Some Bird Force Nonsense!

Bird Force, my awesome game idea that I can never seem to finish, has been an enduring shadow over my thoughts for almost two years now. Although I may not have the time just now to focus on bringing this vision to life, I thought I'd at least share a little art and keep the dream alive!

I'm also just trying to draw as much as possible these days, for both practice and personal satisfaction. For how much I love Bird Force, I've produced surprisingly little art related to it, and my recent Star Buster art has been coming along so well I thought I'd branch out a little. The composition is a little more ambitious than the previous digital stuff I've been doing, and I'm honestly not great at drawing birds, so this was a fun project. I literally hated the way it looked until the minute it was finished, so I guess it can be cool to see how something can come together.

Uh... that's it I guess? More Star Buster next week!

Update Dump of Ultimate Guilt!

Sooooo... I know I said I was going to be posting more, and that I was going to have more free time. One of those things turned out to be true! But I swear, I haven't been not posting because I haven't been doing stuff! I just haven't done anything finished enough to show off. Sad, but true.

So what have I been up to? Well, Mario Maker got me in the mood to hit game development again, and with a vengeance. I actually put together a little Castlevania style platformer that was shaping up nicely, but honestly that will take a very long time before it is actually done. A finished stage as a demo isn't out of the question, but even that would be a little ways off. I'll dump some of the graphics and screenshots up here in the future, but that is a story for another time. Here's a mock up of th first boss fight, just for fun!

I also did a crap load of work on Nova Phase, the 5th issue of which will probably be done this week. That means it will come out like... in February probably, but whatever. It will be good to be close to completing the series' run, and some of the art in this issue is pretty awesome. Maybe I'll post some spoilers. Maybe.

I've also been trying to take steps towards finishing some other little projects that have been sitting around. It is my genuine intention to do one more chapter of Janken before doing an Amazon e-book or something of the whole thing. The cover is done, and the "last" chapter is thumbnailed, with a few pages even penciled, but that's it on that. Here's a look at the updated cover and logo.

A lot of my down time has been spent basically practicing my digital work, including lots of inking and sketching. Some of these turned out pretty cool, so I'm posting them here for fun!

This one was a concept design for a comic my old collaborator on Heckbringers was thinking of doing called Dragonomics. Not much to say about that yet, but could be seeing more of this little rascal in the future. He's up to some other stuff, which I will post about a little later this week.

Anyone who follows my blog knows I come back to this guy every now and then. I'm working on a small project involving him that is going really well so far, but I want to have a bit more of it done before I post it here.

Another one that comes and goes pretty frequently! I don't remember why we stopped working on this game, but I love the designs from it and I'm trying to find some place to use them here. Ideally something that wasn't a full blown comic, but I guess we'll see.

I've got some other stuff brewing, but this is the major stuff. I'm also finally biting the bullet and sitting down to remake and ultimately finish the original Bird Force in a more reliable program. There were was supposed to be a pretty involved story, and a handful of characters that never made it into the version I posted here because I was terrified Construct would collapse and I'd lose what I actually had done. I'm working in Multimedia Fusion to program a definitive version of the game with all the features I initially imagined. It's going well considering its literally been one afternoon of work. Hopefully more on that in the near future!

Okay! That's it! I'll probably be posting another small comic later this week!

Some Bird Force Bits!

Been a while since I posted anything, and don't really have anything to show, but I have some Bird Force related stuff from a bit ago that I took a little time to finish up this weekend, and felt like showing off a bit. First off, some planes!

This is for the four main characters, although the plan is that there will be a ton more of wingmen to find and recruit, each with their own ship and weapons. I don't think I've shown these in sprite form before, so I hope this is cool! Next, some bosses!

Just three for now, based on a fly, ant, and bee (or maybe wasp) respectively. The enemies would be bug inspired planes, but the bosses would be full blown mecha monsters. Had a hard time nailing the look for the enemy mechanical designs, but I'm happy with how these turned out.

Sadly, that's about it. I'm hitting a brick wall on backgrounds, but I think I might just be tired... I'm changing my development tools around a bit, as Construct turned out to be a little too temperamental during the development of the original Bird Force last summer. I'm gonna try Multimedia Fusion this time around, so hopefully that will be a little more consistent.

And yes, development was definitely inspired by the Star Fox announcement. So cool!

BIRD FORCE STICKERS!

I know at this point it seems like forever that I have been promising these, but I finally sat myself down to get these little guys done! I wanted these to be as fun a a bunch of stickers possibly could be, so I hope they turned out good! Without further ado, here is the first set of BIRD FORCE STICKERS!

Collect'em all! #teambirds

Here we have the starting roster of pilots, complete with their own unique signature ships. Everybody here has already been featured in the past, but this is the first time that they've been  rendered in anything other than pixel art, which was an interesting challenge, as I never even drew concept art of these guys. In the future, there'll be some new characters debuting, including enemies! I think they will be pretty awesome.

