Tag: psychedelic

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Karma. Incarnation 1 doesn’t hold back on the psychedelia

In AuraLab’s Karma. Incarnation 1, I’m controlling Pip. Or rather, I’m directing Pip along his journey. Pip is a worm-like creature, but he wasn’t always that way. Once upon a time, he was merely a lost soul. After his lover gets captured by an elusive Unknown Evil, Pip ventures off alone into a surreal world to get her back. But then he’s reincarnated accidentally as a worm, not a dragon as originally planned. And now here we are, Pip and I, bargaining with a dancing creature to trade a flower lei for the snowflake-encrusted light bulb I need that’s hanging on…
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A new videogame art gallery will consume you

Sign up to receive each week’s Playlist e-mail here! Also check out our full, interactive Playlist section. These Monsters (PC, Mac, Linux) BY STRANGETHINK Monsters with a psychedelic Rorschach test for a face. There are loads of them, sitting in framed portraits all around the walls of Strangethink’s latest procedurally generated galleries. Though motionless, these faces seem inescapable. Each black door you see generates another island of maze-like architecture (all ramps and stacks of oblong rooms), offering a chance—you might think—to warp you to a place with different scenery. But the only end here is happening upon a badly generated world…
The Artful Escape of Francis Vendetti
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Prepare for an “artful escape” into the world of psychedelic folk singers

The weight of artistic expectations, particularly in the era of peak content and endless aggregation, can be crushing. A story about the next big thing and why you should care (what to expect when expecting an album?) lurks around every corner. While some reactions to this scenario are better than others, no sane person can be expected to react with utter nonchalance. This question of how an artist responds to these pressures is both the text and subtext of The Artful Escape of Francis Vendetti. Let’s start with the former. Developed by Beethoven & Dinosaurs, The Artful Escape follows Francis Vendetti,…
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What effect do different drugs have on the Mario Maker levels you create?

Let’s face it, Mario doesn’t make much sense. He’s an Italian plumber living in a fantasy mushroom world which is populated by living toadstools and constantly under attack from a turtle dragon. Fans usually excuse this psychedelic setting out of an appreciation for the series’ gameplay and an exhaustion with how often it’s brought up by jokesters, but that doesn’t mean the topic isn’t worthy of discussion. Many have attempted to explain Mario’s weirdness through careful dissection, but others prefer a different approach. Perhaps the series’ most iconic power-up, the super mushroom allows Mario to grow larger and take an…
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How do cats see the world? This bewildering psychoscape has a rough idea

This cat is out of place. But maybe all cats are out of place. The one in Psychic Cat is probably no more suited to its environment than, say, my cat Smudge who fell through the roof of the greenhouse last year. The temptation was to call Smudge a klutz at the time (and let’s be fair, Smudge, you are an absolute dingbat at times). But it’s not his fault. We humans invented glass and the concept of a greenhouse. Imagine how strange glass is to a cat. Some hard invisible material that seems to trick light. Think of the puzzling…
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Download an artist’s psychedelic trip by stepping into Ixian Gate

With the invention of the internet and smartphones, many people now have the ability to pull a knowledge box out of their pocket and look at almost any great work of art at a moment’s notice. Remarkably convenient as this is, there’s still something to be said for going to a museum in person.  When viewing a painting with one’s own eyes, it can be easier to gain an appreciation for the scale and texture of the work, qualities which might not translate as easily to a JPEG. But still, museums always carry with them a sense of distance, as…
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Muse answers the question: What if John Lennon helped create Earthbound?

Announced at Kyoto’s Bitsummit 2015, Muse: Together is the New Alone is the latest from Pixeljunk Eden art/music director Baiyon. Developed and published by Pygmy Studio, Muse seeks to take players out of this world with its own unique spin on an unrequited love story. Muse takes notes from Zelda II as it tells the story of a young, small-town girl trapped in an eternal slumber and the boy questing to awaken her. When the boy discovers mysterious notes and paintings belonging to the girl, he follows them in hopes of bringing her back to the waking world, and finds…