Oh, Bill – just as gruff somehow, even when reduced to a pile of pixels. All of the original cast are recognizable in this version, though they surely are giant-headed. Okay, it’s just poor Louis who has a really giant head (or seems to) in this de-make of the co-op zombie apocalypse, but man. It seems to me that having a giant head in a situation like this – one in which your teammates have guns and don’t always know how best to use them – is one hell of a liability. A big one.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Eric Ruth plans to release the game next month, but in the future, he’ll be concentrating on a few other de-makes. His hopes include Halo and Psychonauts. Let’s hope everyone takes the homage as well as Valve has.

[via Zombie Command]

The game puts you in the role of both the hammer-wielding Maniac, along with the boulder he knocks from the earth when he bashes the mallet into the ground. The objective of the game is simple. Steer the unleashed boulder to wreak as much havoc as you possibly can as it careens down the mountainside to the town below.

Your boulder bounces off of trees, cars, and woodland creatures as it makes its way to the little town below. Think of it like Pachinko meets Burnout’s addictive crash mode meets any game you ever played on your Atari 800. There’s even a bonus level that involves smashing forest rangers and armed guards with your hammer. How can you resist?

So what are you waiting for? Head on over to adult swim games and check out Mountain Maniac now. Smashy, smashy!

[via Indie Games]

That doesn’t look so hard, right? If you run across a good deal on a lot of toilet paper, maybe you can even make your own, right? Creator Beru Betto’s even provided a template for you to use, with all sorts of variations, too… including the Prince from Katamari Damacy. Rolled up from rolls. It seems almost too perfect.

Here’s a look at the patterns provided:

Note that the pattern isn’t necessarily toilet paper specific–you could use all sorts of items. But now that you’ve seen this version, why do anything else?

[via Sprite Stitch]

If you’ve seen the trailers before then you’re probably familiar with the graphics, but I believe this is our first glimpse at the HUD and controls of the game. Also, BIG-ASS SWORD!

I don’t know why this dude and his MegaBastard Sword only appears at the very beginning of the game – although it seemed like whoever was playing could control Sir Huge Sword here, note that the HUD is absent – but according to 1UP’s Kevin Gifford, players will be able to customize and  swing huge swords. But of course, even heroes have to start somewhere – here’s the puny little fight stick the king gives the hero as he starts on his quest:

According to the same 1UP article that I linked to above, players will be able to choose from three archetypes – the Hero, the Prince, and the Adventurer. If you like none of those three, you can make your own hero, dot by dot, and even customize its animation. Going back to the footage, here’s the world map, which is very reminiscent of Link’s Map in the first Zelda, except that this one is pseudo-3D:

All in all, the game does have a very old school feel, but the cute graphics will probably lure in kids as well. Gamersyde is have bandwidth problems so they’ve disabled embedding for now, meaning I can’t post the video here, but all you have to do is go here to watch the high quality version, and here for the low quality one. You can also download the video if you want.  The Japanese version of 3D Dot Game Heroes just dropped this week; a North American release is coming, but we don’t know when exactly.

When a graphic designer and a video game programmer get married, this is what happens: a profusion of pixels. Not only did the bride walk down the aisle clutching the above bouquet, but the wedding also featured custom 8-bit cake toppers and jewelry for the wedding party.

Perhaps the best part? They made it all themselves. How better to control the exact outcome?

Of course, doing-it-yourself doesn’t always mean you’re saving money. Bride Donelle reports that working within a modest budget was one of the couple’s motivations for their custom wedding, but their DIY efforts cost more than expected. Looking at the final result, though, I’d say it was worth it.

[via Offbeat Bride]

The bigger Mega Man is almost two feet tall–and would look awesome on the wall–but I personally find this a lesson in the truthfulness of the old bigger-is-not-always-better saw. Giant Mega Man is pretty cool, but adorable early Mega Man remains the cutest thing to come out of video games.

So for me, little Mega Man wins the day. He has slain Goliath. But whether or not you think size matters, one thing is certainly true: there are a lot of beads in that picture.

