Ride your music
Apr. 19th, 2008 12:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrewduckerMany years ago, in the dawn times, back when I was a small child, we loaded games onto our computer from tapes. These played hissy, bleepy sounds, (not entirely different from modem noises) which the computer would convert into code, allowing us access to all the miracles the BBC Micro could perform.
My brothers and I would fantasise at the idea of feeding the computer something really cool (like the star wars soundtrack) and seeing what wonders would spew forth from the monitor it was attached. Truly this would be the epitome of sheer computerised coolness.
Twenty-five years later Audiosurf has come along. A brilliantly simple cross between a "dropping blocks" game (like Klax or a simplified Tetris) and a track race game (F-Zero, Wipeout), with the genius bit being that it automatically generates the racetracks based on your music collection. You pick the song you want to listen to, slow bits are uphill, fast bits are downhill, and blocks are placed to be picked up with beats. And because it's always generated in the same way, you can compare your scored to people all over the world who have driven to that particular song.
The very, very best bit? It's $10 on Steam. Or a fiver of your hard-earned British pounds.
If that isn't the best use of a fiver this weekend then I don't know what is...
My brothers and I would fantasise at the idea of feeding the computer something really cool (like the star wars soundtrack) and seeing what wonders would spew forth from the monitor it was attached. Truly this would be the epitome of sheer computerised coolness.
Twenty-five years later Audiosurf has come along. A brilliantly simple cross between a "dropping blocks" game (like Klax or a simplified Tetris) and a track race game (F-Zero, Wipeout), with the genius bit being that it automatically generates the racetracks based on your music collection. You pick the song you want to listen to, slow bits are uphill, fast bits are downhill, and blocks are placed to be picked up with beats. And because it's always generated in the same way, you can compare your scored to people all over the world who have driven to that particular song.
The very, very best bit? It's $10 on Steam. Or a fiver of your hard-earned British pounds.
If that isn't the best use of a fiver this weekend then I don't know what is...
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no subject
Date: 2008-04-19 01:05 pm (UTC)So those of us that like listening to speed metal while playing racing games are basically in free-fall? Cool! :D
no subject
Date: 2008-04-22 10:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-19 08:12 pm (UTC)Any indication from playing it how the difficulty or nature of a given course relate to the music that's input into it - e.g. does something fast but fairly straightforward translate into a track that's got long straights?
no subject
Date: 2008-04-19 09:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-22 10:27 am (UTC)