Super Justin: The Blog

The truth and secrets of Aquanoid: Revealed!

2012-01-22T16:09:00.000-08:00

Big thanks to the very slim audience that reads this blog (perhaps one to five people) for sticking with me. I know I said a future post would cover something called "Wrapfield," and to those of you waiting, stay patient and please of all things, don't begin a flamewar.

Back in early September, I brought up a DOS game called "Aquanoid." Incase you don't know, it is one of those Arkanoid clones where you simply have to destroy all the bricks on the screen (that can be destroyed) with the assistance of powerups that spawn from the bricks that either help or hinder your progress. I'm currently working on a FAQ of Aquanoid which acts as a simple introduction to the game and spills all the details and guts of said game. Despite certain games sharing the same title, Aquanoid never received an official sequel from the original developers, Stefan Heineke and Karsten Finger, the former having a Youtube account, and the later who runs the game's official website.

As you can probably tell, Aquanoid, despite being almost two decades old, is very rare to come across. I'm not here to advertise the game, but rather to try and make it more well-known to err... very few people. And before you ask, yes I have the registered version in my possession. But you cannot find even one download of the registered version, despite the shareware version being relatively well-known and quite common to find. So the only way you can actually get the complete 149-level experience plus a number of extras in this period of time, is by contacting Karsten himself via karsten_finger@hotmail.com and sending the money (ten USD) to his Paypal (KarstenFinger@web.de). He'll then give you the zip containing the full version of Aquanoid personalized to display your name before the title screen, and offers another version of Aquanoid which contains 600+ more levels in separate level packs and a level editor. Sadly, I don't believe Karsten has any desire to upgrade Aquanoid so that it follows more common sense techniques seen in modern-day Arkanoid clones, like better ball control and such, so don't go demanding to him to release a V1.6. Besides, you may get a kick out of what this game has to offer for a low price.

As for you guys familiar to Aquanoid's shareware version, the basic registered version doesn't have relatively anything new aside from new levels, Z-Shooters, three new background patterns, and an alternative ending screen. The other version with the editor though will be your paradise if you love games that you love tweaking with a passion.

I should mention quickly and briefly that I will not give you Aquanoid's registered version. You can offer me lunch, draw fanart of my characters, or even hug my legs in deep sorrow, and I will not loan you my digital copy of Aquanoid, simply because I know damn well you'll want your name on the startup screen instead of mine. :P

Otherwise, that's it. If I can freely distribute my levels for Aquanoid, I will. Coming soon will be more custom modifications and fan-upgrades for more relatively unknown titles. See you next time.

Burn in hell SOPA +MHSR 1.2

2012-01-18T03:39:00.000-08:00

Yea today is SOPA's attempt to destroy the internet. You know how just because people watched that movie 2012 that they're going to assume the world'll end this year in December. Well remember when they said the world would end last May? Didn't happen. How about over a decade ago with 2000? Nah. But if this shitty little SOPA law passes, it will bring forth the end of the world for the internet. There are many different things I could say about this issue, so just look around real good and you're bound to find some good articles and sites that oppose SOPA, and that I'm also in favor of. Honestly, these doucebeags don't realize the Internet is meant to be free.

But to go off-subject, here is a minor update for Mario Hack Series Recordings. It only adds two new songs, one from Techno Mario Bros., and the other from Automatic, however it includes some bonus tilesets from these hacks for whatever use. Three of them come from my Photobucket, the other was something stuck on my hard drive and not seen before in the online community.

But yea, Here's the download.

Translating "The Classroom with an Alien in it"

2012-01-13T20:28:00.000-08:00

Now let me just bring you in on the subject real quick. Two summers ago I got a hold of possibly one of the rarest of children's novels (don't ask why I'm labeling it as such) known possibly under the title The Classroom with an Alien in it and gave it a proper mention. Still today I do not know an exact translation of the title, the author, the illustrator, or the company that published it (Google translate sucks at translating Japanese to Japanese).

Trying to dig deep into the book's source, none of the pages have any sort of readable English or even Engrish (only "Printed in Japan"). I tried typing the title into Google Translate and from there I could look at Japanese results; didn't work. I also tried getting info on the author by assembling his/her name as shown on the book with letters I could find; nothing done.

However, through this experiment, I did receive the following: "さとづまきこ", which could possibly translate to "Sato Dzumaki". And of course searching that didn't work either. All I got was a stupendous search fail of nothing but Naruto-related content and images. So as far as I can tell, I'm perhaps one of the few, if any Americans to know about the book, let alone own it. And if I can somehow learn the language, I can see what exactly the whole thing is about (it's a chapter book, not a manga), but aside from that, it does have some cute images. Definitely a "You Can't Read This" from JewWario.

I cannot translate the book as once again, I do not know Japanese; and even if I had to resort to Japanese sites like Pixiv, I wouldn't risk it as "durrhurr you wrecked Rosenkreuzstilette years ago but stopped therefore you are bad person." So the only thing I must ask from this, if you, or anyone you know of, knows Japanese, please translate the title and/or author(s) of this novel properly into English. Search up it's Japanese name if you have to, heck if I have to gut out anything else from this in order to translate more of this mess, I will.

Good night. I'll see if I can get another thing up soon. What is it? Well can anyone say... WRAPFIELD?

Realm of Sixty Million Mega Man Clones

2012-01-01T15:39:00.000-08:00

And yet we have our first post of the new year.

On the beginnings of January, I have a announcement. You know how clones of everything exist nowadays? Well, in the future (yes, re-read that, future), I would like to develop just for the fun of it and the entertainment of my followers, plus to the dismay of the haters and prove to them how a clone, especially one based on Kenji Inafune's flagship series, is done right.

Now before the mob rages, let me mention this in no way or form, is meant to take down the doujin game Rosenkreuzstilette nor it's soon-to-come sequel Rosenkreuzstilette ~Freudenstachel~. But if it's intending to do anything to said series, it's how the game can try to be more original without copying many aspects of what game it's trying to mimic. For the last time, I understand that "Don't rub it on WOMI; It's a tribute!" but even tributes should try to have some inspired material.

This Mega Man clone will be based on my OC series and it's characters. The plot will be somewhat similar to the original Mega Man; eight guys have gone bad thanks to an unknown villian, and you're sent to straighten their butts out and return the area back to normal. The game has an opening stage, the classic "Target Select" screen with 8 bosses, four re-visit levels in the style of the Doc Robots from Mega Man 3, then two final castles with five levels each, the first belonging to a large demonic-esque character, then the second castle's owner is Joker, the later having two "Machine" battles, a "Capsule" battle, and a "Final" battle with a different more powerful mech. The game would had some bonus features, like a secret level, an "Endless" mode, "Time Attack," "Score Attack," "Boss Attack," and unlockable difficulties and "mod" settings. As a save function, the game uses both a basic save and Mega Man-styled password feature, though using passwords prevents the player from unlocking any new features playing through the game, as the passwords can send the game right to the beginning to the Joker Castle, meaning only five levels before winning the game.

To control Aozora, the player can use the arrow keys to move, look up, crouch, climb up, and slide down ladders, plus aim your weapons upwards and while crouching. X jumps (which can also be done off ladders and other climbable objects, like hooks and ropes), Z fires your active weapon (with A shooting your standard weapon when equipped with an alternative weapon), and C or a combination of X and down makes Aozora slide (or drop from certain platforms that can also be hanged on), in which he may also fire from. These additional commands are not to make the game easier; which leads to the game's difficulty.

The difficulty will not come from cheap and confusing level designs, but from skilled enemies and AI with original designs, some level puzzles, and long level lengths, sort of like a cross between Megamari and Rokko Chan.

The weapons you obtain from the bosses of the eight stages are actually intended to be upgrades to your starting weapon, and are therefore meant to cause much more havoc, besides better firing capabilities and/or more powerful projectiles. The planned weapons are below:

Aozora Shooter- Default weapon. Can be shot in four directions (Up, Down (mid-air only), and horizontally. Can also be shot while crouching and sliding.

Ooze Grappler- Extracts a green slimy hand that can be used to grab enemies (the bigger the enemy, the more energy drained, unless using on a small one) and toss them at other enemies, which will always result in a 1-shot-kill unless the target is large. Can also be used to grab certain projectiles, but can only injure bosses. Crouching with this weapon active will protect Aozora in a slime barrier to block projectiles and instantly defeat small enemies (while still using up it's power).

Sandstorm Blaze- Like Air Shooter from Mega Man 2, but shoots five tornados in a downwards arc like Klageharnisch from Rosenkreuzstilette. Like Tornado Blow from Mega Man 9, the player can jump higher while using this weapon. (This may be the most uninspired of the weapons, but we'll see...?)

Rocker's Tune: Not sure how this weapon would work, but it could be a strong attack stronger than a charged Aozora Shooter. Pressing the shoot key makes Aozora take out a microphone and screams, creating sound-waves that travel horizontally (or vertically if Up is held when pressing attack). They will instantly kill many of the game's enemies and deal massive damage to the bosses if hit by the wave, and will only deal minor damage other targets on screen, but because of this, they have a limited use.

Ranger Needles: This attack will cause four pellets to arise from your blaster. They will fire forwards, having much more strength than a normal Aozora Shooter shot (but less than a charged one). When a pellet ricochets from a wall, it will fire back and can still damage to an enemy, but should one be already on screen, some of the pellets will instead aim for the enemy/enemies when it bounces off a surface. Kinda hard to explain.

Sunset Blade: This is a sword-based weapon that allows Aozora to deal great damage to close-range targets. Simply attack, and you'll create a short-ranged wave of red plasma that has about the same strength as a charged Aozora Shooter. Charge it, and you'll fire off three of these at once instead of one, the middle one being larger, and the additional two that join it being smaller.

Toxin Sphere: Press the attack button, and you'll lob three explosive balloons that have a great amount of power. Charge it for one big bubble of trouble.

Warfare Sniper: This is by far the strongest weapon in the game, having the strength of two Charged Aozora Shooter Shots combined. Shoot with it, and the bullet will instantly in the blink of an eye, mow down anything that is in it's path with one clean shot. Charge it and you'll leap into the air, automatically target every hostile thing on the screen once, and kill everything at the speed of light. Though since it's so powerful, you can only pull off one shot every second.

Gambler's Cards: The shield weapon of this game, like Leaf Shield, Skull Shield, and so forth. Use it, and you'll cause two layers of 14 playing cards to surround you. When this happens, press the attack button to shoot a piercing fast-moving card at the enemies, or just run into the enemy with the shield active and you'll destroy it at the cost of losing some cards. When you run low on cards, the shield will speedup to insure no projectile passes through and hits you. Out of cards? No prob! Just press attack again and you'll create a new barrier of cards to repeat the havoc. Charge to fling the entire shield froward for great damage!

Springboard-One: Like the Rush Coil. You'll plant a springboard on the ground and use it to bounce higher.

Hover-Two: Like Item-1 from Mega Man 2 or the balloon item from Mega Man 4, place it and you can stand on it for a short time, allowing you to get to higher places. It's a little safer than Springboard-One.

Winger-Three: A cross between Item-2 from Mega Man 2 and the newer versions of Rush Jet (the ones that can be ridden on), this one allows you to cross certain chasms. or take shortcuts across difficult parts of the level Can be steered.

Aquatic-Four: This game's version of Rush Marine. Jump in and you have added protection and better control underwater.

Nack: A clone of Beat, Nack is a small chibi-esque human character with big eyes, a pilot's uniform and a propeller on his pilot cap. Not only can he damage enemies by flying into them, but he can also shoot his own blaster in any direction.

Darn, that was a lot to process. But believe me, I'll figure out how to make it all work.

New custom theme for LBreakout2

2011-12-23T03:42:00.000-08:00

Updated to v1.1

If any of you play LBreakout2, I have some good news for you. The graphic set that I've stated in my last deviantART journal post is just about complete. Because I'm so generous , I'm letting you get the experience right here. There may be some flubs, but it should still be playable by any means.

I'll try to get some screens later.

Download

And if anyone is curious about the ball character, hold your thoughts and we'll get to that later. If I'm not back on this blog by the holidays, then, well, Happy Holidays, or if any of you follow James Rolfe, Happy STFU.

AlphaBounce Incomplete Block Rip

2011-12-09T03:49:00.000-08:00

Since I'm unable to post this onto Photobucket because of it's large size, I'd might as well do it here.

This is a set of many, many blocks extracted and edited from AlphaBounce, a breakout clone I've mentioned in a previous post, based on numerous color palettes that are bundled in Adobe Photoshop. I'm doing this since only a few colors of these were ever ripped, so hey, respect the fanbase.

You can find it here: http://www.mediafire.com/i/?224snpf6qy85xvw

Once I unlock the ingame level editor, I'll find and extract additional blocks, and for the parasite blocks, colorize them too.

Otherwise, I'm posting this just for anyone who cares to see it: A plethora of sketches!

Scott Pilgrim vs. the Wor... wait... Canada. (AKA Justin De Lucia vs. his love for Evil Exes.)

2011-11-24T09:00:00.000-08:00

For starters, happy late thanksgiving and all that good shit, I hope you pigged out and ended up in the bathroom for hours (JK).

But what I'm here to discuss is the ever-so-famous Scott Pilgrim series from Bryan Lee O'Malley. Yea that Malley. The one that treats his fans and followers like total garbage. Not exactly one of the nicest authors, despite being quite well-known in the mainstream thanks to his six-volume series and it's movie adaptation from Universal. What's going to happen right here is me explaining how I got into Scott Pilgrim and it's fanbase.

To speak the truth, my first viewing of the series came when I went on a trip to New York City in August 2010 (wanted to go again this year, but ran out of time). As me and my family (mom, sis, cous, and cous' mom) walked and walked and walked, we passed by a comic book store that stated "READ SCOTT PILGRIM COMICS HERE". and from there, I just interpreted SP as an obscure indie comic book series that somehow went mainstream around that time. Though it wouldn't be until around Fall that year when I heard about the live action film, and the looks of those seven "Evil" Exes (prepare two story arcs of this post) caught my mind right away.

Take note I haven't read any of the books, just watched about 60% of the movie. Throwing that out there in the hopes of not arising any trouble.

As you can tell, my favorite characters in an instant became the Seven Evil Exes, mainly Matthew Patel due to his mysterious appearance and pyrokinesis. Gideon and Roxy were runner ups, and the others I only showed minor anticipation for. When it came to the other characters, the only ones I cared for (and still do) were Scott and Ramona. After all, they were the main protagonists, despite Ramona being a big plot device and the reason Scott became an amateur killer hunting down goths, psychics, Japanese band members, and whatever I'll use to describe Gideon.

The other "story arc" that I wanted to mention is I never interpreted the Evil Exes as being "evil," more or less just big enemies to Scott. If they really were evil, they'd go slaughter random people and those that dislike(d)/oppose(d) them (whoops too violent) while also going after Scott and his allies. Another thing that could be a bit strange for some was that none of the Exes shared the same screentime , except for the Katayanagi Twins. Certainly I could go on with the Exes for years and it wouldn't make the least bit of sense, since I'm a free guy. I could also jump to different topics and confuse everyone the heck off.

Like here for instance. I felt as if the Evil Exes didn't spend enough time in the movie than they should've. Perhaps besides Scott being told by Ramona about the Evil Exes, we could've have a few scenes (aside from the animated flashback parts) with Gideon assembling his team to face Scott, or maybe two separate battles with one Ex.

Just for another off-topic setting, I did see how the movie opened, and therefore I know about the major characters and the setup to the plot with Scott's love interest in Ramona; them first meeting in a dream, dating in the park, and how Scott had trouble confessing to Knives that he had secretly broken up with her to go out with Ramona. And if I recall correctly, I do remember when in the movie Ramona explained to Scott about the Exes on the bus. And I know the movie was based on the comics, for one thing, and I have no intentions on altering the original story to meet my dreams. Sent you into confusion? Good. Let's rewind a bit.

Adaptations don't usually have to follow the film exactly, and there were sometimes (but not always) alternative versions of a single film, ya'know, like the Director's Cut, the Uncensored Edition, etc. What I'm explaining here is what I felt would have improved on the movie following Matthew Patel's introduction into the film, not when he wrote the e-mail to Scott but when he bursted through the roof of the club, interrupting Scott and the rest of Sex Bomb-Omb as they began to perform, thus leading to the first big battle of the film.

Not only would this idea primarily allow Matthew Patel to stay alive a tad bit longer in the film, but it'd also have two Exes besides the twins on-screen at the same time. What would happen here, is both Scott and Matthew would have a long fight, practically wounding one-another to the point of passing out. Just as Scott is ready to launch a sneak-finisher move, the second Ex, Lucas Lee, bursts through the wall and KO's Scott, landing him on the wall, out of commission. Lucas then pulls up Matthew, chats with him for like a few seconds, before escaping with Matthew clutched on his shoulders. Once again, I know this doesn't happen in the book, so I wouldn't be surprised. Just letting on my thoughts.

Another thing that kind of disappointed me was Michael Cera, the actor for Scott Pilgrim himself. While I have nothing against him, and he did portray Scott well in the film, I thought his voice was too soft for someone that was portrayed as having almost a "wild" and carefree expression sort of like how I envision my own character Aozora. I'm not going to say whom I would've preferred for my own good, so take your pick of the preferred Scott.

Otherwise, that's pretty much all I can think of to say, so I'm cutting it here so I don't end up repeating the same things I've already said. But basically put, Scott Pilgrim, even if Brian Lee O'Malley isn't the brightest man on the ball with his personality and art style, (in my words, you're allowed to like something even if you don't like the author or vice versa), is a good series, but not a total godsend in the visual novel era. I like it, and I'm keeping that word to myself.

Good day.

"What do you mean I can't get 100% in this game?"

2011-11-07T11:23:00.000-08:00

Let me just come up and announce that for the past two months, I had a sort of brick-breaking fetish playing games of the classic "paddle and ball" genre, established by Atari, but re-invented and revolutionized by Taito. This revolution sparked the interest in many game developers, and I repeat many of them. All throughout the late 80's and early 90's, many developers, both well-known and obscure, released numerous clones for arcades and home computers, both as basic 16bit Windows applications and DOS programs, the later compatible with modern-day OS's thanks to DOSBox. These games vary in presentation, usually with how their hazards are handled, and the ball-meets-paddle physics incorporated, which is how the player can aim the ball. The worst is Aquanoid, which doesn't even allow you to steer the ball with the paddle, and by far the best is Ricochet, with extremely accurate ball aiming physics.

