#graphics made by saturn « edits. »

[adeadlyspy]

A FOX IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING | SAM EDITS

[topguncommentbingo]

Top Gun Comment Bingo pt. 2: Holiday Boogaloo!

Happy holidays, aviators! As a gift from us to you, we are bringing back Comment Bingo! In case you missed it last time, Top Gun Comment Bingo is a fandom event where you can sign up to receive a bingo card with prompts, with the goal of spreading love by commenting on fanworks to fill your bingo card. Further information below. If you have questions, our askbox is open or you can email tgcommentbingo@gmail.com. This holiday season, gift the gift of commenting!

Schedule

December 14: Event begins!

January 31: Event ends. This is the last day to submit your card.

Rules/Guidelines

You can sign up with this form [link] at any moment before the end of the event.

Only works within Top Gun fandom are eligible.

In a change from last time, a work can cover more than one sqaure! However, there are rules: You can only use a fic twice and it cannot be used in the same row, column, or diagonal.

Unless a prompt says otherwise, please select works that you have not commented on previously.

It goes without saying but leaving negative comments is against the spirit of the event.

Mark the title of the fanwork on your card after leaving the comment. If it's hosted on a different platform than ao3, please share the name of the website.

To submit your card for prize claiming on Tumblr, post your marked card (or your card + a text list of prompts/fills, if you did not mark/edit the card directly) and mention @topguncommentbingo in your post.

If you don’t have a tumblr or don’t want to post your card, you can email tgcommentbingo@gmail.com or submit via the same communication channel we used to send you your card.

Use the tag #TopGunCommentBingo to talk about this event!

Prizes

For your first bingo, you will receive bragging rights and a Top Gun Comment Bingo graphic. A bingo is a single row, column, or diagonal of the card.

For a blackout (completing your card), you will receive a 100 word drabble posted to @topguncommentbingo, an additional graphic, bragging rights, and the knowledge that you made 25 creators feel great about their work!

FAQ

Q: Who's flying this plane?! A: Saturn (@icemav86), Kat (@pushthequorumbutton), Liz (@katiesharms), Jess (@blendinginthecrowd), and Georgie (@paulmezcal)

Q: I've signed up -- when will I get my card? A: Cards will be sent daily as signups come in. Please allow us up to 24 hours to send you your card after completing the form.

Q: What if I don't like one or more prompts on my card? A: You can swap your card once if there's a prompt you want to avoid. To swap your card, contact us with the unwanted prompt via the same communication channel we used to send the card within 3 days of receiving your card. A mod will then send you an updated card.

Q: I don't want NFSW prompts! A: You can request a SFW-only card.

Q: Editing a photo to mark prompts complete is hard... is there an alternative? A: Yes! You can ask to receive a list of all prompts on your card in plain text. We will accept a plain-text list of fills, as long as each fill is clearly associated with the prompt. When submitting a plain-text fill list, please also show your card so the mods know your card layout and can confirm bingo completion.

Q: Does this event include RPF? A: Yes, comments on RPF works centered around TG actors can be used as fills for your card.

Q: What about self-inserts and /Reader fic? A: Yes, these works also count toward fills, as they are still set in the Top Gun universe and include Top Gun characters.

Q: I literally cannot complete a bingo/blackout with only fanworks I have not commented on before. Can I mark fills by commenting on works I've commented on previously? A: You are a commenting beast (positive)! Sure, start double-commenting.

Q: I don't have a tumblr, how do I submit my completed card? A: If you do not have a tumblr account, you can submit your card via the same communication channel we used to send you a card.

[archiesonicretro]

Game review: Urusei Yatsura - Dear My Friends

Title: Urusei Yatsura - Dear My Friends

Japanese Title: うる星やつら ディア マイ フレンズ

Release Date: 15 April 1994 (Japan)

Platform: Sega Mega-CD

Developer: Game Arts

Publisher: Game Arts

Licensor: Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan Inc., Kitty Films, Fuji Television

Genre: Point & Click Adventure

Accessories Supported: Mega-CD Backup RAM cartridge, Sega Mouse

Number of Players: 1

Catalogue Number: T-45064

——————————————————————————

"One of the best Mega-CD games to be released, on a technical level."

Made in 1994, this game still impresses me even now.  Made using Game Arts' revolutionary animation engine, which was also used on their Mega CD & Saturn title Yumimi Mix (1993).  Anyway, the animation on Urusei Yatsura is full screen and fluent.  The game features all the original anime cast's voices along with the comedy that you'd expect from Urusei Yatsura, and yes, Moruboshi Ataru does try to go on girl hunts and ends up getting electrocuted by Lum and set on fire by Ten, hahaha.  Any fan of the anime will love this game.  Probably one of the best adventure games on the Mega CD or any 16-bit system.

The only con that I can find about this game is that this game does not rely on text, despite it being an adventure game, so non-native Japanese speakers or first time learners may be out of luck here.

Players can find in-game game cartridges to play on the fictional game console. Such games are: a Street Fighter 2 parody, a comical catch-the-falling-items-type game, and a hilarious Choplifter-style shmup where players can go left or right no matter the position, in order to shoot a ship down.

The first print edition of Urusei Yatsura on the Mega-CD comes with this poster.

PROS:

Not using grainy FMV means the animation for this game's cutscenes is superbly fluent with no audio quality drop

The game delivers a ton of fun

The music sounds pretty great as it fulfills the scope of the manga and anime series to a tee

One of the more unique point-and-click adventure games out there

The mini-games can be fun....

CONS

...but they are pretty basic, and tend to play on the crap side

Being a CD-based game, the loading times can be iffy

The worst part about this game is that it is quite short

Unplayable if you can't understand Japanese on a native level

Japanese exclusive

Verdict:

Can I recommend this game to anyone who can't understand Japanese? To be honest, maybe not. But, if you are a fan of the TV series, it will welcome you.

Here is my scoring system for this game.

Gameplay: 7/10 - the core game plays really well

Graphics: 8/10 - look ma! No grainy FMV!

Sound: 9/10 - top tier musical compositions, some from the PCM sound processor

Soundtrack: 10/10 - the anime soundtrack is there and meshes really well

Menus: 5/10 - it is very hard to navigate around without native Japanese understanding, made worse by the fact there is no text

Replayability: 9/10 - had the game not been short, it would've gotten a perfect 10 here.

So overall, Urusei Yatsura on the Mega-CD gets a really nice score of....

8/10.

Overall, a pretty good game, only let down by the fact the game is a bit short. Saying that, though, this game always has you coming back for more.

[elevatortherapy]

manon ⚔️ she/her ⚔️ late 20s

main blog is @asalesbian

not spoiler free

things i made are here (fanart / gifsets / amvs), little text posts or screencaps i threw together here :)

if you need me to tag any extra content warnings let me know! current list at the bottom of this post.

i try to add IDs to reblogs of especially gifs/screencaps when i have the time & energy -> if you're the op of those posts please feel free to just grab the ID and add it to the main post, no credit needed!

tagging system:

characters are #[first name] except for saionji, tsuwabuki, mikage

dynamics are #[character 1] & [character 2], sorted alphabetically

group dynamics: #stuco (for posts with 4-5 council members or just general councilposting),  #s2 stuco (for juri & miki & nanami), #no exit (for whatever juri, shiori and ruka have going on), #everyone’s cooking (for utena & anthy & wakaba), #badminton team (for juri & miki & utena), #ensemble (for pretty much every character in one post)

i have foolishly started tagging episodes so just use #[episode number] to find posts about that episode

post types:

art (animation / comics / other art e.g. crochet, felting, sculpting / official art)

gifs

edits

screencaps

video (clips / amvs / animatics)

text (meta)

polls

audio (soundtrack)

playlists

other tags:

#silly > for joke posts & memes :)

#adjacent > for posts that aren’t technically about rgu

#crossovers > with #other: xyz to keep track of the show/movie/etc it’s being combined with.

