Graham Reeves, the feed.

!i (or 'Not I') is a clever artillery-style shooter for one or two players. The world is divided up into black and white, and each player takes it in turns to fire off a block of their own colour, and eradicate the enemy from beneath.

The two teams exist on opposite sides of the world, and the screen can be flipped to allow either player to be on top. A single player can battle against a AI-controlled army (although the computer is far too good) or two players can go head-to-head. What is really rather awesome is that all the text around the screen reads the same way when turned upside down. You can even flip the title screen!

Give it a PC, Mac or Linux download at GooeyBlob.

Arvoesine is a new platform game from Alastair John Jack, the creator of the entertaining platformer RPGs Ainevoltas 2 and Final Vision. The game puts you in control of a little Roman soldier who can attack with a sword or spear, and has a shield to defend himself with. The goal of the game is to make your way through five short stages, fighting a boss at the end of each stage.

The full version costs $5, which may be surprising, considering the brevity of the game (even compared to some of Alastair’s previous freeware releases). However, it’s clear that Arvoesine is meant to be played repeatedly for high score, like a traditional arcade game. To this end, the game incorporates a simple scoring mechanic where the player receives extra points for defeating an enemy with his second or third sword swing (the third swing, a stab, offers the most points). It took me around 7 tries to win the first time, but timing your swings to achieve a high score increases the challenge dramatically. The player also receives bonus points for clearing a level in the shortest amount of time.

In a way, Arvoesine is like a “lite” arcade game – players that might be interested in the scoring mechanics of face-melting bullet hell shoot ‘em ups and the like but would prefer a warm-up should give it a try (a one level demo is available for download). It’s certainly a very polished and fun platformer.

TIGdb: Entry for Arvoesine
Playthrough: Ortoslon (version 1.0)

Shared by grahamgrahamreeves
sooo cool

Ninety seconds of classic gaming in the Breakout/Arkanoid vein, with a "Bullet Heaven" vibe. You'll finish it very easily, but it's a beaut when things get hectic. [Wonderfl.net via RPS]

Shared by grahamgrahamreeves
err nice :D

Here's the latest trailer for Nidhogg, a trippy but slickly-animated swordfighting game. Think Jordan Mechner on acid. Previously. [Messhof via Indie Games]

Ninety seconds of classic gaming in the Breakout/Arkanoid vein, with a "Bullet Heaven" vibe. You'll finish it very easily, but it's a beaut when things get hectic. [Wonderfl.net via RPS]

This post will show you how to generate sine waves for specific frequencies using the AS3 Sound object. It assumes you have read, or are familiar with the data in Part I of this series.

Basics of Sound

Sound itself is essentially a change in the pressure of the air. Extremely simple layman’s terms here. Air is composed of various molecules. They are not uniformly smoothly distributed. There can be areas where they are under more pressure and packed more tightly together, and other areas where they are more spaced out. When something like a guitar string vibrates, it moves quickly back and forth at a specific speed. When it moves in one direction, it pushes the molecules of air closer to some other molecules in the same direction. The creates a dense pocket of air. Then the string moves back in the opposite direction, creating a bit of a vacuum. Not a real vacuum, but an area where there are less molecules. It then moves back again, creating another dense pocket.

These areas of dense and undense air move out across the room and eventually hit your ears. The dense air pushes your eardrum in, and the less dense pocket causes it to move out. The result is your eardrum starts vibrating at roughly the same frequency as the guitar string. This causes some bones to vibrate, which stimulate nerves at the same frequency, which send signals to your brain, saying “C Sharp”.

When you record sound, you use a microphone as a sort of electronic ear. It has some kind of diaphragm or other moving part that vibrates and creates and electrical signal which is recorded one way or the other. For playback, this electrical signal is regenerated and causes a speaker to vibrate at the same frequency. This pushes the air the same way the original guitar string did and you hear the same sound.

Synthesizing Sound

However, when we talk about synthesizing sound, we are doing it all from scratch. Flash, your computer’s sound card, and your headphones or speakers will handle generating the correct electrical signal and vibrating the air. But you need to do the math to figure out much and how fast to make things vibrate.

In Part I of this tutorial, we created random values which caused the speaker or headphones to vibrate at a completely chaotic pace, resulting in a radio-static-like fuzz. Creating an actual tone requires a bit more work, and hopefully some understanding of what you are doing.

Digital Sound

In analog sound, such as vinyl records or 8-track tapes (showing my age here), the sound is encoded smoothly as bumps in the groove of the record, or changes in a magnetic field on the tape. Digital sound takes discrete samples of the sound pressure at specific intervals.

