#extramana

[extramana]

You can now Follow ExtraMana on Instagram!

[quotesviral-blog]

LOVE QUOTE – extramana:Touhou LOVE QUOTE : extramana: Touhou

[quotesboxesus-com]

via Quotes Boxes | You number one source for daily inspirational quotes, saynings & famous quotes

[extramana]

Extramana and I are collabing to bring to you a retrospective series on every contributor at Channel Awesome (formerly known as TGWTG.com). The reviewing community on YouTube owes a lot to guys like Doug Walker and James Rolf for propelling many of the YouTube “celebrities” we see today. Channel Awesome also serves as decent folklore about the early days of YouTube. Also, since there wasn’t any other YouTube channel with an extensive compendium of these contributors; we thought it would be a fun project. Today’s episode is starring the man himself from Channel Awesome; Doug Walker, the Nostalgia Critic. He is best known for his line, “"Hel-lo, I'm the Nostalgia Critic. I remember it so you don't have to."

[extramana]

Channel Awesome Retrospective #1| AVGN ft: NobleAbsinthe

NobleAbsinthe and I are collabing to bring to you a retrospective series on every contributor at Channel Awesome (formerly known as TGWTG.com). The reviewing community on YouTube owes a lot to guys like Doug Walker and James Rolfe for propelling many of the YouTube “celebrities” we see today. Channel Awesome also serves as decent folklore about the early days of YouTube. Also, since there wasn’t any other YouTube channel with an extensive compendium of these contributors; we thought it would be a fun project.

Today’s episode is starring the man who started game reviewing himself, James Rolfe the AVGN.

[extramana]

Team 21 Interview: Dungeons of Aledorn (ExtraMana Archive)

I interviewed Team21 about the development of their computer role playing game Dungeons of Aledorn which is undergoing a crowdfunding campaign through Kickstarter. You mention how ‘Betrayal at Krondor’ was an inspiration which itself had a mixture of turn based combat and first person exploration, what kind of gameplay systems are needed to develop this type of game? Well, there’s actually several quite different mechanics and we believe that this part of our game is absolutely paramount, that we decided to gradually mention all of them in our Kickstarter campaign updates. At the moment there are already two updates, that are live, that disclose with readers our various GUIs and the advantages of our exploration mode. I’d recommend to anyone interested in the game’s specifics to take a look at our campaign and the updates. What is it about the blend of turn-based combat and first person exploration that you feel makes for such an immersive gameplay experience? From the very beginning Dungeons of Aledorn was conceived with one main goal and that was to transition a classical pen and paper experience into a PC game. Most people I’ve played various games with were always trying to imagine being inside the game, seeing everything with their character´s eyes – and that´s basically why we implemented the first person exploration. The second view, during combats, is a kind of a compromise between realism and comfortable battlefield overview – of which you usually have during D&D and other similar gaming experiences. The immersion is additionally improved by the system which places everything from the exploration view to the battlefield, including the actual positions of your enemies and your party, which may differ after every reload.

How did you get started in the games industry?

To be honest, I’ve always wanted to be in the industry, but I’ve not actually decided to make my dream come; it was shortly after my university studies that I decided to make the move. Ive since undertaken numerous courses for game developers (Unity, game design, 3D Studio etc.) and at the beginning of 2012, I started to write my first GDD. After several consultations with professionals from Disney studio my GDD was ready at the end of the same year, and so, the team assembly for my project began soon after that. It is since that point that I considered myself being a part of game industry. 

 How did you meet your collaborators? 

With GDD in hand and with some general game development knowledge, I knew that I needed at least two people – a graphic designer and a programmer. I asked around my circle of friends and other acquaintances and it didn’t take too long to find a very capable friend who used to play some MMOs with me, Arbiter. After some time I met another team member, Jarda Šlajch, at one party and the basic development team was formed. But our development advance was all but quick and there were many other team members, who contributed a little to our project and then left. However, everything took a more positive direction when I met Daniel Nezmar, in June 2013. He was leading a considerably big team of experienced members, especially graphic and sound designers and all he needed was a programmer and a designer. It was clear to everyone that we should combine our strengths to finish the project and at that is how we formed TEAM21. 

Why did you pick Unity as an engine to develop on? 