#parallels

#pre-canon > playing fast & loose with this one, if it’s literally a flashback it probably won’t get this tag but everything else is fair game

#post-canon

#soundtrack

#commentary

#production material

#scenery

#shadow play alert (for references to the shadow plays in art or captions)

#seazer alert (the same but with lyrics)

#wardrobe (for people designing cute little outfits)

generally i’ll be animeposting but other versions of the show will be tagged: manga, musicals, movie, light novels, sega saturn game

--

i’ll tag the following content warnings, but feel free to message me if you have requests for things to add! [xyz] cw is for depiction or graphic discussion, [xyz] m is for brief mentions of the topic or implications. i tend to err on the safe side when tagging content warnings. i don’t plan on reblogging anything that is more graphic than the show itself, fwiw.

flashing cw, csa cw, incest cw, sexual assault cw, suicide cw

[salonpiner]

Daytona usa game pc

#Daytona usa game pc pc torrent#

While you can alleviate the control problem right away, lets hope those wizards working on the Daytona online servers can work some magic so. However, to adapt it to the limited hardware of the Saturn and personal computers, it suffered a reduction in detail and frame rate per second, and lacked multiplayer compared to the arcade version from two to eight players. Daytona USA 2001 isnt a perfect racing game. One edition was given to users of Saturn consoles, the other to holders of 'tinplate'. Several months later SEGA Corporation decided to create two conversions of this game to home platforms.

#Daytona usa game pc pc torrent#

You can also choose between three different lengths: Normal (same as the arcade original), Grand Prix (2. Download Daytona USA Free for PC Torrent Daytona USAa is a racing video game developed by Sega AM2 and released by Sega, with a limited release in 1993. Daytona USA PC, X360, PS3 PS3 X360 Daytona USA Daytona USA is a 1994 car race that was originally only available on coin-op machines. These domestic versions have a new mode (Saturn mode or PC mode, depending on the platform) in which you play three runs without a timer, and an optional mirror mode in which you can use one of the bonus cars (with additional abilities such as running through the grass or hitting the rails without losing speed). Metacritic Game Reviews, Daytona USA for PC, Feel the thundering sound of finely tuned engines and the scent of burning rubber as you await the Rolling. The colors are very bright and the game is nice to look at. Daytona USA is the holy grail of video arcade racing games First launched back in 1994, the new Daytona Championship USA 3 models brings Sega’s top selling racer into the 21st Century Daytona Championship USA 3 features (3) new race tracks, including a stunning re-creation of the newly renovated DAYTONA Int’l Speedway in Daytona Beach. The graphics are crisp and, much like the rest of the game, represent a perfect conversion from the arcade game. The 40 easy races (later known as 3-7 Speedway) that were so popular in the original version are still present in this version. Download (374 MB) Daytona USA screenshots: This PC version of Daytona USA is an almost-perfect conversion to the hit arcade racer of the same name. The game also includes the same elements that made the original version so popular: three highly detailed tracks, arcade driving physics that challenge you to find the best trajectory for a fast lap without kissing the rails, and the ability to beat the checkpoint timer. The home version of Daytona USA is an adaptation of the most successful arcade racing game of all time, and includes the same elements that made the original version so successful: three highly detailed tracks, arcade driving physics that challenge you to find the best trajectory for a fast lap without kissing the rails, and the ability to beat the checkpoint timer.

[penthos]

ANTIGONE LIVES |  DRU EDITS  ( 1 / ∞ )

[nieznasztejosoby]

I made a translation of an article about NiGHTS from a december 1996 edition of the magazine secret service.

the magazine cover

here they are : D

the article itself

the main text on the page

"Long announced by SEGA new product made by the creators of already famous game and mascot SONIC is already Here ! and just like in the ads NiGHTS is amazing in every inch ! Untill now I have never seen a game , that gives you as satisfying gameplay as this one . We play as Claris or Elliot who are suffering from nightmares .In one of them they encounter NiGHTS who they identify with and in those dreams they save the land of nightopia (and this way the world of their own dreams too ) .It sounds complicated but the game is really simple .By controlling the title character you have to collect blue orbs for which you get elements of the dream. Taking all four of them to the palacs of idea (the author clearly means the ideya palace but I decided to keep it in bc I think its funny ) will couse you to complete the level . Very easy but very addicting and funny . Graphics of NiGHTS launch you into space .(yes this is a real sentence ) .Its exellent ,fast , smooth and colorful .Amazing backgrounds complement the gameplay on the foreground , the effects like multiple light sourcing in real time present in the game all of the time tears of the helmet together with your back (??? is the a nineties thing ???) .The music just takes your breath away , not many other soundtracks suit their games so well and pleasures related to it , like the one in NiGHTS .The music changes depending on your game play , it makes for an interesting and nice additional touch .I will say honestly NiGHTS has the greatest music I had a chance .Together with beautiful graphics and a genius soundrack they packed in amazig controls and whats the most important- megahoney !(no idea what the author meant once again propably nineties slang )Never before I had a chance to play a game with such a nice controls . I spent 30 minutes flying around up and down ,left and right not even trying to complete the task .You will see it the best if you get your hands on an analog joypad and maked a few pirouettes in the air .If that doesnt move you than you must be from a diffrent planet ... The only con is that for thes more experienced players it will take only few evenings to complete all the stages .But thanks to the unique grading system (at the end of each level you get graded ) you can play NiGHTS many times , and I promises you will come back to it many times with pleasure. NiGHTS is since PANZER DRAGOON ZWEI the best produkt for the saturn console .I recommend it to anyone , no matter the age or the prefered game genre .Together with an analog controller it can be the best christmas present for a SEGA products lover .

Gulash"

the text next to the images

" to the palace of idea you bring a part of the dream "

"when the time runs out you return to your true form"

" the games action takes place practically everywhere - on land , in air and underwater "

"after every stage you meet a boss . With this you only need to toss her roughly around "

"SEGA '96 , 1 or 2 players, score : 99%

"by flying though the rings you get precious points important to your finishing grade "

thank for reading < 3

[mattelektras]

is there any character you love but can't bring yourself to edit them because of how bad their art is

soooo many. i have folders on my desktop w one decent bit of art that im waiting to add to. even just TWO bits would give me something to work with but. the lord conspires against me. a lot of it is that the art doesnt give them the look that i personally envision them or prefer them to have. like. i know in my heart that pietro is sexy but he looks BAD almost always canonically

bleez just because she's never drawn with a working spine or a ribcage capable of encasing vital organs.

power girl is a personal one because amanda conner's art activates my fight or flight.

max universe elektra. steve dillon will draw every single tooth in a person's head in great detail. and the only head he can actually draw is his own

rictor. he's either in old comics or looks like a skinny white guy. nick robles is the only one to do him any justice. he's someone ive had a folder open for for a while. i think shatterstar gets done dirty a lot but not to quite such an extent. ive made multiple shatterstar graphics w ease but rictor doesnt have the pool of decent images im needin

tempus. she's so GOOD for a relatively new character which doesnt happen often but 99% of her art is bachalo. who i SOMETIMES dont mind but the way she was drawn always felt kinda skeevy to me

saturn girl because legion of superheroes art is just. not good. ever

a lot of men in comics look like shit tbh i would like to see more effot put into making male characters sexy. the same amount put into making the women fuckable. give them some eyelashes. some cheekbones. child bearing hips

[indomies]

#showyourprocess

From planning to posting, share your process for making creative content!

To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES - When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag up to 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you’d like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours.

sabrina @lanwangiji tagged me to show how i made my zayn’s birthday edit! check out her explanation on this mesmerizing zayn’s edit

1. PLANNING

It’s Zayn’s birthday, I ought to make something because so far I have made birthday posts for Louis, Niall and Liam. I didn’t participate in his birthday challenge so I had more time to create something for his birthday. I saw this post by @spaceniall​ and instantly fell in love with it. It's so clean, so neat,  an amazing edit. I had that post tagged for inspo and because my Louis’s birthday edit was a bit “grand”, I thought I should make something simple. 

