Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Guns Girl Z

Not seeing much love out there for this incredibly well done anime brawler, so hoping to remedy that. It's free to play and available on iOS, Android, and PC (via Bluestack.)

Download Here: http://www.4inch.com/act1/


"Guns Girl Z" is a side-scrolling gun-based anime beat-em-up. You walk from left to right, shooting or slashing at the zombie girls and eventually killing the boss. You collect new equipment, money, and experience points, which you use to make yourself stronger. There's guilds, friends, crafting, and fully supported chat.

Pros:
- Crisp, colorful graphics
- Great run-and-gun gameplay
- Best on-screen-gamepad controls I've ever used
- Android/iOS/Bluestack support, as well as cross-device play
- Anime design, all girl cast
- JPN/CHN Voices and decent OST

Cons:
- Once you get far in the game, it's a huge grindfest
- Anime design, all girl cast
- F2P via a gashapon... you pay a lot of money and get a random item.
- Engrish everywhere. Really bad instructions, lots of unexplained features, and nonsense story dialogue.

All in all, it's a fun game, especially if you grew up playing arcade beat-em-ups. It's free and I think you can definitely get some enjoyment out of it, even if you only do a few levels before the grind-wall starts to bother you. I think it plays on a tablet best.

I'm including some tips, since the game does a poor job of setting you off in the right direction. Hope it's useful, please add any tips you can. And feel free to copy this text verbatim to other forums and stuff... you don't even need to give me credit. Just want to see more love for this game.

Also, if you enjoy the game, please 'Like' the facebook page. They'll hand out some free items if it gets enough likes. Thanks!

Official US Facebook Page for news: https://www.facebook.com/ggzUS


TIPS AND TRICKS

- Keep the starter fifle Flintlock. It's a really good weapon that can last you until end-game. If you get rid of it, it will be difficult to get another copy.
- Consider getting the rare FN2000R drop from Stage 1-3. It's an auto-rifle that levels up easily to 5*. It can last you until at least Stage 10.
- Consider getting the rare Supercond Sniper Rifle drop from Stage 2-5. It levels easily to 5* and is a great gun.
- 'Deathbreath, Ha' from 4-6 is a great farmable skill that increases Critical Hit damage. 'Deathbreath, Shun' is another great farmable skill that increases Critical Hit rate. These skills go very well with FN2000R.
- SupplyMultiply is a good farmable skill that increases the health and ammo you receive from drops. QuickEscape is another good farmable skill.
- The best stage drop costumes is the 5* Secret Service Uniform in stage 5-5
- Melee weapons seem nice in the beginning as they don't require ammo, but they quickly become ineffective because the enemies get too much life.
- Keep replaying Stage 4-9 to most efficiently grind up to Level 50
- Make sure to play treasure box events each week and go as far as you can. They're cheap, short, and you get a lot of EXP
- Use material/meow events to collect any materials you need for enhancing or refining
- The item drop rate doesn't increase in hard mode, so farming easy mode is fine. Hard mode waves are spawned by a set timer.
- Find friends with auto-healing or loot-range powers. Nice passive skills can be much more useful than a high level buddy.
- Summoning a buddy can be used sacrificially against the kamikaze zombies.
- Using the gacha is tempting, but increasing slots might be a better option if you're not intending to spend money. The more slots you have, the easier and quicker it is create lots of hamsters and enhance your equipment. I ended up getting a lot more enjoyment by increasing slots (maybe between 80-100) than hoping for good gacha drops. The stage drop gear will take you deep into the game
- Stage 11 is the easiest place to grind King Meows, but good luck getting there

ENHANCING, FORGING and REFINING

This is the part of the game that vastly needs more in-game explanation. The basic idea of upgrading is simple: push in items and level up your gear, then upgrade your gear by collecting a specific list of materials. So, basically, do a ton of grinding and inventory management. However, if you know the following, you can save yourself a lot of grinding:

1. The number of stars is the "rarity" of the item. You can only refine an item until all the stars are filled in. Higher rarity items can level up to better stats, but cost more points to equip. When you refine an item, it will go back down to level 1.
2. The higher level the equipment, the more gold it costs for any enhancement
3. Although you'll get less experience in the end, it's much cheaper to combine your low level items before enhancing your high level item with them.
4. If you use the same type of equipment (clothing/weapon/skill), you'll get more experience (1.5x) from an enhancement
4. For Meows: Silver are for Weapons, Gold are for Skills, and Diamond are for Clothing
5. Hamsters can be forged to give a ton of experience. Like the meows, different types are meant for different equipment
6. The easiest way of collecting forging items is to wait for an event day, but this requires a lot of free storage slots
7. In order to refine an item, you must have a free inventory slot and it MUST NOT be currently equipped in any of your set ups
8. If an item has a '+X' attribute and you use it to enhance another item of the same type, the entire '+X' will be inherited

Lastly, the hamster is a great way to gain experience, but isn't really explained in game.

The trick is, you need to upgrade the hamster to MAX level and then refine it before it's worthwhile. It takes 2600exp to upgrade a hamster, which is roughly 2 tiny meows of any type. Then it takes 2 tiny meows of the hamster's type plus an upgrade item (from Thursday event) to forge the item. After that, you'll get a whopping 45000 exp from a hamster, which is great.

