A new song joins the Legends of Adrigal soundtrack: Miners in Major

The play-on words in this new song has to do with this song being used for the Mines of Dorter dungeon, the first major dungeon in Legends of Adrigal. The dungeon's central gimmick has players entering mine carts to travel between points in the dungeon, occasionally using switches to change the path of the tracks.

Miners in Major is a 5/4 time theme that features steady percussion once the initial moments occur.

Check out the new song here.

Fun With Flavor Text - Legend of Adrigal Dorter Edition

This past June, I introduced the concept of providing flavor text to get players to investigate the world and the items and objects inside it. If you don't recall what I'm talking about or never read the article in question, here it is. 

Today I'd like to delve into some more flavor text fun in Legends of Adrigal. Last time I showed some examples from the beginning of the game at Casey's home and in Mabel, the first village of the game. This time we're taking a look together at flavor text examples in Dorter, a trading town in West Adrigal on the coast.

For a review from last time, as a part of some world building and to encourage interacting with the environment, Casey, our hero, can walk about to certain objects and investigate them. This will usually provide the player with Casey's thoughts on a given object. This is just one form of flavor text that can be found in Legends of Adrigal. Other forms will be featured on the site at a later date. 

Ah, the pun. Not even Casey can escape its catastrophic effects.

There you go again, Casey. Another pun, another feeling of personal shame.

Hmm! How interesting... Or maybe it's nothing.

Well, I'm sort of the one having to think about things for you to say, Casey!

Primo. Strategy Guide. Totally Unauthorized. What is this, gaming in the '90s?

Our hero takes a quick look of himself in the mirror.

Volume 12 of a 24-part collection of books.

Slipping into verse happens to me all the time. Especially when I have to rhyme!
...Dammit! I did it again!

At least Casey's honest about it.

Realistically, if the player investigated this food 30 times, Casey would have eaten it completely by taking multiple bites out each time just to say this line. 

 And as a refresher from yours truly for providing this type of flavor text:

"To recap, DO be consistent with your flavor text and what objects can be examined by the player.. DO introduce the concept early to get players investigating objects as early as possible. DON'T lack personality in your flavor text. DON'T have some rooms being full of objects to read info on while having others being completely empty."

Stay glued in to StortzumSOFT for even more news, articles, and behind-the-scenes goodness on Legends of Adrigal and more!

The Enemies of Legends of Adrigal - Part One

It's been a long time since an update has been seen on StortzumSoft's blog, but now the return of regular posts is here, thanks in part to working on Legends of Adrigal for my senior overview at Webster University. It just so happens to be my final semester after over a decade of struggling.

But that's not the point of this new post. Legends of Adrigal is an RPG, and any good RPG worth its weight in Gil, Zenny, Fol, or whatever currency you would like to choose from an RPG series has a compelling lineup of enemies to slay and earn money and items from!

That's my hope at least with Legends of Adrigal initial lineup of enemies. Today, I would like to share eight enemies from the game, discussing their designs (influences and inspirations), where they are in the game, and a lot more. Enough chatter from yours truly, let's move on from the introduction and get to the enemies themselves!

Note: Don't mind any imperfections in the enemy art: The enemies are much smaller in-game, making things like imperfect lines impossible to see unless you zoom in to crazy amounts!


GOOEY

Introducing Gooey! This little ball of slime with two eyes at its top hides its lone internal organ, its heart, deep inside its body. You don't even have to get close to it to see its heart beat! Gooey enemies are the weakest in Legends of Adrigal. Inspired by slime enemies from games like Dragon Quest (context-wise) and Breath of Fire (design-wise), a Gooey isn't too dangerous by its lonesome, but when they attack in groups, you should be careful!

HORNEET

An enemy that travels and hovers around the Mabel Road area of the kingdom of Adrigal, Horneets, like Gooeys, aren't too much of a threat alone, but when paired with other enemies, things can become rather tricky rather fast. Unlike Gooeys, however, Horneets pack quite a punch... er... sting with their dangerous stinger, inflicting pain on anyone who suffers its sting!

PURPLY POLY

Designed after both a pill bug and a roly poly, the Purply Poly's shell slightly protects it more than other enemies along Mabel Road. However, Purply Polys also can be found inside the Mines of Dorter. Their attack strength isn't that powerful, but as stated, its shell provides some slight defense against attacks to make up for it. They're more cute than dangerous, however.

