gen's daily life - no promises, no bets

so uh, kind of remembered something from last year, and... well, remember when i posted some new-year's-resolution-type things last December?

well, uh, looking back at it, seems i only got a tiny bit of those supposed goals done. did review another steam game a while back (said game being Undertale, of course), did get one chapter of the Disgaea manga readthrough up this year even though i haven't mustered up the motivation to snap shots of the other pages after chapter 2, did do a musing writeup on Hearthstone which i guess would classify as Warcraft-based things...

but yeah, outside of those three and probably some others i forgot, i haven't gotten too much done in terms of living up to any of those resolutions. i guess this is what happens when i expect too much out of myself despite the fact that it's hard for me to really get into writing about things.

well, i did a few other miscellaneous writeups like the BKPC review and my Anime Boston experience over the first half of the year, and then things just... kinda slowed down exponentially. i know i should stop excusing myself for leaving drafts unfinished and generally slacking on here, and the whole "i've been busy" excuse gets really old after a certain point, but that genuinely has been the case for the latter half of the year.

around summertime i got a PSP as an early birthday gift, so i spent most of my time customizing it and tinkering with homebrew things on it. pretty much got well over 2500 games slapped onto it as well, even if most of them are emulated retro titles. mostly spent autumn wrapping up things with the PSP and (admittedly) struggling to keep the site updated with actual content. eeeeeven if the only substantial things during that time were the Undertale review and a little writeup on my thoughts on the upcoming Disgaea PC.

also was considering doing a liveblog playthrough of Soul Nomad on here, though i haven't started it up yet. or touched any of my consoles in a while, for that matter.

with the holidays just around the corner, life's just gotten more busy for me. got a scanner/printer so i'm now able to get back to traditional pencil drawings, and i've been spending most of my time talking with my friends and getting gifts ready for them. i've also been frequenting another WoW private server and doing things on there, to the point where the admin asked me if i'd like to be part of the staff. so now i've been answering player tickets and shaping up my SQL knowledge so i can help with database stuff.

it's been a busy year in general, to the point where i've p much realized how much i haven't been living up to the goals i set for myself last year. this site is mostly a personal sort of endeavor, so compared to things like... idk, i guess completing video games, working on drawings, and finishing roleplays with my friends, it hasn't really been a major priority for me. i dunno if it's because of the lack of too many visitors on here or my own lack of motivation, but i'd have to say it's the latter, honestly; i haven't been doing too much vidya/drawing/rping this year either.

at the very least, one thing i'm p happy about getting done this year is expanding my video game collection and talking with my friends more. got the famous 6th-gen trio that is the PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube (Wii, but it can run GC games, so), and i've even made a few new friends and started hanging out more with some older pals. plus with learning about SQL, i might get into learning some other programming languages as well in the coming year.

so while i haven't been able to do a lot of stuff i've been hoping to do and keep the site updated like i promised, i don't think this year's been a complete waste. especially with how well this month has went so far. c:

as far as new year resolutions go, i'm just going to focus on getting last year's actually done over the span of the next year. as well as generally just improving my skills in what i know. hopefully i can get at least half of the unfinished drafts done at some point.

not that i can 100% guarantee it, but it's a step up in keeping this place active, at least.

anyhow, have a wonderful holiday this week, and thank you for sticking around for so long despite the lack of activity here on KKGS. <3

card games by a mage's candlelight - gen returns to hearthstone

honestly was considering penning this under the "gen's thoughts" title, but this falls under more freeform musing than rambling about my opinions and thoughts on things. i don't know why i need to stick nearly everything under specific categories; it's not like this site even follows a specific trend or theme to the things i write about. :y

at the start of the month, i've gotten myself back into playing Hearthstone, a digital collectible card game spinoff of the Warcraft series. which is also free for windows/mac and iphones and tablets if you wanna try it out. the microtransaction/free-to-play stuff is pretty fair, too. buy packs and adventure parts with either money or earned ingame gold which is fairly easy to get.

i initially got into Hearthstone around April or March of 2014 when the game was released to the public. played it for a while, got a few card packs out of it, and got a nifty pandaren-themed card back from ranked play. while i did enjoy it, i soon retired from HS for greener pastures, which naturally meant i missed out on a lot of cool card backs from the following months up to now. ah well. such is how life goes, i guess.

wasn't to say i wasn't interested in coming back to the game at some point in the future. my younger brother still plays Hearthstone as of this writing, and of course i had a ton of fun just watching him blow opponents to dust with cheeky tactics. just didn't have the proper incentive to actually play the game again myself. which, knowing me, that incentive most likely involved either more variety to cards, more cosmetic stuff, more content, or tauren. preferably tauren.

'course, we got new card set expansions and adventures and new modes, and i even followed the official Hearthstone twitter, but i wasn't coaxed into coming back until my brother let me know about the latest shaman-themed card back for the current ranked season.

as someone who played shaman in both Hearthstone and World of Warcraft, that was what got me back into the game. got myself to rank 20 now so i'm guaranteed to get the card back after this month, but now i've found myself enjoying the game even more; not solely because of the new cards and content (tavern brawl is fun as hell, i should mention!), but for more poignant reasons. not really the sappy kind of poignant, just stuff that just kinda draws me into the game in a different aspect.

gen's thoughts - Disgaea PC? Disgaea PC.

okay i know it's going to be a while before this game gets released and get the funds to play it but shut up let me gush

caught word on my steam activity feed that several of my steammates joined a "Disgaea PC" community group. i initially thought it was just a fanmade pc adaptation of the adorably demonic strategy rpg, but nope. it's an official game group, and it wasn't long until i found the steam page for the game, too. come February of next year, the first game in Nippon Ichi Software's Disgaea series will see release on Steam.

already said some stuff about the Disgaea series last year for the first part of my Disgaea manga review thing, so i'll leave that alone. though, uh... i should at least get back to that readthrough at some point. outside of being a port of the first Disgaea game Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, Disgaea PC will include all content from the Afternoon of Darkness PSP rerelease, as well as enhanced textures, an updated UI, keyboard/mouse and controller support, steam achievements, and cloud saves amongst other features they didn't bother to list on the steam page. there'll also be steam trading cards that players can craft into badges to show off on their profile, as well as get some nifty emoticons and backgrounds out of it alongside coupons that they'll probably never use.

that's pretty much the gist of it from what i can gather off the steam page. though why is this titled with "gen's thoughts" instead of MAKAIPUNK? and maybe it should've been titled STEAMPUNK instead?

well, i kinda got a couple thoughts concerning this rerelease, and really, i kinda keep MAKAIPUNK focused on the more doofy-yet-informational NIS stuff. as for STEAMPUNK, this isn't a review of a steam game. so yeah.

anyhow, more wordy thoughts under the cut.

jukebox - Mad Monster Mansion (Banjo-Kazooie)

no halloween special this year, sadly. haven't had the time to think of something for a special. in light of this, have a spooky game tune.

going to be writing a review on it eventually, but Banjo-Kazooie is one of those games from my childhood days that i fondly remember, and still enjoy to this day. could go on about it, but i'll save that for when i actually write the review some day or another. it's also got a fantastic soundtrack for a cartridge-based N64 game.

composed by Grant Kirkhope, his whimsical style can be recognized in many games he's worked on, from Rare classics like Banjo-Kazooie and Viva Pinata, to more recent games like Kingdoms of Amalur and Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth. of course, there's also mention of the upcoming Yooka-Laylee, but that's for another time. but yeah, go check his stuff out. and maybe support him on bandcamp. he's a coo dude with some really coo tunes.

jukebox - Home (Undertale)

been a while since the last time i did a jukebox entry, so in light of my recent review of Undertale, have a sampling from its soundtrack.

Undertale's soundtrack is a lovely blend of chiptune tracks, orchestraic compositions, and a dash of eletronica and rock inbetween. sometimes in the same track, even! the tracks fit the character or area they represent incredibly well, as in the case of Home, which plays when you're in the house of the motherly monster Toriel.

Toby Fox put a lot of love into this game, and it's soundtrack is no exception. you can purchase the soundtrack off his bandcamp here, though it can also be bought as a DLC off Steam. both soundtrack downloads include some spoilery tracks, so maybe you should hold off on buying it until you've finished the game. which you can also get off steam.

STEAMPUNK - Undertale

well, this took me a while to do. half because i needed to complete the game before writing this, half because it's kind of hard to really describe this game to newfolk without spoiling a great deal.

hoo boy

hoooooooo boy

back in 2013, word about a demo for an RPG by the name of Undertale came about. a bloke i knew recommended it to me, saying it seemed like something i'd like since i liked cute monsters and such. i'm not one to turn down anything with cute monsters, so i took a look at the demo. and hoo boy, in that hour-long span, i didn't think i'd end up feeling so much over a demo.

i wasn't able to help fund the kickstarter for Undertale when it came out the same year (i had no idea how to use a credit card until 2014 ok), but i kept watch on the game via twitter and Steam Greenlight and such so i could buy the game when it came out. two years later, just last month, Undertale finally saw release on Steam. and what did i do when i saw it available for purchase?

well okay i actually held off on buying it since i already spent a lot on a copy of Soul Nomad that month, but a pal of mine was kind enough to buy me a copy as their half of an art trade. kudos and shout-out to you, Muno. you're a rad pal. <3

so i guess now i should actually talk about what Undertale actually is, right? developed almost entirely by indie musician Toby "Radiation" Fox, Undertale is a charming role-playing game about a young human kid who falls down a hole while exploring a mysterious mountain. this hole leads to the Underground, where monsters have been trapped following the aftermath of a terrible war between the humans and monsters. what follows is a tale of... well, many feelings. happiness, sadness, fear, love, friendship... and maybe a bit of "what the hell just happened" at points.

i think it goes without saying that i seriously recommend that you grab it off Steam right now if you have the ten bucks to spare or try out the demo for a taste of what to expect. though, it wouldn't be that much of a rec if i didn't explain why i love this game so much, right?

well, if the 98% positive reviews or 97/100 metascore don't convince you, read on. or read on anyway if they do convince you, i dunno. don't worry, this review is spoiler free, and all screencaps used for the review are from the game site page and steam page.

vlog - UKIGUMO

working on typing up another game rec. provided things go smoothly, it should be up this month. in the meantime, it's been a while since i had a vlog, hasn't it?

while i'm not too big on most chiptune bands or musicians, there are a couple of higedriver's tracks i do like. their soundcloud can be found here. they mostly do remixes of other songs, though they have a few original tunes as well, one of which is UKIGUMO above.

there's another video featuring the song, but this is my favorite out of the two. a cute little yarn about a fox and a girl he loves. the video was created by artist kitsuneiro, who has a wonderful selection of spritework and drawn artwork and sketches on their twitter and pixiv. go check either out if you want; they do some really nice works. O:

RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE

so uh, guess who's nearly done with setting up his game/ROM library on his computer and PSP.

additionally, guess who's going to try to get his ass in gear on getting this place going again now that said game-library-setting-up is almost finished.

eeeeeyup.

so yeah, i have quite a bit of catching up to do on getting this crap finished, though i'm likely going to be shelving some of the older article drafts from '14. despite this being my entire draft folder, i've been thinking about writing some other articles and game recommends and miscellaneous junk, including possibly doing a picture-and-text Let's Play of a PS2 game i've gotten my paws on recently. which may also be a MAKAIPUNK thing. and no, it's not Disgaea.

can't guarantee any of these will pop up super-quickly, but we'll see. workload isn't too bad now (granted most of it was sorting through ROM crap), so i should get something up this month, if not this week.

and uh... i'll see what i can do about getting another chapter of the Disgaea manga readthrough up at some point. .w.

anyhow, catch you all soon~ stay rad, everyone.

crashin' some castles

thought i might plug this since i gotta step up my game on keeping this place updated. also hey guys i was part of a rad thing.

P-Stream (the P stands for "Power"!) is a Twitch stream ran by Sam, one of my pals who also does some nifty voicework and a p fun comic. the stream's been going on usually every sunday, though it's on its season finale now, with this episode done on the 12th of this month. me, Sam, and another pal named Pat played and streamed some Castle Crashers that day. we also played some Pokemon Black, but that unfortunately isn't shown because Sam's recording software really didn't want to cooperate with Desmume.

despite the little technical difficulties, we had a huge blast! next part of the finale should be streamed next Sunday on the 19th; Sam'll likely be playing Pokemon G/S/C in honor of Satoru Iwata's excellent help on the game. bless his soul, whereever he is now. also might be hopping in myself that day!

twitch stream can be found here, and you can also follow Sam on twitter for updates on when they'll go live! seriously, they're a cool dude.

gen's daily life - 20 + 1

so uh, i'm 21 now. not much i can say outside of the whole "wow i've matured quite a lot since i was 10" stuff i said last time.

i'm still on hiatus, but i figured i should post an update, just for the sake of the occasion and to let anyone who actually frequents this place know what i've been up to lately. doesn't mean there'll any new posts or feature stuff immediately after this, but it might give insight on some stuff that i might do writeups on. fingers crossed, bruhs.

mostly kinda been focusing on compiling a gameboy library (GB, GBC, and GBA games) for both my own computer and PSP. mostly the PSP since i've kinda been focused on getting a general sizeable game library of games on it; not just for PSP/PS1 games but also other older consoles that can be emulated on it as well. shame that running N64 games on it is out of the question, though.

outside of that, i've been expanding my physical game library as well. dad managed to fetch a classic Xbox at the game store close by us, so not only do i have all three 6th-gen consoles now (okay, i don't have a Gamecube anymore, but the Wii can at least run GC games), but it def opens up another selection of old stuff i'll be able to play. like Jet Set Radio Future. aw yeh. though considering how slow things have been going on here this year, don't expect it coming too fast.

i've still been doing stuff like drawing and some small side-stuff just so i don't slip out of practice with them. haven't done any polished artworks, but at least doodling has been keeping me from being rusty. couple of them can be seen on my twitter if you wish.

not a whole lot of eventful things happening on my end, but at least i've been keeping myself preoccupied, even if not heavily productive as far as this site is concerned. something might pop up on here sooner or later, but i wouldn't hold my breath on it. if you wanna keep in touch with me and get to know when the next important thinger gets posted here, you can follow me on twitter and plurk! of course i also ramble a lot on there (mostly twitter), but i'm game for answering questions or just friendly chatting.

oh yeah, in other news before i head off, i got a flavors.me site. might replace the old makaipunk/jetsetkokoro tumblr contact hub with this soon, especially since tumblr's HTML editor is really iffy to work with.

cfw for days

so uh. yeah, unexpected hiatus. or maybe expected, with how slow things have been going here. i ended up getting my psp a bit earlier than expected. which means that blogspot stuff maaaaaay be coming even more slowly than expected.

well, on the plus side, i may be able to review PSP gamestuff at some point if that's anything to look forward too. i don't think you have any idea how much i've been wanting to play Makai Kingdom Portable.

if anyone still wants to get in touch with me and listen to my ramblings, twitter and plurk are your best bets!

jukebox - Fireworks Factory (Spyro: Year of the Dragon)

there will be a day when i'll write something on the Spyro games. that day isn't today, but at the very least i can show off one of the tracks from the PS1 Spyro trilogy.

without going into much detail, the PS1 Spyro games are a wonderful little set of collectathon platformers with fun challenges and colorful environments. they also have a pretty kickarse soundtrack that still holds up today, composed by former The Police drummer Stewart Copeland. Ryan Beveridge composed a few tracks for the third game in the series (Spyro: Year of the Dragon) as well.

if i made jukebox posts for all my favorite tracks out of the trilogy, i'd probably end up with around 40 of them cluttering the site, so have this one. also, the Spyro trilogy happens to be on the Playstation Network store for six bucks per game if you wanna pick up the series on your Playstation Portable or PS3 (but not PSVita for some reason. damn it, Sony).

spring cleaning and other things

haven't done any major posts since a bit after the beginning of the month. still chugging along slowly on actual article work, namely since i've been doing a bit of cleanup and reorganizing on my computer, as well as preparation for twitter commission work so i can get some funds towards a Playstation Portable. alongside the PC reorganizing, i'm overhauling my emulator collection and getting some other games on here, so hopefully that gives me more eventual stuff to review. also got a pretty sizeable haul of PS2 games now, so i'll likely shoot for articles for them in the future once i get stuff off the backburner.

and of said stuff? well, while i can't say a MAKAIPUNK manga readthrough update is coming too soon, i'll likely do a different sort of feature for that segment. some other upcoming things of note are new STEAMPUNK reviews, a three-part feature on Crash Bandicoot kart racers, and even a look at a fanmade JoJo RPG!

so yeah, stick tight. at least one of these things will come next month.

oh, and while i'm at it, have one of my preview paintings i did for part of my eventual commission sheet. i don't think i put up any of my artwork on here yet, anyway.

see you soon, everyone!

jukebox - The Concept of Love (Jet Set Radio Future)

things going pretty slow on my end what with trying to juggle article work and commission sheet work and other things together, so have another jukebox entry.

while i haven't played too much of the Jet Set Radio series (JSR i own the steam version of, Future i've yet to find a copy of), the games have a REALLY wonderful punktastic soundtrack, with genres ranging from hip-hop to techno and electronica to rock'n'roll to probably some others i dunno much about.

this track and most of the best (original) tracks in the series were composed by Hideki Naganuma, who has done music work for various other Sega games such as Sonic Rush and the PSP Kurohyo titles. Hideki's got a really funky style to his compositions, and they're worth more than one listen. his soundcloud can be found here if you want to listen to some select tracks.

jukebox - Nerevar Rising (TES: Morrowind)

been meaning to do a segment like this for a while. dunno why i haven't done it yet, but i guess now's a better time than never. basically the jukebox will feature some of my favorite musics from video games, films and animated media, and even some musicians.

while i'm at a tossup between whether Morrowind or Skyrim is the best out of the Elder Scrolls game series, there's no denying that Morrowind has a fantastic soundtrack, with its title theme "Nerevar Rising" being one of my top favorites in the series. while Oblivion and Skyrim had their own versions of the theme, the original Morrowind version is still my favorite (though, i'd be lying if i said Skyrim's theme didn't get me pumped up).

this piece was composed by Jeremy Soule, who composed the soundtrack for Morrowind as well as some other games in the Elder Scrolls series. he also composed for various other games such as Icewind Dale and Guild Wars. his official website can be found here.

by the way, i highly recommend the Elder Scrolls series if you're interested in sandbox-ish roleplaying games where you can do what you want and be what you wish. i highly suggest starting out with Skyrim first; Morrowind's gameplay and controls can be a bit tricky for newcomers.

KKGS faves of Anime Boston 2015

i took a lot of photos during my first time at Anime Boston, though while i did show off some shots of myself as Almaz, i didn't put up any other solo shots featuring some fabulous cosplays i saw during my trip.

well, i said i'd put them up after my AB writethinger, so here you go. photos under the cut, of course! i gotta get back to other crap and blogspot work on my end now that the con's over.

also, if you see yourself on here and wish to be credited properly or for your photo to be removed from here, please contact me and i'll take care of it as soon as i can!

gen's daily life - gensou's boston adventure

hoo boy, saturday was a HUGE day for me. last week, i attended Anime Boston for the first time ever in my life. i registered back in February, but i never actually attended a convention of any sort in my life till now. plus it marked the first time in a while i ever went to Boston. sometimes i forget what the big city looked like.

am i still tired? yes. did i nearly run my wallet broke? yes. did i nearly exhaust myself walking around for around 10 hours? yes. did i have a blast? hell yes.

