I just snarfed a bunch of lyrics translated by Kitsune on The Quarter To Three Forums (Games)

This is totally awesome. I shouldn't really snarf-n-barf like this, but I don't want these to go missing. EVAR. The lyrics are too cool.

After cleaning up the downstairs, and removing a lot of the cruft from our lives, I found this selection of Chez Geek cards that Shell, Myself and our friend Chris had planned to build. I figured I would share em with all'y'all.

We decided to add some more psychedellia to the game. 'Shroom' cards are considered to be the original 'shrooms', as well as 'LSD', 'Absynth' and 'Ecstasy'.

Thing / Whenever / Activity Cards / People

Cat Lady - Person - 1 Slack
All cats go to the same room with the cat lady in it

Orgy - Activity - 1 Slack
+1 Slack for every person in your room. +3 Slack with nookie monster

Rave Rave Techno Techno - Activity - Cost 1 - Slack 2

Lost and Found - Whenever
Get any one 'thing' from the discard pile and put it in your hand

Deja Vu - whenever
Get any one 'activity' from the discard pile and put it in your hand

Power Surge - whenever
Target roommates electronics are discarded

Lava Lamp - thing - Cost 2 - Slack 1
+2 with weed or shrooms

Absynth - thing booze/shrooms - Cost 4 Slack 4

Long Lost Relative - whenever
Loose a free time

Sex Toy - Cost 2 - Slack 1
+ 1 to all nookie rolls

Burning Man - Cost 6 - Free Time 2 - Slack 6
If you have Herald the hoopty car, Cost is reduced by 2.
"How can we be so skinny when we live so fat"

Bolt Cutters - whenever
Target roommate loses their lock

LSD thing / shrooms - Cost 2 - Free Time 2 - Slack 4
+1 if you have weed or shrooms

Ecstasy thing / shrooms - Cost 4 - Slack 3
+1 if nookie is played during the same turn

5 oh! whenever
Get rid of any shroom or weed cards

Zyban whenever
Target roommate must discard all smoke cards

Telus Takes Over Your ISP whenever
Affects Graphic Artist, Corporate Drone, Web Designer or Tech Support only. Reduces target roommates income to 1, and all players must discard a single "Surf the Net" or "Play Computer Games" (because their service is so shitty).

Sushi - Thing / Food - Cost 2 - Slack 2

Jobs

Telephone Psychic - Free Time 2 - Income 3
Cost of all books is -1
Slack Goal 18

Dealer - Free Time 3 - Income 1/3
All shroom/weed cards are -1 in Cost.

Promoter - Free Time 1 - Income 1/6
CD's and Shroom Cards are free

This game has come out ages ago, but I am still rock-living-under-guy, so, I have only just recently got to play it. Katamari Damacy is an amazingly simple, game. It is like Pac-Man plus, and just as groundbreaking. The story is, that the King of all Cosmos has gotten inebriated, and smashed all of the stars in the sky. You play the prince, whos job it is, is to make new stars. How do you do that? You are given a ball, the so-called Katamari Damacy that you can use to pick up stuff. What kind of stuff? Oh, you start off with ants, tacks, push pins, and work your way up to cards, pots, pans, toys, children, people, cows, cars, trucks, trees, giant squid, buildings, skyscrapers, islands, the land itself, until you are picking up Godzilla, rainbows and cruise liners.

There is something resembling a storyline here, but it really is secondary to the game, instead of being a driving force like say, Final Fantasy. There is a two player mode, but it really seems like an afterthought, thrown into the game so that you won't bore your friends to death. However, the cool part of the game is that to play in the 2 player mode, you fly to the gigantic Space Mushroom. When you want to play a one player game, you fly back to earth, and move around until you find the kind of star or constellation you want to build. Finally, you can fly to your home planet where you can save and load your games, change your settings, and view things like: all the items you have collected, the rare items, places you have gone, special gifts you have received (and put them on!) The game really is one big cohesive unit in this way, you are always controlling the little prince, and any meta action (saving, loading, settings, etc.) is done by an in game action (visiting your house, going to the woodpecker to turn vibration on, etc.).

The game itself, as you can imagine, gets quite insane. I mean, you can pick up cows, people, giant squids... expect tonnes of maniacal laughter. On top of that, the King of All Cosmos speaks in something akin to both a riddle, and horribly translated Japanese. From what I understand this was done on purpose. The king is supposed to be a little insane. On top of that, the intro of the game is good for a barrel of larfs. Look for the pot leafs and mushrooms falling on the happy pandas.

The pacing of the game is right on target. Its lots of fun, and easy to pick up, but not too easy. Very fun, without getting too hard. I bet it has excellent replayability, but I have only been playing it for a day or so. I love it. Obsessive Goodness.

There is also quite a fan club happening. Check out delicious tags katamari, katamaridamacy for all kinds of goodness. Including Beads, Hats and Obsessive Fan Art.

the IFTF is doing a study and want to know your personal video gaming history.

And without much of an introduction, here is mine:

I first got into video games when I turned 6. I remember the turning point quite clearly. My Uncle Brian tossed me a bag of quarters. This was one of those life changing moments that just never leaves your brain. From this was born one of my primary obsessions (just ask my wife). I quickly fell into Pac-Man. That Christmas, we got our very own Atari 2600 from my Grandparents, and that was it. We were lost.

Some of the memories I cherish with my father are when on weekends we would go to the Arcade: "Illusions". It was a dimly lit, smoky affair, and I often wonder what was going on inside his head as he followed his hopelessly obsessed 6 year old son. At this point, I was all about Pac-Man and Q*bert, because they were the ones most heavily marketed. But I wanted to play EVERY game, so I also got hooked onto Gyruss (where I almost made it to earth, and got a high score), Star Wars, Mappy, Spy Hunter, Roc and Roll, and Aladdin. I also got into the Raiders of the Lost Ark game, and through playing that, I got heavily into Ancient Egypt. I almost became an Egyptologist.

During the great video game crash, I still played but not nearly as much. In 82/83 Our family got an Adam computer, and I started to learn how to make it go. Once I learnt that I could ... make my own games ... I was in heaven. I spent a lot of my time programming in SmartBasic and SmartLogo. I never really finished any of my games, but It was fun. It was because of this I got into programming. I almost became a Game Designer.

As I grew older, so did the Atari 2600, but I would still play, but much less then I used to. I got more into tabletop RPG's (D&D and TMNT being my 2 favourite) then video games. When I was 11, I learnt about the NES, which had an exact copy of Super Mario Bros. I was so all about Super Mario Brothers... I had to have one. Lo and behold, I managed to save enough money for one, and I was in heaven. And then I found Zelda. At that point the trips to the arcade gave way to trips to the game sales/rental store. Same mall, opposite corner.

When Dragon Warrior came out, I was instantly hooked. When I found that one of the kids from my junior high had Dragon Warrior (Quest) 2, and Dragon Warrior (Quest) 3, I was In heaven. I quickly made friends with him, and we had this agreement where I was learning Japanese, and he was learning English, and we were hanging out lots. I still have all of the old Japanese video game mags, and my notes. Through this, I got a little bit into Anime. I almost became Otaku.

When I was 14, I got my own computer, an Amiga 500. I got into Psygnosis games (Lemmings, Killing Game Show, etc.) and Bullfrog (Populous, Powermonger and Flood). I also got into music. I became a techno musician. (All though, that road was long and full of interruptions). When I got a modem, I got on a BBS "door" game stint. 'Global War', a risk-play-a-like was my favourite. It was also through BBSing that I first got exposed to the Internet. It was mostly UUCP at that time.

I also got a super Nintendo, and played and enjoyed Super Mario World, Legend of Zelda: A link to the Past, Final Fantasy 2 and 3. When I was 15, I finally started growing out of Video Games. In fact, it wasn't until my mid 20's that I revisited Final Fantasy 3, and finished it. Between the ages of 15 and 22, I basically stopped playing video games. When I was 22 however, I got employed as a web designer, and started playing Quake at the Friday afternoon LAN parties, which I still play today.

Today my gaming diet consists mostly of romps through nostalgia, playing all those games I loved; with the occasional new game highly recommended by my friends or brother. With the birth of my baby daughter, I have purposely stayed away from new games (the only new one being Evil Genius). I just don't have time for a new obsession. A perfect example of this is World of Warcraft. All sings point to "you will love this game!". Most of my friends have a WoW obsession, but I just can't afford to take a hit from that crack pipe.

Modified the poison mushroom hat a little bit. We made the eyes closer together. Whute! Looks much better now, n'est pas?

Here are some original images for comparison. I may do an "Evil Eyes" Mod later.

Mmmm hat modding!

The Hat	Original Sprite	Another Image

Update: We now sell mushroom (and character) hats at Sleepy Kitty Clothing. Check it out!

I got a brush pen and a new sketchbook the other day. The sketchbook is one of those nice n big black bound ones.. 11 x 14. Mmmmm Good. The brush pen is totally awesome to work with as well. I think I want to get more (they come in a variety of colours!) Here is one of the sketches I did recently, click on it to see it in all its twisted fun glory.

The Spriters Resource has an outstanding amount of ripped sprites. There are major sections on here: Nintendo, Sega, Capcom and Square. Man. Retro Amazing Fun. Drool. Drool. Drool.

I don't understand the Rules however. There seems to be this Iron-grip-control over what is essentially (mostly) direct pixel-to-pixel copying of anothers work. Weird.