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Category: Projects Archive

Brainscraps Holiday Card No. 6, and Future Plans

RKasa
December 23, 2021
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After taking 2020 off, the Holiday Cards are back! Without further ado, here is the sixth Brainscraps Holiday Card, Mary Sue’s Character Casino, which is fully playable via your desktop or laptop browser.

Mary Sue's Character CasinoThis is my most ambitious Holiday Card to date in terms of both game design and asset creation. The initial inspiration came through playing Luck be a Landlord, an Early Access roguelike deckbuilder I grew quite fond of this year. The few mobile gacha apps I’ve been playing around with might’ve also had something to do with this game’s theme. Once I’d settled on the basic premise, next was the game engine, which was no easy task. First I tried out Ct.js, but found it to be inadequate for what I was trying to make. Then there was Godot, which proved to be too complex for a brain as regularly wracked by insomnia as mine. The third engine I tried, GDevelop, wound up being a good middle ground, although it is not as polished as some others I’ve used in the past. It also uses the dread language JavaScript, though I won’t hold that against it (much).

All of this experimentation happened sometime in the middle of the year. That’s right. Whereas past Holiday Cards typically took between one and three months to make, start to finish, Mary Sue’s Character Casino was a half-year project. The static art assets alone took me more than a month and a half to create.

Putting all this time toward making the game meant less for other things, such as this blog. With that in mind, Mary Sue’s Character Casino will be the last Holiday Card for the foreseeable future. Starting in 2022, I’m going to make a real effort to revamp and revive this blog, with more frequent (and hopefully shorter) updates. In terms of content, I would like to post more here than just reviews and impressions, and bring back the sorts of commentary and features that used to appear here. A slight visual refresh is also being planned.

For those that have been reading all this time, thanks for sticking with me, and if you’re new here, welcome, and hope to see you again. I also hope that everyone has (or had, or is having) a safe and enjoyable holiday season!

Special Project #4: An Alternate Final Fantasy VII Remake

RKasa
April 8, 2020
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Sometimes ideas come along that you had never planned in the first place, and you just have to execute them. Thus, despite my announcement that there would be no Holiday Card this year, about a couple months ago, I started work on a game. It’s not a Holiday Card, though, so it’s technically okay, right?

DARK CITY FOURTH STREET, Part OneThis time around, it’s a fangame loosely inspired by my all-time favorite, the original Final Fantasy VII, titled DARK CITY FOURTH STREET, Part One: The Sprawl. This title was inspired by a very peculiar part of FFVII‘s Debug Room, and the plot takes Hironobu Sakaguchi’s original idea for FFVII as a detective story and runs with it. It tells the tale of detective Cloud Strife as he takes on a job related to the environmental terrorist group AVALANCHE, and branches out in a few different directions. There are a number of endings, and even some hidden scenes. Also, as with a certain other revisiting of the FFVII world, this game is the first installment in a series, and ends when Cloud leaves Midgar.

As with my previous game, DARK CITY FOURTH STREET, Part One is exclusive to itch.io, though this may change in the future. Kick back, put on “Anxious Heart”, and enjoy!

Here’s Brainscraps Holiday Card no. 5

RKasa
December 12, 2019
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It’s been a rough year for me in many ways, but nevertheless, I have managed to complete my most ambitious Holiday Card yet. So, without further ado, I would like to present the 2019 Holiday Card: In the Back: A Retail Adventure! This game ended up being so ambitious that, due to its size, it is only available via itch.io.

In the Back: A Retail AdventureAnother thing that’s special about In the Back is that it is my first, and so far only, playable Holiday Card which is actually holiday themed. In this first-person exploration game, you play a seasonal employee at a big-box store who is asked to check “in the back” for a hot new video game which is nowhere to be found on the shelves. If that doesn’t sound particularly exciting, be aware that “the back” of this store is unlike any you’ve seen before.

This year’s engine is GameGuru. Unfortunately, it is the most buggy, unreliable, and poorly-designed game engine that I’ve used thus far, and thus I can’t recommend it at all. I may write a review for it on Steam later on, but at any rate, if you’re interested in an engine to create an FPS, walking simulator, or similar game, avoid this one. Also, moreso than usual, please keep me abreast of any significant bugs you may run into.

One final note: I’ve already made up my mind that there will be no Holiday Card in 2020. The coming year will be a busy one for me, and aside from that, I just needed a little break.

Please enjoy this year’s Holiday Card, and I wish you all a wonderful holiday season!

Special Project #3: DaisyDOOM

RKasa
August 21, 2019
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If you thought I was done with this year’s special side projects after P.S. Triple Classic and the FFVII theatrical commercial uploads, you would be wrong! Today, I’ve completed and uploaded something I’ve been wanting to make for a little while now: DaisyDOOM, a mod for The Ultimate Doom.

DaisyDOOM is set in an alternate universe where Doom‘s protagonist is not Doomguy, but his pet rabbit Daisy. Somehow she is on Mars while Doomguy is on Earth, and the UAC’s scientists have given her a cyborg marine body just in time for the invaders from Hell to show up. In addition to new status portraits and story content, DaisyDOOM features rabbit-friendly health pickups, some new sound effects, and more!

Like my other projects, DaisyDOOM is available both here and via itch.io; one additional download location may be forthcoming. A source port such as GZDoom, along with a valid copy of Doom itself (preferably The Ultimate Doom), is required.

Please let me know what you think, and enjoy!

Another Special Project: Digitizing Final Fantasy VII‘s Theatrical Ad

RKasa
July 10, 2019
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In my heyday of collecting materials and merchandise related to Final Fantasy VII, I amassed anything that interested me, from action figures to demo disks, and including collector’s favorites like “the SIGGRAPH Disk”, “the Versus Guide”, and the limited-edition version of the soundtrack. Although I’ve since slowed down considerably, and even sold off some pieces, I still maintain said collection, which includes a subset titled the “Cloud Shrine”.

Without a doubt, the rarest—and strangest—part of my FFVII collection has been a set of three 35mm film reels dating from December 1997, each thirty seconds long, and containing an identical advertisement for the game. I got them via eBay sometime in the early-mid ’00s for around $35 (the seller included a Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within lobby card as a freebie). Aside from similar 35mm reels for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time that appeared on eBay later on, I don’t know if any other video game theatrical ads from that era have been offered for sale to collectors, or are even still around. Some probably do exist, and are possibly online somewhere.

Continue ReadingAnother Special Project: Digitizing <i>Final Fantasy VII</i>‘s Theatrical Ad

Presenting P.S. Triple Classic

RKasa
June 15, 2019
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As mentioned in my previous post, I have had a special project in the works. Today, I’m happy to announce the debut of P.S. Triple Classic, a fansite/archival project dedicated to a semi-obscure Japanese webcomic called P.S. Triple, aka P.S. Three-san.

P.S. Triple is a series that’s near and dear to me, so I hope you check out these comics. They’re sweet, funny, and often a bit sad. See the blog’s intro post for more information about the world of P.S. Triple.

That’s all for now; have a good weekend!