[via Sprite Stitch]

The objective of PixelPop is simple. You just stand there in your hot pink Japanese super hero leotard, gyrating your hips to the music. Watermelons fly by and you karate chop them as they whiz past. Sounds like a typical day to me.

All you do is click the mouse to the beat of the music to chop them in half. Simple enough, right? As the game progresses, the fruit starts flying fast and furiously, and the the watermelons are replaced with just slightly more elusive apples. Oh yeah, and if you happen to try and karate-chop one of those flying bombs – here’s what you’ll see…

So what are you waiting for? Head on over to Nitrome and play some PixelPop now.

Pixel art is a funny thing: it’s both simple and complicated. Artist and Sprite Stitch forum poster Brit.knee reports that, in order to create these paintings, she found beadcraft images or old screenshots and blew them up so that she could count the pixels required to make each picture. After that, it’s a matter of creating a grid on the canvas and “sketching” the piece out that way.

Me, I always like the little details in work like this, and here it’s the hearts on Link’s “screen” that bring a smile to my face. I can picture that screen immediately to the right from the starting point in The Legend of Zelda, and my first encounter with the Octoroks. Good times.

[via Sprite Stitch forums]

Now you too can embellish your bedroom wall with a constant reminder of exactly how to increase speed, drop down and reverse direction – just in case you need to do that sort of thing for your job.

The guys at Blik Surface Graphics have now turned Neil Gregory’s hilarious A Simple Plan Threadless t-shirt into a set of vinyl wall graphics you can apply to any room. The complete set comes with 43 colorful wall decals, and instructions to build out your Invader army. When it’s all finished, the design measures in at approximately 60″ wide by 45″ tall, and looks great on any wall – although I think it looks best on a dark colored surface.

The set is available now over at Blik for $45 (USD).

Retro game maker/Futurama fan Shinobi is putting the finishing touches on a playable homage to the hysterical scene that features aliens from the planet Nintendoo 64, ready to bear down on Earth with all three of their different kinds of ships. The game is still a work-in-progress, but Shinobi has been kind enough to post a brief video clip of the game play.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

There’s no word yet on when you’ll be able to download the game, but it’ll be available over on Shinobi’s Place in the not too distant future (hopfully, we won’t be waiting until the 31st century). In the mean time, sit back and enjoy the original clip from Futurama, courtesy of Comedy Central.

Increase speed, drop down and reverse direction!

[via Retro Remakes]

Designed by Daniil Dadiomov for Russia’s Art Lebedev Studio, these Digitus address numbers get their chunky, funky shapes from the classic bitmap computer fonts of days gone bye.

I’m pretty sure this was the same font that my old Atari 800 used when I was programming PEEKs and POKEs in Atari BASIC. Ok, now I’m really dating myself.

Digitus address numbers are available in 5 colors – white, terracotta, and metallic blue, green and magenta (although I’m not quite sure what colors are pictured on the doors above). You can find them over at the Art Lebedev store for just $5.77 (USD) each.

Got 256 old 3.5-inch floppy disks lying around the house? I can’t think of a better use for a bunch of floppies but to make a giant 16×16 pixel art Pinky ghost mosaic out of them. Can you?

[via GamOvr]

The gang’s all here… even that horrible dog from Duck Hunt. If only I could use that Zapper to shoot him in the face.

Quilter byneedleandthread has been working on the quilt since last summer, apparently (it was made as a gift!), and used available sprite patterns for some of the blocks, while others–like the Zapper and the Nintendo logo–were designed just for this project.

[THE Nintendo Quilt via Sprite Stitch]

Brazilian designer Anderson Horta’s Clicking Kitchen Grip oven mitts are inspired by the little pixels of the hand cursor from your computer.

It’s too bad that there’s no way to make version that turns into an hourglass or a spinny beachball while your food is cooking, into an arrow when you can’t pick something up, and a closed hand when you grab your pots and pans. Damned non-virtual world!

Still, they’re pretty cool, IMHO. You can get your grubby little mitts on these anything-but-grubby, not-little mitts from Bazar Design for $24,80 Brazilian Real (appx. $11 USD). You can contact them directly for information on international delivery.

[via Designboom via Inspire me, now!]

