Hey, guys! I’ve been teasing/bugging you for a little while now about the new show I’m launching – now I can actually give you information on it. Please watch the whole video, let me know what you think and please subscribe to the new channel!

http://www.youtube.com/newchallenger

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When Activision shut down Bizarre Creations last November, a lot of folks were pretty upset, to say the least. Even the normally stone-faced games press were visibly confused and actually kind of angry at the decision. They couldn’t be gone, could they? This was the studio that made Metropolis Street Racer! They made Project Gotham Racing! They made Geometry Wars!

Well, one of them did. Geometry Wars creator Stephen Cakebread is that dude, and now, he’s one third of the new English developer Hogrocket. Launched in late March with ex-Bizarre compatriots Pete Collier and Ben Ward, Hogrocket is a three-man indie ‘microstudio’ who are already well on their way to completing their first game.

Oh, also: I interviewed him! I actually took the words from that interview and put them here on this website, so now you can look at them if you want. You’re welcome.

Why indie? Bizarre Creations was a relatively big studio at 200 employees, and transitioning from that atmosphere to being just three guys working together seems like it could be jarring! What appeals to you most about going the independent, small-studio route?

Bizarre was always very proactive about researching new ideas and creating game prototypes with small teams internally; at least, up until we were purchased by Activision. So, for me at least, the move to becoming a small independent wasn’t so jarring as I’d been jumping between large and small teams for the last 10 years!

But while we had much more creative freedom on these smaller teams, the one big problem was pitching these games to publishers. The more the games deviated from the standard model, the less publishers were interested.

So for me, the advantage of working in a small independent studio is that we not only have the creative freedom to create what we want, but also the freedom to publish what we want.

So was the creation of Geometry Wars a result of this “small teams” culture at Bizarre? How did it end up sneaking its way into PGR2 to begin with?

Well, saying Bizarre had a small team culture is probably a little strong; Bizarre’s focus was big teams and big games, but even with that focus there was usually a smaller team along side the larger ones experimenting away.

Unf.

Surprisingly, Geometry Wars sprang into existence outside of any team at all; it started life as an off-the-cuff application I wrote to test some code, and slowly morphed into a game as I worked on it now and again in my spare time. It grew into a form that resembled the easter egg that shipped in [Project Gotham Racing 2], and slowly found its way onto several peoples machines at work where they would play it at lunch.

Towards the end of PGR2 development, the team was looking for a few easter eggs to add to the game for people to find; one of the producers having seen people playing Geometry Wars suggested we use that as it seemed popular in the office! So arguably GW’s inclusion in PGR2 was something of an afterthought, it was never planned from the beginning; just something we threw in at the end because we thought people might like it!

When Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved launched on Xbox Live Arcade, it pretty much became the first downloadable console hit ever. How do you feel about the impact Geometry Wars has had on downloadable games as a whole?

I don’t know how much impact, if any, Geometry Wars has had on the downloadable space as whole, as before GW was released it wasn’t something I paid any particular attention to, so it’s difficult for me to compare. It certainly did better than we ever expected it to; and I suspect that took more than just us by surprise, so perhaps in that way it did help show developers the early potential of XBLA.

Any slight pangs of guilt whenever you see yet another twin-stick shooter come out?

No guilt. I feel proud, like a mad scientist whose just released replicating nanobots on the world; sure, there’s a lot of them, but look how pretty they all are!

Fair enough! So what’s your personal favorite mode in Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2?

That’s a difficult one – I enjoy them all for different reasons! For example, I enjoy Waves for the speed of the game, you can have several intense games in the time it takes to do one run of another mode; Sequence I enjoy for that feeling of precision execution when you manage to rinse a level for maximum points.

All things considered, Bizarre has a history of putting out relatively “hardcore” games. With Hogrocket focusing on iOS development, it seems like you’re going after an entirely different market. What sort of things do you need to take into account when making games for the iOS audience?

