Music Recommendation: Jonathan Coulton

November 18, 2010 by

Post image by juco – used under creative commons license

If you’ve played the excellent Portal by Valve, you’ll have come across the song Still Alive. I think the attraction of the song was that it was so unexpected as a game ending, but it worked.

I was visiting friends in Yorkshire a few weeks ago and one of them mentioned that Jonathan Coulton, the composer of “Still Alive”, had also written a track for Left4Dead (zombies!). The jukeboxes in the game play a track called “Re: Your Brains”, where a zombie and his colleagues try to convince uninfected people to let them, well, eat their brains.

Jonathan has a great style that’s quirky (e.g. Ikea), geeky (Code Monkey) and just very, very catchy. If you’re after some music that will speak to the geek in you and maybe make you bob from side to side in an understated manner, I’d recommend you check out Jonathan Coulton.

There are a few options for hearing more:

Hope you enjoy what you hear :)

iTunes links in this post are affiliate links.

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Friday Fun: Portal (Flash Version)

July 23, 2010 by

After last week’s rendition of Still Alive, the end-game credits from Portal, I thought it was high time to revisit the flash version of the game. This isn’t produced by Valve, but it is excellent… and if you don’t have anything that will run a game with spectacular 3D graphics, it’s a good way to get into what Portal is all about.

The basic idea is that you can shoot “portals”. The portals are connected, so if you were to fire an entrance at your feet and another at the ceiling you’d end up falling through it and dropping down from the roof. That’s not entirely practical, but you’ll start to see how to use the effect to solve the puzzles you’re presented with.

You’ll need flash to play, which now that I think of it would be why it’s called “flash version” :)

–> Click to Play <–

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Friday Fun: Still Alive [video]

July 16, 2010 by

I recently downloaded the Portal sounds app for my iPhone, and it’s kind of reignited my interest in Valve’s Portal game. If you haven’t played it, you need to get a copy now! And you might not want to play either of these videos.

If you have played it, or you’re not too worried about knowing about the end, carry on…

The two videos below are of the song that plays at the end of Portal. The first is an absolutely brilliant typography, and the second is the song rendered as if played on an 8-bit computer. I could listen to the (non 8-bit) song all day, and watch the typography over and over. So, for a bit of a different Friday Fun, hit play, put the sound on, and enjoy a bit of geeky music :)


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