Zircon in hospital, send good food and signatures

Andrew Aversa, better known around these parts as zircon, has taken ill. This case of appendicitis has particularly bad timing; he will be unable to attend the Video Games Live meetup in Washington, DC. Various members of the community have taken it upon themselves to prepare a big ecard in an effort to cheer him up.
Smoke writes:

How can you help? Submit your signature in handy PNG, BMP or GIF format with a white or transparent background to [email protected]
and get other community members to send in theirs too. Your signature can be pretty much whatever you want it to be, and you can also include a little personal message. The end result will be compiled into one big card.

Discuss the situation here, or in the room #andycard on irc.enterthegame.com
Also, noon EST (Friday) is the deadline if you want in on this.

virt Composes Contra 4; Still Working on VGMix3

On the OverClocked ReMix forums today, Jake “virt” Kaufman posted this little nugget of joy regarding the upcoming Nintendo DS game Contra 4:

Yep! I did music and sound design. I couldn’t confirm it until Mr. Bozon outed me himself, and I’m REALLY glad he did. I was worried that they’d think I violated my NDA if word got to them that people knew I was involved, even though I didn’t spill it.

(and yeah, it’s a big reason VGMix 3 isn’t done yet – my freelancing is sucking up TONS of time.. Gonna have to start snorting meth and/or build a flux capacitor. But this is a big chunk of time freed up, anyway.)

virt’s music is influenced by that of old Konami games and shows powerfully in his chiptune works like FX3, so his soundtrack should fit the Contra feel very well. Even better news is that VGMix3 has not been abandoned. Hopefully he’ll be able to devote more time to its development now that the Contra 4 soundtrack has been finished.

White Bird Album Released

White Bird is an album that I’ve been working on for a little over 2 months. It’s been slow-going because of how busy I’ve been at home and at work, but it’s finally done. At 58 minutes and 42 seconds, it’s a near-full-length album, though it only has 10 tracks (2 bonus included).

White Bird
illustrationism, 2007

This album contains 2 older songs that I decided mid-way to include: Falling Stars, and Dreams We Forget. This album also contains 2 “bonus” tracks, Sleeping Giants and Distant Lands, which are not publicly available for download, and may only be found in the album download.

This
album is comprised of mostly piano solo music with some contemporary
jazz and light string sections sprinkled throughout. The songs range
from chill out lounge music to soft, easy-listening piano, and include
both newer and older piano pieces.

The inspiration behind this
album was, of course, the journey of a small white bird. However, what
many people may not have caught was that it wasn’t literally about this
white bird, though a lot of the inspiration came from the idea. The
white bird is symbolic for any given person who starts out small on a
journey through this large world. This album is about the experiences
that person has, from nervously but bravely starting their journey, to
meeting new friends, to seeing new and wonderful things, to arriving
back home.

As always, enjoy!

Full URL:
http://www.sakari-infinity.net/index.php/downloads?id=sa46729f804f0b4

Whats Pink And Sucks?: xoc performs the music from Kirbys Adventure

xoc, the creative force behind the SMW album and the recently released xoc and Heavy Friends Book II: Touch of Max Nerds, has just released a new video game music cover album. This time, Jason pays tribute to the soundtrack of Kirby’s Adventure for the NES. Check out What’s Pink And Sucks?: xoc performs the music from Kirby’s Adventure at xoc’s web site, or download it from archive.org.