STAR BUSTER ATOM Continues! Indoor Scenes Occur!

This scene is just a bit shorter than the last, but there's probably more actual text, so whatever. I'm shooting for around 3 or 4 pages per scene, but we'll see how things develop.

I'm staying pretty busy with freelance work this month, but the holidays are always a little hectic I suppose. I've also spent probably too much time playing Xenoblade X, which is an absolutely gigantic game. I have a pretty strict code about not bothering to fight anything that isn't a legit threat, so most of the side missions aren't really of interest to me, which I guess makes levelling up a little harder, but whatever. I also downloaded Metabots for GBA over the weekend, which is a surprisingly hard RPG considering its target demographic. I've never played a Medabots game before, though I always watched the show, and I'm glad its available on Virtual Console. I hope this means Natsume might consider bringing one of the many 3ds Medabots games to North America! We'll see I guess.

I'm trying to see if there is any other type of content I can post here during the week. I'd rather not do another comic, since I don't want to get distracted from Star Buster, but there has to be some other kind of weird content I can put together, narratively driven or not. I'll experiment and see what happens! Maybe some kind of weird RPG type thing... hmmm... I have an idea... actually... anyway! That's all for now!

Game Development Fun: Shooter Mock Up

Wild west light gun shooting mixed with intense boss fights! Think Wild Gunmen meets Mega Man, but with a bit of Zelda style overworld exploration mixed in. Basically all of my games are something with Mega Man and Zelda mixed in, now that I think about it, but I genuinely believe that those games have a ton to offer other genres. As much as I love the Zapper, most of the games that utilized it were pretty simple diversions. Sure, it took a fair amount of time to get good at Duck Hunt or Barker Bill, but once you hit that plateau, there wasn't much else to do. It was hard to really get lost in those games.

Of course, other light gun games came as the years went by. Favorites like House of the Dead and Time Crisis are basically just more dynamic Zapper games, but even those end up feeling shallow. Even on home consoles, the arcade origin of the shooting gallery genre is very apparent. I think this is owed in large part to the lack of traditional control options on the light guns of the past. While I seem to remember my Dreamcast guns having some kind of buttons and maybe even a d-pad, actually using it for a game was out of the question. It just wasn't comfortable.

Now, I am admittedly a huge Wii nerd, and though most people look down on the Wii remote's design, I've always been enamored with it, and I don't think any game managed to utilize it's core value better than Metroid: Other M. Switching between the NES style sideways orientation for platforming and exploration and the light gun style pointer orientation for first person shooting and scanning demonstrated both the versatility of the controller and a kind of economy of design that made the control set up of virtually any other modern game seem convoluted.

Taking that dynamic as inspiration, I designed this game with the Wii remote in mind. All of the fighting and shooting would be done in these first person scenes using the controller like a pointer or light gun, while exploration and adventuring would be done Zelda style with the controller held like a NES game pad. While I don't have all the details hammered out (should there be random encounters?), I think the idea of going back and forth between world exploration and intense first person combat could be pretty cool. With lots of different guns, locations, sub weapons, and bosses, I'd like to imagine this as the first fully featured light gun game.

No actual programming work on this game yet, as it is still in the EARLY early phase of planning. That said, I have actually made some for real progress on Super Bird Force as far as programming goes, but I'll share more on that in the near future. Some actual in game screenshots could be right around the corner!

Okay, that's it! Stuff from my trip to Comic Con later!

IS THIS THE END OF WEEPING PINES!? No.

The End! Just kidding, there's gonna be more, but that's the end of this first scene.I'm sure things won't get MUCH weirder from here on. Also a joke, things are gonna get super weird for a little while.

Been keeping pretty busy lately, and have been pretty happy with what I've been getting done. I posted my first sketch on to tumblr, and more are gonna be popping up over the next few days, so keep an eye out there.

Watched like 2 hours of Digimon Fusion on Netflix today, partially to get myself into a solid Saturday morning cartoon mindset while working on Heckbringers, and partially just out of nostalgia for a time when random anime just showed up on tv all the time. Anybody remember Mon Colle Knights? What the hell was that all about? Anyway, man, some of the designs in Fusion are absolutely insane. There's this weird, old timey toy robot looking guy, I think his name was Stereomon? He's ridiculous looking, and anytime any other digimon fuses with him, his innate boxiness influences the look of the resulting fusion way more than it probably should, so anybody he fuses into looks ridiculous as well. Its surprisingly charming.