Getting hamsters, meows, and upgrade items are best done through Events. But if you rely on events, you'll probably need more storage because you can only collect one kind of thing in an event.

King Meows (75000 exp) can be dropped pretty reliably starting around Level 11.

EVENTS

Treasure: You have a time limit to beat waves of enemies, it resets every week. You'll be able to progress further as you get stronger. Great for quick experience and sometimes drops.

Emergency: At 12:30 and 6:30, a special stage opens for an hour where you can collect a certain kind of meow/hamster. Great for enhancing.

Weekday: Each day, you can play a few stages that will drop a certain material forging type. Great for forging.

Boss: Beat a boss character for special items. You'll need to be pretty high level for this. The boss rotates periodically.

Tower: Play in the tower without needing to spend stamina. Collect points until you lose. You get no experience and very little gold, the only point to this mode (besides for fun) is to get a few achievements.

DAILY LOGIN

Login every day for a login bonus item. You can get a lot of free crystals this way. The Login Bonus list changes every month, so you start from the first square every month.

CRYSTALS and MPASS

Crystals are the currency in this game. They're pretty expensive to buy with real money, but you can get a lot of free crystals. Do the daily logins. Check for codes on the facebook page. You also get crystals for achievements, for beating stages with crystal icons, and for finishing all stages in a level on HARD. This game is pretty generous with crystals.

There's a thing called an MPASS, which is a great deal if you want to spend real money. You get 300 crystals right off the bat, then you get an additional 60 crystals each day (via message) for the next 30 days. This is 2100 crystals total, including the original 300 crystals. If you buy multiple MPASSes, you'll get the 300 crystals immediately, but the extra days are added to the end of your period. So if you buy two MPASSes, then you'll get 600 crystals and 60 crystals a day for the next 60 days. You will not get 120 crystals a day.

GACHA

Lucky: 180 FP (friend points from people using your character) - You can only get items you could grind from stages. There are some 5* equipment and meows that are worthwhile.
Prime: 98 crystals - guaranteed 2* and higher.
Gold: 280 crystals - guaranteed 3* and higher.

Your 11th Gold Gacha pull is guaranteed to be 5*
Your 25th Gold Gacha pull is guaranteed to be 6*

Prime/Gold Gacha is the only way to obtain alternate characters. Alternate characters are basically skin/voice swaps... they have very, very minor benefits. Raiden gives you +100HP and Bronya gives you +5 weight limit.

GUILDS

Join a guild and contribute to the guild's level. A guild gains experience based on how much stamina was used by its members to successfully complete stages. You don't contribute points if you don't beat the stage. So if you want to contribute as much as possible, burn stamina on event stages, but make sure you beat the stage.

Once a day, guild members can collect the guild bonus. The guild bonus varies depending on the guild's level, but it's some amount of stamina.

FRIENDS

You can add buddies, which you can use during a stage. You gain any passive effects they have (skills equipped or passive costume skills) during that stage. You can also use their character for a short period of time, so it's useful to have really strong buddies. You have to wait about an hour before you can reuse a buddy. When someone uses your character, you get FP, which can be used in the Lucky Gacha.

INVITATION BONUS

You get 50 crystals for each of the first six people to use your invitation code. You get Hatsune's Leek (a melee weapon that can change non-elite zombies into an Alice that only drops gold) after six people. From then on, you get nothing. Honestly, the Hatsune's Leek is not a very good weapon, but the crystals are worthwhile.


RESOURCES

Official US Facebook Page for news: https://www.facebook.com/ggzUS
Official Forums: http://asia.4inch.com/bbs/forum.php?gid=45
List of all equipment: http://ggz.wikia.com/wiki/Equipdex_All
Character Growth: http://ggz.wikia.com/wiki/Character_Growth

Friday, August 1, 2014

Artists I Follow

So, Comic Con just finished up and it motivated me to revisit and share the list of artists I follow. The list isn't really in any particular order, they're all pretty great. Protip: For the tumblr links, add a "/archive" to any url for a nice, quick overview.


Alina Chauhttp://alinachau.tumblr.com/
http://alinachau.com/
http://instagram.com/alinachau
Victoria Yinghttp://victoriaying.tumblr.com/
http://eca-la.com/blog/
http://eca-la.com/victoria-ying/
Zac Gormanhttp://zacgorman.com/
Pascal Campionhttp://www.pascalcampion.com/sketch-of-the-day/
http://www.pascalcampion.com/
http://pascalcampion.blogspot.com/
Anthony Holdenhttp://anthonyholden.tumblr.com/
http://sketchadventure.blogspot.com/
http://anthonyholden.deviantart.com/
Genevieve Tsaihttp://genevievetsai.tumblr.com/
http://charicreatures.blogspot.com/
Mingjue Helen Chenhttp://jigokuen.tumblr.com/
Alex Ahadhttp://o-8.tumblr.com/
http://oh8.deviantart.com/gallery
Joey Chouhttp://joeyart.tumblr.com/
Jen Wanghttp://jenwang.net/
Cynthia L (Koyamori)http://maruti-bitamin.tumblr.com/
http://koyamori.deviantart.com/gallery/
http://instagram.com/maruti_bitamin

Anthony Andreshttp://anthonyandres.blogspot.com/
http://gpanthony.deviantart.com/gallery/
http://gpanthony.tumblr.com/
Bill Washingtonhttp://billwash.blogspot.com/
Raymond Griegohttp://raymondgriego.blogspot.com/
Roberta Tamhttp://robertawtam.blogspot.com/
Max Barrowhttp://maxbarrowart.tumblr.com/
http://maxbarrow.blogspot.com/
Ben Setohttp://benseto.carbonmade.com/
Sean Galloway (Cheeks)http://cheeks-74.tumblr.com/
http://cheeks-74.deviantart.com/gallery/
http://gotcheeks.blogspot.com/
Luigi Lucarellihttp://loaduniverse.blogspot.com/
http://luigil.deviantart.com/gallery/
Pakie Seunghttp://pakieseung.blogspot.com/

Cory Loftishttp://coryloftis.tumblr.com/
Martin Hsuhttp://instagram.com/martinhsuart
http://martinhsuart.blogspot.com/
Bruce Timmhttp://fuckyeahbrucetimm.tumblr.com/
Elsa Changhttp://elasmosaurus.tumblr.com/
http://elasmosaurus.tumblr.com/tagged/watercolor
http://elsasketch.blogspot.com/
Rebecca Sugarhttp://rebeccasugar.tumblr.com/
Mariel Cartwright (Kinuko)http://kinucakes.tumblr.com/
J Scott Campbellhttp://j-scott-campbell.deviantart.com/gallery/
http://instagram.com/jscottcampbellart
Jeffrey 'CHAMBA' Cruzhttp://artbychamba.tumblr.com/
http://thechamba.deviantart.com/gallery/
Teekatas Suwannakruahttp://www.raindropmemory.com/
http://raindropmemory.deviantart.com/gallery/
Mecha Fetushttp://visublog.mechafetus.com/

Arnold Tsanghttp://arnistotle.deviantart.com/
Paul Robertsonhttp://probertson.tumblr.com/archive
David Davishttp://deighvid.tumblr.com/tagged/my-stuff
Tyson Murphyhttp://tysonmurphy.tumblr.com/
http://murph3.deviantart.com/
http://gardenturtle.blogspot.com/
Ry Spirithttp://ry-spirit.tumblr.com/
http://ry-spirit.deviantart.com/gallery/
Sho-N-Dhttp://sho-n-d.tumblr.com/
http://sho-n-d.deviantart.com/gallery/
Mike Maihackhttp://mikemaihack.tumblr.com/
http://mikemaihack.deviantart.com/gallery/
Mike Vasquezhttp://mikegoesgeek.deviantart.com/gallery/
Bryan Lee O'Malleyhttp://radiomaru.tumblr.com/
Alicexzhttp://alicexz.deviantart.com/gallery/
Gigi Digihttp://gigidigi.tumblr.com/

Nargylehttp://nargyle.tumblr.com/
http://nargyle.deviantart.com/gallery/
Johane Matte (Avatar)http://rufftoon.tumblr.com/
http://rufftoon.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=0
Qing Han (Night Light)http://qinni.tumblr.com/
http://qinni.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=0
lackhttp://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?id=83739
Katie J Ricehttp://katiejrice.tumblr.com/
http://funnycute.blogspot.com/
Eunjung June Kimhttp://hediun.blogspot.com/
http://junesketch.blogspot.com/
Pando Sketchhttp://pandosketch.tumblr.com/
Sarah Mensingahttp://sarahmensinga.blogspot.com/
Chris Sandershttp://www.chrissandersart.com/blog/
http://alohalilo.deviantart.com/
Genzomanhttp://genzoman.deviantart.com/gallery/
Kurko Boltsihttp://kurkoboltsi.tumblr.com/tagged/my-stuff
http://kurkoboltsi.deviantart.com/
Tokkihttp://tootokki.tumblr.com/
http://instagram.com/tootokki
Ukiloghttp://ukilog.tumblr.com/
[LIN+]http://www.pixiv.com/users/24594
[ysms]http://ysms-ik.blogspot.com/

Sakimi Chan (Gnd Disney)http://sakimichan.deviantart.com/gallery/
Nina Matsumoto (Spacecoyote)http://space-coyote.tumblr.com/ http://spacecoyote.deviantart.com/gallery/
Naiiiade (Tokaido)http://naiiiade.blogspot.com/
Kesuwabehttp://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?id=24517
Ben Balistrerihttp://benbalistreri.blogspot.com/
Brittney Leehttp://britsketch.blogspot.com/
Chapter 56http://chapter-56.blogspot.com/
Cooked Arthttp://cookedart.blogspot.com/
Ryan Langhttp://ryanlangdraws.blogspot.com/
Nate Wragghttp://n8wragg.blogspot.com/
Bill Schwabhttp://billschwabdesign.blogspot.com/
Stephanie Laberishttp://stephsketches.blogspot.com/
Nathan Fowkeshttp://nathanfowkes.blogspot.com/
Erin Huntinghttp://erinhuntingart.blogspot.com/
Miranda Yeohttp://snarkies.tumblr.com/
Aluhttp://rainingcats.tumblr.com/
Chaichan Artwichaihttp://tinsart.tumblr.com/
http://chaichan-artwichai.blogspot.com/
Tam Nguyenhttp://timtam13.deviantart.com/gallery/
TweedleBophttp://tweedlebop.tumblr.com/
Omar Doganhttp://omar-dogan.tumblr.com/
http://omar-dogan.deviantart.com/gallery/
Tam Nguyenhttp://timtam13.deviantart.com/gallery/
Redminushttps://www.facebook.com/redminus
Joe Vrienshttp://joevriens.blogspot.com/
Bobby Chiuhttps://plus.google.com/106306945062511966344/posts
Asagirihttp://asgr01.tumblr.com/

Kim Min Ji (Little Prince)http://www.ki204.com/main.htm
http://www.pinterest.com/iseniz/kim-min-ji/
Endlinghttp://endling.deviantart.com/gallery/
Ein Leehttp://einlee.deviantart.com/gallery/
Bloochikinhttp://bloochikin.deviantart.com/gallery/
Abyss Wolf (Pixel Art)http://abysswolf.deviantart.com/gallery/
OverlordJChttp://jc125.tumblr.com/
http://overlordjc.deviantart.com/gallery/
Cowbell Tiarahttp://www003.upp.so-net.ne.jp/cowbell/
Z-Studioshttp://z-studios.deviantart.com/gallery/31622109/Animated-Jolly-Rogers

http://www.buzzfeed.com/kevintang/painfully-talented-illustrators-on-pixiv

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Half Minute Hero Interviews

So... as you may have heard...


Awesome, right?  Make sure to buy it!  It's on Steam!

As I'm writing this, there's less than a day left until release.  To help hype up, here are all the Half Minute Hero Interviews I've found!  There's a lot of juicy information here...

Famitsu Interview on HMH1:
http://www.psphyper.com/psp/famitsu-interview-yuusha-30s-aka-half-minute-hero-flash-origin-development-process/

Kenichiro Takaki Interview on HMH1:
http://www.siliconera.com/2009/10/15/our-half-minute-hero-interview-takes-longer-than-30-seconds-to-read/

Another Kenichiro Takaki Interview on HMH1:
http://otakuxgamer.com/story/359/interview-half-minute-hero-producer-kenichiro-takaki/

Kenichiro Takaki Interview on HMH1 XBLA Port:
http://www.siliconera.com/2011/08/03/half-minute-hero-super-mega-neo-climax-bonus-round-making-of-lightning-interview/

Another Kenichiro Takaki Interview on HMH1 XBLA Port: http://gamasutra.com/view/news/128051/HalfMinute_Heros_Kenichiro_Takaki_On_Retro_Graphics_XBLA_Experiments.php

Kenichiro Takaki on HMH2 (Part 1):
http://www.siliconera.com/2011/05/12/creating-memorable-characters-a-half-minute-hero-second-interview/

Kenichiro Takaki on HMH2 (Part 2):
http://www.siliconera.com/2011/05/19/how-half-minute-hero-second-improves-upon-the-original/

Interview with HMH2 Composers:
http://gamasutra.com/view/news/127667/Interview_HalfMinute_Hero_Sequels_Multiple_Composer_Soundtrack.php

Esteban Salazar Interview on HMH2 Localization:
http://www.siliconera.com/2014/04/03/marvelous-half-minute-hero-2-bringing-games-pc/

And... if you're interested... a link to my Half Minute Hero Tumblr page:
http://heckyeahhalfminutehero.tumblr.com/

Friday, January 17, 2014

100 Turn Hero Mini Guide


100 Turn Hero is the latest game by Kotaro Yoshida and a spiritual sister to Half Minute Hero.  


This one is Japanese language only.  Although it's playable without knowing Japanese, it requires a lot more patience than his other games, plus there's a fair amount of dialogue you'll be missing out on.  But even without knowing Japanese, it's pretty fun.  It's not free (about a dollar) and it also features in-app purchases (although they're totally not necessary.)  The in-app purchase are for jewels to level up your weapons, but you can quickly get the same amount of jewels through playing stages.

You play as Hero Fundel, who is on a quest to save the world with the ninja Shadow Maru.  You're on a different island full of visible monsters each stage and need to kill the highlighted boss to win.  You have free movement, you level up by killing monsters, and the monsters don't move or attack... but you can only attack a maximum of 100 times before the stage ends.  You bring three weapons with you and switch between them at will.  You'll want to use multiple weapons not only because of their different skills (ex. strong against water monsters or strong against land monsters), but because the weapons hit a different pattern around you.  When you beat a stage, you get jewels and, depending on the number of turns it took you to beat the stage, another weapon.  You can use jewels to upgrade your weapon.  Choosing an efficient path through the stage is important, this game gives you plenty of aha moments that let you shave a lot of turns.

Honestly, I was hoping for more out of this game.  The concept is interesting, but the game doesn't really do as much with it as I had hoped.  The strategy of the game is 10% figuring the right order to kill monsters in and 90% about bringing the right weapons.  Bringing the right weapons requires a fair amount of grinding, which I dislike.  I think the main reason for my disappointment was that I was hoping the game would be more like Half Minute Hero, which attempted to be a JRPG.  I had hoped there'd be more to a stage than just killing monsters.  The stages in 100 Turn Hero could have had multiple paths through it... quests to complete that give you shortcuts to the boss, searching for secrets in a stage, or party members to recruit.  I think it would have be a perfect touch screen based Half Minute Hero, but instead it's much smaller in ambition.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the game and it's definitely worth a dollar.  I hope ritterz decides to localize this game.  But I would have rather paid for a five dollar game with more charm and surprises.

