Most of what I’ve been working on lately isn’t ready to show yet, but you’ll get a preview later in the post. I still have some new things done for the site:

Info Center: more small additions, fixes and improvements were made here and there to the new items system
S-Files: new profiles for Akira, Gil, Glen and Mark from Karate Blazers
Vernacula-X: new separate pages for pro wrestler and power-up, new images for boss and ninja.

Custom Sprites:
Growl: new scratch-made sprites of the Rangers (Gen, Burn, Khan, Jack) and the Dolls.
Rolling Thunder: new scratch-made sprites of Albatross and Leila from Rolling Thunder 2

GFX Generators:
– Dan Hibiki: thanks to a site visitor who wanted Dan’s CvS sprites and told me that Kong’s rips fit the same size as other sprites, Dan has CvS sprites now!
– the Marvel Legends box now has the Spider-Man box style. It’s easy to get pics of the outside of the box, but I have to get and scan my own box inserts, and getting classic Beetle (yes, I know who the Beetle is) let me do that. I still need to get a classic Taskmaster Marvel Legend to do the new Avengers box, though.


Work on the sequel to the “Horror vs.” print (with Freddy vs. Jason) is on the way and here’s a preview:

Even if you saw the preview I posted on Twitter and Instagram a few days ago, this one has a few changes, including some changed characters. I’m still not 100% sure about the “roster,” but I’ll talk more about that at a later date.


I’ll be at the Youngstown Comic Con at the Covelli Center this year, but only on Sunday, July 8th (I’m still working part of the weekend at my day job). It’s mostly a comic convention, but you’ll be sure to find video games and game-related stuff there, too. I finally got Gauntlet IV for Genesis at last year’s con. I’ll have both line art and pixel art prints, along with sketch cards and mini-prints that I don’t have on the site yet. If you can make it to NE Ohio on July 7th and or 8th, please check out the Youngstown Comic Con!

GFX Generators – Now that the sprites and palette selections are on different pages, I’ll be adding more of both to a few characters in this and future small updates. As a back-up to the Bravoman update, the full “Bravoman X Wonder Momo” cover set-up and logo was added to the “Comics 88×136 pixels” style.
Capcom: Cammy (sprite and SFA3 palettes), Chun-Li (3 SFA-Classic sprites, 14 redone palettes), Dhalsim (sprite and SFA3 & MSHvsSF palettes), Ken (2 SFA-set sprites and palettes), M.Bison (6 SFA-set sprites added, palettes expanded)
Namco: Bravoman (Bravo Black palette added), Chomp Chomp added
Marvel: Gambit (new palette), Psylocke (sprites & palettes), Super-Skrull (4 new sprites)

Custom Sprites – Four new Super-Skrull variations (Thing fist, Fantastic fist, Torch arms and 4 powers at the same time) were added to the Marvel page. Chomp Chomp, Pac-Man’s dog, was added to the Namco page.


I’m going to be at the All AmeriCon convention in Warren, Ohio on July 7th. I made a Tumblr post about it here with more info and the Facebook (sorry) page for the event is here. Updates will be small until then because I need to get ready for this along with getting another website up and running. The next big update will be on July 19th, this website’s birthday. This site also has its own Twitter account now and you can keep up with updates from that, this site’s WP RSS feed or the site’s Tumblr that I linked to earlier.

Pac-Man debuted in Japan on this day in 1980 and changed the world of video games. I’m old enough to have been alive and gaming when that coin-op machine hit the U.S. later that year and transmitted Pac-Man Fever to the point that even my grandmother liked the game. While those who tout story over gameplay still claim that gaming is still waiting for its “Wizard of Oz” moment, I’d argue that the way parents introduce their young’uns to the dot-eating hero has become just as much of a tradition as being off to see the Wizard.

To celebrate, I made a quick little sprite of Chomp-Chomp, the Pac-family dog as he appeared in the Ruby-Spears cartoon that went on to inspire later official Pac-games. He’ll be added to the GFX Generators in the small site update later this week.

There’s another update on the way some time this week, but I wanted to get Bravoman’s stuff on the site as early as possible to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of his game hitting Japanese arcades.

Bravoman’s custom sprite was improved a bit more, his Japanese arcade logo and ShiftyLook logo were converted to mini-logos, his game was added to the Game Index and sprite from that game kick off his sprite gallery. Any of those things that could added to his character in the fighting game-sized GFX Generators were added along with the GroupShot getting a new “Comic 88 x 136” info layout based on the “Bravoman X Wonder Momo” cover by UDON.

If you haven’t checked it out, be sure to hit ShiftyLook.com and check out Bravoman-related celebration there, including his new cartoon!

I’ll be back later this week with another small update, including more Super-Skrull sprites!