I went to look for some photos of Zayn everywhere. Literally e v e r y w h e r e. I saved every photo I found beautiful and there were a LOT. I asked my friends for adjectives that describe Louis best and added them on my Louis’s birthday post, and I followed that approach for this edit. I asked several friends what they think of Zayn and collected the adjectives. 

This was a time where I haven’t used trello board, so I put all the adjectives in a google doc. Seriously I swear by trello board, they make my life easier.

After I had all the photos and the adjectives, I went to pinterest to look for the color palette. I forgot how and why I came up with this color scheme, but I believed I wanted something pastel and muted color. 

I had this idea to make an evergreen birthday post. I didn’t want to state any “happy birthday zayn” or his age on the graphic. I didn’t want to make all the edits to have his face because I wanted to showcase my graphics and typography style lmao. So I came up with 2 pictures with Zayn’s face and one central picture with his name. And I’m obsessed with space stuffs so this birthday edit is space themed.

2. PROCESSING

This is one of my earliest edits that I made in Illustrator, though I used Photoshop as well.

2.1 REMOVING PICTURES BACKGROUND

Remember I saved a LOT of Zayn’s photos? Yeah? Well I had a hard time choosing the right one. I asked Sabrina to help lmao. After I agreed with myself which photos I would use, I opened Photoshop and prayed it won’t crash after 5 min.

I uploaded the 2 photos and then I used selection on Zayn and then clicked inverse and deleted the background. Recently I found this website who can delete your background in 1 min, tbh that’s a life saver. I recommend using them, if you hate removing backgrounds with Photoshop. 

I saved the backgroundless Zayn’s photos as png. And we’re moving on to the next step

2.2 THE TYPOGRAPHY

I only used Photoshop to remove the backgrounds. Now onto Illustrator. Always pray it won’t close by itself every 5 min.

I don’t really remember which dimension I used, but I suspect it’s 600x700 px. I made 3 artboards and loaded the color palette I found from Pinterest. I made 3 rectangles as the backgrounds for each picture and filled them with my desired colors, 2 pink and 1 green. Green being the standalone was put in the middle.

A bit of excursion based on my experience

When you open an artboard in Illustrator, you’ll see a white background. When you save the file you’ve worked on, it’ll actually be transparent. That’s why I always draw a rectangle as a background so it has a solid color. 

I focused on ZAYN (middle pic) first because I wanted that to be the main focus. I don’t remember the font I used and I already deleted all files. I followed this tutorial to make the text. Basically you write your text first and choose effect > 3d > extrude and bevel > isometric top. Changed the colors according to my color palette. 

I moved on to the first picture, Zayn and the adjectives. I uploaded his photo to the artboard and put it in the middle. I wanted the adjectives to encircle him. I just followed this tutorial on how to make the effect. I made that text effect because that reminded me of the saturn ring lmao. 

2.3 THE GRAPHIC DETAILS

Once I got the typography done, I made stars and moon to make the edits merrier and more space themed. 

For the stars you can follow this tutorials. For the moon I made 2 circles, one of them was bigger. I put the smaller one in front and click minus front (I think). For the saturn planet, I made a circle with filling and an oval with stroke only, putting the oval infront of the circle and delete the back part of the ring (I hope this makes sense). 

I have these lines around Zayn, my intention was to make Zayn pop and kind of crown him or give him a glowy effect sort-of. 

All I did was follow this tutorial and delete the lines at the top, because I didn’t want it to be too crowded. Then I put some stars and planets at the top to balance it.

2.4 FINISHING TOUCHES & EXPORTING

I rearranged some things, zoomed out the artboard so I could see everything as one post and picked and deleted some unwanted things. After I was satisfied, I added my watermark and it was my old url, I just typed louistomlinboo. (Now I made a logo-ish and use that as my watermark and the logo is not dependent on my url)

Ok I lied I used Photoshop again… so I had these adjectives in 2.1 that encircled him right but some parts of the texts are above him. I exported my Illustrator file as a psd, uploaded it on Photoshop and used layer mask magic to delete the texts that were above him to create an illusion that the texts went around and under him you know. See the picture below, some texts are beneath him.

For this picture I exported the png file from Photoshop, the rest directly from Illustrator.

This was when I learned I needed to scale up, because on Illustrator they all look good in terms of quality. But when I posted it, the quality was reduced. That time I just exported as big as the dimensions and I was disappointed with the quality when it’s on tumblr.

3. POSTING

I uploaded the 3 pictures I have on tumblr and chose “happy birthday zayn” with star symbols/emojis to keep up with the space theme.

So I always write out what my caption will be with the “rich text” option.

 Then I go to this color html website to add the gradient color in the caption and remove the “;” with “ “ in here. Once I have everything, I change rich text to html so I can put the text with color in html mode. 

Put some tags related to Zayn. (self promotion time lol. i have compiled tags for 1d creators check them out here)

I finished I think a week earlier before Zayn's birthday so I saved it on draft. I posted around midnight (my timezone is CET), because oh boy it is a competition with birthday post lmao. That’s what I feel like at least. You know, everyone wants to make a birthday post, I feel I have a better chance If I post something first. Whenever I have something done earlier before a certain due date, I either save it on draft or schedule it so it’ll be posted automatically.

Yeah that’s it! It’s not as detailed as before I think because the files are deleted sorry! 

i’m tagging:

@spaceniall​ for this wonderful niall’s birthday edit

@she-fearlesss​ for this magnificent louis’s birthday gifset

@finewalls​ for this mesmerizing animation

@louitomlinson​ (i know you’re not that active but if you want and can!) for this amazing edit

and @tomlinsun​ for this cool edit

[icebergruins]

ICEBERG RUINS

READ BEFORE INTERACTING.

DNI

I doubt this will be effective, but I’ll give it a shot.

I will NOT tolerate ableism, including casual use of slurs ( which I see way too often these days ), nor will I tolerate toxicity - if you’re the kind of person who think it’s okay to harass, stalk, threaten, call slurs, discriminate against, intentionally trigger, send gore to, or send death threats or suicide baiting to people for any reason, I don't approve of your behaviour and don’t want you interacting with this blog. Ships, sexualities, labels, cut it out, I don’t care.   Act mature, block people if you don’t like them instead of being a prick, and be nice to each other.

PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THAT...

Not everything on this blog will fit your tastes or be catered to you.

You may see shipping boards of a ship you don't like. You may see edits of a character you don't like doubles of. You may see boards of an f/o that you don't share.

Being a bit blunt, I do not have the patience for drama over ships/doubles/sharing/etc. I don't mind if you're uncomfortable by doubles, but if you see something you don't like, ignore it and scroll past it.

I also don't have the patience for you to talk my ear off about standard fandom drama. Whether or not RaiLeon or RaiPiers is a better ship, or if Ghetsis x Colress is problematic, or whether or not liking Faba makes you a bad person. I don't care, leave me out of this - these are fictional characters, cut it out.

ABOUT THE BLOG.

This blog is...

Run by MOD JINDAI! 18, doesn’t kin or self-ship, has too many roleplay blogs, and has a lot more bark than bite.

Blog is kin / self-ship friendly.

You can...

Use any icons, wallpapers, or boards I post here, even if they weren’t made for you specifically. Please reblog when you use an edit from here as an icon, banner, or wallpaper.

@ roleplay blogs - if you use my work as part of your blog’s theme, please place a link back to this blog on your credits page.

Sourcing content...

I won’t knowingly use fanart in any edits. I’ll only use official art in edits! I’ll source any non-custom (non-self made), non-official content used.

WHAT I WILL AND WON’T MAKE.

This blog will make...

MOODBOARDS - a 3x3 board for a character + an optional aesthetic SHIPPING BOARDS - a 3x3 shippy, romantic board for up to 3 characters in a ship DUAL CHARACTER BOARDS - a 3x3 board for 2 characters GRAPHIC BOARDS - a 2x3 board with edited graphics for 1 character or 1-2 Pokémon WALLPAPERS - mobile or desktop, be sure to let me know what your resolution is! ICONS - up to 9 square, round, or shaped (like the blog avatar!) icons. I may opt to fill in icons with related Pokémon - e.g if there’s not enough official art for 9 Piers icons, I’ll throw in some related Pokémon too, such as Obstagoon.

I AM CURRENTLY accepting...

PRIDE ICONS - up to 9 pride-themed icons. “Can I have pride icons of Piers” will get you an assortment of (up to) 9 different flags, “Can I have rainbow flag icons of Piers” will get you (up to) 9 different icons with the rainbow flag. I don’t want this blog to become solely a pride edits blog, so I’ll open and close icon requests as needed.

I can do up to two flags per icon, but would prefer to keep it to one so that designs don’t become too overcramped ( and to make it easier on me! )

I have the following flags available: 

Rainbow Lesbian / Gay man WLW / MLM Bisexual / Pansexual Asexual / Aromantic / Aroace Transgender / Non-binary / Agender / Genderfluid Intersex

I’ll do MOGAI identities, but you’ll need to link me to a pride flag.

Keep me out of identity / flag discourse! Please I am begging you. Let people identify how they want.

I will NOT make...

KINK BOARDS. Kink blogs can follow ( not a problem at all! ), but I don’t feel comfortable making, say, a BDSM-inspired board.

GIFS. I don’t have the patience to make these!

CROSSOVER EDITS. I want to keep this place Pokémon-specific!

DNI BANNERS. Too much discourse surrounding these as they’re all subjective, leave me out of it!

ON SHIPPING BOARDS.

These are fictional characters, don’t start yapping up my ask box over a ship you don’t like.

POWER IMBALANCE. These are fine.

ADULT AGE GAPS. These are also fine.

INCEST, HUMAN X POKÉMON SHIP BOARDS - incest ships? Not my cup of tea. You guys do you, but I don’t feel comfortable making these types of boards. Human x Pokémon, I don’t mind it, but I’d just prefer not to post on here. Feel free to request non-ship, dual-character boards for these types of characters, though. They just won’t be... shippy boards.

On adult x minor...

IFFY ON THESE. It isn’t a hard no because some characters have ambiguous ages, some characters have canonically aged ( looking at you, PokeSpe! ), some people go by the timeline and some people don’t, the timeline is funky in places ( hello, games and PokeAni! )... I’ll use my best judgement. Ghetsis x Hilda or Steven x May won’t fly, but Saturn x Thorton or Thorton x Leaf or Leaf x Raihan will - those examples all have ambiguous ages, or timeline aging means that they could fit together without issue. 

Ultimately, for shipping boards, I don’t care what you ship, but for my own comfort as the person putting these together, and for the comfort of people browsing this blog, these are my rules.

If I’m not comfortable with a ship you submit, I’ll just turn it into a dual-character board without any shipping undertones. Thank you for your understanding.

THIS BLOG WILL NOT...

BE ABLE TO TAG INDIVIDUAL TRIGGERS. I tag with character names and Pokémon names for searching or blacklisting, and I’ll tag for any common triggers that show up, but I simply won’t be able to remember people’s individual triggers. 

[finsterhund]

A comprehensive guide to Heart of Darkness lost media. Fake, and real

a forward: there appears to be some sort of conflict between Eric Chahi and Frederic Savoir. Things Eric speaks about, Fred denies. However Eric generally has proof to support his side of things but Fred never provides such.

I will edit this as I go along. I intend to source things as best I can. I will not post it to a better website until it is adequately sourced.

I’m not currently planning to include press material, promotional renders, alternate releases of the final game, etc. here (yet!! that may change)

The Movie

What we know is true:

Dreamworks was interested in adapting Heart of Darkness as a feature-length computer animated movie. Predominant parties at play were Jeffery Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg. They invited several of the devs including Eric to the Dreamworks studio in LA, showed them Prince of Egypt storyboards, and toured them around. The movie was never made and development was never started.

According to Eric, the head of Virgin Interactive, Martin Alper repeatedly went to Paris to bother and harass him to abandon all work on the game and give the movie rights to Katzenberg. Eric didn’t want to throw away all that work and wanted to release the game first. Alper abandoned the team and project soon after, dooming the game to years of development hell as they needed to find a new publisher. Fred claimed that “half of the article (in which Eric discussed this) was incorrect” but never went into detail as to how or why

Rumors:

Even though George Lucas was interested in HoD’s display at several expos, he did not involve himself in any film ideas. It is believed he may have stolen ideas of alien monster designs for use in the Phantom Menace but this can easily just be coincidence and is unfounded.

The movie was not going to be live action despite some fan speculation.

The Pilot Animation/character test

What we know:

In Eric Chahi’s biography he mentions that a small animation studio did contract work of some animation concepts for Heart of Darkness. They were ultimately replaced with what Amazing would go with. This may or may not be associated with the same concepts as when they briefly thought to make the cinematics with 2D bitmaps but it is unclear. Eric states that this pilot was made however and in a demo reel from the studio they mention working with Virgin and Amazing Studio.

Rumors:

Fred said it wasn’t a thing but didn’t clarify.

This might have been the opening cutscene in 2D, or it may have just been character models and test animation. It is currently lost entirely with no actual stills of the thing itself.

Blood

What we know:

Someone untrustworthy but people latch onto this sort of shit said the original version of the game has blood in it. We know from tradeshow footage, digging through the final game’s code, an early build of the game, etc. that if anything the original versions were LESS violent. There is no evidence there was ever blood. Anymore than there’s evidence of the poison berries (which we will get to later)

The Gameboy Advance port

What we know:

Heart of Darkness was going to be ported to the Gameboy advance. According to Frederic Savoir the project was quickly canned due to cartridge costs that Nintendo didn’t want to pay for.

Rumors:

Someone claiming to work on this port said that Infogrames founder Bruno Bonnel wanted the game to have an Adidas promotion and change Andy’s shoes. Fred says this isn’t true, and there’s no evidence that this was ever an actual thing.

The Jaguar Version

What we know:

Heart of Darkness was briefly considered to be published on the Atari Jaguar. There are internal letters discussing how good of an asset it would be for the console. That’s as far as it ever apparently went.

The fake developer copypasta:

A copypasta of obviously fake ideas that were potentially given from Amazing to this apparent Jaguar dev has been passed around since 2014. This included poison berries that would make Andy explode, fan-theory sorta ideas about how other children perished in the darkland, a magic mirror, and what is very clearly just the maggots from spiritual successor “Limbo”. This individual provided no proof and his story was far from convincing. And no evidence that someone other than the Amazing team themselves having access to official development code from the game has ever been brought forward.

The Saturn Version

What we know:

Before the game ultimately came out for Playstation, it was going to be a timed exclusive for the Sega Saturn with Sega purchasing an exclusivity from Virgin Interactive. This fell through due to Virgin intentionally (according to Eric) throwing a monkey wrench in things and the Saturn was not viable when they were finally able to publish the game after getting picked up by Infogrames.

There is an incomplete playable demo of the first level and first two story cinematics in English and Japanese from the 1996 Toy Tokyo Show. In it there are slight programming differences such as a screen sliding transition animation, the inability for spectres to eat Andy, features cut from the final game involving the shadow dogs that are still mostly present in the final game’s code, and some slight graphical differences.

Frederic said the Saturn was easy for him to program on, and he finished things quickly so it was likely fully playable but no complete copy has been found.

Rumors:

It is unknown if there is a full build of this version of the game for Saturn. The Toy Tokyo Show build is the only publicly known one.

Based on footage from other events it appears to be from after changes were made to spectre sound effects and some behaviors. So this may have been a build from after the game was altered to be “easier” as mentioned by Eric Chahi at the time.

The Phillips CDI Version

What we know:

Heart of Darkness was offhanded mentioned a handful of times in a few CDI magazines in 1996. But there is no actual evidence the game was actually in development for the console and it was never confirmed in more trustworthy publications. CDI has less evidence than the planning letters of the Jaguar version. A supposed slipcover of a Heart of Darkness CDI CD was supposedly in existence but the guy claiming to have it couldn’t or wouldn’t prove this, with the only evidence appearing as convincing as a fake mock-up photoshop job and CDI websites discussing the final version of the game in full despite providing no evidence development for the console existed in the first place.

The most likely explanation is some idiot at Virgin said “CDI” when discussing this at-the-time secretive project because it would have had to be on a CD-based console and there weren’t that many of them yet at the time and this slip up briefly spread.

The iMac Version

What we know:

There was discussion of a Mac OS version of the game being developed, but nothing about the final product has surfaced online.

There was a page titled “imac” on the official website but the image files weren’t archived.

Heart of Dakness: The Return of Shados

What we know:

A scam artist on indiegogo pretended to be affiliated with Amazing Studio by using stolen assets and copying the kickstarter campaign of a different indie game in an effort to scam HoD fans out of money.

Both Eric Chahi and Frederic Savoir collectively agreed that this was a big fat scam.

It got taken down in under 24 hours of its discovery after I personally called the guy out on being a scamming piece of fucking shit and tattled to Fred.

As it was a scam with its only “evidence” being stolen text and doctored fan art and concept art from the original game, it’s very obvious nothing about this mess actually existed.

Delicious meal.

Merchandise (various)

What we know:

There are photos of merchandise, there have been real items show up, and there have been rumors or discussion of potential merchandise. Real confirmed ones include:

The Vicious and Amigo action figures. Given away for contests, at trade shows, sold on the infogrames store, and potentially included as part of a special box set of the French version

The Japanese big box version came with a mousepad. It is different than the round mousepad that also exists. We do not know where the round mousepad originated from. Potentially tradeshows or contests like the other items here.

Playstation controller and memory card. A memory card was sold separate in the UK, and in France a controller and memory card set were sold. Only photo of the set is in Eric’s collection. Memory card has shown up several times online. I own a complete sealed one.

The hat. Given away at press events, potentially worn by team members, and a version was also available on the infogrames store. Only physically existing version documented has the VIRGIN logo on it however so there’s definitely variations

Skateboard and t-shirt. Discussed in contests. Photos in magazines. Have never shown up so far. skateboard may have been available on infogrames store.

Photos exist of a backpack and fanny pack. Eric has these, the only known ones to exist, in his collection. Fred said they were officially released but they have yet to show up.

Rumored Merch:

A blanket. Briefly mentioned as if it genuinely existed on a French forum

Probably more tbh but my memory is shit. As I am writing this it is 2AM

[adeadlyspy]

A FOX IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING | SAM EDITS

[emanedrees]

Project 1 FA222 Principles of Graphic Design

Interviews

David Carson was born in September 1954, and studied sociology in San Diego University.

He touched upon graphic designing briefly while attending a two-week commercial designing

class at the University of Arizona, in 1980. Subsequently, he attended the Oregon College of Commercial Art to study graphic designing and a three-week workshop in Switzerland as a part of his degree. Besides, his many talents include professional surfing and he was ranked 9th best surfer in the world, in 1989.

An Interview with David Carson:

Question 1: David, could you tell us a little about your new book?

Carson: It’s called The Rules of Graphic Design. I’m working on it now in Zurich, Switzerland, where I have a small studio, besides my one in the states. It will show a lot of the new work I’ve done over the past few years, and will, as the title suggests, finally get the official “rules” out on graphic design. It should be out early spring 2008. My first workshop I ever attended on graphic design was in Switzerland, so the book will no doubt be affected by my being here. I started it in the states and it will be finished there.

Question 2: As one of the most well-known and influential graphic designers in the world, how do you balance work and play? Do you still get to surf often?

Carson: I’ve always felt I make my living from my hobby, so I’m lucky in that respect. As Marshall McLuhan said, if you’re totally involved in something, it is no longer work, it’s “play or leisure.” I surf in the Caribbean every winter. There’s a perfect point break in my front yard. I watch the Internet surf reports, and when a swell is coming, I head down to the British West Indies. It’s a very special place and helps me recharge.

Question 3: When creating a design such as a magazine cover, article, or website, what are a few of the most important things a designer should consider?

Carson: Who is the audience, what is that audience’s visual language, what type of things are they seeing? How can you communicate and reinforce visually what is written or spoken, and how can you stand out from the competition in that particular field?

Question 4: You redesigned Surfer Magazine in 1991 and founded Ray Gun as well. How does redesigning a medium, whether it’s a magazine or advertising campaign, differ from creating something from scratch?

Carson: In some ways they are very similar. You have to determine who the audience is, and what is the message you want to portray through the design. A new design gives you a bit more freedom, as you can help define the language. I think Ray Gun helped establish a certain visual language for alternative music. But redesigning, or inventing something new, both have their challenges and rewards, and I enjoy both. As long as you look for the solution in the particular thing you are working on, and not some predetermined formula or system, you will never run out of ideas.

Question 5: I remember attending a seminar when you spoke at a local school here in Central Florida years ago, and you told us a story about where you had the text in a magazine article covered up or unreadable, but the layout was spectacular. Do you have any other humorous or quirky stories of editors getting mad that your layout caused the article to be unreadable?

Carson: You might be referring to the article I set in the font Dingbat, largely because I found the article very boring. To start designing, I have to read the article, or brief it or listen to the music, to see where it takes me visually and emotionally. It was [a] bit funny, maybe, that at Ray Gun some of the writers complained early that their articles were hard to read. But then by the 30th issue, the same writers would complain if they thought their articles were too easy to read! The layout came to signal something worthwhile to read, so the writers came to look forward to see how their words were interpreted.

Question 6: Some have said that you are heavily influenced by the ocean. Is that true, and where do you find other sources of inspiration when creating a design?

Carson: My environment always influences me. I’m always taking photos and I believe things I see and experience influence the work. Not directly, but indirectly in some shape or color or something that registers. The ocean has always played a big part in my life, but it’s hard to say exactly what that influence is in regards to the work. But I’m always scanning the environment I’m in, and I’m sure it ends up in the work.

I think it’s really important that designers put themselves into the work. No one else has your background, upbringing, life experiences, and if you can put a bit of that into your work, two things will happen: you’ll enjoy the work more, and you’ll do your best work. Otherwise, we don’t really need designers—anyone can buy the same programs and learn to do “reasonable, safe” design.

Question 7: You have branched out into directing television and video commercials. What aspects of print design do you also use when directing video? Do you often focus on typography as a major part of it?

Carson: I’m often asked to direct commercials where the type plays an important role, and sometimes I add type to other peoples’ work. My approach is very similar to print: who is the audience, what is the emotion of the spot, or the feeling we want the viewer to get from watching, and how visually can we make that happen?

Question 8: Could you give an example of a video project that you enjoyed directing? What software do you or your associates use when creating these, and do they include Adobe After Effects?

Carson: After Effects is hugely important in the commercials I work on. It’s hard to imagine how we did them before. Well, actually I know—we did them in very expensive suites in post-editing houses in Los Angeles and New York! I just did some work for Saturn cars, and it was almost all done with After Effects. It’s clearly the best tool for motion graphics. I directed an in-flight commercial for American Airlines—a 90-second spot—that I enjoyed very much, from casting the actors to selecting footage to having some fun with the type. I also made a commercial for the band Nine Inch Nails for the MTV music awards, and the launching of Lucent Technologies, which were type-only spots. In general, I’m drawn more toward moving images and type, but I’ll always do print, even though “print has ended.”

Question 9: Finally, what advice would you have for other graphic designers just starting out?

Carson: Do what you love, trust your gut, your instincts, and intuition. And remember the definition of a good job: If you could afford to, if money wasn’t an issue, would you do the same work? If you would, you’ve got a great job! If you wouldn’t, what’s the point? You’re going to be dead a long time. So find that thing, whatever it is, that you love doing, and enjoy going to work for, and not watch the clock or wait for weekends and holidays.