CARNIVOROUS PLANT

This enemy would fit right in with the Little Shop of Horrors, but maybe its singing voice could be a little bit better... Nonetheless, the Carnivorous Plant makes its home mainly along the West Adrigal Road. It is made up of a core plant and two arms. You can't see it, but these are all connected together, albeit underground. It can use a move called Photosynthesis when its HP is below 20% to get a second wind in battle.

GRASSLAND FROG

Outside of its bushy eyebrows, there are few characteristics that distinguish the Grassland Frog from a frog you'd see in real life. I mean, its name has "frog" in it, for Pete's sake! Regardless, Grassland Frogs usually don't travel alone, rather they travel in at pairs, or with other enemies. You'll never see a Grassland Frog fighting by itself. They may be frogs, but in Adrigal they aren't stupid! The Grassland Frog is based off art for the toad status effect from the Super Nintendo Final Fantasy games.

SHISH-KA-PIG

What a macabre look this creature has! Why, it has an apple in its mouth like it's fit for a luau rather than a battle. Despite its appearance, the Shish-Ka-Pig is no nice customer when it's interrupted and attacked. Usually docile creatures, the Shish-Ka-Pig will grow violent if disturbed. Though if you defeat this creature, you'll really bring home the bacon money-wise! That'll do, pig. That'll do! ...I'm very sorry for those play-on words. Shish-Ka-Pig is based off an enemy from the PlayStation 2 RPG Radiata Stories.

DEADHEAD

No, not a groupie of a certain rock 'n roll band, the Deadhead is modeled after the ReDead enemy from The Legend of Zelda series (debuting in Ocarina of Time). Despite its name, Deadhead isn't actually a zombie. Why, that would be crazy! Instead, it's a swarm of dirt and mud that has taken a human-like form. It prowls the Mines of Dorter lately, which is quite the problem when a bunch of miners are trapped inside!

ARMORDILLO                                                                
Armordillo is the very first boss of Legends of Adrigal. The fight doesn't happen right away in the adventure, so have some patience. Casey will discover this rough and rowdy bipedal armadillo creature in the Mines of Dorter. What is it even doing in there in the first place? Did it cause the cave-in at the mines? What I can reveal, though, is that this boss is ready to rumble and ready for a fight!

===

I hope you guys and gals enjoyed this first look at some of the enemies and bosses featured in Legends of Adrigal! Development is continuing at a steady pace, and I can't wait to share even more about my game. I just want to strike a balance here and not reveal TOO terribly much that the entire game is spoiled! I don't think that will be a problem, however. Stay tuned for further updates right here on StortzumSoft!

The artists and soundtracks that have inspired and influenced me musically

If you've been around this blog or know of me a little, then you know that for my games I compose my own music. While I'm by no means an Uematsu or Shimomura, I do feel that I've steadily improved from when I started doing my own music as a child, having fun poking and prodding notes into Mario Paint's music staff mode. 

My first major video game project was Super Push Adventure, which you can find and download here. The actual soundtrack is wholly composed by yours truly, but I didn't arrange it myself. Instead, I had two folks help me with taking my MIDI works and turn them into soundfont-sounding goodness. One was Natasha Gita, a composer from Australia while the other was a good friend of mine, Avery Waddell of Webster University. 

The current two WIP soundtracks for two WIP games are for Chickadee and Legends of Adrigal. Unlike the music from Super Push Adventure, the music I'm composing here is something I'm arranging myself via Reaper. For all of my music, check out my Bandcamp page. Everything should be free to listen to and download.

Regardless, let's get to the nitty-gritty and the point of this article after all that introduction! My musical sense and style didn't just come from out of nowhere. No, like most everyone with the ability to, I've been listening to and enjoying music since childhood. However, my preferences even as a child were quite different than normal-- well, if "normal" is such a thing that even exists, but that's a philosophical discussion for another day and a different blog! (Hee-hee.)

Growing up playing video games as my favorite hobby, I remember being so entranced by all the facets of the games I played. One such facet was a game's soundtrack. Before the days I soundtracks being easily obtainable through purchasing them online or through other means like downloading, I used to take a boom box, an empty cassette tape, and record music from games, specifically from their sound test menus if such a thing existed in a given game. Sure, the sound was terrible with its high pitches, feedback, and such, but it allowed me to listen to the catchy themes of games and series like Mega Man X, Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario, Final Fantasy, and more.

I'd like to take the rest of this post to reveal some of the talent and composers that have most influenced and inspired my own musical style and tastes the most, including a brief history of my experience with each talent's works, as well as some included samples from their robust catalogs. (As always with YouTube videos, don't bother to read the comments.)

Yoko Kanno

My first meeting with Yoko Kanno's work was with the 1999 anime Cowboy Bebop (an absolute treasure of a show, anime or not). Here, I was introduced to how flexible of a composer she really is, offering music in genres like jazz, rock, heavy metal, funk, opera, and much more. Immediately I felt the need to peruse her hefty repertoire of music, finding works from shows like Brain Powerd (yes, I spelled that correctly, funnily enough), Turn A Gundam, and then future projects like Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Macross Frontier, Wolf's Rain, and so much more. Her works inspire me to be a better composer, step outside of my comfort zone, try out multiple genres of music, and just try to improve as much as I can with my limited skill set.

Tank! (from Cowboy Bebop)

Blue (from Cowboy Bebop)

Prism (from Brain Powerd)

Rakuen (from Wolf's Rain)

Zero Hour (from Macross Frontier)
Dance of Curse (from Escaflowne)

Nobuo Uematsu

Without question the video game composer that has influenced my works the most when it concerns material from Legends of Adrigal, Nobuo Uematsu is best known for his work on the Final Fantasy mainline series from the very first Final Fantasy up until Final Fantasy XI. By X and XI, the soundtracks were a collaboration of multiple composers rather than wholly Uematsu's contributions. Regardless, Uematsu's masterful works pushed forward what the idea of a video game soundtrack could be, even offering an entire opera (although in digitized form) in Final Fantasy VI in 1994. He's done other projects since leaving the Final Fantasy series and starting his own company, Smile Please, with soundtracks for games like Fantasy Life for the Nintendo 3DS, and even contributing the main theme to Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. Brawl on Wii.

Dancing Mad (originally from Final Fantasy VI, orchestrated version from Distant Worlds II)

One-Winged Angel (from Final Fantasy VII)

Battle 2 (from Final Fantasy IV)

Behind the Door (from Final Fantasy IX)

Kids Run Through the City (from Final Fantasy VI)

Tavern (from Fantasy Life)

Koji Kondo

Mostly taking a supervisory role at Nintendo nowadays, Koji Kondo was the musical voice of many of Nintendo's top games from the NES and on, including Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and more. His ability to create simple yet catchy themes is something that is truly amazing and something he very much has a knack for. As stated, his role at Nintendo now is mostly to oversee other composers' works, but he does still do the occasional new melody or theme, such as his contributions to both Super Mario Galaxy soundtracks and his work with Super Mario Maker, where for the first time in decades he was the main composer. 

Hyrule Field Main Theme (from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past)

Athletic (from Super Mario Bros. 3)

Starship Mario 3 (from Super Mario Galaxy 2)

Athletic Theme (from Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island)

Dire, Dire Docks (from Super Mario 64)

Gerudo Valley (originally from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, orchestrated version from The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddess)

Motoi Sakuraba

Composer behind the Star Ocean series and many of the games from the Tales franchise, Motoi Sakuraba's music can be described as progressive in every stretch of the word. Whether it's through masterful rock and roll or something more classical like, well, classical music! My favorite works from Sakuraba include the warm sounding synth from the original PlayStation's Star Ocean: The Second Story as well as him contributing some of the most memorable and powerful themes from the Nintendo 3DS game, Kid Icarus: Uprising, which in itself held a motley crew of well known Japanese video game music composers.

The Venerable Forest (from Star Ocean: The Second Story)

Shower of Blossoms (from Star Ocean: The Second Story)

Influence of Truth Appears (from Star Ocean: Till the End of Time)

The Imperial City - Grand Chokmah (from Tales of the Abyss)

The Reaper's Line of Sight (from Kid Icarus: Uprising)

Lightning Battle (from Kid Icarus: Uprising)

Yasunori Mitsuda 

A composer that doesn't do much in the way of work for substantially large, incredibly hyped games that much anymore, if you've played games like Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Xenogears, and even stuff like the original Mario Party, Shadow Hearts, Soma Bringer, Soul Sacrifice, Graffiti Kingdom, or Bomberman 64: The Second Attack, then you've heard his stuff before. His style can be described as minimalistic at times while slightly audacious at others. Regardless of the time, it's always something special. His melodies bestow the listener with a lasting impression that resonates well. 

