Great Backlog Pile

As awesome as the finale of this year's sales go on Steam, I've been trying to cut down on purchases, mostly because I'm already loaded up on games at the moment. >_< Since I stopped doing that video game progress thing, I haven't really had a list of games that I'm working on for quite a while, and realized how big my backlog has become. I need to work on games I've started and finish them before I start playing new games now, even though I totally just started a bunch on Christmas...

Merry Christmas!

Christmas is such a fun time. Getting together with family and friends and opening presents, and hang out with all our new stuff. o_o Cause that's what I totally did on Christmas. And of course, I thought it was appropriate for me to list all the new stuff I got this year, starting with things that weren't on my wishlist, followed by things that were on my wishlist, and... some more lists on the way on my blog after this post.

KoL - Crimbo Town 2011

Crimbo Town is here! Well, it came on the 17th, but yeah. Seems like there's another conflict in Crimbo Town this year for us adventurers to help fight, but it isn't monsters. It's famine instead. The elves' food source, candy, have been cut off from their main supplier, Big Candy from the Candy Diorama we've been decorating. So Uncle Crimbo is collecting candy and rewarding adventurers with Candy Credits which can be used to send Crimbo gifts to people in the Kingdom of Loathing.

Steam - The Great Gift Pile

I... wanted to talk about Steam's big Holiday sale event that I was looking forward to, now that it's finally here, but, as I type this up, seems like the amount of traffic that they were getting crashed the server or something.

Anyway, it's a similar event like the Summer Camp event we had during the summer this year, and the other event like that last year, which I don't quite remember in detail now, but had lots of fun buying games at great discounts and getting custom achievements for this event that unlocks more content for you and such. I think it was the Great Treasure Hunt or something, and I managed to get the Treasure Hat on Team Fortress 2.

Not sure if there's any DLC or hats this time around with this event, but the grand prize for the Great Gift Pile seems to be ALL THE GAMES ON STEAM. >_>;;; No one's ever going to be able to play through all of the games that Steam has to offer... LoL. Other winners will win games in their wishlist, or the Valve Complete Pack it seems. Whichever the case, why say no to free games? You may even find a game you want at the best discount prices you'll see on Steam for a good, long time too, most likely. We're talking lots of 50%, 75%, and 90% off discount prices. Mostly 75% off, from what I'm seeing. You should just check it out if you're interested in some PC games... if the site will work for you. x_o;

Wishlist - December 2011

Yup. Another wishlist. Turns out there were still quite a few things missing from my previous two lists that I've made for things that I'd want, and here I am, making an additional wishlist again. It's also Christmas in a week, ... but I guess this wishlist is kind of late for that, isn't it? Unless people like doing last minute shopping or something. This is just a list for myself though anyway, especially considering how I've forgotten about these things to begin with. Despite having forgotten them though, they ARE things that I am definitely interested in, and the reasons are provided.

Even Moar Content!

Kingdom of Loathing, day 16 of the Advent Calendar update, and a little Terraria talk. Since the sales on games this year aren't that great (so far), games that you already have now might as well get some extra attention this season. That's what I'm doing anyway. Hopefully I can get around to finishing the games that I'm currently working on, like Disgaea, Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, Guild Wars, and Mass Effect, but most of it will have to come in January with all the holiday content being pumped out everywhere else.

More Holiday Activities, Finally!

Halfway into the month, and we finally get other games starting their holiday events. This time, Team Fortress 2 has an update with new items for Pyro and Engineer, as well as having Double Drop Rate week as well! Guild Wars is also starting their Wintersday event today as well. And Terraria's version 1.1.1 update is live as well, with some bug fixes from the huge 1.1 update and yet another new biome, Snow. =O

I don't have too many details myself on any of these events at the moment, other than what is already given on the pages provided above. I'll be sure to post about anything in detail when I get to the events myself.

KoL - Wand of Fudge Control

Well, right after talking a bit about Fudge Mountain, seems like I was right about there being a big update today with the Advent Calendar hitting the end of the 2nd week. Perhaps we'll see a new area in the Candy Diorama tomorrow, assuming each area is a week-long content? Anyway, after finding and defeating the Fudge Wizard from a random combat adventure (meaning he's not at the top of the mountain in the non-combat adventure), you will get the Wand of Fudge Control as an item drop. The things you can make with all the fudgecule you collected is quite something...

Blog Revelation

It sure is hard to keep up with blogging when you're too busy spending time doing.. well, other things. So far, it's only Kingdom of Loathing and Terraria too. Surprised I haven't heard much from the other games for a holiday event, although maybe I'm just missing the news somehow. Anyway, I just thought I should talk a little bit about the blog today. How it's changed a lot from what I have originally thought of, and what sort of things end up getting on the blog... as well as a bit of stuff from KoL and Terraria too, while I'm at it.

Dream of Royalty, or Nightmare in Disguise?

