Super Secret Scott Pilgrim Party!

Sometimes, I have the opportunity to work on super secret projects that I'm not allowed to talk about. My friends at New England Comics in Allston, MA (which, incidentally, is the home of The Tick, and where I used to sell my original little comic book series) have been organizing a big launch party for the release of the final volume of the Scott Pilgrim comics by Bryan Lee O'Malley.

Volume 6, "Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour" comes out July 20th, and the film based on the comics (starring Michael Cera--which will be awesome) comes out August 13th, so there's quite a bit to celebrate. Watch the trailer for the movie here. Oh, and there's also going to be an 8-bit style video game.

You can't tell, but I've been essentially bouncing with excitement over all this magical SP-goodness since I got asked to work on this project! The event seems to be getting bigger and bigger as things come together and the ever-amazing Michelle wrangles it all together.

I still can't talk details, but I can say that I'll be designing something rad based on the Scott Pilgrim comics (which you should totally read), and that I'll be wanting very badly to be in Boston this summer when the party happens. I'll post more info when I'm allowed to release it, and the NEC website will also share news when it gets closer to the date. Read some comics!

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The Adventures of Duane and Brando

[This video contains lots of F-Bombs. Don't watch it if you are sensitive to that kind of thing. Also, it's kind of long, but full of AWESOME.]

I like video games. I don't play all that many of them, and I'm usually content to play the same game multiple times. I've learned that I'm kinda picky about the type of game that I enjoy though. I like puzzle games, and hack-and-slash senseless violence types of games. Not so much one-on-one "fighting games", although Dead or Alive is pretty fun. Graphics don't really matter at all. I like Mario World, Zelda, Fable and the X-men games.

I've recently gotten sucked into the world of Ninja Gaiden (for Xbox), and I've been obsessively playing it every day. What could possibly be more fun than fighting evil ninjas and monstrous fiends with sword-chucks (*ahem* I mean, the "Vigoorian Flail"). I die a lot, but that just makes it more satisfying when I win.

I just discovered The Adventures of Duane and Brando, a pair of guys who rap about classic video games, over top of the game's soundtrack. I do love me some video game music, so this was a pairing I couldn't pass up! I really wanted to share their Ninja Gaiden video, but YouTube wouldn't let me embed it here, so hop over to their Myspace page to see it and other videos and songs about Zelda, Sonic the Hedgehog and more!

Laughing Squid has a post with other nerdcore rappers with video game themed music videos.

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Magic Pen

I discovered this highly-addictive game after Sean heard about it on a forum, and then continued laughing and cursing at it for over an hour. I knew I had to give it a try.

The object of Magic Pen is simple: get the ball to roll onto the flag. By any means necessary. You have a magic crayon to draw shapes that you can drop, connect together, and build objects out of, all based on physics.

One of the hardest elements to this game was drawing the shapes the way I wanted them, since the program "smooths" out the lines for you once you finish drawing. I don't recommend playing this on a laptop touch-pad!

The best part of the game was that the shapes and contraptions really did follow the laws of physics! As far as crayon-drawn created-out-of-thin-air shapes and contraptions can, of course. It was even fun to see my lovely machines fall off a cliff because I weighted a swinging arm too much in one direction.


It was also fun to see how Sean and I both solved the levels differently. There's more than one solution to almost every level, and you can get really creative with your solutions. Sometimes putting our heads together was the only way to figure it out!

Alejandro Guillen, who created Magic Pen, also wrote another game called Spin the Black Circle (extra points for the Pearl Jam reference) which is supposed to be just as addictive. I haven't played it myself, but watching Sean puzzle out the levels proved that it could be a similar time-suck for me, if I let it.

http://www.bubblebox.com/play/puzzle/975.htm
http://www.mostfungames.com/spin-the-black-circle.htm

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