#I wanted so bad to use lots of colors to make the sprites prettier but I wanted them to look like they could actually fit in the game

[navigame-media]

Ahoy there, mateys! Jack is back to answer more survey questions about the Pirate Mermaid demo! Try the demo out if you haven’t and let us know what you think on our Tumblr, itch.io, Lemmasoft, etc.

Jack highly encourages you to play the game, awk! After all, you wouldn’t want to miss out on my adorable face!

You said it, #1 Fan! Jack is always right, awk!

Last time, I answered questions from the survey about the status of the game. Today, I’ll be answering questions about the in-game features. No need to thank me for my infinite wisdom, awk! Just tip me with your life savings on your way out~! 

How do I rewind if I accidentally skipped something?

My creators answered an ask about this the other day! Since it came up on the survey too, I’ll explain it again, awk!

To rewind the game, you can use the rollback function. Just press the Page Up key or scroll up with your mouse wheel/trackpad. FYI, you can use this function in most games made using Ren’Py (the visual novel engine we’re using). 

To reread text or replay voice clips, you can use the Log feature. It's that “map” button on the quick menu at the bottom of the textbox. I explain it during the tutorial if you wanna know more, awk!

What do the colors and symbols on the Stats page mean?

Awk, my bad. Jack got lazy and didn't explain the Stats page fully during the tutorial. Lemme explain it now, and we can all pretend I said it from the start.

Each character on the Stats page has a little symbol that represents their feelings towards you. There are 5 possible symbols, which can change throughout the game:

The character with the best opinion of you will also have a crown. 

The crown does not mean you are locked into that character's path. It just means you currently have more points with that character than anyone else. That may quickly change depending on your choices, awk!

What exactly does your "karma" affect in the game?

Karma affects lots of stuff, awk! Captain (the MC) will think, say, and do different things depending on your karma level. This means you may see different variations of scenes depending on your karma. 

One way to check which variations you've seen is by using the Scenes gallery in the Extras menu. Whenever you replay a scene that has Good and Evil variations, you’ll get a menu asking which karma you want to use. Only the variations you’ve seen in the main game will be unlocked.

Karma also has a big impact on the later branches of the story. A good MC looking for a fairytale romance, for example, will have a very different climax and conclusion from an evil MC who wants to be an evil empress. Please try out different things and see how your story changes, awk!

Why do the NPCs look like white ghosts?

Awk, g-g-ghosts?! Where are the ghosts?!

Oh, you mean those scallywags! Awk, well, Captain is bad with faces and doesn't care to remember details about unimportant people. That’s why they don’t have any features to speak of, awk!

At least that’s why my lame creators told me to say~. The truth is, my lame creators thought the white ghosts would be a funny way of making NPCs without needing a lot of resources. Jack says to stop making excuses, awk!

In general, resources are limited, so my creators are prioritizing main character art over NPC art. But they'll redo the NPCs if they have more resources later (for example, if the "more sprites for minor characters" stretch goal in the survey is met). Personally, Jack thinks it would be nice for the NPCs to be prettier. As long as they don't ever become prettier than me, awk!

That’s all for today, awk! Jack still has more survey questions to answer, but it’s  almost time for my hourly nap better to leave you on a cliffhanger, awk!

Next time, I’ll be covering questions about the characters and the story. If you have any other questions you want me to cover, you can put them in your survey response or just ask Jack!

The Pirate Mermaid is our upcoming otome game. Learn more about it here.

#thepiratemermaid #otome #visual novel #renpy #ask #jack #ask jack

[high5nerd]

Alone Together---Chap. Eleven

Forgot to mention, this fanfic was abandoned.

Fall slowly turned into winter. The leaves shriveled and fell to the crisp ground in haste by the wind, and the winds themselves grew colder and bit at exposed skin as the month slowly slugged by to December. Frost was already starting to coat the windows of Alice's house and her clunky car, and occasionally snow fell only to melt away hours later. I used to like the cold before meeting Jack Frost, but afterwards I can't stand the sight of it. Not even the idea of people slipping on black ice could make me snicker anymore, especially with what happened at the North Pole.