Started playing Pokemon Rumble World, and I have to say it is quite fun. Pokemon Rumble was never particularly deep, but the experience is a pleasant one, and its FREE, which is cool. Pokemon Shuffle is also surprisingly fun, like a less bullshitty version of Puzzles and Dragons. I've been a sucker for all of the free 3ds games so far, and now I'm starting to miss Rusty's Real Deal Baseball and Steel Diver Sub Wars. God I love my 3ds.

Okay, I think that's enough of an insight into how I wasted a lot of time THIS week. In terms of being productive, I finally sat down to work on Nova Phase issue 5, which is gonna be slow going, but I'm glad I finally got the ball rolling. First 6 or 7 pages are drafted, so I'll probably start trying to get some work done on the final art. I'll post previews of stuff as it happens.

Also, I'm penciling a comic for my brother, and while I can't say much about it right now, I think it's gonna kick ass. I'll probably post some concept art and such later, though I don't know where the comic itself will go. I'll share more details once I have them.

That's it for now. New Heckbringers on Tuesday!

Ninja Turtles Erasers and Halloween Treats

There's something intensely satisfying about acquiring pleasant little doodads, and I was recently treated to a few awesome discoveries at my local Target. It's been quite a while since my K'nex Pac-Man and Mario obsession, and with nothing but Halo and Call of Duty in the Mega Bloks blind bag bins (a somewhat alarming sign of the times, I think), I have largely been without trinkets to waste my money on. This all changed a few days ago, when I accompanied my wife for a stroll around our local Target monolith. Her intention was to purchase some command strips to hang up Zelda posters we framed and then shoved in a corner three months ago, but, as always, I was patrolling the isles for something to scratch my itch, and by the time we were at the check out, I had found three things that tickled my fancy.

The first, and perhaps most satisfying, was a box of Halloween themed Little Debbie brownies. LD brownies were the highlight of my lunch experience between grades 1 and probably 9, so I have a soft spot for the greazy little things. The Halloween theme, however, is what made these truly impossible to pass up. Each brownie is cut into a crude pumpkin shape, sort of an oblong hexagon, with orange frosting, flavored a bit like candy corn, and a spooooooky jack-o-lantern face. The fact that they were on sale for around a dollar or so was nice as well.

Armed with my box of tasty treats, I continued to troll the store for further satisfaction. I stumbled upon a sale on eShop cards, which basically amounts to free money, and was for several minutes engaged in a tumultuous inner conflict. Buy one, get a second 25% off... not exactly irresistible... Even with a 50 dollar card, you're only getting around 12.50 free, and dropping 87.50 on a casual trip to Target, exclusively set aside for future digital purchases, seemed unseemly. I eventually settled on two ten dollar cards, but only because they also came with AR cards for the 3ds application Photos with Mario. I love AR cards (I have as many of the Kid Icarus cards as I could get my hands on), so getting a couple bucks was a nice incentive. I got a Goomba, and Princess Peach. That was all they had.

Now, I had planned for this to be the extent of my purchase, but felt compelled to check out the impulse purchase wall by the registers, where they usually keep trading cards, whether they be Yugioh, Pokemon, Magic, or My Little Pony, baseball cards, and other little collectible junk. My eyes fell upon a blind bag looking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles package, a tie in to the decent Nick cartoon and not the Michael Bay monstrosity, and had my curiosity sparked. On closer inspection, the product claimed to be a puzzle eraser, a term I had never heard before and didn't really know what to make of. Still, the package contents felt substantial, and it was cheap enough that I was comfortable taking a risk, around a buck or so. I wasn't sure what I was getting, exactly, but I was optimistic.

