Audiosurf

Yup. Have played it a bit. Haven't yet come across any bugs - totally smooth experience so far. I appreciate how quickly it analyzes each song too.

Worth the ten bucks, then?

I was thinking about using this to give a first listen to all the new albums I get from here on in...

Well, no, I don't think it's really worth ten yet. It's worth about four at the moment. But I think that two or three patches and/or updates down the line, it could be great.

I managed to "solve" the blank screen issue by turning off anti-aliasing. Still finding the scoreboards dodgy, but to be fair I think that's because it's proving to be a lot more popular than the guy who wrote it must have expected.

yeah - I got the pre-order discount and I've enjoyed what I've played, but I'm not so completely sold on it that I'd feel totally comfortable recommending it. I'd definitely recommend checking out the demo at least though. I guess, even though I haven't tried out all the different modes, I'm finding it a little limited. And because you can set it up to any song - it makes it so diverse - that it's hard to feel a competitive urge.

It might be a good way to listen to new music, if just listening to music thends to put you to sleep. It's a more active listening. But since the game adds sound effects on top of your tunes, some may find that extra layer distracting.

I haven't had any issues with bugs yet, except to get off the title screen you have to click "play" a few times. No biggie though.

Really enjoying this at the moment. Everyone keeps watching me play it, which is a good sign, because no one likes to watch me play computer games.

You can turn the sound effects off too, in the screen where you pick which ones you want. I like the chillout ones the best though, because it's sort of nice to know when you've done something good, if you're as clueless about the whole thing as I am.

how does it work??

There are a bunch of modes (I've yet to try half of them). The "game" will analyze your music files (also comes with the Orange Box soundtrack and a few other tunes) and turn them into a tracks that sort of move to the song's beat. Basically, Tetris style blocks come down the course - you catch them to make groups of three or more, or let them go if the block is a color you don't want. There are a lot of youtube videos...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOfdccaZnBU

It's a bit disappointing that this is a steam game, and that melton and jeff are on my steam friends list, and yet it hasn't automatically added them to my in-game friends. And what's more, it doesn't seem to recognise their steam IDs, I guess it wants me to add their audiosurf usernames, which are presumably different (I know mine is - I'm just JimD in audiosurf, add me!). So that needs fixing, I think.

Other things I'd like to see: 10 most recently played tracks, for anyone on my friend list, so I can see what they've been scoring on and try to beat them. Also, a similar set of "recently played", "highest scores", maybe "favourites" type lists for my own account.

But yeah, I'll be surprised if things like this don't arrive in future updates really.

I have 3 achievements now. For the 3 minute ninja stealth one, I recommend Eric Satie's first gymnopedie. Also, I challenge you all to beat me at Come On Eileen!

What's everyone else's favourite tracks so far?

Jim, I used my steam id too (jefflev13). it's just not a very unified friend's system, or very thought out, unfortunately. You have to check a song I actually played (and I haven't played many), like so_alive from portal to see some kind of result, I think. I will try to try out some of the gymnopedie pieces tonight. I just re-synced my 360 controller to my pc last night and I want to try that out too - see if it controls even more relaxed

Game could use a some multiplayer too (instead of just scoreboards). That would be a great way to get to hear some new music - imagine

Just had my first listen to a big chunk of the new autechre album using this, and it worked really well...

I meant to start a thread about this the other day (hi there, Gamxors!) - been watching my lad play this since last week. Havent seen any bugs so far apart from the charts timing out.

But OMG YES AUTECHRE. Autechre is AWESOME on this thing. So is really heavy shit like Meshuggah, and 65dos. Give it a try.

I also found myself thinking it should have more to the competitive charts - a bit like lastfm maybe?

okay - today I'm getting more into this - possibly to the extent that I'd say it's worth ten bucks. Works great with the 360 controller. I tried out all the different sound effects, then tried it with none - which I like the most, I guess - there's a little controller vibration every time you hit a brick, which is actually a better indicator than the built in sound effects - and doesn't distract from listening to the music as much. T

he Satie was a very good suggestion.

The friends list feature doesn't seem to be working?