shot of the full outfit. iiiiii did not have the wig on (yet)

i went as Almaz von Almandine Adamant from Disgaea 3. scarf, jacket, belt, and gloves were done with my dad's help, and i managed to find a use for my leg warmers as well. might not be a 100% accurate cosplay, but it was comfy enough and inexpensive to make. thrift shopping and my dad being a tailor helps wonders for cosplay.

i was the only Disgaea cosplayer at the con that day, aaaaand subsequently that meant that not a lot of people recognized who i was. despite that, i got to see quite a few neato booths, saw some rad cosplayers (and even snapped pictures of them!), played some games in the game hall, and even ended off the con by attending their JoJo panel.

so yeah, as you can imagine, there's quite a bit i can say about my first ever con experience! as much as there were only so much photos i could snap with me in them, aaaaaand the fact that i only attended one panel, quite a bit went on that day!

photos and a brief overlay of what went on under the cut, of course!

vlog - Desert Dream

(warning! flashy effects! don't watch if you're epileptic or easily disorientated by such effects)

another scene demo for everyone. this time it's an Amiga one: Desert Dream by group Kefrens. not as technologically impressive as Second Reality, but still has some pretty cool graphics, music, coding, and pixelart. it was released in April of 1993, and placed first in the demo competition for The Gathering demoparty in that year.

if you got an Amiga (or Amiga emulator) you wanna try it out on, you can download the demo here.

MAKAIPUNK - Manga Senki Disgaea CHAPTER 2

one day i'll learn to start doing MAKAIPUNK installments on a more frequent basis.

er, yeah. anyhow.

last time we left off with the manga readthrough, our princely protagonist Laharl woke up from a two year nap and found out that his father King Krichevskoy died. not really caring about that, Laharl decides to take the title of overlord for himself. and some guy named Vyers showed up, i guess. gen then went on a break from MAKAIPUNK for like three months to do shit involving the Playstation 2, bandicoots, Steam games, cosplay, and JoJo's Bizzare Adventure. alongside other things. ahem.

so yeah, let's get this back on track. will Flonne assassinate the king? will gen remember how to write these kinds of readthroughs after an entire winter? let's find out.

curiousities - Microsoft Comic Chat

back in the halcyon days of the 90s and early 00's, IRC clients were a pretty popular way for people to message each other and host chatrooms where likeminded people could gather around and talk about things. of course, with instant messengers like MSN and Skype and the like becoming more widely used in today's more streamlined era, IRC chat clients saw a significant decline in use (from one million users in 2003 to around 400,000 in 2014, according to Wikipedia).

of course, that doesn't mean IRC chatting as a whole has dropped off the face of the earth. while it has gone scarce, there are quite a few communities around the net who still host IRC servers for people to chat about stuff, and of course IRC clients still exist. one of which we're going to talk about today.

i'll be honest, i know very little about IRC stuff aside from this one client and the Wiki page, but hey, having your chats in comic form is always rad, innit?

Microsoft Chat (sometimes called Microsoft Comic Chat or just Comic Chat) was released in 1996 by... well, Microsoft. it was bundled with the full downloads of Internet Explorer 3, 4, and 5, though distributions of Windows 98 and 2000 included the program as well. for quite some time, it was Microsoft's main chat program until some time around 2001, thanks to MSN discontinuing the official Comic Chat servers.

of course, that didn't spell the complete end of the program; being an IRC-based client, it still works with a lot of IRC servers out there today since it runs on the same standard protocols. course, there's a bit more to Comic Chat than that, obviously.

vlog - Second Reality

(warning! lots of flashy effects! don't watch if you're epileptic or easily disorientated by such effects)

scene demos (or simply 'demos') are one of the more interesting forms of computer art i've come across. for those not in the whole know about the whole demoscene subculture, demos are small audio-visual programs mostly developed as a show of artistic, programming, and musical prowess. while the demoscene was more popular in the 80's and 90's thanks to computer systems such as the Commodore 64 and MS-DOS, it's still active today with groups making demos for a wider array of systems, including some game consoles like the Game Boy Advance and such.

