This “brony” shit has got to stop.

I don’t mean the fact that men like My Little Pony. Nobody should have to feel ashamed of what they like (except drug addicts and pedophiles). I’m not a fan, but I like the show. It’s cute, it’s surprisingly well-written (by children’s programming standards), and it’s made me laugh more than once. Plus I’ve always been against commercialism’s habit of targeting demographics based on gender. If the product is good, everyone can appreciate it regardless of gender. We already saw this proven in the nineties with Sailor Moon (boys also liked it) and Batman the Animated Series (girls also liked it). This shouldn’t be an issue anymore, but society insists on fucking our children up with its archaic values. Zoobles were targeted at all children, yet idiot toy department people keep stocking them in the girls’ section where young boys fear to tread. They’re cute and they don’t have guns. OBVIOUSLY they’re meant for girls.

I had a pink Popple as a kid. Until public school happened to me, pink was my favorite color. When I got back from my FIRST DAY of kindergarten, mom asked me how my day was, and I replied, “I can’t like pink anymore. It’s a girl’s color.”

Fuck that shit.

No, I’m talking about the fact that terms like “brony” exist at all. With any other cult phenomenon, people will hate annoying fandom for being annoying fandom. But with this new pony show, we have further proof that American males have to live up to anal retentive standards of masculinity to be considered human beings, while women can basically dress how they like, act how they like, and watch what they like. This is why I’ll stick up for “bronies” even if they’re more annoying than Naruto fans, Death Note fans, Star Wars fans, and the like. If you gotta hate a cult of fandom, have the decency to lop all its members together based on their annoying behavior surrounding the same pop culture icon. When you hate them for being faggy boys who like a faggy girl’s show, you’re a fucking bigot.

Let boys like the color pink and mind your own goddamn business.

Title screen turned out looking pretty wicked.

I got all the maps done. Now I just gotta decide what to do about the intro and outro story bits, and the music. I’m using Contagion’s soundtrack for that shitty unreleased fighting game Thrill Kill as placeholder music, and it suits the game perfectly, so it’s industrial tracks or nothing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fxdOZaVZRk

The game looks functional, if a bit bland. I’m not complaining about that.

The setting isn’t terrible — it’s cliche, but it gets the job done for a dumb action game. I’m fine with this as well.

Here’s what pisses me off about this game. Bear with me for a few paragraphs.

When the game starts, following the cheesy intro that gives me the setting, I’m introduced to this nurse technician lady. To her, this is another day at the office. Then, all of a sudden, she has this sci-fi action movie bullshit dropped right in her lap: she’s the only one who can deliver the MacGuffin to the resistance terrorists! She’s being blown up, chased, and shot at. She has to go into hiding. She’s totally not a soldier and totally unprepared for this shit.

Then she’s picked up by the resistance dudes while on the run. She’s taken to their shady-ass hideout, and this bleached blonde douchebag — whom I immediately hate the second he opens his mouth — is bullying her for info about the super important MacGuffin disk. This dude has no reason to trust her. For all she knows, he’s gonna rape her, kill her, and dump her body in a ditch somewhere for the nondescript militant fascists to find. She’s understandably terrified. Then the base is attacked, and the action begins.

Quiz time, kiddies: which character am I given control of for the entire game?

If you guessed the bleached-blonde douchebag I only met moments ago and neither know nor care anything about, you are absolutely correct!

If you are the people who designed this game, you are absolutely incompetent and I’m glad nobody played your shitty game. Don’t make me sympathize with the fish-out-of-water who actually carries the plot, then give me control of some random asshole.

Remember the Ninja Turtles game on the NES? I found out there was an Amiga version and checked it out. It’s the kind of ugly that can induce night terrors.

What the hell ARE these? Did the Amiga port pit the turtles against aliens? Are they trying to find the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? And is that April? My god, what did they do to you, girl?

Gads! that’s not April, that’s a zombie blow-up doll! And Donny looks like a ninja turtle shaped turd.

