Penny Arcade’s completed, five-page comic for The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (click for larger images).
As much as I love whenever Penny Arcade collaborates with a publisher to create promotional comics like this one, they’re usually posted a page at a time, and I always forget to check back to see the entire thing. I’m just doing my duty to make sure that doesn’t happen to you!
By the way, I finally dove back into Skyward Sword last night — taking a break from letting people murder me online in Mario Kart 7 — and completed the fifth dungeon. Holy crap, that dungeon’s boss was amazing!
Also Zelda related!: the series’ creator Shigeru Miyamoto recently talked about collaborations with Retro Studios (Metroid Prime) similar to Mario Kart 7, and he mentioned that a possible Legend of Zelda project with the Western developer is worth considering. Huh!
Penny-Arcade on Super Mario 3D Land’s Invincibility Leaf (click for a larger image with legible text):
“Upon missing that same jump that you missed many times previously, you may find that a magical leaf has been provided.
This leaf is a kind of Super Tanooki Suit, which transforms you into a kind of sparkling megaraccoon which cannot be harmed. You don’t have to take it. You can just leave it there and continue to fail again and again, as you have so miserably. But the strong implication is that you need this leaf very badly.
You will most likely accept it, but you won’t like it; you’ll resent the leaf. You’ll feel the leer of a Koopa Troopa hot on your neck, its beak curled in disgust. You’ll get to the end, you’ll get the flag; you’ll tick your adventure forward one Standard Destiny Unit (SDU). But a taste will accompany the proceedings.
This taste will be bitter.”
I love that smarmy Goomba on the bottom right of the second panel: “Don’t jump on me, Mario.”
Are you still upset about missing the Penny Arcade Expo last September? Or maybe you were at the show and now wish some form of wizardry could transport you back to those three days of nerd paradise? Sure, PAX East is just around the corner, but the two events are as dissimilar as Seattle and Boston themselves.
Fortunately for those distressed/nostalgic kids, 2 Player Productions has produced a massive PAX 2009 DVD set that recalls the gaming convention in six packed discs. The production company has also passed several of those “Absolute Edition” sets down to us, so that we can reward our readers and PA/2PP fans with copies. More details on the set and how you can win one after the break!
Modded duotone (Black/White) Game Boy by Nonfinite. I showed off this glorious customization before, but this post comes with video and a demonstration of the system’s chip music capabilities. Fuuuuuuuckkkkk.
I have a whole round-up of chiptune-related links I’ve been meaning to share with you this past week:
First off, congrats to Leeni for winning the Beaterator Challenge, a competition that had entrants creating original songs with Beaterator for PSP. I don’t like her submission as much as some of her other tracks like “Animatronic Boy” or “Nice Young Man”, but it’s great a chip artist won and took home $5,000.
Someone (or a group of someones?) launched Chipmusic.org, a new community for micromusic artists and fans, and an alternative to 8bit Collective. The design seems Minusbaby-esque, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s involved! It’s just a forum right now, but apparently music/image uploads, a video area, and member blogs are in the works.
The latest episode of Penny Arcade: The Series is out (Child’s Play, Part 1), which is produced by the talented 2 Player Productions, so of course it has a great chip soundtrack.
Why you should watch the Penny Arcade reality show:
Whether or not you appreciate the Penny Arcade comic strip, the authors’ personalities are engaging enough (and their story of succeeding against the odds is inspiring enough) to warrant spending 16 minutes of your day on watching the show’s pilot episodes. If anything, it passes the time until A Life Well Wasted’snewest chapter releases later today.
The show was shot and edited by 2 Player Productions, the same indie film production crew behind the Blip Festival DVDs/CDs. Support these super talented guys; they rock.
Because of 2PP’s involvement, the camera work and film quality are top notch, and the program is littered with chiptune tracks from familiar artists playing in the background, like Alex Mauer’s “Any City”, a favorite in the Tiny Cartridge office.
The concert scene around 05:30 of the pilot episode’s second half, in which the crowd is waving around hundreds of bright screened gadgets, is glorious. In fact, if you watch closely, you’ll see one of the DSes is displaying a copy of Art Style: BoxLife/HacoLife. You owe it to this gamer to watch the show!
Ghostwire motion tracking demo with a Nokia S60. This is a little different from the DSi/DSiWare trailer, as it’s a tech demo for how the augmented reality ghost-hunting game can find its spirits in the same spot even if you turn your system’s camera away (or drop it out of fright).
The developer, A Different Game, was at Gamescom last week to promote the title, but like other DS projects at the event that weren’t Scribblenauts (e.g. Reflection, Maestro), it didn’t receive much attention from gaming sites. :o/
Though the Swedish studio didn’t announce anything over Gamescom and hasn’t put out new Ghostwire media for a few months, it’s kept busy and recently signed on a publisher, which should help with PR and distribution if the company decides to release a DSi cart version.
Here’s an old preview for the game’s ghost tuner, a device that picks up audio from beyond the grave!:
A Different Game doesn’t have a firm date for when it expects to release Ghostwire (or if it will release for DSiWare, DSi retail, or both), but it says the first half of 2010 “wouldn’t be a stretch”. Looking forward to it!
NIS America’s online store Rosenqueen put up three preorder sets for upcoming PSP action platformer Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero?, all of which look very reasonably priced! It’s a shame that the soundtrack CD’s cover was changed, though.