Today, I had one of those dreams where I see some scenarios of Crescent Legends that can be a viable part of a storyline, much like a good portion of the detailed story I have come up with for Crescent Legends. However, it wasn't exactly a pleasant one, and may be a plot that is similar to an existing one out there. Who knows. ._.; It's so hard being original these days, I always end up seeing similarities to existing storylines in other media; usually in video games.

KoL - Advent Calendar 2011

lolrus

 

I'm currently posting this on Day 7 of the Advent Calendar, with the 7th prize being another monster for your Lollipop Forest. But the most important prize that I wanted to talk about is probably the 5th one, where it finally unlocked the other item drops for all the monsters in the Lollipop Forest; some tasty fruit gem candy. o_o

Smartphone Shopping

Verizon's enV3

I'm approaching the end of my current cell phone's 2 year contract this month, and I am looking into making the switch to a smartphone. But I haven't exactly decided on what smartphone to get at the moment either, or whether if it is a reasonable switch either. I know some of the criteria for what phone I should get though, and a few things that I don't care much about. So hopefully that will help me find the best smartphone available for me. I'm gonna miss my enV3 though. At least it could double as a dedicated mp3 player and a few other stuff for backup.

KoL - Lollipop Stick Farming

After fiddling around with some mechanics for this area, it appears to be clear that Disco Bandits are the best at farming for lollipop sticks to the point where you'd get them 90% of the time, each combat.

Basically, pickpocketing is your friend. With Item Drop Rates failing to help us here, getting a second shot at getting these sticks makes a huge difference. But when you get a third, fourth, or even more shots at getting it, it has increased the chances of me effectively getting a lollipop stick every adventure.

Edit: Update! Turns out Rave Steal will pretty much nab it 100% of the time. Disco Bandits definitely benefit the most in this area.

Double Edit: Seems like the newer monsters are stronger, and might have higher drop rates. In fact, the lolrus can drop 2, so best you use Olfaction on them to farm even more.

Holiday Activities Unleashed

Well, it's December 1st now, and things are starting to look festive with events going on at many places. Starting with Kingdom of Loathing with a new location to adventure in, Lollipop Forest, found in your Advent Calendar, somehow. Also, Terraria's biggest update yet, version 1.1 was just released. On top of that, the game is on a "legitimate" 75% off discount for the first time, for $2.50 a copy on Steam, only for today. If you haven't read my Review for Terraria yet, I'd highly recommend you to. If you have, well, here's a list of all the updates in version 1.1 as well, so you know what more the game has to offer now. Also, poll results!

Reference for Story Writers

I've been trying to work on getting more details filled in for the overall story of Crescent Legends. Even aside from the story though, it helps to have details listed in the characters as well as their surroundings as well. So here are a few reliable tools to help you do just that.

Promo - Meikahna's Art Commission

I have a good friend who I met on Gaia Online a long time ago, in one of the threads I made about Star Ocean: Till the End of Time. I guess as early as 2003 since I got the Japanese release and I was sharing details with those who were anticipating the game in the US way before the US release of August 31st, 2004. In fact, I have another friend who I met from this same thread, but that promotional post will come later. So the good friends and I have been talking on Gaia for a long time, eventually making a guild for those interested in the many games made by tri-Ace initially, then widened to SquareEnix games as a whole. Syn was one of the three guild leaders there, and brought life to the guild with some of her artworks. One of my previous promos regarding the UMvC3 site was for someone from the guild as well, although the actual work is that of her boyfriend's rather than the actual guild member. Er.. my point here is that I have many friends from that guild, I guess.

Black Friday 2011

I just came back from Black Friday Shopping. And am I ever disappointed with the sales this year. Very few hot items were really on sale this year, and among them, I was really interested in this PS3 bundle where you get LittleBigPlanet 2 and Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One with it, for only $199.99. I'm not entirely interested in the games, but the bundle is cheaper than just getting the PS3 as well, so I thought, "Why the hell not?". Of course, this bundle sold out at all the stores it seems. The same deal was at nearly all the stores that you would check for this thing too. I stopped by at Best Buy, Target, Game Stop, and I'm checking Amazon.com right now, and even there the $199.99 deals are gone.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I just had my first, homemade turkey dinner with a huge family group, which is cool. Thanksgiving dinner back with my family is usually small due to everyone else in my family living in Japan, so we never have turkey, unless we want half a month's worth of leftovers. It sounds like my family is having Boston Market again this year, as is our tradition, I guess.

As for now, I'm looking forward to doing some Black Friday shopping soon. Although from the advertisements and flyers I've seen so far, I'm not seeing anything that's spectacular of a sale this year, which is a disappointment. But I may go out and get something anyway. Probably something small.

I guess I'm going to have to spend all my adventures on Kingdom of Loathing now though, so I'll leave this post at that. If I find anything worthwhile during the Black Friday sales, I'll be sure to talk about it. Happy Thanksgiving, and for all the other adventurers, Happy Feast of Boris!

