#I didn’t realize how much of my artstyle is based off of this show until now lol

[theroseeatsribs]

ahhh my friend and I were talking about much we love this show ❣️ @aspiring-cryptid

[0poole]

Bloons

Honestly the entire Bloons series has been some of my favorite flash/other-than-flash games out there, and I feel like it’s worth bringing it up since I just crossed the 365 day threshold for BTD6. Maybe in the past, but nowadays I definitely don’t feel like I ever play a game daily for a year straight. Chances are it was a little desperate when I first started playing, but as of now literally every single day I open the game up and play the daily challenge just for the sake of it. Plus, since the chest technically resets every 9 hours or so instead of 24, I could’ve cheesed it a bit, but I didn’t. That’s a pure 365 days of playing the game.

And even apart from that, the entire Bloons series has been in my mind since the first one and my middle/elementary school Coolmath Games days. Even though the puzzle, pure form of Bloons wasn’t as much in my interest, the staying power of the Tower Defense version is crazy. Flash Tower Defense games are plenty, and yet the one with the stupid monkeys throwing darts at balloons was the best.

I went back semi-recently and played a round of each BTD, and I gotta say, it was fun seeing where everything came from. 1 is absolute garbage, forcing you to just spam Super Monkeys if you want to get anywhere, but a good starting point obviously. I honestly know nothing about the people creating these games, but obviously it wasn’t made by a AAA crew, so you can’t expect everything to be put in place in the first iteration. 2 and 3 feel much better, but obviously not much after being so used to the modern stuff, and 4 and 5 are the ones that really shine the most, apart from 6 obviously.

I definitely was one of the types of people who initially reacted poorly to the artstyle change of 5 and 6, but I’ve definitely turned over. I don’t know if the whole BTD community rioted at that point, but I at least was like “ew, they’re cute now” when I first saw it. Thankfully I turned over, and realized the current designs are the absolute best out of the entire franchise. Also, I love their cuteness, as I love cuteness in general, so basically just call it character growth. Even though 2D art always is more interesting for games than 3D in general, the entire art direction of 6 is genuinely really good, being so bright and cartoony (at least before the fifth stages of upgrades) really fits the cartoony idea of monkeys popping bloons. 5, and the entire franchise before it, really is proof enough how horrible a pure top-down perspective is. On the title screen, you can see what the monkeys are supposed to look like, but in-game they literally look like weird blobby scorpions. Even though in the back of my mind I knew what they were supposed to look like, the pure top-down perspective completely ruined the image. Not to mention the OG designs for the monkeys was really weird and bad anyway. Even if you wanted a goofy fat kind of monkey, there are a million better ways to achieve that than how it used to be. Again, of course, they weren’t exactly AAA game-level quality, so you can’t expect such perfect character design.

But, oh my god. One of the things about this game that must’ve kept me through 6 was the character designs. If you know anything about me, it’s that I love a good character design, and 6 is full of them. It’s so interesting to see how they extrapolate the main concepts of each tower into their three different paths. The generic Superman-based monkey can turn into a Batman-based monkey, a Terminator-based monkey, and a fucking ancient god of the sun. The seemingly chill Druid can smite people with the power of Zeus, become the much more expected forest-based type, but also turn into this completely out-there being of pure wrath. I could go on and on about that, but needless to say for so many of them look and are designed so great. I think the tower with the coolest level 5s of the game is the Ninja. It’s hard to explain, but they all just look really cool while also not deviating too much from the cartoony-cute art style. I think my all-time favorite level 5 is the top path of the Wizard, mostly just because he looks really cool, but also because the parts of the path before it show him aging and growing out his beard. I also have to say the 2-0-3/4 Wizard also looks exactly my style, with the dark purply-ness and gold rims. Also, if you haven’t noticed, the Magic monkeys are my favorite type, and not just because their signature color is purple. That’s part of it though. Magic is also just cool in general. My main RPG-class of choice is almost always a mage/wizard.

