
Skrillex Quest - Wraecca
http://www.skrillexquest.com/
======
lazerwalker
What I find perhaps most fascinating about this is that it's almost certainly
an advertisement (note the iTunes link at the end of the game, and the tagline
at the bottom that the creator makes 'advergames'). If it is, in fact, an
advergame, it's _awesome_ to see folks like Skrillex (and/or Skrillex's
marketing folks) willing to build something so cool and of legitimate artistic
value to try to build up viral buzz.

~~~
ontheotherhand
Artistic value? The fuck?

 _"Here's the deal, folks. You do a commercial - you're off the artistic roll
call, forever. End of story. Okay? You're another whore at the capitalist gang
bang and if you do a commercial, there's a price on your head. Everything you
say is suspect and every word that comes out of your mouth is now like a turd
falling into my drink."_

\- Bill Hicks

~~~
mrcharles
Does the game make you feel? Then it has artistic value.

I felt something playing this game. It has surprisingly good ambiance and
seeing a bunch of pixel characters who have accepted their fate and were
waiting for death, to me, gave it a level of emotional attachment I did not
expect after I read the tag 'advergame'.

One thing you have to realize is that it's very hard to make games nowadays
without some kind of income. If you are lucky, you only have to slum it for a
few years and then you make a hit on the side. But more often, you have to do
whatever it takes, unless you are willing to keep your day job.

I actually still agree with the Bill Hicks quote, but I feel there is some
wiggle room when what is produced is _actually a game_ , and in the end, does
not fit the constraint of standard advertising.

IMO if more advertising were like this, the world would be a better place, and
Bill Hicks would have been less angry.

And here I will quote Tool's Eulogy, which was about Bill Hicks, if you didn't
know:

"He had a voice so strong and loud and I Swallowed his facade cuz I'm so Eager
to identify with Someone above the ground, Someone who seemed to feel the
same, Someone prepared to lead the way, with Someone who would die for me."

Just because a voice is loud and you agree with it, doesn't necessarily mean
that it is entirely correct. I love the shit out of Bill Hicks and I still
feel the world would be a better place if he had lived long enough to foster
the change he felt he needed. But I still don't feel his quote applies to this
game.

~~~
d23
Tool's "Eulogy" wasn't about Bill Hicks. They actually quite liked the guy,
put his face in their albums, and quoted him frequently in a positive light.

Regardless, I agree with your points. It's not always bad to sell something if
you want to get the rest of your works heard. It's all a big game, and most
people have to play to some degree to be able to do what they love.

~~~
ontheotherhand
"It's all a big game, and most people have to play to some degree to be able
to do what they love."

Sure.. but then don't go mixing those two things up. There is work
(entertainment or otherwise), and there is art. That some people cry unfair
because they want their pie and eat it isn't really my concern.

I didn't argue that the game creator is somehow evil, I just actually feel my
brain hurting from dumbness intruding when I read people talk about
"artistical merit" in the context of this "game" (the gameplay mechanics are a
bit limited to call it that, but that's a whole other can of worms). The
response to that? "Yeah, but" and downmoderation. Oh well, oh lol. What else
is new.

------
shaunxcode
I just upvoted something done with flash on hn for the first time ever. The
zelda 1 esque levels were sheer genius. I would actually dig playing an entire
game with that perspective/style.

~~~
runevault
Out of curiosity have you played the Binding of Isaac? It's a zelda-esque game
using short gameplay/permadeath + lots of random elements. Although may be
windows only I don't recall.

~~~
corroded
Binding is available in steam and is available for Mac as well.

~~~
runevault
Yeah I knew it was on steam, but not everything on steam is available for mac.
Haven't played my copy in a while to look and see what OSes it is on (plus I
own nothing made by apple)

------
xanados
This game reminded me of Sword and Sorcery EP[1]. It had a similar aesthetic
and used music in the same way that this piece did, although it was music from
Jim Guthrie who sounds completely different from Skrillex. The main character
even looks like the character from that game. The gameplay is very different
(SS is a two dimensional, puzzle based point-and-click sort of thing), but
there is definitely a similarity.

1: <http://www.swordandsworcery.com/>

~~~
_pferreir_
I agree. It definitely looks like Sword and Sworcery.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
It's like a cross between that and 3D Dot Game Heroes.

<http://www.3ddotgameheroes.com/>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bhuhdw_9Hnk>

------
sneak
Ugh, when I was a kid, electronic music didn't suck and you only started out
with two heart containers.

Get off my lawn.

~~~
mrcharles
Link electronic music that wasn't repetitive and wasn't released on Warp
Records.

Oh, and then go back and play The Legend of Zelda all the way to the end, and
then come back here and say it was good.

Also, you have a lawn? Lucky bastard.

