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Time for a small update about the current state of this website.

The site has been largely inactive for some time now. Traffic amounts are low, and I don't have time or interest to do regular updates anymore.

So, I have decided that I won't be buying any Ucoz "premium plans" for this website anymore. There simply isn't any point to spend any more money on this project.

The site will continue to exist, but there will soon be advertisements all over the place. Which sucks, but there's nothing that I can do about it.

Also I'll remove the forum module. The last posts are 4 years old, and even if there was some activity, I wouldn't have time or interest to moderate it.

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But as said, the website itself will continue to exist. Maybe in the future I'll "re-activate" this site if the need arises, but for now I'll just leave it as it now stands: it's a collection of various articles and a "download centre" for my games and programs.

So from now on this will be a "reserve website" with very little activity ( so nothing new there really! :D ) ... but if I one day suddenly need a website again, then I can simply re-activate this site, and continue where I left off.

So basically I'm just stating the point that the site is dead, and will continue to be dead in the future. :D

But anyways, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2018 everyone. Okay, that sounded great. M484 out. :D

 

 

Added by: Master484 | Date: 2017-12-18 | Comments (0)

 

After writing the Genisys review I thought that just for fun, let's also do a comparison between Terminator Genisys and Terminator 3 : Rise of the Machines. Because I just re-watched T3 again to remind myself what happened in it, and to my surprise the movie rocked. :D

And also I thought that maybe it's unfair to compare Genisys with T1 and T2, which are widely regarded as some of the best movies ever made. So let's compare it with T3 then.

Now, I've just realized this: Terminator 3 is totally badass and full of good action from start to finish. Although sure it's a sort of a parody version of T2 Judgment Day, and many scenes just make you laugh. But I guess that this was also the goal: T3 is written to be more of an action/comedy movie rather than a action/survival horror movie. It's meant to be serious and funny at the same time. But regardless of this the movie itself is great. And it's only now, after seeing the two classic terminators that came before it, and the two "modern" terminators that came after it, that I realize how good Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines actually is.

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T-X : The Terminatrix

Terminator 3 surely has it's flaws, but at least it feels like a real terminator movie. Most importantly the main adversary T-X feels like a real terminator machine. It's clearly a real threat and danger to everyone. T-X wastes no time. It never stops for a chat. It's very business-like, and acts just like a machine would act. It has a pre-programmed kill list. When contact with the main target is temporarily lost, T-X immediately proceeds to eliminate secondary targets in the list. It has a clear and efficent workflow. This is exactly how a machine made by Skynet would operate.

In T3 all encounters between the T-X and the heroes are believable. For the human heroes, just being in the same room with the T-X is dangerous. Being made of living metal and mimetic polyalloy combined with nanomachines, the T-X has very high damage resistance, rapid regeneration and mimic abilities similar to the T-1000, and superior strength to all previous terminator models. Also the T-X has a variety of in-built weapons, including energy gun, flamethrower and a hand chainsaw. The heroes don't stand a chance in open combat, and so they run away. This is the classic terminator scenario.

Although capable of taking almost any form, the default appearance of the T-X is a "woman in the red dress", with the looks of a beautiful fashion model. This too makes perfect sense, because in this timeline the target John Connor is a young, single man. By having an appearance like this T-X maximizes the chances that John lets his guard down when she finds him, increasing the chances of successful termination. Also by looking as sexy as possible, the chances of infiltrating important male run organizations, such as military bases, are vastly increased. Although the movie doesn't show us how T-X got a job in the military base, but I bet that most army generals couldn't resist the temptation to hire a perfect "sex machine" as their personal secretary. :)

Also the T-X is capable of hacking and remote controlling other machines, electronic equipment and vehicles. In T3 we have great car chase where T-X drives a truck AND simultaneously remote controls several police cars and ambulances, while also fighting the T-101, all at the same time. This is a great car chase scene, not just because of the massive destruction and mayhem that is going on, but because it shows us the multi-tasking abilities of T-X; futuristic combat AI running on a super powerful future CPU.

Even the good terminator T-101 tries to avoid direct close range combat with the T-X, knowing that the odds are against him. But ultimately the T-101 is forced to enter in a one-on-one fight with the T-X. And the final fight between the two terminators has a logical and believable outcome: the older model T-101 is nearly destroyed, after which T-X injects it with a computer virus. Later in the final scene only a miniature nuclear explosion from one of T-101 fuel cells finally destroys the T-X.

