Happy birthday today to Kiki and Lala, the Little Twin Stars!

Huge Update (Ludum Dare, Meowmie Rest in Peace, etc)

Quite a bit happened...it was quite the tornado of stuff, as I predicted two posts ago, what with Ludum Dare and everything else happening.  There was even more than I expected thrown into the mix...



Ludum Dare

Ludum Dare came and went, and despite several hardships along the way, was a huge success for our team! I'll be writing a more detailed post-mortem later, but here are the two (!) games that we ended up making in the 72 hour timeframe:

Goodnight Sheep: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/goodnight-sheep


Samurai Shaver: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/samurai-shaver


The soundtracks for both of those are also available (linked on those pages).

Even before it started, it already felt like things might be rough for Ludum Dare, as our writer fell ill that week and wasn't feeling well enough to work together with us.  We decided she should take it easy and help us out remotely instead (which also left me with an abundance of extra groceries in stock, haha).  I actually also wasn't feeling the best that Friday either, though thankfully I didn't end up coming down with anything.  Trying to communicate back and forth over chat and video calls was a real challenge and we really struggled to nail down the concept and gameplay behind Goodnight Sheep as a result of that.

Halfway through finishing up Goodnight Sheep we actually decided to start work on Samurai Shaver and just start making that.  Although there were a lot of things that we still needed to figure out about Samurai Shaver still (initially it wasn't even a rhythm game at all!), I personally felt like I had a pretty good vision of what the game should look and feel like, so it felt more certain to me, and I was looking forward to escaping the uncertainty of the screaming lambs to work on something a little more well understood.  However I still wanted to finish up some work on Goodnight Sheep before that, including making the music for the levels, and it was during that process that I made some key realizations about what the game should be like.  So in the end it all ended up coming together just fine -- it just needed some more time to get there.

We were about a third of the way through our 72 hours when we decided to start work on Samurai Shaver, which put us quite far behind, but interestingly enough I felt very confident that we could finish it in time.  I knew it was a fairly simple game and we didn't need to make a ton of different assets and such (as we did for games like The Music Box).  And of course, I had a pretty clear vision for the game, as well.  But perhaps the primary reason that I was so confident was because back in Ludum Dare 36 we had also started just as late when we made Watch for Falling Rocks (we totally scrapped our initial idea and started over).  Now that we've done the whole "start a game really late and still finish fine" thing twice, I feel like that will always be a sort of possible "plan B" for us moving forward if our initial concepts don't work out.  Obviously that's not the kind of thing I'd like to rely on, but I think it's a bit comforting to know that because thinking up an initial idea for a game is often one of the most stressful parts of the jam.

Anyhow, I'm quite happy with how both games turned out.  Currently we're a good ways into the rating and voting process, with a little over a week left before results are announced.  I've been playing my fair share of games (around 40 so far), and we've gotten around 30 ratings for each of our games.



Meowmie

Early in the morning on Saturday December 9th, we were woken up to news that the one and only original Meowmie had suffered from heart problems over the night and wasn't going to make it.  We were able to say our final goodbyes before he was put to rest.  It was very hard on us and there was definitely a bit of a crying party that day.  Though I was not his owner, I felt very deeply for the loss, more deeply than I realized that I would, too.  It was a new experience for me as well, since I have never had a pet or anything leave me in that way.  Though it still makes me very sad to think that Meowmie is not around anymore, and the image I have in my mind of him from that day really affects me deeply, I am very thankful for the fact that I was able to see him one last time.  Rest in peace, Meowmie.  You will always be special.  (Thank you)



Work

Work went through a pretty busy period, as we were getting out another demo of our game for PlayStation Experience (PSX) -- more about that here.  Btw, as an aside, I don't know if I've ever mentioned here that Luna has been out now, both for VR (the true Luna experience) and as a 2D port version for those of us who don't have access to a VR headset.  Find that here.

Anyhow, work went through a busy period for sure and I basically had infinity work to do, but I think I managed alright, though there was one day where I had not gotten enough sleep at all and was suuuuuper grumpy as a result.  Funnily enough, once the amount of tasks crosses a threshold, I feel like it doesn't really matter how many other work items there are because I know I won't get to them all, so I just sort of chug along at whatever pace I end up going at and whatever will be, will be.

