> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.killscreen.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# A video synthesizer is the control scheme in Hypnogenesis
- URL: https://www.killscreen.com/a-video-synthesizer-is-the-control-scheme-in-hypnogenesis/
- Published: 2026-09-02T00:44:03.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-02T00:44:02.000Z
- Description: Allen Riley and Andy Wallace wired a bullet hell into the guts of an image feedback loop, then demoed it on a CRT for the games-research crowd.
- Author: Kill Screen Staff
- Tags: Hypnogenesis, Allen Riley, Andy Wallace, shmup, bullet hell, Synthesizer, arcade, Nam June Paik

The equipment list for this year's Foundations of Digital Games conference in Copenhagen included a Bang & Olufsen CRT, and on it ran *Hypnogenesis*, a bullet hell that is also, literally, a video synthesizer. Allen Riley presented the game in the Games and Demos session, curated by Dooley Murphy, at the Royal Danish Academy on August 11, and [the reel](https://www.instagram.com/p/DcErrpfObyu/?ref=killscreen.com) catches what a scanline-fat tube does for it that no flat panel can.

0:00 

/0:21 

1× 

**Hypnogenesis* on the Bang & Olufsen CRT at FDG Copenhagen, from [Allen Riley’s reel](https://www.instagram.com/p/DcErrpfObyu/?ref=killscreen.com).

Game state in *Hypnogenesis* directly modifies frame buffer values in a customized build of Andrei Jay's open-source Video Waaaves software, and the player's controls are wired to parameters of the synthesis itself, so flying the ship is simultaneously performing the image. Riley and collaborator Andy Wallace [frame the project](https://hypnogenesis.xyz/?ref=killscreen.com) as belonging to "an alternate history of games"—the one that would have followed from Nam June Paik dragging a magnet across a television, or a camera pointed at its own monitor until patterns bloom. Killscreen has been partial to that lineage for a while; in 2013 we covered [*Limits & Demonstrations*, an adventure game built as a Paik-inspired gallery show](https://www.killscreen.com/limits-demonstrations/).

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/84/2584b75d-4bd6-4cce-8259-f1d1c65abbb5/content/images/2026/09/hypno.gif)

The pairing is practice and research meeting on one table. Riley is a PhD candidate in Film & Digital Media at UC Santa Cruz whose previous game, *Videofreak*, ran its feedback through circuit-bent video mixers and guitar pedals; Wallace is the New York designer behind *Particle Mace*, and the two met as board members of the arcade collective now called Arcade Commons. *Hypnogenesis* is built for arcade furniture—dual joysticks, standalone CRT—but a [Steam page](https://store.steampowered.com/app/4545390/Hypnogenesis/?ref=killscreen.com) is up, listed as coming soon, for those of us stuck with the wrong kind of screen.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/84/2584b75d-4bd6-4cce-8259-f1d1c65abbb5/content/images/2026/08/hypnogenesis-ss1.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/84/2584b75d-4bd6-4cce-8259-f1d1c65abbb5/content/images/2026/08/hypnogenesis-ss2.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/84/2584b75d-4bd6-4cce-8259-f1d1c65abbb5/content/images/2026/08/hypnogenesis-ss3.jpg)

Feedback states of **Hypnogenesis*. Screenshots via [Steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/4545390/Hypnogenesis/?ref=killscreen.com).

Games that only fully exist on one particular television are Killscreen’s favorite kind of hardware problem. The free newsletter tracks play at the edges of the machine.

[Get the newsletter ](https://www.killscreen.com/start/?ref=radar-cta)