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Lunch Buddies (Famicom)

May 2, 2013, 12:08 am
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Long time no see guys. Here's a cart I originally made for the Famicase exhibition before I decided to go with something else. The Famicase website still isn't up yet as of this writing, so I'll wait to post the one I submitted to them, but in the meantime here are some of my other ideas!


Lunch Buddies is based on the webcomic (some cartoon grossness if you're of frail disposition) of the same name, about a dog (Ghost) and a fox (Gish) and...the things they do.


Compete against the CPU or with a friend to get the most food in this action free-for-all! Powerups like Ketchup allow your character to eat faster and leave puddles for your opponent to slip in. Between meal bonus stages earn you more points for washing dishes faster than the other player.


The game is terrible and best described as a cross between Micro Machines and World Class Track Meet. The character designs are cute though.



More to come later! If you want more photos of Lunch Buddies I posted some here.
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Elsewhere: Labyrinth of Cemetery (Famicase entry)

May 4, 2013, 7:34 am
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  This game is so spooky it's bleeding everywhere
Here's my entry for the 2013 Famicase show! 


Elsewhere: Labyrinth of Cemetery (Ribbon Black, 2013):
"This is an eerie place known only as Elsewhere. Can you help Muscadine escape the Great Graveyard or will she become its newest resident? Six levels of platforming and exploration."
I had a blast making this, and it was good to use an old character I used to draw years ago (also seen in my SNES cart for March of the Dead). The label was a decent bit of work to do but the real challenge was the mockup screenshots. After I made one, I thought "why not make it move too?". Working with the restraints of the NES hardware as always is a fun, extremely time consuming puzzle.

More images behind the cut.




Another of my Famicase ideas, "Bird Walk", in the background.
A simple loop I made from the other "footage"

Thanks for looking! Being in the Famicase show has been a dream of mine for years now, and when their website for this year goes up (eventually) I'll link it so you can see all the other entries too.
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Famicase 2013: My 4 Favorite Entries

May 5, 2013, 4:34 am
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It's here! My Famicase Exhibition 2013 finally came online tonight and it's a thrill to see everyone's new designs (and mine alongside them). Why not exploit everyone's hard work and get a blog post out of my favorite designs from this year's show?


Salamander Exed Star Soldius Xevi Force Zone Brain Bee Type
by Mountain Graphics

Likely to be one of the favorite entries, I bet, especially among shootemup fans. This remix of classic titles really benefits from the extra mile the artist went in mashing ten different franchise logos together (in their original respective typefaces)...somehow it works for me. The thing that really flattens my balls is the player's ship--ten different vehicles thrown in the blender and poured into a glass of super dimensional death machine. I'm not well versed on shootemup vehicles (I could probably tell you the difference between the R-9 Arrowhead, the Vic Viper and the Silver Hawk at least) but I can recognize the feather wings and 16t bomb from Fantasy Zone, the Force from R-type hovering above,  and what I believe are part of the wings from Vic Viper. Total genius.

The game's product serial on the top left is a great touch too: STG being the abbreviation for Shooting Game. Can you identify the other shooter references in the ship?

Mayle
by Paul Veer

Simple, sharp and plays to my love of blue and white. The logo made from a postage stamp is unexpected and works great with the tiny synopsis text oriented below it. Overall a good use of grid in the design! I think the game's concept is really cute too and would be fun to play.

More behind the cut.



Dot Album
by haya@TECS

Some entries take the idea out of the "make an old game" territory and into real world applications. I love the idea of Dot Album, a Famicom cart equipped with wifi so you can upload photos directly from your phone to be converted into nostalgic 8-bit. Kind of like the sepia tone filter on Instagram. I dig the film edge perforations on the sides of the image, it's a great way to reinforce the concept.


 Me As An Animal
by Kakegawa Ryu

I'm a huge dork for silhouettes, and the ones used here are crisp and easily identifiable. The artist's color usage is appropriately serene and works well with his choice of cartridge color. I like that the concept is vague (Google translate suggests that it is about a human living in the forest as an animal, since humans are also animals) and so the gameplay could be anything--I want to play this one!


Honorable Mention
oh


There are about 90 entries in the Famicase show and a whole lot of excellent ones I didn't put here! CHECK THEM OUT HERE GUYS
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Blade Buster reproduction cart (HLC Project, NES)

May 8, 2013, 12:14 am
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Blade Buster is a BRILLIANT homebrew Famicom/NES game from HLC Project. They wrung every drop of graphical performance out of the ancient console for a shootemup experience that's as smooth and fast as anything you'll see on a 16-bit console. Along with the legendary Recca and Crisis Force I rank Blade Buster as one of the three greatest shmup triumphs on the system.