~~~
deveac
_> Link electronic music that wasn't repetitive and wasn't released on Warp
Records._

I personally don't believe that repetition in electronic music even _implies_
a sub-par track, but that's highly subjective of course, and we know where you
stand.

Some of the most groundbreaking and beautiful music to me is found on the
Basic Channel and Chain Reaction labels, with tracks that are extremely
minimal and would probably sound repetitive to many listeners.

Plus 8 has a long history of incredible and innovative artists and tracks. It
really depends on how you define electronic as well. If Chain Reaction is
repetitive, Plus 8 less so, Warp less so, but even less are labels like Wax
Trax! that had much more dynamic and traditional song structures from their
artists (industrial). Do you consider them electronic? Subjective. Labels like
Mo Wax delivered far less repetitive offerings than Warp artists, and just as
compelling. Ghostly International takes takes us back to more traditional
electronic offering if Mo Wax and Wax Trax! aren't 'electronic' enough for
one's definition.

Really, there are just too many to name, even with the constraint of stripping
out electronic music subjectively deemed 'repetitive'.

But I take your point though. Warp Records, especially at a particular time in
electronic music's history, was one of those special and legendary labels that
every genre seems to have one or two of. They were home to some of the most
compelling and innovative artists of their generation, and rather than having
just one or two, they were home to many. Might be the best electronic music
label in history for strength of talent and how deep their roster went.

And I too have a lawn, but you don't need to get off it, -instead you can hang
out on it and bring your vinyl. I've got a few crates of some incredibly good
and rare discs and a 1200 on which to play them ;)

~~~
sdoowpilihp
I agree that there is no correlation between the quality of music and
repetition. There are even a number of "high brow" musicians and composers,
such as Philip Glass or Terry Reily, that have had repetition as a common
motif in their work, and for which they have been heralded by many.

~~~
deveac
_> I was only pointing out that there's a massively wide variety of electronic
music these days..._

On that note, if you have not seen this site yet, be prepared to have the rest
of your afternoon's productivity destroyed:

<http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/>

I posted to first version of the site to Hubski a while ago but I can't find
it. I think the author has updated it since then, but the general look and
flow is the same. Incredible wealth of historical knowledge, complete with
audio examples.

------
cnp
I hope this site brings a little boost back to the Flash world, especially
with Stage3D and all of it's possibilities.

Actionscript 3 was such an enjoyable language to code in, though I haven't
been able to use it professionally in over a year due to demand; the extent of
my 'interactive' work has been hacky, ill-performing CSS3 transforms, and WOW
are they limited.

It's been all JavaScript, all the time, and I do love the community but then
again I really (really) miss the rich immersive creativity that used to be so
inspiring on the web.

~~~
ricardobeat
Creativity is still here. We have WebGL, canvas, CSS3, audio, mic, camera, in
an environment that is evolving faster than Flash ever did. ES6 will bring js
a bit closer to the formalism of AS3, though I don't mind it's current syntax
lightness at all. There are many cool games and experiments being released
every week.

~~~
georgemcbay
Warning: cool game of the week requires _[Chrome developer channel|Firefox
nightly]_ to run. Also does not run well on _[Mac|Windows|Linux]_.

It is both funny and sad that in these days of the "open" web it is actually
much, much more difficult to get good cross platform results when doing
anything with graphics/sound.

~~~
lloeki
Games like X-Type[0] make me think things are getting there. The making-of is
interesting[1].

[0]: <http://phoboslab.org/xtype/>

[1]: <http://phoboslab.org/log/2012/06/x-type-making-of>

~~~
ygra
Yeah, well, but x-type only requires a 2D canvas and that has worked for ages
now, even without hw acceleration. WebGL is still a very different beast that
can work, or not, or only crappily, depending on your browser, OS, graphics
card and driver. I guess the percentage of those who don't have or dislike
Flash is smaller than that of those who run into WebGL problems.

~~~
lloeki
Agreed, canvas works well now, but WebGL is younger than canvas, and this
gives a hint at what WebGL will look like tomorrow.

What's more today the first cause of WebGL not working lies more in the
graphics card periphery. OpenGL drivers on Windows are often an aftertought
given DirectX prevalence, and on Linux some drivers are simply unstable with
3D acceleration, regardless of WebGL. Besides, short of software fallbacks
like llvm-pipe or OSX, you can't invent features not supported by the card.
Onve overriden[2] WebGL actually works[0][1] well on my embedded HD2000, but
bugs in the driver make the whole thing randomly unstable, hence it is
blacklisted by browsers (chrome://gpu even lists and links to bug reports, and
lists Flash Stage3D as blacklisted too).

As for number counting, while the number of people running into WebGL problems
exists, it has been drastically reduced since a year ago, when the number of
people running into Flash problems for years, and is _not_ shrinking.

ALso, there's not just graphics on X-Type, but correctly timed HTML5 audio
too.

[0]: <http://madebyevan.com/webgl-water/>

[1]: <http://alteredqualia.com/three/examples/webgl_cars.html>

[2]: "Override software rendering list" in chrome://flags

------
mrcharles
As a long time game developer, the most impressive part of this game is that
when you get to the end, and you don't have all the keys, you can simple
_break all the locks_.

That's the kind of game design that the game industry needs to learn from.

