I actually really like the idea of her thinking of the challenges in her life like getting a new job, studying, dealing with arguments, building relationships etc as if she is playing pokemon, battling, leveling up through stress and day to day challenges, grinding through boring tasks because you have a bigger goal in mind...
Gamifying your life in your mind like this can be very helpful and is recommended by lots of self help style books. Helps you rationalise the daily grind, and find motivation to do self improving tasks, working out, eating healthily etc rather than procrastinating and doing whats easy and fun in the short term, but harms your future self, health, finances, relationships etc.
I personally find that gamifying difficult tasks with long term rewards is super helpful. Using apps like DuoLingo for languages, learning a musical instriment, or gym, fitness and diet apps, online study courses etc. Just seeing the little progress, gaining xp or seeing the graph go up makes it feel fun and rewarding and appeals to the same part of my brain as progressing in a game. Leveling up your real life rather than an avatar. It's the same reason I love working in creative mediums like writing, art, music, making games and films... its fun, but you can feel that you are making progress and improving every day.
Anyway, seems like that's what this show is about, and done in a creative and fun way. Sure, it's a lot easier and cheaper to film this kind of show than doing a 90s period piece with cgi pokemon... but I actually think this concept is more interesting. The animation is a better way to flesh out the actual game story and characters.
@Maxz Aww 🥰 it's no problem, I'm really glad you found it helpful! I promise I'm in no way affiliated with GameMaker/YoYo/Opera. It's just that I've been programming since the mid 80s and GML is by far the nicest language I've ever used, super quick to make things with, but I've not hit any limitations or found anything it can't do. It's perfect, really, as long as you don't want 3d. And the fact they don't take any percentage of your sales puts it miles ahead of Unity, Unreal etc.
Only other thing I should mention is that in recent memory, it wasn't subscription based and you could buy a permanent license. These permanent licenses were even occasionally in humble bundles, Steam sales etc. So if you look on the grey market, you may find you can buy a steam code for permanent pro license (which is what I have) so you won't even need to pay the $5 a month. YoYo will honour all old licenses forever. Make sure you are getting Studio Pro 2 though, not 1.4, if you want to get free updates and run on current consoles/mobiles
@jobvd Oh wow, maybe that's why this hit me SO hard in the feels. Fabuland was my first love as a preschooler. You're right, these figures look exactly like them. I hadn't made the connection.
@MysticX Stop! Please! My wallet can't handle it! I don't have space to recreate my entire village in lego form. Don't make me buy a new house just to do it! 😅
Its so weird. I was never remotely interested in Animal Crossing for years. I didn't think I liked the art style (the look of the humans in early games put me off), I don't enjoy many sandbox games...
But then I played New Horizons just to see what everyone was talking about and I'm not sure I've ever gotten so addicted to something. I feel so genuinely attached to the Nooks and Blathers and Isabelle that I felt compelled to buy them all as plushies and Amibo and now I need the Lego minifigs because that's the cutest thing I've ever seen.
Even hearing the music unexpectedly in that video made me want to cry. Is this normal? Did Nintendo hypnotise me with this game? Is it post covid lockdown trauma where we couldn't see family and friends and go out so we all escaped into this friendly little animal world to feel like we had company? Why do I feel guilty if I go too long without logging hack in and visiting my villagers? 😭
@Maxz No problem, and I agree that the more variety and things to suit every taste the better 😀
As for getting into making games, my stock answer is if you want to make 3d games (or realtime movie stuff), learn Unreal Engine, but if you want to make 2d games, go with Game Maker (as in Game Maker Studio Pro from YoYo games.)
I love using Unreal for realtime VFX & virtual set work and of course its capable of making full triple A 3d games. But it's not exactly beginner friendly especially if you've not learned any programing languages before... unless you just want to buy premade stock assets and Game frameworks and put your own story on them etc. It's also waaay overkill and pointlessly fiddly for 2d projects imo.
With Game Maker, it's now 100% free to learn and use, but you'll only be able to export the games you make to play in the Opera GX gaming browser.
The games you make can actually play on almost anything - PC/Mac/Linux, Andoid/IOS, Switch, Xbox 1/S/X, PS4/5. Once you are ready to start exporting, the PC/Mac/Linux exporting is only $5 a month, $10 if you want mobiles as well, $60 for consoles.
What I'd recomend is try the free version, do some tutorials, see if you like it. If you do, pay the $5 a month whilst developing so you can test and easily send builds to family/friends or put in early access etc, then if you want to make mobile or console versions, just upgrade for a single month then go back to the cheapest version.
There are 2 main reasons I recommend GameMaker: 1) it's been around for decades, there's countless fantastic tutorials for free, both official and just on YouTube (Shaun Spalding has incredible indepth series on making fully featured platformers, rpgs etc) and there are very active forums and Reddit where people answer your questions almost immediately.... and 2) importantly, they do not take a single penny of anything you make. Ever. What you create is yours. No percentage of profits or install fees or anything silly. You made it, it's yours. That $5 a month could save you millions if a game you make ever takes off.
Only one word of caution: don't be tempted to mess with the drag and drop nature of gamemaker, take the plunge right away and start learning GML, its proper programming language. It's extremely intuitive and easy to pick up, similar to BASIC back in the day, but very fast and object oriented, so it has the benefits of C++ but is far more beginner friendly and faster to make projects. The drag and drop stuff is quickly limiting and makes you lazy but the language is infinitely powerful. I've used many languages over the decades but I now can't imagine ever wanting to use anything else.
Only other possible alternative to Unreal or GameMaker I'd recomend is GoDot, which can do both 2d and 3d games. I really want to love that as its entirely open source which is fantastic. I 100% approve and am watching it closely. However I hesitate to recomend it for a full beginner or for a professional project as it's a very new language, and therefore the user base, technical support, tutorials, etc aren't fully there yet and you end up having to make educated guesses, difficult to do if you dont have a programming background... plus it's developing so fast you may run into project breaking bugs, or find that a new update kills your project. But for playing as a hobby and watching it grow, it may be the future, if it picks up enough steam.
@JohnnyMind There's no official confirmation of that yet as far as I know but imo it's an absolute given - though probably not on day 1. All recent Sonic and Sega retro games (Monkey Ball, Samba De Amigo) have the digital deluxe bonuses later available as dlc or included in the "plus" dlcs. The box of Superstars specifically specifies digital purchases so it's even more likely. The only exception I can think of is a single outfit for Frontiers that so far is locked to DD, the brown boots/gloves.
@Pod I think the gameplay of both Superstars and Wonder look really great. Personally I would have loved highly animated and characterful pixel art, or cartoon quality hand drawn and painted art, but the styles they went with fit the current modern aesthetics and are done very well and with nice use of colour, good eye for detail and are well animated. I'm very happy with how they look.
However I completely agree on box art. The 2d hand drawn/painted Mario and Sonic box art is some of my favourites and I have framed prints of some of them on my wall.
While some are better than others, there's never been official CG renders of Mario or Sonic that I would consider worth framing as art that I enjoy or find inspiring.
Sonic in the modern day still has loads of great 2d art. The old style pictures for Mania and Origins are really nice, and the 2d animated stuff and IDW comics are all extremely beautiful and the best Sonic and pals have looked since the 90s. I wish they would make a game in that style, or at least use it for box art... maybe reversible covers if they really want the primary version to be a sterile cg render.
Mario on the other hand, there's no hope for. I don't remember seeing official 2d Mario art for decades, outside of the spinoff rpgs. The cover of the new Mario Vs Donkey Kong remaster looks awfully bland and sterile (imo) especially compared to the cover of the GBA original, or DK 94. The 2d official hand drawn art for NES, Gameboy and SNES Mario games are absolutely beautiful. Nothing since then has particularly inspired me, and many look plain, boring and lazy in my opinion.
It feels like they think box art doesn't matter. I think perhaps the actual explanation in modern times is that highly detailed 2d art can often look bad or don't really read when shrunk down to tiny thumbnails on a low res Switch/Phone/Tablet.
@HaileySheridon I had Pokemon Blue and Kirby's Dreamland on release too! Yes it seems a lot of properties from the 80s and 90s are evergreen. Ninja Turtles, Transformers etc getting re-imagined every few years. New reboots of shows i thought were long dead. New games in almost every successful franchise. Chart music remixing, covering or sampling stuff from our childhood. It's cool to see it happening even if some remakes/reboots aren't great.
My own kids are now grown up and left home. A day or two after watching the second Sonic movie in the cinema I was helping my mum in the supermarket and I saw a family with three young kids, one with a Sonic plushie, one Tails, and one Knuckles. They were running up and down the aisles playing with them like they were racing and teaming up. It made me quite emotional to see. 😭❤
@Alckemy Elite came out in 1984 😉 but obviously I know what you mean.
Btw, your description of "Mario platforming metroidvania with character progression/abilities" is a pretty good summary of what my forthcoming Switch game "The Timeless Adentures of Hazel Witch" is. Perhaps the designs of the outside landscapes are more Sonic-esque, but the inside areas like vast castles etc are very Mario. Hazel is the little witch girl in my pfp.
I don't say this to plug, more that I'm surprised there aren't more cute, colourful character lead cartoon metroidvanias. Vast, joined open worlds full of unique characters, enemies, objects and scenery really lend themselves to colourful and fun designs. I'd love a Metroidvania Sonic or Mario. Fantastic Dizzy was an early example of something close to that potential... I can't really think of anything else like it.
@HaileySheridon That's lovely to hear and yes I certainly see parents who grew up in the early to mid 90s doing exactly that. I raised my own kids playing every new Sonic and Mario release when they came out, and showing them the old classics too of course 🥰 I think lots of other parents in the same time period (dc/ps2/gc/xbox) did too, and this is why I see loads of passionate Sonic fans who grew up with Adventure, Heroes, Unleashed and the Mega Collections. It's great to see young millennials who loved the Gamecube now having kids and sharing Mario and Sonic with them too!
It warmed my heart visiting the cinema for both Sonic movies and the Mario movie and seeing whole families turning up where the parents were obviously fans and sharing the excitement and love for the characters with their children. I definitely think that kids that like Sonic will also.like Mario, and vice versa. They won't think of it as a rivalry, and many will think of them as friends from the team up games that feature them both. As you say, I think many kids will get both games for Christmas, and that's the way it should be! What a time to be a kid 😁
@Tokiwa Oh, it absolutely will! Sonic games always sell well, even the poorly received ones. And I'm confident this will be good (probably not perfect, but definitely one of the better games). There's a large dedicated fanbase that buys everything Sonic. Myself included. That audience is really growing too, the movies, recent shows, IDW comics, recent merch have all been far outperforming expectations and just out and about in town and supermarkets etc I see loads of little kids with Sonic tshirts, plushies and toys, so it's gaining the love of a new generation, not just surviving off retrogamer fumes.
