Tag: state of play

KAMI 2
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KAMI 2 will let you create your own origami puzzles in 2017

State of Play is known for creating videogames out of physical materials. Their biggest to date is Lumino City (2014), an adventure game set across a mechanical metropolis that the team actually constructed out of paper, card, wood, miniature lights, and motors. Outside of that are smaller titles like INKS, which turns pinball into a form of painting, and KAMI (2013), a puzzle game made out of origami squares. The next game from State of Play is going to be KAMI 2, which once again is built from tiny pieces of colored paper, scalpels, and glue. Patience was also a crucial ingredient that went…
Far from Noise
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Far from Noise, an upcoming narrative game about nature and mortality

Transcendentalism and 19th-century American thought aren’t the typical influences in game design, but London-based programmer George Batchelor is prepared to overlook that. Though he works primarily for the BAFTA Award–winning studio State of Play, Batchelor moonlights as a game maker on his own personal projects, such as the forthcoming Far from Noise. A low-poly, warm-hued game in which the player takes on the role of a woman in her early 20s having a lengthy conversation with a deer, it promises both a rich narrative and more than a few surprises. After driving through the woods, the young woman loses control of her car and finds…
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The art of pinball

Sign up to receive each week’s Playlist e-mail here! Also check out our full, interactive Playlist section. INKS (iOS) BY STATE OF PLAY GAMES Pinball is something of a lost art. With the glory days of arcades and The Who’s rock opera Tommy (1969) behind us, the Pinball Wizard may appear to have lost his luster. But State of Play’s INKS is breathing new life into this arcane mode of play, by making the pinball machine double up as a blank canvas for painters. From the creators of Lumino City (2014), the game brings a similarly tactile approach to design. Instead of flashing colors, your ball hits…
Inks
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Inks will turn pinball into beautiful paintings

What’s the opposite of a pinball purist? Whatever it is, that’s me. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t mind pinball as a physical table game. It’s the translation to videogames that often bores me. The effort made is usually to simulate the table experience as accurately as possible. Yawn. This is a videogame—you are free of the bounds of the real world, do something else with the pinball format, geez. There have been a few examples of pinball videogames with a lick of something fresher over the years. Sonic Spinball (1993), Devil’s Crush (1990), Rollers of the Realm (2014); they…
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The conference schedule for Two5six is available now

Two5six, our annual conference and festival, is a three-day celebration of a life well-played. If you haven’t been to Two5six before, you still have several days to buy a ticket for our conference and other events. The final schedule is now available for our conference next Saturday, May 16th. You can view the full festival schedule on Two5six’s website. Saturday’s conference will bring together leaders from game design and other industries to discuss the connections between games and other creative spaces. Game designers David O’Reilly (Mountain), Kara Stone (Sext Adventure), and Torfi Frans Olafsson (Eve Universe) will share  the stage…
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The very real Lumino City will definitely be available next month

Lumino City finally has a release date.  We’ve been tracking the game for awhile. First we discussed the British origins of the beautifully handcrafted game, where “warmth” and “serendipity” encompassed the design process and a release date was still a fuzzy, far-off idea. Then we went on a whimsical tour through the real-life papercraft set of the game. Now we can report that it will be available for Mac & PC via Steam on December 3rd, 2014. The announcement was paired with a “Making of” exhibition across the pond. Curated by State of Play in collaboration with Gamecity, the exhibition featured…
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The almost-real Lumino City will be almost-really available next month

Lumino City, that gorgeous, handcrafted follow-up to Lume that we’ve been talking about for months, is now pegged for release in November. The London-based duo behind the game, have built an intriguing world out of cardboard, found objects, and laser-cut pieces, and then reassembled them into a big clockwork world. It straddles a weird divide of perfect recreation of imperfect objects. This year’s The Swapper similarly repurposed found objects to surprisingly emotive ends, and, while Lumino City is a much brighter affair, it looks to have a similar sense of purpose.  Anyway: we’ll find out next month.