To play without knowing Japanese isn't impossible, you'll just need to rely on trial and error.  I've added descriptions of some of the various menus.  These descriptions will help keep you from wasting your jewels.  Hopefully this helps with the less obvious parts of navigating the game.




Lastly, I thought I'd go over some tips.

Always visit all the buildings in a stage.  You'll often get gold you can spend at the shops.  You buy food at the shops in exchange for stat increases that will last for the remainder of the stage.  You can increase Attack, Charge, Guard Shave, Range, or Everything.  Each type of food corresponds to one of those increases.

At the end of each stage, your remaining Gold is converted into Jewels you keep.  Quest 14 is really nice for grinding money, you just need a weapon that hits the boss over the water.  That way, you bypass needing to kill the strong guys.  You can easily end the stage with 300 Gold, giving you 100 Jewels.

When fighting a Boss, the critical and guard shave stats are much more important than your attack or level.  It's common to do 1 damage normally against the boss, then have a 20 or 40 damage critical hit.

Most of the "strategy" of this game is bringing the right weapons into battle.  Like in Gun Spirits, weapons can have skills.  They're the orange text on the upgrade screen.  Most are obvious (EXP/Attack/Guard/Charge/Gold increase), but the following require a little special mention:


These stats significantly increase your damage against that type of monster and are the key to progressing through the game without spending money.

Hopefully these tips help you enjoy the game.  So, have fun~  And here's hoping to more Kotaro Yoshida localizations!

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Kotaro Yoshida Games

Kotaro Yoshida, best known for his work on Half Minute Hero, is one of my favorite game designers.  His games are japanese-quirky, easy to pick up and play, encourage exploration and experimentation, and have JRPG elements (leveling up, equipment, party members, and killing monsters for gold).  I also like the faux-retro sprite style his games use and although his characters are pretty one dimensional, I think they're fun and I enjoy their banter.  But best of all, every game focuses on a new gameplay mechanic.  He doesn't refine existing ideas, he tries new mechanics (albeit to varying degrees of success.)  The games are simple, but still require some thought; they almost always have a sense of "puzzle" to them.

Anyway, for fans of his, I decided to list out the games he's been heavily involved with.  Since each game is pretty fresh, they're all worth trying for a bit.  He's been doing a lot of mobile games recently that really fit his style, but have no kind of media attention.  They're all really easy to play, even with the occasional language barrier, but maybe I'll do 'Let's Plays' on some of them someday. If I make any links to Japanese pages and you don't understand Japanese, Google Translate is your friend.

Half Minute Hero [Marvelous] - PSP / XBOX Live / PC

 

This one is in English (among others) and available on many different platforms.

Likely his most well-known game, it's usually described as a JRPG parody.  I'd say its genre was RPG-Puzzle.  You have "30 seconds" (although you can reset the timer) to defeat an Evil Lord in a minuature JRPG.  Each stage features towns, monsters, leveling up, equipment, sidequests, and a boss to defeat.  The story is fun and touches lots of JRPG cliches.  In addition to the RPG mode, there's 30 second shooter, RTS, and action modes.

There are a lot of reviews of this game out there for you (including my own...), so I won't go into anymore depth.  It's unlikely you've found your way to this page without knowing what Half Minute Hero is.  The definitive version of the game is the recent PC Steam release.  You can often get it on sale for 75% off.

Steam Link: http://store.steampowered.com/app/214830/

Half Minute Hero 2 [Marvelous] - PSP / PC


This one is Japanese only on PSP, but in English and Japanese on PC via Steam.

It's the sequel to Half Minute Hero and features only the Hero 30 (JRPG) gameplay, although the mode has much more depth this time around.  Where the first felt like a take on 8 Bit Era RPGs, the second feels like a take on 16 Bit Era RPGs.  There's an overworld, global leveling, and a much more involved story.  I did a detailed review of it here.

Steam Link: http://store.steampowered.com/app/240970/?snr=1_200_200_253_105

Battrix [Opus Studios] - iOS

 

This one is in English and is free to play, but you almost have to spend $1.99 on it if you want to get to the end.

Based off of one of his PC Game experiments, Battrix is a pure RPG-Puzzle game.  Each tile in the world has either a battle or a town on it.  By winning a battle, in addition to standard JRPG rewards, the adjacent world tiles appear.  So instead of wandering the world, you liberate it into existence.

The battles play on a grid with a particular enemy distribution.  Each enemy attacks after a certain number of turns.  Your weapons can only hit a certain pattern of tiles and use up a certain number of turns per attack.  The goal is to kill all the enemies before you are killed.  You bring 3 weapons into each battle, which you can level up and synthesize into better weapons.

You're guided by a fairy and fighting against an Evil Lord who has stolen all the land in the world. There are towns to discover and tons of secret areas, plus a competetive arena.  You can bring your friends into battle to help you.  It's a fun, unique iOS game, although it can get grindy.  I really recommend this game.

US iTunes Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/battrix-floating-continent/id521959688
There's a good wiki for this game here: http://battrix.wikia.com

Run Run Hero [Line/MAQL/Opus] - iOS / Android

 

This one is in English (among others) and uses a free to play model.