But the announcement of this particular game was a big deal for even "non-sonic-fans". I saw many people who hadn't played a Sonic game since the Genesis days, or even people who've never played a Sonic game but knows they were once popular getting hyped for it. The audience reaction at Gamescom was incredible, and doubly when you consider most of that audience was there for AAA Sony/Xbox/PC stuff, as no Ni te do reveals.were expected. There was palpable excitement from casuals. But that was before they knew a new 2d Mario was also coming.
I'm sure that Superstars will be a very big seller for Sega. Likely to outsell Origins, perhaps even Mania. But just not quite the mainstream homerun breakthrough that perhaps they were expecting, had it had no obvious competition for a similar audience and genre.
@Ironcore That's quite good! Although in that metaphor, I like both honey and poop. And I'm not sure I like the implication that either Sonic or Mario is poop. 😂 It's a clever phrase though and does work well. I think my "chocolate vs cheese" analogy was a little less gross 😅
@Tokiwa Yes! 🥰 But sadly the Switch is usually by far the biggest console market for Sonic as the fanbases and tastes for colourful, family friendly experiences, and retro brands converge on it far more than PS/Xbox. So in the short term launch period, Mario releasing will for sure dent the sales of Sonics biggest console market, to some extent. Its really bad luck that Sega released the game at the same time as Wonder. It must be quite frustrating to turn what should have been huge news and a guaranteed seller into a 2nd place consideration. 😟
I hope 2d platform game fans buy both. Realistically we've not had it so good for decades and having both a new Mario and new Sonic to look forward to is extremely exciting 😀
@Maxz Your post made me smile. That Ps3/360 period where everything went brown and grey and colours were ultra desaturated just zapped any enthusiasm I had for gaming at the time. I bought a Wii but the motion controls and weak hardware both grated on me over time. For about 5 years I thought I'd grown out of caring about modern games and I just went full into collecting retro stuff and figured I'd become one of those "old men who thinks new stuff is bad and the kids have no taste".
It was buying a Wii U for my kids that finally reignited my interest in games. Playing Mario Kart, Sonic Transformed, & Disney Infinity 3 with the kids i actually had a great time and got enthused with "modern" gaming again. With the eShop I started to try out modern retro style indie games like Shovel Knight and Shantae and the Pirates Curse, and modern remakes of classics like Duck Tales, and I was fully hooked again and reinspired. Sonic Mania being announced felt like a homecoming.
I still have little interest in "serious" triple A games, they just don't appeal to me. But I'm beyond grateful that fun, imaginative, colourful games are thriving, and companies like Nintendo and Sega are keeping the old styles fresh, modern and relevant. Not to mention talented indies making cool unique experiences and retro-style games.
The fact that there is a market for that kind of experience is what inspired me to finally get back into designing and programing games - something I loved doing as a kid and teen but gave up doing professionally when the market turned to only funding the types of game I didn't like working on. I can thank both Sega (especially the Sonic Mania team) and Nintendo for that inspiration. Having my own games available on a Nintendo system alongside Mario and Sonic is something that I'd have dreamed of as a kid and quite a huge turnaround for someone who in recent memory felt he'd outgrown gaming.
To expand a little on the above post which briefly mentioned me possibly not buying Mario... (sorry, I know I post long speils but some people seem to like them!)
To be clear: I will buy Mario. I'm very excited to play it. Just not right away on launch day.
I'm buying multiple copies of Sonic Superstars (Switch+Steam for now), both because I want options to play it everywhere, but also to help out in what way I can. Im voting with my wallet to tell Sega to keep going and make more games like it.
I want time to fully immerse myself in the experience of a new 2d Sonic title and spend weeks or even months savouring it. I will do the same with Mario, for certain. I always do! But I think I can wait til around Christmas to enjoy it. Sonic & Sega need my sales more than Mario & Nintendo do.
I know I sound like a rabid fanboy, to an extent. But I'm realistic. While Mario is all but guaranteed to be a 10/10, Sonic will likely be a 7 or 8 for most reviewers. Usually, that would still make it a must buy for platform fans. But the inevitable comparisons to Mario will hurt it. I really hope professional reviewers realise this and take it on its own merits and have realistic expectations, rather than spending most of the review comparing it to Mario and dunking on Sonic because it used to be fashionable to do so. That's so played out and barely valid anymore, it's just clickbaiting nowadays.
Recently a lot of Mortal Kombat 1 reviews have marked the game down because the reviewer prefers Street Fighter 6. That's unfair because the two are very different experiences with different fanbases who have different wants and expectations. I see a parallel with Mario and Sonic, two very different takes on a broad genre. Some people like chocolate, some like cheese, some lucky people enjoy both. But comparing them is pointless, and might put other people off of trying something new, or make them feel bad for liking the "wrong" one.
There's no way it was done on purpose, definitely a coincidence. Nintendo would not have chosen to release the same week to hurt the sales of Sonic. That's not how they do business, they just release their first party games when they feel they are ready, and only pay attention to the staggered timing of their own first party games, not rivaling others.
For Nintendo, there is no animosity or rivalry between the brands anymore. Much as its weird to say, Sonic is almost a 2nd party brand for Nintendo these days. He makes them a lot of money, and compliments their brand. For consoles, Nintendo is Sonics natural home and his inclusion in Nintendo games like Smash and sports titles is welcomed not tolerated, and retro Sega IPs are officially welcomed and co-opted, Genesis on NSO, official NSO controllers etc.
As for Sega, back in the 90s, the release date would have been a potential consideration, to get a PR one up if they outsell Mario, or even take from his sales... but not today. There is maybe still a tiny lingering friendly rivalry but they mostly see Nintendo as partners and they are realistic that Mario is the far bigger game franchise nowadays and its foolish to try and compete, instead, just try and beat the sales of the last Sonic game, and get better reviews and fan reactions than the missteps of the past.
Sonic wont hurt Mario's sales in any way. But Mario could hurt Sonic's sales, for people that either can't afford both games, or just don't want 2 side scrolling platformers in short succession. I'm sure that most people, if forced to pick one, will go with Mario. I hope this isn't the case, as I really want this game to succeed and show Sega there is a future in high quality 2d platformers. It's my favourite genre, and Sonic is my favourite franchise.
Of course, Sonic is available on all systems. I'm sure the PC sales will be stellar. But PlayStation and Xbox are a tiny fraction of Sonic's console sales, it's usually like 80% Nintendo. I really feel that these two games launching at once could hurt the initial sales for Sonic and that makes me sad.
I'm really excited for Mario Wonder. I think it looks excellent. Im sure it will garner 10/10 scores all round and be hailed an instant classic. I love 2d Mario games and have been wanting a new one with new ideas for what seems like forever. Im 100% sure i will love it. But I honestly feel like I don't want to buy it on launch. Its hard for me to get hyped because all my hype is aimed at Sonic right now. A new, quality Sonic game is a far rarer prospect, and much, much more is at risk for the company and brand. It needs to succeed. Mario just will succeed, there is no question there.
Sonic Superstars is preordered for multiple systems. I will definitely pick up Mario Wonder as well, though right now it's hard to concentrate on much beyond Sonic. I may wait a month or so for Mario to fully savour and enjoy Sonic first before getting consumed by another exciting release in a favourite series. I wish they were a bit more spaced out, I want to fully play and enjoy them both.
@UltimateOtaku91 That's exactly what I said that they should do on this very site and was mercilessly flamed for daring to suggest it! 😆
I think clearly many parents and casual fans just buy the latest FIFA when they see it on the shelves, and they ignore other football games. I feel EA needs to advertise more to let the casuals know about the name change - including TV adverts for the older generations of parents who still watch it and primarily get their news that way.
However, if they start putting adverts and notices in free updates for the previous game, casual fans will notice this way for free. People may not like the suggestion of adverts in games but realistically sports sims plaster adverts all over the place for realism anyway!
It's definitely valid that the digital preorder bonuses will have eaten into the physical market as well though, in addition to market trends. Presumably every year there is a small decline in physical sales and increase in digital?
@Frobodobo Its people or parents buying a console for the first time. New kids are born every day, grow, and ask for the latest console for their birthday. The top 5 most famous games per console are always evergreen because those are the games the kids will have seen their friends own or talked about in the playground. They are also.often bundled in by retailers or discounted when buying the systems. However when these evergreen games are topping the charts, that is more a sign that there aren't any real significant new games released that week.
@RareFan It started off "good for Sonic standards" but since launch Kishimoto has been extremely active looking at feedback and intereacting with fans, modders etc to make both subtle tweaks and very big changes. I believe that with this last update it will be "really good" regardless of comparitive standards. A great time for newcomers to jump on and give it a try. I feel like whichever project follows, learning and building from this one, will be even better.
@Qwiff Haha that's awesome! Yes the first versions of FIFA were missing lots of things you'd expect today, I think they played really well, a more arcadey experience. Sounds like we had the same version, mine was the CD-Rom version which had commentary added (which hadn't previously been in other CD systems like the Mega-CD port). I played that game sooooooo much!
@Lord No worries! Yes its not always that particular website thats the cheap one, but with a little shopping around, I find pretty much every new game is available physically under RRP somewhere!
This is the first Switch version of "FIFA" that I'm considering buying at full price. Of course EA are a mixed bag of a company nowadays but they should be congratulated for finally making an effort and I actually want this new game to become a successful brand, after breaking away from the grubby mits of IRL FIFA.
I always mention this but despite what it became its worth mentioning just how amazing and revelatory the first FIFA was back in '93. I'm not really much of a football fan IRL and never have been but I was thoroughly swept up in just what a brilliant game it was. My elderly grandparents saw an advert for it on their tiny portable black and white television and found the graphics so impressive they were actually confused as to whether it was real footage or not, and made a point of asking me about if it was real or if they'd somehow misunderstood! Thats how big a leap it was as far as presentation and realism.
I didn't have a Megadrive at the time, only a Master System, but a year or so later when my family got a PC I grabbed the CD-ROM version of the first FIFA which was a great port of the Megadrive game but added FMV sections and a full audio commentary. I bought it almost entirely so I could excitedly show it off to my grandparents, and they could see the best version of the game that had amazed them so much. I wish they were around today to see what games have become, it would blow their minds!
@JohnnyMind I'm the same. For my own games that I'm releasing (admittedly cheaper budget titles in the first place), the digital copies will be cheaper than the physical ones. To me, that only makes sense and I think more people will be willing to give them a try if they are impulse-buy prices, and we take advantage of sale periods etc. so that more people get to try them.
For those that really like them or want to support from the start, the physical copies will have a premium simply because they cost more to make and ship, but we're working hard to make the packaging extra nice, have a proper manual and other inserts like maps, posters etc. for those collectors that will appreciate it.
I just can't wrap my head around charging the same for digital as physical... let along the digital actually costing more.
As for Sonic Superstars, I'm happy to pay whatever price. Its Sonic. I'll probably buy it several times over in multiple formats 😂
@JohnnyMind Yeah its crazy to me that in Europe its literally always cheaper (on launch day) to buy a physical copy than a digital download. Not only do you get to actually own it, have nice packaging, maybe manual etc... but of course you can resell it in the future if you want. Prices vary of course but with a few minutes of shopping around different sites you can fine £5-15 discounts for pretty much every major title on launch day or pre-orders. I think the one that I posted a link to even has a rewards system where you collect loyalty points to get even more money off future orders!
