MegaGear Patreon MegaGear
Strip 66

newsbox

Tokyo Threat Documentation Project
A Fredart banner S-Words
  • Megatokyo Twitter
  • Megatokyo RSS feed
  • Fred's Twitter
  • Fredart RSS Feed

console

< Piro >

"my ESP isn't very clear"

Sunday - January 14, 2001

[Piro] - 10:34:00 - [link here]

Yuki-chan working on her hair in the mirror...Tsubasa-san and the sales pitch...
Seraphim prepares her report...Erika working on a radio tower...

The drawings above are little concept sketches - snapshots of what some of the other characters might be doing right now. I wont explain what's going on, i'll leave you to ponder. Think of it as 'story tidbits' to make up for the deviation from the MT story this week. ^_^

Yet again, we deal with Largo's obsession with Neverwinter Nights. There is a part of me that wonders if I should turn Largo in for 'comic stalking' the esteemed Mr. Oster. I am very curious about the game, but it is Largo who has the obsession. When he gets like this, i back away slowly and look for the nearest exit, then something heavy and preferably sharp. Now that I think about it, it's about the same reaction he has when I start going on about True Love Stories 3. I tend to make sure all the doors are locked before i start ranting - thus preventing Largo's escape. I hope he never picks up on this trick. At least the Bioware people liked the car. ^_^

I have a lot of respect for Largo's obsessions. I don't understand all of them, but i respect them - they are a lot like mine, only over different things. The world would come to an abrupt, violent end if both of us ever obsessed over the same game. I don't even want to think about what would transpire if that were to happen.

The image for today is from the game 'Sense Off', which tsubasa was nice enough to send me in a recent package. I started playing it last night. Basically, 'Sense Off' is a visual novel that tells the story of a group of ESPers who were placed into protection by the Japanese Government. These people are considered the most powerful ESPers in the country, and the story takes place at what appears to be a school, but is in fact an institute of ESP studies. Basically, as the protagonist you interact with the girls and find out some sort of shocking truth behind the institute. The world quite literally relies on your actions - do the wrong thing, and it all ends. The game is an 18 and over title, but I think the H content is much like that of Kanon - secondary to the story. (i have this bad habit of digging into the PDT files and looking at the game images ^^;;) Tragic stories are all the rage these days in Visual Novels, and this one is no exception. I'm sure it will help solidify my demented bent on things. ^_^

What I particularly like about the game is that the game has a little more visual depth than I am used to seeing. A typical dating sim game has two modes - 'play' mode, where characters are images that sit in front of a background (much like a green screen concept). The character image will change expressions, pose, etc, but the background stays the same. Then there are 'CG Events' - which are stand alone images, usually of much higher quality and detail where the character is actually interacting with the background in some way. In "Sense Off", the way characters are place on the backgrounds in 'play' modes is very interesting - you get a much better sense of space with the way they are set in the frame than I am used to seeing. Very impressive indeed. I like this game so far. It has a very interesting mood to it. It's kind of hard to describe. Oh, that's Minage Sanjou walking along in the image, in case you were wondering.

As far as ESP goes, mine is very blurry. Trying to make everyone happy is part of what I do for a living. Architecture is the art of compromise with direction. The final product is always the result of many people banging their heads together trying to make the massive amounts of money used to make a building work. There is a fine art to listening to what people want and doing what is best for the project. Imagine telling someone who is paying you lotsa money that he/she is wrong. ^_^

I suppose I apply some of the same principals to Megatokyo. I take in a lot of feedback, I listen to it, then do what I think is best. Since Largo and I are partners, we have to work out what we are doing amongst ourselves. This is not always an easy process, but it is the kind of process that produces the best work. I can maintain my own vision, tempered by the reality of what works. Without that process, you end up with the last episode of Evangelion, which pissed just about everyone off. ^_^ *I* know these characters and story better than anyone. I have to try to remember just how much people know, and how to let the story unfold in ways that allow you to learn about them.

So the experiment continues. With any luck, it won't blow up in my face again. ^_^

< Largo >

you're already here.

"crash & burn"

Sunday - January 14, 2001

[Largo] - 11:31:00 - [link here]

It's always been well documented that Piro is cursed, if you look at his life it's easy to see that some deity has it out for him. Yet, this morning *I* was victimized by what could have been a Sony sized fsck-up by the great all powerful cosmos itself.

My hard drive died...

The humanity, the nerve, the inconvenience... The loud clicking sounds my drive now makes!

I can't help but feel there was some cosmic mix up, surely it was Piro's drive that was meant to die, not mine. Six month old drives shouldn't die, much less six month old drives owned by yours truly. If you've seen Piro's setup, you'd know where I'm coming from, his computer room makes Lain's lair of wires of and god knows what look like the private office of Martha Stewart.

While I'm on the subject of Mrs. Evil, I want to point out proof positive that there is no god.. If there were a god, not only would Martha's hard drive be toast instead of mine, but I'm positive I'd be showered with sexy dancing girls and other cool shit - like some booze, and a Playstation 2... Oh! and a Neverwinter Nights beta!

Reason hasn't kicked in yet folks, I don't foresee it kicking in for awhile, maybe after 'reality' shows up, I'll give 'reason' a try. For now, sit back and enjoy the less then fluid ride.

Sure, it was just data I lost, little ones and zeros... But damn it, they were *my* ones and zeros! It's a shame to lose so much precious information. When arranged in a certain order these otherwise insignificant bits create the sweetness that was so many mp3s.... so many movies... and so much pr0n...

I proclaim this drive failure to be... "Super Disaster-rific" and "Amazingly Suck-tastic"

Ok, I think I got it out of my system now.... moving on...

Luke Taylor wrote in to point out that our little comic made it into some Euro-British gaming magazine thingy. This really amazed me, I had no idea that Europeans could read? (editor's note: I'm going to regret this line when I check t'morrow's email)

Friday's comic made it over to the front of Bioware's site, always a cool thing when that stuff happens.

Alright, I've finally caught up on my email, so here are some long over-due updates.

Our friends over at Cartoon Community asked us to point people over to their new site, called the Original Gamers Dojo. It's like a game review and industry news review site.

Awhile back, RPG World did a MegaTokyo cameo on their site, due to an over site on my part, I forgot to mention this, so for those who want to check it out, the strip is archived here. Again, I'm sorry for not getting to this one sooner, RPG World is a kick ass comic, I seriously suggest you guys check it out.

On that same note, Reality Incorrect featured one of our MT shirts in their strip.

For the music lovers out there, Kim Justice recently made a sort of theme song for MegaTokyo, that kicks ass in some cool new ways, the link is here.

BPComix has posted a review of our site, here. It seems we lost major points for not providing enough female stuff. Hrm, figures.

TAP Comics did a MT cameo recently, very cool stuff, the link is ... here.

Speaking of comics, which... I've been mentioning here and there all during this not so little rant, recently a sweet new comic hosted over at keenspace popped up called Wimply. I'd check it out.

Well, it's late now, so I should end this rant before it gets longer then Piro's rant, as one reader wrote in to point out, my rants seem to always come up shorter. There is in fact a very good reason as to way this is the law here at MegaTokyo. It's because I'm lazy.

credits

megatokyo the comic - copyright © 2000 - 2024 fred gallagher. all rights reserved.

'megatokyo' is a registered trademark of fredart studios llc.