It's an endless runner: You automatically run (left to right), swiping to avoid obstacles, fight monsters, or collect money, until you run out of life.  It's flavored to evoke Half Minute Hero, but it has none of the story elements.  The story is simply that an Evil Lord captured a princess and you have to run through various stages to rescue her. I don't think Yoshida had that much to do with this game (he's listed far down on the credits), but it uses a lot of his concepts.

The features of this game are the Kotaro Yoshida sprites, 5 lanes, fever mode (kill enough enemies and you're invincible for a few seconds), the RPG elements (equipment, leveling, and party members), and the bosses.  The bosses are fun, you need to avoid their attacks and they can only be damaged in a certain lane.

As far as social aspects go, you can compete against your friends and use their avatars in your own runs.  You can also send each other items.

As I write this, the game is six months old.  There has already been one huge update that broke the one endless running stage into several stages.  This helped the game a lot, but the stages still aren't very exciting.  Hopefully we'll see more updates.

But for now, there are issues with the game. The first impression is bad, I didn't start enjoying the game until I got used to playing it with my left hand as playing with the right hand blocks upcoming obstacles. The controls are not nearly as friendly as something like Jetpack Joyride. Also, the game starts to get grindy fast. Once your in-game stamina is high enough, the game does a good job of feeling skill based... it's kind of like playing an old NES game.

My main complaint about the game is that the charm and soul aren't there. There aren't any events, characters, or dialogue... which greatly lower my desire to make it to the end. Maybe it won't bother you, but I would have liked the game a lot more with little story segments the first time you make it to a new stage. On a similar note, unlike most of the other Yoshida involved games, this doesn't feel very unique compared to other games in the same genre. Endless Runner with RPG Elements is a very accurate description of the game.  Maybe I'm just not a big enough Endless Runner fan.

Anyway, please post your LINE ids in the comments so we can help each other out!

Strategy: Sending invites to Line friends gets you useful items, mates, and a ton of money. So add a bunch of "friends" to Line (this is a good list of accounts made just for game invites) to bypass a lot of grinding. Also, don't use gems for money, as this trick makes money pretty easy to get.  Add jediscar on LINE for a strong partner.

US iTunes Link: https://itunes.apple.com/EN/app/id670849460
US Android Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.naver.SJLGRANRAN

100 Man Hero (Hyaku Nin Hero) - iOS / PC

 

This one is Japanese language only.  The PC version is free, but the iOS version costs money.

In this game, you play a king trying to defend his castle against an Evil Lord and his cronies.  Instead of running out and fighting, you hire soldiers to do the dirty work for you.  You send them out, they fight monsters, they collect money for the kingdom, they level up, and then they eventually get defeated and return to the castle to be dispatched again.  You can buy items and reequip your heroes before sending them out again.

This app is not free on iOS. IMHO, you're better off just playing the PC version. The iOS version has different difficulties and an infinite mode, but it's not really all that different than the PC version. There is an extra surprise if you beat all the difficulties on iOS, but it's still not worth the effort.  Also, the iOS version has no music at all, which is weird and disappointing.

Strategy: The trick to the later difficulties is that you usually want most of your soldiers the same level. That means frequently shuffling equipment around.

US iTunes Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bai-ren-yong-zhe/id463172823
PC Link: http://uue.holy.jp/game/hero100_touch.zip

Gun Spirits (GUN SPIRITS) - iOS

  

This one is Japanese language only and probably the least experimental of all his games so far.  It's not free and it also features in-app purchases (although they're totally not necessary.)

It's a bullet hell shooter consisting of 73+ stages.  You only have 60 seconds to beat each stage.  Every time you beat a stage, you either collect a new weapon, new wings (for defense and movement), or gold.  The gold is used to level up your equipment.  There's a large variety of weapons and some weapons are much better suited to certain levels than others.  Weapons have very different shot patterns.

The levels get a lot harder as you progress.  After about level 65 you'll likely need to grind (or partake in microtransactions) to continue.

In addition to the story mode, there's a Challenge mode where you play through all the stages as one huge stage: No continues, no chances to re-equip, and no health ups.

This game isn't free, but it's quite fun. As a bullet hell game, the CAVE offerings are probably better. But you'll get very good value for your dollar here and it's much better than CAVE games for short bursts of play.

There's a pretty good wiki page for this game here: http://www54.atwiki.jp/gun_spirits/pages/41.html

US iTunes Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gun-spirits/id673975114

Piyo Piyo Quest [ritterz] - iOS

 

This one is Japanese language only and is an RPG-puzzle game.

The puzzle portion is like collapse, where there is a grid of blocks and touching a block removes it and all neighboring identical blocks.  In this game, destroying blocks causes the hero to do a particular action (attack, use magic, heal, get money, strengthen monsters, or collect a chick).  The monsters attack the hero after a set number of your actions.  Your goal is to collect chicks, which you can then take out on your quests for stat bonuses.

It's a pretty fun game and really easy to play.  It could have benefited with a bit more depth and content.  As it is, there's a fair amount of luck involved.  The game is free, but it has microtransactions that don't actually provide you with much benefit.

There's an interview with Kotaro Yoshida that lists out all the chicks: Page 1, Page 2

Strategy: Take the opportunity to clear out your useless blocks if you know you can survive the next turn.

