--AND THE VOTES ARE IN--

And boy did the Japanese guys ever not like my game ideas. Not surprising, given they're high-fantasy traditional-RPG die-hards (m-m-multihyphen!). I already knew my tastes didn't sync up with theirs, but I still had fun coming up with the concepts. Who knows - maybe someday I'll be in a position to actually flesh them out and use them somewhere else down the line.

In other news, the (in)famous comic book website Newsarama has teamed up with Shadowline to discover the Next Great Super Heroine. It's an open call for all comers to submit their best and brightest ideas, with the winner getting his/her own 3-book miniseries with that character. The art and publishing are already in place, so it's pretty straightforward. Anyway, I've got a few ideas I'll be submitting, and I encourage anyone else interested in this sort of thing to give it a shot. Couldn't hurt, right?

Oh, and the winner will be decided by popular vote. Which means if I make the top 5, you better believe I'll be whoring out that URL. But the catch is, each finalist has to formally agree not to reveal which story is whose. So back-alley dealings and kickbacks aside, you'll just have to trust your instincts. Just remember - mine will be the most awesome one.

--SO I HAVEN'T POSTED IN FOREVER, BIG WHOOP--

Wanna fight about it, tough guy? Didn't think so. Well I still don't have much to talk about, except how I've been spending the last few days coming up with a couple story ideas for a JRPG (probably) NIS America is funding/publishing/helping to develop. I'm not the only person working on story ideas, but I AM the awesomest. I've put together two basic concepts - one is a blatant ripoff respectful homage to Indiana Jones (but in Fantasyland), while the other is a shameless imitation faithful tribute to all things Lovecraft (but in Presentdaytopia).

Hey, if you're gonna steal appropriate, may as well borrow plagiarize from the best.

Wait, no...shit.

Other than that, I'm just finishing up debug on our first and foremost DS game, Puchi Puchi Virus! It's a puzzle game, but it's not a Tetris clone, and it's got lots of awful puns that I wrote and will probably/should probably go to prison for. Also, it's awesome. So buy it when it comes out in...April I think?

And I know all three of you who read this come from Penny Arcade, so you've probably seen these clips, but this is a good example of the absolutely worst and/or most excellent game dialogue you could ever record. Enjoy, and then thank Phoenix Games for such a masterpiece.

Animal Soccer World part 1
Animal Soccer World part 2
Animal Soccer World part 3
Animal Soccer World part 4