You may notice that Blade Buster recreates the Stage 1 theme from Super Star Soldier. The level design is also highly reminiscent of Hudson's Soldier series, though as far as I know the layout is unique. It doesn't have the same length as Recca and Crisis Force but it isn't intended to--Blade Buster is a lovingly created ode to the days of Hudson's Summer Caravan competitions, in which children were expected to master that year's selected game and outperform their opponents in 2-minute and 5-minute score challenges (Recca was actually part of Naxat Soft's "Summer Carnival" competition and had the same short caravan style challenges, but also included a full-length game of its own). Later years saw Bomberman and even sports game challenges from Hudson, but in the late 80s/early 90s shooting games ruled the damn world.


For the label design, I decided on a technical looking diagram of the ship you pilot in-game, based off the actual graphics. It's okay. The way I really wanted to make it pop was by repainting the cartridge. You wouldn't think it would have worked but it did! I used Krylon Fusion paint made specifically for plastics, and put on several light layers until it was solid black. Keeping the coats thin makes it look like the cart was always black and not just covered in paint. Very durable too, I haven't scuffed it yet.

Unfortunately! I later translated the website for HLC Project and saw that the developer was understandably particular about way the logo was done when making custom labels and repro carts. Obviously my minimal white text logo is inaccurate to the in-game logo, and I'm kind of bummed. Not bummed enough to do a new logo, but maybe someday.

Download Blade Buster from HLC Project right here!
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Two Dignified Photographs of ROB

May 10, 2013, 7:19 am
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The Robotic Operating Buddy was a clunky Short Circuit looking piece of ass. At worst it was a failed gimmick--two games were made for the device (Stack-Up/Robot Block and Gyromite/Robot Gyro), and the robot's purpose--to very slowly press buttons on the 2P controller--was wholly negated by having a second human help you instead. Maybe Nintendo was catering to the patient, lonely child market.


 Not my video--view this champion in action (skip to 1:20 for gameplay).

Many however believe that ROB was a savvy plan on Nintendo's part to entice consumers into taking another chance on video games after the crash of 1983. ROB wasn't part of their long term plan, just a way to convince parents that the NES was an "Entertainment System", not just a video game ,a term that had apparently become a bad word by that point. Once people got a look at the true stars of the console (Super Mario Bros. also launched with the NES in North America) ROB could be quietly let go, only to realize that once Nintendo has conceived of you, you will never truly rest.

"To sleep, perchance, to dream :("

Anyway, I got this guy at a thrift store for five bucks. Unfortunately the main unit is all that was included. I wanted to take a photo of him as I see him, on my toy shelf, surrounded by others, yet alone in his own dark thoughts. He prefers it this way.
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Small Update

June 15, 2013, 12:43 pm
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This is all I've got for you at the moment. If you've got the 3DS, get the Animal Crossing.
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This Week In Town: RUMORS (my animal crossing comic)

July 6, 2013, 11:53 pm
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I'm so behind with blogging, both posting and reading/commenting. But I've finally gotten some time to pursue a project I've been excited about for weeks--my Animal Crossing: New Leaf comic!

It's called "This Week In Town" and here's a pretty rough test strip I did. Nice and colorful though!

If you don't play a lot of Animal Crossing: New Leaf, the villagers are always talking about everyone else, including repeating rumors about the player depending on how they act in town. For a long time I was called a "Pro Listener", which gave me the idea for this one. Nowadays they call me "Stump Maker" because I'm turning my town into a desert hellhole. It's fun to make stupid stories for the people living in my town; more to come later!


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This Week In Town: THE BUG OFF

July 11, 2013, 3:04 pm
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Another one of my dumbass Animal Crossing: New Leaf comics. The next one will likely look different! I'm trying different types of drawing/coloring to find something that I like, and that's efficient enough to use for comics (I draw very slowly).




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This Week In Town: O'HARE

July 16, 2013, 11:35 am
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Just a short one about a character I like this time. Somehow it came into our heads that O'Hare is destitute and squatting in the town campground at my girlfriend's village, so I decided to make a little comic for it. The idea that someone could have trouble getting money in Animal Crossing is very funny to me...maybe he has a gambling problem.

Just pretend that the Happy Home Association allows you to buy fully furnished homes in the game too! More to come next time.
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New Leaf: My First Month In Town

July 19, 2013, 11:52 pm
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The Animal Crossing train keeps on rolling here--if you're watching, and you don't like AC, then I apologize and also you should like AC. I wanted to do a "serious" fanart of the game rather than the comics I've been drawing, so I did a group shot of my character and all the animals who have lived in my town (Shady) since I started about a month ago. Hope you like it, it consumed my stupid life for a couple days.