Sadie already got enough snow outside to form into a light snowball and put it in the freezer for safekeeping, even if it was only the start of the season. When we returned from the North Pole, it took her days to realize I was mad at her. She seemed to only care that I stayed in the house and that she knew my presence was closeby if she needed to talk to someone, even if they never responded and just stared out the window like I did.

Alice was the first one to notice my withdrawal. It was late at night, a day after our return. She was just passing by from putting Sadie to bed when she saw me sitting in the armchair, head craned up to look at the stars. I have to admit, they're much brighter and prettier in the wintertime.

She came over and whispered, "Do you get the winter blues?"

"Hm? Oh, no. Winter's my quiet season. That's all." I looked at her, not bothering to smile.

She noticed that immediately. She pulled up a footrest for the couch and put her hand on my knee. I didn't like that. Warmth was already flowing from her hand to my knee and somehow it struck sparks in my heart. This sort of chemistry of a human body should downright just be called witchcraft.

"What happened? I saw you go off with North and you came back looking very furious. You haven't spoken to Sadie since we got back."

Her honeyed voice wasn't making me feel any better. It was just making me feel worse. I couldn't even hold her, touch her, let alone smile at her. It's all forbidden...and North's words still rang through my head like the bells that ring before an execution, harmonized by the flutter of raven's wings.

"Nothing happened, Alice."

"You're lying."

"No I'm not."

"Yes you are. I see it in your eyes."

That struck another nerve. A big one. I snarled and stood up abruptly, my hands clenched into fists so tightly they turned white at the knuckles. Alice looked surprised at the reaction, and I could tell she thought she did something for that.

"Why does everyone tell me that? Am I a fucking open book? Am I just so damn readable that anyone could easily tell I'm bothered that a child promised to keep a secret yet told someone else despite that promise?! Am I just...so desperate for someone to notice my presence in the world I actually thought entrusting my first believer with a secret would be a smart move?! North was right along with Misery and-and everyone else! I'm a fucking monster that only scares people for-for-!"

"...Pitch…"

"What?!" I looked up at her. My face felt hot. And wet. Why did it feel wet? I swear I didn't mean to shout at her like that...Whoa...I've never exploded like that before. Usually I'm very calm and collected no matter how angry I was but...where this all came from I do not know.

"You're crying." Alice took a step towards me, concern etching her face and making her supple lips turn into a worried frown.

I growled and turned my back on her, wiping my face hurriedly with the heels of my palms. There's no way in Hell I'm letting Alice see me like this. I have to remain dignified, resilient, smooth...Boogeyman-like. I'm no longer a part of humanity, I can't be vulnerable. I can't...I can't…

I felt hands on my shoulder, and then one sliding upward to bring my face down. I kept my eyes closed, not wanting to look at her. I hated this. I hated looking vulnerable. I just wanted to run. Run away and not look back. Run into the forest and never come back until daybreak, or at least when she's forgotten this. But I'm frozen stiff, stuck, while her hands cupped my face.

"Look at me, Pitch." she whispered gently.

"No."

"Why?"

"I shouldn't have said those things."

She was silent for a while. I could hear her breathing. I felt...sadness in the air. I could sense it. It didn't feel colder, just...it sent chills up my spine. Like when someone hurts your feelings or you see someone you love walk away from you forever.

"Then listen to my words, and believe me completely."

I only remained still, and refused to open my eyes in case they were red or threatened to spill more. Her hands stayed on my face, but I felt one go up and brush my hair, tracing it to my temple. God, how I longed for her touch…

"You are not a monster. No matter what others say about you, don't believe them. Believe those who care about you, like Sadie and...and me. I...I wouldn't have gotten better without you. Though you spread fear as your job...you helped me face it and...come to love it. Accept it as a part of life. You brought Sadie and I closer as sisters instead of survivors, and you're the only person in the world I would trust...no matter what."