Now then, instructions. Just print this image on to sticker paper, available at Staples or whatever office related store you frequent. I'd buy it online, because it's probably cheaper, but whatever. I imagine these would look best a little smaller, so try printing them 4 up! I don't know. Experiment, and let me know what works for you.

Enjoy!

The Littlest of Battles: LBX Sprukits Analysis

When I was around 13, I developed an intense interest in Japanese mecha cartoons. I don't know of it was the giant robot designs, the action, or the political rhetoric,  but over the course of a few wonderful years I eagerly watched every available show, or at least everything that was on Toonami. I  first got on board with Gundam Wing, but other classics like Evangelion (which I still have somewhat mixed feelings about) and Big O (which I don't) struck chords with me as well. Of course, it wasn't long before I discovered the extensive model kit market at the periphery of this new genre, a sort of build it yourself action figure with an emphasis on customization and collection. At first, I had to order my model kits from Japan via the internet, which involved lots of begging my parents, but eventually they became widely available domestically in stores like Toys R Us. For a couple years, I had a good time building a painting models of various robots from the Mobile Suit Gundam series, since that was the only mech anime that got big commercially, but by the time I was out of high school the mainstream appeal of mechanical war machines had come in to question, and it was back to the internet, except that I had kind of lost interest as well (I did NOT enjoy Gundam Seed). For most of my adult life I did without any kind of model fun.

I suppose I should blame those Ninja Turtle erasers, but I've recently come to have a renewed interest in building figures, and having exhausted the supply of tiny K'nex Pac-Man dudes I've been at a loss for something to scratch that itch. However, I recently discovered Sprukits, a line of fairly new Bandai products that seem to be an attempt to reintroduce consumers to the world of model kit building. Normally I wouldn't have necessarily given much of a damn about this, but there are a few features of the Sprukits line that I find fairly amusing. The first of which is that, rather than focusing on their Gundam franchise, Bandai has opted to make deals with more traditionally western properties this time around. There's something amusing about seeing a Gundam style model kit of Bat-Man and Halo's Master Chief, and I'm sure the actual end results are fairly neat, but I don't really care at all about DC Comics or Halo, so I will probably never purchase one. Far more interesting to me is what I consider to be the secret star of the Sprukits line-up: The Little Battlers Experience.

If the name doesn't sound familiar, don't feel bad. The Little Battlers is a fairly long running series of action RPGs from the wonderful folks at Level 5, which has been sadly but firmly relegated to Japan-only releases, making it virtually unknown in the western world. The concept, which casts kids as the operators of miniature battle magggggggggchines competing in tournament style conflicts, is equal parts Medabots and Gundam, with a strong focus on preserving the feel of real model building sub-culture. Although I'm certainly out of the age demographic for this type of stuff, I really do love the designs of the machines, and while I haven't had a chance to play any of the games, the Level 5 pedigree, which I consider to be a history of excellent releases, is encouraging. Personally, I've been waiting for any sign of localization for this series for years with nothing to show for it, but that seems to have changed this year.

As part of a multimedia promotional thingamajig, several facets of the LBX franchise are making their way on to North American shores this year, with an anime series airing on Nickelodean of all places, and of course, a sub-line of Sprukits. I don't get Nickelodeon, as I have probably said in the past, so I have no idea whether the dub is any good, or if the anime is any good to begin with, but the designs of the mini-mechas themselves is totally awesome, so it's hard for me to not love these things. Over the course of a few weeks I acquired and built the three available figures in the lines smallest scale, partly because I love small toys and partly because I don't want to spend more than 10 dollars on something that is just gonna sit on a desk.

Here are my thoughts.

First off, these seem to be much more streamlined than the Gundam models I remember, at least as far as construction goes. There are far fewer parts, and it seems almost impossible to screw up, which is nice, as a misunderstood instruction no longer requires annoying and fiddly backtracking and deconstruction. The simplicity leads to shorter build times, which is either a disappointment if you're looking for a real event, but a bonus if you just want to build the thing while watching tv or something. The pieces snap off nice and easy, but I use a pair of clippers to free them because I like to be fancy.

The first LBX model I bought is called Hunter. There is a lot I like about the design of this guy. For one thing, he has a very unorthodox body, appearing to be some kind of mechanical bipedal wolf or something. His legs are all weird backwards jointed, and look awesome. He also seems to be a sniper, as his only accessory is a giant rife. He comes mostly molded in a kind of blueish purple, but a few stickers provide a neat facial scar. I just really love the way Hunter looks, and although his range of motion is a little limited by his unusual anatomy, I was pretty pleased with my first experience with LBX.

On my second trip to Toys R Us, I decided to go for the "main" model, Achilles, the LBX belonging to the show's hero. Visually he looks a bit like a combination of Big O and a Spartan, with a high mohawk adorning his helmet, and even a cape. He's mostly molded in white with some blue trim available via sticker work, and comes with a spear and shield. He's much easier to move around than Hunter because of his simple, solid limb structure, but his shield can be a little cumbersome, as the handle isn't at such an angle as to make realistic positioning possible. Still, he looks awesome, and definitely has a heroic look to him.