Taking one of the simplest sound forms, a sine wave, here is a smooth analog version:

And here is the same wave, represented as 50 samples:

As you can see, the sampled version is not quite as accurate as the smooth wave. However, in high quality digital sound, these intervals are numerous enough that it is virtually impossible for most of the population to notice any difference. When you are synthesizing sound in Flash, you will be dealing with 44,100 samples per second. Remember that number, we’ll be doing some calculations with it.

Now, what we need to do is generate our samples with a series of values that wind up forming a sine wave like you see above. The top peak of the sine wave will be 1.0, the bottom will be –1.0 and the middle 0.0. To start simply, we’ll generate a single sine wave over the course of a full second. To keep track of where we’re at, we’ll use a variable called position. We’ll initialize it to 0 and increment it each time we create a new sample. Thus position will range from 0 to 44100 over the course of the first second of audio.

If we then divide position by 44100, we’ll get values that range from 0.0 up to 1.0 over the course of one second. And if we multiply that by 2PI, We’ll get values from 0 to 2PI, just what we need to generate a sine wave with the Math.sin function. Here’s the code so far:

[as3]import flash.media.Sound;
import flash.events.SampleDataEvent;
import flash.events.MouseEvent;

var position:int = 0;
var sound:Sound = new Sound();
sound.addEventListener(SampleDataEvent.SAMPLE_DATA, onSampleData);
sound.play();

function onSampleData(event:SampleDataEvent):void
{
for(var i:int = 0; i < 2048; i++)
{
var phase:Number = position / 44100 * Math.PI * 2;
position ++;
var sample:Number = Math.sin(phase);
event.data.writeFloat(sample); // left
event.data.writeFloat(sample); // right
}
}[/as3]

If you run that file, you’ll be generating a sine wave that does one full cycle each second. Of course, this, being a 1 Hz sound wave, is far too low for the human ear to hear. To get a specific frequency sound, simply multiply phase by the frequency you want to hear. Humans can hear frequencies generally in the range of 25 to 25,000 Hz. Middle A on the standard musical scale is 440 Hz. So let’s try that. Change the line that calculates the sample to:

[as3]var sample:Number = Math.sin(phase * 440);[/as3]

That gives you A. You can find charts like this all over the net:

A 440
B flat 466
B 494
C 523
C sharp 554
D 587
D sharp 622
E 659
F 698
F sharp 740
G 784
A flat 831
A 880

Or, if you want to get more mathematical about it, the formula for each note, n, above or below 440 is:

440 * 2^(n / 12)

We can implement scales then by setting up an n variable, incrementing it on a timer, and using the above formula to calculate our frequency:

[as3]import flash.media.Sound;
import flash.events.SampleDataEvent;
import flash.events.MouseEvent;
import flash.utils.Timer;
import flash.events.TimerEvent;

var position:int = 0;
var n:Number = 0;
var sound:Sound = new Sound();
sound.addEventListener(SampleDataEvent.SAMPLE_DATA, onSampleData);
sound.play();

function onSampleData(event:SampleDataEvent):void
{
for(var i:int = 0; i < 2048; i++)
{
var phase:Number = position / 44100 * Math.PI * 2;
position ++;
var sample:Number = Math.sin(phase * 440 * Math.pow(2, n / 12));
event.data.writeFloat(sample); // left
event.data.writeFloat(sample); // right
}
}

var timer:Timer = new Timer(500);
timer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, onTimer);
timer.start();
function onTimer(event:TimerEvent):void
{
n++;
}[/as3]

Alternately, we can make a poor man’s generative music composer with a little help from Math.random:

[as3]function onTimer(event:TimerEvent):void
{
n = Math.floor(Math.random() * 20 – 5);
timer.delay = 125 * (1 + Math.floor(Math.random() * 8));
}[/as3]

This generates a different note, and a different duration (from 1/8th of a second up to one full second) for each note.

Armed with this alone, you are on your way to making your own sequencer or mini piano or other type instrument. Later, I’ll try to post some stuff on other wave forms, combining waves, envelopes, and other topics.

Inside a Dead Skyscraper is a new experimental work from Molleindustria, developer of games like Every Day the Same Dream and Run Jesus Run. Here you play as a man (or a woman, you can never really tell) in a hazmat suit, who was given a strange device by his partner and advised to explore his surroundings. The device in your hand can be used to read the thoughts of other people you meet, but you need to be standing really close to a person for the gadget to work properly.

This game was made to promote the work of a musician, but it is a missed opportunity not to design at least one puzzle around a key moment just to flesh out the story a little bit. Inside a Dead Skyscraper is still worth a look, especially if you're a fan of experimental stuff from developers that try to do something different every once in a while.

