of staggering array of artists for exhibitions, screenings, workshops, performances and round table discussions.

Included in the lineup are a slew of familiar game & artworld names including: Bill Viola, Tracy Fullerton, Alex Myers, Ed Key & David Kanaga, Droqen, Damian Sommer, Dames Making Games, Eddo Stern, Jon Rafman, Jim Munroe, Cindy Poremba, and Austin’s own Party Time! Hexcellent!

You can dig through the schedule at Vector’s site here, as well as the special programs here — including the opening reception happening in just a few hours time tonight — and buy your tickets for all the proceedings here.