If digital copies were significantly cheaper than physical, perhaps I'd be more likely to buy them for convenience, like I do with Steam sales etc. But full price for digital console titles is madness. Thats not even taking into account the extra cost of buying memory cards needed for storage of the downloads either!
@Ristar24 Ah the C64c is a beautiful system. I love all the late stage redesigns of the early 80s hardware in the early 90s to make them look more aesthetically similar to their 16bit counterparts.
@shgamer Haha I can understand that. The colour clash certainly makes an entirely unique aesthetic and I can see how nostalgia would make games without it look "wrong" even though they are technically better. You're right about the higher resolution being a boon - as I said even though I'm a huge Master System fan, when considering making my first semi professional retro console homebrew I've found I lean towards the NES because of the higher resolution being nicer to work with for my personal style of sprite design.
@SpringDivorce Thanks. Yeah when going through a rough period in my personal life, I found solace in the retro community and quickly became close personal IRL friends with many of the biggest names in the scene. In general its a lovely, welcoming environment... but sadly on a pretty regular basis a huge scandal will happen and nearly destroy the whole thing, and everything becomes very "school playground bullying" but with relentless anonymous social media hate campaigns and sock puppets galore meaning its hard to escape from without just being harassed into going offline... as someone who's job is to be in the public eye, it became somewhat of a liability for me to be outwardly associating with it as it spills over into comments under interviews, reviews of films I've made etc... This makes me sad.
Every few months I try and come back to the world of making retro youtube videos and attending conventions and in person events, but then another one of my good friends is hit with a huge scandal and everything becomes stressful and anxiety triggering. Its so sad and uneccessary. Most of us are in our 40s or older - we should have grown out of this behaviour before we hit our teens. I just love old games and want to talk about them. That's all! lol
@shgamer Absolutely. The SAM Coupé springs to mind. As a Welshman I love the Dragon systems too, sadly they were never more than an after thought at the time.
To be honest I think the main reason for the Spectrum's success was Sir Clive's absolute insistance on getting the price under £100, so that they could be affordable for every family, and teach coding to the masses. Considering he somewhat looked down his nose at gaming, it doesn't surprise me that corners were cut in the sound and moving graphics front. Adding an AY chip and a more powerful dedicated graphics chip and you'd have probably ended up with something very akin to the 464... and at a simialr price (probably £200 without a monitor). While that would have been cool, less people would have bought one and there would have been less variety and choice in the market. I'm happy with how history went, and the Spectrum sold very well, being the best selling range in the UK overall.
I'm sure you're aware of the ZX Spectrum NEXT but if you aren't, its a wonderful bit of kit.
@Ristar24 Yes we've spoken about this before - the SID chip is capable of incredible things. One of the ways I personally think the C64 is arguably better than the NES. Last Ninja 2 is an incredibly impressive game for the system.
Weirdly, where I lived it was mostly arguements between those that owned Amstrads or Spectrums, I only knew one kid with a C64... but as I'd grown up learning to program on older Commodores I covetted it and eventually bought it off him. It was a C64c, and actually had one cartridge game, the only one I've ever owned for the system - Terminator 2. Really crazy to have a Commodore game load instantly! They were silly money though considering in those days most of us bought budget games on tape for £2.99
@SpringDivorce Thanks. Yeah. Its legally impossible to own the rights to Horace and anyone saying they do is either severely misguided or knowingly lying for profit. And he is not the only "IP" from these days being exploited in this matter to milk the UK retro community of money whilst retroactively suing Youtubers, bloggers and even documentary makers talking about "their" IP that they just "bought".
Simply checking government records for the company behind this compilation opens a whole barrel of worms. I'll leave it at that.
@shgamer Yeah the Z80 is capable of amazing things, as I said its my preference of 8bit chip to program for. If Sinclair had made a more expensive model with a dedicated graphics chip, instead of selling to Sugar when he did, history could potentially have been quite different. Although, I'm a heathen and actually prefer the plus 2 model Spectrums myself for collecting and playing.
Even though I grew up with and first learned on varous Commodores, I'm extremely fond of the Spectrum and CPC 464/6128/Plus ranges. Each system is capable of incredible things if you take advantage of each's specific strengths. I'm always fascinated whena console ( or home pc! ) generation's hardware each feels uniquely different. Its a shame that in recent years the difference between Xbox and Playstation versions of games is barely noticable.
@shgamer Haha I wondered if someone would call me out on the Spectrum being "weaker"... I was massively oversimplifying for the sake of not making a long post even longer.
You may have seen in my original post that I mentioned I literally learned to program on Commodore, Spectrum, and Amstrad CPCs. I'm very familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of them all. I started with a Commodore PET in the early 80s, through Vic20 & C16, 48K Spectrum, and by the early 90s I was making games for 128k Spectrum, C64 and CPC 464.
As you pointed out, the Spectrum ranges' greatest strength were their CPUs. I vastly prefer Z80 based 8bit systems to work with personally, though nowadays I lean towards NES over the Z80 based Master System for my own projects as the higher resolution is nicer for spritework. But the Spectrums' lack of hardware scrolling, "proper" sprites and limited way in which it could handle colour, but while being the "main" system multiplat games were made for, undoubtedly lead to many C64 and CPC games appearing weaker than what those systems could handle as they were essentially Spectrum code ports.
The thing is, the Spectrum models (especially the earlier ones) ARE the "weaker" hardware of the bunch, but they also were literally a third the price of the CPC and C64, and were remarkably capable for the cost. Its the "an affordable computer in every home" attitude that made the Spectrum the best selling system, lead to the widest software catalogie and the highest number of bedroom coders who are now giants in the industry... and is why if you'd have asked my favourite 8bit computer range I'd have said "Spectrum", despite the hardware being arguably the worst. Its the little machine that could. What the homebrew community manages to push them to do nowadays is frankly astonishing... though still not as comparible to the NES as the C64, which was what the original poster I was replying to was talking about, and the fact most people don't seem to know that they have the same CPU in all but name is what prompted me to reply.
As for the NES having a higher resolution than the C64, yeah I was going to mention that, but as its the only very obvious downgrade in that Mario video I posted, I left it out due to brevity and only said the C64 was more capable in "some" areas, and "comparible" otherwise, which I think is accurate. I also much prefer the colour pallette of the NES, but thats a more personal preference thing, and it does have its blind spots. Master System had it beat there, for sure.
@AndroidiOS I assume by Atari you mean the 2600, and yeah that's vastly less powerful than an NES, though much older of course.
Interestingly though, the C64 hardware is extremely comparable to the NES - they have basically the same CPU (the Famicom's CPU was actually a "dubiously legal" clone of a chip Commodore had an exclusive license for!) and in some specific ways the C64 is more capable.
The reason you get many NES games that appear to be superior what what the Commodore could do is mostly because most NES cartridges contained upgrade chips in them, and also that cartridges could potentially contain more data than was on a C64 cassette (though, the C64 could play games on cartridge too - it just wasn't common as the public prefered the cheap price of tapes and discs). Another limiting factor was that multiplat games were often coded simultaneously for the weaker Spectrum. Games at the time that took full advantage of the C64's power were comparible to quality NES releases... but these were rare. My favourite example from the time period is Mayhem in Monsterland. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldo2ewLBt3Y
Any of the "black box" NES titles that ran on stock machines were perfectly possible to have nearly 1:1 ports on C64. A few years ago a pretty much perfect homebrew port of Super Mario Bros was released! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jIrR9Iqq4Q
It can even run an extremely close port of Master System Sonic... which actually improves on the MS version in some ways! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4CGwp4N9xg though unlike SMB, that one requires a REU upgrade (which were available in the 80s, that's not a modern thing)
@Paulo Sure, I didn't say he didn't work on them any more, just that over the years he progressively outsourced more and more elements, bringing in artists, letterers, moving everything to digital, and then hiring more writers... For decades now he has been overseeing the strip rather than entirely making it himself like he used to, and over time he's become less hands on while concentrating on other areas. Of course, he always has the final say though, everything has to be signed off by him.
He has been quoted in several interviews as saying that he prefers the marketing side and the social/team aspect and finds it exciting and rewarding to give others a chance to do something with Garfield. Watch any of the interviews he did in the Paws Inc building and he states that the daily strip isn't so much his priority anymore, and he doesn't write for it as much, except when hit with jokes or inspiration.
In the modern era, whenever Jim is fully involved with 100% writing a project, it nearly always takes Garfield in very strange, creative, unique non-canon directions that don't fit the daily strip, such as short films/features/espisodes, things with sci fi, horror, superhero, multi-verse, or other takes like philosophical looks at life, death, religion... In a way, this was always his intention, if you look at some of the stuff from the early days, such as the original "9 Lives" book.
Garfield to him is not a specific canon and timeline, more an iconic image to give to different people and see what they do with him. This manifested in him finding writing for the standard strip and kids show somewhat restrictive, but really loving the idea of companies and individuals from all around the world using Garfield in unique (and often very ecclectic!) ways.
I don't say any of the above to insinuate that he doesn't have artistic merit or doesn't care about the strip. Quite the opposite. Its just that to him, the beauty of Garfield is that he doesn't belong to him, he belongs to the world, and he believes there can be infinite multiverse style reimaginings of his core concept - similar to how Disney use Mickey or Nintendo use Mario - except Jim is far less concerned about keeping things family friendly. He is often delighted by the weirder, more esoteric takes, occasionally even cosigning random stuff from the internet, such as officially publishing "Garfield minus Garfield". His only public concern is that children might be scared by some of what people create, but he still loves it and frankly none of the lovecraftian weird things the internet has created are that far from official stuff Jim has created and officially released himself over the years.
I personally find that fascinating, especially when you compared his career and ideals to other similarly successful cartoonists such as Charles Schultz or Bill Watterson, two people that I also deeply admire, both of whom took very different approaches to a very similar business, all three of which are completely incompatible but equally valid. Art is funny like that. And its beautiful.
I love old Commodore, Spectrum and Amstrad games and first learned to program by tinkering with all three. In general, I welcome new ways for people to play and share the games. As for this collection, inquisitive types should research the company who thinks that they "licensed" these and exactly how they claim to have done so.
@Paulo Over the years Jim was less interested in working on the comic strip and more interested in the marketing and seeing what other people did with the character. He really enjoyed managing Paws inc when it was a physical building that was pretty much a giant Garfield museum of every previous product from around the world, and he could show licensees around to give them ideas and explain the history of the brand and characters.
He had his sales pitch down but also was just a lovely guy who liked talking to fans, buy you a drink, take you for dinner etc. Make a day of showing his love for Garfield to prospective clients. He was often very willing to work with individuals with almost no money on their pet projects if he felt they were passionate about Garfield and had grown up with him or whatever. This is how you end up with strange stuff by eccentric people like GarfieldEats and the random mom-n-pop "themeparks" with Garfield rides that are little more than hand made things handpainted on mdf on a farm/petting zoo in the middle of nowhere.
