Business hours are over! Baby!
(The photo is from c/o pop 2007 and obviously not from my stand but I like the face of the guy in green shirt. He’s so inTENSE!)
I would like tow rite a few impressions I’ve got from c/o pop this year. It was my first time there and my first exhibition and I really enjoyed it. I’m defiantly planning on exhibiting next year, too! So here is what I’ve learned:
Seen the new videos from the upcoming Star Wars: Force Unleashed already?
Compared to the Euphoria animated Stormtroopers, the Apprentice just seem so… videogame-y. I suppose he has to use “choppy” animations which cancel each other so player inputs feel snappy.
But than again, there’s Altaïr, so it can be better.
So far the Force abilities look cool, but I’m not so much impressed by the fighting, and the Apprentice looks like a metrosexual, skinhead-version of Anakin “God-what-have-I-done?-but-OK-lemme-turn-evil” Skywalker.
Obviously, Soul Calibur IV is turning out to be the ultimate (so far) cosplay playground. Head over to NeoGAF’s Official Custom Character/Costume thread and see for yourself…
Even though I have all the character creation tools and skills at my disposal, the possibility to click together “your” character in a fighting game looks like big fun, even if they easily end up crappy.
If you happen to be in or around Cologne these days. Come and visit me at the c/o pop festival. I’m exhibiting my recent project, “Illucinated” in the affair area.
I didn’t realize that there seems to be a widespread problem with pirated GameBoy Advance games. Especially at eBay. Recently, I got the first of the games I’ve ordered and everything seemed to be fine. Then I found out the save function didn’t work. This is odd as original GameBoy games have very reliable saving functions. My copy of Mystic Quest is still working even after over 10 years. So I compared the module to another module I had (also a US one – just to be sure). Can you guess which one is fake?
Here are the hints I’ve found that it is a pirated version:
Recently I’ve found a so-called invader fractal on the notorious levitated Website. It has been also posted on complexification.net:
I find the Idea astonishingly simple: you can randomly generate Space Invaders-like sprites by randomizing a two-color bitmap and mirroring it so it becomes symetrical. For a 5×5 pixel invader, there are 32,768 unique Permutations. Well, I woudn’t call that “fractal”. The fractal Idea comes in when you start filling a surface with it but that isn’t the point. Just with that random invader generator, I have the following idea for a game:
I already wrote about my problems with GameBoy Micro faceplates. This time, I will show you the extent of the damage. The following pictures may be disturbing, viewer discretion is advised.
So I thought I give it another try with a new faceplate. I’ve already ordered a set of 4 no-name faceplates (correction, the company is called “Logic3″) once but they were terrible. Don’t buy! They don’t fit properly and look ugly. This time, I’ve ordered one from BigBen Interactive. I was a bit skeptical because there were only two covers in the package and only one of them was of reasonable color. The result after the jump. The following pictures border on pornography, viewer discretion is advised.
I guess it’s official now, the GameBoy Advance is no longer with us. At least as a product. Yesterday, I was shopping downtown. I was looking for some games for my newly re-discovered love for the GameBoy Micro. I was surpised when I found out that every store removed its GameBoy department. In some stores, I was able to find some crappy shovelware in a bargain bin. Also, I found some used games in a GameStop and a role-playing store I frequently scourn for used Video Games.
So I guess it’s only used games from here on. By the way: there are some peculiarities about used GameBoy games. First, you will NEVER get the packaging. They are almost ALWAYS sold just as a bare cartridge. I wonder why. Could it be that people discard boxes because they are ugly? Or is it because the boxes were of cardboard and get used and broken quickly? Or is it just an economical thing so you can display A LOT of games at a time.
Another thing is the pricing. When games are new, everything is sold at the same price, regardless of quality. As soon as the used market kicks in, the prices start to become dictated by demand (and at least partially by quality). So shovelware drops to 5€ and even less. On the other hand, I saw Super Mario Advance 2 for over 30€! And it was WITHOUT packaging or manual and the sticker on the cartridge was rubbed off. Obvously, this is madness but it makes sense: Mario games were always the most important games of Nintendo Systems and especially when there is no marketing anymore, they remain attractive.
So in my grief, I started searching the web for used GBA games to snatch up some elusive titles. I think I’ve spent too much money. That’s alway the problem with ordering on the internet: you don’t see the money go and you don’t get the product immediatly to distract you from your desire to buy more. So I’ve got myself:
I realized that the GBA was actually not a very good system, was it? The game selection is pretty much dominated by re-realeases, remakes and shovelware. There are almost no original titles associated with it. What do you think? What are your highlights?
If you consider the Text in the following screenshot, there are two unusual things about it:
First, the font is in italics which is quite unusual for a pixel font and certainly a typographical challenge.
Second, the text is in German. The screenshot is from the 1993 GameBoy game “Zelda: Link’s Awakening” (actually, the GameBoy Color remake). I remember back when it came out, it was one of the first GameBoy games that were actually translated into German. It was quite amazing because translating a game into a foreign language means not only translating the text but also making sure the font features the right letters like ö, ä, ü, or ß for instance.
I always admired Link’s Awakening for featuring such an unusual font which is so versatile. Because of my recent discovery of Fontstruct, I was able to recreate that font and even improve upon it by adding EVEN MORE foreign characters. Ladies and Gentlement, I herewith give you:
You are free to use the font right away but be aware that because there is no way to edit metrics in Fontstruct yet, the characters will need more kerning for a good readout. Also, word spacing is WAY too low, you might want to use double-spaces. I will update the metrics as soon as the guys from Funstruct implement the feature.
There is an outstanding GBA games series called Bit Generations. It is a series of very small games with very minimalistic styling. The series also has some amazing packaging.
Isn’t it strange? Everybody, who bought the game loves the packaging for its stylishness. Yet, from a economic standpoint, this is much cheaper then the kind of packaging we are used from most games. No special artworks, no super duper stickers, no witty texts, just a plain white box with the logo of the game. A typical example of the “less is more” rule?
But it is complicated then that. We have to consider the function of a package.
