Paul Robertson's "Kings of Power 4 Billion %" Released to Unworthy Internet

Posted by Joel Johnson, March 26, 2008 8:41 AM | permalink

Paul Robertson is a genius, as proven by his just-released opus, "Kings of Power 4 Billion %," a 16-bit animated reflection on the struggle between life and death in a world war between a strobing pantheon of gods, whipping ribbons of motile flesh, and ultra-kawaii heroes. Within its 12-or-so minutes roils enough creative juice and metaphorical subtext to fuel a battleship of master theses. Watch it now, or cast aside the secrets of the universe forever.

The version I downloaded from The Pirate Bay is pretty good quality, but it doesn't seem to be a pixel-for-pixel version. (Or perhaps the compression is smudging pixels.) I hope Robertson renders a higher quality version soon for addition to my permanent library.

Project announcement, with torrent and download sites [PRobertson.Livejournal.com via Roboskirts via Waxy]

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Discussion

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#1 posted by artbot , March 26, 2008 9:53 AM

I made it abour 5 minutes in. It is not watchable - like the video equivalent of an Alec Empire song.

I can haz seizures?

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#2 posted by Doomstalk , March 26, 2008 10:02 AM

I preferred Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006

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#3 posted by Sxe , March 26, 2008 11:52 AM

I had tears in my eyes, it was so awesome.

I don't think it's fair to call it unwatchable, though. It's art in the style of the most difficult parts of chaotic 2D beat-em-up games. You're not *supposed* to be able to take in everything on the screen all at once. I'm sure if you've ever watched an old movie you've remarked at how slowly everything happens: slower pans, slower cuts, more pauses in dialogue. Or at least, vs. what we're used to these days. KoP4bn% is an extrapolation and projection of that accelerated pacing. Like, it might appear very slow to someone watching it 50 years from now.

Yeah, I loved it.

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#4 posted by cableguy316 , March 26, 2008 2:59 PM

Absolutely amazing. Paul Robertson, if you're reading this, bless a real game with these sprites! It looks like you've drawn up at least an entire Metal Slug's worth of sprite goodness all by yourself. Everything's just so dead-on accurate I can't fathom it.

I'd love to know what tools are used to create this. I think he does everything in pencil first, but is the sprite creation itself as labor-intensive as it appears or is there some tricks? After Effects for compositing or something else?

Some little company out there churning out X-Box Live Arcade games needs to employ this man.

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#5 posted by cha0tic