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T-3000 : The Talkinator

Now let's compare all this with Terminator Genisys and T-3000. Almost every T-3000 fight scene begins with a "talking session". The T-3000 lacks the "aura of death" that all other terminators before it had. The heroes can safely be in the same room with it, talking trash with it. And to make things worse, with just one punch from some home-made magnetic glove a normal human like Kyle Reese can knock it out. Even the magnetic medical equipment in the hospital scene was enough cause serious troubles to the T-3000. He just simply doesn't feel threatening at all.

The bus chase scene in Genisys is very short and totally pales in comparison to the truck chase scene in T3. The T-3000 can catch the bus easily, but then somehow has great difficulties in getting inside it, despite having super strength and nanobot cloud abilities. And when he finally gets inside the bus, Kyle Reese hits him once with the home-made "magnetic glove", and somehow that's enough to knock out the T-3000. After this the heroes get arrested, are taken to the police station, and "Bad Boys" starts to play. WTF? :D

Then T-3000 arrives to the police station, but Arnold just throws him into a wall, and there he apparently stays unconscious while all this happens: the heroes escape the interrogation rooms, Sarah has a conversation with the younger version of Kyle Reese (who just somehow happened to be at the police station with his parents), and the heroes visit the police station's armory, hang out there for a while and talk with the bald investigator professor guy. And then they go to the helicopter pads on the roof, where T-3000 finally catches up with them, but too late of course. What did the T-3000 do during all this time? Did he just sit on the floor? Was he busy fighting with the police or the T-800? And if so, then why the movie doesn't show us this fight? This is an action movie, right?

And in the final fight between the T-800 and T-3000, the older T-800 model can somehow go toe-to-toe with the T-3000, thanks to the magnetic gloves that he quickly put together in some 5 minutes back in the ammo bunker, using parts from a broken loudspeaker. This is a laughable way to defeat this supposedly most powerful terminator model ever. Finally T-3000 gets the upper hand of course. But then, with T-800 crawling on the floor, instead of finishing the job, T-3000 starts talking bullshit. Why? So that the Kyle and Sarah will have enough time to appear to the scene and save the day. That's why. And guess what happens now? T-3000 starts to talk bullshit with Kyle and Sarah instead, which in turn gives T-800 the chance to grab him and destroy him.

So in other words T-3000 gets destroyed because he wasted too much time talking bullshit. :D

Funny, but I thought that one of Skynet's main directives was to "eliminate human error". So why did it create this T-3000, which acts like a human and wasted at least 5 clear opportunities to kill obvious threats to Skynet's existance, all thanks to trash talk and useless negotiations with them?

And also this is a funny fact: In T3 we are told that the T-X's ability to remote control vehicles and electrical equipment is actually based on nanomachines. And we can assume that the various weapons that T-X can "grow" out it's body are also at least partially based on nanomachines.

So why doesn't the T-3000 in Genisys do anything like this, despite being totally nanobot based? He doesn't remote control anything. He has no in-built weapons, and has to rely on fists and human weapons. Maybe Skynet just forgot to add all these things? But of course forgetting things is something that only humans do. The T-3000 shows a total lack of capabilities when compared to the T-X, or even to the T-1000, which doesn't make any sense.

In addition of being nanobot based the T-3000 supposedly also has higher intelligence than any previous terminator model. But this intelligence only seems to manifest itself as "classic movie villain" trash talk. The T-3000 didn't do a single smart thing in the entire movie.

Even reporting the "false alarm" in the end of the movie was a massive mistake from the T-3000. If he had allowed the police to arrive, they would have arrested Kyle and Sarah again. They would have looked like terrorists with bags full of explosives. And if they resisted arrest then a firefight between the heroes and the police would have been unavoidable. The T-3000 could have then just nanobotted back to his office and drink nano-coffee, while waiting the Genisys timer to reach zero.

