D Life (Mindware Co.) - coming to Steam June 22, 2023

[FunktionJCB]

For those who enjoy games/tools that have a deep connection to its sound design, D Life, the new title from Japanese indie developer Mindware, is coming later this month, and the page is now up on Steam:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2347960/D_Life/

Besides the usual control methods, the game is compatible with the USB-MIDI controller nanoKONTROL 2 from Korg.
Yuriko Keino (Xevious, Dig Dug, Super Pac-Man, Pole Position, and many more classic Namco arcade titles) is in charge of all sound design for this game.

For an idea on how everything works, do check the trailers on Steam, or at the direct link below (English trailer, watchable on browsers; unfortunately, I was unable to find the trailer on Youtube):
https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/ ... e_max.webm

[Steven]

I played this at the event the other day and it's pretty interesting. Highly recommend getting the nanoKONTROL 2 because I think it's better that way, but it plays fine without it.

[FunktionJCB]

The game is out now on Steam:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2347960/D_Life/



For those who own a nanoKONTROL2, the developer has made available an overlay that you can print and use:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/afcznbxsahu5y ... ay.ai?dl=0

[Steven]

Finally got this game today. It really is better with the nanoKONTROL2, though, and he's working on some more stuff that uses it, too.

There seems to be some sort of audio noise on the results screen. I told him about it, so hopefully he'll fix it soon.

After playing for about an hour, I really like this game, even without the controller. It has a sort of brainwashing effect on me for some reason, but in a different way than something like Teki-Paki.

[gingerbeardman]

I bought the game today after buying a nanoKONTROL2 yesterday. I have installed the Korg USB-MIDI driver, and it appears to be working, but it does nothing with the game. How should I know if the game is seeing it?

I'm using wine/CrossOver on a Mac to run Windows Steam/game/driver ...so I guess I might be out of luck.

[Steven]

Talk to Ichikawa-san. He's a nice guy and will do everything he can to help you out. I gave him a bug report once and he fixed it in less than an hour. Not sure if he can do any languages other than Japanese, though.

[Daytime Waitress]

Thanks for bringing this to my attention - only just picked it up on Steam, but I'm already digging the celestial/biological hybridisation that pervaded Electroplankton: you're interacting with and influencing physical lifeforms, but with no direct control over them, it all feels very ethereal (which the music greatly encourages).
I get that it'll be a bit directionless for most folks, but I think it nails exactly what it's trying to be, and I can definitely feel that "brainwashing"/locking you into the zone element

Shame the name means it's virtually unsearchable! (only found this thread again because I remembered that it used a Korg controller).
Speaking of which: I'm not really musically inclined, but I'd be curious about picking up a MIDI controller for it some time down the line for giggles - is that NK2 the cheapest entry point without getting screwed?

[FunktionJCB]

I'm so happy that more people are discovering this game.

It's really one of a kind, a cross between a tool and a game, with a very strong and reactive music component.
Once you get into it, it's hard to drop. It's very "hypnotic" and soothing.

And for those who enjoyed the first game, I'm happy to report that a sequel is coming in late November.
If you liked the first one, the second one promises to be bigger and better in every way, with more modes, and an even stronger reactive audio component. It's sounding brilliant!

With developer Ichikawa-san's permission, here are a couple of work-in-progress screenshots:

[FunktionJCB]

For those interested, the sequel Denshi Life 2 is out now on Steam:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3176 ... ife_2___2/

[Steven]

Still need to get the controller for this game/these games. Hopefully I will remember to do that soon.

D Life was my effortless pick for the best new game released in 2023. Not sure if that's damnation of modern games or proof of how nice D Life is, but for now let's go with both.

[Daytime Waitress]

For those interested, the sequel Denshi Life 2 is out now on Steam:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3176 ... ife_2___2/

Thanks for the update!

Was pleasantly surprised by the first game, and I haven't been able to put much time into the sequel but some initial impressions:

- digital Conway greeting you every time you head back to the main menu is vaguely disconcerting
- pause menu doesn't give you an option to quit?
- wider playfield loses a bit of the charm of the faux-arcade cabinet that the original had
- some of the rapid fluctuations of the patterns is kind of... off-putting

The latter: I can understand that it would be due to all the calculations going on, and maybe I need to play around with the GPU settings, but it's a bit of a shame that whatever added complexity is going on under the hood creates a strobing effect that makes me feel a bit physically ill, compared to the original that Just Worked (TM).

[Steven]

Yeah, the original causes the Steam Deck to struggle. I talked to Ichikawa-san about it and he said it's probably because the CPU is calculating the trajectories of several tens of thousands of the life forms/dots simultaneously. Or maybe it was just a few thousand, but I forgot lol.

This sequel seems to greatly increase the count, so it's definitely going to be CPU-intensive. My normal non-weird PC's only about as powerful as the regular PS5 because it's almost a decade old, but I'll be sure to enable my framerate counter and usage analytics when I check out the game.

Several hours later edit: oh good lord this game annihilates my CPU. The weird part is that it's only using 20% of it. Not sure what's up with that, but I'm going to ask Ichikawa-san about it. Fortunately you can run it on GPU and my GPU laughs at this game.

Life form movement does indeed seem less smooth than the previous game, though. I also noticed that sometimes the thing doesn't correctly tell me the number of colors that I have clicked on, so it caused me to game over because I believed it when it asked me to get exactly 5 colors. It said I had 5, but I only had 3. Weird. Well, I'll let him know and he'll probably fix it super fast.

Kinda want to see what this game does to the Steam Deck...

yep it kicks the Steam Deck's ass, as expected.