Today is a special day for three reasons!

That's right, dear friends! THREE reasons! Not only is today my 30th birthday, which was a fantastic celebration with friends and family, but it's also the 20th anniversary of Pokemon! So that leaves one more reason, right? I think I did my math correct, but I gotta tell you-- Sesame Street's on HBO now, so couldn't catch my daily lesson with the Count!

Anyway, 18 years ago, I was afflicted with Pokemania! I was but a seventh grader, totally engrossed with Pokemon. I watched the TV show (I even cried during the episode "Pikachu's Goodbye"), I played the games, I collected the figurines, I bought the plush toys, I collected the Trading Card Game, and the last thing I did is the third thing of why this day is so special.

After 18 years, I've dug out something from storage that hits me with such crazy nostalgia and washes me over with waves of feels. (That's how you kids out there nowadays talk on the 'net, right?) It's a comic book series I wrote and drew as an awkward kid.

I had thirteen completed issues with a scheduled fourteenth that was going to be about a giant magical stone on top of a mountain peak that all the Geodudes and Gravelers worshiped. It would have turned out that the stone was actually a giant version of the Pokemon Golem rolled up in a ball.

Anyway, the thirteen issues were written monthly, I remember having my mom take a sheet of paper that I drew the Pokemon logo on at the top and a goofy "Stortzum Comics" logo on the top left like typical comic book placement. With this rough draft, my mom copied, like, 20 copies for me so I wouldn't have to redraw the Pokemon logo for my issue covers again and again. There'd be a prototype version I could just draw on. Only the covers were in color with everything else done in pen with no shading hardly at all.

The "historic" first issue

The comics selfishly starred an up and coming Pokemon trainer named Phil Gotem (get it? Ash Ketchum, Phil Gotem?) whose starter Pokemon was a Mankey of things, as I really had a thing for monkeys at a younger age. Phil would be joined by and meet various characters on his journey to become a Pokemon master, and the stories were very much inspired by the TV show. I didn't have the creativity to come up with my own villains, so I just used Jessie and James from Team Rocket (also from the TV show) as Phil's enemies and comic relief.

Now, I share with you multiple photos I've taken of the comic book series I did. I had such a stupid smile on my face when I thumbing through these after so many years. I even had a subscription page with a cut-out box where the name of the subscriber, address, and how many issues they wanted were located. There was also a games page where readers would play Who's That Pokemon, play various word games like unscrambling Pokemon names, and much more. Heck, I even made ads for Nintendo 64 games on the back cover like Mario Party, Buck Bumble, and Donkey Kong 64. I think I was more creative then than I am now! (Just kidding,)

So, ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy this look at some creative works from my past! Since there are quite a few images, check them out after the break!

Two new themes have been added to the Legends of Adrigal soundtrack

It's been a quiet month here at StortzumSoft, but college coursework and my internship at Pixel Press have both slowed down a bit, allowing me to return to my RPG, Legends of Adrigal. In the wee morning hours I have two new themes to share with you that I composed for the game.

This first one is my first character theme for a party member in Legends of Adrigal, Noah. Noah himself is a shy, timid, bullied friend of Casey and Monica. His theme is a soft, angelic tune with choir chiming in for the main melody.

Listen to "Noah" by clicking this link.

Moving from something slow and somewhat somber to something much more action-packed and intense. Indomitable Spirit is the battle theme of Legends of Adrigal, played during normal non-event battles. This is actually a song I've had brewing in my head for years, but I never penned it to a song before... until now, obviously. It's my hope that listening to this song again and again throughout Legends of Adrigal's duration won't bring tedium to players' ears.

Listen to "Indomitable Spirit" by clicking this link.

The RPG that never was: SuperPhillip: The Crystal Quest!

Before Legends of Adrigal was ever even a passing thought in my mind, I had originally worked on a game for the original PlayStation's RPG Maker in my middle school years (around 1999). It was called SuperPhillip RPG. Now, I don't refer to my user name on various websites and things when I say "SuperPhillip". No, I'm referring to a superhero I made up in elementary school, and have since drawn multiple iterations of comics and come up with game ideas for. 