I want to take a moment to just say that I have vastly under appreciated the development of eraser design and construction, as what I ended up with was surprisingly bad ass. It's basically a miniature figure that you assemble from a few pieces, constructed of rubbery eraser stuff, and the final product is pretty impressive. The figure is made up of a lower body (hips and legs), two pieces (front and back) that meet with the lower body to form the shell, two arms that plug in fairly sturdily, a weird little nub of a head, and a bandanna that is almost impossible to get on to the head piece, and that has hilariously dead googly eyes painted on.Once finished, the figure stands maybe 3-3.5 inches tall, and comes with a little weapon made of hard plastic. I had purchased Donatello, or Don-chan as we affectionately call him in my household, partially because I liked him as a kid and partially because his was the front most bag on the rack. I later coerced a friend into getting me Raphael, who, although less cooperative in the standing process, is pretty decent as well.

I really like these figures, for a few reasons. The sculpt and construction is surprisingly good, and considering these things are supposed to be erasers, they actually work pretty well as straight up toys, whether you mean to play with them or just stand them around your desk (I do a little of both). They are also super cheap, which is another major factor in their appeal. As a grown man, I find it pretty hard to justify toy purchases, which is why I tend to gravitate towards figures of the small and cheap variety. I would never drop the cash to have a full set of Turtles figures for desk display, as they're simply to expensive. These little guys are great, though, as I can cheaply get a satisfying set of the whole gang for less than the cost of a single, full fledged Turtle figure, without sacrificing too much in terms of detail or sheer coolness, as these are several billion steps ahead of the also small and cheap Lego Turtle figures in that department.

I don't know how well they work as erasers though.

MegaMan Battle Network on Wii U Virtual Console Makes Me Very Happy

The Virtual Console was one of my favorite features of the original Wii. It was very cool to be able to go back and experience games from a bygone era, whether they were classics I remembered fondly, gems that I had missed in my youth, or, most excitingly, imports that had never made it to North America to begin with. The Wii's Virtual Console had a pretty impressive selection of consoles on offer, ranging from the 8-bit NES and Master System to the N64, plus weird stuff like the Turbo CD, and plenty of great games, including stellar imports like Monster World IV, Pulseman, and Dracula X, so when the Wii U Virtual Console got up and running, I was a little skeptical as to how much it really had to offer. Of course, I was almost immediately surprised (pleasantly) with the long awaited release of the SNES cult classic Earthbound, which i took to be proof positive that there was still plenty to look forward to, a feeling was ultimately justified when the unexpected announcement was made that the Wii U VC would soon feature Game Boy Advance games.

I've always considered the Game Boy Advance to be somewhat under appreciated. In my opinion, there were some truly wonderful games released on the handheld wonder, and at the time the prospect of having a secure, last foothold for 2D games in an era that was solidly 3D on the console side (the whole retro chic thing had yet to manifest) was comforting.  I still remember looking at the line up for the GBA and just being awestruck, and the two games I was most excited for were MegaMan Battle Network and MegaMan Zero. Oh MegaMan...

Let me set the scene here, because being a MegaMan fan at that point was very different then, and yet weirdly similar.  I had eagerly bought up every MegaMan game that had come out during PSX/N64 era, which was comparatively slim pickins. Sure, there were two awesome MegaMan Legends games, as well as a few traditional sidescrollers and even the bizarre Tron Bonne, but compared to the momentum the series had during my childhood, it was a time of famine. Six games on the NES! I loved MegaMan Legends something fierce, but I also missed the classic series in a way, and it seemed as if it was never coming back. When I saw Battle Network, though, I started to feel as if things were changing. I started to feel like MegaMan was BACK!

And you know what? That feeling was not incorrect. Seven Battle Network games on the GBA, plus four MegaMan Zero games! There was just a steady stream of games, bosses, songs comics, shows... it was a kind of amazing time. Sure, I didn't have the time or money to keep up, to be honest, but I was just excited to see the art and designs for each new game! There was this fresh, modern feeling to everything, and yet it was all still familiar, it really felt like the MegaMan I remembered. Battle Network successfully reinvented the world of MegaMan as a slick, action RPG, and reintroduced classic characters with drastic new designs, and tons of personality.