Submitted by: Wegas via Submit a Photobomb

Move? But I have beer AND entertainment.

Favorite Comment: That Guy DarwinSurvivor says, “Excuse me gents, would you be so kind as to scootch to the left just a bit, I believe my team is in the process of procuring a point.”

So Long, Oregon. Let's Go Find El Dorado is an iOS port of Justin Smith's Ludum Dare entry, where players get to help a family of five reach the legendary lost city of gold referenced by the title. This being Justin's handiwork (developer of Enviro-Bear 2000), he's gone on to add wonky physics to the wagon, hence allowing players to execute deft backflips over hills and mountains while trying to keep all family members in the wagon alive and healthy.

The original LD submission is still available to download from here, but that prototype was made in less than 72 hours and doesn't include the new features (challenges, food hunt mini-game, high scores) seen in the above trailer.

Dooder is an action platformer with an unique graphical style where you can acquire 4 different abbilities.
Interesting concept!

Link to Trailer Video (by Matthew Seely)

We are thrilled to announce the winners of the first ever Boing Boing "Games Inspired by Music" Competition, sponsored by Safari Books Online. The polls closed at midnight with Zachary Johnson's Infiltration and Zachary Lewis's Space Junk nearly neck and neck. Space Junk took the grand prize with 249 votes, followed by Infiltration with 233 votes. Coming in third was Sean Monahan's Beat Boost! All three of these are instant old-school classics!

Mr. Lewis receives the grand prize of a year of access to Safari Books Online, a $515 value, and a fat prize pack from GAMA-GO, including a limited-edition art print, GAMA-GO book, Gama-Goon Statue, Sing-A-Long Tongs, and other goodies. Mr. Johnson and Mr. Monahan score three month subscriptions to Safari Books Online, valued at $128 each, and a grip of GAMA-GO goods like a Yeti Qee Keychain, Pocket Journal, and Hip-Hopsicles!

All of the other finalists will receive GAMA-GO prize packages too! (Thanks, GAMA-GO!)

Thank you to everyone who took the time to create an entry! We're blown away by the effort and raw mutant creativity that went into these! And much appreciation to the chiptunes composers who inspired us with the bleeps and bloops. And thanks to all who played and voted!

Finally, much appreciation to our partner Safari Books Online. We've wanted to hold a competition like this for a long time and we're grateful to them for helping us make it happen. For the foreseeable future, they're offering Boing Boing readers a special 15 day trial of Safari Books Online plus 15% discount for 12 months (new subscribers only) on a subscription. Check it out!

And if this is all new to you, please visit the Boing Boing Arcade, featuring all the finalists in our contest. Shall we play a game?

Richard Coward from Greenwich has won Transport For London's competition to design a new skyline for London. A range of TfL merchandise bearing his design has now gone on sale

Coward was also given £1000 for winning first prize in the competition that sought "a 21st Century view of London’s famous skyline".

His pattern (above) includes modern landmarks such as the MIllennium Dome (02 Centre), the Gherkin and the GLA building alongside the familiar tourist spots.

Here it is applied to a mug

and mouse mat

The two runners-up Kate McLelland

and Nick Brown

will also see their designs available on a selection of merchandise which can be bought here

While this concept trailer for upcoming platformer Nikki and the Robots doesn't exactly give much away in terms of how the game will play, there's just something about it that really appeals to me.

The protagonist Nikki cannot use weapons or equipment throughout the entire game, and instead enlists the help of robots. She can hack into terminals to take advantage of each robot's unique abilities, solving puzzles and overcoming obstacles.

Should hopefully be some good, solid fun. Nikki and the Robots is coming to PC, Linux and Max soon. Visit the official site for more details and some lovely screenshots.

There's something to be said about games -- and our imaginations, even -- that allow us to create our own goals and rules that exist outside of what the designers envisioned. If you don't follow, I'm talking about something as simple (or is it?) as not getting any rings in Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

There's an incredible thread on NeoGAF about people who "hack" videogame ROMs, and yes, it's relevant. A person going by the name of Captain Bozo has taken the aforementioned avoid-touching-rings rule to startling new heights. Each ring you consume makes Sonic fatter, and ... just watch the video already.

The fact that his extra weight isn't purely cosmetic makes this project brilliant. My hope for humanity has been rekindled -- I sincerely mean that. Bravo, good sir!