US iTunes Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/piyopiyokuesuto/id689177545

100 Turn Hero [ritterz] - iOS



This one is Japanese language only.  Although it's playable without knowing Japanese, it requires a lot more patience than his other games, plus there's a fair amount of dialogue you'll be missing out on.  But even without knowing Japanese, it's pretty fun.  It's not free (about a dollar) and it also features in-app purchases (although they're totally not necessary.)  The in-app purchase are for jewels to level up your weapons, but you can quickly get the same amount of jewels through playing stages.

You play as Hero Fundel, who is on a quest to save the world with the ninja Shadow Maru.  You're on a different island full of visible monsters each stage and need to kill the highlighted boss to win.  You have free movement, you level up by killing monsters, and the monsters don't move or attack... but you can only attack a maximum of 100 times before the stage ends.  You bring three weapons with you and switch between them at will.  You'll want to use multiple weapons not only because of their different skills (ex. strong against water monsters or strong against land monsters), but because the weapons hit a different pattern around you.  When you beat a stage, you get jewels and, depending on the number of turns it took you to beat the stage, another weapon.  You can use jewels to upgrade your weapon.  Choosing an efficient path through the stage is important, this game gives you plenty of aha moments that let you shave a lot of turns.

Honestly, I was hoping for more out of this game.  The concept is interesting, but the game doesn't really do as much with it as I had hoped.  The strategy of the game is 10% figuring the right order to kill monsters in and 90% about bringing the right weapons.  Bringing the right weapons requires a fair amount of grinding, which I dislike.  I think the main reason for my disappointment was that I was hoping the game would be more like Half Minute Hero, which attempted to be a JRPG.  I had hoped there'd be more to a stage than just killing monsters.  The stages in 100 Turn Hero could have had multiple paths through it... quests to complete that give you shortcuts to the boss, searching for secrets in a stage, or party members to recruit.  I think it would have be a perfect touch screen based Half Minute Hero, but instead it's much smaller in ambition.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the game and it's definitely worth a dollar.  I hope ritterz decides to localize this game.  But I would have rather paid for a five dollar game with more charm and surprises.

I wrote a mini guide for this game: http://errantcluster.blogspot.com/2014/01/100-turn-hero-mini-guide.html

US iTunes Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/100turn-yong-zhe/id722163359?mt=8

Game Experiments

All of these are found on: http://uue.holy.jp/

    100 Nin Yuusha Touch - PC
    Battrix Touch - PC
    Battrix - PC
    100 Nin Yuusha - PC
    30 Nin Yuusha - PC
    Lionyx (side scroller) - PC

Other

Kotaro Yoshida's Twitter: https://twitter.com/uue_yoshida

His current studio is ritterz: http://ritterz.com/

Lastly, the artist Ayako Suda often collaborates with Yoshida on his games.  Ayako's homepage, with a bunch of art, is here: http://as-em.serio.jp/

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy and that I didn't write this long article for nothing.

Monday, April 22, 2013

Delayed Embarassment

This is another page of stories culled from reddit.  Unfortunately, I didn't save the link to post... I'll add in commenters and stuff if someone can find it. I think the topic was "What did you do that you later realized was really embarrassing?"

Warning: Some of these are somewhat inappropriate



Some ingenious bastard bought and installed a clapper (the thing where you clap and the lights turn on/off) and decided that it was too much of a hassle to clap...so he recorded himself clapping onto his computer so that he could just do it with a mouse click.



I was curious about man parts when I was young. My stepdad was in the shower, so I knocked on the door, said "It's mom" in my lowest voice, and walked in.

We've never had the same relationship.



I was a little kid on a road trip with the family. My dad had done something to embarrass me in front of all, everyone was laughing at me. I was clearly very upset. He said he was sorry and asked what he could do to make it up to me.

I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me explain that I thought "family jewels" were actual jewels and treasure that every family was just given by the government when they became a family, or every family had a bunch of jewels passed on throughout their family line.

So, I told my father that to make it up to me, he had to give me his family jewels. I may have even just said "let me hold your family jewels" :(

There was a distinct pause for about 3 seconds, then everyone burst into laughing at me again, with my brother telling me "haha you just asked to hold dads balls!" I was mortified. My dad actually have to pull over because he was laughing too hard to drive.



It's not my story but my old roomates, apparently as a kid he would shower with his dad. And his dad happened to be well hung. One shower, mid washing his hair, his dad looked down to see him drinking the shower water as it streamed off his penis.



I did lots of weird shit. When I was like 9 my friend came over and I made him take a bubble bath with me. He looked uncomfortable. Even when I forgot the bubbles.

An imaginary scenario:
"Haha let's get in the bath!"
"Uh. I don't really think--"
"That wasn't a request, Billy..."



When I was 6 my dad took me hiking in the woods. I had to piss, but there was no bathroom around. So I asked him where a bathroom was, to which he responded "Just pee on a tree. It's okay, you're a boy." so the next week in kindergarten I was at recess and needed to pee, but I didn't want to go all the way back to class. Besides, there was a tree right there on the playground! So I promptly whipped it out and started to piss in front of everyone. I little girl screamed and that got a teacher's attention. Straight to the principal's office. I was understandibly confused. "My dad said it was okay!" Luckily they called my dad and he took responsibility. Unfortunately he still loves to bring that story up whenever the family gets together.