With that I opened my eyes, and saw that she had tears as well. But just like I did, she hid her face from me, by hugging me tightly and burying her face into my shoulder. Again, I was frozen. I'm still not good at this, despite dreams of holding her and making her happy.

"When I was little...people called me a monster, too. They called me that because I believed in magic, along with magical beings like mermaids and fairies. People would bully me into silence to the point I just wanted nothing more than fade away from reality...I know that feeling, Pitch. I'm all too familiar with it, and it makes my heart break knowing you go through it as well. It breaks my heart that someone I care about...someone I care about a lot is hurting so bad."

...What was I supposed to say to that? I can't just stay silent to that confession...but no words of consolation or respect, or even gratitude for her kindness came to mind.

So the only thing I could think of doing was enveloping her in an embrace. She melted into me, still hiding her face from that, and I guess she was embarrassed about admitting something so dark.

"Well….does it make you feel any better knowing you were right all along?" I asked in the stillness.

Damn. Was that really all I could say? I'm terrible.

She looked up at that, confusion written in her dark chocolate eyes. "Huh?"

I smiled at that and took her hand, beckoning her to follow me into the cold air outside. She was able to grab a knitted hat before the back door was swung open by yours truly. I never let go of her hand as I guided her towards the forest, right at the edge where the woods met the backyard. The stars glimmered in the sky brighter than any day so far, not a cloud in sight either. The moon was full, like a glowing moonstone one would find in a stream.

"What are you showing me?" she asked, her breath steaming in the crisp air.

"Watch the forest." I said, guiding her neck gently to turn forward and watch with a trained eye.

A few minutes passed where nothing happened, and I could tell Alice was getting colder by the second. She started shivering, rubbing her hands together before rubbing the sides of her thighs for friction. I smiled and wrapped my arms around her from behind, resting my chin on the top of her head. I didn't need to look to know she was smiling. I felt it by the warmth her body gave off despite being cold.

Sure enough, twinkling lights floated out of knots in the trees, up from the leaves and down close to the ground. Mostly ranging in glowing colors of white and yellow hues with some green, they danced around in the air, following the call of the wind. Faintly, one could hear their tiny music play, a chorus of singing and panflutes and instruments that resembled the sound of a music box.

I heard Alice draw in a breath of utter awe, and I couldn't help but smile in victory. I knew that would please her.

"They're...Oh my God." were the only words that were whispered from her mouth.

Closer and closer they danced in the air, being carried by the wind and upwards above our heads. By this time Alice could see that they donned silkworm clothing and were as tiny as her pinkie finger. Their gossamer, dragonfly wings fluttered along with their dance in a rhythmic pattern to the tune of their music, and some noticed us below, but barely enough to cause a disruption in their dance.

By the time half of them were above in the air and reaching the other side of forestry across the backyard, we were bathed in their light. It was a dim glow, easy on the eyes for an evening that was meant to get ready for bed. The moon's glow made it seem more majestic, probably than I have ever imagined.

I felt eyes on me, and I couldn't help but think they were the eyes of the fairies that glided upwards into the sky, finally noticing our presence. Fairies were usually calm beings, though preferred to be hidden from human sight, as well as any other animal that was larger than them. They were timid yet peaceful, never biting people's ears or tricking unfortunate wanderers like pixies and sprites do. If they noticed us they would not be bothered since we weren't bothering them. Just observing.

But then I felt those same warm hands from before take my shoulders, causing me to look down at Alice if she needed to go back inside.

But then I saw her face come closer, and closer...and closer...really quickly.

Before I knew it, her lips were pressed to mine.

My neck stiffened…

This. This happened. It wasn't I who kissed her first. It was her. My eyes never closed, I was too deep in shock. My mind was blank, or maybe I can't remember what I was thinking when she kissed me.

She finally pulled back, blushing brightly and busy fidgeting with her winter hat to look at me.

"S-sorry. I-I just thought, uh-w-well, I um-" she stammered.