The beginning of our development process, and, also former Arb (our programmer) had Unity scripting experience. Our graphic designer, Jarda, also had some experience with Unity, so it was actually sensible to play to our strengths. Even though other engines have a few neat advantages compared to ours, we still find Unity as a powerful tool, if handled correctly.  

You mention that if funded you can move the game from Unity 4 to Unity 5 what advantages will this bring? 

Unity 5 has a new physical based shading system, upgraded light mapping a several performance optimisations, which will definitely improve the general quality of our game. Especially the visuals should reach a much higher level. 

How did you come up with the game World of Nirma and what kinds of things can we expect to see there?

Nirma is actually the central and biggest island of a whole archipelago, where our game takes place. Aledorn is then a name of a human controlled county, that spreads over a significant part of Nirma. I’m not quite sure how I came to use such names – a bigger part came to me accidentally or they caught my eye during my experiments with name generators. The whole game is set in a familiar high fantasy setting that draws inspiration from a vast number of literal and game sources. Travelling our world, you can expect to encounter every thinkable classical terrain one usually finds in fantasy world setting – dark dungeons, forests, mountain passages, swamp, towns, castles and all with various climates and conditions. We’ll share more of relevant details in one of our forthcoming Kickstarter update, so be sure to check on it also.

How was the music composed for this game? 

Nowadays, most game and movie music is created within a studio on a PC, with various music “boxes”, special keyboards and so on. Our project is no exception in this case. We’re using mainly the VST instruments (virtual instruments). Our composer is a very experienced professional. Even though this is his first game project, he found it to be his element as it gives him a great freedom in his creation and expanded his knowledge about the historical music at the same time.  Don’t expect to hear a sax solo or bass guitar underlining the main theme as we’re aiming for a quality medieval-fantasy atmosphere.

What has using motion capture allowed you to do that otherwise wouldn’t have been possible? 

The motion capture is a great time saver. MC animations are usually always a bit more natural, but every skilled animator can achieve the same results – the only difference is the time demand of such techniques, which is significantly higher in terms of time. We use MC especially for typical combat animations and NPC actions within the town and during conversations.  

Can you tell us a little bit about what effect player actions can have on quest lines? 

There are three types of quests in DoA. The main story quests which will concentrate on and further expand the game’s story about the human vs. Orc conflict. The order of these quests is actually fixed, but the player will often get a chance to fulfil the quest in more than one ways. No matter the manner he does that, the main story is, apart from some world changes, always same. Secondary quests, or side quests, will be quite complex and will have several different outcomes. As an example I’ll disclose a hypothetical quest about a farmer’s disappearing sheep. You might try to follow the suspicious tracks from the vicinity of the farm or wait for the night thief to expose himself during the act or you could simply ask around for more clues. Two of these options will take you further, but here’s where it all begins to get complicated. Have you really found the mastermind behind the stealing or just some of his goons? Will you kill them or will they escape before you can act? And if you really find their boss, then you have to figure out how to deal with him. We like to make our quests complicated and to evade the classical “go and kill” cliché. The third type is the so called minor quests. They are in fact smaller side quests without the complexity of the secondary quests and are closer to typical RPG quests. They should encourage the player to explore more or to travel between various locations. They fill the loose ends of our world, where the complex quests wouldn’t make much sense. 

How does the party management work in the game, can you swap characters in and out of your party for different parts of the story for instance? 

The group may be split at almost any time and some quests or puzzles will demand on this powerful feature. The only restriction’s that all of the characters must be all within a single game area.  Character switching, as you may remember it from Betrayal at Krondor, is not possible and we don’t plan to implement it at this time either.  

Is there a level cap in the game? 

We are not really big fans of a level cap and the latest version has none. This mechanic will be decided probably in the beta testing phase – which obviously hasn’t happened yet. 

What has been the biggest challenge during this project?

The biggest challenge is surprisingly the KS campaign. Tens of interviews and forums’ administration, KS updates, creations of new graphic content and even the very preparations are very demanding. But, it’s also a great opportunity to gain a solid fan base and to get in contact with the hardcore games community – so it really pays off in the end.  

How has the communities feedback and reactions to ‘Dungeons of Aledorn’ been like so far?

The positive reactions significantly outweigh the negative, but to our surprise the total amount of reaction is lower than we’ve expected. We are sure that we’ve gained the attention of our target audience as we were Greenlit on Steam just in six days, which is a remarkable result and we can assume from it that our game is definitely attractive for many players out there.

