Post-dissertation, Post-break-up, Post on Blog

Okay, maybe now I can get into the regular posting routine I was planning on when I set this blog up.

My dissertation - on control interface design, with a great deal of reference to HCI, in case you were curious - is in so I'm giving myself a breather from all that word processing by typing things into a computer.

So, what has happened since the last post (a question I keep finding myself asking - one of these days I might post something else)? Well, I have been having an extremely stressful time with No More Justice, I've had a similarly stressful time with my dissertation, and I found out my now ex-girlfriend (who makes up an eighth of my readerbase, unless she's being unfaithful there too and reading squidi.net or some shit like that, the whore) has been cheating on me for the past half-year. She was still my girlfriend when I found out. Not the best of timing really considering the whole stress thing.

But fret not, loyal readers, I'm not going all emo on you.

And why is that, I suspect you will want to ask upon reading this?

I'll tell you.

Audiosurf.

The result of Mean Bean Machine and Vib-Ribbon's secret night of steamy passion playing PaRappa the Rapper for a fool that freakish Japanese rabbit BITCH. HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN GOING ON FOR? PaRappa KNEW it for all that time, but just put his suspicions down to the stress he was under, and then SHE has the nerve to act the VICTIM?! He TRUS-- wait...

Hang on...

There. 23,875 for Girlfriend in a Coma (a suprisingly hard level that I picked at random in order to make this part of the post not be a total lie*) by The Smiths on Mono Pro. Could have done better, but hey, it's fun.

As I was saying, Audiosurf is the illegitimate lovechild of Vib-Ribbon and Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine. You load in an audio file (it supports virtually every format there is) and the code constructs a psychedelic rollercoaster/motorway of a level out of it, populating the lanes with blocks of various colours which you need to catch and match in groups of three or more for points, combos and hot, juicy scoregasms.

A pretty neat idea, I'm sure you'll agree, but wait! There's more.

The algorithms that build the levels are far more sophisticated than Vib-Ribbon's, by discerning individual instruments and melody lines, and shaping the rollercoaster's peaks, troughs, turns and barrel-rolls according to intensity, shifts in pitch, and probably a great deal more. Despite this, build times are extremely quick, and once a level has been played once, the track is precached for you to speed things up further.

Sounds interesting, I might consid-- but wait! There's more.

If the whole colour matching business is a little too much to take in (it often is for me), there's a few alternative - but equally entertaining - gametypes based on the same core concept. My personal preference is Mono, in which coloured blocks must be collected and comboed while grey blocks must be evaded (with a bonus multiplier if you don't hit any of them). Simple, exciting, and you get to litsen to your music collection while you're at it.

This is easily my favourite music game of all time. And it makes me extremely happy.

Well, hey, look at that. I reviewed a game rather than talking about posts I might write in the future. Could this be the turning point in this weblog's general quality of content?

Don't count on it.





*Seriously, I did. Check the leaderboards.