I don’t think the overall process or technology of creating a game changes much based on whether your targeting hardcore, or casual players; you still need to prototype, iterate and play test; and iOS is just the same as any other platform really, it has its pros and cons that we’ll try to take advantage of, or avoid, just as we would when working on the 360 or PS3. Of course, the ideas, game mechanics, and art that players will find appropriate or engaging changes as you move through the spectrum of hardcore to casual, but by testing and iterating on our designs we can find out what works and what doesn’t. The process is very much the same, it’s the results that differ.

“Hogrocket” is the result of a name generator Ben Ward created just for you guys, right? Any chance you’ll release that to the public? Or, at the very least, generate a couple new names for us? “Bytejacker” is a great name, obviously, but if you have any suggestions, we’re all ears…

Yeah, we were running out of name ideas that weren’t either rubbish or taken so we decided we needed some machine help! Ben still has it; we’ve had a couple of requests to put it up, so he’s going to get it online “Soon”, so keep an eye on our website for all your indie naming needs! I wouldn’t suggest getting naming help off of us! But… How about Hogjacker, as everything is better with bacon, right?

It seems between Hogrocket‘s Ben Ward and Size Five Games‘ Ben Ward, London now has two indie Ben Wards to deal with. Which is the better Ben, and why?

Well, if you’re suggesting a fight along the lines of two indies enter, one indie leaves… then my money would be on Hog Ben as he used to play hockey. :)

Can you give us even the slightest, subtlest hint of what you guys are working on over there? The curiosity is killing us!

If I told you about it, I’d have to encrypt this interview, and then by the time you’d cracked it we’d probably have released the game already! (Also, there’s a good chance we’ll both be dead and future generations are going to be really disappointed when they finally manage to open this document they’ve been working on decrypting for so long.)

Understood. Thanks for taking the time to talk to us, Ben!

Whoa! Blip Festival 2011 is here, and it’s happening RTFN (google it)!  We’ll be shooting tons of footage over the next three days: interviews, performances, etc. But if you’re looking for something a bit more immediate, we’re also liveblogging the entire thing! For the next 72 hours, you can peep the box below for comments from myself, Anthony and Jon describing the Fest’s festivities in positively ornate detail. It’s exactly as exciting as it sounds.

Oh, also: if you’d like to vicariously experience Blip Fest 2011 in an even more intense way, you can listen to the entire weekend’s performances streamed totally live and totally free courtesy of WFMU, from the comfort of your own computerbox! It’s the future, y’allz.

It’s time to quit messin’ around, y’all. Blip Festival 2011 is a mere 5 days, 5 hours, 7 minutes and 57 seconds away, which we know with absolute certainty thanks to this stress-inducingly precise countdown timer set up by Ten Thousand Free Men & Their Families. Oh, that reminds me: he’s gonna be selling eight hand-crafted unique pizza-themed 5″ vinyl singles at Blip, and that’s gonna be the only way to get them, so…

Okay. Let me back up for a second.

For the uninitiated: Blip Festival is essentially an annual(ish)  three-day chipmusic party organized by 8bitpeoples and The Tank. There are Blip Festivals all over the planet each year, but Blip NY is, bar none, the biggest chiptunes event in the world. In case I’m being at all unclear: IF YOU CARE ABOUT CHIPMUSIC, YOU SHOULD TRY SUPER HARD TO BE IN NEW YORK NEXT WEEK.

Also, we’ll be there! Bytejacker! And you! Hangin’ out! For real! (By “we,” I mean myself and Anthony. And also, if you’re good, maybe a little bit of Jon.) Expect videos, interviews, video interviews and all the good stuff in between.

If the draw of partying with me and Anthony isn’t enough to lure you in, click the poster on the right for the full line-up. No, you’re not reading that wrong. Yes, that is 30 different chipmusicians and visualists packed into three days. No, it’s not too late to get tickets.