A couple of favorites:

I didn't think I'd care much for Dora (the mouse) at first, but by the time she said she was moving out she had become one of my favorites. Unfortunately I was on a trip irl and didn't get to talk to her on her last day! I felt guilty, haha.

Bruce is the deer on the top right; a "grumpy" type villager. The way he was always wandering the town with a shovel at 3 AM and living in a garage led to a running joke that he was a serial killer. He's still wandering around town at night, but he tends to be watering flowers nowadays. He always seemed like such a quiet, polite boy.

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Mighty No. 9 (Comcept, Famicom)

October 2, 2013, 5:32 pm
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If you're into video games and you use the internet (both requirements for viewing this blog) then I probably don't need to tell you about the success story that is the Mighty No. 9 Kickstarter campaign. Keiji Inafune (best known for CREATING  MEGA MAN) and his company Comcept managed to crowdsource over four million dollars to fund a spritual successor to his beloved franchise, blowing past the original goal and pretty much every stretch goal after that.

I can't wait for the game to come out so in honor of Mighty No. 9...!


Oh nuts


The precise line art was fun to make here, though you don't really get the benefit on a 2 inch label.


Click for big. Inspiration for the lighting effects came from both the Mighty No. 9 concept art and the badass intro from Capcom's PS1 games.

Been a while since I posted! NES version of the game (with an appropriately different label art) to come soon, hopefully.


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This Week In Town - Shirt

October 3, 2013, 6:35 am
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This ever happen to anyone else? It's funny to me how you can give an animal a sweater and it will always morph into a tank top when they put it on. Here's hoping Nintendo patches New Leaf one day to give long sleeve shirts to villagers.
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Games For October: Dr. Chaos

October 8, 2013, 12:12 am
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I'd like to show a few games this month that might not get as much exposure as the standard Halloween games.


Dr. Chaos, developed in 1987 (post Super Mario, when everyone should have known better) by Marionette and published the following year by FCI in North America. I won't say it's a good game, but I was always enchanted by the cover art as a child.


Upon startup you are greeted by the spooky mansion of DR. GINN CHAOS, a madman who has apparently unleashed a hell of some sort through "warp zone" experimentation. The black screen and monochrome house is striking, though a few seconds later it's joined by the game's logo in all its drippy Halloween font splendor.


This game made no sense to me when I first played it. Predominantly a clunky and frustrating sidescroller, entering a doorway in the mansion would take you to a Goonies 2/Macventure style screen where you search for items and the entrances to the main point of the game, the Warp Zones.


Biggest disappointment for 7 year old me? The guy in the game looks nothing like the baller label art.


Can you help MICHAEL CHAOS find his brother and solve the mystery of the warp zones??
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Games For October: Holy Diver

October 8, 2013, 11:42 am
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The first thing you'll say is Dio. The second thing would probably be Castlevania. The third thing would be "I give up." Holy Diver is one of the hardest games I've ever played that isn't difficult due to bad game design.


Watch out title screen! Castlevania comparisons are hard to avoid, but this game adds a bit to the formula, with various spells to learn and switch between at will throughout the game. Health pickups are much more common, with the ability to increase your maximum health.


 I like how the stage titles are romanized--I believe the first level would be "Cursed Outskirt" or "Cursed Boundary".


The game's plot is unbelievable and influenced by classic metal bands such as Dio (obviously), Slayer and Black Sabbath. Biggest disappointment for me? Nowhere in the game is there an 8-bit rendition of the Dio song that lends the game its name.

Holy Diver's difficulty will flatten your balls. Give it a try this Halloween!

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Games For October: Haunted House

October 10, 2013, 9:14 am
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Haunted House, developed by Atari for the 2600 in 1982--a year before I was even born, making it the first game on this blog that was truly before my time. While you can probably guess that the NES was the console I grew up with, my parents did have an old Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer, which gave me an early insight into this sort of thing with games like Dragon Fire. Haunted House, as I learned, is even more primitive looking than that.


So...how about that box art? I do love the ghost coming in for a high-five though.  One bit of praise you can give Haunted House, however, is that things look like they're supposed to. That's more than you can say for many Atari 2600 games at least.


Here is the hero lighting a match. I thought the match would allow you to see his body too, but maybe the house is just that dark. The premise of the game involves your eyes going to the haunted mansion to collect the pieces of a missing magic urn that belonged to the first inhabitants of the town of Spirit Bay. All you need to know is that items don't show up unless you light a match and turn into Meatwad up there Also watch out for bats, spiders and the ghost of Mr. Graves, the former resident of the mansion.