After that, work has been really strange as we are in the middle of transitioning to a new office (heating?? A/C??  More than one restroom maybe?? what is this madness?  Maybe the floor won't be slanted either?).  The new place is ever so slightly closer in terms of walking distance from the station, but also just in a much nicer area (right across from Dropbox).  I haven't seen it in person yet, but should be exciting to have a nicer office, and I'm sure it will make it easier for my cooking-lunch-at-the-office escapades as well.  Maybe I need to start bringing in a portable burner?? lololol

Anyhow, I'm on vacation now for the next two weeks (much needed) and definitely enjoying some time off to myself.  Should be useful to catch up on a bunch of things after that super crazy busy period that I had (haven't done any work on Rhythm Quest; want to still do more for our Ludum Dare games; have some music I need to write, etc), but also just to chill out and relax.



Games

I went through the bonus content of VA-11 HALL-A, so that's all finished up with (don't think I'll bother replaying the main story again, though there is a bit more to experience there).  I've moved on for now -- I just started playing through Cave Story!  Actually playing the remastered Cave Story+ version since apparently I have it on Steam already, but after some careful thinking I decided I'll go with the original sprites/graphics and original soundtrack.  Well...ah, who are we kidding, it wasn't exactly a tough choice.  I appreciate the fact that they took the time to remaster it and everything, but sometimes the original has a certain appeal that is diluted with additional modifications and I personally feel that way about this.  Though, if I was already familiar with the entire soundtrack (I'm not) I think the new soundtrack would be a nice change of pace, so that is something.

Other than that, Finding Paradise (the sequel to To The Moon) is out now!  Haven't gotten it yet, but I'm sure I will be going through it at some point.  I wasn't 100% sure what to expect, but apparently Kan Gao himself says the game is "utterly, disgustingly terrible", so now I know exactly what to expect!  (I'm sure it'll exceed expectations, hooray!)  It's all a bit tongue-in-cheek, but to be honest, perhaps it was really warranted after all, because I went into Rakuen expecting a lot out of it and came out disappointed.  So maybe I'll temper my expectations this time.  Though to be honest, how could you not get hyped after THIS trailer???  Hahaha.

Besides that, we are making our way through Secret of Mana still (just finished up Ice Country), and have taken a bit of a break on Life Is Strange (but will pick it up again I'm sure).  My brother also came over and we raced through Mega Man 1 through Mega Man 4, which was a blast.  I had a bunch of problems and lost most of those races but was way ahead for Mega Man 3 (also the one that I played the most as a child), so woot.  Mega Man 5 and 6 will probably be real challenges for both of us as we're really unfamiliar with those -- I think I've only finished each of them once...

Started playing a bit of Hollow Knight, but unsure exactly what I'll do with that one as I think I want to actually just go through Cave Story first.  It still looks like quite a fine game, but perhaps not as unique or special.



Dance

Not too much of note here as dance events are sort of on break for the end of the year.  A little birdie told me that Unjammix might actually be happening again sometime, so that is super duper exciting!  Also, it's getting to be a few months before Viennese Ball again, so probably sometime next month it'll be time to whip out my Journey dress and add on the final layers so I can be a fully-embroidered red cloak.  So cool that this costume has been evolving along with me over the past 4 years!!!

The last Jammix of the year was not too notable and actually was pretty low-energy for me, but I did end up connecting with someone unexpectedly, which was quite nice.



Anime

Was skimping on Inuyasha for a while but finally watched another episode, hahaha.  But more notable than that, I watched "The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl" (by the same director and writer as Tatami Galaxy), which I enjoyed a lot!  I've watched a handful of other things in recent months too actually, including A Silent Voice (good) and most notably, The Case of Hana & Alice, which I really loved!  Quite an unusual movie I think, but it's really good, really fun, really well-done.  Currently also watching Evangelion (the series), which I watched most of before (but not all?) but largely forgot about.  Have not watched any movies recently -- haven't yet gone to go see Coco or Star Wars...



Xmas

Xmas stuff is coming along well!  Like I keep on saying, I still have some DIY gifts to handle, but other than that, everything is pretty much squared away.  It took a lot of work but all the letters and stuff are mailed out and all the gifts are wrapped (and some shipped).  I still have to go on my Santa delivery runs at some point this week but that should be fine :)



Cooking

Have been trying to make Shui Zhu Yu recently (the sichuan boiled fish dish) to varying degrees of success...I'm finding it quite a difficult dish to get right since there are so many factors, like type of fish, everything that goes into the liquid, the different spices, etc.  I think I am getting closer, and definitely am learning more about what to do and what to avoid, but I'm not nearly there yet.  We'll see.