He wears a red cap, red boots, a red cape, blue outfit, and has a red and yellow emblem on his chest with the letters "S" and "P". Very Superman-like aside from the red cap. The below sprite sheet shows off the character in more detail, obviously a redone sprite sheet I did of Mega Man from Mega Man 7 for the Super Nintendo.

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. I worked on my very first RPG on the PlayStation for about two years, each day after school. Compared to RPG Maker today, RPG Maker on the PS1 was as basic as basic can get. You could create your own maps, items, and stuff, but you were very limited in what you could create. You couldn't do your own music, you couldn't do more complicated maps with multi-tiered tiles, and there were a lot of drawbacks. Regardless, I finished this game, and I still have it on my trio of memory cards, back when each card was, like, a megabyte. Okay, I might be underselling them there, but work with me here.

Fast forward to 2003 and the release of RPG Maker 2003 on the PC. This version never officially released outside of Japan, to my knowledge, so I "unofficially" downloaded it. (You gonna narc on me?!!) Seriously though, the difference in what could be done in RPG Maker 2003 compared to RPG Maker on PS1 was like night and day. The doors were open for as much as my imagination could come up with. But with so many options available, where would I even start?

That's where the idea to essentially "remake" my RPG Maker PS1 game came to mind in my early college years (2004, to be exact). I wouldn't have to worry about a story because I already had one created, albeit as complex as a middle schooler at that time could have come up with. I also had most of the maps made, so I would load up the old PlayStation RPG Maker and recreate the maps that were on my TV screen and transpose them to my desktop computer screen, obviously needing to use different looking map tiles.

All in all, I got pretty far with my game, making it all the way to Lime Beach, which was essentially the 1/3 point in my RPG. However, the reason why I didn't finish this new game, SuperPhillip: The Crystal Quest, was that everything apart from the original story and dialogue, characters, and most sprites (big props to the Charas Project for its great custom RPG Maker character creator!) was taken from other sources. The music was taken from various soundtracks like Yoko Kanno's Brain Powerd, SEGA's Phantasy Star Universe, Capcom's Mega Man ZX, and many more sources. The enemy sprites were pilfered from various games, as were the tilesets of maps (from games like Wild Arms, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, and more) all unoriginal. All of this un-originality meant that I obviously couldn't make this a professional product. I would, however, be able to share my game on various RPG Maker community websites.

However, as the years went on, my time was devoted to other things, other avenues, playing other games, doing college coursework-- obviously that's in the order of importance. (You can't see my face while typing this, but I'm doing a heavy wink right now.) Thus, SuperPhillip: The Crystal Quest never came to pass.

That said, I didn't let all my work go to waste. For one, it was a great learning experience figuring out the ins and outs of the program. Secondly, it gave me a start to actually creating a game I could publish later on. You might know it as Legends of Adrigal.

RPG Maker VX Ace, my current program for my current project, is very much like RPG Maker 2003, so it was like riding a bike all over again. Though, that is a very bad analogy as I never learned how to ride a bike... or swim... or skate... or learned how to tie a tie. (Thanks, Dad.) Anyway, I found myself knowing how to do a lot of things, and I also had a program called Game Character Hub which could create random NPC sprites out of a set algorithm, so I didn't have to worry about taking from another source. They'd be original sprites in my original game. Of course, I did create custom sprites for lead characters Casey, Monica, and Noah.

Those old maps I did for SuperPhillip RPG and then SuperPhillip: The Crystal Quest? Well, some of them are actually re-used in Legends of Adrigal, though obviously remade to fit my new game. Therefore, a lot of ideas from SuperPhillip have come to Adrigal like a long lost friend.

SuperPhillip RPG's Mabel

Legend of Adrigal's Mabel

SuperPhillip RPG's Dorter.

