31 12 / 2011

Androp Makes a Video Game Out of “Bell” Video | MTV Hive » Music Technology

Reposted from http://bit.ly/w32nSy on December 06, 2011 at 04:30PM

Besides a successful indie rock band signed to Warner Music Japan, consider Androp a group a highly conceptual multimedia artists. Together, the Japanese four-pieceare three EPs deep, and their September release relight the group’s first “full” album. For “Siren,” the first video from relight, the band rigged dozens of flash enabled cameras to create a functional, pulsating Jumbo-tron that illuminates patterns behind the band in sync with the music. When sharing the video via its dedicated site, users have the option of crafting a custom message for a friend to read before enjoying the video. Androp further explore personalization and individualized experienced with their recent “Bell” video.

Set in a black and white world, “Bell” is a video game more than anything. The flash game opens with a prompt to share a message with a friend via Twitter, then it puzzles the letters together as the shape of an animal; the type of creature depends on the number of characters. Although there’s no scoring, the idea of the game is to avoid the obstacles (also made of letters) lest the characters of your message become randomly replaced one by one. “These days, communications are established so easy and fast, using technologies such as mobile phone, email, Twitter, etc.,” they explain on their website. “So for a change, we thought it would be interesting if we can create an entertainment about the journey to deliver their message.” It’s practically impossible to maintain your original message throughout the journey, and “Bell” plays out like a musical game of telephone. [Watch/Play “Bell” here.]