Melee

Melee stuff has been good recently; I've been feeling a lot of confidence as Marth especially when I am doing crazy stuff like getting pivot grabs and stuff like that.  I haven't really paid much attention to my Fox but I am trying to grind out some stuff with Falco because my Falco definitely needs some work on tech and punishes, so trying to get better with that.  I'm feeling increasingly comfortable with Falcon but am still figuring out how to place my aerials to go for reads on techchases and how to place moves correctly to combo well.  Perhaps the most exciting development is that I am finally starting to "get" Sheik for the first time, as I'm dedicating some time to learning her as a character.  Like Falcon, she feels really weird in neutral to me, and I had to adjust to learning how to boost grab instead of jc grab (feels really weird....also really weird that you don't =always= boost grab, so you have to do it situationally), but I think my experience with all the others characters (esp Falcon) is helping me understand it more and I feel like I am starting to get a handle on her, which is great since I've always wanted to learn her as a character.  I'm going to try and work that up to par for a while before moving onto Peach, which will require a lot more grinding of techskill since she's a whole other animal.





Overall life is in a pretty good spot right now; it's nice to be on vacation finally and to feel like I'm on top of things now instead of juggling around a million different things at once.

Cinnamoroll x Wish Me Mell

Did you know?  Wish Me Mell is designed by Miyuki Okumura, the same designer as Cinnamoroll!

Wish Me Mell is super unknown here in the states, but is sort of a secret fave of mine behind the regulars (Little Twin Stars, Cinnamoroll).  I actually didn't know she was designed by the same person until today.  Makes sense, though!  I'm a fan of the Wish Me Mell design style and it has actually been really cute seeing Cinnamoroll in the same style recently.  I'm sure they would be great friends!

Did you know that Wish Me Mell was aimed at people who are too shy to express their feelings?  She's actually really shy and withdrawn but had her heart touched when her friends wrote letters to her.  So now she delivers mail as a job!

Did you know that her image song is called "Stay the Same"?

No matter how far away we are
I think of you
There is nothing that changes this way
We all will stay the same

Wish Me Mell <3

Aaaand we're back.  Well, really we were "back" a lot earlier than this, but I just hadn't gotten around to posting another update yet.

Last we left off, I was really grumpy and having a hard time due to two separate things that were going on in my life, but we're all in the clear now, so that's good.

Since then, let's see...

These days I've been watching Nagi no Asukara, which a good friend recommended to me.  I'm currently around episode...18 I believe?  It's been quite enjoyable so far and I'm interested in seeing what comes out of it.  More on that later, perhaps.

Been continuing to play games on our SNES classic too!  I made my way through Super Castlevania IV, which was...actually not terribly difficult, aside from a few places that gave me trouble.  Ultimately more impressive was the fact that I also made my way through Super Ghouls and Ghosts, which was quite difficult, especially in a few key places (like beating level 7 on the second loop with the bracelet, argh!!!).  Thank goodness for essentially unlimited continues.  But now I can check that one off my bucket list.  The remaining "hard" (to some extent) games that I still need to go through include Contra 3 -- which I'm sure will also be brutal --, F-Zero, Super Punch-Out, and the two Star Fox games.  Haven't decided what to do with Super Metroid yet, but I'm sure I'll have fun running that in some way as well (RBO run?).  In the meantime I've been going through Secret of Mana with my housemate which has been fun as well.

Oh, and, I finished both Cuphead and VA-11 HALL-A!  Both were quite enjoyable -- I ended up getting 100% on Cuphead...don't think I'll go for >100% with all the expert-level stuff, but I will go through and at least play through the bonus content included with VA-11 HALL-A.  Cuphead was great fun, very whimsical and beautiful, very old-school, as expected.  The difficulty was pretty good I think; there was enough challenge there, without anything seeming tedious or frustrating (except for trying to beat Mr. Dice before I realized that you have control over the dice roll, lol!).  VA-11 HALL-A's gameplay was...interesting, I guess, but actually was pretty fun, and the characters were actually quite adorable in their portrayal in some regards.  So that was cool.