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Also in Genisys we have this confusing helicopter chase scene where the heroes destroy the T-3000's helicopter that is chasing them, and it falls down, but miraculously somehow crashes to the front door of Genisys headquarters. And so the T-3000 reaches the Genisys HQ first, despite being blown out of the sky. I guess this is because the plot required it...but why? So that T-3000 can talk some more trash to the heroes when they arrive to the lobby, that's why! :D

And this really is what happens in the lobby scene: the heroes shoot at the T-3000, who just runs his mouth while taking bullet hits, and then the T-800 arrives, throws a helicopter blade at the T-3000, which impales him and leaves him stuck to the wall. And despite having the ability to transform into a nanocloud that can easily go through solid matter, the T-3000 stays stuck on the wall forever. And the heroes just walk past him, and walk around the building, talking casually as they go. There is no sense of urgency or hurry, no fear that the T-3000 might come after them. They all just walk instead of running, despite the Genisys timer speeding up, giving them only some 5 minutes to plant the explosives.

Compare this to the final scene of Terminator 3, where the heroes have to enter a series of security codes to a computer terminal in order to open the door to the nuclear fallout shelter. They are winded up and clearly sound like they're in a hurry, even if they don't even know that T-X is still alive and is coming for them. They know that the "doomsday clock" is ticking, and that is enough to cause panic in the main characters. And then suddenly, a helicopter crashes nose first into the hall, and T-X appears from the flames. And this is not only exciting, but also totally in line with the classic terminator definition: "it doesn't stop until you're dead." . Only the arrival of T-101 saves the heroes; he crashes a SECOND helicopter into that same hall. A final struggle between the T-101 and T-X then follows, and both are destroyed when T-101's fuel cells blow up, causing a miniature nuclear explosion. And this is a 100% believable way to destroy the T-X.

We have NOTHING like this in Terminator Genisys. The final fight of Genisys takes place in a sterile arena, with clean IPhone white walls, with an enemy who suddenly decides to actually use the nano powers that he never used before in the movie, with a lame ending, where the T-800 can hold the T-3000 with one of those stupid magnetic gloves, despite the fact that we were just shown how earlier in the fight the T-3000 could even nano-cloud himself THROUGH Arnold, despite him wearing those stupid magnetic gloves.

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Also one thing that bothered me in Genisys was the emptiness of the Genisys headquarters. No guards (expect one at the lobby, killed by the T-3000!), no guard robots, nothing. Just doors and hallways, and holograms of the "Genisys kid", who tries to stop the heroes by...talking bullshit! I mean WTF were the writers of this movie thinking? :D

In comparison in Terminator 3 we have a military base full of tank droids with dual miniguns, and flying drones with missiles. And T-X "hijacked" those droids with her nanomachine powers, causing massive chaos, and the stage was set for the final battle.

But in Genisys, we just have an empty office building with security cameras that project blue trash talking holograms all over the place! Where's all the cool stuff? I mean come on, aren't they going make any toys out of this movie? How are you going to make money? How are you going to live? :D

And yes indeed, our heroes then shoot these bullshit projector cameras as they go on, just to silence the voices! That's some action for you action fans. But also they skip a few cameras, maybe because we all know that, after all, bullshit can't kill you. :/

And to all this BS we then add timelines, a lot of unnecessary "trust issues" dialog between the protagonists, the Bad Boys song, visions, and hints of a sequel with some T-5000 in it (they planned this to be the start of a trilogy, *facepalm* ).

And who called Optimus Prime? No one. But I almost hope that someone did, because we have a truckload of horseshit right here, waiting for pickup. :D

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The only good scenes in Genisys are in the beginning of the movie. The new T-1000, for the short time that it was on the screen, is actually great. Those scenes really showed us a glimpse of how the entire movie should have been. The liquid metal T-1000 could have been "the evil terminator" that would follow the heroes throughout the entire movie...it could have easily followed them even to the future. After all, if Arnold could take the "slow route" to the future, then why not the T-1000? And do you really think that "acid trapping" the T-1000 and flushing the remains from the toilet can reliably destroy it? The T-1000 could have just gone to some park, disguise itself as a statue of modern art, and wait 30 years. :D

This way the movie would have had a real "classic terminator" adversary, while still keeping the "evil John Connor" idea intact. Most fight scenes would have been against the T-1000, and the surprise of the "evil John Connor" would not have been revealed until the end of the movie. All philosophical talk between the three heroes and John Connor, and even the Genisys AI, could have taken place at the very end, at Genisys headquarters.

This arrangement would have also allowed a longer and deeper conversation, testing the wits and the resolve of the three protagonists far more than the short "join me - F-you" style short chats that are scattered around the movie. And after this final talk, after the heroes had rejected John Connor's offers to join him, he would have been revealed as the T-3000 and the "final boss" of the movie. And at this final fight the T-3000's personality would instantly turn into the merciless killing machine that a terminator is supposed to be. It would have been like an ON-OFF switch: the nice guy suddenly shuts down and the 100% inhuman machine killer AI takes over. That would have been quite scary in fact.