And I got my first achievement!

Alright, I'm clearly buying this tonight.

Ha, I just got this email!

----- Original Message -----
> From: Audiosurf Scorekeeper
> To: JimD
> Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 8:55 PM
> Subject: Audiosurf scoreboard alert - Dethroned: the distance
>
>
> Audiosurf scoreboard alert - Dethroned!
> You used to have the worldwide best score for:
> the distance by cake
>
> Now the Audiosurf player 'G36ShyGuy' has beaten
> you. Get back in the game and reclaim the top
> spot!
>

Fantastic idea! Addictiveness +10!

> Re: Audiosurf scoreboard alert - A friend beat you: 12 - still alive
> Audiosurf scoreboard alert
>
> JimD has beaten your best score for: 12 - still alive by jonathan coulton
> and glados

:(

Only a month late but I just got this! My friend played it a bunch and doesn't like it, but I played it a bunch and loved it. I wonder if it's because he listens to folk music and I listen to, like, Underworld.

"Beating Heart Baby" by Head Automatica becomes the best song ever when used on this.

I know it's old, but - totally worth the $2.50 it's going for right now. I was afraid at first this might just be a souped-up Flash game, but it's incredibly well done. The online scoreboards are a great feature, too, though they are still kind of flaky.

Why isn't this on XBLA?

I enjoyed it at the time, but it's just too limited to hold one's attention long term. Probably haven't played it in 8 months and have no desire to go load it up. But you can obviously get 2.50 worth of fun out of it.

I totally still boot this up every once in a while, in a way I like listening to new records on it because it puts you in this great headstate halfway between DISTRACTED and PAYING ATENTION VERY ACUTELY that's just like "whoa i am digging this love is all record more than i thought i would"

I forgot to mention - my Audiosurf friend name, like my Steam name, is my handle here. Possibly lowercase n if they care about that stuff.

Massive update today, the first since February. The big deal is the community website on audio-surf.com finally opened, so now there are user pages where you can see everyone's thrones and such - it's about time, before we had to rely on third-party site hacks that to call up scores, find out what song titles were being played by what artists, etc. Here's my page. Looking good right now! There were also several character balance changes, primarily to the Pro characters.

Still love this game after a year. Wish the game itself was clearer and more educational about the huge scoring depth and gameplay it provides, I think it would be more successful if there were tutorials in-game about the Elite modes, chaining, force clear, etc. but there are several good fan-made ones up on YouTube at least.

It's half off, only $5 this weekend on Steam!

Came out for the Zune HD today. Any reports?

Audiosurf 2 finally available on Mac (and Linux)

Ha - http://www.audio-surf.com/song.php#1301883

Why did I think this was a console game? Its been so long since I played. Its still PC only? (fuk Zune)

Audiosurf 2 finally left Early Access and is officially released. My first impressions:

-New tracks/models look a little nicer, which is to expected considering it's been seven years (!!! god, so old)- I wonder how it looks on a cutting-edge PC
-Interface is slightly improved; still kinda looks like a shitty Linux distro. But nice to see album art.
-Wakeboard mode is completely FUBAR, glitched rendering, so so awful
-Best non-graphical improvement - ability to stream songs from Soundcloud, but...
-I may have to leave this thing on for a while tomorrow to actually scan my library. this kind of sucks, because you don't have true file system access (file dialog can't find stuff)
-It is really, really nice to finally be able to play this game in Mac OS X.
-I am #1 in the world in puzzle modes for Lil Jon's TURN DOWN FOR WHAT. Suck it, world.

-This game's core mechanic (at least for Pusher - I haven't tried Pointman or the others yet) is still fantastic and deep (if it seems a little easier and more forgiving with the power-ups). Pity the game is still bad at actually explaining it to you, though it's slightly better than the "three tips" thing they gave you in the original Audiosurf.

-But OMG THEY FINALLY ACTUALLY PUT THE SCORE CHAIN MULTIPLIER IN THE USER INTERFACE, SO YAY. In the original, the "hey, shit is glowing... more? less? that's good or bad?" was cool looking but actually having a number that goes up or down is really nice.