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flOw Composer Austin Wintory Interviewed
John B writes "An exclusive interview with music composer Austin Wintory, the creative mind behind the sounds in flOw for the PC and the upcoming PS3 version of the game. Excellent insights into the video game music scene with a few tidbits about the PS3 incarnation of flOw as well."
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It's here.
Twofo Is Dying
DC++ hub.twofo.co.uk:4144
It is official; Netcraft confirms: Twofo is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleagured University of Warwick filesharing community when ITS confirmed that Twofo total share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all file sharing. Coming hot on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that Twofo has lost more share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Twofo is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Student comprehensive leeching test.
You don't need to be one of the Hub Operators to predict Twofo's future. The hand writing is on the toilet wall: Twofo faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Twofo because Twofo is dying. Things are looking very bad for Twofo. As many of us are already aware, Twofo continues to lose users. Fines and disconnections flow like a river of feces.
N00b Campus users are the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of their total share. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time Twofo sharers fool_on_the_hill and Twinklefeet only serves to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: Twofo is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Sources indicate that there are at most 150 users in the hub. How many filelists have been downloaded? Let's see. 719. But 1621 IP addresses have been logged, and 1727 nicks have been sighted connecting to one user over the last term. How many searches are there? 600 searches in 3 hours. The highest sharer on campus, known as "firstchoice", or Andrew.Maddison@warwick.ac.uk in real life, was sharing over 1 TiB, despite working in ITS and not being on the resnet. He's only there so people off campus who think they're too good for bittorrent can continue to abuse the University's internet connection.
Due to troubles at the University of Warwick, lack of internet bandwidth, enforcements of Acceptable Usage Policies, abysmal sharing, retarded leechers, clueless n00bs, and ITS fining and disconnecting users, Twofo has no future. All major student surveys show that Twofo has steadily declined in file share. Twofo is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Twofo is to survive at all it will be among hardcore peer to peer fuckwits, desperate to grab stuff for free off the internet. Nothing short of a miracle could save Twofo from its fate at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Twofo is dead.
Fact: Twofo is dying
Go away
natioNal ga7 nigger
Here's the new Flow video trailer with Austin Wintory's music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4xo6qyXbzc&eurl=
Christ, I went to high school with this guy, and played his compositions in orchestra. What an annoying, skill-less, shameless self-promoting prick. I'm 99% confident that he added himself to my high school's wikipedia article under "Notable Alumni", along with the likes of Amy Van Dyken and Sean Tufts.
I have *NO* idea how he got where he is. Actually, I sorta do. Again, shameless self-promotion. The jackass would have us play his "original" trite compositions, and would constantly be changing titles, making up new meanings and motivations for his compositions, and other bullshit, for the sole purpose of sounding like he had a clue during our concerts. Meanwhile the entirety of the violins section would laugh and mock him after every one of his sessions of "conducting" the orchestra.
I'll give him credit. He's very good at matching sound expectation of a genre (movies, mainly), but the depth is comparable to a kiddy pool.
Austin Wintory, I fucking hate you, and hope you die in a fire.
Eye wood liek nuttin moar then 2 tuch u wear your GAY!!!
LOL FAGGER!!!
Seriouly. I player flow when it was released, and its "soundtrack" are some sphereic, non-obstrusive background noises.
The second game is not yet released.
There are tons of composers that have real impact and insight into this matter, so what sets this newbee apart?
was he the only one available (as he had free "generate publicity for upcoming release" slots in his organiser)?
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
I'm psyched for Spore but I really wish there was a merging of the feel of Flow with the mechanics of Spore. There's almost something divine about playing Flow that would translate perfectly with its look and feel to the absolute godhood granted by Spore.
P
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Personally, I prefer the music of Vincent Diamante - from 'Cloud', another project that has a feel of flow about it. You can grab the OST from the extra download page.
=w=
Here.
*shrugs*
First off, let me say that criticising an article for appearing on Slashdot is not flamebait.
Its editorial.
Now to my point: Flow was sort of interesting. I think maybe "pleasant" is a good word to sum it up.
A great game? Certainly not, and I don't think any serious gamers would applaud it for "greatness".
Its simple, and soothing. Its got nowhere near the following of [that sledding game whatever its called]
Sony put it on the map. Lets be clear about that. If it wasn't for big-corporate attention, we would
not be giving it nearly the kudos it has received. So lets be clear that we're giving huge status to
Sony's editorial decisions here.
To the matter at hand: an interview with the composer? Lolz.
Seriously.
It's a casual game. 30 minutes of play-time sounds about right.
A whole lot of people are just looking for something to play for a few minutes at a time, and that doesn't require them to download or copy gigabytes of stuff to their computers.
flOw has nice enough graphics, neat music, and gameplay that's easy to learn and start playing. Plus, all you need is a computer with internet access to play it.
Not everybody wants Half Life; a whole lot of people just want something interesting to do for a few minutes while they're in between other tasks.
Just remember: arguably the most popular computer game ever created is Windows' Solitaire. How much "play time" does it really have?
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Is there a downloadable version?
Sure, but you have to buy a Playstation 3.
I dunno what the hype is, but to me the music is harsh, jarring and discordant. Honestly, it most resembles feedback, and I got a headache just from listening to that for ten minutes. Eventually I had to mute the sound to keep playing :/
Anyone can "stand up for what they believe", but it takes a very brave individual to change what they believe. - Loundry
A neat game with some nice noises that's good for the occasional 30 minute diversion.
But Austin Wintory has hid head up his arse and "The Blue Danube" in Manic Miner was much better!
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Flow reminds me a lot the game "tranquility" found on SGI workstations as early as 1993. A modern version is available at tqworld even though this was originally a single player game.
I find it strange that the PhD thesis does not reference this game at all, as the concepts are very similar. I guess if I was the author's advisor, I'd point this out as a correction to make...
I've spend a few hours playing flOw (on the PC)...and no matter how hard I try, I can't help but think that this simplistic flash game doesn't deserve even a tenth of the publicity it deserves. If this is really Playstation3's ace in the hole, then Sony will need to come up with more than a price cut or two to sell this kit.
Maybe it's just me, but I never really got the point of flOw. It looks pretty. You swim around and eat things, then swim down and eat bigger things. You slowly grow and expand. The game on level 20 looks and feels like game on level 1. It's just really repetitive and boring. I mean, that formula works for games with really good gameplay (Asteroids, Super Mario Bros, Contra, Gauntlet), but flOw never grabbed me like most of those games did.
Am I missing something? No, seriously, I'm open to suggestion. Am I missing something? Why does everyone rave about this game?
With the composer of the music for a flash game?
Ah...
Editors? Editors? Anyone there?
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )