Monday, April 07, 2008
Zetsubou + n+
Haven't had an exciting blog update in a while. Maybe had nothing to blog about, maybe not enough motivation... nothing to announce, nothing to share... until now. First and foremost, this entry's not as epic as I'm making it sound, it's just better than most of the recent entries.
First is Zetsubou.
On Saturday night, instead of the usual "Isaque coming over", we went to Isaque's house to talk about our upcoming ToJam game project. Afterwards, we lazed around in his room and watched some things. Then Isaque showed us an anime: Zetsubou Sensei, season 2, episode 4.
Wow. That was amazing! I highly recommend watching this episode to anyone, whether you are Wen or David or Ambrose. It was funny, quirky, and the characters are likable and overall it was very good. There are girls, guys, robots (at least this episode had robots), and quirky conversations and a good mix of artstyles. Other than Mushishi and Lucky Star, I haven't been watching anime lately, nor have I hooked myself onto any other anime serieses.. but I think I've finally found it. Thanks Isaque! Zetsubou Sensei is truly awesome! I'm downloading season 1 at the moment, and it should be done by the time you read this. Then we should have an anime-a-thon or something, heh.
Heehee.
Next in this entry is n+.
====Prologue ====
Three to Six years ago, I received an e-mail from gamespy which had links to some indie games, or smaller independent games made by regular people. One of them was "n", a flash game featuring a ninja-like character who can run around, jump off walls and leap far distances. His goal was to get to the goal in each level, after unlocking doors and switches and whatnot, all while avoiding mines, lasers, missiles, robotic puppies and so on.
It was a great game. Controls were simple, but the ability to jump off walls and be so agile made it amazing. Sometimes the puzzles were really hard and unforgiving, but most of it was doable. The graphics were great, as were the particle explosions and physics; whenever you hit a mine or a robot, you might explode and your body parts fly around and hit other mines and explode more and more; thus when you die, it's still a pretty show. I played it for months and months, as puzzles get harder and harder but it was still fun.
Fast forward to 1 month ago. n+ makes it to xbox live arcade. I download the trial, play for a bit. It's still fun, but it was a trial so I only had a few levels to play with.
Fast forward to Friday. Isaque comes over, and after playing F-ZeroX and SSB64, we end up downstairs and we tried some n+... co-op. There's multiplayer now! n (on computer) didn't have multiplayer, but this did. There are specifically designed co-op levels, but you can also play the single player levels with multiple people. So we did that for a bit, and we reached the end of the trial. It was too much fun, so I bought the full thing. Who would've thought I'd buy something that I can play on my computer for free? Well, except for the multiplayer part...
====End Prologue====
Sunday afternoon - Ambrose is back and comes over, Alan comes over, and Isaque comes over. Alan's playing a bit of Magic with Vinh, so the rest of us go downstairs to play the highly anticipated multiplayer n+ game. We decide to do the solo levels instead of the harder co-op levels. Remember, the solo levels are meant to be done with 1 player only, but we have 4 players. Our players are customizable in colour, so we have a blue ninja, a green ninja, an orange ninja and a pink ninja.
Holy crap, that was a fun afternoon. Imagine 4 tiny little ninjas, jumping around and running around aimlessly in a level. Imagine as a level starts, it zooms in on the 4 ninjas. Bao and Isaque see a glittering piece of gold ahead, so we just charge ahead, only to run into a robot puppy and explode into pieces, as Ambrose and Duy stayed back. Imagine it. Imagine all four of us failing a level a thousand times, whilst remembering that it's supposed to be done by one person. OMG, fun times. Zerging (rushing aimlessly with a large group of small critters) is always fun.
While Smash Brawl will remain the ultimate party game, I think n+ will be the secondary game for a while to come. Look forward to seeing a lot more of this game in the future. We played for most of the afternoon, finishing about 125 of the 250 levels... after that comes co-op levels, user-made levels, and then our own custom levels which we have yet to make.
Wow. Probably the best 800 Microsoft points I've ever spent. (400 pts for Geometry Wars has finally been dethroned to second place?)
===
Anyways, that's it! I look forward to more weekends for more n+ fun, and more get-togethers for some Zetsubou-together-watchingness. Anyway, tonight Duy, Hawk(maybe) and I are going down to Waterloo for a "Smash of the Ages" tournament, featuring all three SmashBros. games. Should be fun!
