First, an aside. Who's reading this who hasn't gone to MFF? Just curious.

Game development has stalled. As mentioned before, I'm kind of at a loss for what to do with the Krystal game. Even focusing on the on foot gameplay is stalled because I have no idea what the enemies should be. I had a few ideas like zombies, xenomorphs, slimes, or ripping off turican and contra. (Also the spellcheck wants me to turican as lubricant)

I also considered making a Wolfenstien clone, basically reviving my Krystal FPS idea though I run into the same problems there too. I could even go the extra mile and rip the sprites directly from Doom or some other old school FPS game. I did find a set of generic monster sprites that are public domain. Not bad either, but I'd like to use my own art of course, but as a stand in it could work.

Finally, there is the Leanna game. I'm looking to commission someone to do the model, but I might have to redesign the character, or use another character entirely. Neither of which I really want to do but we'll see. I still think the game will be too advanced for my skills, but I can at least start working on it.

While writing this post, I came across a 2D game with 3D backgrounds, where the background is basically a box with textures on the inside. It looked good graphically, even if the gameplay wasn't really there.

So, I was recently invited to join a couple of people who want to travel to York to visit some large retro game shop there.

The point is, I'm making a list of stuff to keep an eye out for. Be it games, consoles, anything really. If you have any suggestions of old games you liked or stuff to look out for, let me know and it sounds interesting I'll add it to the list.

My current list so far-

N64
The World is Not Enough
Resident Evil 2 (Randomizer!)
Mischief Makers

PS1
Resident Evil Directors Cut
MechWarrior 2 Arcade Combat

GameCube
Eternal Darkness

PS2
Gungriffon Blaze

PSVita
Killzone Mercenaries

Wii
Resident Evil Darkside Chronicles 2

DS
Socolarobo
Goldeneye 007
Any of the DS Call of Duty games

A Sega Saturn if I can get it with Burning Rangers. Maybe Gungriffon as well.

In your opinion, what's your favourite things about the game Oregon Trail?

And while we're on the subject, what do you like about mech sims, and what do you like about survival horror?

These questions seem strange, almost random, but I bring these up because I'm beginning to feel a disconnect between my tastes, and those of other people.

For example. For me, the appeal of the Oregon Trail was seeing what unfortunate things happened to your party, who were almost always named after friends or fictional characters. Yet later versions and spin offs have pre-set NPCs, and searching for similar games gets a bunch of rogue-likes with little to no party customization.

I've played many mech games. Shogo, Front Mission, Armoured Core, Titanfall 2, MechWarrior 4 Mercinaries, among others. But while customizing a mech can be fun, other times I find it to be a tedious chore that harms the gameplay. Either there are a small handful of viable builds you have to use to win, or the game is a complete push over, or it's trial and error as specific builds are needed for specific missions. Not to mention the various min-max horror stories I've heard like people putting weapons in the legs.
Yet every time I ask, customization is their favourite feature, usually followed by complaints that MechWarrior 4 was a betrayal to limiting where you could put weapons.
More over, I hear people wax nostalgic over single player classics, but almost every new mech sim I see from Hawken to Code 51 is multiplayer only.

What the title says. It's not like I was doing anything strenuous with it. I'm browsing the internet then suddenly hard lock. Windows wouldn't boot and was getting weird red bars on the bios screen. After some digging, turned out to be a dead graphics card. I tried faffing around with drivers, but no luck. I'm now limited to on board graphics which can handle basic stuff like the internet and YouTube, but not much else.

I'm not too bothered about this. It just did a round of back ups, and recently brushed up on graphics cards for a family member. Just no PC gaming until I get a new card which will likely take close to a week. It's a good time to catch up on console games I guess. I've still not played GTA5 and have been in the mood for classic Resident Evil so maybe I'll break out the Dreamcast.

But I doubt you care about that. What shiny new hardware am I getting?

The 2 options I'm considering is a 1050, and a 1060 3gb. ie. The high end of the budget cards, or the low end of the mid range. £125 vs £200 respectfully. Both are better than what I've got (though the 1050 only slightly) and they are both popular cards according to Steam, so I should be good for a while. I don't play many new AAA games, and when I do I'm not really concerned with putting everything on Ultra Max 4k Epic settings where I can see every individual nostril hair. So far, this makes a great case for 1050. Just plop down the minimum of money and say it's good enough. It's still an upgrade.

So why get the 1060? Well, that's the thing. The arguments are slim. The main one being if I can stretch the budget that far, I should. Much better performance, able to play all new games on high at 1080p 60fps, and it will last until I retire the machine. Possibly longer if I put in whatever machine I build next.

While not the exact same system as me or cards I'm considering, it should be close enough to give you an idea.


Anyway, let me know what you think because I've got until Monday to think about it.

No update on the Krystal game. Not been working on it.

I've been stuck in one of those rutts where it seems like I'm waiting for things to happen. It's hard to describe if you've had it yourself. Like there's no point starting work on a thing because I have dinner in the oven that will be ready in 15 minutes, and after dinner need to take the dog for a walk, when I get back I need the toilet but someone is in the shower, and before you know it most of the day has gone and I'm to tired or not in the mood to do anything.

Anyway. While the time has been wasted, I don't think it was a complete loss. I've been doing some thinking about the Leanna game. More specifically, how will I make levels for it. This is something that applies to all my non-2D projects. The current profesional standard is apparently making the levels in a 3D modelling program and export them. That doesn't sound at all effecient or reasonable to me. But then what do I know.
I thought of what I know, the old Half-Life BSP system. That would require making my own tools, or finding a way to import from existing tools. Neither is a great option, but if I did make my own tools, I would theoretically be able to use them for various projects.
The other is a simple, almost wolfenstein esc grid system. This would have a bunch of limitations. But might be enough to get the job done.
Finally, there's the built in tile system. Here, you drag and drop 3D models onto a 3D grid. The downside here is that I'd have to be careful how I design my tiles, but should be enough to for the Leanna game if I design the tiles right.

