Slashdot Mirror
Accordion Hero Postmortem
The same folks who brought us Age of Ornithology have returned to Gamasutra with a postmortem on their smash hit Accordion Hero. From the article: "Although most of us had played the accordion, we had never designed a game controller before! I quickly threw together a prototype made of dryer ducting, two cheese graters, tape, buttons, and a few Werther's Originals. It took a great deal of imaginary accordion playing to determine where the buttons should ultimately go, and the cheese graters scratched Crispin's hands up pretty horribly. But we told him that one must suffer to become a game tester, and one must be a game tester before one can be anything in this industry (of course we did not tell him that the rest of us were never game testers. Ah, it is to laugh)."
Darn, it took me forever to realize this wasn't real and I couldn't order it...
I dont know about you, but I'd actually consider playing this if it was an real product. It's certainly innovative and who doesn't like a good dosage of polka music? I wonder if you can finish a particuarly amazing concert by smashing an accordion on stage...
Is this game a joke?? Oh, it's made by Schadenfreude Interactive. They must have just made it so they can laugh at their customers.
my blog
So it's dead? The game flopped? Company is out of business?
Postmortem on a "smash-hit" doesn't make much sense...
That's a fine logo they have there. One guy jumping on another one, the prone guy's head bobbing as the other guy's weight lands on his chest...
And the tag line! "For those about to polka, we salute you!"
- Murphy's Corollary: - It is impossible to make things foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
Joke aside, but I think with the right presentation this would find a market. Does anyone remember Deer Hunter? This is another game that could reach non-traditional gaming markets. I'm almost tempted to build an accordion controller from a cheap children's accordion and write this...
because I would prolly buy it. I'll never try and buy a game from these crazy Germans ever again.
Time spent reading story: 45 seconds.
/.
Time spent posting to Slashdot: 1 minute 30 seconds.
Making the effort to say you could do better, but it'd be a waste of time: Timeless
The best things in life are enjoyable. For everything else, there's
Laughed my ass off at this part.
Dead Men Rising is an exciting zombie U-boat simulator that has caused a great deal of controversy here in Germany in regarding to the violence and sensitive subject matter. In America, this should pass unnoticed as you have a higher tolerance for violence and gore in computer games. Also you do not teach world history in your public schools as the little children are too busy stabbing one another and hitting each other in the head with their Desperate Housewives lunchboxes.
The name says it all. Schadenfreude - Taking joy in the misery of others.
A couple years ago, a friend and I were discussing the various deluge of instrument-based rhythm games. We came to the conclusion that the most awesome thing in the world would be if the next one was either an accordion game or a bagpipe game.
All what I'm saying is that it's a tragedy this isn't real.
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
From the name, I was rather hoping it would be a(n) FPS!
Next: Mime Blasters!
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
http://www.weirdal.com/Weird Al, is that you?
I can't seem to find any "people behind the spoof" info on these guys. They're obviously not really German, since the German version of the website contains babelfished German. In fact, the entire series seems more like a joke on Germans than anything else. Exquisitely funny, though.
Man, it would be sweet if someone made a game that uses all of the music instrument controllers in tandem. . . get a guy wailing on the guitar hero, another one banging out the rythm with the donkey kongas, get some of that samba di amigo for style. . . top it all off with a microphone and a keg of beer and a video camera and you've got enough blackmail material for an early retirement!
disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
Check out the Direct X Specs on it. http://www.phobe.com/sfi/cthulhukarts.html
why isn't this modded up? even though taiko drum master may have been released later in the states, the japanese verision has been around for many, many years.
Donky Konga is a clone, although both are developed by namco.