When I was six or so I grabbed my dad's penis and talked into it because I thought it looked like a microphone.



My mom took me and my younger twin sisters to the beach when I was about four (they were two). She had just unpacked the stroller and set up camp when I announced that I had to pee. The bathroom itself was up about eighty concrete stairs, and my mother didn't want to pack everyone back up, so she said "Just pee in the water." I was understandably shocked by this, but she insisted that it was okay, and everyone does it. I was a pretty literal kid, so I walked out into the water (ankle deep) and dropped my shorts and started peeing for all the world to see. My mother was horrified when she realized what was happening but was powerless to stop me. She likes to tell people that had she yelled down to me, it would have just drawn more attention, and I would have just yelled back "YOU TOLD ME TO PEE IN THE WATER" thereby humiliating her further.

She still cringes about it, although I think it's mostly awesome.



My third grade teacher used to say how fat she was at least once a day. She was actually in Decent shape. Eventually I became conditioned into believing it too.

I sent her a Christmas card that said "Sorry that you're fat."

She cried.



Had that board game "Operation" where you take tweezers and gently lift out crap from this board game shaped like a human. If you contact the board and don't gently lift up stuff such as bones, an annoying buzzer would go of and the guy's nose would light bright red.

Well, when I was 5 I had enough shit from this annoying pansy ass who would buzz when you simply took out his femur with tweezers so I twisted the bulb on his nose and simply ate it. Well, after I shat blood a day later, my parents figured out why the light bulb on the nose was gone.

Oh, and the same day I threw sand in my own eyes since I wanted to know how it felt like. Yup, also learned the words "fucking" and "retarded" from my father shortly afterwards.

Reply:
You were like the new Dog that eats rocks



I was taking a group picture of a bunch of people attending the product school we host at my company. At one point, I was trying to get everyone together and said "Uhh, bald guy, I need you to step to the left". I instantly realized what I said.. and he had a sort of defeated look on his face.

The international sales manager was right next to me as I said it.. and he leaned in and told me his name and that he was a higher up at a subsidiary..

ohgodwhy. I apologized to him later and he was really cool about it, but still..



I masturbated infront of my entire family and several of their friends when I was about 10. I had just discovered that holding the back massager to my penis felt really good if you held it there for long enough, and not knowing that feeling good in that way was meant to be kept private, I decided to do it at a Christmas gathering. I brought the massager downstairs, plugged it into the living room wall, and went on to massage myself on the couch. The worst part was that nobody even cared or said anything; I finished right there in front of everyone and then brought it back upstairs. Later that night, my mom told me not to do it ever again, and I don't remember exactly when, but I remember looking back on that moment years later and cringing.

Friday, March 15, 2013

Short Stories



I made a list of (mostly free and online) short stories I enjoyed.  They're all in the science fiction/fantasy/speculative realm of fiction.  I'll try to keep it updated as I find new stuff.  The entries are listed by date added rather than title.  Since they're short stories (and all generally free), you can easily just step in and read without any synopsis.  Enjoy!

Pillowman - http://www.taghawaii.net/The_Pillowman_clean.pdf
Cambist and Lord Iron - http://www.freesfonline.de/content/Abraham1.pdf
Impossible Dreams - http://web.archive.org/web/20070422075939/http://www.asi...
Eight Episodes - http://web.archive.org/web/20080610031054/http://www.asi...
Magic For Beginners - http://smallbeerpress.com/wp-content/uploads/Kelly_Link_Magic_for.pdf
Magic For Beginners - http://web.archive.org/web/20060111060529/http://www.sfsite...
Faery Handbag - http://smallbeerpress.com/free-stuff-to-read/2005/07/01/the-faery-handbag-by-kelly-link/
The Ray Gun: A Love Story - http://www.thinkage.ca/~jim/raygun.htm
26 Monkeys - http://www.kijjohnson.com/26_monkeys.htm
Exhalation - http://www.nightshadebooks.com/Downloads/Exhalation%20-%20Ted%20Chiang.html
Lost Odyssey - http://lostodyssey.wikia.com/wiki/A_Thou...
Neal Stephenson - http://errantcluster.blogspot.com/2011/05/free-neal-stephenson-stuff.html
Great Simolean Caper - http://kuoi.com/~kamikaze/Text/simoleon.html
Occupation - http://www.abelard.org/asimov.php
Orson Scott Card Short Stories - http://errantcluster.blogspot.com/2008/09/orson-scott-card-reads.html
Maps In A Mirror - http://www.amazon.com/Maps-Mirror-O...
Sword of the Yue Maiden - http://errantcluster.blogspot.com/2011/05/sword-of-yue-maiden.html
What's Expected of Us - http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/21st_century_science/lectures/whats_expected.html
Understand - http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/under.htm
The Last Question - http://filer.case.edu/dts8/thelastq.htm
Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate - http://www.amazon.com/The-Merchant-...
The Last Wish - http://www.amazon.com/The-Last-Wish...
Nanny's Day - http://www.asimovs.com/pdfs/Stories/NannysDay.pdf

One Shot Manga: HotelIslandKoe no Katachi

Japanese Light Novels: Fate/Zero1/2 PrinceTora DoraHaruhiSpice and Wolf

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