Also, the heroes are also really fun. As someone who often creates species of aliens/monsters, I always feel like I want to create a dedicated character out of them no matter what, so I feel like the heroes are basically just that. And, of course they have good designs too, and of course as you can probably guess my favorite is Adora, basically being the same thing as the 5-0-0 Wizard with the Sun God aesthetic. Since she has her own stage and a special interaction with the True Sun God/Vengeful Monkey, I think she’s a pretty big deal anyway. I will say that I highly slept on Gwen, but then for Easter they gave her the Harlegwen skin and I fell in love. It’s insanely good stuff. Apart from looks, it does feel nice to have some sort of interchangeable tower that you basically just place and forget about, aside from using their powers. Plus, it makes a really easy type of thing to periodically add to the game to keep things fresh, even with the skins in general. It definitely is much better than the stuff they had in 5, where you had to use Monkey Money to buy each one, and you could only use them once per stage. Obviously 6 has the extra powers to help you out, but they feel much more optional and cheaper than the heroes of 5. Since I barely buy anything with Monkey Money to begin with, and since I’ve obviously had 365 chest openings, and AND since I barely use them to begin with, I’m completely stocked up. I only ever use the farmer and sometimes the tech bot if I get lazy. I did use the portable lake I got from my 365th chest opening after I got it, just for the sake of celebration. That’s literally how my mind goes.

6 does have the slight tinge of a mobile game artstyle, but in this case it’s really just better. I’m not into mobile games, and especially not the generic artstyle they have, but it is really pleasing to look at anyway. It did chase me off before I converted, though. That, and the fact you had to buy it now. Like a true gamer, I was put off by the fact that something that was once expected to be free now has to be paid for. But, then, I realized that the entire franchise has provided much more than 10$ worth of entertainment to me throughout time, so it was extremely fair to pay that. It is still kinda weird how 5 has to be paid for for mobile, when it is just free online, though. However, unlike a true gamer I think the microtransactions of the game are extremely fair. Considering they just give you things that you don’t need, and can get for free otherwise, I think it’s completely fine to have them. It sounds bad on the surface to have to pay for the game and have there still be microtransactions in it, but since they’re completely optional there’s no good reason to hate it. I think people assume that means that you have to pay for the game, and pay extra for different major parts of the game, and that sours their opinion on everything. Gamers are a strange, irrationally angry breed. I do hate using my phone for pretty much anything, though, so once I bought 6 on Steam I haven’t played it on my phone since. It’s just so much better in every single way...

I bought the game around the time of one of my family’s semi-annual trips to England because I thought it’d help when we were traveling between wi-fi spots, and it really did wonders for me then. Probably looked like some asshole teen to strangers who don’t know I barely ever use my phone for anything, since I was playing it so much. My sister even saw me playing it and bought it for herself, although I don’t know how much she’s played since then. 

For the sake of stats, I have 235 hours played of it on Steam alone, and in game I’m level 115. My most complete map is Monkey Meadow with all medals except CHIMPS, which I put the effort in because it’s the default map, and definitely not because it’s an easy/good map because it’s just kinda bad compared to so many other ones. My Dart monkey has a total of 4 million XP, and the only towers that haven’t crossed a million are the Ice, Heli, Alchemist, Druid, and Spike factory monkeys/tower. I think the farthest I’ve actually gotten round-wise is 200 once or twice, but I don’t remember if I’ve actually beaten that level and continued on or lost there. I think I might’ve gotten past it once, but just sort of lost interest in micro-managing my powers and let myself lose. I probably got there once after that and lost on it. As someone who didn’t look up the optimal strategies for things until very recently, I think that’s pretty good. It definitely feels like the kind of game where if you know the best strategies, you can literally just replicate that over and over and win really easily, but that just sounds kinda boring. Since I pretty much only do daily challenges nowadays, it forces me to use a limited amount of towers, so I either go much farther because it forces me to build up less towers more, or it makes sure I can’t even pass round 90 because it just was made to get you to round 40 and that’s it. When I have the full range of towers to use, I feel like I try to get the instant satisfaction of getting a new tower to increase DPS instead of making the few towers I have/need reach their full potential, which seems to be the better option. I also don’t really sell anything when I don’t have a limited number of monkeys to place, which I think is also a good strategy if you can eliminate the major money loss in it, since it can give you a massive boost in cash to get you the better upgrades quicker. I may or may not try to learn the strategies to wipe the rest of the game clean eventually, but right now I’m fine with just doing the dailies.

