The unofficial Mega Man Weapon Color Template

Hey 'ya all! I hope you had an epic holiday season. Sorry I couldn't get something planned for the holidays, but here's a something else I had on my Photobucket for some time to (hopefully) make up for it.



Ever wanted to mess with the colors of Mega Man? With this template, you can easily alter two colors and see how other poses, items, and even the life bar would be affected. Use it for whatever ideas you may have. until then, here's a few examples of this template in use.

If you can't tell, yes I like colors and messing with color palettes. That's what part of being an artist does to you.

Either I'm on a roll, or I'm potentially on the verge of setting my own trap.

-image removed, it is now considered outdated-

A little fact: After I added Isamu of Koya no Shonen Isamu, I was hoping that my brain wouldn't allow me to add any more characters to my self-titled "Crossover" series, a way for me to produce non-profit fan works/recreations of Jump: Ultimate Stars and Mario Kart 64 (titled Aozora's Wars and Otaku Kart: Kyukyoku no Akushonreshingu respectively) without falling under the mighty bandwagon. Welp, my research on tvtropes has led me to Air Gear, a shonen series that appeared in the same magazine as Fairy Tail, and in the Crossover series, is the seventy-second series selected to be represented. Its primary protagonist, Itsuki Minami, brings to mind (at least in my terms) Kohtaro Kuga and Kazuki Muto, 'cept with rollerblades and a crow by his side. His inclusion is based on Sunday VS Magazine: Shuuketsu! Choujou Daikessen, which coincidently enough includes both The Law of Ueki and Fairy Tail. However, the crossover series I've done shows Kosuke in his The Law of Ueki Plus appearance, as I've also upgraded numerous other characters represented into their most recent forms, so why not leave Kosuke off the ride? And with Fairy Tail, I've added Lucy Heartfilia as she is a selectable character in Sunday VS Magazine. So where does Gray Fullbuster go? Easy. He stays unlockable.

So from here on out, I hope to plead that the only thing I'll be doing here is improvements to existing content. If I really did continue, hell would probably freeze over.

Champ Ms. Pac-Em Maze Expansion

For anyone that plays the unofficial Ms. Pac-Man DOS port Champ Ms. Pac-Em, I got a special treat: A user-created expansion set that contains 78 additional different maze designs. Please note you must have Champ Ms. Pac-Em downloaded on your computer (or at least, in a folder where the game can be booted up by dragging the .EXE onto DOSBox if its OS is post-XP) before downloading this package, then extract the contents of the package (minus the README) into the same folder as all of Champ Ms. Pac-Em's data. Don't forget to check your computer's Program Files!

You can find the download for Champ Ms. Pac-Em here (look for v1.5, full version). If you're running in 64-bit Windows or some other OS that renders you unable to run the installer, contact me via superjustin@optonline.net and I'll send you the contents of the game in one convent zip file.

Download the extra mazes package.

Come and find me on COLOURlovers!

You can hunt me down on COLOURlovers here.

Oh, I forgot some samples.


Color by COLOURlovers

Color by COLOURlovers

Color by COLOURlovers

Color by COLOURlovers

Color by COLOURlovers

Color by COLOURlovers

Tired of Mega-Fever yet? Have a stupid sprite-comic!

Once again, big kudos to the Rosenkreuzstilette gang for making me seek out other and more original MegaMan-esque games. 

Anyways, what the title says.

Mega-Fever continues. Let's have some Crazy Color Combos!

I can't really say this is anything but an experimental project to see every possible color Mega Man/Rockman could achieve across any NES via both original games and fan mods/hacks, using all it's primary colors from the system's pallette (as they appear in NEStopia).

Since the image's size is far too large to upload onto any image-sharing site (and it'd make this blog very cluttered), you can find the image over at this link. I warn you it's a very big image.

Feel free to link the palettes to weapons from Mega Man clones that don't play in classic 8bit style and/or don't feature Mega Man as the main player's character. Or use it for whatever purpose you desire.

UPDATE: Here's one I made for Weapon Energy Pellets and Weapon Energy Capsules.

How do I see Freudenstachel?

Yea, two Rosenkreuzstilette posts in a row.

Not sure if I've really played enough of Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel to give a full heads-on review, so I'll just list my own personal pros and cons.

=Pros=

*State-of-the-art visuals, scenery and sprites.
*Great character design.
*A very in-depth storyline.
*Decent level structure.
*Music selection is much improved over the original game I found myself shedding tears of joy over Trauare's level theme.

=Cons=

*Japanese vocals got repetitive; I found myself muting them.
*Once again, enemy sprites (and some items, tiles, etc) are flat-out taken from other games, re-colored, and just scaled to a larger size. Some of these edited sprites do not fit with the gothic structure of the game as a whole, coming off as cartoonish, and it seems like it wants to cram in "I'm Mega Man 11", with stuff like Strudel's Not-Rush ice sculptures as if we didn't know this was a Mega Man clone from the start. There is a clear difference between tributes/refrencing and theft. Just see Trucks and Skulls. I see no Birds with extensive shading and higher quality in that game.

EDIT: Okay, I see where I may have gone there. Remember when I showcased Fegaman in a previous post? Well, that game uses the original unaltered sprites from both Super Mario and Mega Man, but unlike Rosenkreuzstilette, Fegaman has the balls to admit it's a non-profit fan game and credit where all its material originated, while WOMI never put in "Original Concept © Capcom and all respective owners" on the [erka:es] startup screen.

*Controls seem a bit slippery at times, especially in underwater segments. Freudia seems very heavy and hard to control in water while Cheep Cheeps (yes, the Mario enemy, with the same design) attempt to drown you. I dunno; swimming just worked out so much better in Mega Man 8.
*Schwer-Muta's level is flat out filled with trial-and-error segments, filling it with severe fake difficulty. Thankfully it's not a bad as the first game, but having to fall down a pit that looks bottomless and a quiz room that asks "What classic Mega Man weapon does Freudenstachel allude to?" somehow brings it up a notch. Real difficulty, like those featured in MegaMari, are more welcome.
*Freudia is presented with no new abilities that the protagonist of the previous game, Spiritia Rosenberg, didn't have. No crouching (ala Magical Doropie and Darkwing Duck, the later being a Capcom game), and no 8-way firing abilities (like any Contra game, or Bass in Mega Man 10).
*Taking a cue from the Mega Man X games, upgrades aside from the item that gives you Beat Strudel that enhance Freudia's power, speed, and other factors.
*Freudenstachel uses the same Mega Man 4 passwords (yes, still no proper save feature, despite Mega Man 8, 9, and 10 having such) as the original, yet follows the "Doc Robot" patterns with the Schwarzkreuz. While not what I'd like, Mega Man 3's passwords would allow support for remembering which of the four Schwarzkreuz were defeated.
*Many, if not all, of Freudia's learnable powers seem next to useless, in ways similar to Mega Man 5. This is where I mention Rockman 4 Minus Infinity, where the abilities you learn from the Robot Masters in this game are true upgrades over the Mega Buster, with at least one advantage over the weapon you start with, thus making you want to use those when necessary rather than sticking to your default weapon. Try for yourself and see what I mean.
 *In contrast, any weapon should have a good effect on any boss, with each having resistances to specific (between zero to two) weapons and a weakness to one weapon, which this one weapon should deal double damage.
*A pop-up help screen should be present detailing all the nooks and crannies of every power up accumulated thus far, including upgrades if present. See Rockman 4 Minus Infinity.
*No W-Tank (recovers all the energy for one weapon) or S-Tank (recovers all life and weapon energy for all weapons) support, just your basic E-Tank.
*Lack of shops, present in every Mega Man game since 7.
*Lack of any additional game modes, the biggest being "Challenge" and "Endless". Has WOMI ever played the ninth or tenth Mega Man games?

Just a quick reminder, these are my personal opinions, and I'm sorry if you don't like them. But as I say with people making Breakout clones, it would really, and I mean really help if you played more than just the official Mega Man games and maybe one or two fan clones. Rosenkreuzstilette was the first of the series, so it was fair to expect so little. But there was a massive four-year gap between this and Freudenstachel, so I was hoping for some true balls-to-the-wall gameplay that at least gave out new enemy types with appearances not used by Nintendo or Capcom. While I did enjoy getting it, and it does have it's moments of fame, the first few minutes afterwards of playing and having to think "Knockoff graphics" and "Unimproved concepts" killed the joy for me. Honestly, a big disappointment for me after all the hype, but that's not to say others, like yourself won't enjoy it. If you liked the original you'll certainly love the second, but as for someone that had to mod the first game to get some enjoyment, I can't really say a vanilla Freudenstachel is for me. -___-

Here's your Freudenstachel fan-made fan kit.

Every graphic from the game in one convent download. All else I mention; I do not want to get a good old C&D for pirating copies of the original game. If you want it badly but are unable to reach DLsite for the stupidest of reasons, there's not much I can do but recommend other Mega Man clones or at least ones with a similar but not identical gameplay style.

http://www.mediafire.com/?899gf5w90n92i5q

Oh yeah, a one-panel fanfiction. Should be tolerable, especially considering how the girls speak in their native language.

What?, you thought they were going to be talking in Japanese?

How NOT to "update" an iOS Game.

Seems as if some don't know how to give out changes to games without destroying the feel of prior versions. The subject for today is Atomic Ball from Meritum Soft, which recently turned from an addicting and appealing Breakout clone to a cash cow money-sucking creature with a similar gold/currency system alike hits such as Temple Run, Draw Something, and the Circus Atari reboot, requiring you to pay much more than you would have before just to unlock all its features.

See for yourself, an epic(?) comparison of 1.0 and 2.0.

Freudenstachel: DISCO NIGHT START

Yep, THE Rosenkreuzstilette sequel Freudenstachel is finally live. And I personally found it more enjoyable than the previous game.

I'm not giving out full opinions until I play enough of the game, but a quick summary: Music is much more fitting into the levels than before (of the ones I played thus far), and WOMI even inserted a few Super Mario Bros. references alongside the plethora of Mega Man ones. Now if only there was a proper crouch mechanism as well as a standard save feature so I don't have to take screenshots of the password screens.

But that's not harming the fundamentals in any way. Give it a whack, I say, we waited four years for this!

Collect your copy here. Just please don't go messing about the site and stumble upon a NSFW section.

Freudenstachel; LETS PARTY

Corrected a few things based on advice from TDOMMX.
And corrected some more.


After me and many others having to wait four years through development hell, the well-hyped sequel to Rosenkreuzstilette will be released this Saturday. And even if I'm not demonstrating my levels of excitement as much as most of the fan base, I am eager to dive into Freudenstachel and give it a closer look.

Keep in mind I'm not going to play just one level and then write up a negative review with no valid criticisms present, as I did for the first game, I'll give an in-depth look though the prologue stage and the initial eight levels (planning to conquer at least half of them, either up to the boss or boss included) before I cite my opinions. And before you ask, I do have early thoughts on the game based on pre-release screens and information (many of which I got from following the blog Schwer and Schwer Alike) which I'll go over quickly in my own perspectives.

The game, as you probably all know, is a Mega Man clone playing under the viewpoint of Freudia Neuwahl, whom was a boss in the first Rosenkreuzstilette (and the only of the eight to share unique traits and have a significant place in the plot), going on to battle a crew of black-magic users (Word along the Grapeline calls them "Dark Magi") known as the Schwarzkreuz, or Black Cross, led by Pamela Arwig, in addition to dealing with the same girls from the first game Spiritia Rosenberg had to defeat herself, alongside newcomer Dolis taking the place of Freudia in an all-new environment raging with plant-life and Guts Man lifts. All the levels of the returning characters look similar with almost identical tile sets, but with new layouts, making Freudenstachel seem in ways a "1.5" entry and in others a true sequel.

Excluding Liebea and Schwer-Muta, the other Magi users have undergone a "timeskip" in their clothing, now being presented with more advanced outfits (i.e. Trauare Wrede looks more like a warrior, Sichte Meister shreds her clothing for no reason, and Grolla Seyfarth, another fan-favorite, gets upgraded armor and now carries the sword of her deceased grandfather, Raimund Seyfarth, which Raimund's spirit possesses. And of course not to mention the implants. *slaps myself*. Rather than taking their weapons ala Spiritia, Freudia upgrades her main weapon, the Freudenstachel, by combining it with one of her friends' after they fall, thus transforming it into a new weapon (aside from changing the color of Freudia's hair ribbion and cross-shaped blood-stain). Fans speculate that Iris Sepperin, the final boss of the original will return, and much like Grolla from the first game, Black Cross leader Pamela Arwig will become the protagonist in her own side-quest.

This is where my words may become slightly more severe, but please keep in mind I'm not trying to do any harm to the series in any way, just voice my thoughts. For one thing, while perhaps doing the following crucial to the story and the Dark Magi's plans and having new attack methods, why reuse seven of the eight initial bosses when you could have said bosses being new recruits to the RKS, with ID numbers RKS10-12, and 14-17 respectively? With how well WOMI designed the original cast and how many talented Japanese artists volunteered to create Strudel, Dolis, and the entirety of the Black Cross back in '08, the addition of new characters would enable the series to expand further, but in defense, this does spark some "quantity over quality" issues where it's better to have a few characters done well than a bunch with little to no proper backstory given, thus preventing us, the players, from connecting socially to these new characters. If anything, the Black Cross could be larger with five additional members, the runner-up eight (of course including Eifer, Schirach, and the Refrakita Twins) serving as the main bosses with Pamela Arwig afterwards in her own fortress. Again to speak out against myself, this'd render Dolis useless, making her a throwaway character at the last second, and with all this drama about Freudenstachel's tough development process, I'd say not waste a good character. Bottom line, I say keep things the way they are. so we don't have to go through another two seasons of guessing and crazy rumors. Just hope it's done right so the fanbases don't go raging on like Legends 3. Seems Capcom is really diving into some deep chit, so now we need to have the fans fill in after the great Inafune departed from Capcom.

I'm not going to bring up the whole "it's unoriginal bla bla bla" scenario, as I've said what I need to more than enough, whenever it be deviantART, Twitter, or this very blog. Though to add fuel to the fire, one other source for how a proper Mega Man clone could be done right, are all these ROM hacks of the original sextet of NES Mega-Man games, regardless of if it's a Japanese or English person doing all the modding, though for this instance, the one I'm going to bring up is Rockman 4 Minus Infinity, which features a good number of unique twists to the original formula, such as the sloped surfaces that normally didn't come until Mega Man 8, Quick-man lasers that don't kill immediately but appear a little quicker (whenever this is good or bad is up to you) and shorter wait times between death and restarting a level. And not to mention the custom soundtrack for Minus Infinity, while not original compositions, fits very well with their assigned stages. Other hacks would induce alternate game modes, like the "Endless" series that puts you through random rooms where the goal is to survive, and not to mention time attack in Mega Man 9 and 10.

With non-hacked games, there's Fegaman. Just Youtube game footage and just see how heart-pumping it is. Or just look below.



On a similar topic, I want to bring up that a while back, I figured out how to create mods for the original game with the assistance of TDOMMX's RKS Data Archive Decoder and some guides from Ravy Comics (Link to his RKS pages), mainly music and sound modifications, to ones that were a little more intense and went with the stages a single tune was assigned to. A few examples as to what this mod did are below.

*The sound effects are changed to ones that sounded more realistic, and when a Magi user fired off her weapon, the sound it makes is like a basic real-life gun being shot. Later versions eventually had me using equliveant sounds from both Mega Man and Darkwing Duck, though long after I decided against it, as the realistic sound effects made me chuckling every time I fired off a weapon.
*Zorne and Sichte's stages use music from both Super Monkey Ball and Super Monkey Ball 2.
*Schwer-Muta uses the factory music from Kirby 64.
*the Iris Palace bosses use the "armored boss" theme from Super Mario RPG.
*Others I don't really recall from memory, but all the songs were defiantly modded.

Soon after I posted the modded OST on Grolla's Dungeon, so anyone who owned a non-pirated copy only had to replace the needed files to execute the mod successfully. The download itself wasn't the full game, and I never intended on posting the game as a whole. The most I'd see myself doing is just posting everything in the game's "data" folder that could be modded easily pre-decompressed, no .exe file or anything like that.

With that said, Freudenstachel contains files compressed in a different format, which makes the RKS decoder useless in attempting to extract everything. Via e-mail, I got in touch with TDOMMX, and based on what he stated, the Decoder will not be updated due to the extensive amount of piracy the tool had inadvertently caused (Why work on something that'll make it worse?) Even if I could somehow rip all that the game has without some complex tool and still mod it for my own enjoyment, I'd keep the mods to myself if it's for the goods of the bigtime followers of the series' development, and I respect TDOMMX's final thoughts on the scenario, not wanting to force him into a very detailed project. Unmodded or not, I'm sure Freudenstachel will still remain enjoyable even without me gutting everything out.

I'm leaving one final song to end the post.

Not tired yet? Here we GO~~~

Well suprise suprise. This blog's going to get another update. But first, some info regarding the "Aozora Nudity Omake". Once again, this blog is meant to be for all audiences, so for anyone interested, refer to a prior post for proper information. Why I'm bringing this up is ever since I first posted on this series, I added three more characters to the roster, but unfortunately for many, this is an all-men update, as you can probably see below.

Since I want to avoid making Super Justin: the Blog dedicated to this one subject (and quite frankly a pesudo-weak one at that), this will be the only other time you will see me posting in regards to the Aozora Nudity Omake. If you're in dire need of receiving any character updates past Neku Sakuraba, Kohtaro Kuga, and Dante, representing The World Ends with You, Shikigami no Shiro/Castle of Shikigami, and Devil May Cry respectively, I'll gladly keep anyone that contacts me via e-mail (superjustin@optonline.net) informed on either male updates, female updates, or both. And since I tend to do these types of art at a faster pace (since well, they're done for mostly my enjoyment, but I still show them off for anyone that is into these as well), I may be able to accept character recommendations. Keyword: May.

So that finishes up that story arc. But I'm not done. As I reported on Twitter, I seem to be going through a severe artist's block thanks to the Nudity Omake series. This is causing me to have a bit of trouble on which character of the Aozora's Adventure series I could attempt next that just about anyone could enjoy. Of course it very likely will not be one of my female characters since all of the major females of the series are already done. I am leaning towards Keanu, since his simple appearance may make it a bit easier to accomplish drawing him in comparison to a few others (I won't state any examples). And it'll be your basic profile art. No sexy action scene, though I'll try to do a decent background that's not some abstract design. If you want anything sooner, you can follow my other projects on external sites. I'm sure you're bound to get something if you search my name.

Pay attention to what gets inside your magic gauntlet.

Made for Rosenkreuzstilette ~Freudenstachel~'s hyped up release in exactly two weeks from today.

Aozora Nudity Omake. The Basics.

Take note I still want to keep this blog as a whole PG-rated. So I'm only going to display the parts that can be considered "safe for work" on this blog.

As anyone that probably knows about me on deviantART, recently I had posted last month two images; combined featuring eight characters of my home series, Aozora's Adventure entirely nude with enlarged butts. The first of these was dedicated to male characters, the second featured female characters (and was drawn so people would avoid spreading rumors that I may be homosexual. As an artist, I accept the structure and beauty of both genders.)

To avoid criticism regarding these being put on deviantART in excess numbers; I'm going to privately distribute future entries via e-mail upon request from anyone interested. Just e-mail me (superjustin@optonline.net) and specify which characters you'd like me to send for your enjoyment. At this moment, I have Ichigo Kurosaki from Bleach, Nami and Nico Robin from One Piece (the series' logo appears twice because Ichigo splits them), Neuro Nogami from Majin Tantei Nogami Neuro, Masane Amaha from Witchblade, and Madeline from Pirate Madeline, the last of these being a webcomic I read regularly, alongside T.L. Welker's Heartcore (whom it's protagonist, Amethyst Lashiec may get the treatment of this series early on, unless Word of God doesn't recommend it). I can send you renders of all of one specified gender, one character; or the whole lot. Of all things, please tell me if you're legal age to view these, I don't want to give these out to minors. :B

For ones questioning why the men have feminine butts, these are mostly done for my personal enjoyment, not to be taken seriously, but I'm still displaying these so others can see what I'm doing in my spare time, and this could count as filler while I try to figure out which of my characters I should draw next in basic, safe-for-work form, with shading and everything. I promise this will not become the only thing I'll do until the day I die.

Not-so FUN FACTS: I'm still sick with the coughing up mucus and everything, and earlier the day I'm typing this, two of these stupid water beetles invaded my air conditioner, and I ended up ripping apart my window so I could spray just about an entire bottle into parts of the window. Didn't work, so I relied on myself to exterminate the little pests, only to leave my room smelling up badly; and now I'm freezing while I try to air out the rotten smell. I don't think it's helping.
A real FUN FACT: Rosenkreuzstilette ~Freudenstachel~ is stated for release on October 20th, but I will be unable to mod it with a new soundtrack and less asian-esque sound effects since the decoder from TDOMMX of Darkside Translastions cannot be updated to support it. I believe purchasing a digital copy online will net you some extras, like bios for the characters, as this sample of Luste's profile shows.

Bayonetta's Back, and the fans couldn't be any happy.

Really couldn't be happy.

For a little over a week, people everywhere started hyping up the sequel to the immense 360 and PS3 hack & slash game, featuring the return of everyone's favorite black-haired witch that can turn any scenario into a day down at the strip club. However, given that the original Bayonetta wan't on the Wii, fans in my eyes presumably only wanted the sequel on those consoles that people only say are superior to Nintendo's thanks to the graphics and lack of any tacked-on motion based gameplay, and let's not forget the "childish" themes.

I'm going to bring up here that the Wii U is rumored to be many times more powerful than either the 360 or PS3, which means room for more scenery and unnecessary animal transformations that'd cause you to launch yourself off when you're performing endless cartwheels to avoid enemies. Plus, if this is the treatment something like Bayonetta is being given by fans, why they're not picking on Rayman Legends is beyond me.

As you can tell, I'm more of a Nintendo guy than a Sony or Microsoft one. Granted I do like all three companies as the developers that work for them produce one solid A title after another, But even if I could still get the sequel had it been released on any of the big three, I'm kind of in favor of Nintendo publishing the game onto their upcoming console since after all, they've been getting a backlash (at least in my perspective) ever since the original Wii first came out, since it wasn't as powerful as either of it's competitors; and many of the third party titles released early in its life were below average at best, and their quality wouldn't be increasing until well after Microsoft and Sony already established a healthy fan-following. Take your pick on whenever this ended up in your favor or not.

I'm not sure if I'd really get into playing Bayonetta 2 since I kinda lost faith in the original only after the fifth chapter and finding out the game's crazy length; It runs 22 chapters from what I've read online, and the strict Medals system didn't help. You die maybe twice or more in a single chapter, you're doomed to getting a Stone trophy. And to be entirely fair, you could get higher through constant re-playing of the chapters to understand all those "Press a Button to Avoid This" moments and increase your health and library of moves. Regardless, I may very likely still buy the game since, well, it's Bayonetta. Even if I don't play/watch/read something, I'll still have it for when it goes out of print.

Hopefully this new installment isn't going to star an entirely new-looking Bayonetta like with what happened with the Devil May Cry series, even though Capcom would still end up using the original design of Dante for Project X Zone. Whoops?

Get your OtakuBall Resources here!

I know I had said this would be a standard post, but I believe a series of image files and word documents should be able to do more justice than a post that stretches out for infinity.

Download it here.

Oh, and for all of you that are making clones, don't just play Breakout and Arkanoid; try the other clones and see what features work for you and which ones don't. However, I will say this: Don't put in some kind of block or enemy (like a Skull block or such) that will lead to death because of the ball's misbehavior (only bosses and bombs that rain down from certain destroyed blocks can kill the paddle directly, enemies can only stun/freeze the paddle and misguide the ball in another direction). Also, don't tinker with the ball's speed by speeding it up too quickly into a level, and don't have unrealistic bouncing physics, like the ball suddenly reversing as it tries to go up a channel of Gold Bricks, and get creative with level design; don't just stick to levels of only one particular theme (such as animals). And to conclude, never leave out proper ball aiming with the paddle.

M-07 WARWOMAN Preview

By now everyone should know about my recent WARMAN series, which I launched earlier last July. Since then I got a brief overview of the series and the series' protagonist M-10 WARMAN posted onto my deviantART. Not long after I began work on M-07 WARWOMAN, the only of the WARMEN to be female, and the only one aside from M-08 WARMAN that remains loyal to the good guys of her team (i.e. wasn't put under control by the Parous).

I made quite a bit of progress on her design; and I'd say by now it's completion ratio is in the late 20's. Her profile art will take advantage of burning in the multiple layers of cell-shading, which I've done previously on M-10 WARMAN.

Since I'm getting "this" close to finally revealing more stuff about Otaku-Ball (I know I've already made a blogpost on it, but this one will describe all the features that will be utilized), I created this little c*appy teaser image within a pathetic timespan of 30 to 40 minutes.

Explaining "Da World Hens with U"

In the post directly preceding this one, I posted two The World Ends with You images meant to be spoofs of the series, using the character mugshots ripped from Solo Remix (which are obviously better quality) and the backgrounds from the original DS version. Since then, I made two more of these images.

Yea, The World Ends with You is just a series I can't get out of my mind. I beat it within the span of two Augusts, August 2008 and August 2009, playing through Normal up to Week 2 Day 5 and then Easy for the remainder of the game (this was long before I started forcing myself to select the normal difficulty for everything so that people don't think I'm noobish) with only 3 deaths. I defeated every Noise and Boss (except two Noise fights and one of the Kariya & Uzuki battles) in one attempt each. I simply adore it for that unlike other RPG's, you could easily survive any fight and dodge every attack, possibly coming out of a string of fights without a scratch. Nowadays I probably wouldn't have touched it due to extreme laziness, but I still beat it before such kicked in in later years. The double-character system was easy; just mash away on the Control Pad and watch the animals (that's what Noise are in most terms, but not in others) suffer.

My "report" is not 100% complete, and I have no plans of obtaining the game's Star Ranking in all categories. Especially considering how sharp the difficulty curve is if you went from Normal to Hard. But that's another story for another day.

While I doubt this'll become a recurring occurrence, Da World Hens with U are just gimmicky mugshot comics (an alternate to sprite comics) featuring obviously, The World Ends with You's cast of Japanese death-metal punk/goth-loving teenagers and adults, portraying the characters as actors with Hanekoma under the director's seat. Just like the game's Another Day, Da World Hens with U is non canon, and is also entirely fandom. The relationships between characters have changed, some have gone from enemies to playful rivals and frememies, while others... stay exactly where they are. No I'm not going to bring in any of the boy-on-boy relationships, so here are the actual pics themselves.

For this one I tried to go with the "Imagination Route" and depict all the character's dialogue as images. This is where the "changed relationships" this can really do justice, as it portrays Neku and Kariya as buddies, rather than enemies. However, Beat is still spamming death thoughts for what was done to Rhyme during the first week. The scene being depicted is Week 3 Day 5, the qurater-final chapter in the game, where Neku and Beat duel against Berserk Kariya and Berserk Uzuki, but Uzuki wasn't present at the time thanks to being stuck with "Taboo" Minamimoto right outside the Reaper's base; where here it's just Minamimoto's umpteenth attempt to woo Uzuki out of Kariya's grasp with a new look and more tattoos, but failing as he would many other time since he was introduced into the script in Week 2. Of course Uzuki isn't exactly the dumbest brick around and continuously explains she already has a boyfriend whenever Minamimoto's attempts don't go according to plan. I was originally going to put something else in Minamimoto's speech bubble, but I din't want this to become R-18. With Minamimoto's love for equations, you may get an idea on what it was initially.

One thing that I wanted to establish in Da World Hens with U was Minamimoto's obsession with pulling all the focus onto himself rather than any of the others, unintentionally making him one of the more disliked actors on the set. Here we have Minamimoto "borrowing" Mitsuki's hundred-dollar camera for doing what he does best, while the others enjoy(?) their break-time in the Reaper's hideout in-between shootings. This would probably take place sometime after the beginning of Week 2, where Minamimoto would be written into the plot, then continue to fool around with everyone else offset after  Neku and Joshua kill a mutated black lion meant to be Minamimoto's Noise Form. Can't really explain it any further than that.

When overpriced iDevice apps aren't big enough...

Now that apparently everyone is back into The World Ends with You thanks to Solo Remix, and most of the mugshots are now on The Spriters Resource, I decided to throw my hat into the ring again. with "marvelous Photoshoping skills".

FUN FACT: Yes Megumi is smiling while facepalming. Guess he just finds the concept of Mitsuki talking about her jugs impossible not to smile at.

This one is bound to be major spoilers, but everyone should know this by now.

Miyamimoto audio transcription: My, looking for this "Composer" fella? Well, he's RIGHT here!

Aozora's Wars New Flyer; also PSASBR "UPDATED"

I carefully hand-picked these out through many instances of self-error.

(Rant follows; Proceed with caution)

Hey, at least I tried to pick characters that actually can put up fights and (IMO) don't look fuguly as shit, while attempting to make a worthy successor/upgrade to Jump Ultimate Stars and keep it a short title that isn't trying to be obvious on the subject like Playstation All Stars Battle Royale even though it has characters that have gone on to appear on Microsoft's consoles (I'm looking at Big Daddy, Dante, Raiden, and Heihachi, extra deduction for featuring the new Dante), regardless of whenever or not the subjects debuted and/or remained on a Sony console. And unlike Smash Bros, many of these guys in PSASBR are characters you can't really have nostalgia feelings for, except Parappa, since many of them didn't see the light of day until about half a decade ago in the late PS2/early PS3 era, and not only that, many of them are from M-rated games.

Go ahead and defend what you want; but this is a game I don't want to play (after Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance just for featuring The World Ends with You characters). I have nothing against those series represented; but the game as a whole seems like a big 'ol sellout to every company involved, even to big boys like Capcom, Namco, and Konami, and it also just screams "Sony's answer to Super Smash Bros Brawl".

Still don't believe me on the "uninspired random characters for Aozora's Wars"? Well take a look for yourself and see how I plan to upgrade Jump Ultimate Stars into a brand new experience with characters (IMO) everyone loves.
Part 1
Part 2


UPDATE: All right, I think I really need to update on my rant. Since I think I've been going a little too far.

The truth on why I exclaimed "ugly" was in regards to the character Sweet Tooth from Twisted Metal. Kratos could come close in second, but he makes up for it with his high levels of badass and actually having a good anatomical structure. Now if only someone could buy the rights off of Sony to release a God of War game on the 360.

Everyone may have different nostalgia feelings towards certain series, such as those that were in the late 10's having nostalgia for games like Metal Gear and Twisted Metal. However some of these characters may not have much big of an impact in comparison to others as they didn't exist in the PS1 era, or in some cases, the early PS2 era.


The "Video game characters unable to fight" scenario was taken from Jump Ultimate Stars, wheras in advertisements and commercials, they'd say characters that at most only appear as supporters would be fully controllable by human input ingame. One notable character was Nube from Hell Teacher Nube, another was Sena from Eyeshield 21. The image of Aozora's Wars above displays only playable characters that would be in the game, in an attempt to counterattack JUS' false advertising.

It also didn't help that I was being fueled to write this by two people who were against my opinions of inserting the "new" Dante into PSASBR, even if he would be reverted back to classic Dante for Project X Zone, thus almost shattering the point of doing a re-design in the first place.

On top of that, a scenario that had occurred the prior day during a session of Halo: Reach, where my sister and cousin were singed into my sister's account, playing a round of TU BTB Slayer (where you respawn close to allies) on the map Hemorrhage. When she stopped to do other things, I ended up being forced to take the controller, and in a spurt of extreme luck, something I can't pull off well as I'm more of a "run around and see what happens" or not relying on stealth to be specific, I ended up going in a Wraith, driving on over to a pack of enemy players located at their base, and with careful usage of the Wraith's boosters, I KO'd five of the eight players and earned the "Killtacular" medal, and somehow hit more players after the quick spurt, scoring a Killing Frenzy medal in the process. Now of course I wasn't singed into my account on Xbox Live, so this all ended up being credited under my sister's profile. I tried to re-do the process after properly singing into my account on the same map and same gametype, but whenever I tried to drive the Wraith, other players reached it first (thanks to me not having my headset readily available at the time and also since I didn't want my cousin hearing on about my attempts at communications; Sometimes makes me wish Halo: Reach had a "ping" tool just like Portal 2.) and even when I found an opportunity to sneak in and board an empty Wraith, a player shot me down right as my Spartan climbed in. I never got a second shot that evening, and I stopped not long after, just posting things about the new Dante in Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale on Twitter since I figured no one would give a dung (as I rarely get any replies unless I mention them first) but I was wrong. T~T

Big apologies to anyone that was affected by this doing. I'll have to write up another blogpost based on my problems regarding "design by committee" as it left me the culprit of a scenario on the Spriters Resource's forums. I'll be able to solve the problems myself, but for now, I might have to greatly reduce the Otaku-Ball brick sheet to create a smaller, more simpler version that uses fewer brick types and powerups. The large version is not going to be deleted and it will remain on Photobucket; but I may have to hold out on using it in a project until I really build up a fanbase that will support roughly anything I attempt, regardless of how ridiculous the given scenarios would be.

AlphaBounce vs. Otaku-Ball

Just a minor update, but I wanted to point out that for anyone wondering, I am planning on developing a new breakout clone that you can play entirely for free. It's a tribute to many, if not all existing brick-breaking games. It will be entitled "Otaku-Ball".

Since I keep coming up with different concepts for it though as time passes, I eventually decided on dropping the AlphaBounce story mode since it contains roughly the same plot and characters. Why I had chosen to do such in the first place was that AlphaBounce's staff refused to upgrade the game further (unless it was to fix bugs) and remove some of the "stupid hard" parts of the game that would rape the knowledge one would have with vitally any other brick breaker. A thread I had started on the AlphaBounce forums regarding Otaku-Ball caught the attention of some, with negative reactions from two high-ranking players (one whom replied sarcastically), and a single positive voice from a lower-ranking someone. With the others however, they bashed the game, ignoring that it was a non-profit tribute/upgrade and said Otaku-Ball was a competitor to AlphaBounce. When I still had the chance, I tried telling everyone that despite the problems AlphaBounce may contain (in the eyes of a casual, at least, especially the hard as heck limited editor to unlock) I still enjoy playing it, though it only guarantees happiness on the right days. I also instructed those very few that actually came to enjoy the project's concepts to come on over to this blog just before I ended up getting a mild cease and desist from one of the board's moderators.

Otaku-Ball like I said, will be free to play, in that it contains block graphics and special gimmick blocks based on other breakout clones (drawn in a slightly upgraded Arkanoid style), and ship designs based on those featured in the Ricochet games. Since very few breakout clones to this day contain simple-to-use editors with a lot of features, the editor for this game will be the main selling point (without the actual selling). It will allow users to create single levels or entire level sets with support for up to 300 levels each across four dimensions/paths (thus allowing 1,200 levels per set, and that's not counting the special bonus stages you can scatter on the level set), and with the many features it'll contain, one can roughly make their own Breakout game with Otaku-ball. Users can upload, download, and share user-made levels at will with no limitations (however you cannot submit levels with NSFW content). Levelsets can also have boss fights scattered around (please no boss rushes; I promise such will be a bonus mode).

Why so many brick types will be present? Well let me ask you, do you want to create levels using features from breakout games without level editors and mix and match them to your liking? How about being able to make levels each having their own set playfield width (like one with a width of 18 blocks and another with 13)?

Aside from the main editor, a single player arcade mode (Plus available as co-op up to four players, local or online) with 648 available levels across 4 dimensions (162 levels per dimension, six of the levels in each dimension being boss levels). Over 60 enemy species across many Breakout clones will appear (once again, tribute, non-profit), and one can choose power up load outs (configuring which powerups can appear) that suit them the best incase playing with the possibly of gaining one of the many 130+ powerups proves to be too much. There is also a series of versus head-to head modes based on several Breakout variants released for the arcade, and these follow a quest-based format like the one established by the Puyo Puyo games.

I certainly hope this game being 100% free'll help in my defense. If anyone wants a list of planned power ups, I can post my current listing in the form of a text document.

P.S. Expect the same thing to happen to a Pac-Man fangame I'm going to create in the future. If Soap Creative cannot create "World's Greatest Pac-Man" even with me in the director's seat, I will.

I got my good games and my somewhat cruddy ones.

Don't be scared guys; this is just another random post based on interests and other stuff. Read on if you're curious or want to see what I've been up to. Your choice.

Either way, allow me to begin with Aquanoid. A while back I was considering that since the game is extremely rare to come across (combined with Karsten's lack of activity lately), I was thinking of uploading just the registered version of the title with the editor offered after buying the real game, and the four extra level sets being left out purposely so that one would still have to pay to receive all the remaining content the free version would lack. This version would be called the "SuperJustinBros" release, between the shareware and registered versions. But then I find Stefan, Aquanoid's other developer, and notifies how successful the game was at the time, at least in Germany. He said the game received quite a number of sales and user-created levels (even going as far as to call other games titled Aquanoid attempting to cash in on the name) and when I asked him about the possibility of creating an official sequel called Aquanoid II, he replied happily and would be honored to have me program the new game from scratch. But then comes me having absolutely no programing knowledge; only having a minimal sprite sheet and a list of planned features and upgrades to the original. Still I'm not going to drive myself to a conclusion until I hear back from Stefan, and the "SuperJustinBros" release of Aquanoid will have to be put on hold until I really get willing of asking either developer a free version that only lacks the extra level sets. Of all things considered, I wouldn't hold my hands on it.

Considering the success I had in registering Aquanoid, I attempted to score a few more shareware titles: Raoul Said's Super Ball (the deluxe version), Ivan Mackintosh's Dodger (mentioned in the September post I keep referencing) and Kurt W. Dekker's Rally-K. Of course my only method of receiving these titles was to send out a check to all three locations specified within all the different games and their associated files, hoping they'd figure out I wanted to buy a game of theirs.

Rally-K is a clone of Namco's Rally-X (not New Rally-X) that uses a few crappy stock voices and sound effects (anyone who has seen the Angry Video Game Nerd's Plumbers Don't Wear Ties review may remember the "Player Dead Boom" sound effect.) It has good gameplay and original level design (even though the rocks are placed in fixed locations and aren't really "in the way" spots, but they do change from time to time in those locations) with some homages to the original's stages, such as the infamous "box" located on the top right of the first three boards. The order of Challenge Stages has been changed. Whereas Rally-X had their challenge stages on Round 3 and every fourth round thereafter (a tradition of Namco's set by Galaga), Rally-K has a Challenge Stage every three rounds. The shareware version is configured to end right at the conclusion of Stage 7, or the first stage of the third world if you want to get detailed. The registered version continues on much further and offers an alternative enhanced version with power ups (just like Rally-X Arrangement).

Super Ball, good lord. If you thought all the smack I've said about Aquanoid was going too far; this one deserves the criticism much more. Try playing a Breakout clone not with a mouse, dial, or trackpad, but a keyboard. Yea. Then again Super Ball was released at a time where most people didn't have mouses in their computers, but it has only one speed setting, no way where (to my knowledge) holding down a particular key will slow down or speed up the paddle, and the power ups. The fricking power ups. You will not believe how many times you will see a bomb; a power down that kills you instantly, will rain down from a destroyed block. Worse is that if multiple drop simultaneously at the right time, it can block you off from the ball and force you to let the ball drop under your paddle and lose a life. Thankfully the ball does aim in more than a 45-degree angle and can be steered by the paddle, but it seems as if for everything Aquanoid does wrong, Super Ball does right, and vice-versa. Super Ball's shareware version only has a mere five levels which you will finish quickly, if the crappy control scheme and overabundance of instant-death bombs don't get to you. The game does have a leader board for each level, which are much easier to top than the overall top 5 highscores, which the default is set ridiculously high and you are not guaranteed to pass 200,000 points within five levels. It's possible in the registered version thanks to more levels being present (obviously), but just like 90% of other breakout games, there's no editor in the registered version.

So there, three games on the residue to play in full glory.

And now let me bring into question something that has been haunting me recently. Of course it has to do with Playstation Home, and it's the recently-launched Street Fighter X Tekken Playstation Home Fighter… Where do I even begin? Well, It's broken beyond repair. Taking one of the most anticipated fighting games and transforming it from intense and heart-beating melee action to a turn-based luck-ran RPG fighter. I could understand if this was something made from Square Enix for Final Fantasy, but this turn could be jumping the shark for some with the genre shift. It also looks like garbage in some cases. Alike many other PSHome games, player characters freeze on certain occasions, facial expressions are absent (looks like they play dead when KO'd). and it seems rushed overall.

You have two fighters standing in the space itself, one is yourself, the other is some random stranger or one of the five male-only poorly-designed CPU fighters that only differ in what headgear they wear and the color of their PShome T-shirt. The music that is played I swear is a heavier-metal version of a particular memorable song from Mario Party 8. You pick from six commands (three if you're on the defense side) and see if all three of your attack attempts connect or theirs are blocked, with 33% chance either character's attack will be blocked by the defender. and whoever lost the previous round is given a stats boost (well, it appears to). Charge up your Cross Gauge to launch Ryu or Kazuya onto the ring to pull one of their Supers on the unsuspecting victim (which can be blocked if the proper block height is issued) and magically freeze if two Supers are done back-to-back while the opponents receives from bing knocked to the floor. As with the obviously superior console game this "fighter RPG" is based on, it plays more like Street Fighter than Tekken. After you win a few rounds by pure chance, you could probably end up with a few bonus items to dress your avatar with; all based on (get ready for this) Chun-Li and Nina Williams for the ladies, one article of clothing for every of the game's 10 achievements you complete, one of these (finish a round with full health thanks to blocking all attacks from the opposing player) is like waiting for a lunar eclipse to occur on Christmas, one (win 20 rounds against another player online) will only work if your luck gets the best of you and your opponent doesn't do a cheep strategy to further the odds on their side, or leave right before you can take any form of credit. However it can be done, just don't expect to do it all on a single sitting. Even harder is trying to win five rounds in succession with Kazuya as your tag partner, as you'd probably make good progress, then lose on the last round, forcing you to restart, or like before the opponent will rage quit (a fad I believe was started by Achievement Hunter) right before you can take the credit for a win (I doubt this will reset the counter, but incase it does, it's better to be safe than sorry). Once this happened right when they lost the first of three rounds; as if they didn't know this was based on a "best of three" rule. Defeat your opponent twice, and victory is yours. Thankfully there are certain users that are willing to help you accomplish the feats much quicker by both players doing the same moves each turn they get at attacking, but most people you'd find there are busy in games or helping others. The other seven objectives are straightforward and you can probably succeed at them more easily than the more difficult and time-consuming trio.