After our own Eli Hodapp highlighted three silly games you don't need but should probably have anyway this past weekend, I couldn't help but think this next game could very easily be on that list as well. Magnetic Shaving Derby is delightful in it's peculiarity, and as long as you don't expect too much from it, contains some enjoyable gameplay as well. If you've ever had the urge to shave your face by pulling a razor blade across it with a magnet, all while collecting various fruits, vegetables, and even bubble gum, then you are in luck today.

Using either touch or tilt, move a magnet around the screen that controls a razor blade as you shave a large, colorful, MS Paint quality face. Imagine the Wooly Willy from your childhood, only in reverse. Dragging the razor across the helpless chap's eyes, nose, or lips results in screams of pain and copious amounts of blood lost, not to mention it brings down your score. It sounds odd, and it definitely is, but for some reason I just keep on playing. There's a Time Trial mode that tasks you with shaving the face in as short a time as possible, with each painful nick adding time to your score.

The Time Trial mode is good, but the real fun is to be had in the Score Attack mode. Here, you're given 3 minutes to shave away at the face as much as you can, with the stubble growing back almost instantly. A blood loss meter at the bottom slowly dwindles away the more you cut the guy, and if it empties before the timer is up it's game over. Tons of powerups and hazards litter this mode, and take it to the next level of craziness. Dragging the razor across a falling cucumber puts two slices of it over your eyes as protection, and collecting a ninja star sends your blade spinning like a whirlwind making it much easier to shave. There's so many more things like this in the game, and it seems like I keep coming across new ones as I play.

Magnetic Shaving Derby has that intangible quality of “what the heck am I doing and why do I want to keep doing it?” going for it. The graphics are crude in an endearing way, and just silly enough to bring a smile to your face. The gameplay is interesting, but the controls aren't the best. Tilt isn't precise enough to do what you need to do, and while touch works well it can get tough when dragging near the edges of the screen. Also there's OpenFeint integration for achievement and high score tracking, adding replayability to what is a pretty basic game. Even without any of this, Magnetic Shaving Derby delivers a lot of entertaining moments based on just the craziness alone.

I found a question/response thread on Hacker News to be quite interesting. The question was “how did your life change after FU money”. FU money being a term for enough money that you have complete freedom to not work.

Paul Graham’s response I felt particularly rang true, and is something to think about. Paul Graham earned his FU money from cofounding Viaweb which later sold to Yahoo.

One thing you learn when you get rich, though, is how few of your problems were caused by not being rich. When you can do whatever you want, you get a variant of the terror induced by the proverbial blank page. There are a lot of people who think the thing stopping them from writing that great novel they plan to write is the fact that their job takes up all their time. In fact what’s stopping 99% of them is that writing novels is hard. When the job goes away, they see how hard.

It sort of goes with the whole cliche that money can’t buy happiness, but it also provides some good insight for people who might see their job as an excuse not to do whatever they really want to do.

Now, it also reminded me of TED talk by Dan Gilbert on Happiness which I thought was particularly revealing. I’ve linked to the relevant moment here (14minutes, 22seconds in).

Gilbert describes a study which proves that “choice” is actually detrimental to happiness. And what provides more choice or freedom than a huge windfall (“FU money” so to speak).

Gilbert describes a study at a university. Students take a photography class and at the end have 2 framed photos of their favorite work. They are split into two groups. 1) Pick a photo, and you’re stuck with it 2) Pick a photo, but if you change your mind you can swap it out for the other one within 4 days.

Turns out the people who have a choice about their photo are less satisfied with their photo even after the 4 days is up. By simply having that choice, they are ultimately less “happy”. So, people tend to be happier when they have no choice presented to them.

I feel like this applies to those who find themselves with complete freedom in their lives. Choice means you have to actively make a decision, and generates questions of doubt about decisions you make. In many ways, not having the decision is a simpler, albeit naive existence.

Now you may ask me if I’m happy. While I didn’t have a huge windfall, I do earn enough that I don’t have to work at a real job. So, I am doing what I choose to do, not what I have to. As a matter of fact, I am very happy, but I did think about these very issues alot when I first earned my freedom. Issues that I’d never really thought of before.

Designed by Mike Tucker, PopClock is a fun new clock app created using the Cocos2d framework. Time is laid out in the circles which from time to time ‘pop’ resulting in various collisions amongst other circles. Double tapping changes the colour of the clock and you can fully interact with the circles by touch and grab or tilt the device to move them up and down the screen – It’s kind of like an hourglass…except with multitouch, and maybe some electromagnetism thrown in there.