When the GBA Virtual Console was announced, Battle Network was one of the first games I thought of. Now, Capcom has been a little squirrely with MegaMan recently, so nothing was certain, but with Megaman being a major player in the upcoming Super Smash Bros. game, I felt that even they had to realize the time was right to start dipping into their ample supply of MegaMan games for rerelease. They've already done Wii U versions of several games, including the NES and SuperNES games, but so far very few third parties have done anything with the GBA VC. As far as I know, Namco was the only third party to tackle the GBA Virtual Console with Pac-man Collection, Klonoa, and most recently Mr. Driller 2, while others with huge libraries of GBA classics, like Konami and their many Castlevania games, have sat idle. Fortunately, this week Capcom took the plunge and joined Namco, releasing Battle Network as the beginning of a string of MegaMan related releases in the month of August.

So far, I've played for a few hours, and battled my first boss, FireMan.exe, and am having a blast. The Battle Network games combine action, card battle, and RPG elements with a charming game world populated by colorful characters. They manage to play totally unlike any other game on any console or handheld, and it always surprised me that they weren't more influential, as Capcom created a truly unique RPG experience for the Game Boy Advance.

Wii U eShop Gems: Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails

     I love my Wii U.  I'm not shy about my appreciation for Nintendo, even when popular opinion seems to be nothing but doom and gloom. There's just this sense of fun and whimsy on Nintendo machines that makes them stand out from the serious business of competition, and I appreciate that. Games are meant to be fun first and foremost, and in an era dominated by big budget cinematic grandstanding and technical pissing contests, Nintendo has remained resolute in their assertion that innovative and creative design trumps hardware specs every time. Unfortunately, this ideal has always created a divide between Nintendo and virtually everyone else in the industry, and right now it seems that the Wii U's line up is pretty sparse when it comes to third party efforts. Most major developers have abandoned Nintendo's struggling console, leaving a serious dearth in the system's slowly growing library. Despite the exit of giants like EA and Ubisoft, I've been finding plenty of games to play on my humble little gamepad. While the titans of the gaming industry have given up, a new generation of bright, lean, and creative studios has filled that void and supplied Nintendo's  eShop with some simply awesome titles. These independent developers are bringing a welcome sense of fun and innovation, and providing Wii U owners with experiences that value fun above all else.

    The improbably named Scram Kitty and his Buddy On Rails is one of many treasures to hit the eShop this year, and has been on my radar for some time.  The crisp visuals, fast gameplay, and of course, bewildering name all captured my imagination when it was first announced. Now that I've finally got my hands on it, I'm pleased to say it far exceeded my expectations. Beneath the slick presentation is some truly devious design, resulting in a game that will push even veteran players to previously unheard of levels of frustration and satisfaction.

     In theory, the game's premise is simple.  It is essentially a 2D platformer, with the unique twist of having the player affixed to a series of rails, as the title would imply. This allows Buddy to traverse walls and ceilings just as easily as the floor, and creates some truly mind bending platforming. Gravity and momentum work wonders in allowing players to jump and swing in unexpected ways, and the labyrinthine stages will have players moving in 360 degrees of fast paced action. It's a bit like Mario Galaxy in 2D, only its really nothing like that at all.

While the platforming is conceptually quirky, it is the devilish design of the stages themselves that bring out the best this system has to offer.  Huge, maze like, and occasionally hiding Metroid style puzzle and exploration, each stage feels like a carefully crafted play set, and can even be a bit daunting. To truly complete each main stage, players must complete all 4 objectives, which include finding the goal, defeating a hidden mini boss, collecting all of the coins, and chasing down a fast moving target. 100% success comes from mastering the traversal of each stage, a feat that requires both expert us of the rail jumping mechanic and careful study of the structure of level.  It's a system that can definitely breed frustration, but just as often rewards with a feeling of accomplishment at a job well done.

 

     Although Scram Kitty's design may be decidedly old school in its sense of challenge, its audiovisual presentation is thoroughly modern, with slick, colorful graphics that blend 2D and 3D, and an extremely catchy techno soundtrack. Each area has both a distinct visual style, and the many special effects for weapons and explosions are sharp and fluidly animated. The whole game has a satisfying quality that comes from a strong marriage of art and sound design, so every jump landed, missile fired, or enemy exploded feels good. Of course, this also means that every missed jump or laser to the face feels like a crushing defeat, but once you hear the thumping tunes your motivation returns in full force. The menus and HUD elements are also packed with charming little details, and overall the game's presentation is oozing with effort.