...She likes me. I really matter to her that much. She kissed me….God Above she kissed me.

Shut up and let me kiss you.

And I did just that. Her stumbling words were ceased once I kissed her back bravely, now feeling a giant weight lift off my chest. I no longer had a burden to wear...or at least this one. Many burdens will weigh on me, but this one can be relieved for good. Her lips gently pressed back, causing me to hum happily and embrace her tightly, and her arms wrapped around my neck.

Screw the spirit rules. Screw the Forbidden Bond...Alice was mine, and mine alone. I'll love her like no man would ever love her, make her feel whole and happy til her final breath. Or at least...make her happy for now until she moves on.

She finally pulled away, smiling a bit, as if she knew something that I didn't. After shaking myself out of my stupor I gave her a quizzical look.

"What?"

"You know how long I've known you liked me?" when she got the embarrassed blush of mine she continued with a wild grin, "since the day you told me that dream you had."

"Oh, come on, are you serious?" I rolled my eyes and dropping her.

She laughed brightly as she followed me back towards the house, causing me to grin widely as well. It's no longer a problem of mine now that I knew how she felt in return.

"You were staring right at me when you said it! How was that not a clue?" she snickered, jogging up next to me to lace hands with mine.

"I was engaging us in a conversation! You're supposed to look at who you're talking to." I protested.

"Oh please, you totally were giving me baby eyes."

"Baby eyes?"

"Those big eyes you make when you want something?"

"Damn, you know me well. Am I cute like that?"

She giggled before jumping to her tip-toes and kissed my cheek, grinning wildly, "Very cute."

So take that and stick it up your ass, North. I don't give a damn about the Forbidden Bond, nor does Alice.

#pitch black #pitch black x oc #rise of the guardians #rise of the guardian fanfics #rotg fandom #rotg fanfiction #rotg fanfic #fanfiction #fanfics

[adam16bit]

Super Mario Bros. 3

I just got through this one on the NES Classic, which afforded me something I could never do on the console version - actually play through every stage!   As a kid you couldn’t exactly hog the TV for the hours it would take to play through every world, which is why things like Warp Whistles were incredibly useful.  It’s obviously possible to beat this game in a couple of hours, but not unless you skip chunks of it or have beaten it before and generally know what you’re doing.

This was probably the best game the system had to offer in terms of variety and general vastness.  There was no save or password system, but you could pick up a variety of items to use later (as needed) and I believe more and better power-ups than on any subsequent Mario game.  

Marketing

They did a good job with this one - thanks to it coming out in Japan over a year before the USA, various import video game magazines probably made a fortune by picking up an import copy and posting screen shots.   (See: GamePro #1, a freebie at Toys R Us that I got with Blaster Master.)   Other publications advertising their product for free - or paying for the right to preview it - would be a remarkable feat for Nintendo, as there were countless unlicensed video game news magazines.  But they realized they could go much, much bigger.  They could manufacture a significantly larger phenomenon.

Nintendo got itself some fantastic product placement in The Wizard, a feature-length ad for video game stuff with a free mini Nintendo Power (”Pocket Power”) magazine with your ticket purchase.  How or why my parents agreed to take me to see this is still a mystery given how few times we saw movies in the theaters - the somewhat insufferable movie did a great job showing us something that many of us to this day still don’t realize.   The power of marketing to kids in the 1980s was utterly insane, and while many of us think back on kidvid like She-Ra, He-Man, G.I. Joe, Transformers, and the like as good clean wholesome fun?  It was there to sell us stuff.  Even though The Wizard had elements of sports movies and road trip movies, it was basically a wish fulfillment fantasy - and that wish was for kids to see footage of a video game they couldn’t actually buy until next year.    Given how long a few months seems when you’re a kid, this sort of thing really stirred up the frenzy even more, making the game scarce upon release in the USA in 1990.