The festival technically starts on Thursday, May 19 and runs from 8pm to midnight every night, but if 12 hours of chiptunes in three days isn’t enough to satisfy you, there’s plenty of other chip-happenings in New York next week:

•  Call it Blip Festival, Day Zero: Sabrepulse is having a release party at Monster Island Basement in Brooklyn on Tuesday, May 17 for his new EP “Close To Me”, where he’ll be playing alongside The J Arthur Keenes Band, cTrix, Henry Homesweet, Je Deviens DJ En 3 Jours, cTrix and Sievert. That’s one hell of a line-up, especially for $10. Doors open at 8 pm. Hit it up big!

•  Wonderful chipmusic blog True Chip Till Death is having their annual awards gala at The Tank on Wednesday, May 18! Distinctions include Best Label, Best Song, Best Mixed Media Work and more. It’s an open mic event, so artists will be pulled at random.  Also: the awards are gonna be hosted by this guy. The open mic bit will be hosted by someone even crazier: Facundo. If you’ve met him, you know what I’m talking about. Ten bucks to get in, unless you have a Blip Festival three-day pass, in which case: totally free! Believe it!

•  Blip ends when the clock strikes twelve, but that don’t mean the party stops, y’all. After Blip wraps up each night, Brooklyn indie arcade Babycastles will be hosting afterparties every night from midnight to 4 AM! Planned festivities include “games, Indian food, and live music / DJ sets.” Okay, then! Each night will be curated by a different organizer: Thursday’s afterparty will be assembled by Motherboard.TV, Friday’s by Gigantic Magazine and Saturday’s by tylerperrysofficialwebsite.com. Which is an excellent name for a website.

I’m pretty sure we’re all gonna need the literal biggest nap when next week is over. But it’s gonna be so worth it. See you guys there, you guys!

No, that headline isn’t an exaggeration. It’s a fact. Here’s the trailer for Kobold’s Quest, a game currently seeking bankroll on 8-Bit Funding that is, according to the creators, “New Super Mario Bros. Wii, but with the promised consumption of a superb banquet of fresh nubile baby meat.” See? Told you!

Looks pretty fun, doesn’t it? It appears to be one of those co-op-until-it’s-not games in the same vein as Four Swords Adventures or, uh, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, but with Wario Land: Shake It!‘s level escape mechanic, but multiplayer. And hey, if working together with friends to progress through a level then proceeding to beating the crap out of each other on the way back while vying for possession of an infant doesn’t sound like your idea of a good time, you straight-up don’t even know what the word ‘fun’ means.

Honestly, competitive co-op is a genre that feels like it still has plenty of untapped potential, and it totally makes sense that indie developers would be the ones to explore that. And I don’t know about you guys, but for me and my friends, the Xbox Live Indie Games section has become a haven for great local co-op experiences. Battle Havok? Blockey? Snake360? B.U.T.T.O.N.? The Xbox Live Indie Games section has given me more memorable ad-hoc experiences than anywhere else this generation, and if this game gets funded, it looks like it could continue that tradition.

Oh yeah, the funding! Kobold’s Quest is under development by SuckerFree Games, creators of Dungeon, an XBLIG/PC beat-’em-up that reached full funding on Kickstarter startlingly fast. As of this writing, Kobold’s Quest has only $11 of the $1000 in development funds they’re trying to raise in order complete the game, but let’s see if we can’t change that.

If you’re put off on contributing because you’ve never used 8-Bit Funding, don’t stress – it’s fundamentally identical to Kickstarter. And yes, that means that if the game reaches funding, you’ll get various perks depending on your contribution. Potential prizes include mini-posters, beta access, pins, a namedrop in the credits (or in the game world itself) and more! Of particular interest to cheapskates myself is the $5+ donation level, which ensures you a PC copy of the game once it’s released into the wild! Excellent.

