By Alec Meer on December 10th, 2010 at 5:52 pm.
Dejobaan, I hate you. I hate you because not only is the title of your latest game once again too long to fit into one of our titles and making a horrible mess of our tags (honestly, look at that disgrace below), this time it’s also far funnier than any headline pun we could make about it. So I don’t even bother trying.
“1… 2… 3… KICK IT! (Drop That Beat Like an Ugly Baby)”
UGLY BABY! Yeah, you win, Dejobaan. This time.
This is, in fact, the new title for the game formerly known as Musorqua, which Quinns got his leatherette knickers in a twist about last month. Now, it’s to be known colloquially as the more memorable Kick It! Or as the even more memorable Ugly Baby. Probably not as 1… 2… 3…, though.
Scores and falling and abstract shapes are once again the order of the day, but the brief here is that the point-collecting block-world you tumble through is procedurally generated based on whatever MP3 you feed it. Obviously the Audiosurf comparisons will be unavoidable, but to claim that no-one’s allowed to make a game which plugs into your music collection because someone else already did that is pretty much up with saying “well, the first recorded instance of someone being happy was in 1317, so no-one’s allowed to ever be happy again.” Hence, I EMBRACE AND WELCOME UGLY BABY.
Dejobaan have kindly fired over some preview code, about which the Hivemind will doubtless have things to natter soon, but in the meantime here’s what it looks like. But not what it sounds like. Because, obviously, it sounds like whatever you want it to sound like.
BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBO
If you’re suitably taken with the concept, you can preorder right now and get your hands on a three-level alpha build pretty much as instantly as old grandmother internet allows. Costs $10, which is apparently 33% cheaper than it’ll be at release.
Clearly, some people will want this on Steam and thus sweat big, fat worried droplets about what manner of download a pre-order gets them. By way of reply, I’ve stolen this dev comment from the YouTube thread: “If Valve accepts the game, and they say “hells yeah!” to our shifting over pre-orders, then we are absolutely game for that. Fingers are crossed!”
Awesome! Thank you for posting about us, Alec. :)
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Never change, you magnificent bastards.
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Dejobaan Games, you are my heroes.
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There is absolutely no conceivable way I can stop myself making a video of this ridiculous thing.
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TotalD, is it true that you made a radio cut to announce S2′s Savage? I kinda hear your name in there but I wasn’t sure.
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That and also narrated the tutorials for the game yes.
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In an incredibly bizarre twist of fate, I have the file:
http://rapidshare.com/files/436144556/Savage_2.mp3
It’s be in my music library for awhile. And no, no idea why it’s there either.
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Now that I read that, OF COURSE I knew that sexy voice.
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It’s drunken robot pornography.
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So, it’s basically AaAaAA!!!, only with procedurally generated levels?
Cool. I bought AaAaAA!!! yesterday and I’m loving it.
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I was literally just thinking how could AAAAaaAAAAaAH (etc) would be if the levels were procedurally generated by MP3′s. I bloody love Dejobaan games.
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Eeeeurgh. Bloody duplicate comments.
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Got AaAaaAaaAAA!!! on the steam sale. Suffice it to say I’m thoroughly convinced I should by this game too.
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What’s with the picture of Mark Twain flashing on-screen at 0:35?
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If it hadn’t been added it would have been notable by its absence.
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This is all tired and unoriginal. When are they going to truly innovate by exploring the concept of men with guns?
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Oh yes please will buy as soon it’s confirmed for Steam.
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Conversely, I’ll buy as soon it’s confirmed as not Steam-only.
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Just been dicking around with the alpha build – this is like-you-wouldn’t-believe good with Kanye West’s POWER.
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That was literally the first song I thought of when I saw this video this morning. I reckon it would go well with Monster and All of the Lights too.
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Could you please record the game’s reaction to some death metal? I really want to see the insanity :D
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Oh, look, a pre-order button. I wonder what it does *pushes button*
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Bought. Haven’t liked any play your own music game as much as Audiosurf, maybe this will be the one.
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All I have to say to this is :
AAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaAAAAAaaahhhhh!
Funny how a dejobaan game, even an unreleased one, can be recognised by a single screenshot.
Also, this trailer wins the award for best use of an unrelated Mark Twain portrait.
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Loved AAAAAAAAAAAAA – love the way Dejobaan do things ‘differently’ (cut and pasting comments into JPG files for replies etc. etc.!!)
I’m in here like Flynn…
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I just hope it’s better than AaAHAAaahahahhhhhfuck. Didn’t much care for that game.
