Tag Archives: video games

ALBUMS, CHIPTUNE, GAME MUSIC, GAMING, MUSIC

A personal love letter to the entire MAGFest/VGM/Chiptune community. ♥ ♥ (DOPEY POST ALERT ;3 )

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Thursday was my 32nd birthday. I had no big plans; working for most of the day, fishing with a buddy right afterward, dinner with my folks, & winding up the night at Joshua Morse’s Waveform 3 listening party on the always fun-tastic areciboradio.com to share in some good music, laughs, and a few beers with my nerd buddies. Nice, chill evening; I can had a content. =) Honestly, I’d almost forgotten that it was my birthday that week; my girlfriend and family had to remind me! LoL SO BUSY WITH LIFE AND PROJECTS (with the Chiptunes = WIN compilation being at the top of the busy yet awesome list!! ;D ). And then some of my favorite MAGfamily crazies surprise me in the listening party chatroom (and sorta crash it! HahahaSORRIES Areciboradio!!! XD ). Was some serious WIN, and enough to wrap up my birthday with more than enough happy to do the trick. I figured the surprises ended there. I FIGURED DAMN WRONG.

FIRST, THIS HAPPENED. <– CLICKY CLICKY, PLEASE. =D

As I explored the custom VGM designed birthday card, read the messages as they scrolled by, listened to the amazing music, I freaked out. My myriad of ridiculously talented, AMAZING friends, who collaborated to create this for me, watched, laughed, grinned, took joy in my freakouts and continued to make it worse by leading me on to discover more and more wonderful things about it (there’s even a secret code in it!! Hint: look at the score ;). Once they’d strung me along with that amazingness long enough, they dropped the REAL bomb on me:

 

AN ORIGINAL 5 SONG EP MADE ABOUT AND JUST FOR ME

 

I. LOST. MY. MIND. I’m still in shock. The amount of artistry and hilarity and genuine love that went into the crazy project, just… WOW. What the F**K  I did to deserve this I DON’T KNOW. (I mean, I AM awesome, sure, but this is pushing it a touch even for me! hahaha ;D ). I’m not telling y’all any of this to brag about myself, boost my own ego, or anything self serving like that either (I really don’t feel like there’s that much to brag about anyways hahaha). I’m just sharing this as a testament to WHY I love the VGM/Chiptune/MAG/Nerda/etc. scene with every bit of me that is able to love:

The best motherf**cking people in the world are part of it.

The people that staff and volunteer the events, the various assortment of musical guests, artists, and speakers to entertain the happy, often drunken masses, and, of course, the awesome, CRAZY people who attend these events. And all of them, ALL OF THEM having the time of their lives, reveling in the sheer overwhelming goodness of being surrounded and celebrating with the most kindred of spirits. There really are no words to do it justice, and I feel I’m doing a fairly miserable job of trying to convey in words the powerful sense of awesome that you can get from being a part of, belonging to this community. hahaha XD Maybe that’s just it, though: you have to experience it to understand it. =) And if you haven’t yet, NOW  is just as good a time as any to join us. THE MORE, THE MERRIER, BIZNATCHES!! 8D \m|♥|m/

Also (I said I wasn’t going to do this, BUT OH WELL WUTTEHFUKEVAR!!!!): HUGE THANKS AND LOVE AND STUFF TO ALL INVOLVED WITH THE ALBUM: Mike Villalobos (Lobos) & Amanda Lepre (LeRab-it) from Descendants of Erdrick; Grant Henry (Stemage) and Dan Taylor (Chunkstyle) from Metroid Metal & Yes Mayhem; Nate Horsfall (Foxxdragon); Chris Ryberg (Rugal); Jameson Sutton (Shadix); Thomas Dougherty (Nickeledge); Chris Davidson (Dj Cutman); Erik Peabody (VikingGuitar);  Brendan Becker (Inverse Phase); Brandon Strader; and last but not least, my amaaaaaaaaaaazing girlfriend, Erin McQuisten (I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, BABY!!! ♥ ♥ ♥). Plus much love to all who signed the digital card!!!

YOU FUCKERS ARE SOME OF THE BEST FRIENDS A CRAZY SONOFABITCH LIKE ME COULD EVER ASK FOR & I LOVE YOU ENDLESSLY FOR IT SO THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111!111!1!11!!!11111!elevensoutthewazoo  ;DDD

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

ALBUMS, CHIPTUNE, GAME MUSIC, GAMING, MUSIC

Friday Freakout: DANIMAL CANNON ‘SPLOSION!!!!!!11!1!1!

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SUP BIZNATCHES. =D Yup, I’m back again. Wasn’t just a one shot deal last Friday after all. ;)

YOU’RE WELCOME, WORLD. 8) (blame Cutman for it ;3 ).

ANYWHOOO, today I’m spazwriting/writespazzing all over this bloggity blog about something not new, but still worth the wordy words; about the very first dude who exposed me to live Chiptunes (and at MAGFest 9 no less! LOVE THAT FRICKITY FRACKIN PLACE/THING/WORLD/AMAZINGNESS!!!).

In other words, my Chiptune obession = TOTALLY THIS GUY’S FAULT:

Dan Behrens aka Danimal Cannon.