Circa 2015.

[extramana]

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided [Stream Archive]

[extramana]

Fallout 3 [Stream Archive ft: Hikikimori Media] - skip to 2:10 for banter

[extramana]

ExtraMana Doom Mod I made a couple years ago. 

[extramana]

Silent Hill 2 - ExtraMana Retrospective

[extramana]

IronLiz and ExtraMana Talk: Politics, Skeptics, & Internet Bloodsports

[extramana]

Channel Awesome Retrospective #4 | Bennett The Sage ft: Extramana

[extramana]

Welcome to the NHK (ExtraMana Archives)

‘Welcome to the NHK’ is an anime focused around hikikimori disease. To those who don’t know a Hikikomori is someone who never leaves there house or apartment, in the West we would see this as something like agoraphobia, or social dysfunction. With such a weighty subject you’d think this anime would be truly deep, perhaps even to the point of analysing the complex nature of Japanese society as an insight to the rest of the World so that we could finally comprehend why someone might spend their entire lives indoors. Sadly the anime falls short on this. The main protagonist Tatsuhiro Satou is a 20 something college drop-out hikikimori. His soon to be friend Karou Yamazki is a video game programmer, otaku and dakimakura owner. That’s as much as the plot I can delve into without giving anything away. The general feel of this anime is that of unrest, the comedy is very dark and the protagonists all lead deeply troubled lives even if they are all middle class young adults with potentially burgeoning careers or relationships. 

The writing for Satou is what ultimately unhinges this anime, in one moment he is a hopeless case barely able to feed himself, in another he is out strolling on a beach or shopping, the state of his condition is entirely relative to what interesting scenarios the writers conjure up. Additionally the main female protagonists; Misaki Nakahara and Hitomi Kashiwa although given weighty issues such as depression, drug addiction, and schizophrenia, they somehow remain 2 dimensional with back stories that either don’t make us care for their plight or sympathise with them, which we are supposed too. The music in this anime however is fantastic. From the opening song which is full of false optimism that contrasts perfectly with the dark subject matter, to the heart wrenching quieter more reflective songs that play during the Satou’s lowest moments. It’s a shame that the writing doesn’t have the depth or nuances of its highly compelling soundtrack. 

Usually when watching an anime I would choose the original Japanese undubbed version over the dubbed. Not because I’m some kind of hardcore anime fan but because dubbed anime tends to have at least one character that has a headache inducing sugary sweet take on a character. However when it comes to ‘Welcome to the NHK’ the dubbed version features solid performances except for Satou he comes off as a little too suave.  Welcome to the NHK (Opening)   Welcome to the NHK OST - Hitori no Tame no Lullaby The art style is another huge plus for this anime, there is a lot of very careful detailing from discarded tissues and computer screen monitors to the moody lighting inside Satou’s apartment. Most of the time the art direction is excellent, however more so toward the end of the anime we get frames that are clearly under detailed when compared to certain others. Overall it still looks great but a little bit more consistency would have gone a long way.

The narrative arc of this anime is rather uneven it almost feels as if we are being given two stories, one is an exploration of why the protagonists are as screwed up as they are and the consequences of their lifestyle. The second being a more traditional adventure narrative, with new escapades and amusing schemes for the characters to become embroiled in. For this reason there can be a somewhat jarring transition every 6 episodes or so. This also leads to the conclusion not only being wholly unsatisfying but it also ends up feeling flimsy and tacked on in order to have some sense of completion that really doesn’t seem natural at all. Sometimes hilarious, often frustrating this anime is worth a watch because in it’s better moments there are some truly compelling character interactions even if it all falls apart by the end.

Circa 2014.

[extramana]

Marzgurl & ExtraMana Talk: Channel Awesome, Tokusatsu, Farewell, FamiKamen Rider

[extramana]

Hyperdimension Neptunia: The Anime (ExtraMana Archives)

This anime condenses some of the story from the original trilogy of PS3 Hyperdimension Neptunia games. Since the games take around 100 hours in total to beat you would think that packing it into a 12 episode anime would make the plot super-dense. Well there is plenty of plot but very little narrative. The main arc of the story centers around the World of GameIndustri and it’s four competing nations that are each out to gain shares through public support, like a democratic society only far more metaphysical. Also the nations are ruled by goddesses who can transform using Hard Drive Divinity to up their power level to over 9000 if they have enough shares. The goddesses are basically invulnerable there only weakness is a particular type of crystal. So you can probably tell where the narrative ends up taking us. 