Sadly after the covid shutdowns, it became obvious that pretty much all business was moving to online only meetings, zooms, emails, and Jim didn't have the fun experience of having a prospective client fly in from a foreign country and being shown around. Once they closed the Paws Inc building, it wasn't fun any more. Time to retire. I certainly don't blame him.
That original design Garfield is a really nice touch.
Off topic but this just reminded me that I really wanted to visit GarfieldEats and planned to next time I'm in Toronto... only to look it up and find out that they closed in 2021. Boo. I wanted a Garfaccino.
@RupeeClock Thanks for confirming, I was pretty sure it was fine for Tails as a partner. Very curious, I wonder why this happens... its definitely because Tails can swim, so its something in the Sonic 1 specific retro engine code. Being that it works fine in the other games it should be a simple enough fix... fingers crossed.
@HeadPirate Oh sure I didn't think they would, for sure Nintendo and Sony would never even consider allowing that. I was more concerned with the privacy / data protection side of things, and when I said it was risky for the for the console manufacturares I meant more that if there is a class action lawsuit related to data thats been misused by one of these companies or hacked from them, and people blame the console manufacturer because it was part of their system update that allowed it, not the code of the individual game.
@MirrorFate2 @RupeeClock I wasn't aware of that until you both mentioned it (I've played a tonne of Origins Plus on Switch and PC, but mostly as Sonic or Amy) but yeah that is a serious and obvious issue and they need to fix it. I don't think it happens when you have Tails as a partner character? I often have my lil fox buddy follow me around as I play. I'm sure Sega are aware of this, they keep a very close eye on socials (shout to Katie!) and though they are very slow with updates, they've fixed the issues that I personally was most annoyed with, so I'm pretty hopeful they pay attention to bug reports and complaints on social media and will work on improving it over time. I wish it was faster / higher priority but I'm happy with the updates so far, especially now they've finally added proper pixel scaling, which admitedly should have been there from the start... but hey, great that they fixed my #1 complaint.
Perhaps ironic or just "weird the way the world works" coincidence, but today I've been working on my Sonic fangame / collection ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvTiAmOH8MM ) and literally a few hours ago today discovered a bug that crashes when Tails enters water in 8bit style levels. My engine has 9 characters (Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Ray & the Chaotix) and supports both 8 and 16bit style levels and sprites, but they all share the same programing for controls, physics, partner ai, collisions etc regardless of whether 8 or 16bit. It hadn't even slightly occured to me that Tails is the only character that can swim, but 8bit Tails doesn't has never had a swim sprite. I'm going to have to make a custom one 😅
@Munchlax Congratulations on the the star letter! you're a brave person! lol. While I could never agree that the NSMB games are better than SMW, I can 100% get behind enjoying Link's Awakening above Link to the Past, and I rate Super Mario Land 2 (as well as the first, and Warioland) very highly... just under MBB3 and SMW, but in the same conversation at least!
Part of the reason I love those Gameboy games so much is they feel very unique and like they take more risks than their 16bit counterparts. SMW and LTTP are arguably better designed but the GB titles have more personality and unique ideas, and really felt like they were pushing the system far further than was expected.
I asked for and got my SNES in 1994 for the trifecta of games that I, as a die hard Sega fan, really wanted - Street Fighter 2 Turbo, Donkey Kong Country and Star Wing/Fox. I adored those games, and several other unique experiences I couldn't get on Sega - Mario Paint was the start of my film/animation "career", in that I got really good at it and editing things together with VHS, and won some cash in a local competition with the results.
Some of my favourite games of all time are on the SNES. But in some ways, its harder to go back to, or more offputting for newcomers, than other systems of the time like the Megadrive, NeoGeo, 68000 based computers etc... For me, Nintendo made a couple of very big mis steps with the hardware that hurt it in comparisson to its peers - the underpowered CPU, meaning a lot of slowdown or lack of simultaneous sprites, and even more noticably, a standard graphics resolution that was significantly lower than standard.
While we didn't really notice it as kids (especially if it was all you had) nowadays the crop factor is hugely noticable and sometimes feels gamebreaking. If you compare almost any multiplat title that uses the same art assets, the SNES version will have more colours on screen, but be severely cropped/zoomed in. Now that we are used to playing modern retro-style games in 16x9, its hard enough for some people to go back to 4:3... but the SNES games usually feel vastly more claustrophobic/restrictive than the other games of the time, because of this lower resolution. For games that were designed with the restriction in mind, usually first party games or exclusive titles, its not too noticable, other than the graphics feeling subtley more "chunky" than other retro 16bit games. But for multi-plats, it can often feel close to unplayable via modern eyes.
Again, before I get flamed! To be clear, I love the SNES. I still feel it has one of the best controllers of all time, and I use the NSO SNES pad for a large amount of the games I play emulated. I'm definitely one of the people that think the early 90s was the greatest generation for games, and certain titles from the SNES are up there with the best of the Megadrive, Amiga, Neo Geo, CPS 1/2, PC Engine/TG16 etc. But I understand why some people find SNES specifically hard to go back to, or to experience the first time, like you did.
Its weird hardware with a unique controller and exclusive features that in some ways made it miles ahead of its competition, but it has some baffling quirks that have meant many of its titles aged poorly in comparison to its peers. Its first party titles are the ones that really make it stand out and only a small handful of other developers ever really got the most out of it. I guess with all that in mind, its a typical "Nintendo system". 😅
@CaleBoi25 Haha thank you I take that as a big compliment! I'm autistic and since the 1980s in arcades (and especially intensified in 1991 after first seeing Sonic at a friend's house), videogames became a literal obsession, wanting to read every magazine, watch every show, visit every arcade, even seek out books on the history and business side, and learning literally everything I could about arcade and home videogames. It was never about only wanting the newest sparkliest thing - once I became obsessed I wanted to know the history as well - even as an early teen I was using pocket money to buy games, consoles and computers from before I was born so I could experience what I'd read about. For me, the progression, changes, improvements and mis-steps are a big part of my love for gaming.
I've been programing videogames since I was a child (though only recently started doing it professionally) and in my teenage years I was building and restoring arcade cabinets as a side hobby. While my main business is a movie and tv drama producer, for decades I've helped behind the scenes on many videogame documentaries, books, youtube channels, expositions and conventions etc through a combination of accumulated knowledge and my fairly sizable collection of rare/interesting stuff.
I mentioned my autism because in a way its my superpower, in that it affects me in having a near infinite thirst for knowledge about the tiny minutiae of things, but also that I'm very good at seeing patterns and connecting the dots, and being able to therefore see narritives and throughlines that others haven't realised or been able to adequately express, so by telling a story and giving examples, I can give context and explanations to things people often wonder about. The button situation is something I often see people mention... perhaps I should make a video about it rather than copying and pasting a big scrawl most people won't read 😂
Following up on my above post, I slightly retract my dismissal of the exclusive art book. Checking out their website, I've realised that they are a very well established videogame book publisher that has published many books in France, several of which I own, and they are excellent quality, usually contain proper journalism with unique research and interviews, and are worth the money.
Suddenly I'm slightly more interested in this package... but I'm still skeptical there will be anything new in the book I don't already own in the million other official Sonic books I have bought over the past years. If it was a unique/interesting book - why use such commonly used stock assets on the cover and on the example pages? I'd need to see more to know if I want it. But I can at least vouch that it will be very high quality printing, bounding, and design.
@RupeeClock @LikelySatan @DogDetective @GrailUK Judging by the pictures I'm willing to bet pretty much any amount of money that this is the standard retail cart and packaging, and is a way to easily shift extra stock for a larger profit than the discounted copies other retailers are selling. I see no reason that they'd make a whole new run of cartridges, and if they did, they'd make damn sure to put that selling point front and center for collectors to have a reason to buy.
Comments 1,500
Re: Pokémon Live-Action TV Series Gets Its First Trailer
I actually really like the idea of her thinking of the challenges in her life like getting a new job, studying, dealing with arguments, building relationships etc as if she is playing pokemon, battling, leveling up through stress and day to day challenges, grinding through boring tasks because you have a bigger goal in mind...
Gamifying your life in your mind like this can be very helpful and is recommended by lots of self help style books. Helps you rationalise the daily grind, and find motivation to do self improving tasks, working out, eating healthily etc rather than procrastinating and doing whats easy and fun in the short term, but harms your future self, health, finances, relationships etc.
I personally find that gamifying difficult tasks with long term rewards is super helpful. Using apps like DuoLingo for languages, learning a musical instriment, or gym, fitness and diet apps, online study courses etc. Just seeing the little progress, gaining xp or seeing the graph go up makes it feel fun and rewarding and appeals to the same part of my brain as progressing in a game. Leveling up your real life rather than an avatar. It's the same reason I love working in creative mediums like writing, art, music, making games and films... its fun, but you can feel that you are making progress and improving every day.
Anyway, seems like that's what this show is about, and done in a creative and fun way. Sure, it's a lot easier and cheaper to film this kind of show than doing a 90s period piece with cgi pokemon... but I actually think this concept is more interesting. The animation is a better way to flesh out the actual game story and characters.
Re: Mario Producer: Sonic's Same Week Release Is "An Interesting Coincidence"
@Mirage-5x5 No worries!
@Maxz Aww 🥰 it's no problem, I'm really glad you found it helpful! I promise I'm in no way affiliated with GameMaker/YoYo/Opera. It's just that I've been programming since the mid 80s and GML is by far the nicest language I've ever used, super quick to make things with, but I've not hit any limitations or found anything it can't do. It's perfect, really, as long as you don't want 3d. And the fact they don't take any percentage of your sales puts it miles ahead of Unity, Unreal etc.
Only other thing I should mention is that in recent memory, it wasn't subscription based and you could buy a permanent license. These permanent licenses were even occasionally in humble bundles, Steam sales etc. So if you look on the grey market, you may find you can buy a steam code for permanent pro license (which is what I have) so you won't even need to pay the $5 a month. YoYo will honour all old licenses forever. Make sure you are getting Studio Pro 2 though, not 1.4, if you want to get free updates and run on current consoles/mobiles
Re: Surprise! LEGO Animal Crossing Sets Are Actually Happening
@jobvd Oh wow, maybe that's why this hit me SO hard in the feels. Fabuland was my first love as a preschooler. You're right, these figures look exactly like them. I hadn't made the connection.
Re: Surprise! LEGO Animal Crossing Sets Are Actually Happening
@MysticX Stop! Please! My wallet can't handle it! I don't have space to recreate my entire village in lego form. Don't make me buy a new house just to do it! 😅
Re: Surprise! LEGO Animal Crossing Sets Are Actually Happening
OH MY GOD I LOVE THEM 😱jrjdjskkzjxijfjdksmsndn
I genuinely felt my brain short circuit.
Its so weird. I was never remotely interested in Animal Crossing for years. I didn't think I liked the art style (the look of the humans in early games put me off), I don't enjoy many sandbox games...