On the subject of the Leanna game, I want to ask what are the sexiest monsters to fight? That sounds like a weird question, and it is. But here's my thought process. Tentacle monsters are obviously allow for sexy fun times, but don't make for interesting fights because, well, it's a mass of tentacles. Zombies, giant spiders, aliens, and other monsters are fun to fight but tend to be horrible, leave a lot of nasty gore everywhere, and are generally bonercide.
So far, the only idea I've come up with 2 ideas. Slimes, be they goo girls or something like out of Slime Rancher or Dragon Quest. And Plant creatures, as vegatable matter and fruit juice isn't offencive as far as "gore" goes, and they can have tentacles while being attached to something shootable. Boo esc ghosts might be possible as well, but I don't know. Maybe there's something obvious I'm missing.

So, I want to play a super spy game. Something like James Bond.

The thing is, I can't think of any games like that any more. There's the old James Bond games, No one lives forever, Alpha Protocol, and Death by Degrees, and the parody game The Spy Who Shot Me. But the few I've not played are either not finished, or hard to find and get working on modern systems.

There's the Xcom-like Clandestine, but I heard it's not very good. And I struggle to think of any others.

So, my last review of this game I fanboyed so much that I accidentally wrote a wall of text, so this is the actually readable version. Enjoy. ^_^

Resident 1.5 is the name fans gave to the lost Resident Evil 2 prototype. See, after Resident Evil 1, Capcom started work on Resident Evil 2. However, 80% of the way through development the game was scrapped, and the team started over. Years ago, the game was leaked onto the internet, but it was apparently broken beyond belief. Eventually, fan patches were released and in June 2018, one apparently got the game into a playable state.

It can't have been easy fixing the game up, and it's great to finally be able to play the game after all this time. But don't expect a full game because, even with the patch, RE1.5 is technically playable in the same way that supermarket own brand cornflakes are technically food. You can run around the game, shoot the enemies, and a few cutscenes will even play, but the game as a whole doesn't really exist. There's not really any items to find or puzzles to solve. Most of the enemies don't stay dead when you leave a room and come back, etc.

But what's there is pretty great if you're a fan of Resident Evil 2 or prototypes and betas in generals. Getting to run around the game and see all the original 1.5 rooms and zombie models is fun. As is some of the placeholder backgrounds and text like "Insert riddle about poison here".
But the main appeal is finally getting to play a game that occupied my imagination for years.

As far as story goes, Elza Walker's campaign is the most complete, or at least, is the one that is easiest to follow and fill in the blanks. Leon's is a lot more disjointed and harder to follow. They both have similarities to Clair's and Leon's vanilla campaigns, but side characters play bigger rolls, and vice versa.
The level design is vastly different, and arguably more realistic. With building layouts that make some logical sense, with central stairways and hallways with rooms sprouting off them, instead of the labyrinth of passageways RE2. Then there's the enemies. Most are the same, but the licker and plant monsters are absent, instead you get half-man, half-spider things that are like those wall crawlers in RE3, and zombie gorillas, which are too goofy to take seriously.
Despite the game being far from complete, it's surprising to see certain features make it into the game this early. Zombies become splatted with blood if you blow off their head or limbs (something were wouldn't see until RE3). Clothing gets damaged as you take damage. It's a subtle effect, and a vast improvement over bacon-glued-to-jacket look in the Alone in the Dark reboot.

There's a lot I could go into, but as said, if you're expecting a finished game then you'll be disappointed, but getting to play this game has been a treat for me, and if you're interested in RE1.5 in any way, it might be worth checking out.

Today, I finally did something I've wanted to do for years. Play Resident Evil 1.5.

"What the hell is Resident Evil 1.5?" I don't hear anybody asking, but I want to answer anyway so let's pretend you did. Resident 1.5 is the name fans gave to the lost Resident Evil 2 prototype. See, after Resident Evil 1, Capcom started work on Resident Evil 2. However, 80% of the way through development the game was scrapped, and the team started over. That 80% complete cancelled game is what's known as Resident Evil 1.5.

Over the years, fans pieced together a rough idea of how the game was based on interviews, pictures in magazines, and what little footage existed. The game was similar to Resident Evil 2 in many ways. You had rookie cop Leon Kennedy, and a biker chick in red leathers called Elsa Walker. Various side characters in the actual RE2 had different, often larger roles in 1.5. There was also some interesting features like body armour and clothes becoming damaged as your character takes damage.

Years ago, the game was leaked onto the internet. The leak apparently involved a lot of drama between collectors of ultra rare games that I don't really know anything about, and honestly it doesn't really matter as far as this review is concerned. However, I was expecting some missing graphics, sounds, and a bunch of bugs, but the game was apparently broken beyond belief. Attempting to pick up certain items would result in your character climbing an invisible box, doors would lead to unrelated rooms and some even crashed the game, that kind of thing. I don't know if the version that leaked was the 80% complete build. I've heard others say it's not and I can believe it.

Eventually, fan patches were released and in June 2018, one apparently got the game into a playable state. Oh, hell, yeah. I want to be clear that I really appreciate the work of these fans that patched the game. It can't have been easy, and it's great to finally be able to play the game after all this time. I say all this because even with the patch, RE1.5 is technically playable in the same way that supermarket own brand cornflakes are technically food. You can run around the game, shoot the enemies, and a few cutscenes will even play, but the game as a whole doesn't really exist. There's not really any items to find or puzzles to solve. Most of the enemies don't stay dead when you leave a room and come back. I think it's also worth mentioning that there's no win condition. I didn't expect there to be an ending or anything, but where you get to the train, there's a couple of short cutscenes with no dialogue, but nothing happens after that.

But what is here is pretty great if you're a fan of Resident Evil 2 or prototypes and betas in generals. Getting to run around the game and see all the original 1.5 rooms and zombie models is fun. As is some of the placeholder backgrounds and text like "Insert riddle about poison here". But the main appeal is seeing what could have been, to play the interesting sounding but ultimately scrapped version of Resident Evil 2 that occupied my imagination for years.
There are many differences, some big, others so minor that only a die hard RE fan would care. I'm not going to list all of them. Just cover some of the more interesting ones.

First, the levels. The old police station feels sterile and cold compared to RE2, though that could because it's not finished. Some areas are more complete than others, with some areas being little more than grey boxes with a light in them, and some looking pretty much finished, though I'll get to that later. It could be argued that this version of the levels makes more real world sense. Take the police station again. Instead of a huge central lobby with mazes of hallways, the building has main hallways with rooms sprouting off.