Surprisingly though despite the very kawaii feel of the anime, there are moments of genuine tension. The best parts of the story are the random adventure subplots when character’s of opposing personalities come to blows. My gripes with the plot are two-fold, one is that some of it feels shoehorned in to give the characters a greater sense of dimension and two is that we don’t focus much on the World of GameIndustri compared to how much time we spend with the characters themselves. Considering how alive GameIndustri feels this is little disappointing.     

The series like the games aim for a typical odd-couple setup. Neptune is a care free and immature goddess who likes to spend most of her time playing videogames and reading manga, did I mention the fanservice was high in the anime? Whereas Noire is a workaholic who is all business, but secretly enjoys cosplaying. The other characters fit somewhere on this spectrum, and to be honest it should be pretty apparent from the designs what their motivations and archetypes are. That isn’t to say the characters aren’t likeable their odd coupling is used to great effect especially during the humorous adventure subplots. There is also a strange older-younger sister dynamic that takes place between the goddesses, this is mostly done for comedy but it’s also utilized in order to give a sense of progression throughout the story. 

The aforementioned metaphysical nature of the HDD transformations also comes into play here, as it’s not just tied to shares but also to the character’s self realizations, kind of like the Persona series. This is what drew in fans to this franchise, whilst it’s undeniable the characters are very plot heavy, the fantastical World of GameIndustri is highly detailed, from snowy castles to lush meadows, to hyper-technological matrix like halls. The colours are over-saturated and bright, but are balanced by the use of naturalistic blues and greens to make the World feel real. The action sequences however do lack a sense of dynamism, often cutting to dialogue in order to avoid portraying too complex of a fight scene. I assume this is down to lack of time and budget on the animators part because a premise like this is ripe for heavily choreographed Dragon Ball Z-esque battles.  

The highlight of this anime. It has tremendous range from techno-inspired J-Pop, to classic piano infused tracks, to relaxing glockenspiel and flute pieces that sound exactly like something out of a JRPG. Probably because there was a huge number of tracks composed for the games to pick from already.  Add into this that the anime also promotes music from the dancing rythmm game ‘Producing Perfection’. They even made an anime character out of 5pb to play what I assume is one of the tracks from ‘Producing Perfection’. It’s blatant and unashamed cross product promotion, but in fairness it’s an impressive track. It’s also worth noting the voice acting suits the characters perfectly. One gripe I had with the games is that Neptune’s voice actor sounded far too old to be playing a moe character. This is not the case in the anime.  The music not just in this anime but in the game series is so good I’ve spent dozens of hours listening to mixes of it on my Ipod and on YouTube. My verdict for this anime is that it’s definitely worth a watch. It’s a standalone series of 12 episodes and an OVA which is ideal if you’re looking for something that is light, fun and doesn’t require you too make much of an investment into the story. 

Circa 2015

[extramana]

Watamote (ExtraMana Archives)

Watamote is another otaku self-insert anime. Following the  socially dysfunctionally Tomoko who plays dating sim video games obsessively whilst failing at her real World relationships. At the time of first viewing, the sub-genre of self-insert otaku anime seemed to be an emerging one but a quick look at this Spring’s lineup shows that the concept is now far from novel.  Watamote’s visual prowess lies both in it’s imagery from the protagonist’s mind and its use of the environment. Blank faces and shadowed character portraits represent Tomoko’s societal disconnect. Cinematographically the environments are often used to dwarf Tomoko. 

Wether panning from a low angle down a dauntingly large hallway or from an impossibly high angle showing the entire room she is sitting in. The continual reinforcement of her isolation feels like a slap across the face in terms of subtly yet it does make every location fascinating to study especially with the anime’s usage of highly detailed naturalistic lighting. The writing however doesn’t match the quality of the art. Tomoko’s problems are largely of her own choosing due to a selfish set of ideologues such as popularity at any cost, and a boyfriend to act as token of social status. By making Tomoko’s victimhood self imposed this opens up the anime for all kinds of social commentary that alas never appear.  

 Circa 2015