In all of these games, the main goal is simple. Destroy all the basic destructible blocks, go to the next level, and the process just repeats. Pick up powerups and be careful not to scoop up powerdowns, watch out for enemies that try to get in the way of your ball, or enemies which even try to fire projectiles which can stun or kill the player's paddle, or hinder the level in some form or way. Though many Breakout clones get things right, some of them don't.

To sum this up in a nutshell, a Breakout clone that takes on Arkanoid should have several things. Three or more lives to start the game, a good variety of powerups (with the basics: Catcher, Extender, Divider, Shooter, Slow, and 1up), fair, non-cheap gameplay, and fights with enemies and bosses.

This clone in particular is pretty unique in that it's currently the only Breakout clone I know of that crosses with the Role-Playing-Game genre. This particular clone is known as Alpha Bounce.

As said, it's a little fun RPG that takes on a never-used concept. In the far future, in an universe flooded with aliens and blocks, you're put into a prison term doing the best thing to break you out: Breakout. Just imagine how genius the guy in the story thought this was a "punishment" for prisoners. Anyways, you want to get the heck out of imprison and end your term with cleanup missions. Of course, since it's an RPG, you'll have to find, earn, and buy equipment to prepare for the harder levels and traps that await you via an endless universe of levels, though we mostly recognize only 2,400 levels, numbered by their X and Y coordinates. Enemies and powerups are present, though this doesn't really become common until you start moving away from [0][0], otherwise your origin point. Without the right equipment, you'll be good as dead in these later levels.

The equipment and other helpful objects you can acquire include different strengths to the ball, missiles to fire at blocks incase god forbid you are impatient, drones to dissemble blocks that will harm you in some way when hit, pieces of a map to Earth, engines and radars that allow for faster movement on the overworld, extra paddles to start each level with, and stars, which upon finding all seven of them, will allow you to modify existing levels. Though you can't really create your own ones from scratch, just re-arrange the blocks in a particular level. Yea kinda of a downgrade from World's Biggest Pac-Man, where you simplify made new levels which get attached to the main game, while here, every level is pre-made, though you can change them. The reason for this is to keep the initial level's overall difficulty, so that newcomers closer to the starting point don't have to face harder levels.

Now let me stop and say that Alpha Bounce is now considered "finished" and is no longer giving out updates to the game. I tried going into the forums and writing down some of the things that bugged me about Alpha Bounce, but primarily no one agreed with my suggestions to make the game "fair". Looking back, the challenge comes from the harvesting of minerals, or currency if you will, so you can spend them in shops for items you may need to survive the harder levels and therefore advance in the game. I can see now from my mistakes when suggesting features. Though there is a very, very slim chance of Alpha Bounce being updated somehow at this time, aside from the lack of a good no-limit level editor and browser (ala Time Fcuk and Gap Monsters on Newgrounds), I have three common scenarios about Alpha Bounce, one more severe than the others.

For the first part, let me draw your attention to this photo.

The above image shows a player's stat page with every possible item collected and every feat achieved, therefore resulting in a 100% completion file. The downside is, that by default, you are unable to obtain every possible item from the current version of Alpha Bounce. And this is due to a choice that you must make early in the game.

The (name not announced) galaxy is ran by two different opposing clans. The ESCorporation (or just ESCorp), and the FURI. The former is the clan that houses the prisoners and forces them to do the cleanup missions to end their imprisonment term, while the FURI is a rebel clan with mostly no restrictions, whose main goal is to thwart the plans of the ESCorp and rescue the prisoners they've abducted and forced to break blocks in space. As it's an RPG, you can only side with one of these clans, and once you make your choice, you cannot change it. Whatever clan you choose inflects the missions you can get, and therefore can also affect what item(s) you obtain.

Part of the game's format is deciding what of the two clans you'd like to be affiliated with, and depending on your overall choice, you will receive items that the other group doesn't give you, and since you cannot find those items in shops that the other clan gives out, you are forever forbidden from claiming all the available upgrades. From what I can tell, you're also forbidden to create a spare account that joins the team opposite of your main profile's choice, just incase you don't like your choice and want to go with the other side.

The first clan, the ESCorp, which you start as already a member, but can break away before doing 52 "cleanup missions", which after those, you become loyal to the clan and can earn the ESCorp-exclusive items, which include mines you plant on the bricks, a longer paddle, and the 4th and stronger missile type that can wipe out up to 25 bricks of any type. But on the other hand, the FURI, or the "rebel clan" as I like to call it, sacrifices all those, but instead gives you a stronger ball that can go through a few blocks at once, the ability to start with two balls instead of one, and gives you a bonus free play per day alongside the three, thus giving you four per day. Not much worth it since you can already gain quite a number of plays just by paying $7+ for 100 plays, or a slightly higher amount for much, much more plays. Yeah, clearly Motion-Twin knows how to make good offers unlike Zynga's Far... err. ...S**tVille, and that's one of the many good things that this title has to offer.

Aside from that, I have a lot of faith in this game and hope that the admins return to updating Alpha Bounce, because it's a great online game right now, and even with a few minor things to make note of, it's addicting, visually appealing, great controls (except for the fact that you can move the paddle off-screen), and has a great story. You may have to pay to play more in less time, but that's supporting the developers for working so hard to make a gigantic universe with thousands of levels.

If you want to join the best online Breakout/Arkanoid clone (aside from DHTML Arkanoid), you can get the link here. Be sure to input "Superjustin" into the sponsor's field, if it's there.

Shi Kong Xing Shou. One of few Chinese games to be decent.

2011-10-20T15:22:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. I don't think I've done much in the past few weeks, just preparing for Halloween and things. Nothing special. I don't feel like discussing school since it's all for me to discover and not for the people whom follow me to worry about. The artwork I'm doing of OC Shinobou is looking strong, so expect it sometime by later this month or earlier next month (not making any promises).

So before I dive into the topic at hand, let me state the following; Any game that I say I want to make in future years are only concept ideas and are not actually in production. And when they do begin production and eventually are released, they will all be freeware/non-profit games. Some of these range from original, to semi-original, to blant remake, with the final step being what I plan to do with a number of titles, mostly puzzle games. For me, I envy games with a lot of features, and being able to tweak them in many ways to suit my nature. The gigantic Super Mario clone I want to develop featuring my characters, Aozora's Adventure, will have a sister game released much later, subtitled Under Construction. This version will instead focus on players being able to create levels using an editor bundled with the game, and can also easily adjust the graphics and create new skins, characters, and tilesets, as well as add additional songs to the game. Custom levels can then be submitted onto the official server, where they can be played and/or downloaded by other players.

I'll go on with that later. Now, it's time for the main event.

Allow me to introduce goodness from China; Shi Kong Xing Shou.

A rarity agmonst Chinese bootleg games, Shi Kong Xing Shou (also known by English speakers as "Space-Time Star Beast" is a Pokemon clone that was made by the now defunct company Vast Fame. Various people the specialize in pirate/unlicsened games, one being the RX Community, have taken a liking to this title because of it's playability in comparison to many other pirate games released on outdated consoles over the years, which usually suffer from countless glitches, terrible controls and physics, and are just all-around terrible. This one however, has a number of original concepts despite being a complete clone of Pokemon, like a darker plotline (five characters legit die, including one of the later party members), some creative character designs (and what I mean are the human characters, not the beasts/monsters) and so on. I can go on all day over what this game accomplishes. But like all games, it has it's share of flaws. For one thing, it's in Chinese (pointless thing to argue on), some of the monsters have stolen/unoriginal designs, one-hit kills are common, some moves are cheap , having little to no effect, and there are some game-wiping/freezing glitches. If you're going to play this, use savestates often, because you never know when it's going to screw up.

Why I state this is because I want to re-create this game from scratch with faith to the original game, while also incorporating my suggestions and improvements (aside form bug-fixes and other miscellaneous changes). Though I know some people don't like how the game and gameplay is very similar to Pokemon, this remake will probably add a few things to make Shi Kong Xing Shou seem closer to a basic Pokemon game. Such changes are shown below:

*Routes are now numbered accordingly, and (along with some mountainside areas) are extended, with the traditional "wild monster in tall grass" routine as per the real Pokemon games. There also exist other people to battle on both routes and in buildings, and routes that take place on sea or in space are also named accordingly as sea routes and space routes.

*In Shi Kong Xing Shou, completing parts of the game will disallow re-entry into specific areas, such as prohibiting re-entry to the first three towns once the player arrives in the fourth. This remake will keep all areas re-accessible following their completion, the only parts that will remain inaccessible are areas keen to the storyline, like Ballot's father's lab being destroyed following the prologue, and the airplane boarded between Chapters Six and Seven.

*Furthermore, a special character is present in specific areas to backwarp the player to certain areas following scenarios when the player would get stuck in one area and is unable to escape until it is completed, like when the player enters an underwater region of the game, he/she cannot escape it until it is secured (The remake will allow re-entry to and from the underwater village/pathway once the fifth party member, Helen, joins the team.

*The maximum level a Beast can reach is raised from 70 to 100. Evolutions for several species are also added, with the "dex" updated to sport this. The "dex" will include several boss Beasts not in the original's Dex. (Correction: The max level limit in the original Shi Kong Xing Shou was never 70. It was just suggested in a guide that all main beasts and preferred sub-beasts be at Level 70 before confronting the game's final boss.)

*Items in shops are given mugshot images, and the different variations of Capture Balls are colored from weakest to strongest: blue (default), green, red, and magenta.

*The ratio of one-hit kill moves are much lower than in the original game.

*Only one status effect can occur at one time.

*Move order re-arrangement is possible.

*The maximum amount of cash you can hold is raised to 999,999.

*Cheaper moves are weakened or changed to make them more balanced (but that doesn't mean they can't cause high damage).

*Every possible beast can be captured, some of the later ones that you confront at the end becoming capturable following the completion of the game.

*The "Flight" and Avian Strike moves are combined into one.

*A bonus Gijinka mode for those that want to play with the Beasts as human characters.

There are more, but I cannot be bothered to listing them all. ;P

The only assistance I require are sprite rips of all the characters, mug-shots, beast graphics, and tilesets that I can use to base the remake on.

That's all for now, foks. Since we're (sort of) on topic with Pokemon; Who. Drew. This. Why can't they make a game based off of this?

Everyone loves a good Transformation fetish.

2011-09-20T18:40:00.000-07:00

Go read it. It may answer many things.

Otaku-Ball post (hopefully) coming soon

2011-09-13T03:37:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone. Just wanted to mention that I may upload in a few days a post regarding my idea to create the world's greatest Breakout/Arkanoid clone: Otaku-Ball. In the meantime, I'll give you the planned block graphics to be included in the game. There's more, but this is what I have for now.

You can find more on my Photobucket "Sprite Sheets" folder.

Anime Techno X Aozora's Adventure? Stupid, but possible.

2011-09-04T13:59:00.000-07:00

Well might as well spill yet more beans from my gigantic jar of imagination.

Remember back in my days of character-stealing for my original letdown of a "franchise"? Well, something like that is prone to happen again with my new indie series, Aozora's Adventure, but will be taking a much , much smoother and less critical approach than Super Justin did.

But before you bring out your banhammers, allow me to spare the details.

Currently, all of the major characters in Aozora's Adventure are all original/semi-original designs by myself and a variety of people that I've met via my carrier as an amateur indie artist since early '09 (I'm not aiming to be perfect. Just great by most standards), and not once have I taken/used a character from another series or franchise (the later being a word I refus to say under most instances) without permission, and I do not wish to do this if it'll cause such a rucus similar to what happened two years ago (causing an entire fanbase to strike against me). Like I said, this will not cause many, if not any problems compared to Super Justin. And I'm not going to be "stealing" them. I'm going to earn permission to use non-original characters the only way I can: Making the Aozora's Adventure series good, release it to Japan online as Aozora no Tabi, get it popular (but not that popular) in that country agmonst the web, re-release several freeware Aozora's Adventure games that were originally printed in English, wait a long time, and attract the attention of major anime, manga, and video game retailer Animate. Oh yeah, you know where this is going.

Embrace for unexpected impact in

3...

2....

1......

Well durrhurr yes. If you haven't heard of him already, let me give you a pointless history lesson. Anizawa Meito, the character shown in the image above, is the current main mascot of Animate, and is the protagonist of his own series; Anime Techno. Piror to this, the character and his sidekicks made major cameo appearences in the well-known and popular anime/manga series Lucky Star, which in all honesty, does not require an introduction, and features many other cameos. Seriously, that's how popular it is. And Anizawa is always trying to sell his shit to good ol' Konata Izumi, but tries too hard, flipping shit upside down and over-reacting with army and warfare sequences, and fails after so much effort, even in scenarios where he becomes so close to succeeding. I don't know how many times this has been done in the series, nor if it's a common theme, as I've never seen Lucky Star. So don't complain if my info is incorrect.

Now back to Aozora's Adventure. Yea I would like Anizawa Meito to be a character in my own series. It happened to Touhou Project, why not mine as well? Well, Touhou Project is currently the most well-known doujin series in history, so I can see why Animate would notice and like their own characters to appear alongside the Touhou girls in a crossover title starring Anizawa as one of the main characters. And so around Animate's 10th anniversary, that's exactly what the fans got: Anime Techno X Touhou Project. If that wasn't enough, Anizawa made another cameo in Disgaea 4 as some kind of attack character. Yea clearly Anizawa Meito has the power to appear in everything ever, and take over the otaku culture world just like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, but even with a good number of cameos, mainly in Lucky Star, he still remains a strange and almost unknown figure outside of Japan (IMP, it's my perspective).

And because a few series could do it, I wanted to see if maybe once Aozora's Adventure becomes well-known, I could get permission from Animate (as well as give them some ka-ching), to use Anizawa and his gang in the series. It will not be like me butchering characters from Rosenkreuzstilette and Pokemon in Super Justin by changing their personalities, backstories, and in a few cases their appearances, giving little to no credit to the original designer(s). Anizawa and the other Animate characters would keep their initial personality and appearences from the Anime Techno and Lucky Star OVAs- for prime instance Anizawa still likes to make dramatic expressions, flip all over his Animate shop when a specific person drops by (in this case, the main characters in Aozora's Adventure, mainly Aozora) and blow shit up for no reason other than to give the message "buy my f&cking products!" And he still brings up Comiket, fights with his lesser-employes over disagreements over dead out-of-print products, plus his enemies, spins like the Tasmanian Devil, and set fire to himself when explaining the reason successful animes are successful in the first place. Here however, along with the basic stuff, his attempts would be plotted much more insane, even re-arranging the entire store to parody a movie in the shoot-em-up/war genre, and planting stronger cameras on the outside of his store to spot Aozora from far away down the street so he can quickly re-arrange Animate just before Aozora enters so he can exploit his plans flawlessly. As with Lucky Star, all these plots fail, sometimes with close successions, and other times with Aozora sabotaging one or more of the Animate employes by knocking them out or engaging in a short fight scene. As the series progresses and more failures from Anizawa, Aozora purposely enters the store not to browse, but for him to have fun with Anizawa and watch he and his allies fail at convincing him to buy something from the store, even at booths during events. Much later in the anime's lifespan, Anizawa evolves from an enemy of Aozora to a minor anti-hero, kicking some mecha and witch ass for himself (mostly without the main protagonists) and slowly forgiving Aozora for many tradegies, while still having a small hatred for not buying Animate's products earlier in the anime). Call it a stupid idea, but like before, I'm all up for criticism. And besides, this may not exactly happen.

I'll bring this up: The currently non-existing Aozora's Adventure anime isn't really considered to be made for a profit, just for fun. And even if it does get made, it will be mostly a type of cross-genre anime, spoofing and parodying many other series, both obscure and well known. If I am able to secure rights for the Animate crew, then Anizawa would appear about halfway via the first season, and subsequent appearances in later episodes, both major and minor.

Peace out.

Dot.S, Trains, Puzzle games, Pac-Man, and Break Out oh my!

2011-09-02T08:00:00.000-07:00

Yep, get ready folks, because we're going to dig in into obscure gaming and nostalgia overload. Before I begin, though, I want to share some good news with you guys.

I am happy to announce that I have secured a working copy of the Dot.s Design Builder, and have uploaded it to Mediafire. SO now people can enjoy this great application that emulates Tomytec's great toy product from Japan. Sure it's in Japanese, but if you're into MS Paint or other common painting applications, you may be able to figure it out without understanding the language.

~Download~

And now we begin with the real thing.

Since about a year ago, Matt Rix's Trainyard has made a big impact on the mobile gaiming industry, by introducing puzzles that can be solved in hundreds- or even thousands of unique solutions. Since the launch of the level editor September 1st, I have made a number of levels for Trainyard, each with varying difficulty.

If you own Trainyard (not Express), here are the levels.

And BTW, respect the brown trains!

Heheh, sorry. Got a little bit carried away there. ^_^; Anyway moving on.

Next up on our lineup is Xye, a open-source enhanced remake of Kye, the later being a puzzle game made by Colin Garbutt way back in 1992. It was released in two versions, a shareware version that had 15 levels in all (and they get hard very fast), and the ability to add and distribute single levels via the internet. The guy behind the remake is Victor Soliz, and he did a great job on reviving a little under-rated gem by adding many, many new concepts and unique puzzles. It is also compatible with levels created for the original Kye.

You can get Xye as well as multiple versions and editions of Kye here at this site. As for additional puzzles, they two can also be found at Xye's homepage, buy you you can look around the Net. I recommended this site to get old Kye levels and the official Xye forums for both old and new. For more information as well as a few more level packs, Robert Phipps' Kye fansite is the place.

Allow me to introduce two games of the "Noid" family of breakout games. Both by completely different companies and on Microsoft's now-defunct MS-DOS (which means for newer computers, you need DOSBox to run them), Aquanoid (1991-1992) and Electranoid (1994-1995) were clones of Taito's Arkanoid games, that tried to cash in on the popularity. Sadly though, both games sort of failed, as they both had difficult paddle physics, in that the ball wouldn't ricochet correctly as it should in any modern Breakout clone, but they both tried to introduce new elements to the genre of Arkanoid clones. Aquanoid had a massive overabundance of powerups and powerdowns to boot, as well as solid unbreakable blocks that would fire lasers at destroyable blocks. Electranoid (besides sounding like a god-darn Sega Genesis game), had enemies, which Arkanoid also had, but Electranoid take is up another step. These enemies lob balls at you, meant to hinder your progress by turning blocks into metallic ones that require multiple hits to destroy, turning your paddle invisible, or killing you. Yea, pretty crazy, especially with the Green Menacers and their Metallic Green blocks that need the Red Ball from a Red Menacer to destroy, which does become troublesome at times besides not being able to control the ball well. Overall, both games are okay, but I don't recommend them a whole lot (especially Electranoid) unless you are addicted to Breakout and Arkanoid and their many, many clones.

I am supplying a download for Aquanoid because this "limited shareware" version seems to be more up to date compared to the one you can find on the internet. It even has a separate Setup application that you can boot up to change the color of the ingame font. Pretty cool. Get it here. If anyone knows about or has the full 150 level version of Aquanoid for download, please, of all things, let me know.

Electranoid, on the other hand, can easily be found by google-searching the net. Grab it here.

I'm also throwing in a .ZIP of Yabog, another breakout clone with some crazy block types, plus an editor. There's also Bat 'n Ball, but it's remotely nothing special. No power-ups, just a paddle, a ball, and no special block types besides destructible and indestructible blocks.

Dodger is a pretty strange puzzle game (yea that genre is really fancy today) that deserves the title Pac-Man vs. the Space Muntants. You're Pac-Man, you run around, eat food, dodge alien lazers, and avoid swallowing poison.

I only (and sadly) have the shareware version, which lacks the level editor of the full version. Anyways, here you go.

This next one, called Mini Pac-Man is pretty funny though. Once again, you are Pac-man (who looks rather odd), but for whatever reason, he has a bad flatulence and belching problem. Mazes are constructed by blocks and contain dead-ends, turning around sharp corners is hard, no recovery time from getting hit, but still good fun.

So yup, this is why I've haven't been drawing much recently. I've also been getting ready for my final year at school, so I've been doing a lot lately. Yea, I got one hell of an agenda. @__@

Imagining: the Perfect Namco Museum.

2011-08-22T13:23:00.000-07:00

And here gores another topic somewhat related to Pac-Man, but instead involving it's creator. Namco (Bandai).

Let me give you a little history lesson to start off things. Don't need to have the shit hitting the fan all at once. Back during the 64 bit-era, when Sony's Playstation and Nintendo's Nintendo 64 were at it, Namco started releasing compilations of their classic arcade games, titled Namco Museum. These were accurate re-creations of their titles, both ones that made it to the States and PAL territories, and ones that didn't. The first one, released in 1995, included several of their well-known worldwide titles, and just for shits and giggles, they splotched in Toypop, one of their Japanese-exclusive games, which I feel as if stuck out from the rest of the crowd because it wasn't relatively known outside Japan. But otherwise, it was a decent title for the PS1 library, and so, Namco followed up with four more volumes released over the late 90's. Each one contained roughly five to seven games, with some of the titles serving the same fate as Toypop and not being relatively-known outside Japan. The second volume featured a simliar layout to the first, the third and fourth ones took their own design, and the fifth one was made less linear, spreading the games around the main museum HUB. Every volume featured a ton of bonus content based on the game's original Japanese releases where you can view promotional flyers and merchandise available during the time of the game's original release. Yea I know I repeated a few things there, but the more the better!

After the original "quintoligy" (or however you say it), Namco released a sixth volume excluvesely in Japan, known as Namco Museum Encore that broke several traditions of the preceding five volumes. Gone was the virtual museum- instead they put you in some sort of black room with nothing but stars and the cabinets of the games all in one room (at least, I think that's how it went. There are only a few screenshots, and not enough good hard evidence to see what really was in Encore), and gone was also the bonus features and content (once again, dunno much about Encore).

But anyways, fast forward to the early 2000's, following the N64 and Dreamcast Namco Museum titles, which are nothing special, aside from being a compilation of Namco's most popular and recognized games. Here we saw the 128-bit console multi-platform Namco Museum, which was a vastly updated version of the N64/Dreamcast versions, containing several additional games, the main ones that got my attention were the "Arrangement" titles, which included remakes of Pac-Man, Dig-Dug, and Galaxian, which were previously seen in "Namco Classics Collection" alongside the games they were initially based on. THis collection for the first time, contained a non-arcade title, Pac-Attack. Then, came Namco Museum 50th Anniversary, celebrating 50 years of Namco's career as a toy company. This one once again was a compilation of some of their most well-known titles released worldwide, but was much bigger, and rather than doing accurate remakes of the titles, they instead did a near-perfect emulated version, and stays very true to the originals. Battle Collection was somewhat of the same ordeal, but had more titles, and brought in new game menus per title where the player can choose their starting level, and therefore continue progress after getting a Game Over. This one also had a different set of Arrangement titles separate from the ones in Classics Collection, that since following Battle Collection have become known as the "Remix" series. These "Remix" titles I felt were weaker than the "Arrangement" variants. Afterwards, there weren't any new titles released in the Museum lineup. Nowadays they seem to be focused on just releasing previously-featured arcade titles just to get them on other platforms, and don't release any of their Japanese-only or rare titles on their recent collections. Nor do they seem to be willing to just throw in a large pack of their hits into one disc. Well that's perfectly why I'm here, to tell you how I feel a Namco Museum should be done, and done right.

Well, it's kind of difficult to explain, but let me break it up for you. This Museum title, if it ever existed, would contain many arcade titles from Namco's past years, all perfectly emulated, and all in their original language (with some games having alternative ROMS for different languages). It goes back to the museum format of the original PS1 installments, but the games are now laid out on three different floors based on their overall popularity or obscurity. The first floor contains games based on Namco's most well-known titles, the second floor contains some of Namco's lesser-known games that have a decent fan-following, and the third floor contains games there are extremely uncommon outside of Japan, and didn't get releases on a Namco Museum. On each of these floors, you enter doors that lead to the basic gallery rooms where you view the game's bonus content, but rather than just items based on the Japanese releases, this compilation goes further to include items from other releases of the same game outside of Japan (if available). Then at the end of the hall is the room where the game's upright or cocktail cabinet is displayed. The "game" rooms, and their corresponding gallery rooms seen from the original PSX games are also seen here, but enhanced greatly with better graphics and visuals. The sounds remain the same. As for the ones form Encore and other titles not in the original quintology, they are given rooms based on the game that's inside the room, and a theme that fits the game itself (mainly a remix of one specific BGM from the game). Should be easy to explain, but let's move on.

Then, there's a fourth floor that simply contains nothing but bonus content. Background music and sound effects from the games, other Namco-related scans and artowrk, and player/user records and online leaderboards for every title (of which the games need to be played in a separate mode called (Score Attack) to register scores on the worldwide leaderboards, which is each game always on default or easiest settings, both with their own list).

But let's cut the bullshit, and introduce the games. Per floor, in alphabetic order.

1st Floor:

Boscoian

Dig Dug

Dig Dug II

Dragon Spirit

Galaga

Gaplus

Galaga '88

Galaxian

Jr. Pac-Man

King & Balloon

Mappy

Ms. Pac-Man

New Rally-X

Pac-Attack (SNES version)

Pac-Attack (Namco Anthology 2 verison)

Pac-Land

Pac-Man

Pac-Man Plus

Pac-Mania

Pole Position

Pole Position II

Rally-X

Rolling Thunder

Sky Kid

Sky Kid Deluxe

Super Pac-Man

Super Xevious

Xevious

2nd Floor:

Assault

Assault Plus

Baraduke

Bomb Bee

Cutie Q

Dig Dug Arrangement

Dragon Buster

Dragon Saber

Galaga Arrangement

Gee Bee

Genpei Toma Den

Grobda

Mappy Arrangement

Metro-Cross

Motos

Mr. Driller

Ordyne

Pac & Pal

Pac-Man Arrangement

Phozon

Rally-X Arrangement

The Return of Ishtar

The Tower of Druaga*

Toy Pop

Xevious Arrangement

Valkyrie no Densetsu

*(includes Another and Darkness Tower versions from Volume 3, as ROM hacks)

3rd Floor

UPDATE: In response to Namcorules, a user on StrategyWiki, whom I've showed the post to, I've decided to add some more titles to the list, of which I intended to add but got a little carried away writing the list that I forgot to insert them. I'm not going to mark off which titles are now on this list. The reason why I had stated that some of the games would "bump up" the age rating to T/13+ if this ever became a commercial release was because of several reasons, the most notable I can think of off the bat were Wonder Momo's "panty shots" and Yokai Dochuki's heavy religious theme.

Bakutotsu Kijutei

Blast Off

Blazer

Bravoman

Burning Force

Cosmo Gang the Video

Dangerous Seed

Dirt Fox

Emeraldia

Final Lap

Final Lap 2

Final Lap 3

Finest Hour

Hopping Mappy

Kaitei Takara Sagashi

Libble Rabble

Marchen Maze

Marvel Land

Metal Hawk

Mirai Ninja

Phelios

Quester

Quester Special Edition

Rolling Thunder 2

Rompers

Souko Ban Deluxe

Tank Battalion

Tank Force

Warp & Warp

Wonder Momo

Yokai Dochuki

I am not planning to add the following games:

World Stadium, World Court, Face Off, Kyukai Douchuki, Numan Athletics, Other Namco Sports titles- All sports games. Not that I have anything against them, but I just feel that this collection would be better off without those.

Splatterhouse- I heard the game got negative reviews on various sites. But that's just according to my knowledge. I just don't have much desire to include Splatterhouse.

Four Trax, Other Namco Racing titles- Pole Posistion and Final Lap both share pretty much the same gameplay to these titles. And I feel as if there are enough racing games in this collection. Yea I'm a big fan of racing games, but still.

Galaxian^3, Xevious Sequels- There's enough shooters in this collection.

Steel Gunner, Steel Gunner 2, Golly! Ghost!, Golly! Ghost! 2- all these use the external-gun-mounted-onto-console control format.

Cosmo Gang the Puzzle- This collection already has two versions of Pac-Attack, of which CGTP's gameplay had inspired.

Knuckle Heads, Soul Edge, Soul Calibur, Other Namco Fighting titles- Fighting games. While I do enjoy playing them from time to time, the idea to add these is the same as with the sports titles.

Namco Quiz Games- I quote the Angry Video Game Nerd: "Quizzes aren't fun! Quizzes make you feel like you're in school!"

Once again, sorry if some of your favorites didn't make the list. I want to keep this collection simple and not get carried away with the games.

All games contain their original Dip Switch settings, and like I probably had said before, are all perfect emulations of their original, non-translated versions, with alternative translated ROMS for games in Japanese. More confusing games with complex objectives also include an in-game how-to/walkthrough booklet for specific games, mainly Tower of Druaga.

Please let me know your opinions if possible. Thanks much to Twitter user superfroman12 for supporting the idea, and to everyone else, feel free to spread the word.

Keep making great games, Namco!

Super Mario Bros. Special Restoration Project Announcement.

2011-08-08T12:30:00.000-07:00

If you want to bullshit about me talking about SMB hacking and custom games too much on Super Justin: the Blog, go scream into a pillow. It'll be more beneficial to everyone.

Yea I know this is the art for a SMB soundtrack CD, but it just so bears that title, so meh.

Back in the mid 1980's, not long after Nintrndo's own Super Mario Bros, a company known as Hudson Soft, popular for their Bomberman games, was given the rights to produce three Mario titles for two Japanese-only home computers. Two of these, Punch Ball Mario Bros. and Mario Bros. Special, were both related to Nintendo's own arcade smash hit Mario Bros, and was released prior to the perhaps more well-known title, called Super Mario Bros. Special, which counted as the true first sequel to Super Mario Bros, preceding the Lost Levels, but it never came out for the Famicom or NES, it stayed excluvise to the PC88 and the Sharp X1, of which the former is the console that is used most (at least in emulator form) to play SMBS. However, that version has colors that are only shades of red, blue, and yellow. The Sharp X1 version instead uses 8 colors, sometimes merging two colors into a single sprite (mainly for used pipes and green objects), so it is the better-looking of the two. However the PC88 version is the more well-known version, and it's the one people use for LP's, so that one I know far more than the Sharp X1 version. However, I heard that version plays a little more smoothly, but I don't feel like comparing the two, so we're going to focus on just comparing the PC88 version to the original Famicom/NES version, and this version that has yet to come, as well as discuss the inaccuracy of the butchered Super Mario Bros. Special NES hack.

First, the PC88 version of Special, compared to the NES original.

*The controls and physics are somewhat worse than the NES version. Mario runs, jumps and drops faster and is harder to slow down, enemies are harder to hit as they too, move faster, and the Mega-Man styled screen-orientation flip-screen doesn't help either, in fact it's harder to land jumps because of it, making the hill-top levels harder than they should be.

*The maximum height for blocks is one square lower, which explains why the X-3 castles look odd.

*The "Koopa Stairs 1UP trick" is much easier to perform, and Mario does not need to be directly next to the stairs to do it.

*on lifts, there is only one platform, as opposed to several in underground areas.

*A single template which is used for every level in the original is replaced with all of the scenery being placed tile-by-tile, which explains why there are tall trees in some levels of the game (the biggest example being World 3-1.

*Underwater blocks and coral reefs can now be seen in above ground and one underground level(s), the later acting as a solid block. This is because every tile is now connected to one sheet, rather than using one with different palettes and tiles configured for each environment.

*Pipe entry and exit areas on the screen's y-axis are now unlimited, and now long, horizontal pipes not connected to vertical ones are also present.

*Starmen now have cutesy smiles.

*Bonus areas are now located in a select few castles.

*The well-known "ground" tile can now be placed anywhere on the screen, besides just being restricted to the first two rows on the bottom of the screen.

*There are more varieties of areas in the game- no room is seen twice in the game on different levels.

*Upside-down Piranha plants are seen, as well as pipes (The tips for the pipes are the same), regardless of what direction it is sprouting from)

*Just to be fancy, some new enemies and items appear here. The enemies originally appeared in Donkey Kong and Mario Bros; the two games that made Mario well-known before his star appearance in SMB. THe items are original to this game, with the exception of one item.

The enemies are:

Barrels- somewhat of a cross between Buzzy Beetles and Spinies. They cannot be jumped on, nor are they affected by your fireballs. Only Stars and Hammers are capable of taking these out. They first appear in 3-4.

Icicles- The enemy that appears late into Mario Bros; they simply come down from the celling in underground and castle levels, starting from 4-2.

Sidesteppers- Probably a skin for Spinies, but I'm assuming that if you want to remove one standing on a block from below, you'd have to do it twice (the first hit makes it angry and speeds it up). First seen in 4-2.

Fighter Flies- hopping flies from Mario Bros. that are basically just like Paratroopas, but slower and doesn't hop as high. Appears first in 5-1.

Fireball/Firebugs- The last of the enemies, that are invincible to possibly every attack, except the Starman and quite possibly the Hammer, though the later cannot be conformed because the Hammer never appears in a level alongside the Fireball/firebugs. First seen in 8-2.

The five exclusive items are all secretive, none of them can be found from ? blocks just out in the open. You have to look hard for them. Below are the items, their functions, and their locations.

Hachisuke- This item is only seen once in the very first level of the game, just right after existing the game's first bonus room. It is Hudson Soft's bee mascot plastered onto a yellow plate. Some sources claim it grants a continue, but in reality, it's only purpose is to award the player 8,ooo points.

Wing- Seen first in World 3-2's normal path and later on top the first item block in 4-1, this poorly-drawn wing gives Mario the ability to "swim" in midair. Unfortunately, it's duration is very, very short, making it somewhat useless.

Hammer- This is the only familiar powerup in this game, previously appearing in Donkey Kong. It causes Mario to proceed to swing a hammer that is the same size as him, mowing down anything in front of him. It's only temporary, but it does have quite a cool feature. It first appears in 3-4 in the "barrel room" and one last time in 5-1 before the staircase to the flag, which is ridden with Fighter Flies.

Lucky Star- No relation to Kagami Yoshimizu's manga which had a special cameo from Anime Techno's Anizawa Meito (*fangirl scream*), this item only appears in 4-1 and looks like an atom, complete with a nucleus and electron rings. Pick it up, and it kills everything on screen. Sadly, it too is also useless, since by the time you're able to grab it, the enemies on that screen would have already left by now.

Clock- Not identical to the stopwatch, both in appearance and functionality from Super Mario Bros 2 (US), this one looks like a classic desktop clock. Pick it up, and you get 100 extra seconds onto the clock (which helps because of how fast it ticks down compared to SMB in the NES.

-Since some people would yell at me if I didn't bring it up, some areas in the game lead to traps that the player cannot escape from, the most well known being 4-3's Coin Heaven (of which the same level also contains a puzzle where you have to collapse one of the scale-lifts to make a platform appear to progress through the level.) Here, the bonus room looks fine, but for whatever reason, the exit pipe does not work. Was it intended to be a trap? No. It was perhaps the result of a bad ROM dump, as anyone who played the PC88 version of SMBS may have also noticed that worlds 4-4 and 8-4 can also be corrupted, to the point in which 8-4 will not even start up. In this case, the exit pipe here was also corrupted due to the dump. thus leading to a trap where the player has to wait for the timer to run out. According to Wario Bros/ WarioBrose, the same thing also happens in the Sharp X1 version, but here we can see where if the exit pipe were to work, it would warp you to a warp pipe situated underneath the end-of-level staircase, of which contains a hidden 1UP block.

-In the level preceding this un-intended "trap", (4-2) there is a pipe following the underground portion exit that would seem like a warp zone, but also possibly due to a bad ROM dump, it does not work properly, resulting in you getting stuck and having to wait out on the timer. It is unknown where this pipe would have led if it did work. I'll talk about this strange pipe later.

Now about two decades and a half following the release of the PC88 version, two members of RomHacking.net, known under the names frantik and Levi "Karatorian" Aho attempted a remake of SMBS in the form of a ROM hack of the original Super Mario Bros, titled SMBS for NES. Besides just acting like a way to better enjoy Special with the precise and flawless physics of the original, there are some things that were changed between the PC88 version and the hack, and I say PC88 because I think they based the entire thing on that version.

*All of the scenery and blocks are not precisely like the original versions, the "ground" tiles are restricted to the bottom two rows, coral reefs and underwater tiles on the overworld levels are changed to basic solid blocks, there are no long trees or small clouds, pipe exits and certain rooms (one of them belonging to 4-4) are moved/changed do to the limitations of the NES version.

*The colors went back to the original palette of the NES version.

*The "drop the scale lift platform" puzzle in 4-3 is rid of, but unfortunately the un-intended coin heaven trap is not touched, meaning the exit pipe in that area still does not work (c'mon guys, you could've at least made the pipe work!)

*The upside-down pipe ends are given their own graphics, rather than using the ones from pipe uprooting from the ground. While we're on topic, the upside-down Pirana Plants are made into Red Pirana Plants, even though all of the Pirana Plants were green in the original game.

*Possibly what I feel is the worst offender of all, every of the SMBS-excluise items and enemies were not in SMBS. May I ask, if two people were able to program SMB3 font on the title screen, add red-colored pirana plants, and upside-down pipe graphics (which wasn't even in the original version), then why couldn't they just expand the ROM's size so they could splotch in five new enemies and five new items. If ATA can make SMB into a Metroi... wait a second. I think I know why the SMBS-exclusive stuff wasn't in this ROM hack.

For one thing, Super Mario Bros. Utility, the currently easiest-to-use editor for SMB, is not that user-friendly compared to Lunar Magic, as that was an editor for a game that was capable at holding much more memory, and due to the SMB ROM I assume already being at it's maximum size, the user can only modify, and delete content. The reason why the blocks are not arranged as they were in SMBS is because in SMBU, you move these green squares to modify the level, and depending on where you place them, the structure changes. If perhaps there existed a better, more simpler version of SMBU, that automatically expands any ROM loaded onto it, allows a drag-and-drop editor like Ting_Thing's Mario Builder, the ability to add additional rooms, more freedom for spawning points on the Y-axis, an in-game palette editor, and the use of multiple block types and palettes per level, (and of course containing content from Special and Lost Levels) then perhaps just maybe a more faithful conversion of SMBS could exist in NES format. But no. Only the levels were carried over from the PC88 version, and the well-known 4-3 trap was left in on purpose.

In Extra Mario Bros, enemies and items were not added, but instead replaced. Buzzy Beetles were replaced by Goombas wearing iron helmets that cannot be killed, and only bump Mario to the side without harming him. If the player continuously jumps on top of this Goomba, he/she can ride them across certain chained platforms. Laiktus were replaced by Blarggs that spew podoboos, and Spinies were replaced by lavaballs that are immune to fireballs until you get the "Super Fire" upgrade.

Starmen were replaced by special mushrooms that gave Mario permanent upgrades that lasted for the entirety of the game, such as allowing Mario to melt spikes and walls, allow Mario to arc fireballs higher, and gain a double-jumping ability. I believe if you finish the game and find all of the 1UP mushrooms, you get a special suit the next time you play that makes Mario immune to enemies and lava, allowing you to access a secret area where you fight a giant Metroid.

Now back to SMBS. Yea a lot of us may have expected more from the NES hack, but it wasn't as well-done as I had hoped. It probably would've worked better as a Super Mario World hack, since the ROM of that game could be expanded to have plenty of room for Special's new items, enemies, and block types. So because the NES hack didn't do quite well in comparison to the original (IMO), I decided to use Ting_Thing's Mario Builder to recreate each and every single element of SMBS down to almost the exact detail. What will this accomplish?

*All 32 levels from SMBS, drawn into MB exactly with no changes to scenery and block types.

*SMBS' exclusive enemies and items replaced with enemies from more recent Mario titles following the original, and rare items that will make very few appearances. This is due to Mario Builder lacking the exclusive features of Special.

Now here's what I'd like to have in this remake, but can't:

*A skin editor to apply the appropriate SMBS-styled skins to coins, brick blocks, ? blocks, the characters, the flagpole, and so on. The only thing I can do for now is just skins for background scenery and solid objects. This would also come in handy for other projects in Mario Builder.

*Have constantly-generating vertically-moving platforms ala the original, plus the scale platforms.

*Properly-working hidden ? blocks.

*Firebars that spin counter-clockwise.

*A SMB-styled Bowser, and the classic collapsing bridge and ax to go with it.

Well that's it. At the time I'm writing this, I only have completed the first three levels, including their bonus rooms. I'll try to make this remake more true to the original than the NES remake, and then I'll work on publishing it. Since I easily get occupied with other things, there may be days where I won't work on the remake. But for now, I'll show you some screens from World 1 and it's bonus room (and you may be able to tell why I recommended a sprite editor)

So yeah. There you have it. I have a pretty interesting month coming up, so maybe I'll write some stuff on deviantART soon. In the meantime, I'll leave you with some bonus content: Tilesets for use with Mario Builder, ripped from three different ROM hacks of the original Super Mario Bros.

Aozora's Wars, That Crossover Game of my teenage years. (Part 2)

2011-08-03T11:17:00.001-07:00

So after some time waiting, I'm finally ready to spill some more beans on Aozora's Wars. I've already talked about the focus if this fangame, and it's roster of characters, so now I'm going to discuss the gameplay.

For the most part, it sticks true to the gameplay of the originals, although there are some large changes to the format. I'll list a few.

*The Koma Battle System is not present, so that means players cannot build teams of multiple fighters, supporters, and helpers. Here's how it will work in Aozora's Wars:

-Each player is limited to selecting one character, which can be given one of three different fighting styles: Alpha (Balance), Delta (Speed), and Omega (Power). These styles influence (some, if not all of) the character's special/super/fatal attacks, and in some cases, their strength (No fighting style is weak to another). That character can then be given one of eight different color variations, however if playing in team mode, or if two players control the same character, the character is forced to a alternative color.

-Then, the player chooses three support characters, and can mix them up to their liking. Each one can be configured to either a Heta type, or an "Attack Type" where their main focus is to attack enemies and cause status effects, or a Zeta Type, or "Helper Type" whom deals with restoring the player's health and causing positive status effects to the user. Each supporter can only be called thrice per battle. On the first call, after they perform their task, they will be shown on the bottom of the screen sleeping. After 30 seconds (for Heta types) or 50 seconds (for Zeta types), they can then be called on again two more times in battle, and then they will be shown sleeping again, but with a dark blue color palette, making that character "locked" for the remainder of the fight.

*As the bottom screen is no longer used for the Koma Battle System, it instead shows the current statics of the match (score and current amount of hit points per player), and where the player can call upon his/her supporters. Like in Bleach: the Blade of Fate and Dark Souls, the player can change the statics menu to a shortcut menu where a player can perform a character's special/super attacks without having to input a combination of buttons. The Supporters can still be summoned in this shortcut menu.

*There is the usual "Power" meter that is standard for tournament fighter games, that goes for up to three levels. One level is needed for performing Supers A and B, two for Super C, and three for Supers D and E. For characters that have alternative forms, like Ichigo Kurosaki and Masane Amaha, losing half of the player's HP then performing Super F will trigger a transformation sequence, power-uping the player's skill levels. This transformation will last for 60 seconds before the player returns to normal. A rarer type of Super move, called a Fatal Super, needs the SP meter to be full, and the player only down to 3 HP or lower. Then, he/she performs Super F, which causes a powerful attack/event to engage, instantly KO'ing one or all the opposing fighters. (These KO's are dubbed "Fatal KO's", after the Hokuto No Ken/Fist of the North Star fighting game on PS2)

*No stage takes place inside a page of Weekly Shonen Jump; everything is out of the opening. These include stages that are enhanced from Jump Super/Ultimate Stars, whom lack their destroyable/solid walls from the source.

*by default, one to four characters from each series are available from the start, excluding unlockables. The characters can be unlocked by first meeting specific requirements in the game, then spending a pre-determined amount of currency (Japanese Yen, and gems) to unlock them, which can be earned by playing various modes, the one that awards the most is the online mode, where you can also advance ranks.

*The main single-player game is dubbed the "Campaign" mode, and while in other modes you start with a large roster of default characters, in this one you only begin with Aozora from my staple indie series. The overworld is not a series of galaxies ala Ultiamte Stars, but rather a series of islands with several areas, sort of like Super Stars. You move across the island Super Mario World style. There are four types of areas of interest per each of the seven islands. First is the HQ, where you can change your character and preferred teamates and supporters. The teammates are the computer players that ally with you for the entire match(es), and can have their preferred playstyle changed, such as to focus on attacking enemies alone with brute force, a balanced all-around behavior, or to stick close with other teammates and protect them. Their skills are moderate to begin with, and later in the game, their AI will improve drastically (same goes for standard VS matches with computer players, where their skill levels can be changed). The second type of location is the shop, where players can buy items that can boost a character's stats (one category) or adds a special trait to the character, like a triple or wall jump for one round, unlock transformations, and special bonus content to customize the game's menus and HUD, and unlock things in the museum mode. This is not done the same pathway-purchasing method as in Ultimate Stars, though buying some items will allow other items to be found.

The third type of building is a fight zone, the actual aspect of the game, where all the ass-kicking is done. In each zone, you can partake in a tournament where you fight characters in locations themed after the island the area is located, sometimes partnered with characters that have been recruited onto your team of characters. Here, you take one character into the tournament fighting across several rounds, where the goal is simply to come or tie in first every round (you have the three different modes of Ultimate Stars, scoring, survival, and star hunter, and failure requires the use of one of three continues to resume midway via a tournament, otherwise the player must start over) with one character and reach the end. afterwards, you are given one of six different medals based on your performance: (from worst to best) Stone, Bronze, Sliver, Gold, Platinum, and Pure Platinum. You get Stone just for simply finishing the tournament, and higher ranks for better performances. Depending on what medal you also earn, you'll win from one to six rewards, although you cannot get rewarded the same thing twice, so if you want more from the same tournament, you have to improve your result and best your previous score. With each reward, you will get one of the following:

-Yen, Gemstones, or a combination of both (these can also be collected during matches, but Yen is more common). Gemstones exist as Rubies, Sapphires, Emeralds (common gemstones), Topazes, Amethysts, and Diamonds (rare gemstones). On top of that, there is also a special type of gemstone called the Spectrum Pearl that adds one of every gemstone type.

-One to three supporters are added to your roster of supporters.

-One fighter is recruited onto your team of playable characters. For unlockable characters, they too can be recruited, but you must purchase them with Yen and/or gems to unlock them for use outside the campaign mode.

In some cases, getting Platinums and Pure Platinums may cause some character to be recruited to the team earlier than usual.

Missions return in Jump Ultimate Stars format, and are separate from the tournament sections, in that they only last one battle long, and for each mission, the player must complete the first task to win and receive reward(s). Four (and in some cases one secret) side quests can also be attempted for each mission as well, and they too also net rewards. Prizes are the same as clearing the tournament mode, and multiple side-quests can be won at once, providing the first task is cleared successfully.

The fourth and final building is a "boss" building, that in order to access, a certain number of tournaments and missions must be conquered. Then, the player goes in and fights an over-powered, and sometimes over-sized opponent, with a limited stock of (three) lives. Like the missions from the basic fight zones, the player can attempt several side-missions while fighting the boss. The first mission, which is simply to beat the boss, nets a pass to access the next island, while the four side-quests reward gems.

*The Power, Knowledge, and Laughter elements are discarded for this title. So no character type is weak to another. Gone is also the different character levels/variants (aside from the in-game transformation).

*As for menus, they are for the most part going to be Japanese, but unlike Super and Ultimate Stars, the player can change them to English, Chinese (both simple and traditional), Korean, and Russian (though the title download will be Japanese).

*Combos can now be performed, by tapping the soft attack or hard attack button multiple times. Not to mention button combinations, several unique for each character. The "super" meter, as I had mentioned, only goes up to three, not nine (or was it ten?)

*When the character runs low on HP, they do not change to grayscale, they just begin to pant/act weak/tired when immobile.

*Characters can now execute a grabbing command, and can hold onto characters and pound them for a few seconds, causing damage. He/she can also do another move while having a steady grip on the enemy, but cannot do a pound and grabbing attack in one routine.

Well that's all I can talk about for now on Aozora's Wars. I believed I've discussed enough of the title, the rest you can probably figure out if you're familiar with crossover fighters, and/or have played Jump Super/Ultimate Stars. Again, it's not in production, but if I do become a doujin videogame developer and round up a decent team and supporters, then this will be a major project of mine. And besides, I'm not going to be using it for money. I just want to receive feedback with it and have people enjoy it. It probably won't be a homebrew DS title, I'll probably just make it a free for Windows/Mac OS X. I'm giving absolute full credit to every character and series represented, and if you think I'm not going to, feel free to start a riot with me.

Peace out.

Download the entire 3D Maze Man series right now!

2011-07-15T12:53:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Youtuber BoulderDasher54, you can now download the complete quadrilogy of Pac-Man(ia) clones from game developer Webfoot Technologies, Inc.

So yea, Guess you can say "the wait for the revival of these classics is finally over", and not only can you get the original 3D Maze Man, but also the ten-level Christmas edition, the twenty-level gender swap version, and the nature-themed one starring a frog instead of Maze Man. And better yet? These versions are totally safe; No stupid viruses or malware to go insane over.

Below, you can find the links.

3D Maze Man

3D Maze Man: Winter Wonderland

3D Ms. Maze Man: Tropical Paradise

3D Frog Man

Other things to note in order to get the games to run...

*You may need to run the game in compatibly mode for Windows 95/98/Me and in 640 x 480 screen resolution.

*You need to have a version of DirectX that is at least v5.0 but no higher than v9. (Haven't really checked otherwise if it works on versions higher than 9)

Otherwise, go pac-it, and if you like, support Webfoot by buying their current products.

Justin? How do you get to the Hard World in XXXX?

2011-07-07T20:45:00.000-07:00

Well yea, we're back to the crummy topic of Super Mario Bros. hacking. To say what? Well to give out one hell of a secret in the romhack known as XXXX.

Apparently this is a response of sorts to YouTuber vhernandez2121, whom has ran into trouble trying to reach this oh-so called "Hard Stage." This isn't a mockery thing; I'm only trying to help someone. See his video for yourselves.

Below you can download the walkthrough image I have prepared...

http://www.mediafire.com/?2q47fo3ekv4ievg

...Obviously since Blogger and Photobucket won't do it in full resolution.

And since we're on the topic, here's the latest release of Mario Hack Series Recordings. All fresh and loaded with brand new songs plus some classics from the previous collection.

~Download~

Aozora's Wars, That Crossover Game of my teenage years. (Part 1)

2011-06-16T11:11:00.000-07:00

NOTE: This is a currently planned concept for the future. Don't balls-out on me just because I can't make a damn video game just yet. But I also just want to give out my thoughts for a fan-sequel to one of my once-favorite games of all time.

I already showed the image, so no point in posting it again.

Yea, we all pretty much know that when I get older, allied with proper knowledge, I want to make of all things, games. Though some of all things never understood the point. They are simply ideas and nothing else. Plus, I should mention that these are non-profit, not made for the purpose of getting cash. Anything I make is not a "franchise" (at least, it no longer is).

Basically, what he have here is a concept that is as old as December 2008. Yea, only a few months right before I joined (and pretty much shat on during my first few months) deviantART. Of course when some play a game, they may think it's good, but not good enough. So they start thinking on improvements to an already existing title with many good reviews, and sometimes even post them online, like what I'm doing here. This one I want to speak about is my planned concepts for a "improved" version of Nintendo/Ganbarion's 2D fighter spawning in the wake ofSuper Smash Bros; Jump(!) Ultimate Stars. The to-be-said remake? Aozora's Wars.

Basically, Aozora's Wars (codenamed Jump-Stars Episode III) is part of my unofficial series of crossovers featuring more anime/manga/videogame series than anything else, except M. U. G. E. N. And as you'd expect, it would be Jump Super/Ultimate Stars with a complete face-lift. It would possibly be one heck of a non-profit fangame, possibly about twice as big than the game that it's based on. It will possibly be in "beta" status forever, and would be updated constantly even after the completion of the solo campaign, the character roster, and the fighting stages.

To begin with, Let me say the roster of this game would be big. It contains all of the ones from Ultimate Stars (excluding Dragon Ball, Dr. Slump, Ninku, and Naruto characters. Don't ask why I don't like Dragon Ball). The series without playable characters that won't be re-represented from JUS are Midori no Makibao, The I"s, Strawberry 100%, and Death Note (again, not a fan of Death Note).

