LET US MAKE A JOURNEY TO THE CAVE OF MONSTERS!
TURBOCHARGE
NOSTALGIA
OVERDRIVE!
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front
door. There is a small mailbox here.
Saying that this collection has been long in the works is an understatement
even back in the Mist Classic days, we had intentions of curating an artpack
themed after video games we merely died before we got a chance to fully
realise the plan. That said, this particular collection has been in the works
for /only/ about a year and a half... basically, since drafting 8bitbaba for a
music-themed artpack, then seeing just how much great video games work he had
had sitting in his porftolio all along. Over the months, we kept on
accumulating more and more, but other subjects just proved immovably timely
cant pre-empt Christmas for video games, believe me I tried! or lapped it
in activity TV shows and movies may be lagging behind video games as an
economic driver of the culture, but they are still proving to offer more
compelling subjects. Nonetheless, here we are at last: over 300 pieces of
artwork celebrating video and computer games. I would say thats the new high
score, but that would be a lie -- weve hit that mark in three of the past
four artpacks, and the high-water mark was nearly double that in one of the
once-a-year collections of our early revival. But I digress.
mistigris: where M.U.L.E. meets Nyan-cat
Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president?
In addition to representation by our stalwart regulars and some exceptional
pieces by artists known for different styles -- youd never guess in a million
years that Pixel Art For The Heart drew those pieces! we have some
representation in this months collection from some artists we have never had
over to games night before! Outsider ANSI art weirdos you know I mean that
in the best possible way! somehow found their way to our dim, flickering
light in great abundance this month, lurching toward the rows of arcade
cabinets from the byways of Facebook and the ArakNet Discord. Well met,
Player 2! Agent-037, C0unt WAVnstein, MeaTLoTioN, and his son MiCRoFuSioN
who is possibly the youngest artist to ever have work appear in a Mistigris
artpack, seizing the trophy from Smalls, circa Mist Classic all put their
quarters up on the marquee, awaiting their turn to mash the buttons. We also
feature the artscene debut of Dr. Jim Gerrie, who works in one of the crudest
textmodes possibly -- the heinously limited display of the TRS-80 CoCo, my
first home computer. Of course, he doesnt just draw the screens, he ports
the programs... youve heard that bit about how the screenshot of Super Mario
Bros. gameplay is actually a larger file than the entire game of SMB? Well...
thats not the case here, since Jims screens are incredibly optimised. The
smallest is 325 bytes, and thats including SAUCE! But I digress. We also
feature a very late-breaking guest PETSCII appearance by Deadguy, plus wed
like to draw your attention that Melodias creations have been rebranded, from
Empress Play to Xennial.
this space left intentionally blank
CATS: You have no chance to survive make your time.
For the past few months Ive had some nagging doubts haunting me in the back
of my mind while attending to the thousand and one tiny housekeeping details
of keeping a computer art collective a going concern over social media: while
the entire biosphere gears up for its final huzzah, isnt there perhaps
something a little more pressing you could be diverting these energies and
efforts toward, in a misguided attempt to ward off the direst of all fates for
all life on the planet? I unreservedly get into arguments with strangers
online and Ive got to tell you... the state of the discourse out there is not
heartening. But this month, that weight felt a little lighter. The escapist
magic of immersion in video games, so potent it is felt even by proxy!
there are no stupid ideas,
only poor implementations
AVOID MISSING BALL FOR HIGH SCORE
OK, any errata and corrections? We didnt get Kithe 15 out, and missed its
magic moment of two-decades-hence resonance. Either well finish it off in
its time, or well hold it back until the 30th anniversary of the events it
describes. Thats a joke, son. We did sucessfully export all the tracked
music of area code 604 to MP3 for use streaming on ArakNet and PVM radio, only
that left us with over a thousand tracks stripped of their artist, title and
group metadata, so were slowly trying to drill all that information back in
before unleashing the tide of historical computer music. But theyre not
lacking for our absence, hats off to Cranksy for following up his remastering
of the limited run of the theARTS artscene podcast with his new tracker music
program, Sample Central. Then he followed it up by looking up some old
colleagues and reviving ACiDs music division, pHluid! Not bad. A rumour has
it that their administration are looking for a plentiful source of small
textmode images to use in association with individual tracks. If you know
anyone...
speaking of computer music, the Vancouver Chipmusic Society keeps on swinging
from strength to strength, following up their mighty August Overflow concert
with another program scheduled for October 22nd, featuring music by games
composers Lena Raine, Danny Baranowsky, Danimal Cannon, and Matt Creamer. Not
to be missed in any month, but especially not here in this infofile ostensibly
entirely preoccupied with video game matters.
whutre ya feedin thet thar beast,
anyhoo?
Remember, dont shoot food!
OK, yes, thats just about all we have to report from this vantage point.
If youre still thinking about October, you may recall that we like to release
scary artwork in that month for Halloween. If youve got anything suitable,
please dont hesitate to send it by our way! Its not entirely impossible
though to be fair, lets be frank, its pretty unlikely that we might again
participate in @judebuffums blocktober2019 daily pixelart monster challenge.
But enough with October -- of course, our November artpack, celebrating a
quite frankly incomprehensible 25 years since the initial establishment of the
Mistigris computer arts collective -- should be a nonstop cavalcade of alumni
and guest appearances. Time to start contemplating what form your submission
will take!
You know where to find us: info@mistigris.org or @mistfunk, if youre feeling
informal. See you on the high scores table!