The main premise and ultimate goal of accomplishing all 10 challenges are playable models of both Ryu and Kazuya for use anywhere on PSHome. Of course you could also just buy their outfits from the store (and unlock Kazuya's gloves via the PS3 version of Tekken 6), but that's not really as exciting as playing as the real deal. And by real I mean the very muscular ones that go into fighting stances when you don't move, and can perform their special moves outside the arena. I'd presumably stop playing this once I do unlock the playable Ryu and Kazuya models; and incase godforbid you feel guilty of yourself for playing this RPG fighter filled with rage quitters and no methods of penalizing the people that leave a match in progress and award a win to the one that stays, you could go play the real deal: Street Fighter X Tekken; or the 360 version or Super Street Fighter IV if you're uncomfortable with their choices for guest characters. Overall mediocre and very little replay value.

Anyone sick of me mentioning DOS games, brick breakers, and PC puzzle games? :/

Hissatsu Shigoto Nin Original Sound Track

Here's my third contribution to soundtracks only I had the wits to rip in mp3 format.

This is the game's boxart; the album itself uses an original image
Here we have Hissatsu Shigoto Nin, an adventure game (no, not an RPG) I'm sure none of you have heard about. It's from Banpresto; the same team behind many licensed games in Japan, kinda like LJN except Banpresto produces good quality titles and don't take their sources from just major blockbuster films but also games without a home console port or other well-known series in Japan.

Hissatsu Shigoto Nin is a Famicom game adapted from the drama of the same name, and in comparison to most Famicom titles at the time, this one ended up being pretty dark for Nintendo's console. Of course no direct violence is seen, but you see a good number of deaths often on, drugs are involved, and late, late in the game, you see two of the antagonists hang each other. Pretty extreme for something called the "Family" Computer.

But aside from the adult imagery, I did get a kick out of it. Even though I felt it was too short, as it ran only four chapters (maybe because I beat it too quickly with this FAQ from odino).

Of all else, just snag the download before my vocabulary kills off all your nerve cells.

Download

Two graphic mods for Sourceforge projects.

First off, these aren't my games, I just tweaked them to fit my preferences, and I do not intended to use these for a profit, and I'm giving full credit to the original authors of the games themselves. Both are old forgotten Windows puzzle games remade, one I mentioned in a previous post. So let's not dally on and get right into the first game:

First up is a mod for mblaine's Diamonds open-source remake; which gives it a fresh coat of paint. All the block and ball graphics have been entirely cleaned up, modified to resemble the pseudo-sequel Diamonds for Kids, which was aimed at a younger audience and has much easier levels than the original. The space background of the original is now a generic clouds background, the "Death Block" is remade into a "Vortex Block", yellow replaces brown, and a few of the sound effects have been tweaked to make them feel more enjoyable. Sadly this game doesn't have a graphic editor built in like the original, so it's a little harder to make levels yourself, but it's possible. Plus, this is the only version of said game that works on advanced operating systems.

Get it here.


What we have here is a graphic mod for Brandshaw Creations' PYKye++, bundling the level sets from both PYKye and PYKye++ into a single package without downloading them individually, and gives the game more of a classic Kye feel. Some of the graphics (like the enemies) were borrowed from Xye, while the many other tiles originating from Chip's Challenge are edited to fit the rest of the theme.

Download here.

More Kye, If you didn't get enough of green balls pushing down things

UPDATE: Though minor, there are versions that I've discovered following the post's creation, such as Running Cheetah Kye, and Scott's Kye for Palm OS.


Big post lying ahead full of nerdom.

If you recall around September of last year, I made a post based on an excessively unknown PC puzzle game under the name Kye, originally released in 1992 by Colin Garbutt. It was a puzzle game that played similarly to Boulder Dash and Eggerland (the later known as Adventures of Lolo outside Japan), putting you in control of a small green sphere, the Kye, and you must obtain every diamond present in the level by moving blocks; some which obey gravity in a particular direction, and dodging trapping yourself, a diamond, or one of the game's five beasts that pursue you through the many labyrinths. And by many I mean 15.

When Kye first saw release, it was originally bundled with 10 levels, five additional ones were added not long after, bring in a few new objects. The first level was easy; just move right and you win. Pretty hard, huh? Well the difficulty takes a huge leap upwards right on the second level, and goes even higher on the third. People that got a chance to play this game and learn it's complexity were also given an offer to register by donating 20 bucks to "Save the Children" a charity. People that did must have been so darn pleased. Because now they were given additional levels, back then only 20 would be added as separate level packs, later this registered expansion would grow to be 400+ levels, though many of them were difficult alike the main game so I guarantee one'd never see beyond the first few levels unless they spent a lot of trial and error.

The first time I, myself ever laid my eyes on Kye was receiving from my grandfather one of those shareware discs they always distributed "lite" versions of many titles on; which also had Aquanoid, Jumpman LIVES!, and roughly the entire CHAMP series save for CHAMP Invaders. Back then I found Kye to be very interesting, though I could never get past the second level, and even if I did, the third level got me stuck to no end. Sadly I wasn't aware you could restart levels or make/change level sets because pretty much all the games on the disc were the limited free versions, and because these games often omitted extra functions like later levels and if featured, the editor unless the full version was bought and installed, I thought Kye only allowed one to play the normal levels only. Of course I still got a kick out of it as a child, even if it meant toying around with the first level.

Now fast forward to late 2011. I reinstall the disc onto an old computer of mine that I've used for some time, and finally challenge Kye once more. Not only do I beat the second and third levels with little to no trouble, but I also defeat Levels 4-6, and figured out how the level editor worked. So afterwards I searched up Kye online and found a fan-remake that is a grand upgrade from the original; Vexorian's Xye. And since I've gave many suggestions to the game's development and supported it to death, soon the following January distributing my own set of Xye levels. And from there I learnt much more about Kye's history and the many releases it got, both official and from the fans, found all the registered Kye levels and many more; and since then, I was determined to compile every version's levels and features to be playable in Xye.

Among these came our first subject, Christmas Kye. Released as two versions, Christmas Kye and Christmas Kye Jr; this was to be simple a massive re-skin of Kye to make it holiday-themed, coloring the walls teal green (brighter in Jr. in comparison to the original), changing the playing objects; blocks, enemies (Each one replaces a specific enemy species), etc. to a Christmas theme. It also features background music and a Christmas themed background that has nothing to do with Kye.