 Altogether, Dakko Dakko's Wii U debut is a remarkably charming title with deep platforming action and top notch presentation. In a time where most games are too busy talking at you and rendering explosive set pieces that would make Michael Bay blush, it really is refreshing to see a game like Scram Kitty, so totally focused on just being the best game it can. To me, this is the kind of game Nintendo consoles are made for: fun, quirky, and challenging.

On a side note, I think it's worth mentioning that this entire post was done exclusively on my Wii U gamepad. Pretty neat, and actually very relaxing after being at a computer all day!

UPDATE: Wow! A whole lot of spelling mistakes! That's what I get for typing on the gamepad, I guess...

Don't Worry, I Fixed Gunvolt's NA Design!

Sarcasm. Even though the changes to Gunvolt's design are minor, I think it's kind of telling that someone, somewhere, though that North Americans would be uncomfortable with the exposed navel and braid. Like, he looks a little fey, that's no good in America. Just the first step in the BS backslide to the era of horrible hack job localisations. I really thought we were beyond this kind of thing.

Anyway, so I just decided to push things all the way back and make a bad boxart Gunvolt. Done quickly, but it's supposed to be ugly, after all. I hate just looking at it... but at least it made me think about doing more painting in the near future. Anyone interested in hand painted posters of Bird Force!? No? Okay. I might do them anyway.

Azure Striker Gunvolt Makes Me Question The Need For Mighty No. 9?

Keiji Inafune, the creator of acclaimed series such as Megaman, Dead Rising, and Onimusha has unveiled a new game from his recently formed company, Comcept. Since leaving Capcom, Inafune's studio has dabbled in all sorts of games, but this new title, tentatively called Azure Striker Gunvolt for North America, is probably the most familiar. Teaming up with Inticreates, the studio that developed the popular Megaman Zero and ZX subseries, it looks as though Inafune is getting back to his roots with a good old fashioned side scrolling action game. But there's something familiar about all this...

Yeah, not even a year ago, this same thing happened, but the game was called Mighty No. 9, and it went to Kickstarter to find funding. I was a very early supporter of Mighty No. 9 (and donated a considerable amount), but I generally don't like the fan interaction on these types of projects, and the long wait before anything resembling a finished game is shown off is agonizing. Add in some completely terrible and unfounded drama over something incredibly stupid, and Mighty No. 9 has kind of soured in my eyes. Meanwhile, Gunvolt comes completely out of nowhere, looks completely finished, looks AWESOME, and didn't require any kind of financial contribution from me to get going.

So what happened here? If Comcept and Inticreates were already creating an amazing looking sidescroller that looked to channel Megaman's spirit, why the need for kickstarter? Why the need for so much fan mongering and hyping? It's a little confusing.

Now, it should be noted that Gunvolt is only slated to release on the 3ds, which is honestly the platform that 90% of fans of Megaman or sidescrolling action would be anyway. Mighty No. 9 is shooting to launch on a staggering amount of platforms, so maybe Gunvolt is actually a smarter project. Going after a single platform that there is definitely a market on, and taking advantage of that unique hardware is generally a smarter idea than just trying to jam your game on to everything that plays games. Lots of side scrollers in particular, including Mutant Mudds and Gunman Clive, have seen significantly higher sales on the 3ds than other platforms, such as PSN and Steam, combined. Sales trends would seem to indicate that the audience for side scrolling action games is mostly on Nintendo's handheld. This isn't surprising, though, considering side scrolling action would tend to appeal to very dedicated players, most of which are going to be playing on a dedicated handheld. 

In any case, I'm excited for Gunvolt. I'm much more excited for it than I am for Mighty No. 9 at this point. The lack of fan interaction, community management, crowd funding and grandstanding in this project has refreshed my outlook on Inafune's new company. Whereas Mighty No. 9 seemed to put literally everything before the actual game, Gunvolt has done it right.

Summer Update! Plus SteamWorld Dig!

It's been an extremely long summer, and I've been working like crazy, as usual on stuff I can't really post. Work on Boon Hill has gone really well, with most of the graphics basically done! Secret comic project I probably shouldn't talk about is well into its second issue, and a few other smaller projects have been coming together very nicely!