… Halloween… Halloween…

This year marks the 25th Anniversary of Konami’s Castlevania hitting U.S. shores and invading unsuspecting NES systems around the country. With that in mind, this pre-Halloween update is really heavy with Dracula’s minions along with a Belmont to destroy them. Non-Castlevania fans still have some things to look forward to as other horror and monster-related sprites and things haunt this update.

GFX Generators – The following creatures and creature-fighters have been added to the mix:
Capcom: Anita (new!)
Jaleco: Avenging Spirit (new!)
Konami: Richter Belmont (new!), Medusa Head (new!), Castlevania creatures (Ghosts, Hunchback, Zombie)
Namco: Rick Taylor (now with palettes, including Mirror Rick and Wanpaku Graffiti), Biggy Man (new!)
Sega: Neff (new!)
An expanded version of my scratch-made Castlevania cover art recreation was added to the 384×224 Create-a-Scene screenstyles. You probably figured that out from the main screenshot, though. More Darkstalker backgrounds were added to those, too.

Custom Sprites –
Jaleco: Avenging Spirit
Konami: Richter Belmont (SotN style), Medusa Head, Ghosts, Hunchback, Zombie
Namco: Biggy Man
Sega: Neff (Altered Beast)

Mini-Logos – Capcom: Resident Evil. Data East: Night Slashers. Jaleco: Avenging Spirit. Konami: Richter (Belmont). Marvel: Ghost Rider

Expect a few more items to be added on Halloween day!


Breakin’ News


Joystiq reports that there will be a Midway Arcade Origins compilation of over 30 games for $30 for PS3 and X-Box 360. Don’t forget that Midway acquired the libraries of The game list in the press release mentions Defender, Gauntlet, Joust, Marble Madness, Rampage & Spy Hunter. Multiplayer modes will be local only, but there will be trophies and online leaderboards so the rest of the planet can make you feel crappy about the scores you’d normally be okay with. Backbone Entertainment will be doing the emulation duties again, so this thing is in good hands. Honestly, the extras like artwork and developer interviews are one of my favorite things about game compilations and I’d be happy if they just re-used some of the videos they included with the Midway Arcade Treasures series. Games like Gauntlet and Rampage that allow more than two players should be much more interesting now that these comps are on machines that don’t need multitaps. Midway’s Tapper actually shows up in the upcoming Wreck-it-Ralph’s, so maybe they’ll think of including that one, too.


Just in case you hadn’t heard about Keiji Inafune’s new game with the interesting concept and premise:


Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z by All-Games-Beta

Here’s the Project X Zone video with all kinds of Capcom, Namco and Sega characters in crazy-go-nuts mode combat mode:


Graphic Generators – I just made a small character update.
Capcom: Ibuki added. Poison (new SF3-to-SFA-like edits and a new palette), Ryu (SFA3 portrait headband edit) updated.
Namco: Nina, Kazuya and Yoshimitsu make a invasion with new scratch-made sprites.
Taito: Dolls from Growl/Runark are now one sprite with multiple palettes (three arcade, three Genesis/Mega Drive)

Mini-Logos – A Street Fighter IV-styled Street Fighter logo added to Capcom section. 70’s and late 80’s Avengers logos added to Marvel section. Illmosis and ScrollBoss logos added to Illmosis section.

Custom Sprites – Scratch-made sprites of Nina (Tekken 5), Kazuya (1, 2 & 5) and Yoshimitsu (2 & 3) were added to the Namco page.

edit: I also re-sized the scratch-made sprites of the Dolls from Growl because I didn’t notice that they were too tall.

Elsewhere:
NXistence
Noise Factory:TMNT IV: Turtles In Time
Dynamo just posted a breakdown of his five favorite BGM tracks from TMNT IV and it’s worth a read. The man is uniquely qualified to make these posts since he thinks about games on a nuts and bolts level AND he crafts some fine music himself. He also makes a reference to one of my favorite musicians in the description of the #1 track. Look that name up on YouTube if you don’t recognize it when you get to it. You’ll be glad you did.

Graphic Generators – The engine just got a new feature: floor reflections.




A few older screens in the GroupShot generator’s 384×224 modes (Gen SFA2, Avengers MvsC, Avalon X-Men:COTA and Code Red XMvsSF) were upgraded with this. I also added Mojo World and the Savage Land from COTA (two versions of each) and two versions of the demolition site from KoF 2000.

New characters: Link for Nintendo. Tanya in the “Other” section. Rushing Beat enemies (just Ride & Kamikaze from the first game) for Jaleco. Seth, Heidern, Vanessa & Whip for SNK. Growl/Runark villains (female “Doll” enemy) added to Taito section. Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch (both with old sprites) for Marvel.