But then I played New Horizons just to see what everyone was talking about and I'm not sure I've ever gotten so addicted to something. I feel so genuinely attached to the Nooks and Blathers and Isabelle that I felt compelled to buy them all as plushies and Amibo and now I need the Lego minifigs because that's the cutest thing I've ever seen.
Even hearing the music unexpectedly in that video made me want to cry. Is this normal? Did Nintendo hypnotise me with this game? Is it post covid lockdown trauma where we couldn't see family and friends and go out so we all escaped into this friendly little animal world to feel like we had company? Why do I feel guilty if I go too long without logging hack in and visiting my villagers? 😭
Re: Mario Producer: Sonic's Same Week Release Is "An Interesting Coincidence"
@Hero-of-WiiU If you're in the UK (or Europe?), Hit is selling physical copies of Superstars for £39 for all consoles 😀 https://www.hit.co.uk/fsearch.htm?search=Sonic+Superstars
Re: Mario Producer: Sonic's Same Week Release Is "An Interesting Coincidence"
@Maxz No problem, and I agree that the more variety and things to suit every taste the better 😀
As for getting into making games, my stock answer is if you want to make 3d games (or realtime movie stuff), learn Unreal Engine, but if you want to make 2d games, go with Game Maker (as in Game Maker Studio Pro from YoYo games.)
I love using Unreal for realtime VFX & virtual set work and of course its capable of making full triple A 3d games. But it's not exactly beginner friendly especially if you've not learned any programing languages before... unless you just want to buy premade stock assets and Game frameworks and put your own story on them etc. It's also waaay overkill and pointlessly fiddly for 2d projects imo.
With Game Maker, it's now 100% free to learn and use, but you'll only be able to export the games you make to play in the Opera GX gaming browser.
The games you make can actually play on almost anything - PC/Mac/Linux, Andoid/IOS, Switch, Xbox 1/S/X, PS4/5. Once you are ready to start exporting, the PC/Mac/Linux exporting is only $5 a month, $10 if you want mobiles as well, $60 for consoles.
What I'd recomend is try the free version, do some tutorials, see if you like it. If you do, pay the $5 a month whilst developing so you can test and easily send builds to family/friends or put in early access etc, then if you want to make mobile or console versions, just upgrade for a single month then go back to the cheapest version.
There are 2 main reasons I recommend GameMaker: 1) it's been around for decades, there's countless fantastic tutorials for free, both official and just on YouTube (Shaun Spalding has incredible indepth series on making fully featured platformers, rpgs etc) and there are very active forums and Reddit where people answer your questions almost immediately.... and 2) importantly, they do not take a single penny of anything you make. Ever. What you create is yours. No percentage of profits or install fees or anything silly. You made it, it's yours. That $5 a month could save you millions if a game you make ever takes off.
Only one word of caution: don't be tempted to mess with the drag and drop nature of gamemaker, take the plunge right away and start learning GML, its proper programming language. It's extremely intuitive and easy to pick up, similar to BASIC back in the day, but very fast and object oriented, so it has the benefits of C++ but is far more beginner friendly and faster to make projects. The drag and drop stuff is quickly limiting and makes you lazy but the language is infinitely powerful. I've used many languages over the decades but I now can't imagine ever wanting to use anything else.
Only other possible alternative to Unreal or GameMaker I'd recomend is GoDot, which can do both 2d and 3d games. I really want to love that as its entirely open source which is fantastic. I 100% approve and am watching it closely. However I hesitate to recomend it for a full beginner or for a professional project as it's a very new language, and therefore the user base, technical support, tutorials, etc aren't fully there yet and you end up having to make educated guesses, difficult to do if you dont have a programming background... plus it's developing so fast you may run into project breaking bugs, or find that a new update kills your project. But for playing as a hobby and watching it grow, it may be the future, if it picks up enough steam.
Re: Mario Producer: Sonic's Same Week Release Is "An Interesting Coincidence"
@JohnnyMind There's no official confirmation of that yet as far as I know but imo it's an absolute given - though probably not on day 1. All recent Sonic and Sega retro games (Monkey Ball, Samba De Amigo) have the digital deluxe bonuses later available as dlc or included in the "plus" dlcs. The box of Superstars specifically specifies digital purchases so it's even more likely. The only exception I can think of is a single outfit for Frontiers that so far is locked to DD, the brown boots/gloves.
Re: Mario Producer: Sonic's Same Week Release Is "An Interesting Coincidence"
@Pod I think the gameplay of both Superstars and Wonder look really great. Personally I would have loved highly animated and characterful pixel art, or cartoon quality hand drawn and painted art, but the styles they went with fit the current modern aesthetics and are done very well and with nice use of colour, good eye for detail and are well animated. I'm very happy with how they look.
However I completely agree on box art. The 2d hand drawn/painted Mario and Sonic box art is some of my favourites and I have framed prints of some of them on my wall.
While some are better than others, there's never been official CG renders of Mario or Sonic that I would consider worth framing as art that I enjoy or find inspiring.
Sonic in the modern day still has loads of great 2d art. The old style pictures for Mania and Origins are really nice, and the 2d animated stuff and IDW comics are all extremely beautiful and the best Sonic and pals have looked since the 90s. I wish they would make a game in that style, or at least use it for box art... maybe reversible covers if they really want the primary version to be a sterile cg render.
Mario on the other hand, there's no hope for. I don't remember seeing official 2d Mario art for decades, outside of the spinoff rpgs. The cover of the new Mario Vs Donkey Kong remaster looks awfully bland and sterile (imo) especially compared to the cover of the GBA original, or DK 94. The 2d official hand drawn art for NES, Gameboy and SNES Mario games are absolutely beautiful. Nothing since then has particularly inspired me, and many look plain, boring and lazy in my opinion.
It feels like they think box art doesn't matter. I think perhaps the actual explanation in modern times is that highly detailed 2d art can often look bad or don't really read when shrunk down to tiny thumbnails on a low res Switch/Phone/Tablet.
Re: Mario Producer: Sonic's Same Week Release Is "An Interesting Coincidence"
@HaileySheridon I had Pokemon Blue and Kirby's Dreamland on release too! Yes it seems a lot of properties from the 80s and 90s are evergreen. Ninja Turtles, Transformers etc getting re-imagined every few years. New reboots of shows i thought were long dead. New games in almost every successful franchise. Chart music remixing, covering or sampling stuff from our childhood. It's cool to see it happening even if some remakes/reboots aren't great.
My own kids are now grown up and left home. A day or two after watching the second Sonic movie in the cinema I was helping my mum in the supermarket and I saw a family with three young kids, one with a Sonic plushie, one Tails, and one Knuckles. They were running up and down the aisles playing with them like they were racing and teaming up. It made me quite emotional to see. 😭❤
Re: Mario Producer: Sonic's Same Week Release Is "An Interesting Coincidence"
@Alckemy Elite came out in 1984 😉 but obviously I know what you mean.
Btw, your description of "Mario platforming metroidvania with character progression/abilities" is a pretty good summary of what my forthcoming Switch game "The Timeless Adentures of Hazel Witch" is. Perhaps the designs of the outside landscapes are more Sonic-esque, but the inside areas like vast castles etc are very Mario. Hazel is the little witch girl in my pfp.
I don't say this to plug, more that I'm surprised there aren't more cute, colourful character lead cartoon metroidvanias. Vast, joined open worlds full of unique characters, enemies, objects and scenery really lend themselves to colourful and fun designs. I'd love a Metroidvania Sonic or Mario. Fantastic Dizzy was an early example of something close to that potential... I can't really think of anything else like it.
Re: Mario Producer: Sonic's Same Week Release Is "An Interesting Coincidence"
@HaileySheridon That's lovely to hear and yes I certainly see parents who grew up in the early to mid 90s doing exactly that. I raised my own kids playing every new Sonic and Mario release when they came out, and showing them the old classics too of course 🥰 I think lots of other parents in the same time period (dc/ps2/gc/xbox) did too, and this is why I see loads of passionate Sonic fans who grew up with Adventure, Heroes, Unleashed and the Mega Collections. It's great to see young millennials who loved the Gamecube now having kids and sharing Mario and Sonic with them too!
It warmed my heart visiting the cinema for both Sonic movies and the Mario movie and seeing whole families turning up where the parents were obviously fans and sharing the excitement and love for the characters with their children. I definitely think that kids that like Sonic will also.like Mario, and vice versa. They won't think of it as a rivalry, and many will think of them as friends from the team up games that feature them both. As you say, I think many kids will get both games for Christmas, and that's the way it should be! What a time to be a kid 😁
Re: Mario Producer: Sonic's Same Week Release Is "An Interesting Coincidence"
@Tokiwa Oh, it absolutely will! Sonic games always sell well, even the poorly received ones. And I'm confident this will be good (probably not perfect, but definitely one of the better games). There's a large dedicated fanbase that buys everything Sonic. Myself included. That audience is really growing too, the movies, recent shows, IDW comics, recent merch have all been far outperforming expectations and just out and about in town and supermarkets etc I see loads of little kids with Sonic tshirts, plushies and toys, so it's gaining the love of a new generation, not just surviving off retrogamer fumes.
But the announcement of this particular game was a big deal for even "non-sonic-fans". I saw many people who hadn't played a Sonic game since the Genesis days, or even people who've never played a Sonic game but knows they were once popular getting hyped for it. The audience reaction at Gamescom was incredible, and doubly when you consider most of that audience was there for AAA Sony/Xbox/PC stuff, as no Ni te do reveals.were expected. There was palpable excitement from casuals. But that was before they knew a new 2d Mario was also coming.
I'm sure that Superstars will be a very big seller for Sega. Likely to outsell Origins, perhaps even Mania. But just not quite the mainstream homerun breakthrough that perhaps they were expecting, had it had no obvious competition for a similar audience and genre.
Re: Mario Producer: Sonic's Same Week Release Is "An Interesting Coincidence"
@Ironcore That's quite good! Although in that metaphor, I like both honey and poop. And I'm not sure I like the implication that either Sonic or Mario is poop. 😂 It's a clever phrase though and does work well. I think my "chocolate vs cheese" analogy was a little less gross 😅
Re: Mario Producer: Sonic's Same Week Release Is "An Interesting Coincidence"
@Tokiwa Yes! 🥰 But sadly the Switch is usually by far the biggest console market for Sonic as the fanbases and tastes for colourful, family friendly experiences, and retro brands converge on it far more than PS/Xbox. So in the short term launch period, Mario releasing will for sure dent the sales of Sonics biggest console market, to some extent. Its really bad luck that Sega released the game at the same time as Wonder. It must be quite frustrating to turn what should have been huge news and a guaranteed seller into a 2nd place consideration. 😟
I hope 2d platform game fans buy both. Realistically we've not had it so good for decades and having both a new Mario and new Sonic to look forward to is extremely exciting 😀
Re: Mario Producer: Sonic's Same Week Release Is "An Interesting Coincidence"
@Maxz Your post made me smile. That Ps3/360 period where everything went brown and grey and colours were ultra desaturated just zapped any enthusiasm I had for gaming at the time. I bought a Wii but the motion controls and weak hardware both grated on me over time. For about 5 years I thought I'd grown out of caring about modern games and I just went full into collecting retro stuff and figured I'd become one of those "old men who thinks new stuff is bad and the kids have no taste".