If you’d like to help fund Kobold’s Quest, click the widget on the right and pledge the amount of your choice. I, for one, welcome our new Kobold overlords. (Sorry.)

As of today, playing your Steam copy of BIT.TRIP BEAT results in something kind of strange and awesome happening: it’s been infected by Portal‘s GLaDOS, who has added an entire new level to the game. Worse still, it appears that BEAT is not the only victim of GLaDOS’ bizarre machinations.

But first, here’s some footage of what she’s done to the Gaijin guys’ game. Peep the trailer embedded below for some idea of what to expect:

BEAT wasn’t the only Steam game to receive a weird update today, though. A ton of titles from the 13-game indie bundle The Potato Sack have received strange, largely unexplained patches. Among the changes included in these patches are a “new expansion” for Amnesia featuring ”20% more horror and 10% less cake,” seven new stages for The Ball, Companion Cube blocks in Rush, and a Chell-themed ship for Audiosurf. Huh.

If you want up-to-the-minute updates on what exactly is going on here, valvearg.com launched a Twitter account an hour ago called @PotatoFoolsDay for keeping up with these Potato Sack shenanigans. According to Gaijin’s blog post, the endgame in all of this is potentially getting Portal 2 released early, which is an exciting prospect for everyone! Well, everyone who plans on getting the game via Steam, at least.

Since most of this has gone down in the past couple hours, there is still plenty of stuff to be uncovered. Me, I’m gonna go dip into my Potato Sack games and see what’s been changed. Exciting!

In the mood for a brief, slightly heartwarming story? Here’s how the GIF on the left happened: indie developer Andrew McCluskey (best known as NAL) was messing around with the engine of his Free Indie Rapid Fire-winning game madnessMADNESSmadness this morning when he happened upon a pretty interesting piece of, for lack of a better phrase, visual madness.

“As I often do, I was screwing about with potential graphical gimmicks. I was kinda looking to get a spiral effect – [what I got was] nothing like what I wanted, but it looked cool nevertheless,” McCluskey told us.

As to whether or not this zaniness will find its way into an NAL Games release in the future, McCluskey is still working out the details.

“In its current state, I’m not sure,” he said. “But I’d definitely like to do something along those lines – a level that generates with you in an interesting-to-look-at way.”

Interesting-looking is right – this makes Cactus’s Tuning look downright straightforward!

For those of you who have still yet to play madnessMADNESSmadness (or any of its variations), you can get the portable version Maddening in any of three flavors: iPad ($0.99 / free), iPhone ($0.99 / free) or Android  ($0.94 / free)! For those who have yet to move into the future, the original is still available to play free of charge on YoYoGames.com.

(Thanks for talking to us, Andrew!)

So the TIGSource Versus Competition has finally drawn to a close, and after two weeks of voting, we have a winner:  Beau Blyth’s 0space. And I can tell you with certainty why it won: it’s because it’s very, very fun. For real.

0space, if you hadn’t heard, is a supremely good two to four-player local multiplayer arena zero-gravity combat game. If all those adjectives strung together don’t paint a perfectly clear image of what it’s like, this video from a beta version ought to help:

The game is an absolute blast to play in two-player; the one-hit death mechanics and semi-disorienting gravity mechanic make every round totally frantic, and you’ll probably end up laughing more than once per match. I haven’t gotten the chance to play with more than one other person yet, but SPOILER: IT PROBABLY GETS PRETTY CRAZY.

My favorite thing about 0space, though, is too good to tell you about. Suffice it to say that after each round, you get to watch a replay of the action, and there’s an undisclosed feature of those replays that will probably make you totally happy.

Yeah, a more cynical person might hypothesize that the name was picked because putting a zero in the title of your game ensures it top alphabetical billing in the list of submissions. But when the game’s this good, it doesn’t really matter. Not that the competition was any slump, either; the second and third place winners, Masjin and Jesus vs. Dinosaurs, are two super cool entries. Also worth checking out are Draknek’s Tetris Fight Club and The Battle for Planet Goonob, the former of which now has a highly polished post-comp version that includes original music, and the latter of which is an Ashley Gwinnell / Ricky Haggett collab which somehow garnered zero votes. Like, what? Is there no justice in this world?