I learned from this interview, when creating any design, you must define the target audience, and what message you want to convey to the audience. One of David Carson's most important advice is that it is important to do what you love and to trust yourself, and find that thing, whatever it is, that you love doing, and enjoy going to work for, and not watch the clock or wait for weekends and holidays.

@uob-funoon

[thisyearingaming]

1997 - This Year in Gaming

Muggins here was born in ‘97, and can’t really remember much of it, natch. But there were some good things released this year - I’ve played every one of these, and have missed so many more.

Diablo - Windows, January 3rd

We start with dungeon-crawl-em-up and well-loved out of season April Fool’s Joke, Diablo. I’ll be totally honest - I don’t like Diablo that much. It’s absolutely fine, I just can’t get into it. The writing, setting and characters are all very good especially since this year only marks the beginning of games being seen as a bit more adult and intelligent. Check out this gameplay from Hour of Oblivion on YouTube, and marvel at the faux-Scottish accent on Griswold the blacksmith.

Mario Kart 64 - Nintendo 64, February 10th

Compared to its more recent versions, Mario Kart 64 is a veritable bloody relic of the past - solid controls and a quirky style mean it’s still a crowd pleaser to this day, but you’d be hard pressed to find anyone right now that would die on the hill of it being their favourite single-player racing experience. It’s also got some of the deepest, impenetrable lore in any medium known to the human race - why exactly is Marty the Thwomp locked up here?

Blast Corps - Nintendo 64, February 28th

February’s position as most boring month of the year is shaken up a bit by having a uniquely designed Rare game slammed into its 28-day long face. Blast Corps is the puzzle-action game where you take control of several vehicles to destroy homes and buildings in order to prevent a nuclear warhead exploding in the coolest incarnation of Cold War politicking ever seen in a video game. Calling Blast Corps a “hidden gem” these days is like calling Celeste a hidden gem - it impresses nobody and makes you look like a dick. 

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter - Nintendo 64, March 4th 

The N64 was home to a surprisingly large number of above-average shooters despite its muddy graphics and small cartridge space - Turok is one of these, a great FPS game where you shoot the SHIT out of dinosaurs. Brett Atwood of Billboard said it was like Doom and Tomb Raider mixed - Doom Raider, if you will. I say it isn’t - there’s no demons, and there’s no polygonal breasts to poke dinosaurs’ eyes out with! 

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - Sony PlayStation, March 20th

What is a retrospective? A miserable little pile of opinions. I’ve only recently played through SotN for the very first time on a TOTALLY LEGITIMATE copy with a CRT filter. Bloody good (geddit?) game, that takes the repetition of its predecessors, improves on it in basically every conceivable way, and combines it with special effects and graphics that even 23 years later had me going “ooh, that looks quite good!” Symphony’s music and audio design are wonderfully paired with a deeply enjoyable experience that’ll have you saying “mm, maybe just one more room?”

Tekken 3 - Sony PlayStation, March 20th

Also releasing from the Land of the Rising Sun that day was Tekken 3, which many believe is still one of the best fighters ever made. Tekken 3′s combat is so fast and responsive that it’s better than some games made today. T3 is also the best and easiest way to knock seven shades of absolute shite out of your friends without risking a massive head injury or a trip to the headmaster’s office... where you could also challenge him, but only if he plays as my favourite Not-Guile-or-Ken character in gaming, Paul. 

Sonic Jam - Sega Saturn, June 20th

The moment Sega realised that re-packaging old Mega Drive games would net them serious cash - although unlike later collections, this is a strictly Sonic affair, and has a neat little 3D world to run around in as a sort of hub world. Sonic X-Treme proved that Sonic Team would have to work hard at getting the fastest thing alive into 3D space properly: Jam is the sort of test ground for it too. It features some genuinely good emulation work for 1997, although it’s basically the gaming equivalent of going round to your grandparents at Christmas only for them to give you the exact same gifts you got in 1991, 1992 and 1994 but wrapped in a bow to make you think it’s different. What are you lookin’ at, you little blue devil?

Star Fox 64 - Nintendo 64, June 30th

So there’s this German company, right, called StarVox. Nintendo look at Europe and say “shit, we don’t want another lawsuit... after all, we’ve done three this year!”. So they give us in the PAL region the exciting title of Lylat Wars which as far as I know means absolutely fucking nothing in the context of the game. They’re still called Star Fox in-game too so what was the point? Anyway, fun 3D shooter with graphics that’ll make you do a barrel roll off the sofa and onto the power button to make the brown and green blurs a little easier on the eyes. Hello 2007, I’ve come back to make old references with you!

Carmageddon - Windows, July 30th

The game so scary it was BANNED in the UK! More like the game so fucking shit it was banned. Carmageddon is so deeply boring to play on PC that I can only imagine that Stainless Games made it tasteless by 90s standards simply to ramp up demand - much like another game we’ll be covering soon. 

Herc’s Adventures - Sony PlayStation, July 31st

“And they said Kratos was the best hero? Shish... they got it wrong, sister! Hercules is clearly better... he even has a coconut weapon.” A surprisingly fun overhead action game that most people only know for... well, I’ll just embed it.

Mega Man X4 - Sony Playstation, August 1st

A few years ago I tried playing every Mega Man game there is - I gave up at X3 because I was getting bored. Even still, Mega Man bores me - but at least the level design is good. Stay away from the Windows port. Pictured: me in the background yawning.

GoldenEye 007 - Nintendo 64, August 25th 

The name’s Intro. Overused intro which I also managed to fuck up twice through the deeply editable medium of text. GoldenEye is like the Seinfeld of console shooters - playing it nowadays you’re unlikely to be amazed but holy shit there’s some absolute greatness in this game. Every sound and every piece of music in GoldenEye is permanently seared into my brain - sometimes I’ll just hear Facility or Frigate in my head alongside the door opening sound and the gentle PEW of the PP7. I mean come on, fucking listen to this and tell me Grant Kirkhope isn’t cool as all hell.

LEGO Island - Windows, September 26th

The first open world experience I ever had was LEGO Island. It’s still quite good today, utterly deranged animation from the likes of the Infomaniac and Brickster - a cautionary tale for children that giving pizza to high-profile criminals is disastrous for the human LEGO race. 

Fallout - Windows, October 10th

War never changes, but franchises do. Fallout’s legendary status in the industry is exemplified in how different it feels. Yes, we had the game Wasteland nine years prior, but until September 97 there was nothing quite like Fallout. From the chilling introduction sequence showing the ruins of the United States to the tragic ending, Fallout is an exercise in pure human misery with the brightest spots of hope it can possibly muster thrown in for good measure. What begins as a tedious isometric point-and-click RPG ends as a minigun-wielding power fantasy, before your entire worth is stripped from you at the finish line. You have 500 days to find a water chip before it’s too late, but you’re constantly being fought by terrifying Super Mutants, irradiated animals, and the biggest monster of all - humanity. See what I did there? If anything, humanity in Fallout’s setting would be the greatest unifying force possible against the horror of the outside world. But how is it? It’s dull, it’s sluggish, and it’s really hard to get into even if you’re already a fan - but push through that and it’s worthwhile to see exactly how far the series got before Todd Howard said “eh fuck it” and had the whole thing dipped into an FEV vat.

Grand Theft Auto - Sony PlayStation, October 21st

To put it simply, the first in the GTA series is now nothing but a novelty. It has an irritating camera, wonky controls, poor graphics and deeply repetitive gameplay. But thank fuck it exists, because without it the Rockstar story may have been very different indeed. It’s quintessential cops and robbers gameplay, spanning across Liberty City, Vice City and San Andreas in one game, but with maps so far removed from their modern incarnations they may as well be named “Not New York, Possibly Bristol and Orange Town”. People really fucking hated Hare Krishnas in the 20th Century, didn’t they?

Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back - Sony PlayStation, October 31

A hard one to talk about, honestly - it’s more Crash and better than the first one. It looks great, and Crash controls so well compared to his first outing. It’ll also keep you playing for 100%, fiendishly addictive and unashamedly difficult. Had a weird cover that moved with your head. 

