As a rule we try to keep to iPhone news here at iPhone Otaku, but Guru Meditation transcends platforms old and new. Meet the iPhone's first hybrid of the Amiga, Atari 2600, Wii and WiiFit.
If you're an old Amiga gamer, as I am, the term 'guru meditation' will bring back memories good and bad. Good, because it reminds you of a wonderful age of gaming focused on the Commodore Amiga, and bad because seeing a guru meditation flash up on the screen meant your awesome Amiga had just crashed.
So, what does a game called Guru Meditation have to do with all these classic and new gaming platforms? Well, it's an ambitious project by developer Ian Bogost, which brings an Atari 2600 game of the same name to the iPhone. Yet the Atari 2600 game is actually a new game that Ian's put together and installed on a cartridge for those of us who still their beautiful wood veneer consoles.
On top of all this Guru Meditation revives an Amiga-made peripheral released in 1982 for the Atari 2600 called the Joyboard (this is before Commodore bought Amiga and released its wonderful gaming home computer), which is essentially a more primitive version of the WiiFit. Basically a joystick that you stand on, Guru Meditation puts this woefully underused peripheral into action in a rather surreal yoga-based game. The game involves sitting cross legged on the Joyboard while remaining as motionless as possible. By keeping still, the yogi on screen begins to float - move, and his concentration is broken and he floats back to Earth.Still with me? Good.
So, Ian's actually selling a limited number of complete Atari 2600 kits - complete with Guru Meditation on a cartridge, and bundled with the Joyboard - over on his site. And to help drum up a little extra interest in Guru Meditation, he's released an adaptation for the iPhone. Developing any iPhone game is no small task, but there aren't many that can boast quite such a fascinating and convoluted lineage as Guru Meditation. The iPhone version works in the same way; requiring you to sit in motionless meditation to allow the yogi to rise to video game enlightenment, and - on the iPhone only - also includes keeping as quiet as possible so as not to break his contemplation of the emptiness of cyberspace.
The lines between handheld, retro and next-gen gaming have never been so blurred, and hats must go off to Ian for accomplishing such an unusual and ambitious project as Guru Meditation. You can check out the iPhone version by clicking the App Store button, and head over to Ian's site to see the incredible work he's done on the Atari 2600 version right here.
http://www.bogost.com/games/guru_meditation.shtml
