Awesome Games

The upcoming life simulator game inZOI takes the idea of The Sims and updates it to take advantage of modern hardware. The 4K gameplay trailer shows incredible detail in its virtual worlds and sees its avatars going grocery shopping, cooking fried chicken, watering plants, and going to the gym. Its character- and world-builder tools look incredibly deep.

Do you like offbeat indie games? Check out Torfi’s A Firm Handshake. This wacky casual game challenges players to reach out to NPCs and get them to shake hands. As you do your handshake business deals, you march around looking to build an empire of corporate drones. And then things get really weird. SMii7Y provides an in-depth demo of the game.

Video games have been simulating way that organisms thrive, evolve, and die ever since 1970 with John Conway’s, Game of Life. Over the years, simulations have become far more sophisticated but don’t always produce realistic results. Curious Archive looks at the strange evolution of games that simulate life.

It’s always fun to hear our favorite albums played with video game sounds. FXSnowy took the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ 1991 smutty masterpiece Blood Sugar Sex Magik and covered it using the 16-bit sounds from the Super Nintendo games Donkey Kong Country 1, 2, and 3. All the best tunes are here, from Funky Monkeys to Breaking the Gorilla.

AtGames teamed up with developer Zen Studios to create a home pinball machine with a 32″ 4K playfield, a 24″ digital backglass, and an 8″ scoreboard. It’s got a plunger, tilt and nudge sensor, and optional SSF. The Addams Family machine drops first, with 15 games and access to a download store. Pre-orders start 9.22.23 with a deep early-bird discount.

CG artist pwnisher called on 3D artists again, challenging them to create renders based on a theme and a template. The goal this time: create a short scene featuring the most epic boss battle they could dream up. This video compiles the top 100 pieces of eye candy out of 2,800 submissions, with music by Disasterpiece. We want to play all of these games now.

Video game consoles come from the factory in opaque plastic cases. BitHead1000 gives consoles ultimate upgrade by creating custom see-through enclosures. In addition to the PS1 here, he’s built a see-through PS2, a PS4, NES, and a Sega Genesis. The videos call them glass, but we’re pretty sure they’re acrylic.

Simon from ClayClaim has made some incredible polymer clay sculptures based on video games. This time, he upgraded from a static diorama to a motion scene. He used clay and paper to craft a backdrop based on Sonic the Hedgehog’s Green Hill Zone, then attached a LEGO Technic motor and added a wheeled Sonic to run through the level.

Because Adam at North of the Border can’t get enough Mario, he decided to work up sculptures of some of the franchise’s many monsters. Though his “realistic” versions of Boo, Blooper, Piranha Plant, and a group of Goombas are the stuff of nightmares. Adding pointy teeth to stuff is always guaranteed to up the creepy factor.

FRVR’s AI game development platform will let users create their own video games using text prompts. The demo shows it taking a description of a top-down shooter and generating the code for a playable game. As the user refines their prompts, the game gets better. Users will be able to publish and monetize the games they create too. Full walkthrough video here.

Tears of the Kingdom and Katamari Damacy have a few things in common, like gathering objects to create more complex ones. That inspired Studson Studio to combine the two games into one epic diorama. He gathered some characters and Zonai objects from TotK, rolled them into a jumbo Katamari, and then made a combo of Link and The Prince.

The theme music from Tetris is a big part of what made the video game so popular. Musician JER of the Skatune Network and We Are the Union transformed the classic Russian chiptune into an energetic piece of ska, with its trademark quick beats, layered brass, and organ sounds.

Developer Neal Agarwal’s The Password Game is an intentionally frustrating parody of password complexity rules. Scam-buster Kitboga teamed up with Agarwal to integrate a version of his app into a fake banking website, then used it to drive scammers insane. We’re impressed how long some of these crooks stuck to it.

LEGO builder ScottMakesMOCs spent an unfathomable amount of time creating this Mario Kart roller coaster. The intricate build includes Kart-inspired cars, Bowser’s castle, an airship, and lots of characters and details from the Nintendo game. He’s recently built an expansion to the theme park, and Beyond the Brick has a great interview video.

We love playing classic arcade games. But an arcade cabinet isn’t exactly the kind of thing you’d put right in the middle of most living rooms. Maker Alexandre Chappel shows us how he designed and built a 2-player arcade machine that hides inside of a sleek wood cabinet that hangs neatly on a wall.

Non-player characters (NPCs) in games are often quite stupid. But this video from TMARTN2 shows how they’re about to get much smarter. Combining voice recognition, voice synthesis, and an AI large language model, Replica Studios’ Smart NPCs carry out real-time, non-scripted conversations. It’s early days for the tech, but it’s a glimpse into the future.