I know I said everything looks like it should, but in the screenshot above I think the character is trying to decide if that's a spider or if a ghostly crab crawled out of Spirit Bay. Whatever they are, just avoid em if they chase you. Amazingly, Atari remade Haunted House in 2010.
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This Week In Town - Megaphone

October 11, 2013, 7:28 am
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Jay, my best Animal Crossing friend from the beginning, recently decided to move out of my town. I decided it was time for some new villagers so I let him go...and of course I miss him now. Here's one last Jay comic for the road! My village is full of new faces now--stay tuned for more.



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Games For October: Musya

October 12, 2013, 3:44 am
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Emerging from the unhallowed ground comes a spooky Super NES game to chill and infuriate you

Musya: The Classic Japanese Tale of Horror, developed in 1992 by Jorudan.

This game, as the title suggests, is very Japanese! So much so that even the localized version retains a lot of kanji in the user interface. Interestingly, the titles of each stage use Japanese words even if they weren't in the original--for example, stage one is titled Kihōshōnyūdō (鬼宝鍾乳洞 "Oni Cave") in Japanese, whereas the US version is titled "Tengumara Cavern", a whole different Japanese phrase with a different meaning.

In a time when companies like Jaleco were doing THIS shit:

They did turn Magic John into Totally Rad though, so I guess Jaleco is okay

a localized game staying so true to it's roots was worthy of note.


 The legitimately creepy enemies are taken straight out of Japanese folklore.

 

The graphics are highly detailed, bordering on muddy. However, they do a great job of setting a bleak and muted atmosphere that avoids the cartoony look you'd expect. Your character, the spearman Imoto, has a few options for attack--including a Zelda 2 style downward stab, a too-weak-to-be-useful spear spinning attack (though I believe it's for stopping projectiles), and a handful of spells earned after defeating each demon.

screenshot borrowed from Plain Game Reviews.


NOW it's starting to feel like Halloween around here. Not my screenshot though--I kept getting stuck on stage 3.


 Try Musya if you can get your hands on a copy, it seems to be a platformer people rarely talk about.

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This Week In Town - Changes

October 14, 2013, 5:09 am
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I think we can all relate to this one.
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Games For October - Deep Fear

October 15, 2013, 6:27 am
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Deep Fear, developed by ISCO in 1998 (a contemporary of Resident Evil 2) and released onto Sega Saturn in Japan and Europe only. Deep Fear has the distinction of being Europe's last Saturn release, and they chose quite a note to go out on.


Gameplay wise? It's Resident Evil. Story wise? It's bananas. To briefly sum it up, ex-SEAL John Mayor is part of a rescue team called the ERS and must survive the horror of mutant creatures with murder on their mind--UNDER THE OCEAN. Gameplay takes place in an underwater research station called the Big Table.


The game's many cutscenes are well done for the time, but the voice actingmust be heard to be believed.  The sound effects are sadly subpar, which hurts the immersion factor; still, I think the monster's moans can be downright haunting. This however is coming from a person who once paid his brother to walk through a scary room in Resident Evil, so take it as you will.


 For the record, this was the most fun "photoshoot" I've done yet--choosing which ones to post was tough. Of all things to have a passion for, themed video game package design photography is mine.


"Hereafter We Will Have Desperate Days With Nowhere To Escape..."
 
Hell yeah. Deep Fear's tagline certainly ranks up there with RE's "Enter The Survival Horror." And just in case that, the box art and the title didn't transmit the message clearly, blood red words at the bottom lay it on the line for you: DEEP-SEA HORROR AND SUSPENSE. I love this game's packaging more than the game itself.

While we're discussing promotional materials, here's the Japanese commercial for Deep Fear, featuring nothing but prerendered cutscenes and national treasure Segata Sanshiro butchering a fish.




If you can't get hold of the European version, the Japanese one is more affordable and very playable without knowing the language!

Ever played Deep Fear? Got any other suggestions for Survival Horror style games (any system)? I'm looking for more things to play this October!
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Sweatpants For Everyone (Famicom)

October 16, 2013, 8:03 pm
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Sorry about the crappy photos on this one, I've had nothing but bad luck with photography today.

First off, the title of the game is an Animal Crossing joke--sometimes your villagers will give you petitions to get signatures for, and the "jock" villagers sometimes want you to lobby for "Sweatpants For Everyone".

This was an example cartridge I made for a giveaway raffle I'm holding on my Tumblr--one random winner will get an imaginary famicom (or NES) game featuring their mayor and favorite villager! I'd like to test the waters with commissions for these, and I figure this is a good way to both show appreciation to Tumblr for the (relative for me) success of my "This Week In Town" comics, and to drum up awareness of my custom fake game service!




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