Time's Scar (from Chrono Cross)

Another Arni (from Chrono Cross)

My Village is Number One! (originally from Xenogears, orchestrated version from Myth - The Xenogears Orchestral Album)

Rainbow Castle (from Mario Party)

The Return of Palutena (from Kid Icarus: Uprising)

Boss Theme 1 (from Kid Icarus: Uprising)

Jon Anderson (and Yes)

Last but certainly (definitely) not least, let's get away from anime and game music for this final musical inspiration and influence. Jon Anderson was a founding member of the progressive rock band Yes, and currently continues his solo work and collaborations with multiple artists. Jon Anderson is the lone vocal artist on this list, and his voice can be described as pure angelic and magical. The only gripe I have with Mr. Anderson is that he sometimes sings at too high of an octave for me to sing along with! His work with Yes is historic and classic, while his solo work is also quite wonderful. The progressive rock styling that Anderson exudes is a grand inspiration, always making me wonder how far I can take my music in the future. Maybe I could add some vocals in the future with some better technology? ...Maybe not! Hee-hee!

Roundabout

Owner of a Lonely Heart

Close to the Edge

And You and I

Hurry Home (Song From the Pleiades)

I See You Messenger

I hope you enjoyed this look and listen to some of my favorite influences and inspirations over the years to my own musical styles. To say I'm anywhere near these geniuses with my own compositions would be folly for sure! But I can always try to improve myself and make myself the best I can possibly be by listening to these fantastic musical talents!

New song composed for Chickadee: Into the Forest of Freshwind!

For the longest time I've been focused on Legends of Adrigal and composing music for that WIP. While I'm still working away at this RPG, I have finally given Chickadee, my Breakout-style adventure game some attention. Such a way I've put work towards the game is with composing some new songs for the game. This song, Into the Forest of Freshwind, coincidentally enough, plays during the Freshwind Forest world.

Listen to the song here.

Get a sneak peek at the concept menu designs for Chickadee!

Happy Fourth of July, America! For everyone else out there, happy Monday evening! I hope your first day back to work was a sensational one. I'd like to take the opportunity tonight to share some concept art I drew up for Jo, my programmer from Belgium, to work with to get working versions of.

Let's begin with the data selection screen. Here, Chickadee rolls to each slot, of which there are three, to choose a save file to either start or continue the player's game. How many of the game's worlds are competed is listed, as is what Chickadee's current costume worn is. Finally, what isn't shown here is how many coins the player currently has.

Let's look at the world select concept I have designed now. It has Chickadee rolling to each continent, but what actually moves is the big globe underneath him. It spins and stops at one of six destinations with the middle destination being the tutorial world that the player starts at before reaching this menu.

W.hen a world is selected, this level select menu pops up, asking the player to select a level. Now, unlike the worlds, levels have to be played in order, and each image here shows a different level. If a level hasn't been reached yet, it remains empty.

Finally, we have Old Redbird's costume shop. It is here where Chickadee can try on and purchase new costumes. Old Redbird serves as the helper of Chickadee throughout his journey, and also serves as the shopkeeper here.

As players complete worlds, new costumes are available for purchase, each at a different price. Obviously the concept here only shows one price and one costume, but this will have multiple different costumes and prices in the final version of Chickadee.

So, there's but a quick look at some of the menus for Chickadee and players. I hope you enjoyed this behind-the-scenes glimpse at Chickadee's development! Stay tuned for even more goodness coming soon!

Chickadee is back in development! Here's a title screen concept!

Chickadee has resumed development after a relatively lengthy hiatus! Thanks to my programmer and fellow game developer Jo-Thijs Daelman, the project is back in business!

My first goals for the project now that it is back in development are to get some of the foundations done. For the time being, we have a working title screen. I gave Jo some direction on what I wanted-- Chickadee rolling onto the screen and the logo shifting from the right onto the screen--and he went above and beyond to make it. He even threw in the jumping animation for Chickadee, a very clever and adorable addition.

Coming up now is some more menu design, coming up with how the world select and level select systems will work, as well as implementing a shop that uses the coins collected by Chickadee to purchase items like costumes and extra lives! Jo is doing the proverbial heavy lifting here implementing everything, and his work is so very appreciated. Without him, I'd have nothing!

