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A Month of Horror Games - Clock Tower
"Who will survive this game of murder?"As amusingly dated as it looks now (and let's be real; the game looked like fried dog shit in 1996 too), this PS1 point-and-click horror game actually got my...
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A Month of Horror Games - Silent Hill Shattered Memories
Developed as a 'reimagining' of the first Silent Hill game, Shattered Memories retains the names of characters, the "dark world" mechanic, and series composer Akira Yamaoka. Everything else is so far...
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A Month of Horror Games - Hellnight
"None of it seems real, like it shouldn't be happening..."Hellnight (known as Dark Messiah in Japan) feels like a bad dream come to life. The crude, lo-fi graphics give the impression of some cursed...
View ArticleSetting the Stage: My Favorite "File Select" Themes
Outside of the title screen, nothing sets the mood for the player's upcoming adventure/fight for survival/round of tetris than a game's file select (or password) theme. Let's talk about them!This will...
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How to make a lightbox for small photography (for about 9 bucks!)
Because I do most of my blog photography at night, my lighting rig usually consists of a couple of table lamps, a dark room and a sheet. You can certainly get some nice dramatic lighting this way, but...
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Obscure 16-bit character: Grind McRoo (Sega Mega Drive, 1992)
How long has it been since I did a fake game cartridge? How long has it been since I posted regularly on this blog at all? Yikes.Honestly, I've never considered myself much of a writer and though I do...
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Weird Sports Games 1 - RUNNING HIGH (Playstation, 1997)
Running High (1997 System Sacom)I love weird sports games; particularly weird racing games, because the rules are so much simpler and more, let's say, malleable than your baseballs and footballs. Also,...
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Weird Sports Games 2 - Cosmic Smash (Dreamcast, 2000)
Cosmic Smash (Sega Rosso, 2000) I can only think of a small handful of games that set out with a dead simple purpose and execute it to perfection. Cosmic Smash is one of those games: a single...
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Weird Sports Games 3 - Dashin' Desperadoes (Genesis, 1993)
Dashin' Desperadoes (Data East, 1993)Let's get THIS shit out of the way right now:HOWWWWWWWWWWDY~Okay! Dashin' Desperadoes strains the premise of these "weird sports" posts quite a lot I'll admit. Even...
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Planet Harriers (Sega - 2005, PSP)
A port of the 2000 arcade game and spiritual sequel to the Space Harrier series.Planet Harriers was a long overdue entry in the Space Harrier series, which hadn't seen a new game since 1998's Space...
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Weird Sports Games 4 - Pen Pen TriIcelon (Dreamcast, 1998)
Pen Pen TriIcelon (General Entertainment, 1998)Pen Pen TriIcelon (Ice Triathlon, get it) received deservedly mixed reviews, but I can think of one award it deserves: clunkiest title ever. I honestly...
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Pen Pen TriIcelon (Dreamcast) Manual Differences and Weird Stuff
Who'd have thought I would have this much to say about PenPen TriIcelon?Looking through the game's English manual I was actually shocked at how colorful and fun it was; often times localizing a game...
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Cosmic Smash Undiscovered Secret Characters?? UPDATED
I know the title is very clickbait-y, but I've been searching online and can't find a single reference to this, so it may be new to you: Cosmic Smash has a secret character!Okay, I know how this looks....
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8-Bit Shugei - Dragon Quest Shadowbox Fun
Do you know about 8-bit shugei? Meaning literally "8-bit handicraft", it's retro-gaming themed DIY art encompassing any number of formats such as perler beading, cross stitch, papercraft, sculpture...
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Illustration Collection 01
I was doing random sketches from simple prompts; this one was "traveler"Hey! Sorry, no video game stuff today...though Ribbon Black is ostensibly a gaming art/history/culture blog, it's technically...
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Finch Owl Pocket SP (Famicom, 2017)
My friend Finch had me on a Splatoon episode of his podcast late last year and was kind enough to tap me for the cover image! The subject of the design was of course something near and dear to my...
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Illustration Collection 02
A friend's OC done roughly fighting game size. Maybe a little too low res?More sketches and pixel art! This one is mostly fanart.Wanted to make an original ARMS character. My arms are spoooooky ghost...
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Ridge Racer: World At War (exploring connections to Ace Combat)
*warning: this is the nerdiest thing I've ever written on this blog*Long time no see! Get ready for some Deepest Ridge Racer Lore. If you've played Namco's excellent Ace Combat 5 (or Ace Combat 2...or...
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Single Player Offline - The Lonely Ritual of Disconnected Console Gaming
On Christmas day 2017 I experienced something I didn't know I was missing--and never thought I would miss--when I went into the neglected room where all my retro game consoles are kept.Rather than...
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Fantavision (PS2, 2000) A Flashy, Tonally Inconsistent Puzzle Game
It's Fantavision!It's July 4th! In the United States it's Independence Day, a holiday that was ostensibly created for, you know...patriotic America type shit. Nobody actually cares, it's an acceptable...
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Zombie Revenge (Dreamcast, 1999)
**Hey guys; as expected, I missed ANOTHER October Horror Games month! I've been busy lately, what with moving 1600 miles across the country to start a new job at a game studio in California. I do plan...
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I'm glad Namco stopped making their cover art like this
Absolutely nobody: "..."Mid-90's Namco:Here's something I've never seen anybody talk about: In the young days of the North American PS1, Namco came out kicking by releasing ports of their early-90s...
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Hudson Soft's original Caravan trilogy
Hudson's All-Japan Caravan Festival...a legendary series of competitions held yearly throughout the 80's and 90s. It was established at the height of the shoot-em-up's popularity, and this shows in the...
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Vib Ribbon Press Kit - full disc contents!
So, a few years ago I made a post about a Vib Ribbon press kit I found by chance on ebay around 2003. I posted the most interesting things (a lot of fun key art of the characters) but left a few things...
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A Rainy Day at Wonder Eggs amusement park, 1992
note: most of these images are pretty high res, so open them in a new tab if you want a closer look! I'm a bit of a Namco enthusiast, and for years I've been interested in their first go at the...
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