Tabor Robak's EXO

August 14, 2012 2:26 PM

EXO, a 35 minute game from Tabor Robak takes the music of electronic group Gatekeeper and sets it to an interactive, 35-minute psychedelic journey.

Harkening back to demoscene experiences, EXO looks like a fun trip. There's even a 35-minute walkthrough for those whose systems aren't up to snuff.

posted by CharlesV42 (13 comments total)

Official site got lost in the post.
posted by CharlesV42 at 2:33 PM on August 14, 2012

Well...it looks cool, though I've yet to figure out what, exactly, the "game" of the game is. So far, it's mostly whooshing light and fairly familiar game environments.

FYI, this uses the Unity engine. YMMV.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:26 PM on August 14, 2012

God I fucking love Gatekeeper. "Giza" is probably my favorite track, if someone wants an example. They're basically John Carpenter: The Elerrtonic Music Experience. Thanks for sharing!
posted by griphus at 3:54 PM on August 14, 2012

Downloading. I guess I could watch the video but I want to see it running at Stupid DPI.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:03 PM on August 14, 2012

God I fucking love Horuos
posted by Mblue at 5:24 PM on August 14, 2012

I saw Gatekeeper when arriving at a sunny Pitchfork festival last year and I've been hooked ever since. Here are some links about their setup
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 5:42 PM on August 14, 2012

Gatekeeper released their Giza EP on VHS. Yes.

The best Gatekeeper track is Chains.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 5:44 PM on August 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

I don't know about you but it crashed the everloving shit out of my iMac, like had to unplug it crashed.

I don't know if it was working right up to that point but the interactivity element seemed kind of pointless. I guess I could go over there? Oh I think I'm stuck on a rock. Oops there goes the white-out again. There were some striking visuals but also a lot of monotonous enviro-filler. Mostly I felt like watching it without any interactive capability would have been pretty much equivalent. Though the degree to which it proceeded to crash my computer may have made me more critical.
posted by nanojath at 8:12 PM on August 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

My D key got unpleasantly hot so I mostly went left.
posted by aubilenon at 10:28 PM on August 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

Well! That was some great music and a lot of ... shaders.

Snark aside, as an interactive piece of 3D art it was okay. But it wasn't a game, and billing it as one lessens the experience as one tends to look for things to do. The music made it worthwhile; beyond that it was just a bunch of environments kind of reminiscent of the 80s fascination with neon colours. I know Unity is capable of much, much more, and I kind of wish the artist had chosen to give us one huge environment with the songs as audio queues that had been superpolished and refined rather than a bunch of little ones that were never much more than slapped together.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:07 AM on August 15, 2012 [1 favorite]

cues.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:07 AM on August 15, 2012

qs
posted by nanojath at 10:49 AM on August 15, 2012

It's cool, but it's not a game in any meaningful sense of the word.
posted by anigbrowl at 1:01 PM on August 15, 2012