For now, however, check out this proof of concept video of the title screen. Pardon the amateur sound and production values, this was my first time recording my computer screen. Also, note that the background is only temporary.

After meeting Chibi Casey, Meet Chibi Monica!

Several weeks ago I shared the new style for the key art for Legends of Adrigal. It took on a more deformed, chibi style. To see it in action with protagonist Casey, check out this link. Now, tonight I share the next character to get the chibi art style, Monica, the tomboy cheerleader who fights for her friends.

I used a reference for this character just like with Casey. However, this reference had wholly different proportions to Casey's reference point despite being the same chibi style. Thus, I had to do some tinkering with the proportions. I hope you guys think it came out well!

Screenshot Saturday - The new and improved Dorter

With my moving on to RPG Maker MV, not only is the process of creating Legends of Adrigal a much easier and more convenient one, but the art is much approved as well. Take Dorter, a trading city on the west coast of the kingdom of Adrigal. It is reached by going all the way west on the Western Adrigal Road, which connects Dorter and Adrigal City, as well as has an entrance to Mabel Road which, of course, leads to Mabel.

Here's a look at what the old Dorter looked like in RPG Maker VX Ace.

And now, here Dorter is in RPG Maker MV:

With brighter paths, a lighter color scheme, and plenty of detail, this is Legends of Adrigal's new Dorter. While I haven't created the necessary scenario data up to this point (hence the lack of townspeople and doors for buildings), that didn't mean I couldn't create this town regardless. Stay tuned to next week when a new screenshot or series of screenshots is posted right here on my blog!

Encouraging Exploration: Flavor Text for Objects

When you build a world in an RPG, you try to put a lot of effort into building its lore as well as making players want to explore it. This series of articles delves into how to encourage exploration in your game. Since I'm building an RPG with Legends of Adrigal, we'll be focusing on that genre of game, but it's really available for anything with objects you can examine and exploration.

First, what is flavor text? Flavor text typically refers to text in a game that gives an item, a character, or whatnot added characterization to help build the game world. It's superfluous by design, but it adds so much in world-building and adding some realism to your game. I'll be discussing flavor text in my game Legends of Adrigal in the realm of flavor text that is read when examining an object in a given map of my game. (There are also plenty of other uses for flavor text in making an RPG, such as describing the use of an item or weapon, but that's a topic for another day.)

The important thing to consider when adding flavor text to your game, such as when examining a particular object, is that you're consistent and you make it clear that this is possible. What I mean by this is that if the first explore-able area or areas of your game doesn't have any objects that the player can engage with and the player tries to interact with multiple objects to no avail, then they're probably not going to waste their time interacting with later objects in later areas. 

When I say being consistent, don't just have one area full of objects you can examine and then next have an area with plenty of objects yet no flavor text to them. It's jarring to the player, and it's mighty frustrating to expect something (in this case, some text from examining an object), yet not get it.

Another thing to note is that you should give your flavor text personality. For Legends of Adrigal, I used to have just an omniscient narrator. However, that was just like every other RPG out there, and with using RPG Maker, you really need to do things to distinguish your project from the other 900,000 RPGs being made with the program. 

Look at this example of a before and after regarding Casey, Legends of Adrigal's primary protagonist, examining a well in the countryside village of Mabel:

BEFORE

AFTER

For Legends of Adrigal, instead of having some nebulous narrator explaining to the player what they're examining, I made it so Casey himself remarks about what he sees. Sometimes this is done for comedic effect, but it's always to add personality to investigating and exploring the in-game world. It can feel like a prize to uncover a fun revelation that Casey comes up with regarding a given object. Just make sure that your flavor text is fun to read, so it encourages the player to keep examining objects.

Here's some other examples that I particularly like most of Casey examining objects in-game.

To recap, DO be consistent with your flavor text and what objects can be examined by the player.. DO introduce the concept early to get players investigating objects as early as possible. DON'T lack personality in your flavor text. DON'T have some rooms being full of objects to read info on while having others being completely empty. I hope this article and sneak peek look at the development of Legends of Adrigal was entertaining and informative!

New style for the Legends of Adrigal artwork

Introducing a more stylish art style for the artwork of Legends of Adrigal! The original artwork for Casey had more realistic proportions while still having a cartoon charm. However, I wanted to make Legends of Adrigal's artwork more special and different, so I made Casey, our protagonist, into chibi form! I hope to have a piece of artwork for Monica up shortly. 