Weird Movie - The Dolphin

Was just at another movie night with the others. Of course, the movie we decided to watch is yet another weird movie on Netflix. Upon browsing for movies on Netflix, Vicki freaks out at "something scary" on the screen. Naturally, people thought she meant the Human Centipede, which is a legitimately scary/creepy concept, especially after having seen the trailers for it. But no. She meant the movie NEXT to the Human Centipede, The Dolphin: Story of a Dreamer. @_@ "I mean, LOOK AT THAT FACE! It looks weird!" Well, I can't really argue with that. Your call on what's scarier.

Feesh! - Firion 3

Today certainly is a lot of things. My birthday, the release date of Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, and also Firion's anniversary since he arrived here on my birthday! =D So today's entry will be about Firion, although I still never got that LED light. This post will also double as a guide for keeping betta fish as a pet.

Freedom of Voluntary Ignorance

Warning example

So another poll ended, and here are the results.

How should spoilers be handled here?
Warning with a Spoiler sign: 3 votes
Hide them in a Spoiler Box: 2 votes
Avoid them all together: 0 votes
Make it hard to read: 0 votes
Just post it openly: 0 votes

Seems like having the post be labeled with a spoiler sign seems to be the most popular vote. Personally, I wanted to implement a spoiler box, but as of now, I have no way of doing that as I lack the code for putting a spoiler box in my posts. Hopefully I'll find one in the future, but until then, having a warning image for spoilers is the best I could do.

KoL - Trendy

So just recently, on November 15th, the new, special challenge path run was released for Kingdom of Loathing. Personally, I really liked Way of the Surprising Fist, so I was hoping for this new run, Trendy, will be as good and rewarding.

Well, here's what the description says for Trendy. "You're a slave to fashion -- a prisoner of style. You cannot use any item, skill or familiar that has been unavailable for more than one year. This includes Mr. Store items, holiday content, expired raffle items, and all other limited-time stuff."

I thought that if that's the only restriction, I probably wouldn't have too much of an issue with this run, since Way of the Surprising Fist had greatly reduced the amount of meat you gain from it. That was the major issue with that challenge path run, so with the meat gain un-nerfed, there's nothing to worry about. >_> ... And holy crap, was I wrong.

Promo - Charlie Tang's UMVC3

I have this friend who's quite tech-savvy; much more tech-savvy than I am, in fact. And she's in a team that designs websites for commission for those who don't have the expertise and talent in web designing. Among them is her boyfriend, who made this awesome, fan-made Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3 site, where it plays mp3s of each character's themes. It isn't quite finished yet, it seems, as it's a Work In Progress, but none-the-less, awesome enough to check out.

(Btw, for Phoenix Wright, click on the files below him.)

It's definitely a nice site to favorite so that you can listen to UMVC3 music and mess around on. Looking forward to when it'll be complete. o_o

Bad Movies - Mega Piranha

So... Just came back from movie night with my friends. Didn't have any particular movie to watch though, so someone suggested something with piranhas. Turns out there was only one movie in Netflix about piranhas, and it was Mega Piranha. The title says it all, really. The plot, written on Wikipedia...

"The film focuses on the Orinoco River in Venezuela, where a strain of genetically modified piranha have escaped into an isolated tributary of the river. Through human interference of the local environment, the megapiranha manage to escape from their isolated spot and swim downstream, killing all that crosses their path. The megapiranha gradually make their way towards Florida at the height of the tourist season."

I'm not very big on monster movies, honestly. They just don't appeal to me because of the one-sided, ridiculousness that's typically predicable and cliche at this point. Not to mention how I was recently talking about some of the filming techniques that a friend of mine told me in this blog post, Promo - Fiorella Films, so watching this complete mess of bad acting, bad plot, HORRIBLE CGI, and the overall low budget feel of the movie just seemed... well, a joke. I mean, here's probably the highlight of the movie.

 I was going to blame the bad acting, editing, and camera usage on the director, but upon research, it turns out that the director wasn't even there for the shooting apparently. What the hell? It makes me wonder if the director KNEW that it was going to be bad and just didn't care about this movie. Even aside from that, they try to pull some pretty bad Hollywood bullshit like "sucking on dead batteries to recharge it.". Here's a clip of the scene.

 

Yeah. ._. I pretty much gave up on the movie at this point. Just letting you guys know how bad this movie is. Feel free to check it out, if you're into this kind of thing. Otherwise, I'd just.. not bother. 

Vanguardian Axis Revisited

While looking for all the space related photoshop content, it made me think about the Escape Velocity series again that inspired me to do this RP. It may be a bit dated by now, but it's still a nice, single player, action RPG based on space ship combat.

I bought and registered Escape Velocity Nova when it came out on the Mac, because... let's face it. Anyone who had a Mac computer had nothing but crap games back in the year 2000s. Only Ambrosia Software made decent games on the Mac then, IMO, and this one had a lot of depth. I'm kind of disappointed that they haven't made anymore, and also how.. at least, I don't think, my Mac registration code doesn't work for the Windows version of this game. There's plenty of competition for the genre now, and I don't think this game will fair well at the unchanged price of $30. At least you can play the game for free un-registered, but with some of the later content locked away.

Anyway, I wanted to touch up some more on the events of Vanguardian Axis, since it appears that people are most interested in what I had written in my last post about it, at least according to page views.