The last LBX I bought, and the only other figure available in this particular scale, is called Deqoo. As far as I can tell, Deqoo are the "standard" enemy model, like the Zaku from Mobile Suit Gundam. He's pretty simple looking, but there is a certain charm to his functional and militant appearance. He feels solid, and seems to be the easiest to pose of the three. He comes with a amusingly big pistol and a shield, which presents the same problems as Achilles' but is a little easier to work with because of its shape. I'm not thrilled with his shoulder stickers, but the "red eye" effect turned out pretty good on the helmet.

Sadly, that seems to be it for this small, cheaper line of figures. I think there are a few other models available at the higher price point, but I'm not gonna pay 20 dollars for a slightly bigger robot from a show I don't watch. As it stands, the LBX Sprukits are fun little figures, and while I certainly won't be doing any customization, I could see a kid having fun swapping parts, maybe giving Hunter Deqoo's gun, or having Achilles dual wield sniper rifles, or even painting the figures to more closely resemble their animated counterparts. For me, I just like having these little badasses sitting next to my pencil sharpener, making my desk that much more tempting a spot for my cat to wreak havoc.

The Art of Box Art

This may be hard for some to believe, but there was a time for youngsters when the only information available about a game was what was on its box. If you had a subscription to Nintendo Power you might have access to some previews or reviews ahead of time to guide you, but those were relatively few and far between, and hardly reliable (Nintendo Power, for example, rarely outright called a game bad, regardless of how incredibly hard it deserved it). The back of the box may have tried to entice you with rarely accurate flavor text and blurry screenshots that were literally photos of a tv screen, but the obvious selling point was the cover. It was the first thing you saw in the store, and what you would remember most when you eventually were pulled away from the display by your parents. To this day there are tons of games that, despite having never ever actually played myself, I will never forget the box art for.

The 80's and 90's were a particularly interesting era for this, as the box art for most games had to serve the twofold purpose of making the game look awesome AND hiding any traces of the game's probably origins in Japan. I suppose marketing guys back then looked at the Japanese art for games like MegaMan, with the big, shiny eyes and bright colors, and assumed American children would turn their noses up at such alien art styles. It didn't matter that shows like Speed Racer, Gigantor, and Astroboy had long been present overseas, or that contemporary shows like Transformers and Robotech were airing with great success, apparently. As a result of this thinking, most games had radically different art for the North American releases, usually overblown paintings influenced heavily by action movies more than the game they were supposedly based on. This era produced some really fascinating boxes, and while there are plenty of examples of famously bad illustrations, there were a fair amount of really memorable ones.

Of all the Japanese companies at their prime in the 80's and 90's, Konami probably had the best track record when it came to North American box art, with many that actually improved on their Japanese counter parts. As a kid, there was a quality to many of Konami's boxes that I found to be very appealing, and it wasn't until I grew up that I realized that many of those illustrations appeared to be by the same guy, and that there were actually a bunch of others that I had never even seen. I don't know who this guy is, or even for certain that these were all actually done by the same artist, but all of these boxes share certain brutal and rugged sense of intensity that I absolutely love. They also are shockingly accurate to the games they represent, something of a rarity back then, as if the artist actually played the games. Many of these will probably be familiar, some may not, but regardless, they are all pretty wild.

 1. The Adventures of Bayou Billy
While the game here is somewhat infamous for both its insane difficulty and shameless similarities to Crocodile Dundee, the box art is unarguably bad ass. The rough, thick brush work makes the details look more like they are hewn from rock than painted on canvas, and the greenish-yellow color palette really suites the swampy subject matter. Billy himself looks pretty awesome, way cooler than he looks in the game in fact, where he looks more like a melted cowboy in capris. The background includes several details from the game, such as the jeep from the driving stages, the New Orleans setting, the evil gangster final boss whose name I can't remember, and of course a big, bad gator. I may have never gotten remotely close to beating this game (even the famous Captain N never conquered it), but this box manages to make a kind of lame game look really cool. If this dude could make Bayou Billy look awesome (believe me, he didn't have much to work with), imagine what he did with good games!

2. Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

For many player's, Dracula's Curse was basically the zenith of the Castlevania series, and while the box art for the first two games was certainly not bad (okay, Simon Quest's was a little hokey), neither did as good a job at showing much of the game. With Castlevania III, we get a good look at some of the game's most iconic features. You've got Trevor Belmont brandishing the powerful Vampire Killer, ready to take on a bone throwing skeleton, complete with gears and cogs, representing the infamous clock tower level. In that background there are Trevor's many transformations (although Sypha and Grant are visible here, Alucard is sadly covered by the stupid sweep stakes sticker). We see plenty of birds and bats, as well as a spooky red moon and castle spires. Although the Japanese box art has a certain charm, this is s definite improvement.