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Did anyone else notice this?
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See Bureaucrat’s comment, a couple of comments above.
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See if you can find Abraham Lincoln too, found him accidentally on a pause.
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Really? That must be why I had this sudden craving for wearing stovepipe hats, last evening.
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I just spent the last 10 minutes trying to get the secret message.
“Secret concepts: Sensual pony; Sexy mice; Molybdenum; Samuel Clemens; That episode where the android and security chief make naught (You know the one I mean); There are more single women than men in many major cities, which is great, since I spent most of my life feeling largely unloved”
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WHat!! You mean I could have just scrolled down the comments and found this out!! Aaagh! :P
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I approve of the secret concept “Molybdenum”
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Well. I’m glad plimus.com took my money and then immediately stopped responding.
I just want video games. :(
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Yeah, for some reason it appears they’ll only send the email DAYS after the order. Fortunately I pressed the link to see a copy of the email and managed to snag the alpha
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No such luck for me, their payment receiving/processing system seems to be completely broken. I guess something in their backend is just cycling forever? The server doesn’t seem to be actually properly down but I’m not getting anything from it. Unless there’s something somewhere else entirely, I’m out of luck. Should have waited for the Steam version instead of trying to buy from some shitty fly by night outfit I guess. Maybe they’ll get around to it or maybe they’ll respond to complaints, we’ll see.
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Oh hey. After about half an hour of nothing, the “Thank you for your order” page lurched into existence. There’s no link to any copy of any email, but at least now I have reason to believe they actually know I gave them money. No mail yet, and I hope it won’t take days, but that’s good enough to calm down for now I suppose.
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Ah, yes, I seem to have received mine in the meantime so it won’t take days (though when I went to look at the copy on the website I think it said it wouldn’t be sent before the 12th) I wouldn’t be surprised if the system was a bit hammered earlier.
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I’m fairly certain nobody cares, but just in case I was scaring anyone away, despite my misgivings (fueled among other things by the “confirmation” page being titled “PayPal Transaction Canceled”) they did come through after a couple hours.
Game itself, well, it’s an alpha. Right now it’s more or less a more abstract randomly generated version of AAAetc with an integrated music player, which isn’t a bad thing to be, but I do hope the music becomes more relevant to the game later.
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Rowboat ,
I am a Marketing Manager at Plimus. Please drop me a line at billyr #at# plimus #dot# com and I’ll help you out.
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No worries, the situation already resolved itself – presumably your servers were just a little overburdened or something. Don’t take my raging above too seriously. Long week.
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That looks cool. I wonder when it will appear on OnLive? I got AAAAAAAAA! there.
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I think that’s probably unlikely, since it runs on your own mp3 collection. OnLive would have to license songs to use with the game, or come up with an upload system to use your own.
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Looks fun. Feeling too tight to slap down $10 though. I have way to many games to play from this year already.
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This is all well and good, but will we ever see Galaxy Rage, Dejobaan? I’m sad for the loss of that game, as it seems to be, since to me the concept looked both weird and brilliant to degrees that could almost be considered depraved. It was unashamedly ludicrous, it was Dejobaan on steroids, and I was looking forward to it way back when. I still have some sliver of hope that the project might be resurrected, some day. It was compelling, and interesting, and something that should exist just because it was so interesting. :C
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As some people already said, I got AaaAAaaaa! yesterday and I’m really enjoying it. I will pre-order this as soon as it gets on Steam.
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so…maybe this is due to them dubbing over the footage with unrelated music but…..couldn’t see any connection between the music and the levels layout.
that’s been the big let down with all the other audiosurf clones i’ve seen so far….the music seems to have little to no impact on the game.
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Well, this is a comment from the youtube comments which suggests it may one day be resurrected.
“Is this still happening or has it fallen way side to Ooo Ooo Ooo? It’s looks nutsy awesome with super fun tech :D
@robtotmedia We actually sorta cannibalized Galaxy to make Ooo!. Someday, I hope to do the reverse!
dejobaan 3 months ago”
EDIT- Argh, reply fail (though completely my fault I think)
That was aimed at Wulf
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I would buy the album with that country song on it.
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My god! Is there anything Ichiro Lambe can’t do!
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I dub thee: AaaaAAAAaaaaAAAAaaAAAAAaAAAudiosurf.
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Well done, sir. Very well done.
