First there was surfing. Then there was Surfing USA (Beach Boys). Then we could surf the radio, then the TV, then the Internet. Now we can Audiosurf.
Audiosurf.com is a website based around a game. To play, you upload a song you like, then Audiosurf turns the song into a playable game level.
The game is very simple. You are in a glider, going along a colorful track at a speed relative to your song. As the track twists with the music, you try to catch colored blocks and avoid grey ones. The level intensifies as the song intensifies, and it gets easier when the song gets lighter.
Audiosurf is a fun twist to games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. What Audiosurf has over them is that it allows you to use any song you want.
Audiosurf gameplay to I Fight Dragons' The Faster The Treadmill
Remember all those old video games you used to play on your NES and your Gameboy? Do you remember any of the controllers? You might recognize a few:
This video really says it all.
Chicago-based NES-Rock band (the first and so-far only of its kind) I Fight Dragons plays video game controllers as instruments. The controllers are hooked up to computers, and the buttons correspond to certain sounds, which are controlled by the computers. Other items include the standalone Original Gameboy, which is equipped with a Little Sound DJ Cartrige, which lets you program entire songs and play them back.
This is yet another example of technology not being used how it was intended, but in a completely new and interesting way. I Fight Dragons is truly innovative, and truly "nerdy" to be able to come up with this idea. They are an incredibly fun band, frequently drawing references to their favorite old videogames and dreaming about a sci-fi future.
IFD takes advantage of the Free Economy idea, giving out all of their songs to members of their mailing list. This helps them raise a fan-base. Apparently this was a good idea, because Imogen Heap found out about them and collaborated on a song with them.
Feeling nostalgic about your old games? Don't worry. IFD has a fun little game at the top of their myspace page where you, too, can fight dragons. It's simple, just like the old games.
YouTube has a gameshow. It's called Truth or Fail.
The way Truth or Fail works:
Each week, a famous YouTuber posts a video to the truthorfail account, which is run by none other than John and Hank Green.
The video contains two "facts", one of which is the truth, one of which is not the truth. You click on the one that you think is true, and it links you to another YouTube video.
If you picked the Truth, you are congratulated and told more about the trivia you picked.
If you Fail, then you are booed and again told more about the trivia option you picked.
Then the show continues, and you must pick the fact you think is True again.
This goes on for five rounds.
Beard Trivia with the Wheezy Waiter.
Truth or Fail is an interesting way to make a game on the internet, and more specifically, YouTube. It uses the hyperlink capabilities that the YouTube has (through annotations) to link you through a sequence of videos specific to your choosing. It is much like the choose-your-path books of the 1990's in this way. But this makes you to think about a question being asked, rather than asking you to choose a path. Something like this could, of course, be made in book-form. But having it in an online version is just a later evolution of this choose-your-path idea.
Truth or Fail also has a website that has links to all the videos.