In place of these, I'll be planning on adding my own series to be represented (Aozora's Adventure), as well as the below series: (Playable characters written in parentheses)

*Aria (Akari Mizunashi)

*Bayonetta (Bayonetta, Jeanne)

*Beelzebub (Tatsumi Oga w/ Beelzebub mounted on shoulders)

*Black Blood Brothers (Jiro Mochizuki)

*City Hunter (Ryo Saeba)

*Crayon Shin-Chan (Shinnosuke Nohara)

*Daiku no Gen-san (Genzo Tamura)

*Disgaea (Laharl, Etna, Adell)

*Devil May Cry (Dante)

*Doraemon (Doraemon)

*Flint the Time Detective (Flint Hammerhead)

*Final Fantasy (Cloud Strife, Squall Leonhart, Zidane Tribal, Tidus, Sephiroth)

*Guilty Gear (Sol Badguy, Ky, Dizzy, May, Potemkin)

*Hard Corps: Uprising (Bahamut)

*Karakuri Doji Ultimo (Ultimo, Vice)

*Kingdom Hearts (Sora, Riku, Roxas, Axel, Saix, Xemnas)

*The Law of Ueki (Kosuke Ueki)

*Lupin III (Arsene Lupin III)

*Magical Taruruto-Kun (Taruruto)

*Maho-tsukai Kurohime (Kurohime)

*Opoona (Opoona)

*Ordyne (Yuichiro Tomari)

*Osomatsu-Kun (Osomatsu)

*Panty & Stocking with Gaterbolt (Panty, Stocking)

*Resident Evil (Leon S. Kennedy)

*Rosenkreuzstilette (Spiritia Rosenberg, Freudia Neuwahl, Zorne Sepperin, Trauare Wrede, Luste Teuber, Grolla Seyfarth, Sichte Meister)

*Scott Pilgrim (Scott Pilgrim, Ramona Flowers, Gideon Graves)

*Shikigami no Shiro (Kohtaro Kuga, Gennojo Hyuga, Fumiko Odette Van Stein, Reika Kirishima, Batu Harai)

*Soul Eater (Soul Eater Evans w/ Maka Albarn in sidelines, Black Star, Death the Kid)

*Tengen Toppa Gurren Laggan (Simon, Yoko Littner, Kamina)

*Toriko (Toriko)

*Vocaloid (Miku Hatsune)

*Witchblade (Masane Amaha, Shiori Tsuzuki, Reina Soho, Nora)

*The World Ends With You (Neku Sakuraba, Shiki Misaki, Daisukenojo Bito, Uzuki Yashiro, Koki Kariya, Sho Minamimoto, Megumi Kitaniji)

*Zatch Bell (Zatch Bell w/ Kyo Takamine in sidelines)

New series without playable characters:

*Mr. Driller

*Snowboard Kids

Returning series from Jump Ultimate Stars: (characters in parentheses, new playables to that series written in bold.) [this part of the list may not be final]

*Black Cat (Train Heartnet, Eve [Train is promoted to main character position])

*Bleach (Ichigo Kurosaki, Rukia Kuchiki, Orihime Inoue, Uryu Ishida, Renji Abarai, Toshiro Hitsuguya, Bayakuya Kuchiki, Kenpachi Zaraki)

*Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo (Bo-bobo, Don Patch)

*Buso Renkin (Kazuki Muto)

*Cobra (Cobra)

*D.Gray-man (Allen Walker, Lenalee Lee)

*Gin Tama (Gintoki Sakata, Kagura)

*Fist of the North Star (Kenshiro, Raoh)

*Hoshin Engi (Taikobou)

*Hunter x Hunter (Gon Freecess, Killua Zaoldyeck)

*Jigoku Sensei Nube (Meisuke Nueno)

*JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (Jotaro Kujo, Dio Brando)

*Jungle King Tar-chan (Tar-chan)

*Katekyo Hitman REBORN! (Tsunayoshi Swada w/ Reborn, Reborn [solo], Gokudera Hayato)

*Kinnikuman (Kinnikuman)

*Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Koen-mae Hashutsujo (Kankichi Ryotsu)

*Majin Tantei Nogami Neuro (Neuro Nogami w/ Yako Katsuragi, X)

*Muhyo & Roji's Bureau of Supernatural Investigation (Toru Muhyo)

*One Piece (Monkey D. Luffy, Nami, Roronoa Zoro, Sanji, Nico Robin, Franky, Portgas D. Ace, Sir Crocodile)

*Pyu to Fuku! Jaguar (Jaguar Junichi)

*Rokudenashi Blues (Taison Maeda)

*Rurouni Kenshin (Kenshin Himura, Sanosuke Sagara)

*Saint Seiya (Pegasus Seiya)

*Sakigake!! Otokojuku (Momotaro Tsurugi, Heihachi Edajima)

*Shaman King (Yoh Asakura, Anna Kyoyama)

*Tottemo! Luckyman (Luckyman)

*Yu-Gi-Oh! (Yugi Mutou)

*YuYu Hakusho (Yusuke Urameshi, Kurama, Hiei)

Returning series without playables:

*Captain Tsubasa

*Eyeshield 21

*Slam Dunk

*The Prince of Tennis

I'll include the game and gameplay information in the next post. For now, this should be enough to hold you back.

The only Jump Ultimate Stars spoof anyone wants to make

2011-05-29T18:31:00.000-07:00

Updated artwork with most recent reversion.

The image speaks for itself doesn't it?

And plus I discovered the comma key on my keyboard doesn't work anymore. Gotta get a new one soon.

Old Superjustinbros vs. Poppy Bro Fan.

2011-05-28T10:58:00.000-07:00

Nothing in trying to direct all my friends to attack a hater, but honestly.

Look at what this person, known as Poppy Bro Fan, said about (but not directly to) me last December. Apparently this guy doesn't know the difference between the "New Justin" and the "Old Justin"

"There used to be a major lolcow back in the days. His name is Superjustinbros, and i'm pretty sure you might remember him from the Fandom Rape entry. He used to be such a troll, there were multiple blog entries about his ill temper and superior attitude. He also advertised this "Franchise" he was making, called "Super Justin" where he was the main character (Lawl, self insert Stu) who got to bang Trauare Wrede, of all people, and fuck up Rosenkreuzstilette in general. He claimed the Rosenkreuzstilette girls were his own creations, which was a blatant lie, and stole several people's RKS fancharacters, shoehorning them into his "Franchise". Since it's easy for me to get homesick, i read up on things happening in Japan a lot. This is how i first found out about Rosenkreuzstilette and their creators, [erka;es] and WOMI. And how i also found out about his screwing over the series with his "Franchise". He's now long since killed his behavior, but to honor the sooncoming Freudenstachel, hey, i thought he needed a memory."

But he wasn't done yet.

"Another thing he's famous for? Drawing "Sexypics" of the RKS girls that make me want to tear my eyes out."

*Insert his anatomy rage-filled shit*

Yeah. ANATOMY. The one thing that everyone hates about my art. And to make things even more gay-tarted, everyone on there is seriously gender-confused. I got a dick, not a Vagina. I don't have big boobs, and I'm not a baby makin' machine.

Reposting my FAQS from last year regarding what he's saying about my out-of-date personality...

"What is Super Justin and why did you cancel it?"

The Super Justin series (which for some time, I referred to as a "franchise") was intended to be a series of Super Mario/Sonic the Hedgehog hybrids staring myself, as a japanese fourteen year-old boy dressed mostly in blue defending the world against various different enemies. The two main reasons why it was cancelled was because 1. to avoid copyright issues with the characters I had stolen, such as Grolla Seyfarth from Rosenkreuzstilette and Roark from Pokemon, and 2. because I couldn't take anymore negative criticism, as it was driving me to insanity.

"Were you once an art thief?"

During my first few weeks of activity on deviantART, yes. As I spent gradually more time, I started doing it less until the content of my artwork became entirely original work hand-drawn by me. (even if it's fanart of someone else's character.) Although I was still pretty much stealing when it comes to the Super Justin Wiki, which had all of its content entirely removed by me not long ago. At first, I thought I could easily get away with it, as I have seen multiple people on deviantART upload stuff with copyrighted material, (I guess since nobody reported them) but after thinking it out for a bit, I soon took action and removed the stolen content immediately, making it something I no longer have to worry about. Bottom line, I stopped stealing artwork/characters, and never will again.

"I heard you used to act like a troll. Is that true?"

Yes, I will admit I was once a terrible troll. But now I have been maturing, and I know better not to troll. But the reason I was is because I wanted to get popular by telling people to "check out my gallery" as well as "I drew him/her too". If you were to look at some of the really bad troll-comments on dA I had made, you would see a reply from me saying something like "Why did I say that?".

"Why did you go around telling everyone that Rosenkreuzstilette was worse than your "franchise" and insulated [erka:es]?"

This is somewhat difficult to explain in full detail, but if you want to know, I can spare some details on what was going on.

Personally, while I do like playing the Mega Man games a lot, I prefer the Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog series overMega Man, which is possibly why I said my "franchise" would surpass Rosenkreuzstilette, but that turned out to be a big mistake, since for one thing, I didn't even make a game for that "franchise", so there was absolutely nothing to compare RKS to. Plus, to add to all this ruckus, I even said it was "too scary," saying the game's colors weren't that colorful. Looking back, I can see this game was intended for a older audience than I had expected, so I withdrew that useless complaint, seeing how a good game doesn't have to be colorful, and have practically every stage take place in a dungeon/castle/fortress/tower. (and let's not forget the religious symbols.)

For the insulating [erka:es] part, the prime thing I said was they were "uncreative", due to many of the elements, characters, and enemies from the original RKS being based on or inspired by various things from other popular video game series. After some time, I soon released what I had said was wrong, as [erka:es] does in fact have a good amount of creativity that they're able to create something that's worth playing for the fun, and of course, the nostalgic factor. I have tried apologizing to them, but they have yet to respond.

(Yes, I'm willing to admit I made many mistakes back then, and I'm sure I will never again.)

Someone please tell him to stop this serious s%it. I know it';s outdated, but he needs to know.

Skee-Ball got portable, and more addicting.

2011-05-19T11:24:00.000-07:00

EDIT: So apparently the collections menu aren't limited. When you get a lot of things, another shelf is added to store even more things. So discard everything I said about increasing storage compactly, but I still think that the different ball and lane variants should be sorted onto different shelves located below the default shelf.

Freeverse and Graveck, two of those obscure indie mobile game companies, had not long ago introduced a version of one of America's most-addicting arcade games, Skee-Ball. If you got an iOS device, you can get Skee-Ball for a cheap price, and you'll be entertained for hours.

Well, it can be exciting at times, and even after you find out you can purchase items from an in-game market to customize your game, it only becomes your love-mate for the next six hours, until you eat away at the iPod's batteries. And how does this work?

Well, tickets, of course! Yes! This virtual adaptation of Skee-Ball even re-creates the classic quest of "collecting tickets to collect prizes that have no value whatsoever." Only here, they give you a purpose to waste tickets.

But before I discuss the use of tickets, let me describe the gameplay. It's Skee-Ball as you remember it- throw nine wooden balls up into a scoring area, and depending on which area the ball lands in, you are awarded 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, and if you got badass aiming skills, you can even nail 100 points with one ball. If you do well enough, you can win bonus multipliers that multiply your score by up to 9x, with the multiplier value increasing or decreasing depending on your performance in the last game, and if you keep your streak going long enough, you're bound to score over two thousand on a game or two.

And as I described above, there are tickets involved. For every 50 points you score each game, you win 1 ticket at the end of each round. If you have multipliers in effect, your chances of getting a good amount of tickets per game increase (although it does not multiply the # of tickets you get, only your overall score). To roll the ball, you just swipe your finger across the palyfield, and Walhalla, out of nowhere a ball come storming down the alley and jumps the ramp, landing in the scoring zone. You can apply spin to the ball and roll it at different speeds. Once you've gone a good number of times, it's time to redeem those tickets at the prize corner.

When you visit the prize corner, up for sale are eight (12 in some versions of the "HD" edition). Most, if not all of these are cheap, useless "junk" that serves no purpose other than showing off to your friends (Note: the only of these worth getting are extra tickets, which actually give you tickets rather than taking away). At to my knowledge, you can only store a limited number of these (Correction: Storage is unlimited). Now why I bring up the (possible) limited storage number is because in the ticket market, you may also stumble on a number of different ball and alley styles that change the color scheme/patterns of the ball/field. These two kinds of items are the only reason to collect tickets, because they can be used to customize your in-game experience with different themes that suit your fantasies. And if that wasn't enough, they even change the items in the shop each time you do a round of Skee-Ball (some appearing more often than others). So just keep playing, and soon something will show up in the market that catches your eyes.

So what do I think about this? And what problems/frustrations have I encountered regarding this title? And what suggestions am I making to this game to make it hopefully even better than it is now? Well first off, the graphics are good, the controls are accurate (except it's difficult to roll the ball at maximum speed on the HD version and when playing the standard low-res version in full-screen on an iPad), but I have ran into some instances where the ball did get stuck on the play-field. 1: the left and right sides of the large 20-point holes, where two (or more) balls can get jammed, 2: right next to the 10-point socket where the ball stops moving and doesn't go into the appropriate scoring hole, and 3: the ball ends up balancing on top of the ramp that launches the balls into the air, and it never comes down. This caused me to have to reset the app or turn off the unit entirely (Update: These "ball getting stuck" situations are more common when you lob a ton of balls into the scoring zone at once).

Second, give the different balls and field styles separate folders (leading to different shelves) with no limit as to how many types can be placed and used, and do not allow us to sell them back for tickets. If we do, then we'd have to go unlock them again, which is something I'd prefer not to do. Also, allow us to set the ball/field style to "random," which gives us each time we start a game from the menu one random field and/or ball type purchased from the market. The amount of "useless" prizes should still be limited (Update: Discard this sentence).

Speaking of the market, the issue regarding some users not being able to access the menu where you can get in-app purchases to add items to the market and get more tickets (unless you have a plus+ account(?)) needs to be fixed, plus I'd like if the holiday-themed items from the free edition were also released as an expansion set to the paid version (if they aren't already).

Updates should not only focus on adding more features, but also fixing issues in the game regarding criticism in the iTunes store and other things, such as allowing moderately strong swipes on the larger-screen versions to throw balls at their fastest speed, updating the visuals of the standard version to retina (hi-res) graphics, adding support to Apple's Game Center, and allowing us to back up user data between devices via our Game Center/plus+ accounts. I play Skee-Ball on both my sister's iPod (second gen.) and iPad (1), and I have items purchased on one device but not the other.

So that ends my critique. Freeverse, if you can, please take these concepts into consideration for future verisons. Your app is extremely fun, and gives us an excuse not to go to modern-day arcades and blow money on tokens.

Leaping with Jumpman, into obscurity.

2011-05-14T07:48:00.000-07:00

You know me, I love myself some obscure platformer games.

Back in the late 1990's, I stumbled upon the shareware version of a platforming game entitled Jumpman Lives. It had twelve levels, with each level having some new feature possibly not seen before. After some time, I got a plug-n-play C64 unit that had Jumpman Jr; the sequel to an title I had never known about, then when I began researching stuff (thanks Wikipedia), I found out more about the Jumpman games.

Basically, the original, released in 1983 mainly for the Commondare 64, was a platformer where you controlled a pale white figure with a red shirt and magenta pants, collecting bombs (but I called them cereal pieces due to their "O" shape.) on Jupiter. Yea. Jupiter. Apparently there's a fraction of Jupiter that's habitable with green girders and blue ladders, and it also has flying white squares that latch out at you, and even missiles that come out of nowhere. Sure it didn't make sense, but of course it worked, and it was pretty addicting.

They had a shorter but much more difficult sequel entitled Jumpman Jr, which had twelve completely new levels but still had the same basic principles and objectives as the original.

Then came the one I was most familiar with; Jumpman Lives!. This one was unofficial and released only on PC (DOS to be exact), and had levels that previously existed in the two only-existing predecessors, as well as some new exclusive levels to this version. The shareware version only goes through the first 12 levels while the full version does what you'd expect: giving you the full-length game and probably one of the most confusing and difficult-to-use level editors ever. Trust me. I've never figured it out in the entirety of my life.

Though one fatal thing I have to address was that the last time I played Jumpman Lives!, the controls were unresponsive and sloppy as f$%k. If you want to try this one out, you can grab a download of the title here, but don't come crying to me if your controls are screwed.

During the remainder of the nineties and from 2000-2005, several other Jumpman-related games and remakes also surfaced, with one of them being Jumpman Zero, which gave Jumpman a new rolling ability to help survive those long vertical drops, and thus prevent his legs from being broken. Jumpman 2 and Jumpman 2049 were two other Jumpman games that were being worked on at the time, but they never saw the light of day and both were canceled. The only one that was actually easy to instal and play was Jumpman: Under Construction, an effort to re-create the original game(s) and also provide an engine for one to make their own Jumpman games from scratch. Unfortently, development stopped only after the third public beta was released in Christmas of 2003, and afterwards, the forums where you could download level packs by other users also went down. But thankfully the site itself is still intact, so you can download it and (try to) create up some levels (And if you can figure out the "appearing/dissapearing platforms upon collecting a bomb" gimmick out, then you're golden).

It's sad to see one of my longtime favorite series bite the bullet at the last second. More or less, I'd wish Chris Leathley, developer of Under Construction, or someone else whom has privileges to the game would just step in and complete the editor, make some things easier to put in (like pre-loaded dragon textures), add more features, and just overall finish up the project with fully-working Jumpman/Jr./Lives! levels recreated down to the finest detail. Please Chris, seven years is more than enough.

A's A New Blogpost!

2011-05-04T14:13:00.001-07:00

You know the drill here...

The World's Biggest Pac-Man... Was it worth it?

2011-04-21T08:30:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to mention I'm not looking to act harsh here. If it looks like I am, I apologize.

Slightly updated...

Pretty much just a week ago, Soap Creative designed with the guidance of Namco Bandai and Microsoft, a new HTML5 game based on everyone's favorite yellow round creature, titled The World's Biggest Pac-Man.

And certainly enough, Biggest is exactly what it is. A whopping 1,5000 mazes to try out, and it can get addictive for a few players, but after you've played it out, you can help expand it, provided you have a Facebook account, by constructing your own mazes that attach onto the already-existing ones. Sounds like a good idea, right?

Well, to be fair, it could be, but with the overabundance of issues I have with this title and it's editors, it doesn't have that much appeal. Now I'm not staging a fight with anyone involved in creating levels with this, I just want to state what I don't like about this idea, and how it can be expanded on to be even more insane and unique.

First off, let me explain the gameplay. It's traditional Pac-Man as you remember it- eat all the dots, avoid Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde, eat Power Pellets, get revenge on the Ghosts. Once you clear the maze, the ghosts vaporize into the air, and you then have to enter a new maze by simply exiting via the classic warp tunnels. But rather than just warp you to the other side, the warp tunnels will take you to an entirely new maze with a new set of dots to consume and ghosts to avoid. Therefore, you can build up on your score and such. You can also leave the maze you're on early, although if you come back to the maze, the ghosts will remain in the spot they were in, and proceed to pursuit you again If you needed to escape via one of these tunnels because the ghosts were closing in on you, don't re-enter the maze via the same tunnel.

When you die, the ghosts in the current room where your death occurred are re-set, but not in the other rooms that you left un-finished. Each room has a set of four ghosts, and only you are allowed to go to different mazes. If the ghosts were allowed to do the same, then you'd be chased by over a million of those pesky bastards. But even with just the basic four ghosts, things can still be screwed up to the point where a level is almost impossible to clean. Often this is due to the players' bad designing skills or the misuse of how designing levels should be done. Allow me to demonstrate:

What you see above this tad-bit of text is the simple yet evil default maze. Players looking to build levels for the sole purpose of "patching" multiple of the same kid to create a picture (i.e. aligning them to spell out the name of the author) often resort to just loading up the editor, not working on it any bit, then submitting it. If perhaps by default, we could choose to either start editing the level with an entirely blank canvas (and an actual grid to help guide us) or with pellets over-cluttering every corner (like in the NES Ms. Pac-Man editor Blinky), not only the later option. Plus, this default maze (plus many other "open mazes" is s*it because there are little to no ways of hiding from the ghosts. Sure there are four power pellets scattered in the four corners (or more or even less(!) in some cases), but even the duration of them (or even an extra six) aren't enough to finish the level on one life. And without many/any useful walls, the ghosts can quadruple-team you and corner you to the wall with no escape.

