More Rolling Western Fun

Not sure what it is in my brain that makes me compelled to do this kind of thing, but here's a little mockup of Dillon's Rolling Western, had it hit back in the olden days. Honestly, I just drew up a random square for the screen size, this isn't like, official snes or gba resolution. Just a fun, old school sprite romp. Plus, Dillon just looks so badass!

I might do more Rolling Western art in the future, as I'm quite in love with the characters and gameplay.

eShop Fun + Crossover Epicness

I've had Swapnote for quite some time now, but I honestly never got a chance to use it. None of my friends were early adopters of Nintendo's new handheld, and I didn't think to pursue the friend codes of strangers via the internet. Thanks to a miraculous price drop at Target, though, two of my close friends finally knuckled down and got in on the fun!
We had every intention of hitting multiplayer games hard, and so Kid Icarus Uprising, Mario Kart 7, and even Star Fox 3D were purchased in the necessary amounts. Despite having access to these heavy hitters, it was the free messaging application, Swapnote, that captivated our interest most. I'm not sure why, but this little gem has been an endless source of fun, and a veritable factory for personal memes. It's amazing, and I'm GENUINELY upset I didn't get to experience it until now.
Here's a typical Swapnote between myself and my brother:
A hideously deformed Kirby greets me in page one, perhaps saying something like "I'M NOT KIRBY."
The hideously deformed Kirby's face will contort into a frightening expression of agony in page two.
By page three, blood begins pouring for ugly Kirby's eyes and mouth, eventually filling the screen.
Page four is probably blank, save for the words DIE written in 3D.

I'm not sure why the blood thing is so funny, but in this context, it really, really works.

Quick Update, Explanations and Excuses

First things first, I finally downloaded Dillon's Rolling Western, and it kicks ass. I want to get into more details about that, but first some excuses.

So obviously I haven't posted a new robot master comic in quite some time. I totally still intend on doing more, but unfortunately a rather important project turned up, and all of my time has been going towards completing it. Anything I've posted lately has been whatever I could get done in my spare time. In the near future, I would, however, love to restart the robot master comics.

THAT SAID, I'd like to get back to Dillon, who as I mentioned above, kicks ass. Alot of people are calling this a tower defense game, and in alot of ways it is. Granted, I'm quite early in the game, but at present I feel a more accurate description of the gameplay is likening it to one of those little wind up cars you had to pull back before it would go. Remember those? Okay, so take one of them, and then add in combo based battles, open world exploration, resource management, RPG  style equipment, and light tower defense, all wrapped in a wacky, wild westy cartoon. THAT'S Dillon's Rolling Western.

Did I mention it kicks ass?

Pandora's Tower NES De-Make

I took some time to explore the soundtrack to the upcoming Wii action RPG "Pandora's Tower" from Nintendo and Ganbarion, and after some reading up on he game's mechanics, I have to say I'm pretty pleased. From what I've read, seen, and heard, Pandora's Tower looks to be not only a fun, original action adventure, but a better successor to Castlevania than many of the franchises' recent installments. The large, non-linear castle to explore, the multitude of weapons to find and craft, the dynamic chain whipping and swinging action, the slightly twisted dark fantasy story and choral, gothic sound track all combine to form a package that has me thinking that Pandora's Tower could potentially be the game to finally fill the Castlevania void.
This got me thinking about the possibilities of Pandora's Tower as a classic NES game, which got me hard at work making that vision a reality. I had pretty limited info to work on in terms of the game's specific mechanics, but tried to make do with what I had. It's obviously patterned after the NES Castlevania games. Probably the biggest challenge, though, was resisting the urge to more closely replicate the game's look. I wanted this to look like the simple, classic game that inspired the modern epic, not the other way around, so I took great pains to no be TOO accurate. Unfortunately, the game has such an unorthodox sense of design that it was quite difficult.
In any case, this game is coming out in Europe this summer, and hopefully in the US sometime after that. I urge anyone that's a fan of gothic action games of old, be they Castlevania, Demon's Crest or Actraiser, should look into Pandora's Tower.