The Best Football Game That Doesn't Exist

I don't play sports games, but I would definitely play this.

Indie Singer and Final Fantasy Fan

I'm pleased to present something, or rather someone, I recently stumbled upon in the music world. Kate Covington (or katethegreat19) is a singer/songwriter who creates beautiful lyric arrangements, specializing in Final Fantasy. One can find countless musicians on YouTube performing whatever they are fans of, but Kate is one of those gems who goes about her work like a professional cover artist, or rather is on the very path of being one. She directs her own choir and has successfully struggled to copyright and release her songs.

Her style is one that I have a particular weakness for, that of mystical sweetness and wonder which I cannot fully describe; here is the video I first encountered (lyrics provided in the video info):

I wish her the best of luck. (She has one of the few modern singing voices that I don't have tolerance issues with, after all!)

[Kate's YouTube channel - more links from there]

Mario Kart Love Song

Well, with over four million views, I'm considerably late; but I finally got around to watching this video of an original song about love and Mario Kart. I don't remember why I didn't watch it when I first found it, but anyway, it's pretty good. Seriously.

Zelda, Halo Style

I came upon this video a couple of years ago and had forgotten about it until a friend, whom I had shown it to, mentioned it yesterday. Halo Custom Edition, a PC expansion for the first Halo game, allowed fans to design their own maps, character skins, etc., and I like this even more than the Mines of Moria stage somebody created for the Jedi Knight games.

SMB1 By Webcam

This is one of those things I've been meaning to post since ... before I started my blog, sort of. Anyway, this is clever if it's fake and awesome if it's real; such a thing is certainly possible. Judging from the physics of Mario and the behavior of the objects (blocks, in particular), I suppose he coded this mostly from scratch, which is quite impressive.

PS - The related video of level 1-1 in Line Rider is nicely done, too.

Japanese Jump

This is how I jumped into the swimming pool the other day.

Why do I want to be a ROM hacker?

So I can do stuff like this! Can you believe these are the fruits of somebody's hackwork on Super Mario World?







And to think that I can hardly edit levels, let alone make all sorts of custom sprites and programming modifications! Why? Because the "community" is a DISorganization that cannot tell me what I actually need to know! Alas, it frustrates me to no end. I suppose they say much of the hobby is self-taught because it HAS to be for any newcomers to learn anything. *Sigh* My hope lives on, though. I've got too many great ideas to waste by giving up. And this guy is one of the biggest pros I've ever seen, so it would be foolhardy to become discouraged by comparison. If every artist did that, we'd only have a handful of paintings, music, etc. in the world because few would make use of whatever talent they had.

I have a feeling that's a lesson I'm going to be hit with again and again throughout life.

Calvin Cupcake!

As per our family tradition, on "Fat Tuesday" we made and decorated cupcakes. It has always been a good time for family as well as a fun, tasty activity sporting everyone's artistic talents. The creativity seems to escalate, and this year I brought it to a new level of delicate precision.I'm glad we had enough yellow gel! I had to use a toothpick more than once to draw it into the frizzy style Calvin wears because it would spread out gradually. The head, eyes, and mouth are chocolate frosting carefully laid with toothpicks, the eyes swirled into the vanilla background. The tongue and nose are sprinkles. It took some time, but I think I nailed it pretty well (although there's some chocolate sticking up from the border on the bottom-right -- I seriously don't remember that problem outside of the picture. Maybe my dad took it at an angle just different enough from the perspective at which I worked....).

"Castlevania" music like you've never heard before

I could write a very long analysis of the parameters of video game music, but I'll save that for another time. Right now I'd like to share something truly awesome to hear: a beautiful piano rendition of the outdoor theme from Castlevania II. Never take a melody only one way you hear it. A great thing about music is its versatility, the ranges and styles that can be achieved with a single tune.

I like to work on video game piano arrangements myself. I've currently turned out a short elaboration of the title screen of Shadowgate; a rather moving piece from Solar Jetman accented with another bit from Shadowgate; and a remix that takes from Super Mario Bros., Chrono Trigger, and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, which will probably become more than piano once I can properly synthesize anything.

The Powder Game

My younger brother's friend showed him this awesome web game just last month. Called the "powder" or "dust" game, it is a simple Java thing with infinite fun and creative possibilities.

The main function consists of playing around with many "powdery" pixels of diverse natures, each having different simulated physical and chemical properties. Some fall faster than others, a few are "solid" and hang in mid-air, etc. A good number of them are flammable, so all you high-school chemistry students who just want to see things blow up should get hooked on this game pretty easily. = ) Almost every substance has a special quality when thrown together with another: for example, water solidifies magma; thunder electrifies metal; torch burns what hits it but is dissolved by water; and the infamous virus eats through and overruns all others, eventually turning back into the first material it came in contact with. Searching for all the unique reactions is part of the entertainment.

In addition to the dusts, you can conjure up boxes, spinning wheels, and edit the indestructible terrain, including the border. The sides of the screen can be set to loop, so that whatever goes off one side comes in on the other. Various visual effects can be selected, such as leaving blurs or showing the direction and pressure of the air. Ah, the air. You can blow stuff around and set up "fans" wherever you want. Combustion can really blast things around, as well.

With all of these features to toy with, you can go anywhere from blowing things up to making interactive works of art (like this soda machine). If that's not enough, there's also a little controllable stick-man who can walk, jump, and acquire abilities from the various dusts (okay, so the laser doesn't behave like a dust), so playable challenges become an option. Pit your friends against a puzzle, or against any number of crazy, kicking, not-too-bright enemy stick-men.

Only registered members can upload their work, but it's possible to save your levels offline. There is a text window above the main game screen that says "Save game" and has two buttons to the right. Click "Get" to have the window display the code for the game's current situation. Copy this and you can stick it back in and click "Set" to get that arrangement whenever you want.

The website itself seems to be a Japanese Java game site that has been mostly translated into English (I find it amusing that the sign-up terms and agreements are still in Japanese characters). The only other games I've tried are "Stick Ranger," a work-in-progress stick-figure RPG, and an orbital gravity simulator, which brings back memories of something we had on our old Mac 2CX (I remember throwing the moon off on a bad trajectory and watching it crash into Earth with a shattering noise...). It looks like everything, including the Powder Game, is always being improved, so I'm going to keep my eye on the place.