The Luminodot has an insanely dense grid of capable of holding about 3500 light pegs (more than twice as many as the original Lite-Brite).  Thanks to its grid of 70 x 50 individually addressable locations, you can create much more detailed scenes than you could ever with the original.

The Luminodot features a bright LED backlight, which not only offers full-on illumination, it can be set to sequence through one of 25 animated light patterns too.

In addition to a handful of included designs (and additional image packs you can buy), the best part is that you can create your own custom pixel pictures thanks to an online PDF template generator.

Bandai ships 1600 pins (in 12 colors) with each Luminodot, so if you want to fill in the entire board with color, you’ll have to buy some spare pegs too.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

While the Luminodot isn’t officially available outside of Japan, I did manage to find one for sale over on eBay for $128 USD. On the other hand, if you happen to live in the area, you can order one from Amazon Japan on sale for ¥10,035 (appx $96 USD).

Assuming you can read Japanese, you can find out more over at Bandai’s Luminodot website.

Each coaster is made up of 110 individual 1cm square “pixels” which are perfed in a way that lets you selectively remove blocks from each square. Through what sort of amounts to “pixel sculpting”, you can create your own personalized designs.

They come in a stack of 50 coasters, which start out conjoined into a 500cm (almost 200″) long chain which can be broken apart into individual pieces. Each square has a random arrangement of color shades, so each coaster is just a little different from the next one.

They’re made from a resilient paper fiber that should hold up to the condensation you might get on the bottom of your cup, or the occasional spill. In addition to the blue palette (which I prefer), there’s also a hot pink version if you’re looking for something a bit more girly.

At this point Pixel Coasters are only available from Taiwanese design retailer 25togo, I’m hoping somebody eventually imports these to the States. A pack of 50 coasters sells for 260 Taiwan Dollars, or just about $8 bucks.

There are four cursor sculptures in the series. They are rendered in three dimensions and made more colorful than we’re used to. The designs on the side are fantastically pixelated and lovely to look at.

The sculptures were created by Ben Fino-Radin, and are made of plastic needlepoint canvas and yarn. He is a big fan of combining technology and yarn in interesting ways. You can see more of his work at his website.

Bringing the hand cursor into 3-D and making it pretty huge is super cool in my book. I’d love to have one of these on display in my office!

[via Craft:]

For just $30 bucks, crafter Rubykhan will create a teensy, tiny pixelated cross-stitch likeness of you and a loved one (and Fido or Fluffy too).

Ready to have yourself immortalized in pixels? Then head on over to Rubykhan’s Etsy shop, plunk down your cash and send her a couple of snapshots for inspiration. Within about 2 weeks, she’ll work up your custom-made personal pixel cross-stitch. She’ll also do larger group portraits on a special order basis.

Ruby also makes some brilliant pop-culture pixel peeps inspired by the Craig Robinson’s Minipops – but alas, they’re not for sale.

You can check out more of Ruby’s wonderful pixel people cross-stitchery over on her Flickr gallery.

About the project, she says, “…the drawings are a part of a series that I executed on an irregular daily basis for 16 months. Each drawing is in a new ‘worksheet,’ which is automatically set up as a grid. The drawings were made by changing cell preferences for background color, fill pattern, and border styles and from time to time inserting ‘comment’ boxes and letters or words.”

Many of these have been published in a book by Various Projects and is for sale at Project No. 8. Some of the book’s pages are presented as an entrancing animation in this video.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

I must warn you that Danielle Aubert’s website overloaded my brain and practically caused a seizure, but if you can successfully navigate the visual arrays without passing out then you will be rewarded with more pictures of her work.

I commend her for this creative use of a stodgy computational beast of a product. The only thing that might top her art would be if you could, oh, say, play video games in Excel…

[via DesignBoom]

Through creative and generous application of digital blur tools, each of the images does a brilliant job blending 2-D and 3-D worlds into one.

Street Fighter

Mario Kart

OutRun

Excitebike

Donkey Kong

Mario Bros. 3

Be sure to check out the entire collection over on deviantART and tell us which is your favorite image. I’d have to say my fave is the Excitebike one, but I had a really hard time choosing.

[via HEMMY via Albotas]