Christmas Kye features 25 levels, 24 of them taken from already-created levels from the registered version of Kye, re-arranged in almost no particular order, change only the title of each level to wherever number in the game they appear as, and splattered on the screen. The only level that was created exclusively for Christmas Kye was the first one, where they place your diamonds, now presents, in a simple area for you to nab them. Kye Jr. on the other hand, has three previously unseen levels and one slightly modified level, the first one resembling a house in a snowstorm. Those that are taken from other sets have their name, hint message, and level conclusion message changed to fit the Christmas theme. These two versions are very hard to locate, but Vexorian has posted a download for Christmas Kye Jr, while I scouted out a copy of Christmas for Windows which contained Christmas Kye. And yes, I bought an entire CD just for one game. The disc was called "Christmas for Windows" and it can be bought online on sites like Amazon, though if you want to save money, I can just give you Christmas Kye for no profit.

If that wasn't enough, another version of Kye was released, known as Dr. Floyd's Kye. This version is yet another re-skin but this time, it goes back to the theme of classic Kye, even sporting a new background image that at least resembles Kye. It has 24 levels, some of which were in the Christmas Kye games, others are new. This one is even harder to find and obtain, sites do have coverage on it, but remotely no download is available online. However I've heard Youtuber junker15 has the entire disc, including Dr. Floyd's Kye, so I PM'd him about it to see if he could put it up for download. He has yet to reply.

Though through some speculation, I assume Dr Floyd's Kye's levels can be obtained via an alternative source, A standard .Kye file that can be downloaded from Robert Phipps' Kye page. This file is known as "sampler.kye", and via careful research, the first level of this file and a low-res screenshot I found match one another perfectly, and the titles of the final levels "Wild Goose Chase" also match word-for word. While I still want to own Dr. Floyd's Kye for authentic reasons (whatever that means), sampler.kye will do until then, and besides, I'd like to rip the BG graphic in HD.

Somewhare around the same time, a 2.5D sequel Kye Deluxe was in production, mentioned in the help files of Christmas and (I assume) Dr. Floyd's Kye. It would have included 200 Nintendo hard levels, new graphic upgrades, difficulty selection, scoreboards, sounds and music, a better editor, and most of all new objects and enemies. Sadly though it went on a date with the trash can and never came back, as Kinesoft, the team responsible for Deluxe, put the project on indefinite hold. It's almost no matter, as Xye (aside from sound and graphics) already accomplishes some of the promises made.

Then years later there was Amazing Kye, a new sequel that went back to basics  but only included a fraction of objects from the original Kye. It has 50 levels, the rest you had to get by registering, but to be fair, the collection itself is nothing special (IMO), For one thing, while there are new never-seen puzzles, a few of these descend from the original Kye's registered version. Secondly, I don't find the new graphics appealing, and the "classic" skin barely matches the original. Thankfully they can be edited so you can rip graphics from screens of Kye, crop them into Amazing Kye's spritesheet, and there you go. But what you can't edit are levels. Somehow this passed off as being a sequel and yet the biggest thing keeping the series alive was tossed aside. What? Where they afraid people'd recreate levels in the registered version with the editor? Were it's very unlikely something like that would happen, and I can't do anything about it. :|

Also, if you like Fortune Street's "Out to Lunch" feature, you'll love Amazing Kye. Watch as the levels solve themselves and it counts towards completion whenever or not a human or a computer beats a level.

The latest official version is Python Kye for Linux. Just features new graphics (the first duller/darker version with faceless Kye is the one I prefer) and levels that are compatible with the original Kye. It has a better editor and it can also record replays of levels. Moving on.

Afterwards, there have not been any official versions worth mentioning since then, so let me move on to what the fans made. I'll start with PYKye from Bradshaw Creations. It's graphics may not seem too faithful to the original game, and it's not very user-friendly; as I have not found any graphic editor nor additional level sets for it. It features not only the usual stuff, but different terrain like water, ice, lava, arrow panels that force Kye or any object in a specific path (the ones in Xye do not launch the player), tiles only Kye or blocks may cross over, attribute modifiers the null the effects of water, lava, ice, and arrow tiles, making them normal ground to Kye, step switches that raise/lower walls and clocker, a-cloker, and reverse tiles embedded in the ground. There's many more obstacles than I can hopefully describe, so you'll have to try it for yourself.

Then there's Philipp Klaus' Cye, a port for not some form of computer or OS, but a video game console, in this case the Colecovision. It has a set of original levels meant to be tutorials, but the biggest feature by far is Cye's two-player co-op puzzles. In the same vein of Portal 2, the second player is necessary to finish a level, as they cannot be accomplished alone. Player 2's Kye is slightly darker than the main Kye, but with the palette of the Colecovision, it's difficult to tell. The game overall is much slower than standard Kye, black holes "swallow" objects at a slower rate, but it does have sounds and music when a level is loaded.

It may interest one to know that there are two versions. One is a demo that only has the tutorial and two-player levels, the other contains levels from standard Kye. Thankfully I have these levels as a .kye file officially loaned to me from Philipp himself. The two-player levels are impassable because no version other than Cye supports two-player.

Kye 3.0 (designed I believe by Luke-jr and Niver) was an attempt at a sequel that replicated the original game down to the last detail. Same graphics, Same gameplay, etc. But it had two new features. For one, the boundaries of the level may no longer carry walls but now serve the "warp-around" feature you saw in many old-school arcade titles where you can travel to the other side in the flash of a pixel, and to keep the subject of teleportation, there are now teleporters that resemble arrows that you can align together and use them- do I really need to explain any more? You just warp to the other one. Of course if there are no tele porters in the same row of one facing horizontally, or the same column of one facing vertically, it's just a normal block and won't work as intended unless they are aligned back together.

One thing that was altered was now the hostile creatures that patrolled the maze now have to step on you to kill you, whereas in the official games, they have to touch you from an adjacent tile (not dingily). This allowed Kye to get into areas he's not intended to be that were normally guarded by enemies attached to magnets, like a vicious dog on a chain, requiring the player to send in something else to do the job. Much like Amazing Kye, it has no editor, and only one level was made to utilize the new features. After the one level is the default Kye levels all over again. But at least you can create levels with a text editor and load in custom levels, but considering how three quarters of you will not be able tp play this for whatever reason, it's more worth passing on.

Finally, Skye from Jim Babcock. It has not only old levels but new levels that weren't as large as normal Kye and called in two new obstacles, which were gaps in the floor that became normal ground when something fell in, and best of all "!" blocks that are actually explosives. Have one collide with an arrow block and watch the madness at work. And when you're done being a demolition expert, it even sports an editor, one that actually allows one to select a group of objects simultaneously.

Then it comes down to what it was made on. Texas Instruments calculators. Besides there being a good number of people that don't have graphic calculators that can connect to a computer, now you can sneak in and play some Kye at school or collage and show those teachers you can kick butt at one of the most challenging puzzlers and they attempt it and don't know what they're doing.

Xye is by far the most advanced and faithful recreation of the original game, but that's not to say you shouldn't try the others. So otherwise I've wanted to port all these levels and the new features they bring upon into Xye, as well as the different graphic sets/skins, which part of it has been already done. Not sure how it'll all do in the next few months or even years, but aside from pink, cyan, and orange blocks, I'd love to see Kye as a whole get bigger and bigger, like every other indie project I support.


Most of the above info came from Vexorian's own timeline/coverage of the series.