But yeah, that’s like the whole thing with Bloons Tower Defense and me. Something something reject modernity, embrace monke, or whatever the kids these days are saying.

I will say that if I didn’t have so many OCs to work with and could just pump out animated shorts on the reg, I’d love to do some sort of Bloons shorts. They’d all lean into the ridiculousness of it all. Like, the first one could do the 2001 thing with the monkeys learning to use sticks, and as the main one is bashing the ground with one or whatever and throws it up, an ancient, leathery patchwork bloon flies overhead and accidentally bumps the stick such that it lands back on the main monkey’s head, knocking him out. Cue the monkeys around him to go berserk and start throwing other sticks at the ancient bloon, and once they pop it using a sharp stick, they realize what they must do. Cue a long montage of the different stages of war and invention using the monkeys finding better ways to fend off the bloons, with the whole idea being that the monkeys are getting irrationally angry at the bloons, who are just sort of around and not actually sentient, even though they assume they’re malicious because of their history and upbringing. Absolutely no political message in there whatsoever. Just comedy.

Other short ideas could include, for the start of the modern time story, it could be the backstory of some sort of chiseled veteran main character, which would involve a bloon floating into his town, and from the people’s panic someone knocks over a lamp post that sets his town ablaze, only for him and his people to blame the carnage on the bloon, causing his classic edgy character motives for fighting against the bloons. Another, much more golden idea, would be an interrogation scene, where a bunch of monkeys capture a bunch of bloons for interrogation purposes. They’d obviously do the whole “Silent treatment, eh? Well, we have ways of making you talk...” thing, except the “way to make them talk” is to strap them to a wall with one dart guy on one side to systematically pop them to try and extract info. But, of course, it would look and play out exactly like the classic Bloons puzzle game. That’d be the fun part. If not that, then it could be like the classic carnival game that likely inspired the idea of using darts to pop balloons. I really just think this weird world of monkeys and bloons is perfect for some good comedic content. Watching the monkeys severely overreact to the bloons sounds extremely fun, and I’d love to see someone do something with it some day.

[madameyavi-blog]

How we make games - about workflow, things from the past and lessons we learned

I like to seperate the games we make into two categories: Game Jam games and actual™ games. For those of you who might not be familiar with the term – a Game Jam is basically an event where people make a game in a very short amount of time, like two days just for example. In most cases there‘s also a given theme the game should (but must not) match. But that‘s not the kind of stuff I want to talk about today, let‘s save that for another post (we participated in three jams last month so I have a lot to recount :‘D) Let‘s focus on the latter – the actual™ games. We‘ve made two so far. Intra-System: Trust Issues, our very first game, and Flufftopia. When it comes to the work process these two have nothing in common though. That‘s because we were a three person team when working on Intra-System. Not long after we started working on the next project (which was Devastated: Andrew‘s Dictaphone) we parted ways with our former programmer due to some personal stuff. Also Devastated was meant to be a completely different game at that point, but I‘ll save that for another post too (damn, while writing this I get so many ideas for future posts :‘D). And at that point we decided to put Devastated on ice because we needed to restructure the team. I only made the graphical stuff for Intra-System and Daniel wrote the story, made music/sounds and coordinated the overall workflow. We decided to stay a two person team and not search for a new programmer simply because we realized that doing everything on our own seemed to work best for us. We also wanted to be as independent as possible. Well, that meant that one of us needed to start learning something programming related though.

