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With a pallete (and a cloud) borrowed from Doug Henning's wardrobe, James kicks off this Flash clash. A single black-and-white figure drawn in James' signature style strolls across a screen capture from the long-forgotten video game "Malcolm Garrett's Human League Album Cover Designer '88" (for the Sega Genesis). The rice paper background adds a nice organic touch. The paper seems strangely moisture-resistant, as does our hero. He doesn't look particularly unhappy, I'm thinking that raincloud is perhaps some sort of weapon avatar or something, video game characters always have some sorta junk floating over them. He's got "Lightning Power" or something.
It's always good to see a simple, structured serve, James' is reminiscent of Stephen Harrington's classic back in August, widely considered to be among the best in LT history. James built the stage and started a story. Leaving it this wide open more or less obliges Trevor to respond on James' terms, without scrapping the general idea. Trevor can drop a few potted Forsythias on the court, and/or orchestrate a unicorn attack, or even move the camera around, but the physics and space of the match have been strongly established. On the other hand, any decision James makes is one less thing Trevor has to sweat about over the next fifteen minutes.
Something that just occurred to me, which the competitors were probably hoping I wouldn't bring up: since this match is being produced in Flash (aaah-aaah!), we could actually see some interactivity added: buttons, links, sliders, the old eyeballs-following-the-cursor-trick, or what have you. Boy these guys have their work cut out for them.
Soundtrack to this volley: Travis' "Why Does it Always Rain on Me," remixed by Junior Senior, featuring Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys.
Play by play commentary for this match is provided, as it happens, by Bryan Bedell.
Here's how the game works. Jump into the Layer Tennis Forums, we'll be taking the pulse of the conversations there to declare a winner. You can also subscribe to our Layer Tennis RSS feed and follow along via Twitter.
Congrats to totopromo, the in-forum contest winner, and Operator, the remix winner. We have some Jewelboxing and Swap Meat items to send out to you. We're also sending packs of Field Notes to reo5th, BMB and naamyo. Email your shipping info to dawson at coudal.com.
Today is your last chance to sound off about who won Friday's Layer Tennis Matches and to post your remix/contest entries too.
On the last Friday of the season we played two matches at the same time, Koxvold vs Hutchinson and Glass vs Inman. There was a lot of action on the court and a lot in the forums too.
All matches took place on Fridays, live at 2pm Chicago time or GMT-6.
January 25 - Match 1 | View Match
Chris Glass vs Shaun Inman*
Commentary by John Gruber | Forum
January 25 - Match 2 | View Match
Jason Koxvold* vs James Hutchinson
Commentary by Rosecrans Baldwin | Forum
January 11th | View the Match
Veerle Pieters* vs Cindy Li
Commentary by Kevin Guilfoile | Match Forum
December 14th | View the Match
Matt Owens vs Jason Gnewikow*
Commentary by Joshua Allen | Match Forum
December 7th | View the Match
Jason Koxvold* vs Bran Dougherty-Johnson
Commentary by Matt Haughey | Match Forum
Match was played using Adobe® After Effects®
November 30th | View the Match
Trevor Van Meter* vs James Hutchinson
Commentary by Bryan Bedell | Match Forum
This match was played using Adobe® Flash®.
November 16th | View the Match
Aaron Draplin* vs David Nakamoto
Commentary by Steven Heller | Match Forum
November 9th | View the Match
Scott Hansen* vs Rob Cordiner
Commentary by Alissa Walker | Match Forum
November 2nd | View the Match
Marian Bantjes* vs Armin Vit
Commentary by Heather Armstrong | Match Forum
Match was played using Adobe® After Illustrator®
October 26th | View the Match
Brian Taylor vs Jason Santa Maria*
Commentary by Matthew Baldwin | Match Forum
October 19th | View the Match
Naz Hamid vs Chris Glass*
Commentary by Rosecrans Baldwin | Match Forum
October 12th | View the Match
Steven Harrington* vs Chuck Anderson
Commentary by Jason Kottke | Match Forum
October 5th | View the Match
Neil Duerden vs Mathew Star Thomas*
Commentary by Debbie Millman | Match Forum
September 28th | View the Match
Kevin Cornell* vs Shaun Inman
Commentary by John Gruber | Match Forum
* =winner
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