By making these adjustments to the movie design, the Genisys could have been a good movie. Just put the entire "talk battle" to the end, instead of spreading it to many parts, constantly interrupting the action scenes with talking. This way the biggest problem of the movie, the "trash talking T-3000" could have been avoided.

And also I think that the "Genisys - killer app" idea was good, but unfortunately this wasn't used for anything else than to declare: "Genisys is Skynet". :/

And I'm not blaming any of the actors, I just simply can't accept the T-3000 as a Terminator. Just like a Star Wars fan wouldn't accept a Jedi that would turn into nano-clouds. Or like an Alien fan wouldn't accept an Alien that would talk bullshit all the time. Or like a Predator fan wouldn't accept a Predator that a normal human could knock out with some home-made magnetic glove.

The writers of Terminator Genisys have not understood the true nature of the Terminator.

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So in my opinion Terminator 3 : Rise of the Machines is clearly the better movie of these two. T3 has a clear structure, more action, less BS, and a real terminator as the main adversary. It's a solid installment to the series, and stands on it's own.

And if we forget that Terminator Salvation ever even existed, then this sadly means that Terminator Genisys is the weakest movie in the whole series so far. :(

The only good point here is that the "future isn't set". All these mistakes can always be corrected in future films, re-launches and re-makes...and the only explanation needed is : "this is a new timeline". So maybe the time travel element in this franchise isn't such a bad thing at all, now that I think about it. :)

 

Added by: Master484 | Date: 2016-05-11 | Comments (0)


 

Hm, let's see..."The best Terminator since T2: Judgment Day"...so this statement on the DVD box basically tells us that this is another Terminator movie, and it should be better than T3 and T4. But don't expect it to be as good as T2. But if it's not as good as T2, then that of course means that it's more like T3 and T4? And bingo. :D

So, let's analyze different elements of the movie, and think what went wrong and how things should have been.

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But before we start, let's take a quick look at the history of the Terminator movies.

The original movies were largely built around the concept of the heroes running away from a single "evil terminator". The first movies were a combination of action and "run away" style survival horror, with sci-fi elements.

In the very first Terminator movie the terminator was an unstoppable mechanical horror machine, relentlessly hunting Sarah Connor and her protector Kyle Reese; the whole movie was based around the concept of two humans trying to escape from a single model T-800 terminator.

In the sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day we met a good terminator, also a model T-800, but this time re-programmed to protect John Connor from the nearly indestructible liquid metal T-1000. But against this new foe even the T-800 had no other option than to run away, and so in T2 we had pretty much the same concept and scenario than in the first film: the heroes run away from an unstoppable killer machine. And both T1 and T2 were huge successes.

But after the second movie, well...In Terminator 3 surely the potential was there for another blockbuster film. It used the same hunter-prey concept as the previous two films. But the T-X wasn't so scary as the evil terminators in the previous films, mainly thanks to the movie design being more like an action comedy rather the dark and serious style seen in T1 and T2. And then Terminator 4 abandoned the whole hunter-prey concept and therefore many fans thought that it wasn't even a terminator movie in the real sense, just meaningless sci-fi action.

So after taking a look at the previous films, two good ones and two average ones, it should be clear that in order to make a successful Terminator movie, you have to make sure that the Terminator is something that the audience fears. This is the most important thing. Everything else is secondary. T1 and T2 succeeded in this. T3 and T4 failed.

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1. Meet the evil terminators of Genisys: T-800, T-1000 and T-3000

And so I hoped that Terminator Genisys would return to this original concept: have a scary "evil terminator" that hunts the main characters through the entire movie, and build the movie around this good old concept.

But instead we get this: first an evil T-800 basically gets destroyed in the first action scene of the movie. Then T-1000 appears, but it too is quite soon destroyed in some cheap "acid shower trap". OK.

I bet that is what we all wanted to see, right? Both T-800 and T-1000 destroyed in 5 minutes? I understand that they meant this to be a homage to the original movies...and I could accept this, but only if the new T-3000 would have turned out to be something great. Which it didn't.

So after dealing with T-800 and T-1000 our heroes make a time jump to the future, where they eventually meet the new terminator model, the T-3000.