Then there's the enemies. Many typical RE enemies are present. Zombies, dogs, giant spiders. But instead of lickers and plants, there's these weird half man, half spider things that are kind of like the lab monsters from RE1. They can spit poison, and have the ability to block attacks. Some of the animations reminded me of some of the later Birkin fights from RE2, or those weird crawling creatures from RE3. The other enemy type is zombie gorillas. Yes, really. They can punch you or hang from the ceiling. They're surprising common despite being introduced as a boss of sorts. I'm not surprised they didn't make it into RE2 though because they are kind of goofy as far as horror game enemies go. It's also possible to almost stun lock them with the pistol. There's only 1 boss that I saw in the game, and that's Birkin 1, the one with the pipe that tries to clobber you over the head with it.


What's kind of surprising is how much stuff remains the same. Things like the labs at the end are almost the same as in the final RE2. The freezer room in particular is pretty much exactly how it is in the final game. There's even the room with pointless "puzzle" where you have to flick a light switch to turn on the lights to 1 half of a room. In contrast, the sewer section is mostly missing from the patched version without teleporting, and seems mostly unfinished.
Related to this, there's a surprising amount in the game that's finished, or close to it. The music is more or less done, clothing damage is in the game as well. I'd have thought these things would have been added later, or be unfinished, but what's here seems complete. There's also some advanced effects too. A zombie's torso will be covered in blood if you shoot their head off, something that we didn't see until RE3. This is all the stranger when you realise basic mechanics aren't finished. Like how ammo doesn't automatically stack with existing ammo in your inventory when you pick it up.

Let's talk about clothing damage and animations. Changing outfits and using body armour isn't something that's implemented, but as mentioned, the fact clothing damage is in the game at all at this stage is a surprise. It's a well done, subtle effect too. Far removed from the bacon-glued-a-jacket effect of the Alone in the Dark reboot. Animations include REmake style realistic pistol holding animations, though there were removed in the patch.

Before I get to the story and final thoughts, I want to mention a few things that don't really fit anywhere else.
There is a debug menu by pressing select, and using the d-pad and triangle you can teleport to any room in the game, and in the item menu you can press select to enable debug mode there. L1 and R1 add any item to a slot, select to delete an item, and triangle to add more ammo to a weapon. You will need these commands, mainly to warp whenever stairs bug out and leave you stuck out of bounds. I also used them to access a post explosion version of the labs right at the end of the game. I say this because it's not clear at first.
There are some weapons like hand grenades and an auto shotgun, but they crash the game if you hit anything. There's also these strange high tech terminals where the storage chests usually would be. I've seen speculation that they might have been tied to a medicine mixing mechanic. Saving wasn't implemented, and typewriters are present, but there is a PC that implies you can save, and a PS1 memory card item that the description says is used for saving. Not important, but interesting. The names "Clair" and "Piers" appear in the dog kennels. Maybe it's a coincidence, or maybe those names are a reference or something because they would be used in later games.
One other thing I want to mention. Resident Evil has those door opening loading screens. Iconic, but kind of tedious. RE1.5 has these, but they are faster and clearly placeholders. The patch removes them entirely and ...honestly, the game loads pretty fast. Now, that could just be because I was on emulator, but Silent Hill managed similar load times on actual hardware. And like Silent Hill, the load times vary from a quick to a few seconds, but they are shorter than the door opening animations.

So, the story, and by extension playing this as a game. As said, there isn't much of a game here, but if you want a game you can play, Elsa Walker's campaign seems to be the most finished. That or the more straightforward story makes it easier to follow and fill in the blanks. It plays out similar to Clair's campaign in RE2. Only this time John is along for the ride. I assume this is the Umbrella employee Ada dated in RE1 and 2 but I'm not sure. His model is the one used for the Kendo gun shop guy in RE2. Sherry isn't irritating dead weight in this version either. You never escort her like in RE2 and she actually has knowledge of the Umbrella labs, so she is potentially useful. Leon's story has him starting on the roof of the police station and teaming up with Ada and Marvin (the cop who looked like Will Smith and hands you a keycard before turning into a zombie in RE2). There's some important gaps in his story, that or I missed the cutscene triggers, which results in it being hard to follow even with prior knowledge.

As I've hammered into the ground throughout this post, if you're coming to RE1.5 hoping for a new, stand alone game. Don't. It's clearly far from finished, and it's playable only in the sense of "the buttons work and it doesn't crash all the time". That said, if you have any interest in RE1.5, be as a RE2 fan or just interested in lost prototypes, then RE1.5 is worth playing, with the patch allowing you to see the content will the minimum of frustration.

I like Japanese games. And I like first person shooters. But Japanese first person shooters are rare. There are a few. Gungriffon Blaze and Outtrigger spring to mind. And there's a few Japan exclusive western games like Half-Life 2 Arcade, but most of the time Japanese first person shooters are lightgun games. However, there are a fair number of Japanese third person shooters, which have same kind of general gameplay I'm looking for despite the change of camera.

One of these is Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet. A third person shooter RPG that, unfortunately, turned out to be a horrible way to start this series, because this game is bad. So bad that I gave up on it 4 hours in. I was considering making a video on it, but the game didn't record, so now you get this over long written version.

There are some bad habits that are present in many Japanese games, JRPGs in particular. And this game has them in spades.
First are the tutorials. They over explain basic mechanics and treat the player like an idiot, explaining the same things multiple times. In this case, the character tells you how to do something, immediately followed by a pop up explaining how to do the thing you were just told how to do, and sometimes you have to do the thing you were just told in order to make sure you understand it. Sometimes these explanations can be so over long they actually make things more confusing.
Yet at the same time, the game under explains complected mechanics, and over complicates basic mechanics like changing weapons.

This ties neatly into the second problem. The desperate need for an editor. The game has numerous, lengthy conversations that slow the game to a crawl. This would be bad enough on it's own, but many of these conversations are unimportant nonsense, or worse, repeating the same information you already know.
Making this problem worse is the story is way to simple to justify this amount of waffle. And the game is front loaded with it too.

Now, you might think I'm nitpicking. But to demonstrate the problem, let's go into the game.

-The Plot Insult-
The game's opening consists of about 2 hours of nothing but text and tutorials. That's 2 hours of your time you could've spent doing litterally anything else.
And this plot isn't deep or complex either. You're brought into this VR shooting game to help your friend find a rare item. You find the item which turns out to be an AI called AnFA, and during this run into a snobby rival and the real main character. Kiroto the mary sue. You join his guild, and that's basically it. For 2 hours.
I've seen Skyrim get stick for opening with a 5 minute cart ride. Why is it not ok for that game, but it is ok when a JRPG does it?