 3. Super Castlevania IV
This one was a favorite of mine growing up. Whereas the previous two have been fairly static images, for Super Castlevania IV Konami opted for a much more action packed illustration. Simon appears to be in mid swing across some kind of abyss, an interesting nod to one of the new mechanics introduced in the game. The little door knocker looking thing that he's got his whip latched too is crazily accurate to the in game dongles for swinging, which is a cool detail. Probably half of the enemies in the game are represented here, even little ones like the frogs and medusa heads, and interestingly the franchise's infamous stairs seem to be prominently featured too. I like that the crazy, nonsensical background composition make this look like some kind of swirling montage of the game as opposed to a depiction of a single scene, and the mostly grey-blue palette makes yellow-brown Simon really pop.

5. Contra III The Alien Wars

This is another one that is jam packed with shit directly from the game. Almost everything here looks exactly like its in game counterpart, even little details like the weird robots you have to hang from during the vertically scrolling stages. The giant skeleton boss bursting out of the wall is pretty much spot on, and oh my god that nightmare face in the background is unforgettable. I don't think I ever got far enough in the game to see that thing, but I'm sure its in there somewhere. Much like with Super Castlevania IV, the exaggerated perspective makes it seem like this is all happening in some kind of swirling vortex of action, as if we are simultaneously seeing every scene from the game at once. The intensity here is stuck at 11, which suites the game just fine.

6.Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time
For the home port of this gem, Konami decided to produce art that kicked the hell out of the original arcade cabinet art. Whereas the last two boxes simply looked as if they were occuring in some kind of temporal whirlpool, this one definitely is, as elements of the many time periods the turtles visit all look to be caught in a sparkly tornado. The turtles themselves look downright MENACING here, with insanely detailed and chunky musculature and faces of absolutely fury. This is probably the scariest the animated turtles ever looked in their heyday. Yeah, that's the cartoon turtles. The movie turtles would never be caught dead with those alphabet belt buckles. Also, it's neat that Raphael is front and center here.

7. The Legend of the Mystical Ninja

I spent a long while debating whether to include this one on the list, as I'm not positive it's done by the same guy. In fact, the more I look at it, the more I think it isn't, but I still love it, so boo. This was probably the single most Japanese game to ever make it to the US, and it's a miracle that it made it over with much of it's character intact. Sure, Goemon looks a little more like a Garbage Pail Kid than I would like, but that tiger looks absolutely amazing, and the wacky look of the enemies seems to be pretty intact. While a little less action packed and intense than some of the others, but it's still jam packed with tons of weird shit from the game. I'm willing to bet this was a really hard one to do, so congrats to the artist for getting this done.

 8. Sunset Riders
I never really played or even saw Sunset Riders other than at the arcade, but when I saw this box later in life I instantly recognized the Konami aesthetic. Like with Bayou Billy, there isn't as rich of a world to Sunset Riders for the artist to work with, but he did an admirable job of sweeping the western action into a furious stampede of frenetic madness. Only two of the playable characters are here, unless the others are behind the logo, but a boss or two is there, and horses! Scary, scary horses. Also, check out that terrified chicken. Now that is detail.

 9. Castlevania Bloodlines
Konami didn't make a ton of games on the Genesis, but after a while they seemed to notice that the machine was getting a little traction, and decided to start dropping a game or two. The more vertically aligned boxes of the Genesis seem to have given Konami's artist a little trouble with his usual "swirling vortex" composition which seemed to fit so naturally on the Super NES's wide format. The result is two slightly unusual compositions, the first of which was done for the first and only Castlevania game for the Genesis. Here, musclebound John Morris struggles to look at enemies that are  both behind and above him. Unlike the wooshing whirlpools of the previous pieces, this is more like a hazy tower of evil, with far fewer background details than usual. Still, there are plenty of wonderfully rendered enemies on display. This cover also weirdly omits the second playable character. Still, it's a colorful and memorable piece overflowing with machismo.

10. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyper Stone Heist
I remember being really excited for this game. I don't know why, as I already had Turtles in Time for SNES, but having Turtles game on the Genesis was something I was really looking forward to. Again, no swirling vortext montage here, but in terms of composition I think this is a really strong piece. It uses the tall format of the box to provide a great sense of scale, with the towering heights of New York City ascending into the darkness of the sky. The lighting on the turtles, who are again rendered as visceral beings of fierce determination, draws the eye to the heroes immediately and contrasts the largely blue palette of the background pleasantly. While little of the game is really represented here, the illustration is still overflowing with detail. It's one of my favorite boxes, and one of my favorite illustrations of the Ninja Turtles in general.

BONUS ROUND

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Radical Rescue

Again, I never played Radical Rescue, but upon seeing the cover I couldn't help but see the connection to the other Turtles related art. The other Gameboy games didn't use this particular art style, opting for art from Mirage artists, so this, Turtles in Time, and Hyper Stone Heist are unique as being the only TMNT games to have box art done by Konami artists. I don't like this piece nearly as much as the others, but I couldn't not include it, as it isn't without it's charms. First of all, only one turtle is pictured, but that almost makes sense, as the game is mostly about rescuing the other turtles. Granted, in the game you start as Michelangelo, but whatever. Leonardo appears to be utilizing a drilling strike to tear through a wall, which I think is actually from the game, which is a cool detail. Much like how the tall Genesis boxes seem to have prompted a shift in design, so did the small format of the Game Boy boxes. This was probably about half the size of a SNES box, and perfectly square, so the artist opted for a simpler composition, as if Leo is bursting out of the box itself. The contrast between the bright light of the background in the cool blues of the wall and Leo is a pleasant effect. I think it works, even if the logo is a little cheesy.