It was buying a Wii U for my kids that finally reignited my interest in games. Playing Mario Kart, Sonic Transformed, & Disney Infinity 3 with the kids i actually had a great time and got enthused with "modern" gaming again. With the eShop I started to try out modern retro style indie games like Shovel Knight and Shantae and the Pirates Curse, and modern remakes of classics like Duck Tales, and I was fully hooked again and reinspired. Sonic Mania being announced felt like a homecoming.
I still have little interest in "serious" triple A games, they just don't appeal to me. But I'm beyond grateful that fun, imaginative, colourful games are thriving, and companies like Nintendo and Sega are keeping the old styles fresh, modern and relevant. Not to mention talented indies making cool unique experiences and retro-style games.
The fact that there is a market for that kind of experience is what inspired me to finally get back into designing and programing games - something I loved doing as a kid and teen but gave up doing professionally when the market turned to only funding the types of game I didn't like working on. I can thank both Sega (especially the Sonic Mania team) and Nintendo for that inspiration. Having my own games available on a Nintendo system alongside Mario and Sonic is something that I'd have dreamed of as a kid and quite a huge turnaround for someone who in recent memory felt he'd outgrown gaming.
Re: Mario Producer: Sonic's Same Week Release Is "An Interesting Coincidence"
To expand a little on the above post which briefly mentioned me possibly not buying Mario... (sorry, I know I post long speils but some people seem to like them!)
To be clear: I will buy Mario. I'm very excited to play it. Just not right away on launch day.
I'm buying multiple copies of Sonic Superstars (Switch+Steam for now), both because I want options to play it everywhere, but also to help out in what way I can. Im voting with my wallet to tell Sega to keep going and make more games like it.
I want time to fully immerse myself in the experience of a new 2d Sonic title and spend weeks or even months savouring it. I will do the same with Mario, for certain. I always do! But I think I can wait til around Christmas to enjoy it. Sonic & Sega need my sales more than Mario & Nintendo do.
I know I sound like a rabid fanboy, to an extent. But I'm realistic. While Mario is all but guaranteed to be a 10/10, Sonic will likely be a 7 or 8 for most reviewers. Usually, that would still make it a must buy for platform fans. But the inevitable comparisons to Mario will hurt it. I really hope professional reviewers realise this and take it on its own merits and have realistic expectations, rather than spending most of the review comparing it to Mario and dunking on Sonic because it used to be fashionable to do so. That's so played out and barely valid anymore, it's just clickbaiting nowadays.
Recently a lot of Mortal Kombat 1 reviews have marked the game down because the reviewer prefers Street Fighter 6. That's unfair because the two are very different experiences with different fanbases who have different wants and expectations. I see a parallel with Mario and Sonic, two very different takes on a broad genre. Some people like chocolate, some like cheese, some lucky people enjoy both. But comparing them is pointless, and might put other people off of trying something new, or make them feel bad for liking the "wrong" one.
Re: Mario Producer: Sonic's Same Week Release Is "An Interesting Coincidence"
There's no way it was done on purpose, definitely a coincidence. Nintendo would not have chosen to release the same week to hurt the sales of Sonic. That's not how they do business, they just release their first party games when they feel they are ready, and only pay attention to the staggered timing of their own first party games, not rivaling others.
For Nintendo, there is no animosity or rivalry between the brands anymore. Much as its weird to say, Sonic is almost a 2nd party brand for Nintendo these days. He makes them a lot of money, and compliments their brand. For consoles, Nintendo is Sonics natural home and his inclusion in Nintendo games like Smash and sports titles is welcomed not tolerated, and retro Sega IPs are officially welcomed and co-opted, Genesis on NSO, official NSO controllers etc.
As for Sega, back in the 90s, the release date would have been a potential consideration, to get a PR one up if they outsell Mario, or even take from his sales... but not today. There is maybe still a tiny lingering friendly rivalry but they mostly see Nintendo as partners and they are realistic that Mario is the far bigger game franchise nowadays and its foolish to try and compete, instead, just try and beat the sales of the last Sonic game, and get better reviews and fan reactions than the missteps of the past.
Sonic wont hurt Mario's sales in any way. But Mario could hurt Sonic's sales, for people that either can't afford both games, or just don't want 2 side scrolling platformers in short succession. I'm sure that most people, if forced to pick one, will go with Mario. I hope this isn't the case, as I really want this game to succeed and show Sega there is a future in high quality 2d platformers. It's my favourite genre, and Sonic is my favourite franchise.
Of course, Sonic is available on all systems. I'm sure the PC sales will be stellar. But PlayStation and Xbox are a tiny fraction of Sonic's console sales, it's usually like 80% Nintendo. I really feel that these two games launching at once could hurt the initial sales for Sonic and that makes me sad.
I'm really excited for Mario Wonder. I think it looks excellent. Im sure it will garner 10/10 scores all round and be hailed an instant classic. I love 2d Mario games and have been wanting a new one with new ideas for what seems like forever. Im 100% sure i will love it. But I honestly feel like I don't want to buy it on launch. Its hard for me to get hyped because all my hype is aimed at Sonic right now. A new, quality Sonic game is a far rarer prospect, and much, much more is at risk for the company and brand. It needs to succeed. Mario just will succeed, there is no question there.
Re: Video: 20 Exciting New Games Coming To Nintendo Switch In October 2023
Sonic Superstars is preordered for multiple systems. I will definitely pick up Mario Wonder as well, though right now it's hard to concentrate on much beyond Sonic. I may wait a month or so for Mario to fully savour and enjoy Sonic first before getting consumed by another exciting release in a favourite series. I wish they were a bit more spaced out, I want to fully play and enjoy them both.
Re: Soapbox: What Do You Do When Nintendo Ticks Off Your ENTIRE Most-Wanted List?
I request you add Nights into Dreams, Um Jammer Lammy and a port of Yoshi's Woolly World to your magick list, please oh great wise and powerful Kate!
Re: UK Charts: EA Sports FC 24 Physical Sales Down 30% Compared To FIFA 23
@UltimateOtaku91 That's exactly what I said that they should do on this very site and was mercilessly flamed for daring to suggest it! 😆
I think clearly many parents and casual fans just buy the latest FIFA when they see it on the shelves, and they ignore other football games. I feel EA needs to advertise more to let the casuals know about the name change - including TV adverts for the older generations of parents who still watch it and primarily get their news that way.
However, if they start putting adverts and notices in free updates for the previous game, casual fans will notice this way for free. People may not like the suggestion of adverts in games but realistically sports sims plaster adverts all over the place for realism anyway!
It's definitely valid that the digital preorder bonuses will have eaten into the physical market as well though, in addition to market trends. Presumably every year there is a small decline in physical sales and increase in digital?
@Frobodobo Its people or parents buying a console for the first time. New kids are born every day, grow, and ask for the latest console for their birthday. The top 5 most famous games per console are always evergreen because those are the games the kids will have seen their friends own or talked about in the playground. They are also.often bundled in by retailers or discounted when buying the systems. However when these evergreen games are topping the charts, that is more a sign that there aren't any real significant new games released that week.
Re: Sonic Frontiers: The Final Horizon DLC Launch Trailer Highlights Tails, Knuckles & Amy
@RareFan It started off "good for Sonic standards" but since launch Kishimoto has been extremely active looking at feedback and intereacting with fans, modders etc to make both subtle tweaks and very big changes. I believe that with this last update it will be "really good" regardless of comparitive standards. A great time for newcomers to jump on and give it a try. I feel like whichever project follows, learning and building from this one, will be even better.
Re: Review: EA Sports FC 24 - The Best Football Game On Any Nintendo System, Finally
@Qwiff Haha that's awesome! Yes the first versions of FIFA were missing lots of things you'd expect today, I think they played really well, a more arcadey experience. Sounds like we had the same version, mine was the CD-Rom version which had commentary added (which hadn't previously been in other CD systems like the Mega-CD port). I played that game sooooooo much!
@HalBailman Thank you!
Re: Sonic Superstars Will Apparently Run At "A Smooth 60FPS" On Switch
@Lord No worries! Yes its not always that particular website thats the cheap one, but with a little shopping around, I find pretty much every new game is available physically under RRP somewhere!
Re: Random: Nintendo Stores In Japan Sprout New Pikmin Merch With Adorable Wind-Up Bulborb
He is friend shaped and wants to come live with me!
Re: Sonic Superstars Will Apparently Run At "A Smooth 60FPS" On Switch
@JohnnyMind Thank you! 😀
Re: Review: EA Sports FC 24 - The Best Football Game On Any Nintendo System, Finally
This is the first Switch version of "FIFA" that I'm considering buying at full price. Of course EA are a mixed bag of a company nowadays but they should be congratulated for finally making an effort and I actually want this new game to become a successful brand, after breaking away from the grubby mits of IRL FIFA.
I always mention this but despite what it became its worth mentioning just how amazing and revelatory the first FIFA was back in '93. I'm not really much of a football fan IRL and never have been but I was thoroughly swept up in just what a brilliant game it was. My elderly grandparents saw an advert for it on their tiny portable black and white television and found the graphics so impressive they were actually confused as to whether it was real footage or not, and made a point of asking me about if it was real or if they'd somehow misunderstood! Thats how big a leap it was as far as presentation and realism.
I didn't have a Megadrive at the time, only a Master System, but a year or so later when my family got a PC I grabbed the CD-ROM version of the first FIFA which was a great port of the Megadrive game but added FMV sections and a full audio commentary. I bought it almost entirely so I could excitedly show it off to my grandparents, and they could see the best version of the game that had amazed them so much. I wish they were around today to see what games have become, it would blow their minds!
Re: Sonic Superstars Will Apparently Run At "A Smooth 60FPS" On Switch
@JohnnyMind I'm the same. For my own games that I'm releasing (admittedly cheaper budget titles in the first place), the digital copies will be cheaper than the physical ones. To me, that only makes sense and I think more people will be willing to give them a try if they are impulse-buy prices, and we take advantage of sale periods etc. so that more people get to try them.
For those that really like them or want to support from the start, the physical copies will have a premium simply because they cost more to make and ship, but we're working hard to make the packaging extra nice, have a proper manual and other inserts like maps, posters etc. for those collectors that will appreciate it.
I just can't wrap my head around charging the same for digital as physical... let along the digital actually costing more.
As for Sonic Superstars, I'm happy to pay whatever price. Its Sonic. I'll probably buy it several times over in multiple formats 😂
Re: Sonic Superstars Will Apparently Run At "A Smooth 60FPS" On Switch
@JohnnyMind Yeah its crazy to me that in Europe its literally always cheaper (on launch day) to buy a physical copy than a digital download. Not only do you get to actually own it, have nice packaging, maybe manual etc... but of course you can resell it in the future if you want. Prices vary of course but with a few minutes of shopping around different sites you can fine £5-15 discounts for pretty much every major title on launch day or pre-orders. I think the one that I posted a link to even has a rewards system where you collect loyalty points to get even more money off future orders!