But then we get to the slap in the face. An insult so offensive that I paused for a minute and seriously considered turning off the game and uninstalling it.
The player character is entered into a tournament. ...And you don't play it. The matches and results the player character takes part in are described to you in plain text by the other characters.
Again, around 2 hours of plain talking about shit I don't care about and repeating stuff I already know, and yet when an obvious time for gameplay appears, my character does actual gameplay off screen to make room for more text.
Can you imagine if anything else did this? Imagine watching an action film, but it's 2 hours of unskipable "You would download a car" anti-piracy ads, and when the film starts it's just a guy sitting in a chair telling you that there are spectacular car chases and you just have to take his word on it. Or a Mario game opening with a 2 hour text crawl and the first world is just toad telling you how well Mario jumped on those goombas.

And for the cherry on top, the plan is to get your character to powerlevel so you're powerful enough to use AnFA to unlock a high level area. If the devs didn't want you to play the tournament in case you won, say it's restricted to high level players, or better yet, cut the tournament entirely since it has no baring on the plot.

Hell, I can't even figure out who this is meant to appeal to. Kids aren't going to have the paitence to sit reading this dross for 2 hours, and grown ups don't need basic stuff like shopping explained to them.

Before I end this rant, I want to say that I don't buy the "It gets good 15 hours in" excuse when it comes to JRPGs, partly because I've yet to see a game actually get good, and partly because there are many games, including more complex ones, that are successful at hooking the player in fairly quickly.
It can also sound like the sunk costs fallacy. The tendency for people to believe something is worthwhile or valuable because they've committed so many resources to it already.

-Gameplay-
So, the gameplay makes up for this, right? Well, no. It's not really a shooter. There is an auto-aim box that covers half the screen. You can turn this off but the manual aiming isn't great either. The game is clearly meant to be played on a controller with auto-aim up close, and using manual aim to hit weakspots.
There is something called prediction lines, where a red line is draw from enemy guns when they are pointing at you. But the guns are hitscan anyway so dodging has little effect. Or maybe I suck at it.
The rest is all numbers. It comes down to raw stats. You can also bring team mates along. They throw around buffs like crazy, turning the game into a light show and resulting in half a dozen icons next to your name, most of which I didn't know the meaning of.


-Conclusion-
Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet failed to grab me at best, and was an insult at worst. I can't say for sure it's bad since I never finished it, but from what I played, I didn't have much fun. I might re-visit the game someday, and who knows, maybe with the right expectations I can meet the game half way and have a good time. But not right now though.

I continue to chip away at the game. I say that a lot and I don't think I've ever properly talked about that. I've heard it described it as "chunking", though google disagrees.
The idea is simple. Making a game or doing any other large project is difficult, if not impossible, as a whole. So instead, you do 1 small thing, then another. Now, this could have some problems when it comes to long term efficiency since getting a problem fixed might not be the best way to do something.

Right now, I have Krystal running, jumping, and shooting, and the camera works. I think I'm going to have a jumping sprite since it looks weird her walking in the air. Not sure if I'll have a crouch or hit reaction sprite yet. I kind of what to get the sprites finalised so I can put them out there and allow people to do edits. But at the same time, there's no rush since I'm not sure anyone wants to do edits. I know some people are interested in features like clothing damage and alturnitive outfits, and I can code them in. I just don't want to get bogged down in sprite edits when I have a game to finish.

Speaking of, still not sure of the type of game yet. Linier platformer is most likely, but with some extra work I could make some kind of metroidvania or even a souls like. It won't change the core platforming gameplay much, just mainly an issue of how the levels are structured. Of course, I'd need to make power ups for the player to get.

There is an unexciting screenshot to post. Doesn't look like much, but it's a plain test map. It doesn't show the walking animation, but that would need a gif or video or something.
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/29013342/


Got a Monster Hunter World review to edit. It's a longer one, but I did a bunch of pre-editing by editing important clips before hand. Still, kind of boring. Also, I think I'm close to finishing The Surge, and I want to make a video about it but the recorded gameplay uses a lot of disk space. Might have to give the quality a hit for the sake of my hard drive.

I made a gameplay collage video public today. Might be of interest to people who like funny gaming highlight reels.

This post is kind of a grab bag of various things I want to talk about but aren't worth a post of their own, though all are roughly around the theme of scrapped projects.



First off, I was clearing some hard drive space when I came across my unfinished review of Far Cry 2. It was all recorded and ready to be edited, but the problem was that editing required combing through an entire playthroughs worth of footage with little to no notes or book marks. At over 50gb of gameplay footage, I deleted it, though I kept the audio. The files were dated around April. I doubt I'll ever get around to finishing it.

I have a review of Monster Hunter World written, just got to give the final read of the script, record and edit. I'm lacking a few clips though. Tempted to scrap that one as well.

On a related note. the great compression-a-thon continues as I have over 300gb of raw footage to edit and compress. These are mostly games with friends that I recorded and kept for some reason or another. Those are going to be compressed from largest to smallest. I'm not bothered about them being very low quality since I doubt I'll actually go back and watch them. I'm also using h265 compression. Not widely used, but gives better results for the file size than standard h264 used by YouTube and the like.

I've also been getting more aggressive about deleting crap. Lots of gameplay footage for games I was going to do videos about, and recordings I don't know what I was keeping for, if anything. Those clips are getting deleted and I won't really miss them.

Back on the review side of things. I have a written review of the PS1 game Medal of Honor planned. I've been playing the game on emulator for nostalgia's sake. It's fun. Holds up surprisingly well.

I also have a long form review of The Surge planned, similar is style to the Far Cry 2 review. I don't know if I'll see it through. We'll see. At very least, I can do a written review.



That's enough about reviews and videos. What else am I thinking about.

One is Half-Life joke mod I threw around ideas for a while back. An update to being it line with current year. ie. A parody of social justice, walking simulators, and games journalists. The mod would only be 5 minutes in terms of "gameplay" and since it's basically a walking simulator, there isn't much to do in terms of level design. I think I could make it in about a week or so, but I don't know if it's worth it. Put this one on the scrap pile unless people really would want to see it.

I also had ideas for a sequel focused on game journalists which had quality jokes, like them sending you on dangerous missions while they stay at base on twitter and take all the credit, and you freeing "political prisoners" from the sex offenders wing of a prison (in refence to various journalists accused of sexual assault). It was dumb.

Finally, the year 2020 is in 2 years. and 2025 is in 7. I dunno. Seem like good years to release a cyberpunk game.

Oh, and still chipping away at that Krystal game. Just nothing really of interest to say about it.

Anyway, that's about all I wanted to ramble about.

So, there's the Bowsette/Bowser Peach meme doing the rounds. The exact origins of it are not clear, as I hear different things from different people.

However, one thing I want to make clear is that this isn't something that started yesterday or even last week. Even Know Your Meme says it started in September, but I have a Bowser Peach (and Bowser Daisy) wallpaper that I got in July, and that was long after it was a thing. I can't get an exact date as the original account was suspended. But the re-upload to e621 was back in February.
https://e621.net/post/show/1464424/.....fingers-3-absu

-And I don't know if that was the first. I doubt it, but it's the one I saw credited with spawning the meme before the recent Nintendo Direct. This is also why I think there's been so much art so fast, because people have been drawing these for months.

I like Rick and Morty. I've just finished watching season 3 and it's good. Nothing leaps out as me as a bad episode. At the same time, it's hard to think of a stand out episode aside from the Pickle Rick episode (which I'll get to later).

-Dan Harmon's Politics-
Dan Harmon made a fool of himself during some talk he gave somewhere. Litterally shaking as he went on a rant about how a third of America are litterally nazis. The concern was his new found faith in social justice would hurt the show. Honestly, not really. Summer plays a larger role, but it's far from "The Summer Show with cameo appearences from Rick and Morty" as I'd heard. The only time it really comes up and is out of place is a few lines during one episode where they force Jerry to say he's a racist misogynist.

-The Citadel Plot-
There was a good episode about the Rick and Morty citadel, but there was barely any progress on that front. At this point, I kind of wonder if they have a plan for this. Still, a decent episode.

-Pickle Rick-
I liked the Pickle Rick episode. The rediculous hype the episode got might be to much, but it is a lot of fun. I can also see why people attempted to make games based on it. Though I don't see why some people claim that it's a "troll" episode, or that you're somehow a bad person if you like it.

That's as much as I can say without spoiling it. I recommend anyone who has even the slightest interest in the show who hasn't seen the episode stop reading now as going in blind is definitely the way to go. I know that's true of most things, but I think it helps a lot here.

SPOILER WARNING

The episode starts with Rick turning himself into a pickle to get out of going to family counciling. Long story short, Rick ends up getting washed into the sewer, and this is where the episode properly begins. Because he's a pickle, and he has to somehow escape to the surface. The episode can almost be described as a Metroid-vania, with Rick augmenting himself with various cobbled together upgrades. Starting off using his tongue to mess with the brain of a dead cockroach to carry him around. Until eventually he's fighting guys in suits using a battery powered laser gun made from office supplies. ...while still being a pickle. The best part for me was the fight with the swarm of rats when he first gets his limbs made from bits of dead rat. It's really creative, funny, action packed, and very violent. It kind of makes me want a pure action cartoon like the old animes.
As you might have figured out, I can easily imagine that, with enough time and care, this episode could be made into something akin to metroid with crafting elements. Gathering nik-naks to make upgrades to get access to new areas and increase your combat potential. I doubt the asset flip games made after the episode aired were that, but I see the possiblity.

A project of mine falling through? I know, shocking.

Though in my defence, the reason this time was out of my hands. If anything, blame Nintendo.

To cut a long story short, most horror games I wanted to cover were on PS1. The PS1 emulators don't work with external CD drives. This meant I have realistically have 3 options.

1- Buy an internal drive. Not going to happen. I don't want to faff around opening my PC for a minor "for fun" project.

2- Download ISO. Possible, but Nintendo has been cracking down on reliable rom sites recently. And I don't want to download a 400gb "Complete Playstation collection" torrent. (On a side note, 400gb seems a bit small for every PS1 game)

3- Faff around ripping my own isos, mounting virtual drives, etc. Possible, but when I did that in the past it was way more hassle than it was worth. It also adds an extra layer of toubleshooting if a game doesn't work.

Anyway, no big loss. I could still do text reviews if people really want that, but I doubt anyone cares that much.

Hardcore Henry is one of the best action films I've seen in years. I've wanted to see it ever since I heard of it, but for whatever reason I never saw it at the pictures.

But before I get into it, I think I should say there are 2 kinds of people who are not going to like this film. If you're the kind of person that thinks every film has to be about mans inhumanity to man, or a meditation of the existential philosophy, then this film is not for you. It's an adrenaline pumping action thrill ride. It's pure entertainment, but it's does entertainment well.

Second, if your the kind of person who gets upset at films like Ronin, or games like Metal Gear Solid, that don't explain things not directly related to the plot, then Hardcore Henry will piss you off. To give an example, the villain is quickly established to have some kind of telekinetic super power, but it's never explained and no-one even mentions it.

So, with that out of the way, let's get to the film itself. The film bares a lot of resemblance to a game. Partly because it's all filmed in first person, never really breaking from Henry's perspective. He's also a silent protagonist with amnesia. The plot is Henry wakes up in some science lab being peiced back together, but before his voice and his memories can be restored, a villain breaks into the lab and attempts to kill Henry and kidnap his wife. They innitially escape, but eventually the villain grabs the wife. From there the rest of the film is Henry trying to rescue her in action scene after action scene. There are moments of non-combat and character diolog, but this is mostly to move the plot forward, and to act as a break between action scenes.

It's a good thing that the action is fantastic. Occasionally it be a little chaotic, but it works well whether it's a gunfight, a fist fight, or a chase. There's some great stunt work here, with the free running/building climbing scenes being the most impressive to me. The acting isn't going to winning any oscars, but it's competent enough and the important characters are played well enough.

There are 3 minor nitpicks. First is that I figured out the twist long before the film presented it to me. I think it's because I played so many FPS games and games with amnesia as a plot point. Second, there is a fight towards the end of film where Henry fights about 30 super soldiers on par or superior to Henry. This took me right out of the film, especially when you remember that early on a half dozen normal people with batons almost managed to kill him. And third, the film leans too heavily on "Henry is almost killed, but is fixed by Jimmy" scenes.