~~~
mcgwiz
The only reason that's necessary is because the game advances you regardless
of finding the keys. This is because there is much reduced expectation of
commitment from the gamer, and if they can't find the key and get stuck,
there's greater chance they'll leave before the advertising message is
satisfactorily conveyed.

~~~
mrcharles
Yeah I know, but 'failure' as a mechanic is something that's a weak hold-out
from a time when games weren't as good. Thus, the requirement for three hearts
is largely negated.

Plus it's not like most AAA games nowadays punish you for anything at all to
begin with, so having you actually hit a situation where you have to
experience the inconvenience of loading a save that takes you back 30 seconds
is ultimately just a waste of everyone's time.

------
imechura
Personally, I am a fan of electronica but have not been a fan of skrillex as
an old fogie who is akin to resenting anything with the dubstep label. However
after playing this game I am more inclined to check out some skrillex music.
Therefore, as an advertisement, this in my mind gets an A++ in effectiveness.
I would also point out that being an 80s kid the sample images in the glitches
evoked memories of Duck Hunt and Mike Tyson's punch out which made an
emotional connection with me that is in turn associated with some great
samples of the musicians catalog. Double A++.

Last I will add that I am not a gamer as an adult but I thoroughly enjoyed
this "game". My 5 year old daughter completed the game after I did an had no
trouble whatsoever with the controls and the story line (I read the text for
her). There is definable a market out there for non-gamers who would invest
more time into games if the target was not as narrow. This market is likely
larger than the Call of Duty/SOCOM market.

So to wrap up.. This is no my cup-of-tea per se, but it is one of those things
that can cross boundaries and bring new customers into a market if executed as
well as this is.

~~~
jarin
I'm with you. I've always liked Klaypex (of Dubstep Guns fame) better than
Skrillex, but I'm willing to give Skrillex another shot after this.

Dubstep Guns: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDlif8Km4S4>

------
oacgnol
I totally get the theme but I can't help getting nervous goosebumps from the
artifacts - I feel like I have to reset the display cable or blow into the
cartridge! Well done.

~~~
Roelven
Me too, totally feels like the glitches are actually real, my nintendo dusty
cartridges nightmares came back to life

~~~
egypturnash
If you have a 360 you should avoid Fez. That game does some clever things with
glitches and crashes.

------
gee_totes
I love this guy (Jada)! Once again showing that Flash, when used correctly,
can create unrivaled experiences on the web. Also of note is the Perfect
Strangers game: <http://nothingsgonnastopmenow.com/>

~~~
nairteashop
Heh, love this game. Like a time machine to the 80s.

------
mtgentry
I am the only one that thought the game was making fun of Skrillex? I thought
all the noise cubes were supposed to represent his music..

~~~
NathanKP
Well seeing as how the final boss is Skrillex and you have to defeat him while
he throws the corrupted cubes at you, I'd say yes they do represent his music,
which is "corrupting the world".

It is tongue in cheek and that is part of the charm.

~~~
laumars
Totally. I saw it more as him having fun with his image than him being the
butt of the jokes.

------
chroma
I hit start and 90% of the time nothing happens. The other 10% of the time,
Flash crashes.

I'm using Chrome stable on Ubuntu 12.04. I have no extensions besides Adblock
Plus. This is the only page I've encountered that crashes Flash on my
computer.

~~~
polshaw
works fine for me with the same setup

~~~
thechut
Hmmm, same setup and it didn't work for me in Chrome, only in Firefox. Did you
install any special flash stuff? Any tips would be appreciated.

~~~
polshaw
Everything is normal..(also have AB+ and ghostery) worth mentioning that on
checking it is v20 of chromium (ie from the software center), v23 is
apparently the current stable chrome version.. are you using that?

------
alexmat
My ex-gf always used to say Skrillex sounded like videogame music to her.. I
was like "whatever, you don't GET it", but I stand corrected. Should send her
some "I'm sorry you were kinda right" chocolates.

