Regular readers will of course be familiar with my personal penchant for flying very vast down some tubes. But they might not be aware that Simon Carless of Gamasutra is a great big hippie. I say this because not only did he perform some kind of transcontinental high-five with Kieron over the Minterian splendour of Space Giraffe, but he also sent me a link to a flying-down-tubes-very-fast game, only this time the tubes were psychedelic. All of which preposterous preamble leads me to Brainpipe, a game of lysergic excellence by Digital Eel. Simon loves it, and I bet that’s because he lives in San Francisco with all the other draft-dodgers. You fly down a pipe, avoid some stuff, collect other stuff, and it all gets a bit trippy. There’s a demo too. Try it.
I, meanwhile, will go back to reviewing Men Of War. Men Of War. That’s a real game, with terrain and inventories. None of this colours and long hair and clever words stuff. Tsk.
29/12/2008 at 23:16 Heliocentric says:
Can you break embargo on men of war to confirm does the game contain men of war, or indeed a war of men, both?
29/12/2008 at 23:23 Pags says:
Sell it to me Jim, why should I give up Rez for this hippy-revelry with an admittedly cooler name?
Also, I would also like to hear confirmation as to whether Men of War will in fact contain men who are explicitly familiar with war.
29/12/2008 at 23:51 Okami says:
I’m greatly dissapointed, that Men of War is a game about men who seem to be fighting some war and not about the true kings of metal (wimps and posers leave the hall). It’s not even about nautical warfare in the warhammer world.
29/12/2008 at 23:52 DeliriumWartner says:
Tried it once and freaked out as it went from easy as pie to impossible in half a second, 30 seconds in. The controls are just the wrong side of sloppy and the pace is wildly variant. Still, quite pretty.
29/12/2008 at 23:53 john t says:
I think this game made me sprain my thought meats.
29/12/2008 at 23:54 The Poisoned Sponge says:
I was hoping it would be a jellyfish sim by Will Wright before he went all concerned with humans.
30/12/2008 at 00:09 oddbob says:
“Tried it once and freaked out as it went from easy as pie to impossible in half a second, ”
Yeah, this.
It’s so close to being ace but the random nature of it cripples it totally. Nearly every time I hit Coma it became entirely unplayable in no time whatsoever.
Which is either the worlds best joke or it’s fucked ;)
30/12/2008 at 00:10 Pags says:
So… thirty and a half seconds in?
30/12/2008 at 01:44 Shadowcat says:
Brainpipe is excellent fun!
The demo has two levels (which are #1 and #3 in the full game), and they are pretty sedate. Things are really picking up by level 5, and shortly thereafter the game can no longer be accurately described as a relaxing experience :)
So if you think the demo is neat, but just needs to be more hectic, then I’d encourage you to go ahead and buy it. The demo ends with ‘Coma’ which goes on until you die, which shouldn’t take too long. That’s NOT level 3, just to be clear.
The visuals are fairly simple in concept, but nicely done (screenshots are confusing until you see it in motion). I think that might be some kind of cellular automata animating the tube walls (shades of Dr Blobb there?), and all the glowy bits are suitable glowy. It also brings a new perspective to ‘first person’, by giving you a wire-frame (mind’s) eye to look out of :)
The audio is excellent, with different themes depending on the level and the intensity of the gameplay, and loads of other little samples (memories?) thrown out at you along the way. Just finding out what I was going to hear next was fun, as I progressed through the levels.
The visuals, audio, and gameplay combine well together as a package, with lots of effort clearly put into all three aspects, and it’s a lot of fun to smoothly swooping past, around, and through the obstacles — especially once things speed up, and they start to get more complex.
Finally, the tube layouts are randomly generated, so while the game doesn’t take too long to play, the sequences are always different. Classic Digital Eel style, in other words — quick to play, but you’ll keep coming back for more.
I recommend it.
30/12/2008 at 01:53 Shadowcat says:
And just to re-iterate (after reading some of the comments above):
‘Coma’ is intentionally impossible!
It’s not the next level of the game — it’s just a less abrupt way of ending the demo then your typical “you have finished the demo” screen.
30/12/2008 at 02:53 oddbob says:
That’s a bit of a silly thing to do then.
30/12/2008 at 03:11 Someone says:
That’s actually awesome.
30/12/2008 at 04:28 JerkFace says:
If you want a psychedelic game, see Tetroid 2012. It’s the most trippy version of tetris ever. (It’s kinda a big download due to the music, but it’s worth it)
30/12/2008 at 05:29 Dave says:
Whoah… thanks for that Tetroid 2012 suggestion. That is the weirdest form of Tetris I’ve ever played, and I love about half the music.
30/12/2008 at 05:34 df7 says:
Well, Tetroid 2012 just broke my brain. Thanks for that.
30/12/2008 at 05:53 Albides says:
Or nautical warfare in general; e.g. 1997 pc game [url=http://au.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/manofwar/index.html]Man of War[/url]
Why would they call it Men of War if it’s not about ships? That’s just silly.
This brainpipe thing though. Fun, even though I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing.
30/12/2008 at 09:52 Shadowcat says:
Flying through your own mind is what you’re doing (“who knew the subconscious looked so much like Las Vegas on acid?”, as the press release put it).
And, of course, transcending your humanity to reveal your true self. Just not in the demo version :)
30/12/2008 at 11:32 Gap Gen says:
Ceci n’est pas une brainpipe!
30/12/2008 at 13:39 qrter says:
Well, it’s missing the dashes.. if only it were called “Men-of-War”..
(I win the prize for giving a serious and slightly pedantic answer to a joke about something only peripherally mentioned in the original post. Of 2008.)
30/12/2008 at 19:05 shinygerbil says:
I think the plural for Man-of-War should be Mans-of-War anyway.
Hey, I can dream.
30/12/2008 at 19:49 BooleanBob says:
And if we’re going to be pedantic and accurate, it wouldn’t be a [plural of man]-of-war but a [collective noun of man]-of-war, surely?
I’m after your crown, qrter. There’s still plenty of hours left in 2008.
30/12/2008 at 20:29 Muzman says:
Don’t just about all of the “[collective noun of man]-of-war”s happen to be things like Battalion and Squadron and Division making the -of-war redundant?
and so began The 24 hours of Pedantry
30/12/2008 at 22:39 shinygerbil says:
Well, I was just trying to lighten the mood with some silly wordplay. :P
30/12/2008 at 22:48 Rose says:
Brainpipe is a blast and the guys behind the game are totally hawt.
30/12/2008 at 23:17 birf borkman says:
I don’t think pedantry is legal in this state.
30/12/2008 at 23:44 Tei says:
He.. thats a game from Ikka Keranen, the dude that created Airquake! :-)
30/12/2008 at 23:55 Tei says:
He also seems to contributed with levels and stuff to TF2. But no one is perfect.
31/12/2008 at 00:03 Nick says:
Airquake was great fun!
31/12/2008 at 00:49 phuzz says:
Tetriod reminded me in turn of Tetripz, which is Yet Another Tetris clone, with the added fun of being on drugs, right down to you wanting to puke after an hour or so :)
03/01/2009 at 23:26 Greg says:
I believe you meant fast, not vast, in your link to brain pipe. Fun game though.