Rhythm Quest has been rolling along slowly -- I finished up level 1-4, and also reconstructed the project file for level 1-1's music, which I lost due to what I can only assume was a really random freak FL studio accident of some sort.  I also went through all of the music I made so far and got rid of any phase randomness effects that I had on because they sound terrible on phone speakers (where the L and R speakers are basically right next to each other).  Whoops.  I improved the design of the doublehit enemies a little bit as well, though I may still need to come up with a different visual concept for those that is a little more intuitive.

Music work has been slow recently, as it has been for a while, but my Patreon is at least pushing me to keep on trying to make things at a steady rate.  Besides the level 1-4 music for Rhythm Quest, I started another collab with A-zu-ra, which should be fun to work through.

Ludum Dare is next weekend!  Theme voting has already started and this week is the week for us to prepare ourselves and make sure we are stocked up on groceries as well as ready in terms of our planning and ideas.  We will have a writer with us this time!  So we'll be working our game design around that...exciting!  This week is supposed to be a little busy at work unfortunately but I'm planning to take a half day or WFH on friday so we can be all set to go on Friday.

I kind of took a break from Xmas stuff but I'm starting to pick it up again -- I only have 2 (?) more letters to do and I managed to do an inventory of my gift stash; it turns out that I actually don't have much more shopping to do at all, which is great.  I have some handmade stuff that I need to work on though, so I will be trying to get around to that.  In other news, I bought myself some stuff off of my own wishlist -- put in a big order for a bunch of pen stuff that I wanted, and ordered myself a new microphone too, yay!

Anyhow, despite a stumble here and there Thanksgiving has actually been very relaxing and nice for me and I'm hoping that that energy will continue from here on out too....though that is probably a futile wish as best because we all know that Ludum Dare will basically be a tornado.  Ah well, but it should be a great experience again, as it always is.

Been a long time since life has treated me so poorly

It's getting to be that time of year, so just a reminder that my wishlist is and always will be located on my official online text profile at https://www.dropbox.com/s/gqpf0zag6cx96an/Profile.txt.  If you ever forget that link, you can find it at my Links page, or on my FB profile.

Teardrop, Game Worlds, Rain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L03SUWCHBE

One of those songs that I feel the need to repost every once in a while.  I hope you don't mind that it's one of my own works.

It is a really cool thing when video games are able to create a "space" of their own.  Not in the sense of a 3D space, but in the sense that they are able to hold a tiny little microcosm within them, with their own feelings, stories, and special moments.

Games of course are able to convey narrative in a unique way, but perhaps even more unique is their ability to create these "spaces" for us.  These elements of the game world that don't have any inherent meaning in themselves, but are so rich in atmosphere that you find yourself attaching your own stories to them.

Rain World, for example, really is its own little ecosystem, that you can learn so much about, and really seems to evolve and grow on you over time.  And Journey has all manner of nooks and crannies that people have created their own meaning out of.  My favorite room in Journey, for example, is located in the last level -- it's the last sort of safe haven in the snow before heading out into the storm again and to the so-called "death march".  If you activate the stones in that room, the lantern in the middle of the room starts to spin a bit and glows warmly while a gentle music cue starts playing.  I didn't think much of that space when I first played through the game, but it holds a special place in my heart now, simply because of its cozy atmosphere.  I will always linger for a while in that room, sitting and watching the cold winds outside while huddled next to that lantern, and by doing so I have also encouraged many of my journeying companions to do the same.

The bench in Rain holds the same sort of feeling for me and I always stop there for a while during my playthroughs (I still do every once in a long while; it's quite nice).  It doesn't have any "bearing" on the game, no explicit meaning, nothing like that.  But there is a story and a moment to be had there.  And that is really the essence of Rain, I think -- it is a short experience made of those moments, places, and objects.  We made it over 3 years ago and it is still really significant to me, and remains my proudest work.

Chilling warmth stings
my mind as I walk through the hours
A shadow of a doubt creeps up on me
as I exhale and look away

Inktober + general update

Well, October has come and gone...I suppose it's time for a general update.

You probably already know, but this year for October I decided to get in on the Inktober challenge by committing myself to writing a (handwritten) letter every day for the month.  I followed through (did you expect any less?) and got through my 31 letters, which felt great!  I mostly wrote them on the train during the ride to work, which also meant that this month I didn't have that time available for other things -- most notably development on Rhythm Quest, which pretty much halted for the month.  Today is the first day where I was actually able to spend my train ride to work doing things other than writing, which was refreshing to be honest, haha.  I played some TGM and got through some more of Cuphead (which has been great fun so far!).  In the coming days I'm hoping to use this time for writing an email or two as well as picking up Rhythm Quest again, although I will also still continue do to some writing here and there.