Mike explains:
PopClock is intended to be what i call a ‘passive’ app. It’s something that can be left on your iPad or iPhone while its sitting in the dock. It’ll tell the time in it’s own special way, and doesn’t really try to be anything more than that. For development, Cocos2d was used which simplifies a number of fairly annoying aspects of OpenGL development, few being the use of fonts, image loading, audio loading and playback. Cocos2d also provides a very easy way to implement box2d into your project, an open source 2D physics engine for games. All in all, cocos2d makes for a painless experience and having never used it before, the entire production process only took about 20 hours to complete.

We are very fond of Mike’s work here at CAN. Not so long ago we asked Mike to work together on one of his apps and the result was RetroScreen. If you haven’t tried it yet, see this post or download directly from the AppStore.

See also: Untitled [iPhone, Games, oF] an upcoming iPhone game by Mike.

Platform: iPad/iPhone
Version: 1.0
Cost: $0.99
Developer: Mike Tucker

Related Posts:

• It’s About Time – Volume 2 [iPhone, iPad]
• 15 Great Apps for Your New iPad [iPad]
• It’s About Time – Volume 1 [iPhone]
• KulerClock [iPhone]
• hms [iPhone]
• Weather Monitor [iPhone]

Visitors had no problem locating Kelly Angood's work at this year's Brighton illustration and graphic design degree show. We have the highlights

As well as her name (or initials at least) in lights, Ms Angood showed these cardboard Thomas Demand-style recreations of a typewriter and camera (more here)

Across the way, was Joe Luxton's hugely impressive installation made from laser cut, folded and mirrored aluminium, on the Buddhist concept of Sunyata in which two different messages could be read depending on the angle of view.

In an altogether different vein was Jess L Smith's Murder Ballad series

Edgars Zvirgzdins' work was particularly strong - more about his Creep project (left) in a separate post

And it was hard to miss Daisy Gam's saucy illustrations based on her collection of 50s erotica

While Rosalind Monks showed delicate insects cut from gold foil, inspired by specimen cabinets, alongside similarly ornate illustrations

And Luke Wright had one of the most consistent displays with a series of music-themd projects

This is just a small selection from the show - more here

Gamestop has announced their pre-order bonus for Sonic Colors. If you put $5 or more on either the Wii or DS versions of the game, you'll get a authentic Sonic wig, complete with widow's peak. Pre-order both versions of the game, and you'll get two wigs. Then you can dye one of them black and have a "Sonic and Shadow House Party Pajama-Jammy-Jam", with Sonic Colors running on the Wii and the DS all night. I guarantee you'll get lucky. Chicks go bananas for that sort of thing.

As fun as that probably sounds, it's still not as good as what I'm hoping for. Though it's only a couple months away, it's my dream to get my hands on one of these wigs before PAX Prime 2011. Then I can get one on Sterling and coerce him into doing our entire panel as Sonic. From there, we can ditch that loser Sagat, and Sundays with Sonic will be born.

After that's run its course, it's Jueves with Junpei time.

Sonic Colors pre-orders to come with blue spiky hat- [Segaaddicts, via Segabits]

Miami-based artist duo FriendsWithYou travelled north to Toronto recently, to take part in the Wish Come True Festival. They created an inflatable town in the centre of the city, plus much more.

FriendsWithYou are artists Samuel Borkson and Arturao Sandoval III. They have worked together since 2002, and say that they want to spread a "postive message of Magic, Luck and Friendship with their art". They certainly appear to have brought a lot of joy to Toronto, judging by the pics they have sent us.

The Wish Come True Festival took place from June 10-20. FriendsWithYou were commissioned by the Luminato Festival of the Arts to create work for the festival, and responded with a number of inflatable installations, a pop-up shop, gallery show and an animation.

At the centre of their work was The Rainbow King, above, an ambassador for the festival. You an see him making his way around town in the YouTube film above.

The Rainbow City, a large installation of giant totems, magical mushrooms, oversized bouncy houses, and inflatable characters all appeared in downtown Toronto, on the site of the city's presitigious parliament building in Queen's Park. Visitors were invited to play with all the sculptures.

Sculptures were also displayed in two large-scale commercial spaces in the city. Starburst, shown first above, was displayed at the Bay Adelaide Centre. "Starburst is the captured moment of an exploding star," say FriendsWithYou. "In its grand scale it is kinetic even without motion. He is constantly exploding and being reborn for you to witness." The Secret Garden, above, was displayed in the Wintergarden lobby.

In addition, FriendsWithYou showed a solo exhibition of paintings at Narwhal Art Projects and also set up a pop-up shop at Magic Pony in the city, selling prints and art products. Two of the prints are shown above. These can also be brought online on the artists' website, here. We defy you not to feel cheerful looking at their work.