Guten Tag.48--Thrice the Guteness.

Oh hey. I suppose it's been a while since I updated. A fair amount of stuff has been going on in the past few weeks. Most importantly, I recently got back from visiting my brother and sister-in-law in California, and I finally got to meet my niece! Madelyn is amazing and such a joy to be around. 

Brandon and Joanna, (my brother and sister-in-law) were in China for the past 4 years, and had Madelyn five months before they left to come back to the states, so it's crazy to think that my little niece has already been in China (dur), as well as Vietnam, Hawaii, and some other asian countries (I think), before she was even six months old.

I can't wait until September when they come and stay with us for a while.

GUTEN TAG! I made some:

On an unrelated note, I recently bought the game Psychonauts off of Xbox 360. I remember playing the demo a few years ago, and liking it. But after someone from the boltcity.com message boards pointed out that Scott Campbell art directed it, I had to check it out. (Scott Campbell, by the way, draws some cool stuff. He's also involved with the Brutal Legend game that's coming out.)

So I just finished the game last night. I tried to get every item and level in the game, but I'm a level short of 100. 

Overall, the story was very unique and solid. The dialogue was excellent and very funny at times, and I thought the character development was given great attention. 

The game is for the most part a platformer, but goes out of its way to bring different challenges to a traditional platforming experience. Not a lot of puzzle solving, except for in the way your different abilities are used. 

The thing I really liked about it was how the overall concept of a 'Psychonaut' played out in different levels. You interact with certain characters throughout the game, and transport into their minds in order to solve what's wrong with them in the game. These are essentially the 'levels', and each is unique in its look and feel as well as its gameplay. For example, one guy you meet is like a conspiracy theorist gone mad, so his mind is a 60s era suburb with all the streets at odd angles and curving above your head. Another level takes place on a Settlers of Catan/Risk type gameboard where you can switch between controlling pieces on the board from afar, as well as shrinking down to the board level to complete objectives. 

Finally, the aesthetics of the game are great. Great environments, great art, great soundtrack, etc. Really cool game worth buying.

Well, that's it until next time. Still working on MegaWest with my friend Sean. We've almost got the page/panel layout of issue 1 completed. We already did, but it felt like the pages were too crowded with panels, so it needed to be reworked. Can't wait to finally start pencilling and then inking. 

Scrabble.

-ryan