Last time, I spoke a bit of Grand Vanguard's technologies. Things like how the Axis Tower is the main power generator, and briefly mentioned about the Solar Trance Electro Panels. The STEP is a layer that regulates the amount of light that passes through to Vanguard City. It is its own energy source as well, working like solar batteries, and can simulate the sky in Earth by appearing blue during "day time mode", and be dark with simulated stars during "night time mode", if strong light is still supplying power to the STEP. It is strictly there for visual enhancement, as a city being exposed to a bright light source without enough atmosphere to reflect light will be unpleasant for its citizens.

Concept drawing from high school

There is also a thin, blue tube circling around the Axis Tower near the ceiling of Vanguard City. Those are a suction-based pod transport system with stations at each intersection for switching pods and exiting to the city below. Compared to the rest of the technology used in Grand Vanguard, the suction-based transportation is much more low-cost than the artificial gravity generators. Of course, artificial gravity is still used within the pod for a safer and smoother ride for the passengers while the pod is in rapid motion. Speed and low cost transportation helps a great deal with getting around the large city.

Cross section of Grand Vanguard

The city itself follows a fairly straight forward layout. Near the center is where all the big corporation buildings are. The outer-rims of the city mostly consists of residential buildings, from single homes to apartment complexes. Living within the city is a luxury, as the city is only about 1/4th of the whole station. The majority of workers for the star base, and smaller businesses reside just below the surface in the basement floors of the city. Between the corporation circle and the residential ring is where other businesses and commercial buildings are, such as food, retail, and other services.

Another thing to note within this RP is how tight security is within Grand Vanguard. This was set to reduce any trolls from causing any major problems within the RP, while having context within the RP as well. In order to enter the star base, you must have a registered ID Card. ID Scanner systems are all over the star base, making it easy to identify a person who enters each area within. Each scan will take a picture and DNA scan of the citizen to ensure that they are the rightful owners of the ID Cards, and any unsuccessful scan of a person of their ID Card will alert the authorities. These ID Cards are not only used for identification, but has other functions similar to debit cards, and are required for certain services within the star base.

Of course, Grand Vanguard is not the only place where Vanguardian Axis took place in, and here are the other star bases used for the RP.

Avantgarde Station

Vann Sky Station

Military Base: Mythril Legion

These other bases were ran by other people, so I don't quite have as much details in those as I do with Grand Vanguard. I believe Avantgarde was used as a storage and exporting base for asteroid mining, Vann Sky was a resort station for vacations, and the Mythril Legion was a mobile base for the military. With these star bases however, Vanguardian Axis has spread its territory further.

Clash of Ternion Battle.

Aside from Role Playing, there were actual games that we ran within the RP as well. There was a racing board game of sorts at one point, and a combat simulator that I programmed in Java to calculate the damages dealt by using the stats and formula from Super Robot Wars. It was my first, big Java program I made, which is to say, was rather messy and inefficient in its use of memory. Unfortunately, I don't think I have the code anymore, since it was written on Lappy. The outdated code, which is.. even worse, I guess, can be found here. 

During war time, this program was used a lot to determine the outcome of battles, and ultimately, what direction the RP would take depending on the results of the battles. It was definitely an interesting concept for many people; turning a working formula from Super Robot Wars to something like a table-top board game, online. Once I learn how to write a better program, I would like to do something as elaborate as this, once again.

Spacey References

Been looking around for some more helpful Photoshop Tutorials. Here are some more that I liked, and listing for future references.

This page has a list of tutorials for many different types of outer space images, such as of planets and more. So many to go through, I don't know where to start. I guess I'll try recreating the twin planets of Crescent Legends while using these tutorials.

http://designreviver.com/inspiration/31-breathtaking-planet-space-tutorials-for-photoshop/

Here's one for creating a simple outer space image with stars and nebula gasses. Very flexible, easy to do, and looks great.

http://www.oktutorials.com/photoshop-tutorials/cool-ideas/deep-space-nebula-p5

 Here's a nice tutorial for a habitable planet. Probably what I would use for most planets that would take place in an Earth-like environment.

http://www.solarvoyager.com/images/tutorials/splanet.jpg

And here's a set of brushes that you can download and put in your Brushes folder for your Photoshop for techno themed shapes and patterns. I haven't tried them yet, but these will come in handy for space themed things, surely.

http://freebrushes.net/techno-brushes/

And another, huge list of brushes. Quite a lot of them here, and among them are some more techno themed stuff, as well as other things too. Definitely something to look into when you start getting more advanced with Photoshop.

http://www.designzzz.com/25-cool-brushes-for-photoshop/

That about does it for now. I plan on making some more graphics to decorate this blog with, using these tutorials and brushes I've found, among other projects. The more images I make, the better, so hopefully I'll get around to doing all this for the blog soon. Expect to see more things be on the blog, like the Labels list on the right. It's a great way to sift out topics of your interest out of all the things I've been posting here.

Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot to mention about the Promos I'm doing as well. If you'd like something of yours featured on my blog, contact me.

