28 Apr 2006

audiovisual 04/ amanita design

Last night, Cristina and i went to the fourth edition of Audiovisual at the Czech Centre and we had a great time. The presentation included samples of flash games, animation and websites from Amanita Design, the main attraction being Samorost, the latest flash game developed by the artists. The guests who presented these works were the brilliant and modest designers from Amanita, Jakub Dvorsky and Vaclav Blin. And Jakub was really cute, funny and entertaining.
Samorost was Jakub's diploma work, and was not as appreciated by his professor (he got a B for it) as it was by lots and lots of people who played the game online and were truly captivated by it. Actually, it was peculiar for a student to present a flash game instead of a regular animation, but Jakub told that the idea came to him as natural since he has always liked simple computer games more than fairies and television and all that. What i liked the most was how he explained to have understood the success of his game: it's impossible to die in this game.
It turned out that Jakub also developed the Vince Carter flash game for Nike, and it was pleasant to find this out, since i knew and liked the game. And he also developed "The quest for the rest" for the Polyphonic Spree, despite admitting he didn't like their music.
Maybe the most interesting part, however, was in the end, when he explained his working mechanisms and showed several sketches, as well as the photos he takes and uses in order to develop the collages for the backgrounds of his animations. Cause, surprisingly as it may seem (or not), all those alien backgrouds are inspired from actual pictures from the routes. What can i say? i can hardly wait for the next edition.

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