Game Index – Rolling Thunder 2 (Arcade) added. Growl (arcade) updated.

Company Index – Namco page added.

Custom Sprites – Link (original Legend of Zelda) added to the Nintendo page. Kamikaze and an improved version of Ride (both from Rushing Beat) added to the Jaleco page. The Dolls (female enemies) from Growl added to the Taito page. Tanya from Guardians of the ‘Hood added to the new Atari page. Yes, I made fan work based on GotH.

Mini-Logos – The Legend of Zelda (Nintendo section) and Hawkeye (Marvel section)

Sprites – Growl (a few sprites added) updated.

Sorry for the small update, but it’s going to be like this for a while as I work on commission art projects and all the other crap you hear me rambling about. The commission job is a piece of cartoony artwork and that’s one of the reasons why most of the new sprites share a common theme.

Graphic Generators

New Characters: Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Ghost Monsters and Pooka for Namco. Space Invaders for Taito.
Updated Characters: Thanos (sprites)

GroupShot – 160×192 Box tributes (“Red Top” NES and Tengen NES game boxes added along with some Pac-related backgrounds)

Custom Sprites – Ms. Pac-Man, Blinky, Pinky, Inky, Clyde, Sue and Pooka (all scratch-made) added to the Namco page.

Mini-logos

This is the biggest custom mini-logo update I’ve ever done. I typed up a big breakdown of new logos, including the numerous company-based logos, but that draft got lost. I’m not typing all of that again so look at the big preview pic. The preview pic doesn’t even show all the variations of the logos like the flat Sega logo, darker SF logo, and more.

BTW: A few of these mini-logos were made because people replied in the Request Line topic I posted last year. It took me a while to get to them, but they still, as R-Truth would say, got got.

Sprites – Bad Dudes page updated with new sprites, animations and a fixed version of Blade’s charge-up animation.

Minus World – I updated the Bootleg Wrestlers page with a Animal’s LOD-like taunt from Bad Dudes vs. Dragonninja.

Updates will continue to be small while I work on a bunch of stuff including a mini-comic/artbook for a comic convention in May. It’s something that I wanted to do last year but didn’t finish.

S-Files – I’m still making minor adjustments to the engine. The default index page groups characters by the first letter in their filename. One problem is trying to get a sprite background that will keep sprites from blending in with it. There has been a slight change to how the main picture is displayed so please let me know if there are any errors with it bugging out. I finally made a crude “profile maker” to help make and modify profiles for reasons I’ll explain in the lab.
New: Blood, Boomer, Hawk, Kate, Sledge from Crime Fighters 2/Vendetta. Norton and Bild from the Rushing Beat series.
Updated: Mike Haggar, Rolento

GFX Generators

New GroupShot styles: the Marvel vs. Capcom 3 “character ring” with two solo variations and one where you can fit three characters.
Characters added: Cable, Marrow, Nakoruru (SNK), Zero (Capcom),
Palettes updated: Chun-Li, Felicia, Rogue (Green/White from MvsC2), Ryu
Other updates: Apocalypse (X-Men: CotA name graphic), Black Widow (logo), Jill (MvsC3 outfit sprite edit), She-Hulk (logos), SoR’s Shiva (custom mini logo), Storm (logo)

Custom Sprites – Zero added to the Capcom page

Mini Logos – Alien Busters & Alien Burgers (from Sega’s Alien Storm), Black Widow (Marvel), Growl, Marrow (X-Men 72 cover), Nakoruru (SNK), Shiva (Sega), Storm, Zero (Capcom).

Logos – added My Hero, Tower of Druaga, Warrior Blade – Rastan III, Wonder Momo.


Moon Diver (official site here), the new 2.5-D platforming action game from Square-Enix hits Playstation Network this week and will debut on X-Box Live at a later date. Just in case you haven’t heard, the game is directed by Kouichi “Shiina” Yotsui (a.k.a. Isuke), the director of Strider (arcade) and Cannon Dancer (a.k.a. Osman). You can definitely see his influence all over this trailer.

Definitely looks like crazy fun to me. I’ve been waiting for this since it was announced and I’m impatiently waiting for the Playstation Store to update so I can finally play it. There will be a separate post about the game once I’ve played the game.

Update: Just bought and played the first stage of Moon Diver. EXCELLENT. You’ll love this if you love Strider. Also up for sale now is Rush’n Attack: Ex-Patriot, the revival of Konami’s Rush’n Attack/Green Beret franchise.


You’ve probably seen this link a lot lately but the areas that were hit are still suffering many hardships. I know that times are tight for many of us in the U.S. (take it from a chronically-broke guy like me) but please think of kicking in a few spare dollars when you have the chance. Every little bit helps.
Google: Resources related to the 2011 Japan Crisis