It was a lot of fun drawing what I dub "Chibi Casey" in Inkscape (I used an anime chibi drawing as a reference for proportions), and I'm really proud of this albeit imperfect piece of artwork for Legends of Adrigal. What do you guys think? 

You've got a face for video games, Casey, Monica, Noah, and Nemus!

Continuing the aesthetic theme from a couple posts ago, Legends of Adrigal has a series of faces for the dialogue boxes in the game. Each character's face will appear as they are speaking. While Nemus and Noah were not edited at all-- instead using what the RPG Maker MV Character Generator created from my selections of facial qualities-- Casey and Monica were edited in Inkscape to add more modern touches to them. These are things like Casey's varsity jacket and Monica's cheerleader uniform. 

CASEY

MONICA

NEMUS

NOAH

Legends of Adrigal's Newest Theme - The Girl Next Door!

Happy weekend to everyone that passes by this small, li'l blog of mine! A new update is here for my WIP RPG Legends of Adrigal. This time it's music-related. A new composition has been painstakingly crafted, thanks in part by Patrick Crecelius of local St. Louis composition duo Fat Bard fame! His advice and guidance noted some rhythmic errors in my first drafts of this new song, and now I feel it's at a much better state!

The new song is called "The Girl Next Door - Monica's Theme". It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that this song is the character theme of Monica, the cheerleader and tomboy of the three teen group that gets transported into the Code Name: ADRIGAL video game. Though the cliche of the girl next door trope is that there is generally a romantic part involved, Casey's and Monica's relationship is more brother and sister than anything else. Sometimes the brother takes care of the sister, while other times the roles are reversed-- the sister is the one doing the taking of caring over the brother. It's an interesting dynamic that I hope my own writing allows to make even more intriguing. We'll see, though!

Take a listen to the new composition at the Songs of Legends of Adrigal Bandcamp page with this link.

Creating Casey: Making a character with help of RPG Maker MV's Character Generator

One of the hyped features of RPG Maker MV was its Character Generator, a resource maker that allows users to create their own characters from a myriad of options. Prior to RPG Maker MV, I was using the Game Character Hub to not only create sprites, but also to randomize the settings to make hundreds of NPCs to line the maps of Legends of Adrigal.

An obstacle to overcome with RPG Maker MV is that RPG Maker MV uses a different image size for sprites than RPG Maker VX Ace, the program I was previously using. Thus, to circumvent this, I used GIMP to resize all sprite sheets by 150% to make them fit the proportions needed for RPG Maker MV.

However, I wasn't happy with how the protagonist Casey turned out. For me, creating unique characters like Casey is done by editing a sprite sheet instead of starting out fresh. This is how the sprite sheet for Casey on maps looked in RPG Maker VX Ace:

I wanted an updated look for RPG Maker MV, so I used MV's Character Generator to start the process. In the Character Generator there are myriad options for creating and editing the face, hair (in both front and rear extensions), facial hair, ears, eyes, eyebrows, nose, mouth, facial marks, clothing, accessories, and other parts like tails or wings; allowing users to choose from one of about 24 colors for each segment of the sprite.

A look at RPG Maker MV's Character Generator.

Not only is a map sprite created from this process of picking and choosing parts, but so are the face for dialogue and menus as well as the sprite used in side view battles, similar to old school Final Fantasy games predating Final Fantasy VII.

Selecting option by option and piece by piece, the foundation for Casey was made.

Now, the foundation of the sprite I wanted for Casey was made. What I then did was use MS Paint to edit the map and battle sprites for Casey (for the battle sprite, this took some time as there were LOTS of sprite animations to edit-- though some could simply be copied and pasted over another animation). Taking these and putting them through GIMP (I'm more comfortable with MS Paint, so that's why I did the editing in that program instead of just doing everything in GIMP), I removed the background, making it transparent. Otherwise, there'd be a giant white box around each of Casey's sprite animations.

Through importing separate sprite sheets to my project,
 I was then able to begin the editing process.

I then took the foundation for Casey's face sprite and used Inkscape to draw and color in his varsity jacket. This process didn't take too long of a time, though I was being a bit of a perfectionist. Regardless, once that process was over, Casey's sprites were now able to be inserted into the game!

Hello, Casey, you handsome devil!