Sunday, May 5, 2013

Famicase 2013: My 4 Favorite Entries

It's here! My Famicase Exhibition 2013 finally came online tonight and it's a thrill to see everyone's new designs (and mine alongside them). Why not exploit everyone's hard work and get a blog post out of my favorite designs from this year's show?


Salamander Exed Star Soldius Xevi Force Zone Brain Bee Type
by Mountain Graphics

Likely to be one of the favorite entries, I bet, especially among shootemup fans. This remix of classic titles really benefits from the extra mile the artist went in mashing ten different franchise logos together (in their original respective typefaces)...somehow it works for me. The thing that really flattens my balls is the player's ship--ten different vehicles thrown in the blender and poured into a glass of super dimensional death machine. I'm not well versed on shootemup vehicles (I could probably tell you the difference between the R-9 Arrowhead, the Vic Viper and the Silver Hawk at least) but I can recognize the feather wings and 16t bomb from Fantasy Zone, the Force from R-type hovering above,  and what I believe are part of the wings from Vic Viper. Total genius.

The game's product serial on the top left is a great touch too: STG being the abbreviation for Shooting Game. Can you identify the other shooter references in the ship?

Mayle
by Paul Veer

Simple, sharp and plays to my love of blue and white. The logo made from a postage stamp is unexpected and works great with the tiny synopsis text oriented below it. Overall a good use of grid in the design! I think the game's concept is really cute too and would be fun to play.

More behind the cut.



Dot Album
by haya@TECS

Some entries take the idea out of the "make an old game" territory and into real world applications. I love the idea of Dot Album, a Famicom cart equipped with wifi so you can upload photos directly from your phone to be converted into nostalgic 8-bit. Kind of like the sepia tone filter on Instagram. I dig the film edge perforations on the sides of the image, it's a great way to reinforce the concept.


 Me As An Animal
by Kakegawa Ryu

I'm a huge dork for silhouettes, and the ones used here are crisp and easily identifiable. The artist's color usage is appropriately serene and works well with his choice of cartridge color. I like that the concept is vague (Google translate suggests that it is about a human living in the forest as an animal, since humans are also animals) and so the gameplay could be anything--I want to play this one!


Honorable Mention
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There are about 90 entries in the Famicase show and a whole lot of excellent ones I didn't put here! CHECK THEM OUT HERE GUYS