Comparing the editor in WBPM to the one featured in the unofficial entry Champ Ms. Pac-Em, the later apparently has more features. But since that one was an editor based on Ms. Pac-Man and not the original, it apparently has many more features at disposal. For one thing, you can turn on a "mirror" option that will make it so whatever you do to one side of the maze- automatically is added/changed on the other. Plus, the pac-dots are not on the board by default, and instead of a basic grid, the spaces are constructed by tiny white dots, showing where a wall/pac-dot/power pill can be placed. The best thing about Champ Ms. Pac-Em? you can change the colors of the dots, maze walls, and maze wall borders. Apparently again, since Ms. Pac-Man had a larger amount of colors for their mazes rather than just sticking to the plain blue in Pac-Man, is why no such feature exists in World's Biggest Pac-Man.

Plus, why is the left side of the mazes one block larger than the right?

Now let me show you another maze with some different, but equally stupid situations.

This apparently is another maze that looks simple, but has some great dis-advantages. First off, the level consists of only four channels of pac-dots, all leading to the four side-exits to other mazes. Unfortunately, the north and south exits are not present because there are no mazes connected other than the ones on the left and right sides, or you didn't spend enough time in the maze you were currently in. So if a ghost were to trap you inside one of these halls, you're screwed, and have no way of escaping, unless there was a warp tunnel that leads you to another maze, but even with that, you'd still want to remain in the same maze until you clear it. Too bad though, that the creator of this pathetic maze was too stupid to move the power pellets out of their starting position, leaving this maze un-passable. Yea, if a regular pac-dot was trapped in such a scenario, the game wouldn't let you even submit it. But with the power pellets, no such thing. Doesn't this guy even know you can delete, add, and move up to 10 of the power pellets?

Here's one of my earlier mazes which is very "open". But unlike the default map, the pac-dots in this stage do not run throughout the entire level. They are only placed on the tiles right next to the walls. Plus, there is a dead end on the bottom left, but note that's it's two blocks in width rather than one, so if you time your moves right with only one ghost on your tail, you can escape unharmed.

Compare it to the sixth "strange" maze from Tengen's Ms. Pac-Man on NES. Let's review- Open stage, pellets mostly placed next to walls, you can figure out the rest.

Now let's talk about the map itself. As I've stated, it's made of about one and a half thousand levels, with a good number of them being crappy default/unfair mazes attached together to form some kind of picture, or spell out a word in the mazes themselves (often leading to dead-ends). But generally, all of the mazes combined, are as I would describe it, a giant island with a tower leading into outer space, a stairway leading to hell, and various docks and piers. But for the mazes with dicks/naked women/swears and cusses/sex-talk, people report them, and they're removed, leaving behind a blank mass of space, and any entrances to it are sealed off until a new maze is created in the same spot. This creates a lot of "holes" in the island/tower, and totally screws up all opportunities for the player to complete additional stages, and venture from the bottom of the "tower" to the top without re-loading the menu and selecting the next stage up, resetting the player's score. Plus, it can be quite difficult to navigate through the large assortment of mazes since first off, you may not know where the heck you are. Would it kill to have a map system on the right-hand side of the screen which shows the stats for the current maze and the maze's author? Heck, The Legend of Zelda games and even the Japanese-only Eggerland/Adventures of Lolo games had a map system, so why not one for a dungeon explorer like this?

So now that I've discussed the problems with World's Biggest Pac-Man, let me summarize some cool enhancements that this title could undergo.

*Have some local/online multiplayer, both co-op and competitive variations.

Competitive mode allows up to four players to battle it out on a single maze, voted out of a selection of a random five. Competitive mode plays like a scaled-down version of Pac Man Battle Royale, where the players try to consume as many pac-dots as they can, and if they obtain a power pellet, they can chomp on the other players, which turn blue with an outline of their main color.

*Fix the editor, add "erase all (no pac-dots)," "mirror," and "change color," options to the editor, extend editor time by thirty minutes, add additional column on right side.

Per above.

*Allow us to modify and/or erase our own mazes.

If we are the author of a particular maze, we should be able to make whatever change we want to it. As long as that spot still contains the user's maze reserved to it, they should be able to fiddle around with it unless it were removed for obvious purposes.

*Allow us to add walls attached to the Ghost Pen. (optional)

Currently, the editor does not allow us to place anything next to the Ghost Pen. But if we could construct walls that are attached to the west/east/south parts of the pen, then it would be quite a cool addition. But we are still forbidden from placing anything on where the bonus fruit and Pac-Man spawn (the later which can be moved horizontally, granted it's still underneath the Ghost Pen.

UPDATE: Speaking of the pens, players should be unable to trap the ghosts by building walls isolating the Ghost Pen. Note that by doing that process means players can't obtain the bonus fruit/item that appears once a specific number of pac-dots are eaten.

*Pac-Man and the Ghosts start facing left, not right.

Play any major Pac-Man title.

*Incorporate a ratings system and a policy to remove low-rated mazes.

Per someone who had previously commented on a blogpost Soap Creative made not too long ago, I think it would be fit to (besides increasing the moderation power of the moderators) give each maze it's own ratings system where one can rate a maze on a scale of 0 out of 5, for both Difficulty and Enjoyment. If the maze remains a low score after a good number of ratings (something that should happen to those shiddy default mazes), it is automatically removed from the public listings, and from there can only be played by the one who designed the maze via a separate area not connected to the main game. Speaking of...

*Give us an option to mark mazes created by the currently logged-in user with a different color, and an area containing all maps of one user.

Trust me, My mazes are BURIED in the clusterf^#k of mazes. When you create a maze, there's no way to from the "navigation" window, distinguish it from all the others from other users. When I'm logged in, mazes I design should have a lighter shade of blue on the map screen than the others I didn't design. If they can mark "reserved" parts an bright orange color, why not mazes I created?

Also, I think there should be a way to quickly search for and play a maze from one specific user. That's why I'm suggesting that after we design a maze, it is added to a separate "island" that only the creator can access, and contains all his/her user-created mazes. They can be re-arranged in any fashion and played to their heart's desire, but detaching the mazes to make some un-reachable is not possible.

Increase the resolution of the sprites.

Pac-Man and the ghosts all look like crud- their sprites are very scrambled. Why can't it just be the basic Pac-Man sprites enlarged by 2x?

And by far, probably my most anticipated addon:

Increase the variety of ghosts and bonus fruit, and add more maze features.

Really? Only 8 types of "fruit"? Only four ghosts? This game was made 30 years after the first appearance of Pac-Man himself, and they couldn't get creative with the ghosts and fruit types and such?

Over the years, there have been nine major ghosts that I remember. Blinky, Pinky, Inky, Clyde, Sue, Funky, Kinky, Spunky, and Tim. And the counterpart to Champ Ms. Pac-Em, called just Champ Pac-Em could have as many as six; the initial four, a violet one that was very slow and had completely random movement (with dazed eyes), and a green one that apparently was a tad bit smarter than Blinky. Then there was Pac-Mania, which depending also, depending on which level the player is on, Sue, two Funkys, and a single Spunky. The original (late 1990's) Pac-Man Arrangement contained Kinky, a yellow ghost wearing glasses that merge with other ghosts to give them special abilities, which meant more points for Pac-Man if they were eaten. Tim isn't really an official Pac-Man ghost, but he appeared in Jr. Pac-Man as Clyde's replacement, much like what Sue originally was in Ms. Pac-Man.

Basically for World's Biggest Pac-Man, players should be able to choose from four to six ghosts to appear in a maze at one time. Blinky must always be present in the maze, starting above the ghost pen, three start inside the ghost pen, the fifth ghost (if present) enters through the warp tunnel opposite of Pac-Man's current location in the maze after 1/2 of the pellets have been consumed, with a warning sign accompanying such action, and then after 3/4 of the pellets are gone, the sixth ghost (again if present) enters in the same fashion.

The ghosts I would like to appear, and their suited personalities:

Blinky - Chases Pac-Man, speed increases if player takes too much time to finish the level.

Pinky - tries to head to Pac-Man's next destination, and also tries to run directly into Pac-Man.

Inky - Similar to Pinky, but only tries to go directly into Pac-Man's front.

Clyde - Sometimes random, but still chases Pac-Man.

Sue - Similar to Blinky, but instead increases intelligence as time goes by

Funky - Basic ghost, no speciality. Tries to chase Pac-Man directly, but is somewhat slow.

Kinky - Tries to be next to other ghosts.

Spunky - Similar to Funky, but is a little faster.

Tim - Very fast, entirely ramdom movement.

Ghosts are valued at 200, 400, 800, 1,600, 3,200, and 7,650.

As for the "fruits", I think they should be the basic Pac-Man fruits, plus many others from various other Pac-Man styled games, both official and unofficial, starting at 100 with the Cherry, Strawberry for 200, Mango for 500, Apple for 1,000, and them each fruit accelerating by an additional 200 points (like a Melon for 1,200, Banana for 1,400, Peach for 1,600, etc.) up until the crown, which is worth 7,650 points (Namco's special number) instead of 7,600.

Additional features should include several different-colored teleports (up to four sets per level) that when used, must recharge for a few seconds (only Pac-Man can use it), manholes that also warp Pac-Man but do not require a recharge, and only two can be placed in one stage (ala Puckman Pokimon, an unlicensed arcade game), dash panels that make Pac-Man move faster if he is traveling in the same direction that the arrows are, and swap directions every few seconds, and special power-ups that double the value of ghosts until Pac-Man dies, freeze the ghosts in place (which they can be eaten while in this state), a item that causes a mirror image of Pac-Man to appear on the opposite side of the maze (like in the original Pac-Man Arrangement), or power-downs like a gumball machine that enters via an exit tunnel and moves around, re-adding pac-dots (but not power pellets) Pac-Man already consumed, and a Ying-Yang symbol that wonders the maze, restoring all pellets already eaten. (but does not appear if less than one or more than three quarters of the maze's pac-dots

So that's it. I can think of more, but I've written far enough. Soap Creative, if you read this, please take these ideas into consideration. Sorry if this sounds a little too demanding, but I really like this idea and wish I could have a little more excitement with it.

Justin? Are you a fan of Rosenkreuzstilette?

2011-04-20T16:03:00.000-07:00

I swear, I've been claimed by many not to be one of those described above. Simply put, a lot of people claim (at least to my knowledge) that I do not show any love towards the doujin series. So let me speak the sole truth.

No. I do not dislike the RKS series. True that I have said I only anticipate the series for it's roster of characters (of which 95% are female) back when I was still a nutcase, but there' more to it.

Sure I'm not much of a die-hard fan as say, those two; but that doesn't mean I'm allowed to like the series for it's good control, great gameplay, and great graphics and visuals. In fact, if you were to take out the soundtrack of super-hyped songs playing in locations they don't seem to (remember, my opinion) belong in, and replace them with music from other games and s#ite, I can get super hyped and actually like playing it.

Yea guys, I said like. Kinda hard to believe, right?

Well, as ironic as it sounds, yes. If you give me some patience and a killer soundtrack, I can get as far as the second half of the final (Iris') castle. In fact, twice I even made it through Graf's castle, and once I was able to finish the initial eight stages on one life (not really sure if I did, might have screwed up on Freudia's stage though, with the unforgiving Quickman lazers.), in the preferred boss order (Lieb, Lust, Zorn, Schw, Trau, Grol, Sich, Freu). So yea, I do like playing the game, and I am anticipating the long-awaited release of ~Freudenstachel~, the game's long overdue sequel. And I got millions of other ways that I can show my love to the series. Obviously we have the unfortunately ad-rampant Grolla's Dungeon and the dA group, both I started in December 2009, then we got unofficial unlicensed merchandise, made straight from the printer. And to start, let me show you a photo of my room.Yep that's right. This is my effin' room. And unless you're blind, you may spot the various times characters from the Rosenkreuzstilette series appear on these pics. In the bottom left, we have pics of Witchblade characters with the faces of various characters from RKS, something I have so far only posted to my Twitpic account. In the center, is a giant RKS poster of the first game's cover minus the font, and in the right, Spiritia Rosenberg appears several times in my fan-crossover images to promote her series. (Hm... Crossover series. We'll get to that sometime.) If that wasn't enough, Trauare Wrede appears alongside Bleach's Ichigo Kurosaki in a spoof image of Tron: Legacy. But hey aside from that, Spiritia, or should I say Spirisane (No, NOT going to become an original character! ), is plenty represented over on the left. Think I still dislike Spiritia? Well I may not think she's the best female of the series or in general, but I don't flat-out hate her as I used to to the point where I put up all of these pictures of her being tortured.

So let me just clarify, I will always be a good fan of Rosenkreuzstilette, it's characters, and it's games, and never will I stop liking it, despite how much the English fanbase may dislike me, falsely claiming me to also still be a troll. I just hope that someday, I can actually get into a friendly little convorsastion with WOMI, the series' character designer, then I'll pretty much be in the "cool".

Something about a strange poster in an ancient flash animation... or something like that.

2011-04-08T13:28:00.000-07:00

Yea, you can tell I use this blog to ask for s#it. Shut up.

But this is something I wanted to know about for a long, long time.

Here's the jist. In the half-a-decade old flash animation Donkey Kong Country 1 1/2 (yes, Donkey Kong Country, the series that recently got s*at on by Retro Studios) by the pretty much now defunct flash animator Alexabbe, or EnjoytheMovie, there is a scene that pretty much caught my mind.

During the chat with Dixie and Funky Kong halfway through the film (the seventh chapter), in the background, tacked onto a palm tree, is a poster for a possible anime/manga series. Thanks to Photoshop, I cropped the image and distorted it into the (almost) right shape, so I can better showcase it.

Anyone got a clue of what this image is of?

A'sA: ODB: Update after SUCH a long delay.

2011-03-25T14:31:00.000-07:00

Go read it!

Another update...

2011-03-10T12:04:00.000-08:00

Well, diddle-do everyone, look who decided to log on today and write up some shite.

As for my life thus far... not so well. Though every once in a while something worthwhile will pop up, mostly it's nothing but well;.. nothing. I am working on some artwork (Toshi from my own series, Aozora's Adventure to be exact) and have recently commissioned or are in the process of commissioning several great talents on deviantART. I've also been spending some time on Farmville, unfortunately because I have nothing to do. And since my neighbor list is lacking, I haven't been able to do much in terms of receiving rare items and so forth. If you guys do have a Farmville profile and want to be neighbors with me, just go to the link to my Facebook page below, shoot me a friend request (be sure to specify that you came from here, otherwise I may reject it), wait for me to accept it, then fire a neighbor request right back, and bang, you're there.

Now let's focus on other things. For starters, if you've been to deviantART since last week and checked my journal, you probably saw that my somewhat sheer friendship with ViperAcidZX was shattered due to me joking around with him on his birthday. And as such, he has blocked me from all interaction with him on pretty much every site that both of us have an account on. The day later I tried resolving the issue by writing up a long-ass journal in hopes that Viper may stumble upon it. It's a little harsh here and there, but as with how he has treated me throughout my career as an amateur artist, I'd consider it "karma" to him. Since the topic has spread on for about a week, I've taken better matters that me, my friends, and my fans don't get concerned about the situation. Hopefully one way or another, Viper will realize that I'm not the only d*che around here, but for now, we'll see where things go in the end.

Second, I'd like to talk about me, myself and I. Once again, I apologize for my excessive lack of activity on deviantART or any other site I'm a member of. It's just as you may know, I like to do other things besides drawing, whenever it's going out with my family, pending time playing video games, and even browsing the world-wide-web. My life isn't just deviantART. I'd love to have something new every three days or so, but with how things are going, it seems as if it will be a while before I can accelerate on my work basis. Until then, keep patient everyone. I'm sure it will all work out in the end.

So that's it for now. As a bonus, I'd like to present you with the current collection of Mario Hacks Series Recordings, now loaded with music from nineteen different Super Mario Bros. hacks.

Download

Everything you could possibly want in an Angry Birds press kit plus more.

2011-02-22T18:01:00.000-08:00

Yep, I recently got the PC version of Angry Birds, and just to show you how much I love you, I decided to post a full, complete rip of everything you'll see in the current version of the PC/Mac OS X versions, just so you don't have to go searching through the resources folder or waste your trusted buck-a-ros.

But let me just cut the BS and give 'ya the link. Warning. Contains Smiling Swine.

Click me, brawk!

The terrible but shocking truth of Rosenkreuzstilette

2011-02-12T05:39:00.000-08:00

I have been waiting for this moment for a long time. Time to talk about the doujin game series Rosenkreuzstilette and share my personal opinions (yes, mine.) about the characters, games, series, and more importantly, it's fanbase, and two of it's key members (Bare in mind that I'm not doing any personal attacks. I'm just stating what these people have done wrong in contributing to the series, and the payoffs).

First off, if you're not familiar with Rosenkreuzstilette, you're not alone. Many people in all these online communities are also unaware of the series, and that's what makes it so obscure to many of us. Just to recap, Rosenkreuzstilette (or RKS is the title is just so confusing to spell) is a doujin soft series created by Japanese circle [erka:es], whose main (and only) employes are Isemiya, the game's main programer, and WOMI, the series' main artist, character designer, and graphic artist. Outside of RKS, WOMI specializes in drawing adult-rated fan-artwork of role-playing games, many of whom feature Clair Lasbard from Square Enix's Star Ocean series, whom I personally describe as WOMI's prime idol. Together with Isemiya, WOMI travels to Summer/Winter Comiket every August/December to sell copies of RKS and his own fan-doujins, all for a profit. At the time, this was the only way to get Rosenkreuzstilette, but in Summer 2009, the circle released a digital version of RKS for download on an adult site called DLsite, one of few places where you can post manga/video games you created and host them for a profit even if you didn't design anything in it from scratch w/o getting yo' ass sued to high heck.