The TV ads were similarly kind of creepy with a cultish atmosphere of an endless stream of kids chanting Mario’s name, waiting for their icon to arrive once more.   But TV marketing didn’t stop there - there was also a rebranded Saturday morning TV show called “Super Mario Bros. 3″ that had musical numbers.  Some are the stuff of pop culture legend, like Wendy O. Koopa kidnapping Milli Vanilli to play her birthday party.  Others are more forgettable but more insidious - there’s a whole song and dance extolling the virtues of the Frog Suit power-up from the game.  Looking back on it, it’s diabolical, creepy, and insanely effective.

But wait - there’s more!  Nintendo Power magazine was famous for being a way to market to kids and charge them for the opt-in privilege.  One issue of the magazine was completely devoted to Super Mario  Bros. 3 - some may dismiss it as a strategy guide, but it was an ad.  Full-color illustrations showing all of the fun stuff in the game could be dismissed as spoilery, but that wasn’t a term people used in 1990.   You’d buy a game guide (like the Official Nintendo Player’s Guide) and use it sort of like how people used Leonard Maltin’s guide to the movies.  There was no Internet, so these magazines were showing people what to play, rent, or purchase - and boy howdy did they help get kids to ask mom and dad to drop fifty bones on software that they could finish in a couple of weeks.

For your very brief political moment, you might say “that’s fine” or “shouldn’t there be laws preventing this kind of marketing to kids?”  As someone in the toy business I’m both creeped out by it and a big part of it - my office is packed with toys and games dating back to my own childhood, and most of the new stuff I get is tied to marketing/programming/culture I experienced as a kid.   I don’t buy Avatar, I buy Star Wars.   There were indeed laws against carpet-bombing kids on TV with marketing, but comic books were largely fair game and Saturday morning TV changed from kid versions of adult shows and weird puppet entertainment to training wheels for the consumer vehicle of today.  Show of hands - who here watched one or more Marvel-based TV show as a child 20, 30, or even 40 years ago and is now a fan of the movie franchise?

We’re in a weird place.   I could go on a tear about how the cereal and magazine aisles in 1980s grocery stores served as my Internet but we’re on too big of a tangent here.  Point being - SMB3 was a huge success because Nintendo heavily invested in that success.   If you had any connection to their target demographic, they probably lobbed something at you and got your attention.   It helped that the game was indeed everything they promised.

Believe the Mario Hype?

The first batch of NES games had a bunch of original-ish ideas.  Super Mario  Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Castlevania, and others would have one or more sequels on the 8-bit console, although all of them seemed to have an unwritten rule to “return to form” for their third entries.  They were bigger and better, sure - but Mario gave us a completely different sequel before reverting  back to a powered-up version of the original game.  Link’s adventure diverted him into a Metroidvania/RPG hybrid before returning to the not-quite-RPG top-down adventure game format most of us know and love.   Castlevania, too, introduced and removed RPG elements to return to the classic block stage format.

Mario’s levels were very similar to the first game, but larger.  On the whole you always moved left to right, there was no warping from the right to the left of the screen, but you could go up into the sky by flight or climbing a vine.  Auto-scrolling levels were introduced to mix up the dynamic.  A map screen allowed you limited control of how you advanced - some levels and challenges were wholly optional, and certain items like Jugem’s Cloud actually allowed you to skip over some of those challenges.   In the original Super Mario Bros., your options were to go to the right side of the screen and maybe select a Warp Zone.   By the third game, you could choose to assault a fortress, or hop in a Mushroom House to take a power-up, or blow a Warp Whistle when you so decided.

The world was covered in familiar, more modernized versions of faces you’ve seen before with only Bob-Omb returning from the second game.  Pretty much the entire cast of the first game came back with prettier sprites, and Mario also got a facelift - not as good as his look in the second game, but his controls were tighter and his pants were, for some reason, blacker.

Power-ups are what really made the game special.    A lot of gamers would say Super Mario World from the Super NES was an inferior game, and I’d almost agree.   In the 16-bit Mario, you could have fireballs or don a cape and fly.   Super Mario Bros. 3 let you get a raccoon tail, fireballs, a Hammer Bros. suit, a Frog Suit, a Tanooki Suit, and the P-Wing which granted infinite flight on a single stage without having to take a running start first.  You had options.