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First is Zetsubou.
On Saturday night, instead of the usual "Isaque coming over", we went to Isaque's house to talk about our upcoming ToJam game project. Afterwards, we lazed around in his room and watched some things. Then Isaque showed us an anime: Zetsubou Sensei, season 2, episode 4.
Wow. That was amazing! I highly recommend watching this episode to anyone, whether you are Wen or David or Ambrose. It was funny, quirky, and the characters are likable and overall it was very good. There are girls, guys, robots (at least this episode had robots), and quirky conversations and a good mix of artstyles. Other than Mushishi and Lucky Star, I haven't been watching anime lately, nor have I hooked myself onto any other anime serieses.. but I think I've finally found it. Thanks Isaque! Zetsubou Sensei is truly awesome! I'm downloading season 1 at the moment, and it should be done by the time you read this. Then we should have an anime-a-thon or something, heh.
Heehee.
Next in this entry is n+.
====Prologue ====
Three to Six years ago, I received an e-mail from gamespy which had links to some indie games, or smaller independent games made by regular people. One of them was "n", a flash game featuring a ninja-like character who can run around, jump off walls and leap far distances. His goal was to get to the goal in each level, after unlocking doors and switches and whatnot, all while avoiding mines, lasers, missiles, robotic puppies and so on.
It was a great game. Controls were simple, but the ability to jump off walls and be so agile made it amazing. Sometimes the puzzles were really hard and unforgiving, but most of it was doable. The graphics were great, as were the particle explosions and physics; whenever you hit a mine or a robot, you might explode and your body parts fly around and hit other mines and explode more and more; thus when you die, it's still a pretty show. I played it for months and months, as puzzles get harder and harder but it was still fun.
Fast forward to 1 month ago. n+ makes it to xbox live arcade. I download the trial, play for a bit. It's still fun, but it was a trial so I only had a few levels to play with.
Fast forward to Friday. Isaque comes over, and after playing F-ZeroX and SSB64, we end up downstairs and we tried some n+... co-op. There's multiplayer now! n (on computer) didn't have multiplayer, but this did. There are specifically designed co-op levels, but you can also play the single player levels with multiple people. So we did that for a bit, and we reached the end of the trial. It was too much fun, so I bought the full thing. Who would've thought I'd buy something that I can play on my computer for free? Well, except for the multiplayer part...
====End Prologue====
Sunday afternoon - Ambrose is back and comes over, Alan comes over, and Isaque comes over. Alan's playing a bit of Magic with Vinh, so the rest of us go downstairs to play the highly anticipated multiplayer n+ game. We decide to do the solo levels instead of the harder co-op levels. Remember, the solo levels are meant to be done with 1 player only, but we have 4 players. Our players are customizable in colour, so we have a blue ninja, a green ninja, an orange ninja and a pink ninja.
Holy crap, that was a fun afternoon. Imagine 4 tiny little ninjas, jumping around and running around aimlessly in a level. Imagine as a level starts, it zooms in on the 4 ninjas. Bao and Isaque see a glittering piece of gold ahead, so we just charge ahead, only to run into a robot puppy and explode into pieces, as Ambrose and Duy stayed back. Imagine it. Imagine all four of us failing a level a thousand times, whilst remembering that it's supposed to be done by one person. OMG, fun times. Zerging (rushing aimlessly with a large group of small critters) is always fun.
While Smash Brawl will remain the ultimate party game, I think n+ will be the secondary game for a while to come. Look forward to seeing a lot more of this game in the future. We played for most of the afternoon, finishing about 125 of the 250 levels... after that comes co-op levels, user-made levels, and then our own custom levels which we have yet to make.
Wow. Probably the best 800 Microsoft points I've ever spent. (400 pts for Geometry Wars has finally been dethroned to second place?)
===
Anyways, that's it! I look forward to more weekends for more n+ fun, and more get-togethers for some Zetsubou-together-watchingness. Anyway, tonight Duy, Hawk(maybe) and I are going down to Waterloo for a "Smash of the Ages" tournament, featuring all three SmashBros. games. Should be fun!