These Rubik’s pixel portraits by Irish artist John Quigley are truly mind-boggling. Not only did he have to map out the precise pixel positions for each cube in these creations, he had to rotate the sides of each cube into exactly the correct color scheme to make it all work. To put it all in perspective, the Space Invaders scene above required a whopping 1,330 cubes.

And while Sonic only took 784 cubes to get his spiky blue hairdo, he’s still cool in my book. Not all of John’s creations require hundreds or even thousands of cubes either. Check out this Pac-Man scene, created from just 102 cubes – it still gets the point across just fine.

And Mario is no less fun, even though he only consumed 24 Rubik’s Cubes.

For obvious reasons, I’m drawn to his retro video game pixel creations, but I couldn’t leave you guys without showing you John’s unbelievable 2,622 cube portrait of Barack Obama.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Be sure to check out all of John’s amazing Rubik’s Cube creations over at the Neo-literal Cubist’s flickr page. He can also solve a Rubik’s Cube in 44 seconds.

The objective of Kobra Editing’s little Flash game Tetris’D is simple. Blocks fall from the sky  just like they do in the original ‘tris, except instead of controlling the blocks, you move a little stick-figure dude who’s about to be crushed by them-thar falling blocks. You can move and jump over bricks, and with enough practice, you can even wall jump while you’re moving through the air. All you’ve got to do is stay alive without being smooshed or falling off of the platform. But don’t let the simple premise fool you. This game will seriously kick your ass when you first pick it up.

Wanna give a shot? Jump on over to StickPage and get to some Tetris’D platform’n now’n. While you’re over there, be sure to check out Kobra’s accompanying Tetris’d stick-figure animations for an added diversion.

[via DownloadSquad]

The whole thing seems slightly impractical to me – with only that much height, and blocks that can rotate to any angle – I think the game would be over really quickly for me. For now I’ll stick to Topple.

[via Broccolicity]

Shipping this September, Donkey Kong Jenga doesn’t monkey with the orignial Jenga block stacking and removing gameplay. But I couldn’t think of a better way to spice up those boring plain wood blocks that the regular version of the game comes with. Sure, it’s a few bucks more than standard Jenga, but put Mario and Donkey Kong on anything, and I’ll gladly pay a couple of extra bucks for it.

You can pre-order Donkey Kong Jenga over at Amazon for $24.99.

[via Kotaku]

Each WoodPixel cube has a different shade of wood on each of its six sides, allowing you to create wood toned versions of your favorite pixel art. Sold in sets of 100 cubes and an accompanying 10 by 10 grid tray that holds your creations. The cubes measure 2cm (about 3/4″), and the tray is 26.5cm x 26.5cm (about 10″ x 10″), making this much more substantial than the plastic kits I’ve reported on before. No pricing information is available yet, but you can request pre-order information from orders@woodpixel.com.