Tuyen's Blog

Posts for Tag: music

Like Final Fantasy music and Parappa the Rapper style of gameplay? Theatrhythm has got you covered.

I got a chance to see Nobuo Uematsu in concert and it was a great experience.  The Final Fantasy series of games were well regarded not just for gameplay but its cinematic story telling.  The closest thing to an interactive movie, in my opinion.  And just as music is a huge part of any great movie, so was the music of the entire FF series.  Here's a vid I took of the man himself performing on stage in Chicago. 

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1006921/FF-Distant%20Worlds%20-%20Encore.mp4

Just released today, Theatrhythm is a great blend of beats style game play and the great music of Final Fantasy.  See the gameplay trailer below.  Great introduction for anyone not familiar with the FF franchise.  I hope it gets people to consider playing some of the old titles.  Like great movies, they are worth revisiting periodically to remind folks that games can be more than just heavy handed graphics and shooting people.

A good start-up lesson on how to beat your bigger competition

It's strange how themes seem to emerge in our daily lives. The History Channel had a program about Sun Tzu's Art of War a few days ago (interesting if not a little campy with the graphics and re-enactments). Then a friend forwards this interesting article about junior girls basketball from the New Yorker. They both highlight a specific tenant of competition, be it sports or war. Always attack your enemies weaknesses and never engage them in the things they do exceptionally well.
 
Centrro is in a very large, very competitive market that is currently dominated by much larger players with much larger war chests. We'll never be able to out spend out competition but instead of spending $1.00 to make $1.10 (of course, multiply that by millions), we've decided to take the route of spending $1.00 to make $3.00 or, in some cases, $6.00. We do this by engaging in certain channels that our competitors either disregard or cannot efficiently play in. Over time, this efficiency will allow us to grow large enough to enter more mainstream channels but still carry over the learnings and processes from our best channels.
 
The other thing I found interesting about the New Yorker article was that instead of adapting and innovating, the Goliaths tend to force the Davids to play their game by their rules. How many times have we seen the music industry sue their way out of an issue? Now the movie industry is doing the same. Kudos to Redwood City girls basketball team and their coaches for thinking outside the box!