Zelda Zine 1: a new digital age printed video game fanzine
"Printed video game magazines might be an endangered species these days, but it's not such a bad time for fan-made zines. While every other month we hear news of a different publication we grew up with limiting or eliminating its monthly issues, not all is bleak for people who like tangible content. ...
A printed zine like this remains relevant in today's digital age by featuring content that deals with nostalgia and connections to past games. In fact, art and stories that capture players' unique histories and experiences with video games age gracefully over time.
Zelda Zine 1 has a certain timelessness that allows you to pick it up and experience it fresh, years after it was printed. It doesn't feel dated with tidbits of information about new modes or weapons or when the launch date will be when the game already came out months ago. It feels more like Link in Ocarina of Time, reverting to his younger self to discover that Kakariko Village is just as he left it. That is, the contributors' accounts and interpretations of the legend (both written and visual) will always remain in their minds as they now share them with the world on paper."
(Alejandro Quan-Madrid, 22 February 22 2012, Bitmob.com)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Looksley's Line Up: hidden picture 3-D diorama
"In this unique take on hidden picture games, you'll move the Nintendo DSi system to change your view of various 3-D dioramas. Peer deeply into the scene as you shift the system, watching as layers within the diorama move to reveal previously unseen letters and objects. As you collect these letters and objects, you'll meet new characters and spell words that will open additional stages with more sets of hidden items to find. Particular stages contain secret pictures, offering your observation skills an even greater test."
(Nintendo)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Pokémon evolution chains
"Evolution is a key part of the Pokémon games. Evolving Pokémon makes them stronger and often gives them a wider movepool. Moreover, many species of Pokémon are only obtainable through evolution.
There are several methods of evolution, with more variations being added with each game. In Red/Blue/Yellow, a Pokémon might evolve by training it to a certain level, applying an elemental stone, or trading via cable link.
In Gold/Silver/Crystal, additional methods were added, namely happiness level and trading with a held item. Later games added yet more based on things such as gender, time of day or after a certain move is learned."
(Pokémon Database)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
8 bit Girl: Video Chiptune
"Take 8-bit gadgets (old computers, handheld games, Nintendos, etc), record those blips and bleeps, and string 'em together to make sweet, sweet music -- and you've got the genre known as bitpop. Or chiptune. Or, simply enough, 8-bit. The bitpop world owes a debt to the original bleepers -- krautrockers Kraftwerk"
(Stereogum, 12 January 2007)
['8 bit Girl' by by 'Chaosqaal' on YouTube appears to reference the music genre of the chiptune.]
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
WarioWare: video game pastiche
"Wario Ware is a game about games. Some of its micro games are straight re-implementations of earlier Nintendo classics, but WarioWare also parodies older games such as Super Mario Bros[7]. and The Legend of Zelda[8]. WarioWare exhibits and distorts many game design conventions we take for granted.
...
WarioWare's most obvious departure from conventional game design is its discontinuities, which illustrate the effects of continuity on game experience. Wario Ware's ultra-compressed games contain only a minimum number of ingredients. These miniature games illustrate how complex games are generally built out of simpler ones. WarioWare?s nonsense and absurdities also explore the relationship between fiction and rules.
In a sense, WarioWare is an Understanding Comics[4] of video games: a text that uses the representational strategies of a medium to reflect upon that same medium. But where Understanding Comics is discourse on comics, written in the language of comics, Wario Ware is more like Chuck Jones's meta-cartoon Duck Amuck[2]. WarioWare and Duck Amuck violate convention, and in doing so draw attention to how cartoons and games are both constructed and interpreted."
(Chaim Gingold)
[2] Duck Amuck. Director: Chuck M. Jones. Warner Bros, 1953. 7 minutes.
[4] McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. New York: HarperPerennial, 1994.
[7] Nintendo, Super Mario Bros. Sept. 1985. NES game.
[8] Nintendo, The Legend Of Zelda. 1987. NES game.
[Gingold talks about the Nintendo (Gameboy Advance) game called WarioWare. He reveals it to be a pastiche of earlier video games, clustered together and played as a single master game.]
CONTRIBUTOR
The Constellations ProjectSHARE