------
fumar
Disclaimer: Personal Tidbit

I love electronic music. But, I can not get into Skrillex or American Dubstep
for that manner. I feel like im missing something...

~~~
sneak
The correct term for what you refer to as "american dubstep" is actually
Brostep.

Dubstep was invented in Europe in the 90s and came out of the early techno
scene. The shit these douches are making in California is completely
unrelated.

~~~
anateus
I really hate to be a "genre pedant", but Dubstep is a descendant of garage,
dub, drum and bass and a few other styles from the very late 90s early 00s in
England. "Early techno" is Detroit in the 80s.

If you're correcting someone on nomenclature please be more accurate, and if
you're trolling, please be funnier.

~~~
sneak
Dubstep proper is a near direct descendant of dub techno, pioneered in Berlin
in the early 90s, following in the footsteps of Detroit techno from the 80s
and the 2-step and acid house coming out of the UK and Chicago.

I live down the street from Hardwax, for fuck's sake.

~~~
JonnieCache
As much as there is an aesthetic link between the berlin sound and early
dubstep, the croydon lot weren't listening to lots of basic channel and stuff
at the time.

The UK scene has its own independent subbass heritage. People in the london
scene at least aren't generally that aware of what comes out of europe,
especially back in the web 1.0 era we're talking about.

Check out this from 2000: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doMX6su9Ue0>

And this from 95: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjQZxMoF8Kc>

Both pure london sounds.

Burial in particular was already doing that sound without having ever having
heard of basic channel, until kode9 showed it to him.

[http://blackdownsoundboy.blogspot.co.uk/2006/03/soundboy-
bur...](http://blackdownsoundboy.blogspot.co.uk/2006/03/soundboy-burial.html)

Also living next to hardwax doesn't qualify you to know about tunes. My mum
used to live near blackmarket and she hasn't got any dubs at all.

EDIT: Also technically the R&S lot took that sound from english people like
Mad Professor in the 80s :P

------
sgdesign
This is really awesome, definitely a good entrant in the "video games are art"
category.

I do wish it wasn't Flash though. Not that I have anything against Flash
itself when used the right way, but I feel like it's really hard to "own" a
Flash game.

Unlike, say, iOS apps that you can download and come back to 6 months later,
Flash games are a lot more of a _flash_ in the pan (sorry…) and I think it's a
shame in cases like this where the end result is so great and so much work
obviously went into it.

~~~
boringkyle
I agree, like this bomberman-inspired HTML5 game:
<http://powderkeg.artillery.com/>

------
tobyjsullivan
That's the most exciting black screen I've ever seen... I'm sure it was
awesome when it worked.

~~~
lnanek2
Same here. Broken on Chrome on Windows 8. I don't know, I have a Mac next to
me I can try. Don't really feel like trying the lottery. Maybe the site's just
down and nothing would work. ;/

------
jasonkostempski
I touched a chest. It took me a long time to get there. I can't move and
horrible noises are coming out of my speakers. I'm tearing up at the beauty of
it all.

------
jasonkostempski
Entering THE code actually did something. I'm seriously in love with this
thing.

------
beemoe
Was this created using Unity3D and exported to Flash or was it written with
the usual Flash methods in the first place?

~~~
tiglionabbit
It feels very much like Unity3D to me. I bet that's what they did.

~~~
beemoe
Yes it does. I would be very grateful if someone could point to some more
convincing proof of this.

------
sheraz
Such a good example of how to market music today. Not a Skrillix or dubstep
fan myself, but I can respect this.

------
natep
Very cool concept and enjoyable game, but it caused the Iceweasel 'plugin-
container' on my laptop to use over 200% CPU, which I'm guessing is related to
the circuit breaker flipping (twice). Running Crunchbang 11 on a Dell Latitude
E6410...

Edit: And took me from somewhere near 100% battery to 67%. Crazy

------
greenmountin
I played it through a couple times and then decompiled the flash using the
free demo of Sothink. The secret word is (spoiler, use ROT13) "FABJ".
Unfortunately, it's just a treasure not a substitute for getting all the
parchments...

------
jiggy2011
The problem with making this game in flash is that during the intro when the
graphics go all fucked up I wasn't sure if that was supposed to be part of it
or if flashplayer itself was having a fit.

------
msg
I saved the world with a 28%, first time. :oD I might have done better if I'd
noticed the timers.

I figured this was for an album or something. I hadn't heard his music before,
but it is now on my radar.

Well done and spotted.

------
btipling
The Neverending Story reference to Atreus seeing the Rock Eater after losing
his friends to the Nothing was a huge flash back moment for me. Very well
done.