Clever enemies - some of which you only met once or twice - included a Goomba jumping around in a giant green shoe, reptiles who would  barf up a spiked ball and chuck it at your head, and spiny eggs that would sometimes refuse to hatch.  Even the sun itself bore an angry face and would chase you down through the desert!   Squids would send their children after you in the seas to bring you down!  What did you ever do to them?   Oh, right. Calamari.

A World of Difference

One of the things that set Mario games apart from the competition were its themed worlds - “Grass Land” and a desert don’t seem too thrilling, but they were fun.  The ice level in this game got clever with frozen bonus items - if you wanted coins, you had to hit them with a fire ball to thaw them out.  One world was filled with pipes and man-eating vegetation.   Another world - easily the best in the entire series - was Big Island, where you were normal size and most of the enemies were actual giants!  I wish they would bring more of that back in the 2D series, which has gone from evolving from game to game to  basically being the same thing since New Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo DS.  Not bad - but the level of change between each of the Super Mario Bros. games released over 5 years is pretty staggering.

Because of these differences, the game really made you make decisions.  Do you skip ahead to world 8 to beat the game and watch the brief, credits-free ending again?  Or do you go hang out in World 4 again because World 4 was awesome?   Do you use those awesome power-ups you found in a Mushroom House now, or save them for later when you might actually need them?   It’s a heck of a lot more to consider than “run to the right, and try not to die.”

I found that the game held up very well to a replay - there were some weird glitches where sometimes an item would hit me and I didn’t die, and others where it didn’t hit me and I did die, but I assume this is emulation bug stuff or something I just lucked in to this time.   Levels were significantly shorter than I remembered, lacking the extensive obstacles and obliterating any replay value (per game, that is) as you’re locked out of a stage once you beat it.  Nintendo didn’t really start experimenting with forced replay of Mario stages to get all the exits and to find all the secrets until Super Mario World, and then in Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine the game was more about replay, replay, replay.   The levels were bigger, there was more you could do, the games were prettier, but you also were treading the same ground repeatedly.  Super Mario Bros. 3 didn’t make you replay anything until  you got a “Game Over” screen.

Very few games had the marketing impact of Mario’s final NES adventure, but Acclaim and Sega did learn a lot from the hype Nintendo created with “Mortal Monday” for Mortal Kombat and “Sonic 2sday” for the second Sonic the Hedgehog title - and people showed up.   We saw a lot of this throughout the 1990s, with the first “midnight madness” event for an action figure launch in 1999 for The Phantom Menace, and the film would really kick off the ghastly trend of day- or week-long “line parties.”  Now people just reserve their seat online, but back then it wasn’t uncommon to see the cinema briefly transformed into an experience not unlike tailgating at a football game.

The game was a smash hit, which you know - the NES cartridge sold millions of copies.  It would go on to  be a pack-in game with the NES.  They upgraded it to 16-bit graphics and sound as part of Super Mario All-Stars.   The upgraded port would be sold separately - at full price - on the GameBoy Advance a decade later.  That’s a lot of money for old software, and Nintendo has trotted it out as a download for the Wii and Wii U for about five bones.  I don’t doubt it will also be on the switch.  Heck, Super Mario All-Stars also got a $20 Wii port.   The best value for this game is on the NES Classic Edition from late 2016, which I just played through, because each game averages $2 plus you get the game hardware.  I still am somewhat shocked how cheap (for Nintendo) the whole package was, as the Mario games alone are so fondly remembered I bet they could’ve got $60 for just those titles.  I still enjoy the games - the marketing worked, I watched the stupid cartoons too, and I’ve got a 20-inch Mario action figure waving to me from the other side of my office as I type this.  Is this a good thing?  Is it terrible?  You tell me.

#super mario bros. #super mario bros. 3 #nes classic edition #video games #nintendo