A small independent game studio called Santa Ragione created Tales of Unspoken World after being inspired by this stylized case design from the Famicase art exhibit a few of years ago. Gameplay in Tales involves the same sort of “run, jump or die” mechanic found in the highly-addictive Cannabalt, but it plays out on a 3D stage reminiscent of old black-and-white vector games. The game requires just two keys to play. Use the “Up” key to run, and the “Space” bar to jump. That’s it.

Here’s a brief video showing off the game in action:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Tales of Unspoken World is available for download now over at the TIGSource forums, and plays on both PC or MAC. For some reason, only the MAC version includes the dangly hand animations shown in the video above. Go figure. Either way, it’s worth a download, especially at the low, low price of free.

(P.S. If you get stuck, press “R” to restart, and “Alt-F4″ to quit.)

So far, the Atari Arcade includes web-playable Flash versions of four arcade classics: Asteroids, Battlezone, Crystal Castles, and Lunar Lander. Hopefully, they’ll add more games in the not-too-distant future. I want my Dig-Dug and Paperboy! They’ve also thrown in versions of a couple of classic 2600 games, Yar’s Revenge and Adventure. Each of the games is a faithful recreation of the original, with the addition of a global high score leaderboard.

So what are you waiting for? Head on over to the new Atari Arcade, and play without fear of ever running out of quarters again.

Really, how can you not love a game with instructions that read: “The primary objective of the game is to break a path through the shield, and destroy the Qotile with a blast from the Zorlon Cannon”?

[via Kotaku]

I doubt it was that simple. At least, I’m sure I couldn’t pull it off. But if you’re hoping for more handy tips at the source, give it up; this nifty little DIY DS cover is the only thing to be found on a new deviantART account, and there’s a lack of detail about the process. As in, there’s none. Feel free to imagine aliens swooped in and drew up the whole project. That’s what I’m going with.

On a serious note, vector art could lead to all sorts of interesting DS designs. Would love to see if anyone had tried something similar!

The limited-edition Scope 2 watch uses a special multi-color (RGB) LED display to tell the time. Depending on the model you choose, either a red or green horizontal hairline signifies an hour, while a contrasting colored “target” surrounds the current 5 minute interval, and four tiny dots which reside on a separate circular nub indicate individual minutes. Sound a bit confusing? Maybe this diagram will help sort things out for you:

Better, no? If you do manage to figure out anything other than the fact that it’s about 20 minutes after something or other, let me know.

At this point, the only place you can get the Scope 2 is from Japanese watch seller Seahope for ¥21,000 (appx $207 USD) but I’m HOPEful (get it?) that they’ll make their way to the western hemisphere soon.

Engineer Lars Pontoppidan created Scopetris using an AtMega32 micro-controller to drive the beam of an oscilloscope to mimic the game play of the classic Soviet puzzle game.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Lars had to create custom circuitry and programmed the beam to produce a similar visual result to that of those old vector graphic games. The game is controlled using a traditional Atari 9-pin digital joystick.

Unlike some lesser oscilloscope beam hacks which use simple video games like Pong, Lars really went all out to create a game with the relative complexity of Tetris. Using his significant programming prowess, Pontoppidan programmed the circuit to manage each individual as an independent object, allowing it to behave very similarly to the original arcade classic.

Kudos to Lars for an outstanding scope hack.

[via Hacked Gadgets via MAKE]

Game enthusiast Philipp Lenssen took partial screenshots from famous arcade games and ran them through VectorMagic, a nifty online bitmap-to-vector conversion tool, then enlarged them to exaggerate the line-art effect.

I’m so used to seeing all these gaming icons in their traditional pixel block form, it was really cool to see them reinterpreted in a way I never imagined.

The only thing cooler would be a MAME video filter that would actually let you play the games in their vector form.

You can check Philipp’s entire collection of vectorized video game art over on Google Blogoscoped.

[via DRAWN!] (thanks for the tip, Roadside Scholar!)

If you’re a Nintendo fan, you’ll now be able to get in on the action. Sierra Entertainment today announced that Geometry Wars: Galaxies, a follow up to the frantic 2D game is coming for the Nintendo Wii and DS. Both the Wii version and the DS version will take advantage of the unique control schemes of each device. There will also be bonus unlockable content when you link up your Wii and DS via Wi-Fi.

In addition to a variety of new levels, the game will include a full remake of the Xbox 360 classic. The new game will also feature battle and co-op multiplayer modes, which I can’t wait to check out.

While the original series was developed by Bizarre Creations, the port is being developed by KUJU Entertainment, who’s also working on the highly anticipated PSP 2D/3D platformer, Crush. Geometry Wars: Galaxies should be available for both Nintendo systems sometime this fall.