That took a lot longer to do than I expected, but ultimately I'm glad I went through this. I have no idea who this guy is or what he is up to now, but I know there was something wonderful about these boxes. The sheer frenetic energy of these illustrations managed to sell me on an entire game in just one feverish image, and many of them stuck with me for my whole life. These are objectively beautiful pieces, dripping with raw intensity, and still manage to be remarkably accurate to the games they adorned.

Although this was sort of a grueling process for me, I think that I like this enough to probably do more of it, though I think in the future I'll probably stick to a single piece at a time, as it's past midnight while I am writing this, and I am both super tired and need to use the bathroom something fierce.

Bayonetta 2 Pixel Art and Twitter Glory

So Bayonetta 2 is getting pretty near release in North America, and I'm pretty excited about it. I've loved Platinum Games since back when they were Clover Studios, and more games from them is always a good thing. I absolutely adore the Wonderful 101, but I sadly missed out on Bayonetta, as I didn't have an Xbox 360 or PS3 when it came out, and never found the time to pick it up subsequently. The Wii U rerelease packaged with Bayonetta 2 will be my first time playing the original, and I'm looking forward to it.

It's been a long time since I did a real good demake, partly because nothing has caught my fancy and partly because I've been busy with other things which have occupied most of my time, but I enjoyed doing this kind of thing and thought it might be fun to do again. The goal was to picture a scene from Bayo 2, as if it were a classic 2D action game, ala Castlevania or Ninja Gaiden.

I'm probably most pleased with the sky, as capturing the sort of ethereal radiance was very tough, but I also am pretty proud of how much of Bayonetta's features I was able to squeeze into that sprite. People tend to 'oooo' and 'aaaaa' over really big sprites, but honestly those are much easier to make good, as they start to just become small drawings after a while. It's REALLY challenge to turn a hundred or so pixels into something that looks like anything, let alone a specific character, so I think I accomplished something good here.

I was also granted the supreme honor of having Bayonetta's real life daddy, madman Hideki Kamiya retweet the image with rare enthusiasm. Probably the first post I've eve made on Twitter that ANYBODY has ever looked at. Yay!

In other news, I'll be wrapping up the fourth issue of Nova Phase this week, which means it should be on (digital) store shelves in the near future, with the print compilation of 3 and 4 available on Amazon soon after. I hope. I'll make an announcement. In the mean time, issue 3 is available on Comixology now, so if you haven't already, check it out!

https://www.comixology.com/Nova-Phase-3/digital-comic/104319

Also working on the next chapter of Ja-Ja-Ja-Janken!, which is coming along nicely. With Saturday morning cartoons becoming officially extinct like, next month, I feel like my work on Saturday Morning Anime is more dire than ever.

Lots of work on AtomMan

Was seized by the desire to work on AtomMan, a project I've been working on and off on for a very long time. It was actually the first ever game I ever made, waaaay back in like 1999, when I was just a 6th grader! It originally started as a MegaMan fan game, but after a little while, I guess I wanted to make up my own bad guys and such, and it turned into a VERY thinly veiled ripoff, parody, homage, or whatever you want to call it. The sprites were even just crappy recolored versions of MegaMan characters, with pretty minor tweaks. There was a great deal of humor in the game, and some pretty terrible and basic gameplay, but I felt pretty accomplished.

Now, years later, I couldn't really resist the urge to look at these characters again, and I started to think that maybe there was some potential here. Sure, it started as a pretty basic ripoff, but some of the designs had genuinely cool elements, and I thought I could re-imagine it into something much more original, while still obviously honoring the games that inspired it.

So yeah, the inspiration is probably SUPER OBVIOUS, but I think this turned out really well. I don't want to talk to much about the story just yet, but these guys are the main bad guys.

Now, because I can't focus on anything, this is both a comic and a game, so here's some of the animations and such I've whipped up!

 Look at him go! These are just his basic animations, but there are going to be tons of other weapons and maybe even forms to take on. To get started, though, I think these are coming along nicely.

I also mocked up a little screenshot today, which I think turned out well. This is the first time since being a kid that I've gotten this far on this project, so it's pretty exciting.

 Not  finished anything yet, but just trying to establish the look of the game. Obviously very MegaMan inspired, not going to debate or deny that, but I want to push this game into some pretty out there territory. I want to try to bring all the things I loved about the Legends and Battle Network games into the basic gameplay of a 2D classic MegaMan game, but there's elements of other games from this era that I really loved back then, including Shenmue, Brave Fencer Musashi, Legend of Zelda and Mystical Ninja.

OKAY! So that's what I got so far. Feeling pretty good about it so far, but definitely a work in progress.