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+1 for ‘ugly tag’ tag
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Looks interesting. I love how Audiosurf syncs the game to the music, but I rather quickly got tired of the match-3 style gameplay. I’ve been wishing for a game to come along with the music-based procedural levels, but with more interesting gameplay. Here’s hoping this game can pull it off.
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I ordered it, no problems with the order process. Note that the email with the download link has a different sender (something generic like “support”) than the receipt email, so it might be easy to overlook.
After fiddling with it for an hour or so, here’s my first impressions:
- It’s still too rough and early in development for me to deicde it it’ll be a good game or not, but I see the potential for one.
- The shooting and manuevering gameplay mechanic is more appealing to me that Audiosurf’s “match 3″ gameplay.
- Sometimes streches of the levels are rather sparse with very little going on.
- There seems to be nothing to shoot at in some/most of the city types. It’d be more interesting if there were always things to both shoot at and steer for.
- The levels change with the song selected, but don’t “feel” particularly connected to the song in the way they sometimes did in Audiosurf. In Ugly Baby, some background elements might flash with the beat, but it’s not as connected as the way the road dips and bounces and rises and falls to the music in Audiosurf. The time it spends analyzing the song is quite short. I suspect that is part of why the levels don’t feel so connected to the songs.
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So it’s “AAAAAaAAAAaaAAAaaaAAaaaaAaaaaa” crossed with Audiosurf?
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AAAAAaAAAAaaAAAaaaAAaaaaAaaaaadiosurf! would have been too ridiculous a title.
Although… I could see the gameplay working!
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Two things that made me laugh within the first five minutes of starting up the alpha – Lambe’s wonderful autograph, and clicking the WAT button. Never has WAT been more appropriate.
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What I’d like is an MP3 of the full song used for TAPtapTAPtapTAPtapTAP- the video released earlier this year.
That said, this is a buy for sure. It’s AAAAetc, with my music! The only question is what to listen to first…
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Me too. Here’s a guy nearly acing it on YouTube, you can basically hear everything.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIGS3SHoPCA
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I have no idea what is going on in that video, but I like it.
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Many thanks, Oak. Time to break out the ol’ YouTube ripper.
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I think this is one of the games included in the mission in snowdriftland game, you get a nice wallpaper of this game if you finish lv 6 and an mp3 track which I haven’t listened to yet, looks cool and I will be checking it out.
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Dejobaan games have a ridiculous amount of good-will credit with me, preordered.
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And here’s me just off playing some Audiosurf… ah well, *preorders*
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Y would u drop ugly babby?
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So messed around with it for a while over the last hour or so. While there’s definitely some work to do woth intensity and beat matching the game looks absolutely lovely and definitely has the potential to play brilliantly too.
The game mode that excited me most of the ones currently offered is a mode currently called Genome City, which allows you to mess with some of the generators attributes to creat a wide variety of different levels of various shapes, sizes and colours. it definitely adds something new rather than just chasing high scores and the ability to tweak things to your own preferences a bit more is definitely welcome. Plus it makes it a satisfying moment of discovery when you find a song that plays really well with a particular combination. I definitely approve.
So yeah, promising game, could be absolutely brilliant come final version.
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Ooh, I saw your thread on the Kick It forum, and I thought “hey, that’s Lambchop, off of the comments at RPS..” and I won’t lie to you, I swooned, just for a moment. I really did.
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this is great i love the content
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Needs global per-song leaderboards, so RPS can have comment-thread high-score fights. Again.
Though surely this has already been thought of….
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Since we’re doing suggestions, it might be interesting to have a mode where it just play a random file from anywhere on your pc, rather than one you pick yourself.
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But what does it have to do with the episode where the android and the security chief get it on???
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Alestorm, Alestorm and yet more Alestorm.
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Having bought and loved AaAaAA!!! a while ago, while simultaneously crushing on Dejobaan as developers the whole time (I do slip into your homes and stroke your hair at night, softly whispering to you all the while in 16th century French), I was almost certain that I’d be picking this up.
The fact that this trailer left such a grin on my face certifies my intentions. Honestly, I <3 the sense of playfulness. Woo!
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Aye, when’s the “Wuthering Heights” high score competition going to kick off?
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But how will this work for us super-duper modern people who use Spotify for all our music needs? That sort of prevented me from having fun with Audiosurf as well, since I’ve sort of left my 80+GBs of music on my old computer and I really, really don’t want them back.
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This is all well and good (with fast ship, even), but is there dropping of anything like an ugly baby involved?
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or a beat?
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Drop that baby like an ugly baby
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Great. Now we look like proper mentalists.
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