If digital copies were significantly cheaper than physical, perhaps I'd be more likely to buy them for convenience, like I do with Steam sales etc. But full price for digital console titles is madness. Thats not even taking into account the extra cost of buying memory cards needed for storage of the downloads either!
Re: Sonic Superstars Will Apparently Run At "A Smooth 60FPS" On Switch
@Lord If you're in the UK, its already as low as £39.85 in some retailers... as pointed out by Jon (ex-NintendoLife!) on GVG yesterday. https://www.hit.co.uk/fsearch.htm?search=Sonic+Superstars
Considering its £55 on Amazon, that's a pretty great deal!
Re: Sonic Superstars Will Apparently Run At "A Smooth 60FPS" On Switch
Well, we knew that from the footage we've seen so far, but nice to have it confirmed!
Being that its me, this probably goes without saying, but I am unbelievably hyped for this game 😍 Most excited I've been for a game in years! Eeeek
Re: Retro-Inspired Horror RPG 'Sunshine Manor' Gets Spooky On Switch Next Month
Ooooh now this looks lovely!
Re: 'Hidden Gems: Volume One' Brings Four Classic Commodore 64 Games To Switch Tomorrow
@Ristar24 Ah the C64c is a beautiful system. I love all the late stage redesigns of the early 80s hardware in the early 90s to make them look more aesthetically similar to their 16bit counterparts.
@shgamer Haha I can understand that. The colour clash certainly makes an entirely unique aesthetic and I can see how nostalgia would make games without it look "wrong" even though they are technically better. You're right about the higher resolution being a boon - as I said even though I'm a huge Master System fan, when considering making my first semi professional retro console homebrew I've found I lean towards the NES because of the higher resolution being nicer to work with for my personal style of sprite design.
@SpringDivorce Thanks. Yeah when going through a rough period in my personal life, I found solace in the retro community and quickly became close personal IRL friends with many of the biggest names in the scene. In general its a lovely, welcoming environment... but sadly on a pretty regular basis a huge scandal will happen and nearly destroy the whole thing, and everything becomes very "school playground bullying" but with relentless anonymous social media hate campaigns and sock puppets galore meaning its hard to escape from without just being harassed into going offline... as someone who's job is to be in the public eye, it became somewhat of a liability for me to be outwardly associating with it as it spills over into comments under interviews, reviews of films I've made etc... This makes me sad.
Every few months I try and come back to the world of making retro youtube videos and attending conventions and in person events, but then another one of my good friends is hit with a huge scandal and everything becomes stressful and anxiety triggering. Its so sad and uneccessary. Most of us are in our 40s or older - we should have grown out of this behaviour before we hit our teens. I just love old games and want to talk about them. That's all! lol
Re: 'Hidden Gems: Volume One' Brings Four Classic Commodore 64 Games To Switch Tomorrow
@shgamer Absolutely. The SAM Coupé springs to mind. As a Welshman I love the Dragon systems too, sadly they were never more than an after thought at the time.
To be honest I think the main reason for the Spectrum's success was Sir Clive's absolute insistance on getting the price under £100, so that they could be affordable for every family, and teach coding to the masses. Considering he somewhat looked down his nose at gaming, it doesn't surprise me that corners were cut in the sound and moving graphics front. Adding an AY chip and a more powerful dedicated graphics chip and you'd have probably ended up with something very akin to the 464... and at a simialr price (probably £200 without a monitor). While that would have been cool, less people would have bought one and there would have been less variety and choice in the market. I'm happy with how history went, and the Spectrum sold very well, being the best selling range in the UK overall.
I'm sure you're aware of the ZX Spectrum NEXT but if you aren't, its a wonderful bit of kit.
Re: 'Hidden Gems: Volume One' Brings Four Classic Commodore 64 Games To Switch Tomorrow
@AndroidiOS Thank you! Glad you found it interesting
Re: 'Hidden Gems: Volume One' Brings Four Classic Commodore 64 Games To Switch Tomorrow
@Ristar24 Yes we've spoken about this before - the SID chip is capable of incredible things. One of the ways I personally think the C64 is arguably better than the NES. Last Ninja 2 is an incredibly impressive game for the system.
Weirdly, where I lived it was mostly arguements between those that owned Amstrads or Spectrums, I only knew one kid with a C64... but as I'd grown up learning to program on older Commodores I covetted it and eventually bought it off him. It was a C64c, and actually had one cartridge game, the only one I've ever owned for the system - Terminator 2. Really crazy to have a Commodore game load instantly! They were silly money though considering in those days most of us bought budget games on tape for £2.99
Re: 'Hidden Gems: Volume One' Brings Four Classic Commodore 64 Games To Switch Tomorrow
@SpringDivorce Thanks. Yeah. Its legally impossible to own the rights to Horace and anyone saying they do is either severely misguided or knowingly lying for profit. And he is not the only "IP" from these days being exploited in this matter to milk the UK retro community of money whilst retroactively suing Youtubers, bloggers and even documentary makers talking about "their" IP that they just "bought".
Simply checking government records for the company behind this compilation opens a whole barrel of worms. I'll leave it at that.
Re: 'Hidden Gems: Volume One' Brings Four Classic Commodore 64 Games To Switch Tomorrow
@shgamer Yeah the Z80 is capable of amazing things, as I said its my preference of 8bit chip to program for. If Sinclair had made a more expensive model with a dedicated graphics chip, instead of selling to Sugar when he did, history could potentially have been quite different. Although, I'm a heathen and actually prefer the plus 2 model Spectrums myself for collecting and playing.
Even though I grew up with and first learned on varous Commodores, I'm extremely fond of the Spectrum and CPC 464/6128/Plus ranges. Each system is capable of incredible things if you take advantage of each's specific strengths. I'm always fascinated whena console ( or home pc! ) generation's hardware each feels uniquely different. Its a shame that in recent years the difference between Xbox and Playstation versions of games is barely noticable.
Re: 'Hidden Gems: Volume One' Brings Four Classic Commodore 64 Games To Switch Tomorrow
@shgamer Haha I wondered if someone would call me out on the Spectrum being "weaker"... I was massively oversimplifying for the sake of not making a long post even longer.
You may have seen in my original post that I mentioned I literally learned to program on Commodore, Spectrum, and Amstrad CPCs. I'm very familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of them all. I started with a Commodore PET in the early 80s, through Vic20 & C16, 48K Spectrum, and by the early 90s I was making games for 128k Spectrum, C64 and CPC 464.
As you pointed out, the Spectrum ranges' greatest strength were their CPUs. I vastly prefer Z80 based 8bit systems to work with personally, though nowadays I lean towards NES over the Z80 based Master System for my own projects as the higher resolution is nicer for spritework. But the Spectrums' lack of hardware scrolling, "proper" sprites and limited way in which it could handle colour, but while being the "main" system multiplat games were made for, undoubtedly lead to many C64 and CPC games appearing weaker than what those systems could handle as they were essentially Spectrum code ports.
The thing is, the Spectrum models (especially the earlier ones) ARE the "weaker" hardware of the bunch, but they also were literally a third the price of the CPC and C64, and were remarkably capable for the cost. Its the "an affordable computer in every home" attitude that made the Spectrum the best selling system, lead to the widest software catalogie and the highest number of bedroom coders who are now giants in the industry... and is why if you'd have asked my favourite 8bit computer range I'd have said "Spectrum", despite the hardware being arguably the worst. Its the little machine that could. What the homebrew community manages to push them to do nowadays is frankly astonishing... though still not as comparible to the NES as the C64, which was what the original poster I was replying to was talking about, and the fact most people don't seem to know that they have the same CPU in all but name is what prompted me to reply.
As for the NES having a higher resolution than the C64, yeah I was going to mention that, but as its the only very obvious downgrade in that Mario video I posted, I left it out due to brevity and only said the C64 was more capable in "some" areas, and "comparible" otherwise, which I think is accurate. I also much prefer the colour pallette of the NES, but thats a more personal preference thing, and it does have its blind spots. Master System had it beat there, for sure.
Re: 'Hidden Gems: Volume One' Brings Four Classic Commodore 64 Games To Switch Tomorrow
@AndroidiOS I assume by Atari you mean the 2600, and yeah that's vastly less powerful than an NES, though much older of course.
Interestingly though, the C64 hardware is extremely comparable to the NES - they have basically the same CPU (the Famicom's CPU was actually a "dubiously legal" clone of a chip Commodore had an exclusive license for!) and in some specific ways the C64 is more capable.
The reason you get many NES games that appear to be superior what what the Commodore could do is mostly because most NES cartridges contained upgrade chips in them, and also that cartridges could potentially contain more data than was on a C64 cassette (though, the C64 could play games on cartridge too - it just wasn't common as the public prefered the cheap price of tapes and discs). Another limiting factor was that multiplat games were often coded simultaneously for the weaker Spectrum. Games at the time that took full advantage of the C64's power were comparible to quality NES releases... but these were rare. My favourite example from the time period is Mayhem in Monsterland. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldo2ewLBt3Y
Any of the "black box" NES titles that ran on stock machines were perfectly possible to have nearly 1:1 ports on C64. A few years ago a pretty much perfect homebrew port of Super Mario Bros was released! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jIrR9Iqq4Q
It can even run an extremely close port of Master System Sonic... which actually improves on the MS version in some ways! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4CGwp4N9xg though unlike SMB, that one requires a REU upgrade (which were available in the 80s, that's not a modern thing)
Re: Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 Spotlights The "Lazy, Orange Superstar" Garfield
@Paulo Sure, I didn't say he didn't work on them any more, just that over the years he progressively outsourced more and more elements, bringing in artists, letterers, moving everything to digital, and then hiring more writers... For decades now he has been overseeing the strip rather than entirely making it himself like he used to, and over time he's become less hands on while concentrating on other areas. Of course, he always has the final say though, everything has to be signed off by him.
He has been quoted in several interviews as saying that he prefers the marketing side and the social/team aspect and finds it exciting and rewarding to give others a chance to do something with Garfield. Watch any of the interviews he did in the Paws Inc building and he states that the daily strip isn't so much his priority anymore, and he doesn't write for it as much, except when hit with jokes or inspiration.
In the modern era, whenever Jim is fully involved with 100% writing a project, it nearly always takes Garfield in very strange, creative, unique non-canon directions that don't fit the daily strip, such as short films/features/espisodes, things with sci fi, horror, superhero, multi-verse, or other takes like philosophical looks at life, death, religion... In a way, this was always his intention, if you look at some of the stuff from the early days, such as the original "9 Lives" book.
Garfield to him is not a specific canon and timeline, more an iconic image to give to different people and see what they do with him. This manifested in him finding writing for the standard strip and kids show somewhat restrictive, but really loving the idea of companies and individuals from all around the world using Garfield in unique (and often very ecclectic!) ways.