At any rate, Blyth is someone we at Bytejacker have a long and storied history with: his games have been repeatedly featured in Free Indie Rapid Fire, but for whatever reason, have yet to take first place. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride, eh, Beau?

Well, not anymore! Congratulations to Beau and all of the competition’s winners, and make sure to go and play some 0space right the heck now!

Update (3/28/2011): Surprise! Late last night, Team Teamwork decided to let his new album out a few days early. Meaning? SUPER NINTENDO SEGA GENESIS is now available for download on the official site. And don’t neglect  that “pay what you want” button, y’all. Homeboy needs your support!

I’ve got good news and better news. First, the good news: Team Teamwork’s new 16-bit mashup album Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis is set to drop April 1st. The better news? You can stream the album in its entirety, right here, right now. Yes, for real!

And surprise: Team Teamwork done done it again. Originally titled SUPER NINTENDO SEGA GENESIS (WHEN I WAS DEAD BROKE, MAN, I COULDN’T PICTURE THIS) but eventually shortened (because, dude, that’s kind of a long album name), the album title is both a reference to the Biggie line in “Juicy” and an indicator of the album’s contents: delicious, delicious mashups of Genesis and SNES-era game tracks with both old-school and contemporary hip-hop. You read right: unlike Ocarina of Rhyme and Vinyl Fantasy VII, this album isn’t constrained to one game, and as a result, you’ve got tracks like Sonic 3′s Carnival Night Zone and Guile’s Theme from Street Fighter II getting mashed up with classic rap songs, to glorious results.

Super Nintendo Sega Genesis by teamteamwork

If you’re new to Team Teamwork, don’t be shocked when those songs you think you know sound significantly altered on the album. Like Team Teamwork’s previous two game-themed releases, there’s layers upon layers of careful production on every song, from percussion to autotune to chopped and screwed vocals. This ain’t your average mashup album.

Actually, if you go read our interview with Team Teamwork from last year, you might pick up on another playful easter egg he’s tucked in this time around. Remember the Aeris bit from track 5 of Vinyl Fantasy VII? Well, track 5 of Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis includes a similarly cute nod to the sample’s source. Dope!

It goes without saying that like all of Team Teamwork’s previous albums, this one will be free of charge. That said, if you’d like to give something back for the album you’ll inevitably be bumpin’ for the rest of 2011, head to the Downloads section at tmtmwrk.com, where you’ll find download links for all of his past records as well as PayPal donation links. Go show some appreciation!

Hey, remember Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet? There was that amazing first trailer in mid-2009, then pretty much nothing until PAX East earlier this month. But man, when those PAX floodgates opened, a lot poured out, including a playable demo on the show floor and 10+ minutes of HD gameplay.

However, one of the last things to trickle out was an extremely candid interview from Giant Bomb’s Brad Shoemaker, who got a chance to talk to both Joe Olson, head of Fuelcell Games, and Michel Gagné, the animator responsible for the game’s surreal and very specific sense of style.

This is definitely my favorite interview out of PAX East this year. So many crazy little things: the fact that Olson specifically asked Gagné to stay as inexperienced with video games as possible, the fact that the game isn’t out until this summer but they’re already working 100-hour weeks, the bit about how Fuelcell’s art director has the task of emulating Gagné’s art style. Oh! And the bit about how downloadable development enables them to work almost up until the point it’s released. Yeah, this whole interview is fascinating as hell, and the entire thing is worth watching.

Remember, by the way, that when we last wrote about Shadow Planet in March 2010, it had already been in development for three years at Fuelcell. I don’t know, you guys. This seems like a special one.