Photo by Vincent Gallardo

Caine's Arcade

A homeless seven-year-old in Russia named Pjotr is addicted to cigarettes. He must navigate the streets of St. Petersburg, doing whatever he can for a smoke -- steal liquor to give to his prostitute mother for a few bucks and trade Mercedes hood ornaments to black market dealers for a spare stoge. If he goes for a minute without nicotine, he falls to the ground shivering and then dies.

The storyline becomes a little less messed up when you realize that it forms the narrative backbone for a video game called Ultitsa Dimitrova, designed by Lea Schönfelder. The sad part is that it was inspired by a real anecdote she heard from her brother, a social worker in St. Petersburg, Florida. But in real life, it is oddly cute -- maybe because of the plot's absurdity, but also because there's an airy flute playing in the background and all the characters are drawn with blue pen ink. Ultitsa is one of dozens of new, offbeat games featured at the 2012 Game Art Festival, which took place this past Wednesday and Thursday nights, at the Hammer Museum and UCLA's Broad Art Center respectively.

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Liz Ohanesian

Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson makes some of the coolest video game-inspired art you will ever see. In his prints -- several of which are on display right now in GR2's group show, "Diversions" -- the past clashes with the present in a brightly colored, pixelated fashion. Robertson artfully pieces together familiar characters from '80s cartoon and video games with Internet memes and anime girls as if he's reading the minds of the Internet masses.

"When I make a piece, my main goal is to make something I want to look at myself," Robertson says via email. "So I usually just cram it full of characters I like, or things from my childhood or just stupid things that I get a kick out of."

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Nate Duvall/Gallery 1988: Melrose

Obey Wario.

Starting tonight, Gallery 1988: Melrose plays host to "Multiplayer x2," featuring the pixelated posters of more than 30 artists riffing on Golden Age video games. It's a follow-up to last year's "Multiplayer" show at Gallery 1988: Venice. The show runs through March 3. Join in the fun at the opening reception tonight, Feb. 10, at 7020 Melrose Ave., kicking off at at 7 p.m.

Below, some of our favorite prints from the show, courtesy of the folks over at Gallery 1988.

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Institute for Creative Technologies

Researcher Belinda Lange demonstrates Jewel Mine, the video game her team made to help improve mobility in rehab.

Startups is a new column about new companies, big ideas and bold discoveries happening in the L.A. area.

Belinda Lange knows how to have some serious fun. A physiotherapist by training, Lange leads a group at the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT), which develops games to help people recovering from a stroke or other injuries.

At first, the researchers wanted to adapt existing games built around physical movement -- the Nintendo Wii and the Microsoft Kinect. But they quickly discovered those games weren't quite right for the rehab set. First, they didn't give enough data, explains Lange, a senior research associate at the institute.

They also weren't sufficiently accommodating to people who couldn't dance, jump or bend far. "Often, the fun parts of the game would only be unlocked after a series of other levels, which our patients often couldn't achieve," she says.

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Amy Lachat

Mike Monreal shoots some Gauntlet demons on the Christmas episode of Co-Op Life

It sucks when your Christmas party is invaded by Gauntlet demons. You have to don your warrior gear, get your party guests cross-bows, and try not to shoot the food. Luckily, roommates Jake Hames and Mike Monreal have plenty of practice battling video-game bad guys around their apartment. Gifted director Shane English gives them a new one to face every week in his expertly crafted live-action video-game parody series Co-Op Life, hosted on Machinima.com

Each episode is shot in the style of a different video game, ranging from modern first-person shooter games like Bio-Shock to hack and slash retro arcade games like Gauntlet. As Monreal and Hames banter and play the game-of-the-week in their run-down apartment, the reality around them begins to fuse with the world of their game until the action is no longer on their console, it's all around them.

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Shannon Cottrell

My Little Pony fans at Anime Expo

There are still a few more conventions left for 2011, but it's not too early to begin the countdown of the best of the superfan scene. This week, I'm counting down a few of the most popular trends spotted at conventions this year. This list avoids perennial favorites (i.e. Star Wars, Star Trek and Dr. Who). Some of the entries have been popular for a while, but the fandoms surrounding the franchises are more visible this year.

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Ivan Fernandez

Henk Rogers of the Tetris Company

"I have a feeling that colorblind people are going to have a tougher time playing Tetris," said Henk Rogers, managing director of the Tetris Company, in an interview, in the midst of explaining how colors play an important role in the game.

Rogers was in town Sunday to co-host and present the awards at the 2nd Annual Tetris World Championship as he did last year. The event brought a small mob of Tetris fanatics to the Bovard Auditorium on USC's campus where returning champion Jonas Neubauer repeated last year's win on the classic NES version of Tetris.

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Liz Ohanesian

"Invaded!" by Jason Torchinsky

Last weekend, IndieCade, the annual event dedicated to independent games, took over a stretch of Culver Blvd. for indoor and outdoor events. Whether they're 3-D video games, iPad puzzles or physical games, the products showcased at this festival aren't just new -- they push the boundaries of how we play. Below, are eight unusual games we spotted at IndieCade.

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What do you do when you come into possession of a copy of Gears of War 3 and your taste in games is decidedly more Super Mario Brothers? You find someone with an Xbox 360 who is down to play and can, hopefully, show you the ropes.

I'm not a gamer. I like what I played as a child-- arcade staples and classic Nintendo titles-- and, as an adult, I look for games that share similar sensibilities to the old school time-wasters. Last summer at E3, I was drawn towards Atari's revamped versions of Warlords and Centipede, Sega's Mario and Sonic at the London 2012 Olympics and Konami's Frogger 3D. I thought indie game Skulls of the Shogun was really cool because it reminded me of the 8-bit quests of my youth. I flipped over Skullgirls because fighting games can be fun even when you aren't very good at them. Admittedly, though, the third-person shooter games that have hit blockbuster status in recent years go over my head.

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Shannon Cottrell

Leonardo da Vinci, by way of Aled Lewis

See more of Shannon Cottrell's photos in "SUPER iam8bit in Echo Park: Video Games and Art."

Part of pop art's appeal comes in instantly recognizing icons from contemporary life. Andy Warhol's soup cans might've been ridiculously mundane, but they touched many viewers in a more personal way than a pastoral landscape or an abstract grid probably ever could.

The line outside iam8bit stretched for two blocks down Sunset Boulevard last night, loaded with folks in search of 8-bit heroes. It was opening night for "SUPER iam8bit," the fifth in a series of exhibitions of video game-inspired art.

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