Doki Doki Arcade: The Comic 3

This one might be one of the more depressing ones. I don't know.

Just as a heads up, the Gameboy pictured here is modeled on my own personal gameboy brick, which lost its screen covering ages ago.

Doki Doki Arcade: The Comic 2

The comic continues. I don't think this will ever have a story or anything like that, just random gags and thoughts, probably.

For anyone wondering, BloodPot is probably some kind of space marine suffering from advanced necrosia on a mission to the planet Worse Than Hell. Titty-Ninja, the character in the back, is his mysterious frenemy. She has gun hands.

Bloodpot is also what I usually name my save files in Castlevania.

Doki Doki Arcade: The Comic

I've been feeling kinda funked out lately, so I decided to start doing a sort of comic diary of sorts. I can't promise this will always be funny, in fact it might even be kinda sad sometimes, but whatever.

Goodbye, Old Friends...

Rock and Simon side by side!

As a fan of both Mega Man and Castlevania, 2011 feels like some kind of dreadful vacuum year. After the cancellation of Legends 3, the loss of Inafune, and the unfortunate Lords of Shadow, my two favorite franchises seem to be in a weird state of limbo. With the future uncertain, I thought I might take a moment to  show some love to two of my favorite games.

MegaMan Tribute Art; SECOND CHANCE

Unsurprisingly, I didn't get into Udon's MegaMan Tribute book. Fortunately, some resilient MegaMan fans are putting their unused submissions to good use in a fan book! More info on that later!

Amazing Game Music: Shiren the Wanderer

Woo, had a bit of work this week, so no new art or anything today. Instead, I come bearing the gift of music!

Shiren the Wanderer is practically a Japanese icon and has been since the Super Famicom era, but the Mystery Dungeon series of rogue-like RPGs have only recently made their way stateside. These punishingly hard dungeon crawlers are known for their steep difficulty, but standout due to their uniquely Japanese flavor and gorgeous music.

Without further ado, I present Wanderer's Fantasy, a beautiful orchestral arrangement of themes from Fushigi no Dungeon 2: Shiren no Furai.

There's something weirdly comforting about dungeon crawlers. Despite the fact that they seem totally impossible at the outset, the methodical, resource building nature of the games is surprisingly relaxing. Despite the fact that you literally lose EVERYTHING every time you die (although Shiren 3 allows you to keep MOST of your exp), eventually this stops being discouraging at all. Yes, you may lose all your items, but you inevitably find new ones. Dying just becomes part of the experience; you plan for it, expect it. I rarely enter a dungeon with the intention of finishing it, and when I do end up reaching the end I'm usually shocked.

Mystery Dungeon certainly isn't for everybody, but there is an undeniable appeal in making progress. Whether you're climbing Table Mountain or ascending Karakuri Mansion, every new level you reach is satisfying. Gamers with either a Nintendo DS or Wii console can enjoy Shiren's only two localized adventures for relatively cheap, and although the games can be a bit hard to find at retail, online services like Amazon offer reasonable prices and wide availability for both titles.

Considering I'm probably going to be trying to beat Shiren 3 for a the next few weeks, expect occasional dungeon updates!

American Revolution d20

A typical red coat.

A friend and I have been playing around with the idea of a fantasy RPG based on the American Revolution. He's been pretty into Dungeons and Dragons lately, but feeling pretty restricted by working within the limitations of their world. Don't know why we never thought of it sooner, but we decided to make a campaign set in the American Revolution!

I've done a bit of art to get an idea of the sort of universe we're going for here. Hopefully we'll start actually playing pretty soon!

A Hessian mercenary... they mean business!

Probably more to come.