Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle: Donkey Kong Adventure, low-res pixel style!
This is my entry to the fanart contest Ubisoft is running for this upcoming DLC pack. Probably not going to win but a good excuse to draw these characters that the developers have imbued with such life and fun.
Rabbid Peach, Donkey Kong, Rabbid Cranky, Rabbid Kong
Lego Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures, low-res pixel style!
Here’s another very fun Star Wars show, about a family of scavengers trying to get by in the time of the Empire. It’s got comedy, action, great characters, and plenty of Star Wars fanservice too. It’s also got my favourite depiction of the Emperor, which is largely carried over from this show’s predecessor The Yoda Chronicles, as is the character Jek-14. I’ve done separate pieces for heroes and villains here.
In lieu of portraying episodes 2 and 3 in pixels, here’s something I actually enjoy. The CG animated show told a lot of fun stories, but the ensemble cast is massive. I tried to cover all the most important people but there’s many more clones, Jedi, minor villains, and other characters that didn’t make the cut. I also put in a bonus row of characters from other audiovisual media of the Clone Wars era, such as video games and the in-some-ways-superior 2D animated Clone Wars show (if I included comics too it would get out of hand).
Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano, Rex, Padmé Amidala, R2-D2, Yoda, Mace Windu, Wullf Yularen, Fives, Jar Jar Binks, Satine Kryze, Hondo Ohnaka, Cad Bane, Boba Fett, Pre Viszla, Barriss Offee, Mother Talzin, Chancellor Palpatine, Count Dooku, General Grievous, Asajj Ventress, Savage Opress, Maul, Jango Fett (Attack of the Clones), Durge (Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars), Sai Sircu (Jedi Alliance), Kul Teska (Republic Heroes), X2 (Battlefront: Elite Squadron), Jek-14 (The Yoda Chronicles)
I’d written off the 3D iteration of Ecco, because a. it’s a cool hipster thing to be a fan of only the pre-reboot version of something, and b. with my current setup emulating either Dreamcast or the PS2 port was impossible. When I decided point “a” was stupid and I really wanted to try it, I bought a PS2 in real life, went in with an open mind and ended up really loving DotF.
Here’s the results of my scanning and collecting of Donkey Kong Card Game assets from various sources. Please enjoy it. All you have to do is click this link and download it:
-Pictures of as many cards as I could find, with varying quality, separated by card type. If you want to read the text on the smaller ones more clearly, use the official website as a resource. These are gleaned from Man-Frog’s scans, my scans, pictures of the official guidebook from an eBay auction, pictures intended for demonstration in the starter set manual, and a few Internet sources.
-Some key art taken from the official website
-A summary flowchart to aid in playing the game, taken from the official website (in Japanese)
-A flyer advertising the card game
-A scan of the box for the 60-card starter set
-A scan of the manual included in the starter set which teaches you to play the game (in Japanese)
-Pictures of some other Donkey Kong-related cards that have been made
Links:
Web archive of the official Japanese website, with card lists for all sets (including expanded rules text), tutorial and reference document for playing the game, release information, and some card images.
DKC Atlas thread discussing this and other Donkey Kong card games, with links to other DKCG errata such as the IGN announcement article and a Japanese Donkey Kong Land III commercial that included bonus cards.
Tangentially related: scans of the two volumes of Corocoro’s manga series based on the animated series, which this card game is also based on. Some special cards have been included in certain issues of Corocoro magazine (PP001, SP001, SP002).
EDIT: I finally did what I had been intending, and converted my personal spreadsheet for tracking card image status to Google Docs. Here you can see all the cards that exist and whether or not an image of them has been archived.
EDIT2: Thanks to a tipoff from the anonymous N.A., I’ve found a few more sources and managed to fill out the image archive a lot more; now ALL but one are accounted for and present in the collection, and many low-quality images have been replaced with better ones. The scans and images may not be perfect in all cases but it’s now much more complete. The spreadsheet has also been updated to reflect this. In addition, I added more supplementary images to the “Misc” folder, such as images of packaging and promo material.
Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, low-res pixel style!
I like Phantom Menace the best out of the prequels, both because I think the story is closest to a fun Star Wars adventure, and also nostalgia factor due to my age. The cast too has that feel of a group thrown together by circumstance but banding together for a purpose. So here they are.
Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jar Jar Binks, Padmé Amidala, R2-D2, Anakin Skywalker
The next in my continuing series of Star Wars pixel arts, the eponymous crew. A loveable bunch of misfits, as befits a good story of this far galaxy. Let’s relive their camaraderie and purpose through these blocky colours.
If you’ve been following this blog for a while, my obsession with Picross should be clear. Hudson did their own take on Jupiter’s Picross games with Illustlogic, an even more tortured portmanteau but a great take on the concept.
For Game Club in April, we played the first console conversion of the Tamagotchi brand. I had a unit myself as a young lad, but being more mature now I found myself attaching more to my baby, albeit with a slight layer of irony at times.
I’m on record as a booster of the 1993 live-action Mario film. It’s got great effects and design, fun performances, and a fascinating reinterpretation of the Mario world and characters. So when I found references to the movie in various manga, I knew I wanted to translate them and bring them to a wider audience.
This package is a collection of pages from various manga sources: two 4koma gag strips, an excerpt from Yukio Sawada’s Super Mario-kun, and several sections from Kazuki Motoyama’s KC Deluxe Mario manga run. I’ve cleaned the scans and translated all text into English, while localising game and character names. I also inserted handy intermissions providing context for each of the pages as they come up.
Translating humour is always tricky but even if the jokes don’t land, at least we’ve got some amazing depictions of Bob Hoskins, the animatronic Yoshi, Dennis Hopper, etc. to look at. It’s interesting too seeing how the characters within the manga react to the existence of the movie and alternate versions of themselves; there’s a few different takes on this throughout.
Anyway please enjoy, there’s more information and credits in the images. If you find any more references to the movie in any manga source, please let me know and I’ll gladly add to this collection!
After playing Sumo’s two Sega crossover racing games, I decided to check out their earlier entry in the larger “Sega Superstars” series, despite having had negative feelings about tennis games in the past. As it turns out, playing tennis matches is my least favourite part of this game.
The heroes of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings books, love ‘em. This art is modelled after their representation in Peter Jackson’s film series; Fatty Bolger and Tom Bombadil aren’t in the films so I used as reference art the photos used in the Trading Card Game, which is the nearest “canonical” visual equivalent. I’ve always loved these books and movies, such a rich world to get lost in!
The first picture is the Fellowship as they were at their founding, setting out from Rivendell. Gandalf the Grey, “Strider” Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Boromir, Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin.
The second is them towards the end of their journey, as they’ve been changed by their trials. Gandalf the White, battle king Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli (best buds, now with elven cloaks!), tired Frodo and Sam, Rohan Merry, and Gondor Pippin.
The third picture is all the good folk who helped them and travelled with them for part of the way (so not counting Galadriel or Théoden, etc.). “Fatty” Bolger, Tom Bombadil, Arwen, Treebeard, Éomer, Éowyn, Sméagol, Faramir, Bill the pony, Shadowfax, Gwaihir.
This month’s pick for Game Club saw us tackle a rare Game Freak non-Pokemon title. I can tell a lot of effort went into the core mechanic and the game’s style, but I’m not sure it fulfils all its ambitions.
Not video game related at all, sorry! I started a new thing with some family buds, @horseypope and @everbloom aka @lupiter, where we watch a past Eurovision broadcast and commentate along to it. It’s a pretty relaxed atmosphere, like we’ve just recorded our own Eurovision party, but we still drop a bit of trivia and amateur analysis!
The episodes are really long, so Youtube seems the best place for them. Just sync it up with the broadcast and join us as we marvel at the spectacle, groove along to the songs, and argue about who has the worst costumes. The first episode up is the 2005 final. The podcast is called Nul Points and the channel is here!