Overall, I liked Hardcore Henry a lot. It's a great film, well worth watching if you want a pure action film with an off the wall story.

One final thing I want to mention. There was a confusing part during one fight where it cut to a scene for about 5-6 seconds where the sound didn't match the picture, and then replayed that same 5-6 second clip with the correct sound. It was likely a glitch on Netflix's end, but I thought I should mention it.

Progress on the Krystal game continues. Not quickly, but I'm chipping away at it, adding small things here and there. I've spent a lot of time playing Monster Hunter World with friends. Now I know how those who get distracted by WoW feel like. Most the ones who were obsessed with it have finished it and are waiting for the extra content, and are gradually drifting towards other games or otherwise doing other things. So it looks like I might be less distracted going forward.Though some are getting into EDF 4.1, so who knows.

Speaking of games, there's a lot that's come out, or are coming out that I want to play. Earthfall, 2 Point Hospital, Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet, Bullet Girls Fantasia, Strange Brigade, and at the end of the year Eeath Defence Force 5 is coming out. There's a lot of games to be playing.

I was a fan of James Rofle's (Angry Video Game Nerd) Monster Madness series of horror reviews he used to do for Halloween. He doesn't do them any more, but ever since then I've been tempted to do a Monster Madness Games. But doing 31 game reviews in a month isn't really feasable for games. But if I do one every 2-3 days should be doable without it being a full time job. The real problem was getting the footage without taking it from YouTube. Was being the key word here. If I can get a PS1 emulator working, I should be able to grab footage. Not sure if I should, given all the other unfinished projects I have going on at the moment.

Also, been obsessed with this album recently. There's some good songs, and the drinking song is funny.

The Blues Brothers is one of those films that is fondly remembered from people's childhoods, and is most well known for a large car chase through a shopping mall. How does the film hold up without the rose tint of nostalgia? ...Not well.

It's unfortunate, because when the film is good, it's greats, but when the film is bad, it's really bad. And at over 2 hours, there's a lot of bad to get through.

The plot is about 2 brothers, Jake and Elwood, who need to raise $5000 in 2 weeks in order to save the orphanage where they grew up. Jake has a vison that they need to re-form their old band, and put on a charity concert.

The first third or so of the film is where the film shines for me. Striking camera angles, funny lines, and a despite the grim and gloomy realism of the setting, the film seems to work on some kind of strange cartoon logic. This is where the film is at it's best. This is also where the infamous mall car chase takes place, and it's spectacular. I know I've beat this particular horse to death, but cgi is no substitute for the sense of scale and entertainment of seeing a dozen cars speed through a mall smashing into everything. If you have netflix or the like, it might be worth watching for this part alone.

Then there's what I'll call the cameo arc. Here the film more resembles a musical, as Jake and Elwood go about tracking down the band members. It's basically a thinly veiled excuse to get as many cameos and songs in as possible. I recognise some, like Ray Charles, and many of the songs are familar, but it mostly feels like filler or self indulgence that do nothing for me as I don't recognize most of the people. This goes on for the rest of the film until the ending.

The ending is the final car chase. The chase itself is kind of silly due to the cartoon like physics involved, such as switching into reverse making the car do a backflip, but the scale of the chase is impressive. Dozens of cars, and hundreds of extras all chasing the brothers as they try to make it to the tax office before the deadline.

Like I said, the first third or so, plus the final car chase, are great. Lines like "Are you cops?" "No ma'am, we're musicians." and "How much for the leetle gurl?" are hillarious, but the middle of the film is a chore to sit through. It's worth watching, even if it's just for the 2 big car chases, but I wouldn't recomend going out of your way to see it. If you have Netflix or something already, then hell, go for it. And if you get bored, fast forward to the end.

Minor update. I've been playing a lot of Monster Hunter World. 62 hours in 12 days is a lot. Average 5 hours a day. Now I know what those "No art, was playing WoW." types feel like. :P

Though I did do a little bit of work here and there. You can now run around and jump. It's very basic, the jump isn't even smooth. There's no kind of momentum to it.

But, that's not why I'm making this journal. I had the idea that, since so many people want different things, why not just release the sprites once I've drawn them and allow people to make edits, and maybe I could include them in the game. Of course, I don't know if anyone would be seriously interested in this.

I tend to sleep on posts before I make them, and I try to avoid posting while tired, but I want to rant.

Jordan Peterson once said "Don't compare yourself to someone else today, compare yourself to who you were yesterday." This is advice I try to follow due in part to my tendancy to get discouraged.

Many years ago, I had an idea for a PS1 throwback. I abandoned the idea after almost universal criticism of the idea. The logic was sound, the arguments made sense, and it was coming from everyone who had any kind of experience with the subject. Years later, the game Strafe was a massive success on Kickstart. However, the PS1 throwback trend didn't really take off due to the hyped games not being very good. Only DUSK and Banned Memories seem to be pulling it off well, but they have seemingly disappeared, existing in a pertunal state of "coming soon".

Many years ago, I had the idea for a game. I don't know when exactly this idea came to me, but my first art commission was of the character for this game. That character was Leanna. 7 years, and while I've tried making the game in various forms, it never really panned out. Ideally, I'd like it to be a survival horror game in the style of the classics like Resident Evil 1-3, Alone in the Dark, and others from the glory days of fixed camera angles and pre-rendered backgrounds.



I bring all of this up because I came across a twitter account of an indie dev who made a fixed camera survival horror game ...in 6 days. Kind of puts to shame my 7 years of not making the game.

But the problem is the game looks awful. Part of that is that the game is a joke. Enemies are a textureless ninja and a zombie that is dressed like Lo-Pan and bunny hops around with his arms in front of him. Maybe it's jealousy? I don't think so, but it's possible. Other, similar PS1 styled games are likewise look really bad. Not in terms of graphics, though they vary on that front from period accurate to textureless polygons, but in term of gameplay most seem to offer little.