While I haven't had much time to post any fan art, I have been making time to actually play new games occasionally. I'm happily making my way through Pikmin 3, which is charming as all hell, and was lucky enough to win a copy of Mutant Mudds Deluxe from Jools Watsham himself! Awesome! I even  beat Dillon's Rolling Western, after putting it aside for months due to the last level kicking my ass too hard.

Among all the gaming fun, I think my personal favorite has to be SteamWorld Dig: A Fistful of Dirt by Image & Form. This game totally snuck up on me, but I'm glad I took the plunge and bought it, as it was one of the most fun experiences I've had on the eShop, which is already full of great games. Set in a goofy, steam punk Wild West populated by ornery robots, SteamWorld Dig sees players taking the roll of Rusty, a young steambot who has inherited a mine from his now deactivated uncle. Rusty takes over the mining operation, but his approach is more Megaman X than Harvest Moon.

The game is basically a sidescrolling platformer of the highest sophistication. A combination of wall climbing, double jumping, running, and high jumping means your range of movement is pretty damn impressive by the end of the game, which is important because your environment is unpredictable and complicated in the best way possible. The three major areas of the game world are basically giant sandboxes, and you're free to dig your way through them at your own discretion, so the layout of the level is largely up to you. Want winding corridors? How about a straight drop down hundreds of feet? Need steps? Carefully tunneling can yield whatever result you like! Each area ends up looking like the inside of an ant hill, and I found myself eagerly tunneling and retunneling, making short cuts and alternate paths. The act of actually tunneling is just so satisfying. It's like Dig Dug, but massive and full of exploration and wonder.

The other major component of the game is character progression, which comes in two forms. The first is through Metroid or Megaman X style powerups that augment your abilities, thus granting the aforementioned super jumps, double jumps, and running, as well as a few different weapon modes, good for both combat and tunneling. The other form is through RPG style purchasing of equipment, which basically serves to raise your stats. Armor gives you more health, new water tanks allow you to use your steam items longer, upgrading your core allows you more light for exploration, and each of your weapons can be upgraded for easier digging and destruction. The deeper you go, the heartier the earth becomes, so its important to keep on top of these upgrades. The growth of your character really feels palpable, and its extremely satisfying to see how strong and mobile Rusty becomes.

I really can't say much more about SteamWorld Dig: A Fistful of Dirt without giving away too much information, so I encourage anybody with a 3DS to at the very least check out some videos. Image & Form has apparently experience some success with the game, so I look forward to their future outings on the eShop.

That's pretty much it for now. I'll probably post some stuff in the near future about my time with Game & Wario, which I liked but don't have time to talk about now.

Good DSi Game! Ace Mathician

What the heck is a Mathician, anyway?

 
So math was really never my strong point. Some of that had to do with my gnat like attention span as a student, as I spent most of my time doodling Saint Seiya and Fist of the Northstar during math class, but I think I can safely say that math and I never really got along. Knowing this, I was somewhat hesitant to download Ace Mathician, fearing that I would lose interest once the math element frustrated me. I'm pleased to say that this was not the case.

Ace Mathician is basically a simple platformer, with an interesting twist. Platforms can be moved by entering an equation, similar to the graphing function on a high end calculator. Luckily, the game only gives players a handful of options in each stage, which are all single screen affairs, so the correct equation or series of equations is never too far out of reach. As the game progresses, levels introduce new elements, including simple enemies, multiple equations, and even some slightly advanced math type stuff. It's nothing you need to crack a text book open for, but it's nicely challenging.

Although it's usually pretty simple to get to the goal, each stage has three gold stars that require some tricky math and careful platforming to  collect. Snagging all three stars in every stage of a world unlocks a bonus stage, and collecting every star in every world unlocks a whole bonus world. There are stars to collect in the bonus world, of course, but they don't unlock anything. The game's gotta end eventually, right?

This is my first experience with Goodbye Galaxy games, but after playing Ace Mathician I'm very interested in checking out their previous work, Flipper and Flipper 2: Flush the Goldfish. The charming pixel art, catchy music, and quirky gameplay make for a very appealing and approachable package, and the $1.99 price tag certainly doesn't hurt.

If any of this stuff sounds interesting to you, I highly recommend you check out Ace Mathician on your DSi or 3DS, or at the very least take a peek at the official website.