demoscene's kind of a lengthy topic i'm not too savvy with, so i'll just leave it at that. :'D anyhow, this here is Second Reality, a MS-DOS demo done by Finnish demogroup Future Crew in 1993, and was placed first in the demo competition for the Assembly demoparty in that year. for it's time, it's a pretty dang impressive piece of work as far as programming goes.

the demo can be downloaded here if you want to run it in DOS (or DOSbox) yourself. there's also some wikipedia articles on demos, the demoscene culture, and the Second Reality demo if you wanna read up on them. also of interest are Moleman's documentary on the demoscene and a video on the making of Second Reality.

in p'much unrelated news, FCC voted in favor of net neutrality today. hell yeah. B)

gen's daily life - stuffed shiara shenanigans

not a lot happening here aside from a crapload of snow here on the east coast, not to mention i'm in the process of refurbishing my contact hub and working on some WIP articles (including the Disgaea manga readthrough), so have something a bit more mundane.

around the middle of 2014, my good bud Cyber (who you may remember from my Neopets Haunted House playthrough during that year) started working on a plushie of my minotaur bloke Ayiru as a birthday gift. though, the plush didn't get finished until later around Christmas, and just recently this week she managed to ship it out.

and man was the wait worth it. <3

the plush Ayiru (inset) and one of my recent drawings of him.

it might not be professional-grade, but it's still a lovingly-crafted buddy for my desk. he's pretty soft and he's even got strands of yarn for hair! bless you so much, Cyb. you've made me a happy fenn. ;o;

as you can expect, i had a bit of fun with him and my camera. more shots are under the cut!

gen's thoughts (also vlog time) - jack of all trades, master of none

so a while back i was working on an article concerning aesthetic/design trends in video games (as well as their links with particular audiences) after developer Naughty Dog pretty much ruled out ever returning to making any Jak or Crash Bandicoot games and i got pretty sore about it.

well, as far as the whole game design thing goes, George Weidman of Super Bunnyhop worded it a lot better than i could've. while i'm not going to deny that older gaming generations had trends of their own (how many friggin 3d platformers did we get in the late90s-mid00s again?), certain trends seem to be more commonplace in AAA games from the more recent years. hell, even a good fraction of indie games aren't safe from this; just count how zombie/crafting/survival/metroidvania/sandbox games you see on steam's indie section.

a lot of people yell for new IPs all the time, but how do we know said new IP won't just use trends already seen before? new IPs are great, but if you can innovate on new features or streamline existing ones, that's even better. quite a bit of Nintendo series tend to try out new things and improve on existing gameplay stuff: while the Mario and Pokemon series are good example of this, Kirby and Zelda have this as well.

hell, recent Nintendo consoles feature some pretty creative new IPs that put a spin on existing trends and try out new styles of gameplay. the Pikmin games are wonderful, Captain Toad looks pretty fun, and the upcoming Splatoon is a interesting take on the shooter genre with its gameplay and graphical style. a good lot of japanese-developed titles are pretty unique in their gameplay as well, and there's even some pretty creative indie games if you look hard enough. there's also a few western-developed gems that put an interesting spin on usual gameplay conventions: just look at Guild Wars 2.

there's a bit more to fun and memorable game design (and aesthetic, by extension) than just hopping on a trend bandwagon, but not a whole lot of developers are willing to risk innovation over sales. why is there an overabundance of a particular genre/gimmick/graphic style in games? because that's what the vocal audience demands. and they sell. it's a sad truth, but it's a truth.

though even in recent times, there are creative gems that are worth a look at. you just have to look hard enough for them. c:

vlog - crash bandifloat

so uh, i may or may not have been on a Crash Bandicoot fix lately. which is weird, since i've been into it for quite some years now, and yet it's early 2015 where the obsession reaches a friggin' peak. funny how that works.

might be doing these vlog sorta things just to space out between the more wordier stuff while i work on them. mostly they'll be about stuff i find pretty fun or interesting. i'll probably end up having a similar thinger with favorite musics of mine as well. also maybe artwork showcases, though i'm not 100% sure on that yet.

anyhow, here's a pretty sweet Crash-themed float done for Arkiweek at the UST College of Architecture in 2011! it's a wonderful fan tribute to the classic platformer franchise, and there's a lot of pretty rad costumes, too. also, dancing. the dancing is especially important.

even if i've got my doubts on there being another Crash Bandicoot game anytime soon, it's still nice to know that the series is still adored by the fans and that the community themselves are pretty dang dedicated to it.

curiousities - The Chronicles of Jaruu Tenk

bit of a short one compared to last time, but a interesting gem nonetheless.