I think part of my distaste for these games might be the self-aware self-parody nature of these kinds of throwback games. To kinda quote Razorfist, "These films have more winks and nods than a methodone clinic. Fuck your winks! Fuck your nods!". Yes, I get it. PS1 games were often silly, goofy, and in most cases aged about as well as goats milk. We all remember Jill Sandwich, Lara Croft's triangle tits, or those ads declaring that Ramero would make you his bitch. But isn't the goal is to make a game in that style, albeit with some of the rough edges smoothed off with the benefit of 20+ years of game design progress? Resident Evil wasn't made as a big campy joke, they were trying to be scary. Wether or not they succeeded is for you to decide. The same goes for gameplay. Simple games did exist, games like Kurushi and Ray Tracers, but the best know games of the era were games like Metal Gear Solid, Gran Tourismo, and Final Fantasy 7. ie. Games that were more than 3D endless runners or jumping on blocks.

But, what do I know?

So, Monster Hunter World is out. Over the years that series has been steadily gaining a following, to the point where it seems like people are going bananas for it. I've not played one aside the demos available on 3DS and the like, but I'm told they don't give a good idea of what the game is about. However, I also swore off buying games my friends are buying, because 9 times out of 10 they get bored and won't play it a few days after release.

So, how is the PC port? Any performance issues I should know about? Is it best played on a controller or mouse and keyboard?

At £50 download only, if I buy it and it's bad, I'm going to be annoyed.

Somewhat related, I heard of a game called Fallen Earth. It's a Left 4 Dead 2 clone with some new features (aim down sights, buildable barricades, and 3D printers). The video I saw of it likened it to an unofficial Left 4 Dead 3, albeit with a few flaws.

The Raid: World War 2, the follow up to Payday 2 that flopped, has more or less been abandoned. It's cheap though, and because there's no paid DLC, I'm thinking of getting it when it drops below £10 since I'm fine with the idea of Payday 2: World War 2 edition.

Finally, there's Strange Brigade. A game due out at the end of the month. The premise is that it's third person Left 4 Dead esc co-op with a pulp adventure theme. Or more specifically, it's Sniper Elite without the sniping. From the trailers it seems utterly mediocre, and their DLC raises an eyebrow (being shown to be mostly complete before release) which is a shame because I like the theme they're going for. I want to get this game and give it a try.

So if anyone is interested in those games, or has any opinions on those games, let me know.

...FA can't do polls. So I guess I'll just ask you to leave comments or send notes or something...

Anyway, I have a few ideas for what I want the Krystal platformer to be. Kind of like Turrican or Muri, with Blaster Master esc vehicle stages.

But, which outfit should Krystal wear?


Adventures Tribal Outfit
https://krystalarchive.com/gallery/.....s.01.Pose1.jpg

Assault Outfit
https://krystalarchive.com/gallery/.....t.02.Pose2.jpg

Command Outfit
https://krystalarchive.com/gallery/.....d.02.Pose2.jpg

Other (Comment)
Business Suits, Lingerie, Harem outfits, the emo Kursed outfit, the fan made N64 outfit, the Dinosaur Planet outfit, whatever you like
https://krystalarchive.com/gallery/......PoseFront.png

Again, let me know what you want to see.

As mentioned in a previous journal, I'm working on simple 2D games to learn a new engine, and learn some new skills. I have a few things in mind that I specifically want to figure out, such as inventories or vehicles, as well as a few small game ideas that I want to make for my own amuzement. I read the comments, checked out the games mentioned, and wrote up a short list.

These games (assuming I make them) will be simple 2D games/demos. Think game jam games, the bonus level of some crappy NES platformer, or one of mini games from some shovelware compilation. Albeit without the techanical limitations.

When it comes to theme, there are a lot of fan games or games staring my OCs. Partly because I like those things, but also partly because it reduces the amount of "mental labour" thinking up designs. eg. It's not easy to quickly think up 3 different mech designs on the fly. Themes are often interchangeable however. Be it Hannah or Krystal jumping around shooting a gun, the main change is the look with maybe some minor gameplay changes to match the theme. Perv stuff would be technically possible, but might not be worth it given the low quality of the art. Feel free to suggest stuff though.

Anyway, onto the games.


Starfox Shmup
Lesson- Not much. Basic familiarity/practice?
A simple top down or maybe even side on shooting game like R-Type or 1942. No real reason to make this aside from simplicity and practice.


Starfox Blaster Heroes
Lesson- Vehicles
Something like SWIV, Assault Heroes, or Blaster Master. The main idea is to have a game where you get in an out of a vehicle, and perhaps even change the weapons on said vehicle. This is mainly as practice for a mech game I'd like to make some day.


Krystal FPS
Lesson- Basic 3D + Weapon Swapping + Inventory
I've actually tried to make this game, or some variant of it, multiple times.
https://sta.sh/2pt1e0hjurl
A FPS starring Krystal. This version would likely have more in common with Jurassic Park on the SNES than Quake.


Proto-Mech Sim
Lesson- Many things
Jump straight in at the deep end and make an extremely primitive version of my mech sim. Less MechWarrior 2, and more MechWarrior on SNES or Metal Head on 32X. I do want to do some 2D stuff first though.


Platform Game
Lesson- Animation + Map Editor
An incredibly basic platformer along the lines of Quartet, Muri, or Wonder Boy 3. Not sure what the theme would be. Adventure, haunted mansion, Starfox, mechs?


Top Down Shooter
Lesson- Inventory + Map Editor
Another game I tried to make in the past.
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/17385260/
Think a simpler, easier, more forgiving, and gun focused Hotline Miami. At the time, I thought the art looked terrible, but looking back, it was good enough. I got caught up in trying to fix what I now consider minor physics problems and glitches. Hell, I could even make it StarFox themed if people wanted that, maybe add vehicles to it or something. Either way though, I wouldn't be making a full game, just a level or 2 like the other games.


Waifu Squad
Lesson- Grid based game + inventory + stats + AI + Map Editor
Mentioned before, a sort of Laser Squad clone, albeit ripping off Xcom 2 more than the original game. Might be a bit complex for the first one off this list.


Fetish Stealth Game
Lesson- Map Editor + Art + Animation
Over the years, I've heard (and even had my own ideas for) a stealth game with a vague fetish theme. From Streaking across Saints Row without being spotted, breaking into peoples houses to tickle people, and even a kinky version of Baldi's Basics.
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/27845429/
So a game like that should be doable, though the low quality of the art might make it pointless.


And that's my current short list. There were other ideas that ultimately didn't make the cut. Let me know if you have any opinions on these, or if there's specific stuff you'd like to see.