At that point I sat down and basically spent two months doing nothing else but gathering as much knowledge as possible about the Unity engine. We decided to pick Unity for various reasons: 1. Real™ programming, a framework etc. wasn‘t an option because I had no programming background at all and it would have taken too long to learn that much. We wanted to be able to continue with games ASAP. 2. We were mostly focusing on 2D games at that point and Unity seemed to provide everything we needed. We of course could also have chosen a more 2D focused engine like GameMaker or RPG Maker but we wanted something that was capable of 3D too because we knew we would want to make 3D stuff in the future and learning different engines for both seemed redundant. 3. Unity‘s pricing policy was the one we most likely could live with. So that’s why we didn’t end up using Unreal and whatnot. So yeah, I made a very small very shitty clicker/idle/incremental game (why are there so many names for these?) in the learning process which really isn‘t worth talking about. Let‘s just say that Daniel was bald at that time and I took this as a theme for the game. The game is completely in German though because I didn‘t think that I would ever show it to more than 10 people.

And around that time we came up with the idea for Flufftopia. We really enjoy experimenting with existing genres so we thought of ways to mess with the clicker game thing a bit. Eventually Daniel came up with the basic idea for the story and the twist. I don‘t want to tell too much because it would take off a lot of the experience – you can check it out yourself if you want to. It‘s free and should only take you 20-40 minutes. The first thing I wanted to have was an artstyle. When talking about the idea I imagined something supercute and I think I didn‘t fail that too hard. First of all I drew a background to get an overall feeling of the direction I wanted it to take. At that point I didn‘t really know where the background would eventually end up. Now it‘s the main menu. 

The designs for the unlockable buildings and the basic idea for the Fluffs, the residents of Flufftown (I still love how fluffy all of this sounds ♥) followed.

After that I felt all of the fluffiness deep in my heart and was ready to start putting things together. Fortunately I was able to reuse some code from the first clicker game thing so I had some basic stuff going on pretty fast. But then we started putting in the story aspects and more features… and that‘s when everything started to go south. Let me tell you one thing: simply following tutorials and trying to figure stuff out on your own are two very different animals. Especially if you basically don‘t have a clue of what you are doing there.

It‘s working! But why? It‘s not working! BUT WHY?!  

I‘m glad that I don‘t have that struggle that often anymore. I still do, but I sometimes think I know what the problem is. I‘m wrong most of the time, but that‘s how learning works I guess. Also: Another reason for choosing Unity! The community is huge and it‘s very likely that someone has had a problem you are having right now before. There are thousands of entries in the forums and up until now I always found something that could help me out. Back to Flufftopia. I really like to run off the track. We managed to finish it somehow. The last weeks before release were pretty tough though. We needed to delay the release and cut many things we initially wanted to have in the game. A save system for example. And a second game mode. And much more. I simply wasn‘t capable of these things at the time. Especially in the short amount of time we had left. Lesson learned: Try not to bite off more than you can chew. You most likely will anyways, but at least try not to. But nevertheless the feedback we got for the game was unexpectedly positive – with over 3000 downloads it was our most successful game up until now. We also definitely want to make a large update somewhen in the future to hand in all the stuff we wanted to be in the game later. If you want to know even more details about the development and release, I recommend you to read this article Daniel wrote some time ago. Is the stuff I‘m telling you even interesting? I don‘t know. But that‘s it for Flufftopia. There‘s one more thing I‘d like to talk about in this post. When people ask what our specific tasks are we often answer with something like „Angela does art and programming and Daniel does the rest.“ And that often seems to confuse people. They assume that it’s me who‘s doing all the work. And that‘s absolutely not the case. First of all – Daniel is the idea guy. I wouldn‘t consider myself a creative person when it comes to coming up with game ideas, concepts and stories. I like being creative in graphical art for example but I need a base to work with. Also sound is something that shouldn‘t be underestimated. Many people don‘t realize how much of the atmosphere rises and falls with sound. And even though I kind of make music from time to time (up until now I made the title track for Flufftopia and that‘s it X‘D) it‘s mostly Daniel who‘s taking care of these things. Also he‘s the one coordinating everything. And when I say everything I mean everything. I‘m a total disaster when it comes to anything related to organization. So yeah, that‘s something he‘s taking care of too. All day. Every day. Thank you, Daniel. He also started to learn 3D modeling because that‘s of course something you need when making 3D games. And he‘s doing pretty well. And I‘m pretty thankful for that because I wanted to learn using Blender once and I rage quitted because it‘s… well, let‘s just say it‘s a very special program and I can be a very impatient person sometimes. So Daniel started making sinks and toilets for some reason. But hey, I think they look pretty cool!