Don still can’t get over how muppet-corpse hideous she is.

Oh god, keep it away! AAAAAAAHHHHH!! How did the head designer approve this? This is not a human being!

I didn’t take screenshots of Splinter for the sake of your sanity. He by far got it the worst.

New serious comic is online now. I decided to go ahead and greenlight it because it’ll be forever before anyone starts noticing it. When it’s ten or twenty pages in I’ll make a Facebook page for it or something.

Andy doesn’t go looking for fights — they always seem to find her. She’s learned the hard way to appreciate how easily life can be taken from others, and tries her best to be a friendly pacifist. But sometimes fighting is the only option, especially when she gets on the bad side of a violent money launderer.

Read it on Smackjeeves.

Read it on The Duck.

I’ve had these comics for awhile now and just decided to start sharing them. Might draw some of the unfinished ones later.

Nightmare Toys is a 2-player Gauntlet clone I’ve been developing lately: players either share a keyboard or use joypads (preferable). There’s a two-level demo here.

Escape the city while grabbing as much cool swag as possible! Watch your health, as it’s also your timer! Eat whiskey, chicken salads, and the soul of your dead partner to increase it! Above all, don’t get overwhelmed by the NIGHTMARE TOYS!

Misty (Joypad 1)

Move = WADS / D-pad

Attack = G / Button 1

Strafe = V / Button 2

Attack AND Strafe = H / Button 3

Lane (Joypad 2)

Move = ARROWS / D-pad

Attack = CTRL / Button 1

Strafe = SHIFT / Button 2

Attack AND Strafe = L / Button 3

Press R to restart if you die.

Master strafing to survive!

let’s see how many pages i can do before i fuck up my elbows again.

Creative title, right? Bear with me.

I’ve complained before about so many people making the same damn freeware games, especially zombie shooters, Sonic fan games, and 3D/2D Minecraft clones. This is called “Me Too” syndrome in the gaming industry (I’m totally a credible journalist so you can trust me), and it’s not limited to indie game developers and hobbyists: professionals have done it since the days of Pong. Every time a new genre or milestone is established, dozens of games try to reproduce its success for one reason (marketing) or another (wanting to make the games you like to play).

I’m not bothered by the fact that one game can spawn so many others like it. Without Doom, there would be no Duke Nukem 3D, Hexen, Strife, Blood, Serious Sam, or Half-Life. Each is entirely its own game despite sharing many similarities with the others (collect colored keys to unlock doors, current weapon is visible on the bottom of the screen, etc).

What bothers me is when one game spawns so many others that try to be the EXACT SAME THING. The Dizzy series on the ZX Spectrum is a great example of this: an egg dude goes on a side-scrolling flipscreen adventure, collecting items to solve puzzles while avoiding monsters. Dizzy was so popular that naturally many clones followed on various gaming platforms, ALL OF THEM starring fucking EGGS. To have the same sort of level layout and gameplay mechanics is one thing, but making identical characters? Following the smash hit that was Super Mario Bros, I don’t recall every platformer that came out starring a pair of plumbers!

Oh, but it gets worse when you look at freeware game design communities, where not only is a new sensation copied absolutely to its DEATH, but creativity is completely absent from every aspect right down to the title. You do a search for “zombie shooter” and what you find is scores of games with titles like “Zombie Shooter” or “Zombie TDS 2” or “Nazi Zombies 3D”. Better yet, type “Minecraft” and count how many games you find that are either A) 2D Minecraft clones with titles along the lines of “2D Minecraft”, or B) Near identical remakes of Minecraft.

Now let’s go back to those Doom clones that I mentioned. What if they all had the same basic look, came in 3 episodes’ worth of maps, had the same 8 weapons, and were all about a marine fighting hellspawn on the moons of Mars? That would’ve been ridiculous, right? What’s the point if it’s going to be the exact same thing? Who would bother playing the newest game if it’s exactly like the last one that came out?

Okay, BESIDES modern gamers.