So now that I told you a bit about the series and the two responsible for starting it, let's begin with what the first game is, and what it is about. Released on New Year's Eve in 2007, the original Rosenkreuzstilette, which was initially created as an adult game, ended up transforming into a full-out Mega Man clone that took Spirita Rosenberg, a blond-haired hazel/green-eyed woman (whom I think is around 20yrs. old.) in a world where superpowered- human beings were hated upon, on a quest to stop her teammates, whom are part of The Blades of the Rose Cross, which is a organization consisting of all the major protagonists, all 97% female, who go unexpectedly against her in an effort to start a holy war. In traditional Mega Man style, you go through a prologue stage, then against Spiritia's fellow Magi, then to two castles where you fight off the last bosses, and face the game's main antagonist, Iris Sepperin. For a clone, it works, but of course, there are some things that set it back. The first game in the series succeeded in telling a well-detailed storyline, presenting us with a bunch of beautiful and colorful characters, introducing a lust-filled environment filled with ruins, castles, and towers (Castlevania, anyone?), but fails at presenting an original (even semi-original) experience, featuring character/level/gameplay traits that are taken directly from Mega Man or one of it's many spinoff series, among other titles (Don't believe me? Check out the Game over screens). Now I know these constant "references shoved into your face" are supposed to be somewhat "nostalgic", but these don't help much.

Now I have to mention the music in the game. Yes it is quite a good OST for a doujin game, and I wouldn't mind having some of the tracks on my iPod, but their way of utilizing the BGM and the time they're used kills the whole thing. Take the stage BGM for Zorne's stage, which is very upbeat and joyfull, and place it into a lava-filed cavern filled with boiling hot magma, and then the boss theme, Upbeat during an epic fight? Oh don't get me started. Get the point? Just doesn't work. But that's not to say it didn't work with the other BGMs in this game, like Luste and Grolla's, which their music perfectly fits their stages.

So now that I gave you a little info on what I think about RKS, it's time to summarize what my final opinions are. If you're a die-hard Mega Man fan and enjoy lovely anime girls, you'll probably enjoy this title. If not, then you'll probably be bored with it and find it repetitive once you reach the first castle. Overall, not bad, but nothing special. I give it a 7.4/10, or 74%, which is a passing grade. I know other people have given much higher scores to this game, but remember, everyone has their own opinions about games. Hopefully the upcoming sequel, Rosenkreuzstilette ~Freudenstachel~ will fare better than it's prequel in terms of originality and value, but we'll see in August.

Perhaps now you'd like to hear what I think about the fanbase to this wonderful series? Well, first to mention, is the bonus content the staff were happy to present. We got a bonus hidden game, some promotional artwork. and... that's it. No fansite kit w/ downloadable renders and logos, no wallpaper/icon downloads, no concept sketches, no nothing. I know not every series needs to have bonus content, but it would be at least nice to see some more content from WOMI than him just pushing out concept art. We did get a preview of Trauare's RKSF sprite and a sketch of Iris, but other than that, zilch. Not even we are able to contact them easily. They have a mailing system right on their site, but they only rarely reply to fan mail and messages, never will they do all of them, no matter what the prime subject is.
In terms of what the fans have produced, not so well either. Now to be fair, RKS isn't and will never be as popular as the widely-recognized Touhou Project, because RKS is younger, has only one game, has roughly around 15 characters that actually have key roles in the series, but for some reason, I prefer Rosenkreuzstilette. I dunno maybe it's the way the characters are drawn.

From what I can assume, many of you probably first herd of RKS via the popular Mega Man fansite Rockman Perfect Memories. It has an entire section devoted to the game (plus a full MP3 rip, as well as and severely-outdated page on the sequel. I'm sure before I came into town, this was the prime page to get your daily dose of RKS info, but then in December 2008, a new site arose that was entirely based on Rosenkreuzstilette surfaced. It was a blog created using Google's popular Blogspot service by good 'ol Xelamint, entitled Schwer and Schwer Alike. It seemed like a good idea, but however putting a guy like him in patrol of a site like that isn't, however. Mint is somewhat egotistic, can't take criticism properly (the previous two words came from Puistink), and only thinks the Japanese RKS fans are the only ones that actually put love into the series while the American side does barely anything to support it in anyway possible. I also suppose he, along with AmethystViper are the only ones that think they "get" RKS and know everything about it, and thus gives them the right to brag about the lack of good-quality stuff on the English side of the fanbase. Plus, Viper's fanart contest pretty much wasn't that successful and well-processed, with the concept of having each judge (there were three) select the overall best piece for the contest in terms (which the winner was hissatsukunn, the guy also responsible for designing cute & lovable Dolis Warmind) the must humorous piece (which was given to YukoHanna) and one other mitscalascionus piece.

So what do we do to get RKS more popular?

Well, first off, forming a good fanbase is a gradual process, not flipping on a light switch. Isemiya and WOMI need to keep us entertained with different products, characters and games, as well as expand on the RKS universe before they can draw in a good number of fans outside the series' country of origin, including all those excellent and well-known artists and MAD authors. Look at how long it took Touhou Project to get this popular. You expect RKS to become an instant hit *fingersnap* just like that? No. Just be patient, wait it out, and see where the series goes, hoping Isemiya and WOMI can make us remain w/ the series long enough to develop a good English-language fanbase. If not, well, you'll see. In the meantime, we can help by (attempting to) spread the word.

I spoke enough. /(v__-¡)\

Mario & Luigi DOS hack Gameplay

2011-02-03T16:43:00.000-08:00

Well hello once again everyone. This is my first post of the new month (and no, it has nothing to do with Groundhog Day, which was just yesterday).

But anyways, Check out what I scouted out on Youtube today.

This is a gameplay video of my rather short Super Mario World hack Mario & Luigi, which was my effort around a year ago to re-create the Super Mario DOS clone under the same title. Sometime after it was released, Youtuber DarkMurdoc666 did a complete playthrough of the hack, and went through all 6 of the main levels. He did miss the secret areas in several of the stages, but that's pretty much the whole purpose about secrets.

Speaking of SMW hacking, sometime in the future, I plan to gather a team and develop a much longer hack of my own w/ more levels than this one. Proving that my SMW Central account is still active and not defunct for my long inactivity.

Angry Birds Sound effects anyone?

2011-01-30T08:42:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm back requesting yet more help from my loving friends and fans, including some that don't fall into either of those categories.

So yep, today is the last day of January. It certainly took long enough, but we got there. And now that's one-twelth of 2011 done with before we move onto 2012 (and please don't make any stupid comments about the world ending in 2012 because of just a stupid movie).

So anyways, why am I here, you ask?

That's mighty flippin' right. Remember Angry Birds, the supa-hit mobile game by none other than Rovio Mobile? Of course you do. Pretty much every one does nowadays. It's been referenced millions of times on radio, talk shows and the works. Just the concept of shooting birds to their death at fat, dumb-butt pigs just to get back three eggs somehow worked, and since then, it has grown into a million-dollar media franchise with plans to make a cartoon series, a line of toys, and even a flippin' board game. Everyone just can't get enough of our little irate flock of chicks.

Buy what am I here to ask? Nothing related to Super Mario Bros. hacking (thank goodness!), but rather the following.

Earlier this month (January, if you happen to be reading a day after I post this) Angry Birds was recently given a port to Windows computers and Apple Macintoshes, which offers the same exact experience as what was offered already on mobile systems (just a bit more pricy, and 16 less levels).

But then, some people with too much time on their hands discovered a "Resources/Data" folder in the Angry Birds Mac's application folder, which contained a full sprite sheet (excluding backgrounds) and a complete collection of sound effects seen in the game. One person was willing to put the complete rip of graphics on a site, but no one that I'm aware of put up the sound effects for download (in a non-torrent format).

And you're probably wondering, why don't I just take the contents out for myself? Well, for one, and practically the only reason why I can't rip everything myself, is because my Mac does not have the newest software. Hell, not even via Software Update do I get to update it so I can get the Mac App Store, because my Macintosh is too ancient (yea, I had my Mac now since Xmas '08.)

So I was wondering if anyone who owns the Mac version (or PC, if it too has the same folder) of Angry Birds could maybe put up a download link containing all the SFX used in the game, and if not maybe direct me to an already-existing download link?

And if you're curious about what I intend to use with the sounds, just look below at the poster of the game idea I have called JAPANESE! Angry Birds.

Please read the bottom left before you go ape-s$ite, m'kay?

The continuing hunt for more Japanese SMB hacks/roms...

2011-01-25T07:31:00.000-08:00

Yea I know, another post in such a short amount of time. Man, I really need to get my a## onto deviantART and write a new journal there. But since I'm here, and because Blogger lets you put pictures and full videos into your posts, I thought this would be a better place to discuss things.

Now if you read one of my final posts of 2010, you may remember I had my mind set on a Japanese hack of the ever-so-popular Super Mario Bros; entitled Mario Evolution True 2. Now believe it or not, there is actually many more hacks that originated from that region, with a handful of them featuring altered soundtracks. Unfortunately though, with the exception of the ones posted on this thread over at board2, it seems .ips download links for the other hacks remain hidden. I believe they are present on Japanese socializing site 2ch, but the site's suggested language make it very difficult to find the hacks, and even if I was to succeed in snagging them, the .ips would probably not work because the Japanese perhaps uses a different program that's not LunarIPS or MultiPatch to patch their hacks, and thus the .ips files are not compatible with the well-known American programs.

As I had stated with Mario Evolution True 2, the main reason why I am collecting these hacks is because, besides just enjoying the levels, I like ripping the music in .mp3 format so that it can be put onto a popular .mp3 player. This I have already done with several different Famicom titles not related to Mario, but since I want to keep my collection of .mp3s growing, these are my next big plan for updating the library.

The music rips are part of a series I like to call "Mario Hack Series Recordings", which as it's name implies, is a series consisting of custom BGM used in various SMB hacks, regardless of the original author(s) of the hack. Below is a link to download the current set of 11 songs in the series, featuring custom BGM from seven different (and well-created) hacks.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=94BJCSTX

Now what's in for the future of this series? Well as of now, these are the hacks I would like to rip/record the soundtracks of following the ones mentioned above (again, besides just playing them for fun).

*NEW*SUPER MARIO ABC!!!- A difficult puzzle hack where you basically play a level as Luigi and try to get into a pipe positioned inside the B. Interestingly, the letter Z is absent.

DESIRED RIPS- Overworld

*NEW*Transformers Mario- Based on the (well-hated) Famicom title "Transformers: Convoy no Nazo", this hack pits you in control of Mario trying to rescue Luigi. There is only one level, which is a re-creation of 1-1 from SMB, except the underground bonus area which is replaced by several rooms where the goal is to kill all enemies, then enter a pipe to go to the next one. Items and enemy behavior are adjusted, and music and sounds are configured to sound like Transformers: CNN. The game can end in three different ways, but only one of them is considered a "good" ending.

DESIRED RIPS- Title Screen, Overworld, Underground

STAR REMIX- A well detailed hack where you play as a star going to rescue a Fire Flower while avoiding different colored halos. Contains 4 levels.

DESIRED RIPS- Overworld/Underground, Underwater, Ending

ELEGANCE- A decent hack that starts of as a remake of the original SMB with minor edits to graphics and excellent BGM remakes, then evolves into a difficult hack that spans 8 levels, including a spooky ninth level achieved by entering a warp zone in the first stage.

DESIRED RIPS- Overword, Underground, Toad's Path, Toad's Greeting, The Spooky 9th World, Princess Rescue

NULLPO/NULL POINTER EXCEPTION-A single level hack with custom BGM that pits Mario against Shift_JIS characters that Mario kills instantly on contact. Features the same fake pass-through blocks as Sakura.

DESIRED RIPS- Overworld, Ending

AUTOMATIC- Probably the easiest Mario hack ever, where you are constantly locked in walking straight to the right. Four levels, and a somewhat random ending.

DESIRED RIPS- Overworld

NINJA MARIO SKY- An extremely difficult hack where Mario is re-colored black and blue, and is able to move faster horizontally. He can turn in mid-air at a sharper rate, and must abuse glitches to win. Features some custom graphics, and most importantly, an epic remix of the original castle theme from SMB.

DESIRED RIPS- Dungeon

SUSIE POPAI BOSS- An incredibly bizarre six-level hack where Mario is put up against enemies with his own image. Many should recognize the Underground theme as being Geno's Forest from Super Mario RPG, but I'm mainly focused on all the other songs in the hack. I should also mention it has two different endings, with the "bad" ending being very similar to the instant-death paths from the Kamikaze Mario series.

DESIRED RIPS- Into Level, Overworld, Dungeon, Underwater, Ending

ULTIMATE BRUTAL ALL-VERTICAL- a single-level hack which features a 8-bit rendition of popular Touhou project song U.N. Owen Was Her. You constantly ascend in one long vertical level with killer jump abilities and Koopa-like enemies that instantly wake up when you stomp them.

DESIRED RIPS- Overworld

Now yes, I know many of these hacks would be considered "hardcore," and I would have excessive difficulty reaching the chance to record some of them, but I can just input the Game Genie code "AETLTK" into the emulator and I can jump as high as I want.

SONG GET! (+Cool Angry Birds Skit)

2011-01-23T14:44:00.001-08:00

Here with a quick update. I recently found out the song I was trying to describe in the previous post is actually "Ravers Fantasy" by Manian. Apparently so my expected lyrics matched only the beat of the song, but after three good years, it's good to finally be able to listen to this again, and this time actually have it on my iPod.

Believe it or not, there actually exists multiple versions of this song. The one I'm more well-known with (and probably the best one by far) is the "Tune Up" version shown below:

And because I'm a bit of an Angry Birds nut, I would also like to show off this clip from Comedy Central's tosh.O comedy television series.

Tosh.0

Tuesdays 10pm / 9c

Angry Birds

www.comedycentral.com

Tosh.0 Videos

Daniel Tosh

Web Redemption

If the above embed window doesn't appear/work, you can just go to the official page to see it.

Hunting for this one specific song...

2011-01-17T17:19:00.001-08:00

Hello once again SJTB readers. Justin here requesting more help from my fabled viewers. But first, some minor updates.

Apparently I've started playing Capcom's mobile hit The Smurfs' Village on iOS, and already it's addicting like heroin. I've played it on my sister's iPod Touch and iPad, both spending a lot of time on each unit, and so I finally I decided to get it for my own iPod Touch (which, let's be honest, doesn't have a lot of memory remaining). In fact, I ended up purchasing about 50 bucks worth of Smurfberries to level up my town faster and unlock exclusive content. So Capcom pretty much got all of my remaining iTunes balance, leaving me with only 12 cents. :B

But now we move onto the main topic at hand. Yea I know a lot of my blogposts have been questions to readers, but what the hey, let's get a move on here.

Now about four years ago, back in 2007, I saw a Youtube Poop entitled "That's the last time I'm going fishing" (at least, I think that's what it's called, because the vid is no longer available). During the end of the video, part of this one techo-styled song starts playing. By looking into the comments, I was able to listen to the full song, but unfortunately, forgot both the name, and many of the lyrics to the song. From what my brain remembers, here's what it sounds like:

This is my fantasy, nonono,

This is my fantasy, nonoNO,

Do wa be chen no wa,

This is my fantasy, nonono,

This is my fantasy, nonoNO,

FIVE FOUR THREE TWO ONE

Do wa be chen no wa.

If anyone knows what song I'm trying to figure out (or it's author), please post it in the comments; or if you haven't figured out how to comment on Blogger w/o an account, please, shoot me an E-Mail at superjustin@optonline.net.

COS3 ("incomplete") Fansite Kit now live

2011-01-12T12:39:00.000-08:00

Yep, another Shikigami no Shiro-related post. Not long ago, I asked the staff of Aksys Games (American distributor of Castle of Shikigami III) if they could assemble a fansite/press kit containing all character artwork and bust-art/mugshots used in the game, and they were more than happy enough to create one on the spot.

The contents of this kit contain all official character artwork used in various media to promote Shikigami no Shiro III, and one mugshot for each character.

You can go download the fan-kit here. You know you want to.

A little head's up about upcoming artwork...

2011-01-05T17:41:00.001-08:00

NOTE: This post may get a little suggestive. Sorry. ^^;

Yea, I'm updating the blog once again because I'd like to explain something. First off, I'm only directing this to those that have deviantART accounts, because, well, it's somewhat 15+ rated, so that means this picture will probably be tagged with MC (though I feel it's not necessary, but who cares :?).

But anyways, the reason why I'm explaining this is so that people aren't going to nag about it once I submit the artwork, because it relates somewhat to rejected content from my old, pathetic series, which I had forgotten about well over a year ago. By rejected, I mean that not long after I introduced the series around the web, these characters were soon discontinued because I just felt like not having those type of characters in the series. As I have stated over a million times in the past, Super Justin is guaranteed not to make a return, because I feel as if I wrecked lives enough with myself as an anime boy stomping around town. And besides, these characters won't probably remind you of Super Justin, although I did pair up one of the characters with Justin (which I removed from dA, and besides, hardly anyone probably saw it).

The characters mentioned above are actually nagis, female human-snake hybrids, which I designed not long after I decided to put characters from Rosenkreuzstilette into my old pathetic and sad excuse of a "franchise" (and trust me when I say this, I regret ever doing so). The main of the three, whom I called Ziki, is a busty blue/pink/violet nagi with a pink tail. She has an abundance of blue and pink body paint, a trait also shared by Kurayami, an antagonist from my current series, Aozora's Adventure. Ziki was originally intended to be one of the central love interests with my cartoon-self, but she was soon rejected in favor of me instead being interested in Trauare Wrede (yea I know, another sad and pathetic idea). I only posted two artworks of Ziki on dA, both which were done long before I joined dA, and now both images are now in storage. One of them pictured her alongside myself, and the other was just solo artwork. Once again, I'm pretty positive no one whom had a permanent grudge against my series knew about her or saw the artwork(s), but incase you did, forget that she had anything to do with or even knows about Super Justin.

The other two nagis, Lsa and Musi, were originally intended to be the offspring of Ziki, with Lsa inheriting the playfull and cheerfull personality of Ziki, and Musi being a dark, gothic figure. They both wear an abundance of body paint, again like their mother. In this re-drawing of them, I plan to discard them being daughters of Ziki, and just make them sisters or relatives. Nothing else.

