What We’re Into – February 2014
As you can tell from our 2013 wrap up, it was a busy year here at CloudKid, and 2014 is shaping up to be one too! Don’t worry, though, we still find time to consume tons of different types of media when we’re not busy producing our own! Here’s what’s been inspiring us lately in this year’s first edition of “It’s What We’re Into”.
A Sitcom: The Goldbergs
Originally launching its pilot on Hulu, ABC’s new family comedy, The Goldbergs, has all the nostalgia and humor any child of the eighties needs to feel right at home. Narrated by Patton Oswalt, the series follows the eccentric Goldberg family as told through the eyes of their youngest child growing up in the early eighties. While the show is not groundbreaking, it has smart writing and an amazing cast, including Jeff Garlin (for those Curb Enthusiasts) and Wendi McLendon-Covey (of Reno 911 and Bridesmaids fame) as the family’s dysfunctional parents. Filled with constant nods to the many iconic toys and movies from one of the flashiest decades, The Goldbergs is definitely a show to check out if you want to laugh and reminisce about DeLoreans, mom jeans, and VHS tapes.
An App: Yummly
As self proclaimed foodies and tech geeks, we’re always looking for the best tools and apps to help us in our culinary adventures, and we found just that with Yummly. Billing itself as the “ultimate kitchen tool”, the Yummly app is a beautiful, streamlined interface that provides an aggregate of recipes from around the web. Yummly allows users to search for recipes by ingredient, diet, allergy, nutrition, price, cuisine, time, taste, meal courses and sources. Over time, as users save “Yums” (favorite recipes) the app learns preferences and uses this information to make recommendations. Users can also choose which ingredients from each recipe they want to add to an in-app shopping list, making sure there’s no excuse not to get cooking! This app is as beautiful as it is functional, and we’re excited to keep cooking (and eating!) with it.
A Game: Duet
Duet is one of those games that you sit down to play for a minute, keep telling yourself “just one more try,” and then look up and the sun has gone down. You maneuver two connected orbs through a vertically scrolling maze of walls that move, spin, and even start to disappear as you progress to harder levels. The design is stripped down and simple, the gameplay hypnotic, with tight controls and difficulty that fires neurons we haven’t used since Super Hexagon. Not to mention the gorgeous electronic soundtrack by Tim Shiel (AKA Faux Pas), which stands on its own as an album and won’t even arouse suspicion that you’re listening to a video game soundtrack.
A Short: The Expedition
CloudKid’s very own Louie Zong was featured on Cold Hard Flash last week for his short, The Expedition. Louie is an insanely talented artist, musician and animator, and The Expedition features all of these talents in one bite-sized nugget of a short. Did we mention he did EVERYTHING himself in only a week? Don’t worry, he makes us feel like slackers sometimes, too!