And then there‘s also marketing and PR of course. And all the other stuff I don‘t want to take care of. And he makes amazing coffee!

[bluriginals]

Blu Blogs: First Thoughts on OK K.O.!: Let's Be Heroes

So after a long day of highs and lows, I arrive home at around 5:40 pm with little expectation for anything big. I'd already heard about the teaser picture of Metal's leg and how Smash is totally, maybe (stay-tuned-for-more-news-because-this-is-how-Nintendo-rolls), coming to Switch . At best I was expecting the highlight for the new content to be some cute new thing related to NEO-KOSMOS (even though we just got a new update the day prior). But no. We got something big, something unexpected. We got...

STEVEN UNIVERSE: SAVE THE LIGHT (A SEQUEL TO THE 2015 APP ATTACK THE LIGHT) WHICH IS A FULL FLEDGED CONSOLE RPG WITH PAPER MARIO GAMEPLAY, 4 PLAYABLE PARTY MEMEBERS BEYOND THE 4 MAIN CRYSTAL GEMS AND A NEW STORY WRITTEN BY REBECCA SUGAR YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES

But that isn't what we're here for today. Today we're here to talk about the long-awaited show 3+ years in the making: Lakewood Plaza Turb--

Oh.

So I log onto tumblr and the first thing I see is this:

So my eye is immediately drawn to the girl because girls are cute she's in the foreground, and I just don't recognize her. I look at the other characters and think "wait is that rad and k.o. what the HELL is going on". So logically, that means the girl is enid, ergo something is going on relating to Lakewood Plaza Turbo. I read the comment below that said "woooo OK KO! theshow i’ve been boarding on for over a year is finally announced!!!!"

I immediately have SO. MANY. QUESTIONS. Is the series getting another app? More shorts? A game? What's going on?! And as I scroll down the truth comes alll the more clear:

Lakewood Plaza Turbo is finally becoming a show.

REDEMPTIOOON SOOOOOOOONG

But not without some changes (ala Steven U). The artstyle, name of the show, and theme were all changed and just like Steven U my kneejerk reaction was "what the fuuuuck IIIIIIIIIIIIIIS this shit?". And also like Steven U it quickly grew on me and I accepted that this was the righteous path. Well, the artstyle and theme anyway, I'm still a bit iffy on the name. But enough context, let's talk about the show!

ok i lied, more context. so part of what contributed to my kneejerk reaction was the fact that Lakewood Plaza Turbo was in development purgatory for 3 years and in that time we got the app/shorts, but also in that time shows that had been in circulation for less time like We Bare Bears and Magiswords had gotten onto CN without seemingly as much struggle. I'd just given up hope for the series becoming a show and on top of that I'd even begun to lose my liking for the pilot, but then again Early Installment Weirdness is my Achilles heel of Tropes so make of what what you will. So when I saw the show come back in such a different form I was instantly turned off. Just from how it looked I was getting Teen Titans Go! & PPG16 vibes: a loss of the show's soul.

The artstyle looked so rudimentary and basic and the theme/intro wasn't doing it any favors, with its lyrics being very non-infortmative to the premise of the show: all fluff no substances. I had come to really like Lakewood Plaza Turbo's theme because its lyrics just felt as though they encompassed the tone and subject matter of the show: stupid(in a good way)ly-awesome with a video game/anime flare). But this was just....a non-event. And once again, the simplistic artstyle is so lame! Until I began to think of it another way...

Lakewood Plaza Turbo/OK K.O.! are clearly rooted deeply in gaming/anime culture and in some ways the new theme, title, and artstyle reflect this. Starting with the new theme, check out the opening shot of it panning from space all the way down to the plaza and the shot of K.O. staring down Lord Box Man with the opposing sides behind them.