So that's it. If you don't like this concept, then just keep your mouth shut and don't give a darn about the art once it's released, Otherwise, well;.. take a wild guess.

Super Mario Evolution 2 (Japanese SMB1 Hack) Info and troubleshooting

2011-01-02T10:37:00.000-08:00

Hey my friends. Today is the last day of vacation before school starts again. The snow is melting, I'm still working on Sol-Badguy (sorry it's taking so long, guys!), and now with the new year rolling in, I'm hoping things don't possibly go any worse for me. I got a new Windows computer, but I have yet to set it up entirely (works fine, just need to get internet and a few other programs on there. I also plan to buy (online) some more PVC figures using the money I got for Christmas and expand my collection of PVC figures.

But the reason I'm here, is this:

This is Super Mario: Evolution 2 (yes, a Super Mario game. No anti-Mario/Nintendo comments please), a Japanese hack of the original classic Super Mario Bros. that has a Yoshi's Island kick to it. It puts you in the role of Mario's dino companion Yoshi as he ventures through nine levels to re-unite with Baby Mario. Unfortunately, despite being able to download it, I cannot get the hack to run. I tried patching the original SMB multiple times, but with absolutely no luck, as it only leads to a black screen. There is a readme file attached with the .lzh download, but I cannot read it.

So what I am asking, is if anyone out there could give me advice on how to actually apply the IPS patch so that it actually allows the hack to run. Below are the contents of the lzh. download, as listed on my Mac. I know how the .ips patch works, but I'm curious about the other two attached files. Is there anything I'm supposed to do with them?

If you're asking why I want to download this hack, just watch this for yourselves and listen to the BGM.

BTW, if you want to download the file, go here.

It's finally here...

2010-12-31T21:19:00.000-08:00

Japanese commercials are god-Insane.

2010-12-28T18:00:00.001-08:00

Well, before the new year rolls in, I 'd just thought I'd showcase some Japanese commercials I discovered on the Web just recently.

The first few are based on a line of Japanese noodles. Why I show them is because of their use of anime-styled characters, and the continuous running gag of them morphing into more realistic anime humans at one point in each CM.

It's not the whole collection, but just my favorites of them.

But it gets crazier. Who knew Ronald McDonald (yes, the clown from McDonalds. Can't believe I'm making that kind of reference) had a son and daughter? (even is the son is capable of pulling burgers out of his behind)

Requesting more help: Where is the Dots Design Builder?

2010-12-24T08:12:00.000-08:00

UPDATE: For those of you who want a similar experience to the program I mention in this blog post, try this online virtual adaption of Dot-S.

You can also find out a little more about Dot-S by searching its Japanese name: "ドッツ"

___________________________________________________________

Hello everyone. First off before I start with the real news, happy Christmas Eve, because I want to be a nice guy every once in a while (although not a lot of people return the favor).

So anyways, recently I got back into playing with my collection of Dot-S, a Japanese toy product that had me hooked since like mid 2007, and to this day, it's still one of the best toys I've ever played with, alongside Cube World. Though the only downside is actually trying to scout out the different sets online. Because the word "Dots" is so commonly used, it took me a while before I actually found some sets for order online. I believe in Japan they are still being sold, so I'm probably going to waste some money further expanding my collection of Dot-S once I take a trip to Japan after I graduate from that rotten bag of tards known as school. Below is my current collection of Dot-S, excluding the boards and about half of the pins.

So incase your mind is having trouble focusing and keeping on track, let me explain what Dot-S are exactly. They're actually a line of toys manufactured by Tomytec/Tomy in 2005. You put each Dot (Peg) into a 16 by 16 board, in an attempt to create a picture using the pegs. To get even more creative, you can even mount multiple boards together for larger pictures. It's kinda like Lite-Brite, but much cooler.

So anyways, the reason why I'm here right now is to ask a huge favor.

Not too long ago, I discovered a Dot-S simulator simply known as the "Dots Design Builder", which offers a experience that almost is like playing with real Dot-S, but in virtuality. It offers every single pin and board color ever released, including the ones not available in the more commonly-known sets shown on the Dot-S homepage. I have it downloaded into my old piece of crud Windows (2000) computer, but I cannot pull off the program and put it on the new Windows computer I'm receiving for Christmas, nor can I download it because t he site that hosted it for download no longer exists, and when I do archive it, the download link is completely broken. I have only found one other site with details on the program, but unfortunately there is no download link. So I am asking if anyone out there who possibly has the program to perhaps upload a download link somewhere so that it can be easily accessed by everyone.

On the plus side, however, I am currently working on fanart of Sol-Badguy, the main protagonist of the Guilty Gear series. Unfortunately, I will not finish it in time for Christmas, but hopefully I'll make some decent progress over winter recess.

Aozora's Adventure- What is it?

2010-12-04T11:44:00.000-08:00

Well howdy-ya-do, everyone. It's time to say some stuff and put it here. But first, I'd like to mention that I am planning to start on a new piece of art, but unfortunately, it will be NSFW (not safe for work, a.k.a. explicit content or 18+)content, so therefore I wouldn't suggest looking at it when it's up unless you're a qualified adult. :P (To everyone that doesn't like them, don't worry, I'll be sure to put up a Mature content tag.)

But anyways, let's get down to business. First off, if anyone has seen my recent journal entry on my dA profile page, then you may have noticed that pretty soon (hopefully this or next month), I will start another contest dedicated to my own and somewhat obscure series, Aozora's Adventure. In hopes of maybe increasing the tension (and getting more entries, hopefully this time from a few professional and well-known artists), I, myself, will be giving out premium memberships (and expanding them as well, if you already have such) and dA points to the winners. If you think all the above info on the contest prizes are false, then you're 100% wrong.

The contest will simply be to draw existing characters from the series, not designing new ones. To download an image pack containing all known Aozora's Adventure artwork, both from me, friends, and fans for reference, simply click this link. It's that easy.

Now when I made a certain tweet about this on my Twitter (yes, I have one of those), someone (Michael Ingento, author of Pirate Madeline, to be exact) replied stating "no one knows what your series is, that's why." So to hopefully increase the chances of this contest being successful, I have decided to write, down below, information on the series, some of it's characters, and such.

Aozora's Adventure (planed to be known in Japan as "Journey of Aozora", written as あおぞらの旅, pronounced as A ozo-ra no Tabi), is a series created by me, which focuses on 17-year old Aozora, a teenager that lives in Japan with his friends Satoru, Zik, Sakaki, Skye, Toshi, and his girlfriend (for now) Keisha. The characters pretty much live on a normal life, unless they are helping defend Japan from a professional assassin group known as the A.C.E.S; led by a man named Joker (not The Joker from the Batman comics), and/or a league of strong, powerful witches led by big 'n busty Korayami.

To make up for and replace the family that Aozora unfortunately lost as an young child, he collaborates with Toshi to create (yes, they're somewhat mechanical geniuses) a group of eight human androids named the Jetters, which consist of Red, Higure, Beta, Simon, Britly, Kokoro, Ciber, and Moriya. In between the creation of Redd and Higure, a young homeless boy named Zidra volunteers to be the second of the nine Jetters, and he is converted into a half-android with little to no trouble, and along with the other Jetters, lives with and assists Aozora.

The series explained here was created in late 2009 following the permanent cancelation of my previous and strictly unsuccessful "franchise" Super Justin. This series consists of an entirely original cast of characters (with only slight inspirations.) Currently, there are two characters that are currently missing from the roster, both of them being members of the witch clan. One of them is reserved to be designed by deviantART user CaisBarlin69, the other, well. Not much plans yet.

So there you have it. As I have stated before, this contest is not a character-designing contest, and it also does not have no prizes. So therefore you guys will have a good reason to enter, well... if you want to enter. But if you do enter, you'll make me a very happy person. Trust me. :)

Un-Named post because I'm too lazy.

2010-11-13T04:46:00.000-08:00

Well lookie here folks, I'm updating the blog.

First off, I must state the following: Recently I (finally) created an Xbox Live Gamertag. Guess what it is: Superjustinbros. So if any of you want to find and add me as a friend, feel free to do so. I'll be pretty much playing Halo: Reach online. Why? Because it kicks bum. Nuff Said.

On top of that, I've also been playing Angry Birds on the iPod Touch. And trust me, I love it. Just as much as Trainyard on the same exact system, Angry Birds is a fantastic puzzler that will have you addicted for several days, if not weeks trying to beat it all.

I also got Scott Pilgrim vs. the World on DVD. Haven't watched it all yet (apparently due to stuff I shouldn't be mentioning.), but I plan to soon. When exactly I'm not sure, but on the bright side, I also got and played part of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: the Game.

Well, that's all for now. ^__^;;

In loving memory of a certain someone...

2010-11-07T04:29:00.000-08:00

Well, it appears as if I've got some rather (at least for me) depressing news. Gux-wrath-the-savior, one of my long-time buddies on deviantART, recently took the bullet and deactivated his account, and in the process, removed all of his fantastic artwork. And to be fair, his artwork is pretty amusing to look at. But many spectate that (no offense to anyone) another user actually drew the pictures and gave them to Gux for uploading. I don't care who drew them. Gux's account had some pretty nifty (and sexy) works, and I'm not going to let a little fact like that change my opinions of him.

So to be nice, I'm going to show some of the works that he has done in his lifetime of being a proud and successful deviant.

All images above are Gux-wrath's.

It's an epic of epic epicness.

2010-10-24T13:20:00.001-07:00

Yea, another short post. Gonna write a longer one someday. Anyways, I do have plans for my next artwork, and I'll start on it very, very, soon. And now for something completely different.

I made a Keisha one too...

The Tower of Salmon Roe Bowl

2010-10-15T09:56:00.000-07:00

Now my life is complete.

Square Enix Games you'd Love to play but can't.

2010-09-18T15:23:00.001-07:00

Well, I decided to do another topic consisting of yet more random discussion. This time, I'm going to talk about a few games from the RPG masters Square Enix that we will never see come into reality.

First up: The World Ends With You 2/Wii.

Oh yea. You are going to hear me talk on the World Ends with You sequel that will never be. Well, to be fair, I do "heart" this game to death. I mean, well, there's so much to do in that game. The plot is just insanity, and so are the characters and their designs, and I got hooked on it since I first started playing it back in late Summer 08. But with all memorable titles, what happens; People begin to spread rumors about sequels. And I know how so many people are probably really looking out for this game's release announcement, but allow me to explain why this will never surface.

For those of you that have successfully reached the ending and finished this game, you may have seen the ending. Neku is returned to the RG with his friends, he escapes from the Reapers and the Noise, and the game just wraps it up extremely well. Now for them to make a sequel would be like with (from what I've heard) what they did with the Terminator films in order for them to continue on with the series after Judgement Day. With the World Ends With You series to ever get a second game, Square Enix would have to re-establish the plot, invent some all brand new species that randomly invade Shibuya, and introduce a new set of villians while bringing back some of the originals, while keeping the main protagonists in another dimension (something other than the UG). The dual fighting system would have to be improved on to incorporate new tactics (such as combating enemies with Neku using standard melee attacks w/o the use of pins to accompany him), and several other noteworthy improvements. If it instead came out on Wii, SE would have to remove the option to control the partner and rather have him/her fight alongside the first player's character (Neku Sakuraba, unless otherwise stated) on the same screen using their own set of psychic pins. Special attacks (when both Neku and his helper perform a massive attack to damage all on-screen enemies at once) should be more varied. Not to mention, more gameplay features, like a "endless" mode, a Player vs. Player mode, and a new version of the mini-game Tin-Pin Slammer.

And so we move on to the second Square Enix game that will never be made, the Kingdom Hearts II Follow-up.

This rumored installment has gone through numerous titles, the most common being Kingdom Hearts III. Many spectate that it would be multi-platform and get released on one, two, or all three major systems of the seventh generation in video gaming.

But just as with The World Ends With You, Kingdom Hearts II concluded it's plot so well. It returned Sora to Destiny Islands, it removed the Organization XIII premaritally from the series, and reunited Sora with his childhood friends. Sure there have been two games that take place after KHII, one that is currently only out in Japan at the time I'm writing this, and one that is currently in the designing stage, but I highly doubt there will be any direct sequel(s) to the second game.

But for there to ever be a third game directly following the second, It would have to follow similar guidelines as the WEWY sequel. But probably doing so would be more or less a re-hash of the plot to the first game, having Sora getting separated from his friends, fighting off the Heartless/Nobodies/Unversed, and teaming up with Donald and Goofy for yet another adventure. While it could work if done right, no one would want to see a sequel with the same/simliar plot as one of its prequels.

I spoke enough.

OMFG yes epic Mario Kart clone me want.

Another Request/Looking for advice

2010-09-10T06:22:00.000-07:00

Well guys, I'm back. Apparently there's nothing quite new going on recently. The two first days of school were alright. Could have been a little more entertaining, but in the end, it was okay. Glad I don't have any of my classes for two periods in a row. But now. It's time for the main event.

Yes. Incase you're wondering, I'm requesting more help from the general public. And that is to get character artwork and mugshots from the absolutely epic series known as Shikigami no Shiro (or Castle of Shikigami in the US)

Basically, the purpose of this routine goes like this. If you ever have been on the Shikigami no Shiro Wiki, you may have noticed on several of the character's articles multiple artwork and images of the particular character. What's going on, is that I am trying to scout out full-body high-resolution images of the character artwork and mugshots from the second and third games so that I can use them on the Wiki.

The question is, how.

For those of you that have played several of the games in the series, you should know about the gallery mode present in many of them. Each time you see a new character mugshot, you unlock it in the gallery for further viewings, while other things (main promotional artwork) are available from the beginning. So what I want to do, is I want to basicaly use something (like a camera or program or something.) to take multiple high-quality (HQ) pictures of each of the mugshots zoomed-in as much as it will go. (this means I will have to take multiple images of one mugshot so I can attach then like the pieces of a puzzle. Unfortunately, I don't have anything I can use to take screenshots of a television's screen digitally. And I don't want to go through trying to download a Wii emulator and finding the game's ROM online. (and I'm pretty positive the Japanese PC port of Shikigami no Shiro III doesn't offer a full gallery.

As for the official artwork of the characters from the third game, yes. I'm trying to scout them out as well, with best resolutions possible. Why I say this, is because the artwork shown in the game's art section only shows a very limited amount of the character's body, unlike the second, which showed the character's entire full body. Therefore, because of that, I'm scouting out the original full-body (or at least good rips from sites with as much of the character's body revealed at once) images.

Well, if any of the above information was too complex, let me sum it up. I'm trying to get all the character artworks and mugshots so I can use them on my Wiki, and for my own personal use as well. But I don't have, like I stated, any television screenshot-taking cameras, utilities, and programs.

If anyone wants to help me out, than feel free to send me the ripped graphics at full size to my e-mail (superjustin@optonline.net), so it spares me some trouble. Or, just let me know of a good utility/camera/program that takes high-quality pixel-perfect screenshots of a television screen that is also easy to use.

There, I said what I had to say.

And now to go off-topic a bit, I want everyone to check out this person on Youtube (or should I say Failtube?). He has a totally wicked collection of arcade games.

Beginning of September message +Wii Fit mini-criticism

2010-09-01T16:35:00.000-07:00

Well, look who's here for some more news. Well, not really news, but I still would like to mention a few things.

Now that August has concluded, school is getting much closer. So starting from September 7th, I won't be active very much on weekdays, but I'm sure none of you care about my activity time on any site, so consider that little tidbit of information useless. and not important.

This is also not much important, but I thought I should throw it in anyways just for kicks. I'm also trying to loose some of the fat that's hanging around my stomach (yea, I'm one of those guys. >_>) by significantly reducing the amount of fries and soda I consume, trying healthier foods, and getting off my lousy bum and excersising more often. Wii Fit is probably my best routine, but there's only one problem. There's too few games built in (c'mon, Only 25?), the controls are often un-responsive (like for that stupid chicken mini-game Bird's Eye Bulls-eye). and the majority of the games themselves last only an extremely short amount of time. The Boxing game has perhaps the longest length (next to the Free Run at 30 minutes.) of any of the other games, but it gets too boring. Maybe if there was a lot more variety of fun, and exciting games that used the Balance Board alongside the Wii Remove with and without the Nunchuck, and improved soundtrack, then I'd like it a lot more and actually would be spending hours. on it. Also, another thing I'd like changed and/or removed is the high score table for all the games. C'mon, this isn't the type of game that even needs a high score chart. Competition in a fitness game? No can do.

Now let's talk about my current level of skill when it comes to artwork. It seems that several of my recent artworks have enjoyed quite a lot of praise compared to the ones that came earlier this year, generally thanks to the fact that I'm using Poser 8 to create the posses, then drawing over them in Photoshop. Although I'd like to also master drawing poses by hand w/o the use of such a program just incase I want to draw artwork away from my Macintosh, which speaking of my Mac, is staring to run very slowly at random moments, even if it has 163 gigabytes of space left. Although I'm using a new utility called AdBlocker which actually blocks and removes adds completely, compared to the inferior AdBlock which doesn't do the job anymore. (though it did work a bit when I first downloaded it a while ago during the beginning of this year, but not for all the sites).

Well, I got nothing more to say, so I'll end here.

Weird Japanese Novel, What's it called?

2010-08-21T19:32:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone. Thought I'd let all of you know about something that just happened to me recently.

Well, okay. Not to me, but today at a Japanese-styled festival which was mostly dancing and drumming, some girl at the stands was selling Japanese novels (alongside a few English c#ap as well) and this one at the stands caught my attention.

To be honest, I don't know WT# this is called, nor who illustrated it. Thank god it was somewhat of a children's novel (yea, I said children's, don't try to deny it.), so it does have pictures inside. And using the pictures, I was able to identify the story a bit, but right now I want to try and find out the book's title as well as the author(s), and maybe the year it came into existence. Because I just love the art style used on the novel. It's flippin' cute. (yes. I just said "cute")

Oh, and BTW. You want to know a little something? The character's appearences remind me an awful lot on another specific character that maybe is just as unknown but maybe a little more known than the characters in this novel. And I'm not going to tell you whom. If you are dying to know, I'm talking about Taizo Mote from Taizo Mote King Saga. Look it up.