------
jorts
I got to the fairy then I couldn't control the menu. I like the idea of the
game, although I was hoping it wasn't done in flash.

------
Roelven
I had to dig up this article again:
<http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/142550>

On how we all told each other that blowing into the cartridge actually worked,
but it didn't. I used to do it as well of course, I'm amazed by how that
"technique" turned into some sort of urban legend.

------
chris_wot
Shows. Nothing on a iPad.

~~~
publicfig
Not only is it Flash, but it requires the keyboard as well.

------
sasfasfasffas
Saved the world Ranking Apprentice %23 and I got to watch someone blow fuzz
out of a painted gold NES cart. Awesome.

------
pepsi
Those interested may enjoy the equally (or more) offbeat Goblet Grotto

<http://harmonyzone.org/GobletGrotto.html>
<http://gamejolt.com/games/rpg/goblet-grotto/10253/>

------
NPC82
This game would be a lot more enjoyable with music that matched the theme.
Impressive performance for flash.

------
heyitsnick
Okay, recreate _that_ in HTML5.

~~~
jrajav
Is there any reason one couldn't?

~~~
HoLyVieR
The problem now is that if you do it entirely with WebGL, you won't have as
much people who can play it. WebGL support is still far from Flash support.
It's however something that will change over time.

------
lewisflude
Oh man, this is the guy who made emogame and emogame 2. Loved those games!

------
eminkel
Saw this link on Twitter earlier, didn't click through though. Flash ran fine
in Chrome, pretty fun game, love the sound effects. I'm only 23% apprentice...
if anyone made it to the end.

------
cnp
Desperate to learn who the developers were behind this!

------
snikch
Loving the fact there are FFVII sound effects too.

------
Wraecca
Skrillex's music is just like broken video game!

------
nemo1618
Pretty incredible what can be done in the browser these days. Anyone find out
what happens if you get 100%? I only managed 58%.

~~~
alexanderh
Its not done in the browser, its done in Flash. And it probably could have
been done 5 years ago, easily. It is creative however.

------
NickKampe
A whois of the domain points to Warner Music.

------
siegecraft
Is this promoting a particular tour, or release or something? Or it is just
Skrillex brand awareness in general?

------
gknoy
Wow. This is tremendously well done! I was very pleased to get the Contra code
right, too. :D

------
jontaylor
I hate to nit pick but I think I found a bug...

Seriously though this is awesome! Much better than Halo 4 A+

------
slajax
I was really hoping this had something to do with dubstep.

EDIT: SPOKE TO SOON THERE IS DUBSTEP! Sweet.

------
nsoldiac
love the hidden humor and classic gaming references all over...totally worth a
replay

~~~
codeulike
"All the food is poisoned, all the trees are dead ..."

------
misleading_name
Not very interesting on an iPad, black screen w dark gray writing and not much
else.

------
davidcollantes
All I see is a dark page, with some social network links towards the bottom.

------
joejohnson
This is amazing. Nice use of song samples for sounds effects in the game.

~~~
chii
yea, it somehow fits really well doesn't it!

the game was a bit simple, but have nice touches.

------
duked
I love Skrillex and the game is awesome and pretty fast, Great work !

------
snmcqueen
I just played this for an embarrassingly long period of time.

------
circa
I always thought Skrillex sounded like a video game.

------
benhebert
Love the stunt. Skrillex is the biggest thing in music right now, no one even
comes close. Very nice and tiny guy too.

~~~
ssharp
Biggest thing in music? I think that's overstating him quite a bit. He might
be the biggest thing in electronic music, which is a much smaller pond.

------
Techasura
my ad blocker plus blocked the site on chrome. was puzzled for a while.

------
trg2
This is incredible!

------
matthodan
Well done.

------
ISL
HN FTW. Thank you.

------
luxxx
won't load for me, latest crunchbang, also tried on Mint 13, and it wouldn't
work there either.....

------
ari_elle
I think if this page demonstrates one thing, then how bad his music is, when i
am correct in presuming it's his music that can be heard throughout the game.

Here we have a modern artist, heard by millions, being swamped with prices,
yet his music when in the context with a game which even was especially
designed with the music in mind, can't hold up to the old classics in any way.

Basically: Soundtrack of most N64/SNES Games >>> Skrillex :D

To all downvoters: i personally am annoyed by the music after 2 minutes of
playing, can't deal with this

~~~
jeremyarussell
To you: The downvoters are personally annoyed that after reading two lines of
what you wrote they couldn't deal with your opinion.

Out of curiosity, isn't going to a page where you already know from the start
you aren't going to have anything nice to say a bit, trollish? :)