Not only is this shot really badass, but it just REEKS of anime influence! And that extends to the theme! The simplistic subject matter and referenec to being friends/heroes feels very reminiscent of 90's anime with Engrish lyrics that have a very simple, positive vibe. It fits! The subtitle "Let's Be Heroes" also reflects it but I'm not as fond of it. You know it's going to be akin to "Adventure Time with Finn and Jake", "The Amazing World of Gumball, "The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack" and "The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius": extra parts of the title that'll all be abandoned in advertising and common discussion in a year. Regardless, the title/opening grew on me. And the artstyle? Awesome! While initially reluctant I came to realize that Lakewood's artstyle wasn't all that impressive. I never really liked K.O. and Enid's noses so the cute little square Elmo/Stan Pines gumdrop is cute.

Precious.

And in general, Lakewood sort've had a generic 2010s base artstyle. It definitely had defining features such as the eyes, aforementioned noses, and character designs but the colors used along with the thin lines didn't do much to set it apart. The new proportions, radically unique way of drawing things, and scraggly crayon-like lines should help. I initially thought the style was too squishy and inconsistent but not in the good, Ren and Stimpy/Steven Universe way. But after I got addicted to the visuals in the opening, I began to really enjoy the style and see the merits of it. Especially in this shot.

It looks SO cool.

I have no idea what this artstyle resembles but the closest I can attribute it too is Sonic CD/Mega Drive and Mega Man which I LOVE.

Also forgot one thing! Both Mega Drive and OK K.O.! have scraggy outlines

It does wonders for K.O., Carol, Lord Box Man (especially Lord Box Man, the way his mouth is drawn all muppet like gives him a real sense of dimension and it's great),

Perfection.

and the other tertiary/background characters but Enid, Rad, and Mr. Gar...

Umm....

Yeaaaaah. Now granted, that opening shot of them isn't doing many favors since admittedly they look REALLY bad (mostly Enid), but even without it they still look a bit. The simple geometrics really makes Gar and Rad's muscles look not very good due to how, well, simple they are. Enid on the other hand suffers an almost opposite issue—her legs are  sometimes drawn with definition/shape (like with the black and white photo storyboarder's picture from the beginning of the Blog) which makes sense considering she's probably based on Chun-Li. Other times, like the picture just above this paragraph, and this one:

Her legs are basically parallel lines that bend. Even worse is that shot above seems to be from an actual episode, meaning Enid will likely look like that a lot. In general, I think I don't think I'm happy with the new design choices for Enid. Not only is there the leg thing, but her ponytail and bandaged torso from Lakewood were a lot more appealing.

Even so it's not impossible to make any of these design choices look great. Just check out the official poster and you'll see all of them, especially the 3 we've been talking about for the past while look great.

One last thing to note on Rad/Gar/Enid's proportions: The strange Garnet-esque chest proportions on Enid and Rad's shirts despite their lower torsos indicating that there's nothing under said shirts.

Enid is a bit more understandable, as nothing about her lower torso indicates that something should be up there but this man Rad is /shredded/. You should definitely be able to see his biceps leading into the shirt, as made evident by Mr. Gar. These don't necessarily detract from the excitement of the show, but they're worth note and could become problematic if made out to be very obnoxious out of proportion in show.

Two more design changes to note before we wrap up: K.O. has a darker skin tone (which I like) and now has buttface.

Buttface, along with flat simplistic colors and thin lines will go down as the defining aesthetic traits of the 2010s.

And also Rad's antenna have gone from being on the front of his forehead to in the middle of the top of his head, which looks a lot less awkward tbh. Overall good choice.

Despite the many issues it has, the artstyle still looks pretty different from everything else we have atm, and the simple way the characters are drawn should be beneficial as with said simple characters action scenes will be a lot easier to make and thus we'll be able to get higher quality, well-animated fight scenes. Despite the bad initial reaction, I have high hopes for OK K.O. Long as they keep the tone and spirit of Lakewood Plaza Turbo alive we could be looking at the next big show. Oh, and great on Ian for percerviering and becoming the second African American to create a CN original. Can't wait to see the young K.O. rise up to greatness just like his creator.

p.s. for being the defensive teammate, steven's hp sure is garbage in that screenshot of attack the light