Christmas is about two months away now and thanks to Inktober I've actually got most of my letters done already -- I already have 25 of them out of the way!  I still have around 5 more to do, but I've got plenty of time to do them, so that's great; now I can start thinking about gift shopping and all that...

Things in general have been ok recently...I've felt a little more drained than usual, probably just due to a combination of different things requiring my attention.  I didn't do anything for Halloween this year, unfortunately, but my Journey outfit may end up making an appearance at Fall Ball anyways.  Speaking of dance, I hosted Dancebreak this past week, which was actually quite fun -- always nice to work with people in a low-key environment and also to help newer dancers out a bit, too.  Giving people the right instruction is really hard, but at least I am getting practice at it.  I have not been particularly enthusiastic about social dance recently and have skipped on it for some weeks so it was nice to have a low-key thing with a good vibe.

Progress on music has been slow recently as I only managed to make a single song this past month, but earlier in the month I also did the album art for Potpourri Mix Volume 1 (which was pretty fun, albeit slightly stressful as I didn't know what to do for it at first).  I've started working on my Made in Heights-inspired album again now, which has been going well so far.  It's always fun to experiment with different styles and inspirations and push your boundaries as a musician and producer.

Inktober itself felt quite nice, especially because it was something simple yet productive to look forward to each day and I think that helped me feel better about myself, especially during those times when I felt like I couldn't quite muster the motivation to do more involved things.  Strangely enough, this year I feel like there are less people that I want to write to for Christmas than usual.  Hah!  But I just checked my past records and apparently that's completely wrong...last year I only did 25 (!) letters, and even in 2014 I only did 30.  So I guess I'm actually doing about average.  But for the last few letters, I really was thinking to myself, "hm, I have already written to everybody that I really need to".  Of course I didn't do some of the really important ones yet because those will take more than one day each, so I will be finishing those off this coming month, but still...it was I think interesting to have that realization that I feel like I have less of those friendships that are either established or "budding".  Not that that is a bad thing, really -- I actually feel relatively happy with my current set of relationships, all things considered.

But overall it was nice and I'm definitely thinking that I'll do this every year so I can make sure that I'm on time with all my xmas deliveries and shipments and everything.  One other thing that it made painfully obvious that my new standard of letter length is half of what it used to be...I am writing all of these single-spaced letters now and it makes me feel a little bit pathetic to be honest, haha.  I mean, a large part of that is just due to the fact that for Inktober I needed to do one of them each day so I couldn't spend a long time on any of them, but I think just in general my letter length has gone down.  I think that is OK though, as long as I am still taking the time to write some longer ones between those too.

Hopefully everyone else was successful with their Inktober challenges too!

Wow...that may have been the very first time that I have been =relieved= to hear my alarm go off and wake me up in the morning.  My dream had turned into a nightmare where I was in class with one of those horrible teachers (substitute?) from hell.  You know, the ones who force you to do really pointless things and don't let you get away with anything.  Omg...in my dream I was already thinking about how I would be calling in sick tomorrow or maybe on Friday...or both.

So yeah, my alarm rang and I came back to reality and I was like THANK GOD.

I think we have all had our fair share (maybe more than our fair share) of those sorts of people in our lives.  I think the exact type of person might vary a lot depending on what types of things rub you the wrong way.  It's important to remember that most of the time, these people aren't bad people...they are probably just trying their best to do what they think is right.  But that doesn't change the fact that they are a royal pain in the ass.

I was writing to a friend earlier in the month about how "freedom" in the abstract sense always seemed like a really nebulous thing to value for me as I was growing up, because it's not like my actions wouldn't still have the same consequences.  I'd still have the same responsibilities -- more, even.  But I think it helps to frame it in terms of being able to choose your environment and choose your life -- to avoid all of those toxic environments that i'm sure all of us have been forced to be in at one point or another, and to have the choice to decide what is best for ourselves rather than having that be decided for us.  Of course, there are many who end up still deciding to put themselves into toxic environments anyways, but that my friend is a story for another day...