Shenmue is Tons of Fun Until One of its Billion Discs Don't Work

Okay, okay, so it only has three discs, actually, but it is still mighty annoying to not be able to finish the game. I recently set my Dreamcast up after having not really played it for, well, a very long time, and since I had only brought a few games with me, I had to choose between playing one of the Sonic Adventures or Shenmue. Although, unlike many people, I actually don't have anything but fond feelings for the Adventure games, I decided to revisit Shenmue, as I had only a year or two earlier replayed both of Sonic's Dreamcast outings. 

I like the Dreamcast. I liked it when it came out, and I still like it now. It was the first console I had ever bought with my own money, but my library of games was basically limited to whatever my older siblings bought (they had moved out by then and had their own Dreamcast, which I guess was why I wanted one so bad). I spent sooo much time playing Marvel Vs. Capcom, House of the Dead 2, Sonic Adventure 2, and of course, Shenmue. Other favorites included Record of Lodoss War, an absolutely absurd Diablo clone based on Ryo Mizuno's books and the awesome anime they inspired, and Gundam Side Story 0079: Rise From The Ashes. At this point in my life I was basically in love with Japanese cartoons, with Lodoss War and Gundam being among my favorites, but both of those games were actually better stand alone titles than they were licensed games, to be honest. 

Now, at this point in my life, I can't help but shake the feeling that I've already played anything worthwhile on the consoles with which I am most familiar. I know that isn't actually true, but it just FEELS like I have exhausted the supply of good, or even decent, games on most of my machines. It wasn't until recently rediscovering the Dreamcast that I realized I had barely scratched the surface of its library, due to my being 11 and having no money. This was actually distressingly exciting for me, as in a way it feels like the final unexplored frontier. I tracked down a few games that caught my eye, including survival horror game Carrier, insane action adventure Blue Stinger, and an RPG called Timstalkers, which appears to combine dungeon crawling, turn based combat, and monster raising, which personally sounds like an absolute free time annihilator. 

Of course, I had to wait for those games to arrive, and in the interim busied myself with Shenmue, which was actually full of surprises for me. I hadn't played the game in a VERY long time, probably not since it came out in 2000, so while I thought I remembered most of the game, there have been some pretty big things that had completely escaped my memory. I found myself literally opening every drawer and cabinet in Ryo Hazuki's house this time around, mostly for laughs and to see just how mundane they would allow me to be. This turned pretty exciting when I discovered an old key in my murdered father's desk. This was mind blowing to me, because nobody told me to go looking in there; that key was not my objective. As far as I was concerned, I was supposed to be asking locals if they had seen a black car. Obviously this excited me, as I was determined to find where that key was supposed to go. I searched high and low in the Hazuki household, removed literally every picture from the walls hoping to find a wall safe or something, but found nothing. It wasn't until I entered the dojo that I found a locked box. Inside, I found a sword. The sword fit into a hidden compartment behind a wall scroll. I was on a roll! Again, this was perhaps 20 minutes into the game. I hadn't even left Ryo's house yet, and yet I was engaged in some National Treasure shit. Of course, progressing any further on THAT particular distraction required another mystery item that I had not accidentally stumbled upon, and so I was forced to give up and move along with my investigation as it had been assigned to me: the black car. Still, I was refreshed by the freedom I had felt.

Shenmue really is a remarkable game. It's also an incredibly boring and cumbersome game, but honestly that doesn't really matter. The world feels so authentic, so real, and so detailed, that it's kind of weirdly pleasurable just walking around and talking to people. There's a great deal of freedom in Shenmue, but unlike alot of modern open world games, that freedom feels... special, somehow. There feels like there might be some consequence to your actions, I suppose. The NPCs are fairly distinct, with their own voices and often super weird personalities, each building feels distinct and placed with purpose. Compare that to something like Grand Theft Auto, where most of the pedestrians are just mindless faceless drones, and most of the buildings are just copy pasted filler. By comparison, Shenmue's game world feels dense with content and purpose, and there always seems to be some strange surprise popping up here and there. Sometimes you'll enter a building or a park completely on a whim, only to suddenly see some cutscene or learn a new move, and you walk away wondering "would I have missed that if I hadn't just decided to walk in here? Why did that happen?" Whether you're buying Sonic toys from a vending machine, feeding the kitten you find on the road, or hanging out at the arcade playing darts and Space Harrier, you feel immersed, somehow. 

Objectively, lots of modern games have aped some of Shenmue's approach, but I don't feel like anybody has really replicated that feeling of really being in a place. The Elder Scrolls games offer these huge worlds to dick around in, but they mostly feel dead. Sure, they are big, and there are a bunch of things scattered around, but none of it feels particularly consequential. Mass Effect, at least the first one, is similarly dense with dialogue and exploration, but again, the places never end up feeling very distinct. The adventurey talky bits of Mass Effect just seem like filler in between janky third person shooting, and neither seems as realized as it really could be. Deadly Premonition has probably come the closest to replicating the experience of adventure and exploration that Shenmue pioneered, which, after replaying Shenmue, I am realizing is probably why I found myself so enamored with it, in addition to its particular wackiness.

