Glitch Carrier

Meet Glitch Carrier: Play with Glitch × Evolution

• Take control of glitching artifact which alter continuously the background images
• Fire at other glitches coming at you
• These glitching entities evolve as you interact with them: They will grow differently depending on your strategy, making them more powerful.

How to play

- You can plug an XBOX360 USB controller, press Start button, move with ⬆⬇⬅➡, and interact/fire by pressing A button.
- If you don't plug a compatible controller, you can also start by pressing Enter, move with Cursor keys, and fire by pressing J key.

History - and new features

In 2018 I made @glitch80bot, a twitter bot which selects images tagged with #glitch keyword, glitches them randomly even more, and outputs result as a still image. This work was selected to be part of the event “Blue\x80” organized by Glitch Artist Collective. Today @glitch80bot continues to be critically acclaimed by a small but growing interested community.

Still in 2018 I made SpaceBloop, a procedural arcade game where objects will evolve and propagate differently depending on the way you interact with them. Made in only 8k of code to satisfy the constraints of PICO-8 fantasy console, it can be played freely using a desktop browser.

Glitch Carrier is at the crossroads between @glitch80bot and SpaceBloop, with updated features and capabilities:

• Static image glitch effects now become dynamic: They are now processed in real time, and on a bigger screen. Multiple images will overlap and be merge alltogether too.
• More implementations for objects to move and evolve      
• The way you move will not only influence the way objects will progress. It will also alter the screen, for example by leaving trails of jittered pixels, or distorting some areas.

Why making this project?

I love to mix pixels up.

In my spare time, I make tools with a focus on image processing or image glitch for limited color systems. I’ve been experimenting with image since 2000 and sometimes I make games out of it, especially using limited color palettes since I believe it's a wonderful way to work on small scopes.

What a joyful environment to play with graphical glitches! What a pleasure to take a kindhearted look at pixel anomalies!

That’s why I started Glitch Carrier in early January 2022.

Status

Glitch Carrier is currently a prototype. Development is still ongoing to provide new features.

Awards and recognition

Glitch Carrier was selected to be part of the Glitch Art Is Dead - glitch art festival in September 2022 at Granite Falls, Minnesota, USA - in "objects // interactive art" category.

Technical notes

Glitch Carrier is made in C++ with Allegro. Most of the previous graphical possibilities added in glitch80bot will be transcoded in Glitch Carrier. The challenge, however, is to achieve performance good enough to draw processed images in real time (60 FPS). An efficient approach is to alter images (and screen) using direct access to video memory.

Credits

*** Background Images ***

(as for v0.1 - 27/Jan/2022)
- Eye : Elia Pellegrini unsplash.com/@eliapelle
- Snowy maintain road path : Nicolas Wydouw unsplash.com/@wydouwnicolas
- Top down marine shore : Tiendat Nguyen unsplash.com/@tiend_
- Peppers and onions : Markus Spiske unsplash.com/@markusspiske

(as for v0.2 - 28/Mar/2022)
- Woman walking on the sand, from behind, facing Jupiter : Elia Pellegrini unsplash.com/@eliapelle
- Cyclists in the rain : Sven-brandsma unsplash.com/@seffen99
- Rose flower with droplets : Tara Evans unsplash.com/@taradee
- Woman in white coat, front view, with transparent umbrella : Baghaei Photography unsplash.com/@baghaei_photography
- Moving entities : Cropped subbitmaps of autumn forest mountain stairs : Andy Holmes unsplash.com/@andyjh07

*** Background music ***

- "Get Out" Atmospheric Horror Sci-Fi Synth by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio ;  Royalty Free No Copyright Music
- "Acid Tongue" Cyberpunk Industrial Darksynth by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio ;  Royalty Free No Copyright Music