Legend of Adrigal's Dorter

Now that I have better art skills of my own, I can actually create my own monsters, though this will take some time. I can even compose my own music, too, which is really exciting. It makes me very hopeful that I can complete Legends of Adrigal in due time, especially since I have this semester to work on it in one of my independent studies at Webster University (my final semester... YES!)..

So now that you know some of my RPG-making background, take a look at some screens from SuperPhillip: The Crystal Quest! Since there's a lot of them to be had, check them out after the break.

Legends of Adrigal Progress Report - 1/8/16

It's been a month since the first Legends of Adrigal Progress Report, so let's jump in and allow me to share some of the work I've done since then. We'll start off with a map of Adrigal City. If you click on the image, you can see highlighted grid spaces. These are where events take place, such as entrances into buildings and NPCs.

The main hub of Adrigal City, the center of the kingdom of Adrigal, has been populated with NPCs. Not only that, but all of the connections between the outdoor and indoor areas have been completed. To give you an idea on how many indoor areas that is, take a look at this screenshot. The kicker here is that this screen doesn't show the entirety of inside houses and buildings of Adrigal City.

Something tricky about making entrances and exits to the houses of a given town, especially one the size of Adrigal City, is making sure that the exit of a house puts the player in the right spot. You don't want it where entering a building and then exiting it takes you to a completely different house. With so many building entrances and exits, I had to test each one to make sure that if a player enters a house, when they exit it, they are put back near the entrance of that house and not some other building! That can make a person go crazy!

Additionally, NPCs will change their dialogue depending on the player's progress in Legends of Adrigal. This lends some depth to the world and to the characters that fill the various towns of the game. Here's a sample of some of the dialogue I wrote for the game.

Currently I'm working on Adrigal Castle, where Casey and joined party member Nemus need to head to deliver Mayor Wendell's letter to the king. This is so the two can have an audience with His Majesty, allowing Casey to inform the king of his situation. Here's that map:

The next step is to create events inside Adrigal Castle, particularly the event to progress the story, Casey's aforementioned talk with the king. After that, it's work on Dorter that needs to be done, the next town and point of interest in Legends of Adrigal.

First artwork from Legends of Adrigal

Casey is the hero of Legends of Adrigal, brought into the video game world of Adrigal with his two friends, Monica and Noah. However, while Casey knows he's in a video game, it doesn't appear that the citizens of the kingdom know.

Dressed in a red and white varsity jacket and blue jeans, Casey's garb is quite different from what those in Adrigal wear. Perhaps he'll start a new fashion craze?

Casey was drawn in Inkscape using vectors instead of what I traditionally use, pixels and/or MS Paint.

Three new jingles for Legends of Adrigal

I have been playing games like crazy over my holiday break, but I am about to return to work on Legends of Adrigal, my work-in-progress RPG. However, I did some musical work for my game, such as these three new jingles that play at key moments throughout the game. Give them a listen and let me know what you think!

Item Get - Link

When a key item is received by Casey, this lovely little ditty plays to signify a special moment. A plethora of special items are gathered throughout Legends of Adrigal, so look forward to hearing this jingle whenever you collect something truly special.

Joining Our Ranks - Link

Whereas this quick jingle triumphantly plays when a new party member joins Casey's team. There are a lot of interesting characters to be found in Legends of Adrigal, and the ones that join Casey in his journey through the mystical land of Adrigal are included in this!

Let's Rest for a Moment - Link

This jingle plays when Casey and friends stop at one of the many inns in the kingdom of Adrigal to snooze, revitalizing their health, magic, and curing any status ailments.

Merry Christmas from Ganondorf! (Oh, and Me, Too!)

I already wished readers of SuperPhillip Central a Merry Christmas, but let me do so to those who check out my game design blog as well! Merry Christmas, friends! It's been a wild day with some nice family time, fun presents, and soon to be some delicious Christmas dinner! I hope you and your loved ones have had a splendid Christmas day!

Ganondorf wishes you a Merry Christmas as well.
(But he'd rather see the demise of Hyrule!)

No one can find me hiding here! Mwahahaha!