Author: Noah Waldman

Noah Waldman is a media major at Hunter College who enjoys his games like his coffee: rich, energetic, and about 8 hours long.
News

Cheaply go where no man has gone before in Affordable Space Adventures

Nifflas, designers of atmospheric explorations games like Knytt Underground; and KnapNok, creators of games that challenge players with new ways of interacting with games like B.U.T.T.O.N. are partnering for a Wii U exclusive title Affordable Space Adventures. Right now looking like a cross between FTL and Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, the two studios are looking to deliver “an atmospheric, low-key, very suspenseful game that gets the players excited but a bit scared at the same time, and to have a game where a complex configurable vehicle is fun to figure out and control.” Nifflas and KnapNok want to make as much use of the Wii U…
News

This proves all musical instruments should have particle effects

Physical touch is something that’s been sorely missing as music has become more digital. You’re not going to see a producer going all Pete Townshend on his $10,000 dollar studio equipment. But a weird and wonderful acoustic research project by Felix Flair turns any hard surface into a tactical musical instrument, bringing back some digital-physical contact. The installation, called Contact, uses some fancy-pants tech like contact microphones, passive sonar, and waveform analysis to recognize precisely where and with what part of the hand a surface has been hit. The beating is then digitally and head-noddingly turned into music. Wrist and fingernail hits…
News

Bobsledding is officially the worst Olympic sport, because math

We don’t often analyze the design of sports as closely as other types of games, but taking a closer look at some of the games at the Olympics suggests that maybe we should. Ben Blatt over at Slate looked at the statistics for Bobsledding kept by the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation back through 2005 and found that for all four-man, two-man, and two-woman bobsled competitions, the leading team after the third of four runs has won 100% of the time. These odds are up from 70% after the first run, and 85% after the second. This means that the game is pretty…