Promo - Fiorella Films

One of my friends from New Jersey, although we mainly met online despite me being from New Jersey as well, has been studying film and television to become a director. o_o She told me quite a few things about film making in the classes she has taken and I've learned a lot of interesting facts about film making and the tricks involved in achieving certain moods and emotions from the viewers with these tricks. Usually, when you watch TV or even movies, you don't think too much about how the movie was taken, and what importance the camera angle and a lot of technical details play in them, but after hearing what she has learned, I've been analyzing a lot of the media I see now as well.

In her film class, she has also made several short films of her own. Here's one of my favorites, "Point Me to the Sky". It is about an Angel, Thea, in a scene where the Devil makes a proposition with her to clear his name.

 The camera angles, lighting, and the overall directing of this video is something I find to be very pleasant to see, which is something all viewers should be able to appreciate. There is a lot more to talk about such as the set that they used, the styles, the acting, etc. which I found all to be pretty good, but my focus was drawn more towards the directing.

Here is another video, which is her most recently uploaded video, "Gottlos: A Short".

There are more videos on her YouTube channel. Check them out here.

http://www.youtube.com/user/FiorellaFilms

Review - Terraria

I have already written a review for this game on Steam, but I'll go ahead and copy what I have written there, and add more to it here.

 

Bunker I made in SuperCoke's world

"Great game for $10, especially considering there's content for many different types of players. Explore many randomly generated 2D worlds and discover many treasures on the way. Adventure through many different biomes such as the forest, the Corruption, jungles, deserts, underground, Dungeons, floating islands in the sky, and the Underworld, fighting your way against all the monsters and creatures that you may encounter in them. You can also trigger events through your adventures that may affect your world. Remodel your world by building all sorts of buildings and terrain with both materials you find and create. On top of all that, this game has multiplayer support to explore, adventure, build, and also Role Play with.

With so much to do, I easily spent 60+ hours on it, and still play often. Feel free to contact me so we can play multiplayer together. =D

* Description was made during update 1.05. Frequent updates may include more than what is described here."

A building I made in version 1.04

I got this game during version 1.04, when a friend of mine on Steam offered me a free copy since he got the 4-pack. (Thanks, SuperCoke!) I enjoyed the game so much, I decided to grab this game for Taco as well, who I knew would enjoy sandbox games like this. Surely enough, we played a lot, and gathered lots of materials and slain many monsters and bosses. o_o Other friends have joined in too on my server, like Solomon, Gamer, CrankyCrab, and... trying to remember if anyone else joined in with us, but I don't think I recall the others having joined me. Either way, we've built quite a lot of things too, with even bigger projects on the way.

Taco and Solomon digging tunnel

Gameplay-wise, there's definitely a lot to do. The moment you start the game, you can explore, mine, build, poke a few slimes, etc. And then night time will come and you'll get swarmed by zombies and learn the importance of building shelters. >_> By the time you get a shelter built, and night time comes, you end up looking at all the things that you can craft with what materials you've gathered while you wait for day time to come and get ideas of what you want to build. That usually consists of better equipments so that you can withstand monsters better for further exploration, allowing for more materials to be gathered.

Apartment in version 1.05 (unfinished)

Exploration is fun when you can randomly generate worlds. With all the ores you find in the ground, pots filled with items, and treasure chests hidden in the caverns, exploration is kept fun and rewarding. Slaying monsters doesn't give you any EXP, since this isn't a game where you level up in, but with monster drops being used for crafting and accumulating money to buy things from NPCs, there's plenty of things to work for during your explorations. Add to that multiplayer, and you can have fun explorations in a party, or even PVP with other people. Even PVP between two different parties, or up to 4 parties of varying party member sizes can all duke it out in an all open war for the heck of it too.

Extended upwards a bit.

Graphics is something that is difficult to really judge, because... well, some people have different opinions on different styles. Personally, I really like this style that is reminiscent of 16-bit games. From the character sprites to the environment tiles, it really speaks to me by giving me a sense of nostalgia with a fresh, new package in a very open-ended game. Sounds may not be the strongest point in the game, but it isn't bad either. I guess my major annoyance with the sounds is when the zombies will keep knocking on your door at night time, throughout the whole night, until you kill them. It's pretty annoying when they do that, while you're just trying to manage your inventory and stuff.
 

Underground Gardens.

This game can easily provide many hours of entertainment due to its openness. As I write this blog, my Steam account tells me that I have played Terraria for 136.6 hours now, and with big plans on the works in my world, that number is bound to rise up higher. Soon, with more updates to come for the game, adding new features such as colored lights, more furnitures, and possibly more biomes, the game will grow further into a bigger game that you can spend even more hours on; especially for builders.

Considering that this game is originally $10, and have gone on sales for as cheap as $5 on Steam, there's no reason not to get this game if an open-world, multiplayer sandbox game is your fancy. Check out the site for more details.