There's been a trend over the last 5-10 years where corperations get so greedy as to defy all logic. Where a game/film making lots of money isn't good enough. It has to make all the money ever and be the highest grossing game/film in history or else be considered a failure. This trend is fairly well know, and if you're reading this you've either noticed it yourself, or at least heard of it.

But one thing I never see mentioned a similar obsession with time. Be it YouTube bombarding you with recommendations, Netflix asking if you want to watch some other film the instant the credits start rolling, to games including all kinds of grind, time limited events, and other grimmicks to keep people playing. They might hide it with corperate buzzwords like "engagement", but much like the greed, they seem to have an irrational desire for peoples time.

I'm a grown up, and not a particularly busy one, but even I rarely find the time to clear my backlog of games. I have chores I have to do, and non-game stuff I want to do. Yet it seems more and more games are padded to the eyeballs with tedious grind to extend playtime, and most big name games these days aren't things you can lightly dip into.

I remember back when there was a push by the games press, as well as young family's, that games were too long. That hundreds, if not thousands of hours of questing in Skyrim meant that someone with a job, a wife, and a kid that only had an hour or 2 per week to play would be need almost a year to finish the main quest, and 3 times that if they did the side stuff. I dismissed that argument, and still do. Wanting long games to go away so you can easily write reviews, or because you can't fit all these popular games into your current scheduled? Tough.

However, I also remember a time where I'd replay quality games. eg. Resident Evil 2 can be finished in 3 hours if you know what you're doing, and there was modes you could unlock by beating the game a lot. And while I still replay older games, I rarely do that with new stuff. Let me put it this way. When have you ever heard someone say "I have a weekend free. Maybe I'll replay Destiny 1." I doubt it's beatable in a weekend. And even if it is, the amount of grinding and recycled content means that you're likely sick of it by the time you reach the end.

Making matters worse is that some gamers and YouTubers also contribute to this. I know games are expencive, but it's weird how people demand to know what kind of "endgame" is in a given game. Hell, people seem to STILL buy into the myth that a tacked on team deathmatch mode will make a game last forever, as if it won't be completely abandoned within a week or 2. Why is someone going to play, say, Anthem PvP when Fortnite, CS:GO, and Team Fortress 2 are available?

Finally, I sometimes wonder if there are people out there who are game design genius' born at the wrong time? Like, would Billy Noname and his pixel art platformers have been a Mario level hit had he been making games for the NES and SNES, instead of them being burried in the bowels of Steam or the App Store? I ask this because I also wonder if games like Resident Evil or Super Metroid would be considered good games if they were first released today? After all, they don't have online PvP, 80 hour story quests, or 6 man end game raid content.

After writing this post, I came across this screenshot about HBO that is the exact thing I'm talking about.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DhuiVdK.....IibE.jpg:large

Want Retro Action Game Recommendations

TL:DR - Give me suggestions for games from the Atari, NES, SNES, Master System, and Mega Drive era. But not JRPGs.

So, it's been a while since I posted some art. You might be wondering what happened to the adventure comic? It's still coming. I fell into a bit of a loop of thinking I'm not ready to work on it, so I didn't, and thus made zero progress. I do plan to start soon though, though it's more of a "dive in and figure it out as I go" kind of deal, as I'm never going to decide the details of the plot or art style otherwise.

However, my time hasn't been completely wasted. While I'm not 100% reliable, I have been chipping away at stuff almost daily. Be it cleaning up the house, reading some programming tutorials, or whatever else. If you're the kind of person who gets stuck in a rut, Jordan Peterson's whole "what can I do within the next 10 minutes to improve myself or my surroundings, even just a little bit" mindset works wonders. It also means you (or at least, I) don't feel guilty for wasting time playing games as much because, hey, at least I did that 10 minute thing. Over a week, that's about an hours worth of stuff you wouldn't have done otherwise. Plus, in my case at least, it's rarely just 10 minutes. Once I start reading a tutorial, I normally finish the chapter/section at least.

I mention all this because I've given up on 3D game development, at least for now, and have been trying a new engine called Gadot. It's mostly a 2D engine, but according to people who know about this stuff, the 3D is getting there. What's great about this engine is that, like Game Maker 8.1 back in the day, it's all included in 1 program. You're not bouncing between different programs. It's all self contained. It also uses a dynamic scripting language it uses is growing on me. It has some drawbacks, but they are far outweighed by the benefits imo.

So, I'm going back to basics, and I want your help. I want to work my way through the console generations. Make something with a level of complexity of, say, an Atari or Spectrum game, then something you'd see on a Master System, NES, or Game Gear, and then finally a couple of 16 bit games.

Now, I want to avoid stuff like JRPGs as they are mechanically simple (grid based movement with turn based combat), but rely on story content to make up their length. I also want to avoid run-and-jump platformers like Mario and Sonic, though action platformers like Contra, Metroid, or Zillion are fine. If it doubt, feel free to suggest it. Finally, feel free to suggest any kind of features, mechanics, or backstory, even fanservice or fetish ones. These games will likely be short, barely playable demos with basic graphics ("I can't fap to this!") but if you're lucky, I might be able to work it in somehow.

Drawing pictures of anthros is fine. So the adventure comic is fine as furries, though I've not settled on an art style yet.

But for games, furries are posing a bit of a problem.
In the case of the Leanna PS1 horror game, I'm still not happy with my 3D skills. In part because I don't really have a good idea for how to deal with her horns and head fins without the model becoming a bit of a mess. I suck at 3D, basically.

But even 2D pixel art could be a problem. I was thinking about my fanservice strategy game today, and to cut a long story short, having the cast be anthros creates problems like the number of skin colours, markings, head shape, etc. It's certainly doable, but it would require more work and planning. If I made the game anime style, there would be no markings, and could easily swap hair styles or heads out for one another.

So anime
http://fav.me/d5ncu1y
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7965903/
or anthro
http://fav.me/d7icig0
http://fav.me/d7is8uf

I get a feeling I know the answer, given the site. But I thought I'd ask anyway.


Bonus question - Epic or Skirmish?

A related question. I recently watched some videos of tabletop war games. Long story short, I wonder if I should stick to the plan of a small scale, Xcom 2/Kill Team esc game with 3-4 characters, or do something along the lines of epic where it's entire battalions of waifus, perhaps with named leaders.
Picture, a lot of guys.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gDQwkBkK6.....0/DSCF1499.JPG