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July 2008

Dwarf Fortress Interview from Someone, Not the First, and Definitely Won't be the Last

Submitted by gum on Sun, 07/27/2008 - 12:37
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Needing to talking about something other than Type-Moon, I found this grand 3-part Dwarf Fortress interview from Kwanzoo with the game's creator Tarn Adams today via TIGSource (which seems to have been blocked in China as of two days ago, thanks, proxy!).

The interview in question:

In case you don't know what Dwarf Fortress is (and you probably don't), here is a description from Wikipedia:

Future Works from Type-Moon

Submitted by gum on Wed, 07/16/2008 - 06:46
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Japanese Type-Moon fan blog Seasons of Change recently posted a link to this page, which pretty much says the following:

"A new work from 竹箒 (Takebouki, or Bamboo Broom) called "Kara no Kyoukai - the Gaeden of sinners / recalled out summer" will be released during C74 (that's this summer's Comiket for you none-geeks). The item will be sold on August 16th at the East A-28 area."

Also, that big phrase on the top says:

"Hallucination of summer. Returning to the origin. A bonus track that connects the future and the past."

Sooooo, what does this all mean? While there are no concrete information, here is what we know:

Proof that Free Visual Novels Can be Good

Submitted by gum on Mon, 07/07/2008 - 15:48
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When speaking of Japanese visual novels, probably the first thing that comes to mind is H scenes or something similar, and most of them are fairly expensive to get if you live in the U.S. (of course no one would ever get them through some torrent site or anything like that!) So, being the poor gamer that you are, if you're looking for a meaningful story, quality artwork and good sound track, look no further than Narcissu, a free visual novel by the doujin group stage-nana.

What You can't read Japanese? Worry not, the game has already been translated to English by insani. As for the story, here's a brief summary:

Pre-First Look: Ciellus

Submitted by gum on Fri, 07/04/2008 - 15:19
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Once upon a time, a little project called Ciellus entered TIGSource's PGC Competition. The game was made by the tag team of Annabelle Kennedy (art and music) and Terry Cavanagh (programming).

In the beginning, only artworks were shown. However, they were not simply artworks, they were AMAZING artworks, so amazing, the game's thread, with only concept arts, garnered more replies than all other game threads that came with demos, plans and whatnot. Later, when it was revealed that Ciellus would be a pixel art game, and a subsequent screenshot was shown, the crowd went wild, and expectations probably shot through the roof.

Scary Monsters and Pretty Girls

Submitted by gum on Thu, 07/03/2008 - 16:04
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Gish 2's official website was recently updated with something of an intro. Although it's not clear who's the creature that's doing the talking, it sure seem like something out of a Lovecraft novel. From what can be seen so far, comparing Gish 2, which looks dark and adult-like, to Gish 1, which seems cute and cuddly, is like comparing Silent Hill to Serious Sam (um how does that work out anyway?). Also, after having recently completed Nitro+'s Saya no Uta, I have reasons to believe that the creature on the frontpage is a distant relatives of Saya's.

Which brings us to the topic of this post (yes, it's actually not about Gish 2). Last night, staying up till 3am or so, I finally finished a extremely short but thought-provoking work called Saya no Uta (Song of Saya) from Nitro+, a Japanese eroge game maker known for works like Demonbane and my personal favorite, Phantom of Inferno.