If you’re into the VGM/Chiptune scene AT ALL, you’ve probably heard of this cat from one of his many damn bands: Armcannon, Metroid Metal, WeaponEX, The Polyamorous Polyrhythms (okay, I made that last one up ;3 ). And if you haven’t? Well, GOOD DAMN THING YOU’RE READING THIS ARTICLE THEN, AIN’T IT?!? ;3 At any rate, they’re all lkjasdfjlk AMAZING, but it’s his solo chiptune jamolas as Danimal Cannon that really takes the honest cake. (Get it?? Takes the honest cake vs. just takes the cake?? As in the cake is NOT a lie?? YES I JUST WENT THERE & I MAY MAKE AN ARROW IN THE KNEE JOKE NEXT WUT OF IT?!?!? ;333 ). It’s top tier Chiptunes that’s a nostalgic yet brand spanking new series of musical

journeys through nerdtastically mathematical, polyrhythmic yet danceable, guitar shredding wonderment of LOVEBEERSEX CHIPTUNES FTW!!! <–Which SHOULD have been his album name, but he went with Roots instead.

Pssh!  WUTTEHFUKEVAR. >_> Awesome album title missed opportunity aside, his 18 track debut is one BADASSTASTIC mother that no Chiptune fan can afford to miss. And ZOMG! You can (finally) get a shirt to go with it! Which gives you super powers. Super powers of looking AWESOME, further increased by listening to the album’s AWESOME. It may just be the AWESOMEST AWESOME TO EVAR AWESOME. NOW GO BUY THEM BOTH AND EXPERIENCE THE AWESOMERY FOR YOURSELF. \m||m/

…UNLESS you first wanna go see an equally AWESOME series of Danimal Cannon videos taken by Emily Feder from the Chip Music Chronicle (more on that NEXT Friday! ;D ). You can find that goodness RITE CHAR:

AND be sure to catch the ridiculously talented little f**cker on his upcoming tour, which includes a stop at BLIPFEST. Yup, you heard me right:  the sonofan8bitwhore is actually playing AT Blipfest this year. Another reason to catch that amazing Memorial Day weekend Chiptune extravaganza. I mean, as if you really needed another reason to go to that, amirite? IAMRITE.

Also, did I mention yet that HE’S GOT A  BRAND SPANKING NEW TRACK COMING OUT ON MY UPCOMING CHIPTUNES = WIN  \m|♥|m/ COMPILATION NEXT MONTH??? So yeah, stayed tuned for that! ;DDD Ttfn~!

\m|♥|m/

CHIPTUNE, GAMING, MUSIC

Friday Freakout: OH HAI GAIZ =D

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[box type=”bio”] Brandon Hood runs the Chiptunes = WIN \m|♥|m/ facebook group, where Chipmusicians from around the world share their music and particpate in projects in a public forum. [/box]

Brandon L Hood aka. Hoodie, Hoodlum1436, Brandon the Belligerexcellent, self-appointed Champion of Chiptunes, Mr. Metroid beer pong table himself in the (digital) flesh, RITE CHAR! =) Soooo you’re probably thinking, “ZOMGWTFBBQ!!! Hoodie is writing Chip & VGM reviews/blurbs/excited goobledygook on VideoGameDJ.com now??? THAT IS SO AWESUM!!!!!!!!11101010 =DDDD” Well, that or mebbe “WhoTF is this monkeybutt farthole??” ;3 To answer that 2nd more likely question, I am just a funloving, overly excitable, MAGFest/MAGStock/PAX East/Blipfest/Nerdapalooza/etc. crashing, Chiptune dancing, VGM band crowd rocker-outing, awesome Metroid beer pong table party throwing, goofy sonofabiznatch from teh intert000000bs, WUTTEHFERKEVARFTW!! I’m most known from being King Kai of the Chiptunes Facebook group Chiptunes = WIN \m|<3|m/ (WHICH YOU’RE WELCOME TO JOIN IF YOU WAAAAANT ♥). GOOD TIMES, FUN TIMES ALL AROUND! \m|♥|m/ =D

Alright, silly, silly introduction out of the way, ON TO DA POST!!! \m||m/ My first one can be summed up in two simple words:


F**K CANCER.

Alright, so you prolly need more than that. ;3 What we’ve got here izza fan-furkin-tastic Chiptunes compilation put together by Frostbyte/iamclouD & friends. Lotta very  talented Chipartists on this thang, some you may know, some you may not know. ALL AWESOME. Also, did I mention that 100% of all profits from the album sales goes to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation! EXACTLY. Fantastiexcellent Chiptunes + a good cause = MEGACRAPTONS OF WIN. Best $5 (or more if you’re extra awesome! ;D ) you’ll spend in quite awhile. =) So what are you waiting for?? GO SNAG DAT SUCKA!!! =D Annnd share the livin’ crap outta it! Everywhere! Alllllllll over the intertoobs! Kinda like I do. ;3

YOU CAN BE THAT AWESOME IF ONLY YOU’LL TRY. \m|♥|m/

 

GAMING, RETRO GAMES, ROM HACKS

Smithsonian – The Art of Video Games

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The Smithsonian Museum of American Art is holding an exhibit on the art of video games, from the early 1970s all the way up until today. Five eras of video game graphics, from the dawn of the video game, to 8-bit, through the 16-bit “Bit Wars” era, transition to 3D graphics and up until today. The exhibit runs from March 16th, 2012 to September 30th, 2012.

From americanart.si.edu:
The Art of Video Games is one of the first exhibitions to explore the forty-year evolution of video games as an artistic medium, with a focus on striking visual effects and the creative use of new technologies. It features some of the most influential artists and designers during five eras of game technology, from early pioneers to contemporary designers. The exhibition focuses on the interplay of graphics, technology and storytelling through some of the best games for twenty gaming systems ranging from the Atari VCS to the PlayStation 3. Eighty games, selected with the help of the public, demonstrate the evolution of the medium.
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