Tiny Review: Octopounce

Created by Anna “Auntie Pixelante” Anthropy (Mighty Jill Off) and artist Saelee Oh, Octopounce was one of four indie PC games that debuted at the ARTXGAME portion of Giant Robot’s Game Over/Continue? show last April.

As Offworld’s Brandon Boyer mentions in his preview of the ARTXGAME titles, Octopounce was the only piece with an actual name. It was also the only game of the bunch that I tried out, as the other developers worked on their games up until the last minute before the show kicked off, as artists tend to do. Not that I should talk, considering I’ve put off this review for a month!

Octopounce allows up to four players to work with or against each other to catch the fish (and other sealife or birds) around them. Gulping a fish rewards you with “a blossom of sparkles” and makes your octopus brighter.

Four details that are fab:

1. The octopodes doze and drift in the sea, waiting for you to pick up a controller and rouse them. Even if only two players are around, they can bounce off the snoozing cephalopods’ heads to grab the fish.
2. Oh’s serene, cerulean backdrop and Anthropy’s pale squiggling sprites make a for a terrific scene to leave displayed on your monitor. It’s artwork (and a digital aquarium) that awakens as a game with a button tap.
3. Dozens of messages scroll at the bottom, some with instructions (“Hi, Green! Jump and catch fish!”), others inviting more players or describing the action (“Caught one!”, “Green is the brightest right now!”).
4. The ghostly swimmer that floats across the screen.

Two details that are butt:

1. I might recall this incorrectly, but the bouncing sound effects are reminiscent of Sonic the Hedgehog vaulting from a spring, which isn’t an issue itself, but hearing it so many times became annoying.
2. As with the other ARTXGAME pieces, Octopounce was available to the public for only one night! Organizer Adam Robezzoli, however, said a month ago, “It is possible that the games will be playable sometime in the future.”

Score:

• The most fun multiplayer game I’ve played all year (the only other multiplayer games I’ve played in 2009 are Resistance 2 and Jason Rohrer’s Between). My wife really enjoyed it, too!

See also: Tombed, Tiny Review: Calamity Annie

tags / auntie pixelante / artxgame / game over / octopounce / saelee oh / giant robot / review / ec

Why you need to visit Game Over/Continue

We’ve posted about Game Over/Continue? — a group art show paying homage to “the massive influence and continuous evolution of video games” — several times already, but now that the exhibit is open and that I’ve seen it with my own appreciative eyes, I’ll remind you again to stop by the gallery at Giant Robot if you’re in town.

In fact, I’ve outlined four things you can look forward to, should you attend the San Francisco show.

1. Classy game art:

The work featured at Game Over/Continue? represents a “wide assortment of styles and genres provided by top artists in the fields of illustration, painting, sewing, and indie comics” — unfortunately, my camera did not do a good job documenting this. The Ico art above is only a fraction of a much larger piece that you really need to see!

2. Playful game art:

My camera corrupted this re-imagined Super Mario Bros. 2 ending, but I’m posting it anyway because the photo still looks cool. Note that the playful and classy pieces aren’t mutually exclusive; I just want to warn potential visitors that you may encounter an image depicting an oral sex situation between Mario and Q*bert.

3. Game art that I bought

This is part of a three-piece collection created by a former Nintendo tester. According to legend, the series depicts several Virtual Boy games that were never released (possibly using forgotten art assets for the work?). Its 3D origins are accentuated in the pieces with a layered presentation emulating the VB’s parallax.

I didn’t purchase this particular one, but it was my only photo from the set that didn’t come out too blurry.

4. Art games

The ARTXGAME portion of the show presented four new video games created jointly by artists and indepedent game developers. The clip above is from Derek Yu and Hellen Jo’s strange brawler, which is titled Hellen & Calvin’s Bogus Journey, according to Electric Ant. ARTXGAME organizer Adam Robezzoli tried to explain the title to me, but I was too busy trying to come up with ways to steal his Attractmo.de shirt.

The only game I tried out myself was Octopounce by Saelee Oh and Sarah Anna “Auntie Pixelante” Anthropy. My wife and I enjoyed it a bunch — I’m hoping to write up a preview for it later once someone posts more photos of the game online, as I didn’t take any decent shots of it.

The show runs until April 15th, so there’s still time for you to head over there! If anything, you should visit Giant Robot just to see all the great shirts, books, and people they have over there.

Huge thanks to Giant Robot owner/publisher Eric Nakamura and Adam Robezzoli for giving my wife and I a personal tour of the exhibit — it was definitely one of the best highlights of our San Francisco trip last week.

tags / game over / octopounce / auntie pixelante / ico / artxgame / virtual boy / art / giant robot / ec