PaRappa the Rapper - Sony PlayStation, November 17th

Type type type the words into the box! (Type, type, type - uh oh - the box?)

PaRappa is a gorgeously stylised rhythm game about rapping to steal the heart of the girl of your dreams - which involves learning karate, getting your driver’s license, selling bottle caps and frogs, making a cake, desperately trying not to shit yourself, and finally performing live on stage. Every one of its segments is so well-produced that they’d genuinely sell like ghost cookies in this era of shite rap. Notable for producing the greatest Jay-Z backing track ever made.

Sonic R - Sega Saturn, November 18th

Sonic R is absolutely FINE with vibrant textures, interesting levels, neat gimmicks and decent controls. But I’m gonna talk about its fucking AWESOME soundtrack by Richard Jacques and T.J. Davis, an eclectic mix of Europop and New Jack Swing - even thinking about it is bringing tears of absolute joy to my eyes hearing Super Sonic Racing in my head. You’ve got the main theme, Living in the City, Can You Feel the Sunshine, Back in Time, Diamond in the Sky, Work It Out and Number One - all of these are absolute club bangers and genuinely wouldn’t be out of place in a 90s disco. 

Tomb Raider II - Sony PlayStation, November 18th

Lara Croft returns to single-handedly endanger every species on Earth. TR2 is really good, the exploration and puzzle-solving aspects of the first game expanded upon here and the gunplay remaining just as punchy. Lara’s got a fully-functioning ponytail which absolutely boggles the fucking mind - a lot of work went into Lara’s hair for the 2013 reboot, so I can’t imagine the amount of man hours it took to get fluid(ish, come on, it’s the PS1 we’re talking about) hair movements in 1997. 

And really, that’s all I played from 1997. I’ve left out big hitters like Quake II, Gran Turismo and Diddy Kong Racing, but I simply haven’t formed an opinion on them yet. Maybe in a future post. 

Thanks for reading.

[penthos]

𝐂𝐑𝐀𝐖𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐍 𝐌𝐘 𝐒𝐊𝐈𝐍   ;   DRU EDITS.           DO NOT REBLOG.

[gstdaisuki]

A Talk with Nathan McCree

(this is a followup to my video on Nathan’s work, which you should watch(!), and a mirror of the Patreon post)

Nathan McCree is well-known for his work on Tomb Raider. If you go digging, you’ll find he’s been interviewed about the series several times. However, he’s done quite a lot more. I’d like to fill in some of the gaps. Below are snippets from my chat with Nathan about music on the Megadrive, what it’s like to work within limitations, and music in the future. 

---

GST: Skeleton Krew's music is an oddity on the Megadrive. there's nothing else quite like it. I saw you mention that the soundscape was inspired by the graphics, which makes sense --they compliment each other beautifully. I want to ask what other influences you had in mind, if any. How much of the soundtrack was just created by just pushing strange sounds out of your tools? 

NM: It's very difficult to say exactly where inspiration comes from. Mostly I am inspired by the kit I am using and the sounds they make, so in this case it was the sounds I was creating on the Yamaha chip inside the Megadrive. But musically at the time I was listening to a lot of psychedelic electronic bands like Ozric Tentacles, The Orb and lots of dance/trance/house music of the era.  

GST: Now that you mention Ozric Tentacles, the arp sequences in Clockdrops have a similar feel to some of the tracks in Skeleton Krew. It's kind of striking, though I think the direction you went in is actually better realized because you seem to work so well within the FM on the Megadrive. (Hopefully the musical comparison isn't too offensive!) 

NM: No I'm not offended by the comparison at all. I did learn a lot about synth patterns and textures from Ozric Tentacles, but again, without copying, I took what I learned and went in my own direction with it. It's important to always have a picture or an emotion of the project you are working on as this helps construct the music in a way which fits the mood of the product and as a result should gel the visuals and the animations together. The music in effect, acts as a kind of glue for the project which holds it all together.

GST: On the opposite end of the oddity spectrum, Astérix and the Power of the Gods for the Megadrive features nothing but classical songs. I'm curious if this was a decision from the game designers, or an exercise for you, or something else. 

NM: It was a decision made by the game designer and programmer, Stefan Walker. Stef asked me if it were possible to convert 15 or so of the most famous classical pieces in history that were out of copyright protection (older than 90 years). Of course I said yes, and we set about listening and searching for pieces which fit that criteria and which would be suitable for the game. The conversion process from a full-orchestra down to a 6 note-polyphonic FM synthesizer was a challenge but a very enjoyable one, and the result earned the accolade "Best Megadrive Music Ever". I was rather chuffed with that.

GST: The soundtrack for BLAM! Machine Head is listed as released in 1995, which is before the game came out. Was this a promotional thing?

NM: Yes it was a promotional release of 300 vinyls. We sent a load to UK Clubs to try and get some club play time to promote the game. We succeeded a little but game soundtracks weren't really the thing back then so it gained little traction.

GST: That’s pretty amazing! That was late 1995, right on the precipice of game music leaking into the mainstream. (For reference, "Sega Tunes" came out in August 1996, "Club Saturn" in 1996, and Tommy Tallarico released his arrangement albums in mid-94 and mid-96) Did you get any feedback / reviews from the clubs?

NM: Yes we did. A few were kind enough to give us some feedback. One club I remember said about Nano-Seed, "a floor-filler!". That was good.

GST: Relatedly, what is your experience with club music? Some of the tracks on BLAM! sound perfect for the era. I wouldn't expect them to be written by someone who was previously unfamiliar with club music. Do you remember any particular songs or artists that you drew inspiration from?

NM: I was clubbing a lot in the 90s. I was going to Hot To Trot in Mansfield once a month, Renaissance in Derby in between and a few other local dance venues in Derby. In the end I was clubbing every weekend. Apart from the psychedelic bands I mentioned earlier I can't really pin-point a particular dance music artist. I was listening to so much and none of it was being repeated. I was constantly listening to new tracks. It was a very inspirational time musically and on top of all this I was writing my own dance music in my spare time outside of working at Core Design. So yeah, there was a whole lot of influence that went into the BLAM! Machinehead soundtrack. Having said that, with my writing, I always try to write something which I haven't heard before so I hope there is something unique and new about the music in BLAM! Machinehead.

GST: About Swagman: This seems like the most involved orchestral soundtrack that you had created since Soulstar. I'd like to compare the two a bit. How closely were you working with the rest of the team at this time? Swagman isn't a rail shooter so you can't match the soundtrack with the action in the levels... How much better was your gear at this point? I'd say "it doesn't sound like you struggled with your gear this time" but you actually disguised that struggle quite well in Soulstar, haha. 

NM: As you say, Swagman wasn't a rail-shooter, so scripting the music to fit the game wasn't possible. Instead I used the location of each level as my main source of inspiration, and created atmospheres to fit those - The Nursery, In the Garden, Down the Well, The Crypt for example. I had some new kit by the time I started writing Swagman. Mainly the addition of the Roland JV1080 which I had expanded with the Orchestral Boards 1 & 2 and the World Expansion Board. I also had a Roland JV90 which is the keyboard version of the JV1080. That too was expanded. So I had plenty of voice-polyphony at that point and lots of very useful orchestral patches to play with. So you're right, it was less of a struggle with Swagman, but both projects were still very enjoyable to create. With Soulstar, I ended up using quite a few saw-tooth, synth-lead patches to create the brass ensembles. They actually sounded pretty good once they were buried in amongst the rest of the orchestral sounds!

GST: Battle Engine Aquila marks a soundtrack where you were freelance AND in the distant future of 2003. How much of your gear did you leave behind when you left Core Design to go freelance? And how much of it was digital instruments on your computer at this point? I ask the latter because, to my ears, this game sounds about as good as you can get without hiring a real orchestra. 