Edit: There has been a few updates for Terraria since this review was posted. Check the other posts labeled with the Terraria label for more info.

www.terraria.org

Growing Nostalgia - Button Mashers

Button Mashers. ._. A flash cartoon series that I wanted to do with my friend Larry from when I was in Rutgers University, inspired by Bonus Stage by Matt Wilson.

http://bonusstage.keenspot.com/episodes.html

We both greatly enjoyed the series, and we wanted to do something like that of our own. We would talk about the plot that we could have, jokes, how we'd do it, etc. Of course, this plan never saw its light of day since... well, it's a huge project, and we were in college at the time. Drawing characters and stuff frame by frame takes an awful lot of work, and then recording our voice acting in good enough quality was another issue too, since we lacked the tools to do so.

It's a shame, because I got a copy of Flash, but... what little experience I have with flash is far from good enough to make anything worthwhile. ._.; It certainly doesn't help that I can't draw people very well, let alone animate them. The picture there is what I drew of my character, pretty without the face so that I could animate the face separately. One of the first things you'd notice about Bonus Stages is the way the mouth is animated in the series. Simple, yet very effective. I mean, I learned the basics of working with Flash at my highschool's graphics arts class. That's where I learned my Photoshop skills, which is great. I still use Photoshop now, mostly for this blog now. But as for Flash, we only touched up on it a little bit, and I never really got the grasp of the more detailed stuff in animating things on there.

Seeing the difficulties in animating it though, the idea downgraded itself to a web comic instead. Considering I can use Photoshop, that seems like a more reasonable goal than making an animated series. Of course, it still wasn't going to happen by myself since I couldn't draw people. I mean, look at that thing I made! @_@ It looks like any amateur flash art you'd see all over NewGrounds or something. I'd like to think that I have greater standards than that, if I were to publish a web comic. I never did attempt to make the web comic happen though, partially because by then, I wasn't at Rutgers anymore. Instead, I'd talk about this with my little brother, Taco. He certainly enjoys the idea of a Bonus Stage inspired cartoon or comic, and naturally, he wanted to be a part of it as well. Which is fine, since I still needed characters for this anyway, and he kind of fits the part of the crazy and retarded guy anyway. For some reason though, the plot of one episode was about how Taco pisses off a goth kid or something, and he places a curse on him. Except it wasn't a very good curse, because it made him immortal. Whenever he dies in an episode, he would then just *poof* into a green triangle with a face. ... Certainly made the idea of drawing him easier that way.

Anyway, as I continue to update my blog, it gives me the urge to start this web comic, now that I have an audience and a place to host it at. It would be nice to slap a few things together quickly and make a few short comics and see how it does. Not sure if the plot will still be the same, since it's been several years since the original idea was thought up. One of the episodes would be about me finally learning how to drive, since I got my license rather late, partially because I didn't need to drive while dorming at Rutgers. The episode would consist of me driving the way I knew best... Speeding through the roads by Snaking, a glitch/exploit used in F-Zero GX and Mario Kart DS where you move left and right to attain speeds normally unachievable at all times.

 

Of course, there are plenty more of dumb ideas to be tossed into the making of this comic. >_> And hey, it's about time Taco learned how to drive too. It all works out. ... Hopefully he won't be snaking in real life though. Cause he won't be crawling out of the car as a green triangle like he would in the comic... 

Oh yeah, I don't know whether to call it Button Mashers anymore either, because I think there's a game show or something called that now, which sort of saddens me. ._. But we'll see what will become of this whole idea if I ever do decide to make it.

Legacy of Lappy

It was a big deal when I got my first laptop. I wanted to have my own computer that isn't filled with so much clutter that my Dad especially leaves on anything he accesses. Whether it be on the desktop computer he uses, or on top of the physical desk the desktop computer is on, it's just a mess. Of course, being organized isn't the main reason why. The "real" reason for me wanting my laptop was for my own entertainment, such as being able to run computer games that our crappy desktop with Windows ME couldn't play well. I mean, the graphics chip that that old thing had couldn't render textures properly on character models. Mind you, this is as far back as the year when Guild Wars was released when I took that screenshot on Windows Mistake Edition.

Lack of texture sure is... shiny... ?

2005 was also when I graduated from high school, and decided to go to college at Rutgers University. The main purpose of me getting a laptop would be so that I can do my assignments on them at college, so my parents bought me a Hewlett Packard Pavilion dv4000. It was definitely superior to all the Macs and the Windows ME we had at home. Allowed me to play Guild Wars with the proper texture, albeit it didn't provide the absolute best in graphics, but I wasn't really looking for a super-expensive laptop that can look super pretty and drain lots of power whilst doing so. As my first laptop, I wanted an all-round, versatile laptop that can do everything to a point where it's acceptable. It did for as long as the 3 years Lappy worked for me.

