[56] Good Blackmail

console

< Piro >

"envelope..."

Saturday - December 16, 2000

Ok, I'm gonna keep this REAL short tonight. I spent a good part of the day re-hashing and editing 'envelope', that illustrated short story doujinshi I've been talking about, and now ... it's ready to go. Well, sort of: I need to get the final Japanese version back from Tsubasa, but that can go up in the next few days. Everything else should be in order.

'envelope' is a story based on the True Love Story 2 game and focuses on Nanase Kasumi, one of the main girls in the game (without a doubt Tsubasa's favorite). Former knowledge of TLS2 is not really required, and i think the story stands well on it's own. I'll know as soon as I start getting some feedback if that is indeed the case.

I think the real relevance of 'envelope' is the fact that it pre-dates Megatokyo - i finished envelope back sometime in July. It was really my first large, cohesive project. The successful completion of envelope led me to the fantasy that I could handle a project like Megatokyo. It was the first time I got away from drawing just single illustrations and concentrated on telling stories with my drawings.

A word of caution - 'envelope' is not Megatokyo. It's a love story. It's not sappy, but i like to think it's cute, and a little subtle. It's not gamer humor. It's a bit like a dating simulation or visual novel game itself - it has the feel of a gal-game, or at least that was my goal. I tried to get the 'feel' of True Love Stories 2... which is what a good doujinshi story should do. According to the MJ-12 folks, I seem to have done a pretty good job of capturing the TLS2 'feel'. So perhaps this is the best way to share that 'feel' with people who have never played it.

At any rate, here it is. read and enjoy. I hope.

The presentation has some nice features - for each frame, I've included a link to the preliminary sketch that the final drawing was drawn from. I've also included higher resolution images. For the first few weeks, i plan to disable the high res images. If you are interested in higher rez images, you can go back in a few weeks and they will be active. I just don't want to bog down the poor server.

Ok, gotta do Monday's comic. Enjoy.

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< Largo >

"alice"

Wednesday - December 20, 2000

[Largo] - 09:07:00 - [link here]

Well, It's been a long week, I'll start off with saying I've got almost two weeks of back email I need to go through, I ought to just stop mentioning my email backlog, as it's become a ever present problem for which I find the need to vehemently apologize to everyone about.

So, with that in mind, I'll try to address some of the emails I've gotten but been unable to discuss in detail this evening.

First off, I'd like to point out something really silly to you guys. Two weeks ago we started getting emails saying we were too 'game-ish' and were abandoning a story arc in favor of a gaming joke of the day style. Now we are getting emails saying we are not doing enough gamer oriented strips. Maybe I'm missing something, but hey guys - In a effort to reach out and appease all the people complaining, we'll try to do a better job of making sure our genuine blend of splicing the genres improves. We really haven't done much different; however, never let it be said we don't read our email.

Recently it was requested that Piro and I attend a fan Q&A session on IRC. So we'll be fielding questions and what not this weekend (12/23) at noon (CST) on undernet.org's #megatokyo. This is assuming people actually show up of course.

I would also like to announce that I've finally joined a cult. I purchased a handspring Visor, which has been a really sweet item for me. It's not what I expected, so far I've yet to figure out who is our enigmatic leader, but I'm certain that this is a cult. It has a cult feel, I walk around proudly displaying my new Visor Platinum, and other cult members give me a nod or end up approaching me, wishing to engage in some sort of religious ceremony known as 'beaming'. These people do scare me…

Speaking of scary things, I've had a chance finally checkout American Mcgee's Alice.If you haven't heard of this game, which should only include people living under rocks, like Montana, know that this game is amazing. It raises the bar in the 3D genre to a new height which for those of you keeping score means the next batch of 3D developers better be former Olympic pole vaulters if they want to out do American Mcgee's record jump.

I'm giving it my personal approval. I give this game, two handfuls of pills up, which I'll wash down with some trippy techno house music. I really think Lewis Carroll would approve of this game, let's face it - the book it's based on had more drug innuendo in it then all of Jim Morison's music combined. So my advice is checkout the game, dim the lights, and inhale to let the coolness flow into the vertebrae.

Alice bridges that fine line between game and art that I hear so much about. I look at this game and think, not only is this fun to play, but it's the product of some talented artists and designers who see this title as more then just another 3D game. Spending even just five minutes with this game ought to make even the most devote nay sayers of the 3D genre give their views a second and third thought.

Not to short change the rest of the game, the gameplay rocks, the soundtrack for it matches up with the art with a perfect fit, projecting just the right moods when needed. Calling this game a masterpiece of gaming would be an insult, it is something greater, something new. Whatever American Mcgee's Alice is, I hope that we see more of it.

Of course, people could disagree with my humble opinions, but those people should all be dragged into the street and shot.