Of course, all of this more or less boils down to nothing but frustration when one advances to the third disc only to discover that the damn disc won't read. I don't know if it is scratched or what, but it doesn't seem to want to load my safe file, which leaves me basically stranded. I can't go back to disc 2, and I don't know whether disc 3 is actually busted or whether my safe file is wonky, so for now, I'm just gonna play Time Stalkers. 

That's a shame, though, because Shenmue is a game that deserves to be played, even today. Hell, maybe even especially today. Open world game design is more popular and possible than ever, and I think Shenmue still has alot to offer, provided that the player is willing to really get into the game. I sincerely hope someday Sega reissues or rereleases this game, maybe via the eShop (I am a Nintendo fan after all), but really any digital storefront would be ideal, as this, and honestly many Dreamcast games, shouldn't be lost to the ages.

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.

Pixel Art for Fun and Profit

I don't know how forward I've been about this in the past, but damn would I love to just do pixel art professionally. I've dabbled in doing freelance stuff, like Boon Hill, and arguably Nova Phase is pixel art, though I don't really make ANY money off of that, so it's more like an expensive hobby than a job. I have still never seen any of my work, including freelance stuff, used in a finished game, except Bird Force, which I made myself and still really isn't done. I see tons of games come out that still utilize pixel art, so obviously somebody somewhere is doing this stuff for a living. That's what I want, but man,  doing something for a living is really hard when nobody will give you any money for it.

But still, I just love doing the stuff. I guess that's why its kind of weird that I've never tried bringing my work into the physical, real world, like that cyber demon from that one episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You know the one. I've seen people do these little bead jobbies, and always thought it would be cool, but I don't generally think of myself as a craftsy person, so I never got into it. It's weird, but I just never did it. Until today, of course, when my fiance thought it would be cool to make a pixel art cake topper for our wedding. Good on her, because I think I might do a ton of this.

This was my first attempt at bringing a pixel work into the real world, like said Buffy episode. Moloch the Corrupter was the name of the demon, just looked that up. The sprite I used hasn't been shown off before, and is for a new project that is super early in development, a dice battling game called HyperDyce. It is in fact as ridiculous as it sounds, possibly more so, but more on that later. This is the player character, a scumbag dice battler called Jackalope Winfight, as he appears on the overworld between battles. But I've already said too much.

There's something remarkably satisfying about physical things. Pretty much all of my work is confined to the digital world, so being able to hold something I've created in my hands is kind of amazing. Although Nova Phase was intended to be a digital comic from the get go, getting my hands on the printed volume just felt really cool, and was actually the first time I felt genuinely excited about the whole experience. This is the first time I've been able to have this experience with my smaller scale pixel art, and I really like it.

I need way more of these little boards, and an assload more beads probably, but I think I'm gonna be doing alot more of these, maybe even selling them! I love the idea of making and selling stuff, maybe because of some weird, RPG, Animal Crossing brain problem, but whatever.

Pac-Man Fever is a Real Thing and I Have it Sometimes

Is there anything Japanese text can't make me want?

So I have a weird relationship with Pac-Man. Unlike the other big mascots, Mario, Sonic, what have you, Pac-Man hasn't been nearly as successful at staying relevant, I guess. It actually came as a complete surprise to me that there are people who hold the Pac-Man World games in high regard, as growing up I kind of considered them pretty crappy. Pac-Man never seemed, to me anyway, to have the same kind of appeal as Super Mario, for example, because his world just didn't seem to evolve and grow naturally at all. The world of the Pac-Man World games, for example, just seemed lame.

Lately, though I've been warming up to Pac-Man, for a few reasons. First of all, I guess in the current drought of anything remotely colorful or fun looking in the video game world, its refreshing to see a yellow ball with an impossibly huge grin running around. This isn't the 90s or even the 00s anymore, and this kind of thing just isn't everywhere like it used to be. There ain't no Klonoas or Tombas or Goemon's or really any kid friendly action platforming to be found outside of Nintendo's stuff, except maybe Skylanders, so when Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures was announced, I was actually kind of excited. Not because I thought the game was going to be necessarily anything special, but just because it was nice to see a third party try to do platforming again. I love platformers, regardless of the amount of Ds they are in, and its always nice to have options beyond just Super Mario and Donkey Kong.

Ghostly Adventures also happened to turn out okay, in my opinion way more fun than the World games. I got the Wii U version for cheap, mostly because I like playing games on my Wii U, and mostly because I feel like that's the console where colorful platformers belong, and while I wasn't blown away (no, it was no Pac-Man Galaxy), I did enjoy the time I spent with the game. Had that time been a little longer, I would have probably been even more pleased, as it was on the short side, but maybe its unfair to be a grown man playing what is clearly for children and then complain about the length or difficulty... But still, Ghostly Adventures was a solid little 3D platformer with some cool level designs and some genuinely fun power ups, probably my favorite of which was the giant rolling stone Pac-Man head. Hilarious. I also genuinely appreciate that Namco went through the trouble of developing a dedicated 3ds game, and not just a port of the console version. Haven't played it yet, but it looks like a fairly charming sidescroller something Pac-Man has sadly little experience with.