I did a lot of things on Lappy. My college assignments, of course, browse the internet, mostly talking with people on Gaia Online back then, use Adobe Photoshop to make simple stuff for Gaia as well... games from Guild Wars, Ragnarok Online, Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst, Flyff, etc. Lappy and I also experienced a lot of other things too like viruses and malware. I mean, I knew enough to have protection on my computer but ... geeze, Norton Anti-Virus sucks. Norton kept detecting trojan horses that would immediately get quarantined, only to get replaced with a brand new one that Norton will continue to quarantine, filling its quarantined folder with countless copies of this crap that the main virus was creating. It was quite the nightmare. Norton eating up a lot of Lappy's resources to fill its harddrive with this crap, without solving the problem at all. Norton was essentially used to work against Lappy in a harmful way, and that pissed me off pretty badly. =/ Used some other program to detect where the main virus was, and removed it manually myself to fix the issue. Got rid of Norton so fast after that...

Lappy and I played Stepmania a lot too. It was my first time really getting into DDR then. My friend, Xu and I would play for hours... In fact, he was the one who taught me how to be good at DDR. After a while of getting used to DDR, I nearly played an endless game for about an hour straight. I just wish my Dad hadn't broken my dance pad with his carelessness when I had to leave Rutgers... ._. The dance pad I got cost just above $100 too, from RedOctane.

It was around that time when Gaia Online came out with a new, big game called zOMG. Big, ring-based MMORPG combat which mechanics are somewhat similar to Guild Wars in that you pick 8 skills to take with you into combat. However, the game, much like most flash games now, eats up an awful lot of resources it seems, so I tried getting bigger RAM for Lappy. Unfortunately, Lappy was still using the old DDR (Not Dance Dance Revolution) type RAM, which has a smaller limit than DDR2 type RAM, and costs more on top of that. D= And even worse, upgrading its RAM still didn't help run zOMG any better. The game lagged so badly that the game would freeze for around or over a minute when things got action heavy, and that's when you need it to lag the least. By the time the lag's over, if it ever DOES end, everyone would be dead. It was virtually unplayable. The issue I found was to be with my processor. It was simply not strong enough to keep up all the processing it required for flash games, for some apparent reason.

It was then that I decided to get a new laptop which main focus was for gaming. I wanted a strong graphics card, a powerful processor, and a big enough harddrive for all the things that I wanted, like games. Things that Lappy lacked for my needs. And this was what I had found on Newegg. I decided to name this laptop Pugyuu, a nickname for the abbreviation, P(ortable) G(aming) U(nit).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220343

I got Pugyuu when Newegg was having a sale, and Asus also had a $100 mail-in rebate going on at the same time as well. I had to wait a few months for this opportunity to come, and I had to jump at this opportunity, or else I would have missed it. I nearly did miss it anyway, because of Dad, but I understand how he was reluctant about getting it. I ended up having to spend what money I had saved up from my job at a pizzeria when I was in high school, as well as combining my birthday and Christmas gift for that year into buying this laptop, which worked out better for me since it's rare that I get anything good on my birthday and Christmas anyway. When Pugyuu finally arrived in the mail, the first few things I did were setting it up like removing Norton and replacing it with a different anti-virus program immediately. I also tested out zOMG on Gaia, and it ran so well that I felt so powerful in the game in comparison to how helpless I was on Lappy. On top of that, having Lappy handle things like AIM to chat on, while I played games on Pugyuu was a powerful and convenient set up where I don't have to alt tab to see messages and also not having to split my computers' resources that way.

It was around then when Lappy suddenly blue-screened on me. Obviously, I was concerned, wondering whether if I should have ran some malware scan or if maybe I had skimped out on keeping Lappy running optimally. Thankfully, I had Pugyuu with me, so if in the case of an error, I could look it up on Pugyuu while I work on fixing up Lappy. I quickly turned Lappy back on after the blue screen to get to work... but all that greeted me was a black screen. Not even a splash screen of any sort. The power was definitely on, but the processors weren't running. Perhaps I had turned Lappy back on too soon after it had shut down from its blue screen. It's possible that doing so had possibly corrupted the hard drive. That was the last I saw of Lappy with its screen lit, and that was the conclusion I came up with after the many diagnoses of Lappy's behavior.

There have been plans on resurrecting Lappy once again, by getting it a new hard drive with an operating system, and perhaps attempt to salvage what valuable data I have still in that hard drive. However, the opportunity hasn't come yet. Lappy now sleeps in its box, back with my family in New Jersey. Pugyuu now carries on Lappy's legacy with what information I could gather that I had before. So much was still lost however, as well as a big part of my life. It is a loss I wish to never experience again.

Wishlist - November 2011

So I've been trying to get myself in the habit of posting once a day, but I wasn't able to keep it up with the sudden demand of my time popped up yesterday. My plans for today has been kind of a mess as well because of it and some other stuff having to crawl itself into my life. Really though, when someone else just dumps their responsibilities onto you in a worse situation then they had started with, it's a rather stressful experience. Everyone should know that, but I'm afraid the person who's doing this just doesn't understand until it's too late.

But I'm going to decide NOT to talk about that, and instead, do another wishlist. This time of some game software that I am interested in. I was contemplating whether to just do this in the other wishlist I had, but it just didn't seem to fit well, especially with the wishlist ending up with a bunch of video games in there with some random things like LED lights for Firion, a sweatband, and a sword thrown in the mix. Also, I'd like to not let this be a monthly thing, especially since I really don't find too many things that I'm really interested enough to buy anyway. I wouldn't have anything to put in these wishlists for a while anyway.