NM: So obviously leaving Core Design meant saying goodbye to all the kit I had built up over the 6 years that I worked there, but of course I needed something to work with as a freelancer. So I spent a large chunk of my Tomb Raider money on a new studio for myself. Apart from the obvious stuff like a mixing desk, studio monitors and a PC, the decision needed to be made as to what instruments/synths I should buy. I had been really impressed with the Roland JV1080 so I bought one of those (and expanded it as before) and the synth geek in me also decided to by one of Roland's latest creations, the JP8000 - a fully record-able and controllable raw synth machine! With this machine it was possible to record the movement of every pot and fader straight to Cubase. A very useful tool for dance music, and to this day I still haven't used it to it's full potential. I also bought an Akai S9000 sampler which I used mainly for drums, so once again my orchestral setup was synth-based, rather than sample-based. So I started out freelance with this kit in 1998. When I got the opportunity to work on Battle Engine Aquila I decided I needed a bigger orchestra so I bought another Roland JV1080 (expanded again) and an E-MU Virtuoso 2000 orchestral synth which I quickly binned when the main controller knob became faulty and I wasn't impressed with the architecture of the signal path. I continued to use the Akai S9000 sampler for a few more years for electronic music but as soon as computers became fast enough for sample based editing inside the sequencing software, it too became a dust collector on my studio shelf along with other outboard gear which were replaced by VST instruments and Plugins. To this day I still use the 2 Roland JV1080s and my Roland JP8000, and that's about it. I'm not one of these musicians who needs to hide behind a million synths or new pieces of kit every month to convince people I can write music. I'm one of these guys who can make music from anything. A fork, knife, bottle, my kid's mini toy guitar, or glockenspiel. If it makes a note, I can use it, which I frequently have in my compositions over the years. I remember when I was working on a prehistoric game called BC, I used a metal electric fire which I scraped with a nail and hit some bricks with drum sticks to create the percussion sounds for the music. I don't need to buy new kit to be creative.

GST: I'm curious about what the limits are when it comes to crafting something unique. If you go too "far out," you'll have a unique song, but it might not resemble "music". Where's the balance between copying the songs you heard in the club and becoming autechre? Same question for non-electronic music: It's possible to get unique compositions if you go to the edge of music theory, but that can also become inaccessible. (You did seem to use odd time for the end theme of Waterlollies (11/8 by my count) though, which is always a fun technique.) 

NM: Finding something new isn't about moving further and further away from music, it's about persevering with textures, ensembles, sounds, patterns and harmony until you find or create something which you haven't heard before. You have to wade through a load of stuff you have already heard until you find new waters. Sometimes that can take hours, sometimes days. You have to keep going. Adding stuff, deleting stuff. Thinking outside the box. Sometimes forgetting what you have been taught. Turning things upside down, back to front. It also helps to enter altered states of the mind when creating. This can be done in a variety of ways. Working late into the night until you are close to falling asleep for example, puts your brain into an almost dream state which helps create new things which you wouldn't normally think of during the day. This is why many creatives, and not just musicians, do their best work in the early hours of the morning. Other things can help too, drinking alcohol, but this has a negative impact on your hearing, and then of course there's marijuana which I think most musicians that have ever lived swear by! Personally for me, it's about perseverance, working at the detail and striving for perfection. Music doesn't have to be complicated or removed from tonality and harmony to be different. There are billions of combinations, it's just about looking for the new ones.

GST: One more question about the early days: Does any of the original software or source code for your Megadrive music still exist? 

NM: There's a possibility that I have a copy of the programme somewhere on my hard drives but it needs a special custom built PCI card installed in your PC to work and that, I do not have anymore. You see in those days, getting access to certain elements of the games console just wasn't possible like it is today. Now you install some dev tools plugin and you have direct access to every feature of the console. Back in the early 90s we had to dismantle the machine with a screwdriver, rip out the circuit boards, making notes of the chip serial numbers and manufacturers, then calling the company and asking them for a full specification of the pin numbers and what each one did. After that, we would order the chips we wanted (or rip them out of the games console itself) and design our own circuit board which included the chips we wanted and have it all re-mounted onto a custom built PCI card which we would then install into a PC. After that, it was all about programming. We followed a similar process for the Megadrive sound chip. It was a Yamaha YM2612. So we ordered a couple of these directly from Yamaha and once we had the full spec it was pretty simple to work out how to wire it up on a circuit board. All we needed to do was to add left and right phono sockets to the output pins on the chip and send the 5v power supply to it and there you go, Megadrive synth on a PC! Of course there are the other pins (24 in total) which needed connecting up to the data bus, memory access pins, read/write request lines, interrupt request line, ground pins etc. but once we'd figured all this out it was simple enough to create a circuit diagram for the board. Once we had that we sent off the design and the 2 x Yamaha chips to a circuit board manufacturing plant in the UK. A week later our 2 x Megadrive synth PCI boards arrived. We plugged one into my PC and the other into Sean (programmer)'s PC, and we got to work coding up the sequencer. Sean took care of the machine-code level programming of the synth engine and I programmed the high-level language user interface. We had the whole sequencer up and running in 4 months. So I may have the source code and sequencer files but I don't have the hardware on which it runs. Of course I could have another circuit board made but it would take some time to get all that together again.

GST: What happened to Console Sounds / Industrial Ambiance? I can’t find it anywhere. 

NM: I took the album off-line. It was available as a library album for a while but the critiques viewed it as if it was an album release and began slating it for sounding like off-the-shelf music - which is exactly what it was. It was never an album release. It was just a bunch of tunes that had not been used for anything, and I was just trying to earn some money. But when the critiques got hold of it and slated it, I took it down.

GST: That's understandable, but unfortunate. Have you considered bringing the album (or any of the songs) back on a service like Bandcamp or Soundcloud? 

NM: Yes I do have ideas and avenues for a lot of my music. The first thing I want to do is to officially release all my game soundtracks. After that I'll see what's left and if there's any mileage releasing any of it. 

GST: Actually, how much of your music can you release on Bandcamp? I know that the rights can get tied up...

NM: Well after the Kickstarter campaign, I am now officially a record company and publisher so I can release any of my music whenever I like. I don't need a platform like Bandcamp or Soundcloud (where often the composer/performer ends up surrendering their rights for little compensation). I don't need to do that now. I can release my music myself and retain 100% of the rights, which is a better way to go. It's been a hell of a lot of work to get to the company to this point, but the infrastructure is there now, so I'm going to continue with that.

GST: Oh, that's exciting! Do you have any idea when we can expect to see some old soundtracks released? I'm also very interested in the dance music you wrote outside of Core Design. That would be a fun throwback thing. 

NM: I want to start rolling my old game soundtracks out over the next few years. I have earmarked about 10 albums which I think are worthy of release. They all require some work in terms of remastering and re-recording. Some would benefit from a live orchestral recording like Soulstar, Heimdall II, Swagman and Battle Engine Aquila to name a few, but those kinds of production are very expensive so we'll have to see how funding goes for that kind of thing. In the meantime though, I will be releasing new synthetic recordings of these soundtracks - all made using the original equipment which I wrote them on, so they will sound the same, only better! Yeah there's probably an album or two of dance type tracks kicking around which could be released. Other songs too which are still unfinished so i'll need to do a bit of work to finish those up into some releasable form. So plenty of work to keep me busy for the next 5 or so years I'd say.

GST: Where can we find news about these remastered albums? Where's a good place to find you? Is there anything else you'd like to plug? 

NM: The best places to keep informed as to what I'm doing career wise is on my official FB page: https://www.facebook.com/nathanmccreeofficial/ and also my Twitter page: https://twitter.com/nrpmccree  As far as plugs go, please just support my concerts. They cost a huge amount of money and time to organize and I can only keep doing them if we get a good attendance. It's really important, not just for The Tomb Raider Suite, but for games music in general, and if you do like the Tomb Raider Suite album which is free to play on Spotify, please consider buying a copy. This is how us musicians make a living and it really does help us to keep going and writing more stuff which hopefully you will enjoy. A big shout out to all the fans who have supported me so far and who continue to do so - you guys rock!