This is by far my favorite power up.

Of course, the Pac is pretty big news right now, what with him set to appear in the next Super Smash Bros. game, which I honestly find to be absolutely hilarious. This news also led to a pretty amusing Pac-Man related release in the form of the Famicom version of the arcade oddity, Pac-Land. As the first scrolling platformer ever made, Pac-Land is a pretty odd game, and the Famicom version isn't any less whacky than the arcade original. I had never played the game and picked it up as a curiosity of sorts, as my Virtual Console is reserved almost exclusively for imports and other impossible to find in real life games, but man, its actually kind of fascinating. The controls are ass backwards, the game is Bubble Bobble levels of mysterious and random, and of course, Pac has a sharp lookin' alpine hat on. Its super weird, but also surprisingly addicting. Its no Super Mario Bros. 3 for sure, but its still worth looking into for how bizarre and challenging it is.

Lately my weird fascination with the character has come to focus on these neat little K'Nex toys that come in blind bags, which I love. I've always had an obsession with tiny toys distributed randomly, and as these happened to be on sale I bought kind of a lot.

Damn it, I don't want Cylindria or Spiral at all...

I was lucky enough to get Clyde (the giant orange ghost) on my first pull, but then met defeat with two consecutive Cylindria, the little pink punk girl with the Hot Topic combat boots. I was a little pissed, but at least grateful I didn't end up getting Spiral, the red idiot. Eventually, I did end up getting Pac himself, as well as Pinky, though her bag was already opened and as such she is missing an arm. Generally I like these guys, particularly the Pac, as he can actually open his mouth INSANELY FAR, which just looks great. Each set also comes with one of the lame generic ghosts, in either scared or not scared form, so I have a ton of those populating my desk as well.

I don't really know anything about the cartoon with which all of this current Pac stuff is associated, as I don't get Disney or any of its affiliate channels and my fiance won't let me watch cartoons anyway, but I did end up seeing some amazing ads for the Japanese dub. The Japanese title for the series (including the games and toys and such) is Pac-World, which I think sounds a bit cooler than the Harry Potter style title the North American version has, and the theme song, done by generally awesome dude Hyadain, is simply amazing.

I have no idea what is wrong with my brain, but I'm honestly tempted to try to download subtitled versions of the Japanese dub rather than watch the North American version. I am, in fact, a lunatic.

Anyway, so that's a quick summary of my recent and totally inexplicable romance with Pac-Man. I know that alot of people really hate the new design and direction or something, but it honestly doesn't seem any worse than anything else that has ever come out of the franchise, and I kinda love Pac's sneakers. Oh well.

Bird Force Update!

Some time ago, I posted some mock-ups of a game I was half-jokingly planning about birds flying jets.  I had a fever of activity, possibly due to temporary madness induced by too much work on Nova Phase, which subsided once I was working full time. Now, however, I'm back to working on Nova Phase, and I guess the madness must have seized me again, because I started working on Bird Force again, only this time much more earnestly. I actually started trying to program the damn thing.

Using a somewhat stable free version of and HTML5 game development tool called Construct 2, I've started working pretty seriously. Things have not been going entirely smoothly, but I figured it would be fun to post my progress here. Eventually, I'd like to post a playable version here (if that is actually possible, that is), so for now, here are some shots of in development stuff!

Here's the first shot. It's a pretty simple game. You click to fly up, release to drift down. Moving rings come down towards the player, and you just need to fly through them to get points! As you can see, there is pretty minimal stuff going on here, but the basics of the game are in place. Woo, look at that score!

 Okay, no we're talking! We've got obstacles to avoid, a much more attractive score display, and slick, parallax scrolling to  fake depth on the clouds. There's also a neat little afterburner effect! Score has improved as well, thanks to a combo system that rewards players for flying through rings consecutively.

Accidentally left the game running, and got a pretty good score! Of course, the bombs weren't actually programmed to do anything other than look cool at this point, so the game was basically impossible to lose. Notice the sparkly effect around the ring! Yummy!

Finally programmed in a way to lose! Added some appropriate dialogue, as well as a cool game over screen! Now there is actually a game happening! And its actually pretty hard, as a matter of fact.

Unfortunately, after this the project literally fell apart due to some weird instability in the way the program paths files or something, and for  few days I couldn't even access my work. Very annoying. After a lot of reading on the Construct forums, I was able to figure out how to access my back up work and actually get some of my work back.

To celebrate, a title screen! Though I did a bit more tweaking on the combo system to today, this is about as far as I've come. I'd like to add a few more elements to this beta version, including at least 5 minutes of dialogue and of course maybe some music. Reading all about Famitracker and such, hopefully gonna be able to actually do something with that.

Anyway, that's it so far! Hopefully I can have something playable up here soon! I have no idea how that works, though.

Honesty important, right?

In other news, issue 4 of Nova Phase is going really well! Slowly making progress!

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...