1. Fortune Street / Itadaki Street Wii

Glad this game got announced in the US. I'm playing the one on the DS in Japanese right now, and I find it to be more fun than Mario Party, mostly because winning in it is not-so reliant on luck-based minigames like Mario Party is, but rather economic strategy. In a nutshell, it's basically Monopoly with the stock market thrown into the mix. The stocks you buy are of the area that you buy properties of like in Monopoly. With more stocks bought in the area, or if the properties/buildings/stores in that area are worth more, the price of the stocks go up, and vice versa if people sell stocks, property value drops, etc. Having a solid economic strategy is the key to winning, which makes it more fun for me. If the game ran mostly on luck, then might as well play Russian Roulette. The game decides who wins; not the players. Sure, there are some skill-based minigames in Mario Party, but it just feels like the more the game gets a new iteration, the more the minigames are reliant on luck than skill. Can't remember which Mario Party I've really played much of last though. I know I owned 1-3, but I've played others at a friend's house I believe.

2. Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Zelda has always been a huge series among Nintendo, and ... well, to put it bluntly, graphically, it looks better than Twilight Princess. I'm not saying Twilight Princess looked bad in particular, but Skyward Sword is so much more colorful. Leave the shades of gray and brown to maybe the dark world or something, but when majority of Hyrule looks like that, it just doesn't have the same appeal otherwise. As for gameplay, it looks like Skyward Sword is utilizing the Wii Motion Plus well, which is good. I just hope that they'll fill the game with plenty of content, and not end up rushed like Twilight Princess was. Not to mention this game gets released right on my birthday. >_> Coincidence much?


3. Kirby's Return to Dreamland

So ever since I was a little kid, I was into video games. The games I grew up with mostly consisted of Mario, Final Fantasy, and Dragon Quest when I was as early as 5 to 9 years old. But after that, I learned about Kirby, and found that its games are pretty fun and awesome. Among them, Kirby's Dreamland 2, Kirby SuperStar, and a few others really stuck out as great games to me, and ever since SuperStar, I always wanted another Kirby game just like that, but didn't quite happen for a while until Amazing Mirror brought back the way how abilities had multiple moves and stuff. Well, what I've seen of this game looks pretty promising to fulfill that desire to play another Kirby game that plays similarly, if not better. Also looking forward to the multiplayer aspects of this game.

4. Gyakuten Kenji 2 / Miles Edgeworth: Ace Investigations 2

Well, I'm one of the many that are disappointed that this game never got released in the US. =( Being that I'm Japanese though, I could technically play the game in Japanese, but I really like Capcom's localization team. They do a really great job at writing the scripts for the series, and I'm also concerned about having to import the game to play it. Importing is expensive, and it was something I wanted to avoid. Well, that's probably the only reason why I haven't played this game yet. Otherwise, I'm sure I would have enjoyed it much like the rest of the series.

5. Professor Layton VS Gyakuten Saiban

I don't have a 3DS yet, and this game isn't out yet, but hell. I'm excited about this game. The trailer has put a lot of hype for the game within the fans, and many of us are desperately hoping that this game will be released in the US. I'm still playing through Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box right now, but I'm hoping I'll be caught up with Professor Layton games by the time this game comes out in the US.

6. Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3 (PS3)

I've always wanted to get Marvel VS Capcom 2. Never got the opportunity to get the game though. Then MvC3 came out, and thought it was finally my chance to own a fun, kickass fighting game. Never did get it though because this house never got a PS3, as described in my previous wishlist. @_@ But who knew that they would release an Ultimate MvC3 as soon as they did? Well, I feel bad for the people who had bought MvC3 and now have to buy the game again to be up-to-date, since I've been through that myself with a few SquareEnix games. Well, UMvC3 is even more appealing because of.. well, it's obvious by now. Phoenix Wright is a playable character in it. XD

7. Good People Die / Gyokugen Dasshutsu ADV: Zennin Shiboudesu

After having enjoyed 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors, hearing that a sequel is in the works for the 3DS certainly has got my interest. Apparently it hasn't been announced whether if it would be released in the US yet though. Here's to hoping that it will be released in the US too. Leave a comment to show support for this game! ... Assuming they'll see this blog. >_> Regardless, talk about the series and let the marketing team in Aksys Games know that the public wants this game.

8. Pokemon Rumble Blast

Well, I played Pokemon Rumble, and I feel like I could say that it's a casually appealing game. Great for single player and multiplayer. I'd definitely like to pick this game up if my other friends will be getting this. I was disappointed with the first Pokemon Rumble on the WiiWare because it didn't have Pokemon from all 4 generations, but only the first and fourth gen in it, but Blast is supposedly going to have all 5 generations. Sounds great to me.

Well, it's also been a while since I've really talked about the games I've been playing too. I might have to go ahead and do that once I've reached a good point to do so.