I don't say any of the above to insinuate that he doesn't have artistic merit or doesn't care about the strip. Quite the opposite. Its just that to him, the beauty of Garfield is that he doesn't belong to him, he belongs to the world, and he believes there can be infinite multiverse style reimaginings of his core concept - similar to how Disney use Mickey or Nintendo use Mario - except Jim is far less concerned about keeping things family friendly. He is often delighted by the weirder, more esoteric takes, occasionally even cosigning random stuff from the internet, such as officially publishing "Garfield minus Garfield". His only public concern is that children might be scared by some of what people create, but he still loves it and frankly none of the lovecraftian weird things the internet has created are that far from official stuff Jim has created and officially released himself over the years.
I personally find that fascinating, especially when you compared his career and ideals to other similarly successful cartoonists such as Charles Schultz or Bill Watterson, two people that I also deeply admire, both of whom took very different approaches to a very similar business, all three of which are completely incompatible but equally valid. Art is funny like that. And its beautiful.
Re: 'Hidden Gems: Volume One' Brings Four Classic Commodore 64 Games To Switch Tomorrow
I love old Commodore, Spectrum and Amstrad games and first learned to program by tinkering with all three. In general, I welcome new ways for people to play and share the games. As for this collection, inquisitive types should research the company who thinks that they "licensed" these and exactly how they claim to have done so.
Many friends of mine including 3 of the people I love most in this world are too close to this situation for me to be objective, so I won't give an opinion. But these are worth a read for anyone interested in games of this era, and the ethics and legality of charging for them:
https://boingboing.net/2019/11/18/horace-goes-copyright-striking.html
https://www.digitiser2000.com/main-page/horace-how-hungry-is-too-hungry
Re: Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 Spotlights The "Lazy, Orange Superstar" Garfield
@Paulo Over the years Jim was less interested in working on the comic strip and more interested in the marketing and seeing what other people did with the character. He really enjoyed managing Paws inc when it was a physical building that was pretty much a giant Garfield museum of every previous product from around the world, and he could show licensees around to give them ideas and explain the history of the brand and characters.
He had his sales pitch down but also was just a lovely guy who liked talking to fans, buy you a drink, take you for dinner etc. Make a day of showing his love for Garfield to prospective clients. He was often very willing to work with individuals with almost no money on their pet projects if he felt they were passionate about Garfield and had grown up with him or whatever. This is how you end up with strange stuff by eccentric people like GarfieldEats and the random mom-n-pop "themeparks" with Garfield rides that are little more than hand made things handpainted on mdf on a farm/petting zoo in the middle of nowhere.
Sadly after the covid shutdowns, it became obvious that pretty much all business was moving to online only meetings, zooms, emails, and Jim didn't have the fun experience of having a prospective client fly in from a foreign country and being shown around. Once they closed the Paws Inc building, it wasn't fun any more. Time to retire. I certainly don't blame him.
Re: Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 Spotlights The "Lazy, Orange Superstar" Garfield
That original design Garfield is a really nice touch.
Off topic but this just reminded me that I really wanted to visit GarfieldEats and planned to next time I'm in Toronto... only to look it up and find out that they closed in 2021. Boo. I wanted a Garfaccino.
Re: Sonic Origins Plus Is Getting A Numbered Physical Edition Through Pix'n Love
@RupeeClock Thanks for confirming, I was pretty sure it was fine for Tails as a partner. Very curious, I wonder why this happens... its definitely because Tails can swim, so its something in the Sonic 1 specific retro engine code. Being that it works fine in the other games it should be a simple enough fix... fingers crossed.
Re: Unity Reveals New Pricing Model For Runtime Fee Policy
@HeadPirate Oh sure I didn't think they would, for sure Nintendo and Sony would never even consider allowing that. I was more concerned with the privacy / data protection side of things, and when I said it was risky for the for the console manufacturares I meant more that if there is a class action lawsuit related to data thats been misused by one of these companies or hacked from them, and people blame the console manufacturer because it was part of their system update that allowed it, not the code of the individual game.
Re: Sonic Origins Plus Is Getting A Numbered Physical Edition Through Pix'n Love
@MirrorFate2 @RupeeClock I wasn't aware of that until you both mentioned it (I've played a tonne of Origins Plus on Switch and PC, but mostly as Sonic or Amy) but yeah that is a serious and obvious issue and they need to fix it. I don't think it happens when you have Tails as a partner character? I often have my lil fox buddy follow me around as I play. I'm sure Sega are aware of this, they keep a very close eye on socials (shout to Katie!) and though they are very slow with updates, they've fixed the issues that I personally was most annoyed with, so I'm pretty hopeful they pay attention to bug reports and complaints on social media and will work on improving it over time. I wish it was faster / higher priority but I'm happy with the updates so far, especially now they've finally added proper pixel scaling, which admitedly should have been there from the start... but hey, great that they fixed my #1 complaint.
Perhaps ironic or just "weird the way the world works" coincidence, but today I've been working on my Sonic fangame / collection ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvTiAmOH8MM ) and literally a few hours ago today discovered a bug that crashes when Tails enters water in 8bit style levels. My engine has 9 characters (Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Ray & the Chaotix) and supports both 8 and 16bit style levels and sprites, but they all share the same programing for controls, physics, partner ai, collisions etc regardless of whether 8 or 16bit. It hadn't even slightly occured to me that Tails is the only character that can swim, but 8bit Tails doesn't has never had a swim sprite. I'm going to have to make a custom one 😅
Re: Mailbox: Missing Zelda Ports, Nerd Rage, 16-Bit Blowback - Nintendo Life Letters
@Munchlax Congratulations on the the star letter! you're a brave person! lol. While I could never agree that the NSMB games are better than SMW, I can 100% get behind enjoying Link's Awakening above Link to the Past, and I rate Super Mario Land 2 (as well as the first, and Warioland) very highly... just under MBB3 and SMW, but in the same conversation at least!
Part of the reason I love those Gameboy games so much is they feel very unique and like they take more risks than their 16bit counterparts. SMW and LTTP are arguably better designed but the GB titles have more personality and unique ideas, and really felt like they were pushing the system far further than was expected.
I asked for and got my SNES in 1994 for the trifecta of games that I, as a die hard Sega fan, really wanted - Street Fighter 2 Turbo, Donkey Kong Country and Star Wing/Fox. I adored those games, and several other unique experiences I couldn't get on Sega - Mario Paint was the start of my film/animation "career", in that I got really good at it and editing things together with VHS, and won some cash in a local competition with the results.
Some of my favourite games of all time are on the SNES. But in some ways, its harder to go back to, or more offputting for newcomers, than other systems of the time like the Megadrive, NeoGeo, 68000 based computers etc... For me, Nintendo made a couple of very big mis steps with the hardware that hurt it in comparisson to its peers - the underpowered CPU, meaning a lot of slowdown or lack of simultaneous sprites, and even more noticably, a standard graphics resolution that was significantly lower than standard.
While we didn't really notice it as kids (especially if it was all you had) nowadays the crop factor is hugely noticable and sometimes feels gamebreaking. If you compare almost any multiplat title that uses the same art assets, the SNES version will have more colours on screen, but be severely cropped/zoomed in. Now that we are used to playing modern retro-style games in 16x9, its hard enough for some people to go back to 4:3... but the SNES games usually feel vastly more claustrophobic/restrictive than the other games of the time, because of this lower resolution. For games that were designed with the restriction in mind, usually first party games or exclusive titles, its not too noticable, other than the graphics feeling subtley more "chunky" than other retro 16bit games. But for multi-plats, it can often feel close to unplayable via modern eyes.
Again, before I get flamed! To be clear, I love the SNES. I still feel it has one of the best controllers of all time, and I use the NSO SNES pad for a large amount of the games I play emulated. I'm definitely one of the people that think the early 90s was the greatest generation for games, and certain titles from the SNES are up there with the best of the Megadrive, Amiga, Neo Geo, CPS 1/2, PC Engine/TG16 etc. But I understand why some people find SNES specifically hard to go back to, or to experience the first time, like you did.
Its weird hardware with a unique controller and exclusive features that in some ways made it miles ahead of its competition, but it has some baffling quirks that have meant many of its titles aged poorly in comparison to its peers. Its first party titles are the ones that really make it stand out and only a small handful of other developers ever really got the most out of it. I guess with all that in mind, its a typical "Nintendo system". 😅
Re: Mailbox: Missing Zelda Ports, Nerd Rage, 16-Bit Blowback - Nintendo Life Letters
@CaleBoi25 Haha thank you I take that as a big compliment! I'm autistic and since the 1980s in arcades (and especially intensified in 1991 after first seeing Sonic at a friend's house), videogames became a literal obsession, wanting to read every magazine, watch every show, visit every arcade, even seek out books on the history and business side, and learning literally everything I could about arcade and home videogames. It was never about only wanting the newest sparkliest thing - once I became obsessed I wanted to know the history as well - even as an early teen I was using pocket money to buy games, consoles and computers from before I was born so I could experience what I'd read about. For me, the progression, changes, improvements and mis-steps are a big part of my love for gaming.
I've been programing videogames since I was a child (though only recently started doing it professionally) and in my teenage years I was building and restoring arcade cabinets as a side hobby. While my main business is a movie and tv drama producer, for decades I've helped behind the scenes on many videogame documentaries, books, youtube channels, expositions and conventions etc through a combination of accumulated knowledge and my fairly sizable collection of rare/interesting stuff.
I mentioned my autism because in a way its my superpower, in that it affects me in having a near infinite thirst for knowledge about the tiny minutiae of things, but also that I'm very good at seeing patterns and connecting the dots, and being able to therefore see narritives and throughlines that others haven't realised or been able to adequately express, so by telling a story and giving examples, I can give context and explanations to things people often wonder about. The button situation is something I often see people mention... perhaps I should make a video about it rather than copying and pasting a big scrawl most people won't read 😂
Re: Sonic Origins Plus Is Getting A Numbered Physical Edition Through Pix'n Love
Following up on my above post, I slightly retract my dismissal of the exclusive art book. Checking out their website, I've realised that they are a very well established videogame book publisher that has published many books in France, several of which I own, and they are excellent quality, usually contain proper journalism with unique research and interviews, and are worth the money.
Suddenly I'm slightly more interested in this package... but I'm still skeptical there will be anything new in the book I don't already own in the million other official Sonic books I have bought over the past years. If it was a unique/interesting book - why use such commonly used stock assets on the cover and on the example pages? I'd need to see more to know if I want it. But I can at least vouch that it will be very high quality printing, bounding, and design.
@RupeeClock @LikelySatan @DogDetective @GrailUK Judging by the pictures I'm willing to bet pretty much any amount of money that this is the standard retail cart and packaging, and is a way to easily shift extra stock for a larger profit than the discounted copies other retailers are selling. I see no reason that they'd make a whole new run of cartridges, and if they did, they'd make damn sure to put that selling point front and center for collectors to have a reason to buy.