The Chronicles of Jaruu Tenk was developed by John Passfield and Steve Stamatiadis and released in 1999 by Gee Whiz! Entertainment. according to the help file, the game is a "screen opera"; basically a interactive virtual environment that also doubles as a screensaver if you so wish.

so yeah, it's not a "game" in the general sense of the world; there's no major goals or long-term objectives. the scale's also rather small, with it set in the titular Jaruu Tenk's house, but there are quite a few things about Chronicles that are pretty interesting for its time.

set in the world of Kombara on the island of Bloofen Jut, Jaruu works as an Observer, keeping track of volcanic activity in the region and keeping an eye out for any threats. as a visitor to the island, you can explore around Jaruu's house, talk to him and his friends, read up on the lore of Kombara, and even play games around the house with Jaruu.

curiousities - BKPC and BKPC 2

er, less of a curiousity, more of a forgotten relic of a time long gone.

i remember back in 2002, back when i first got internet, i used to participate pretty dang heavily in the Banjo-Kazooie community for quite some years. while places like Banjo-Fella's Breegull Aviary and Da-Breegster's Breegull Feather Data Base are now lost to the winds of time, i do have a little memento from that period here today.

there were a countless amount of Banjo-Kazooie fangames back in the early 00's. while most of these were fairly ambitious projects that never made it past the demo phase, there did exist a few finished fangames featuring the friendly furry and his feathered friend.

er, poetic nonsense and alliteration aside, we're going to be talking about one of the more well-known Banjo fangames from that time. because i'm a nostalgic dork. and yes, there will be download links.

BKPC was developed by Yumblie and Bhlaab some time around 2000 or so, during the peak of the Banjo community. while i'm not 100% sure if it was the very first Banjo fangame, it was definitely one of the most popular ones at the time, if not the most popular.

MAKAIPUNK - Disgaea Character Collection fanart gallery

2015. a new year, a fresh start. hopefully i'll work on posting crap more frequently here.

been dawdling as far as the next part of the Disgaea manga readthrough is concerned, but MAKAIPUNK isn't solely about the manga stuff. generally it's more about the lesser-known NIS/Disgaea stuff, and that being said, here's a bit of a treat for everyone to start the year off.

in 2003, some time after the release of the first Disgaea game on PS2, Dengeki Playstation printed the Disgaea Character Collection: an artbook with a bevy of official, concept, and promotional art from the first game, as well as some tidbits of lore, developer/voiceactor interviews, info on plot, endings, and some other gameplay things, among various other visual nifty stuff.

the artbook did see an english localization in 2006 under the name The World of Disgaea, published by the now-defunct Broccoli Books. i am planning on snapshotting some bits from the book eventually, but we're focusing on a different aspect of the book at the moment.

the original japanese Character Collection featured two pages of artwork drawn by fans of the series. curiously, these pages are absent in the english version, but i guess nobody in the US would know any of the artists who drew any of the pictures, being on the other side of the planet and all.

scans of the original japanese artbook do exist on the net, but for legal reasons, i won't be putting up any links to the full scanned book. though, considering these pages are absent from the english release, might as well put them up for posterity. that and the fanart here is pretty good for the 2003 era. if blogspot's iffy on showing the fullsized images, alternate imgur links exist here and here.

also of mention is that the japanese artbook for Makai Kingdom (Phantom Kingdom in Japan) has a fanart section like this. no scans of the artbook currently exist, but i'll probably snap some shots of the fanart if i can get them in decent quality.

happy new years, everyone. let's make this a great one. <3