The T-3000 is made out of nanomachines, which give it regenerative and shape shifting abilities (much like the abilities of the T-1000). Also the T-3000 looks like John Connor, and in fact is (theoretically) John Connor, because Skynet turned John into a bad guy and send him back to the past.

And this is where the movie fails: the T-3000 is a massive dissapointment. It is lame and not scary at all. In fact it doesn't feel like a terminator at all.

The main problem with the T-3000 is this: he breaks the whole "terminator concept" simply by being "too human". He smiles, yells, and shows emotions. He chats with the main characters, telling his evil plans to them like all other stupid movie villains do. He tries to negotiate a deal with Kyle and Sarah and argues with them. This is all something that a "classic terminator" would never do.

The idea to make John Connor the T-3000 was a brave move, but also it destroys the movie, because now the T-3000 had to act like a human, causing the movie to lack a classic inhuman "terminator machine" as the main adversary.

In comparison, take a look at the T-1000 in T2. It never showed any emotions and talked only when the mission required it. The T-1000 never got angry or told his plans to anyone. And in fact neither did the T-800...even the good version only spoke when necessary.

The T-3000 in Genisys is not a real terminator at all. It doesn't feel like the cold machine that we were hoping to see. It's not scary. There is no sense of danger. Every time the heroes meet the T-3000, they start a chat with it. It talks bullshit all the time, even during battle. It's like some tasteless cyborg android villain from some strange James Bond/X-Men crossover movie that was never released.

Also all the T-3000 action scenes are lame and cheap when compared to the T-1000 action scenes in the good old Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Even the car chases are shorter and less interesting. I guess that a minigun could have saved at least a few minutes of the movie, but that too is missing for some reason.

And T-3000 is made out of nanobots, but he rarely uses them in any meaningful way, except to magically re-appear after being blasted to dust by explosives. They say that the nanobot effects were painfully slow to animate, maybe that's why. And even when the nanobot special effects are used, they still fail to impress. Basically the T-3000 just changes it's form to a cloud of small dots and then changes back to solid again. What is this? Molecular man?

The old liquid metal T-1000 effects in T2 looked better, worked better (especially in the fight scenes), and above all they were used in a more imaginative way than the nanobot effects of the T-3000. In fact I wonder why didn't they just go with the liquid metal idea? Why introduce the nanobots at all? I'm sure everyone would have liked to see more of the T-1000, now that we have modern computers to calculate all those liquid metal effects? So instead of T-3000 they could have just made an advanced version of T-1000. And name it T-1200 or something.

Without any doubt the T-3000 is the worst "evil terminator" in terminator history. It's a degenerate, nanobot-transformers-terminator. And worst of all it's not scary at all. It's just like any human villain from any random movie out there, only made out of nanobots. With T-3000 the whole "killer machine" terminator concept of the original two movies has been trashed, and replaced by a generic cyborg villain, that acts like a human instead of a machine. Bad guys like this belong to superhero movies like Spiderman and Fantastic Four.

Even the T-X felt more like a real terminator. In fact, after seeing the T-3000, I think Kristanna Loken should have won an Oscar for her role as the T-X in Terminator 3: Rise of The Machines. :D

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2. Time Travel

Aside from the T-3000, the rest of the story is almost OK: We again go back to the past but things are different this time; Kyle Reese finds a different version of Sarah Connor, and in this timeline she met the good Terminator early in her childhood, and so on.

But to make things more complicated, there is also a "meet your younger self" time pardox sub-plot thing going on, and the movie tries it's best to explain all of this: "nexus points", multiple timelines, and other techno talk.

And this is the second mistake of the movie; too much focus on time travel. The whole subject of time travel is "poisonous", it's speculative and theoretical science stuff, and in an action movie like this you shouldn't focus too much on it.

In the first two Terminator films time travel was simply a way to get the "terminators" into the movie; "they are machines from the future, and were built by Skynet". And back then this simple concept worked well, the stage was set for the story of T1 and T2, and two great movies were made.

The time travel element should stay in the background. There is no need for paradoxes where someone meets an older or younger version of him/herself, or worse, gets "vision missions" and then HAS to meet an younger/older version of someone in order to say some words to them in order to manipulate the future or past. This kind of stuff happens in movies like "Back To The Future" and should stay there.

Terminator should be all about THE TERMINATOR: you fight it, you run from it, and hide from it. Time travel and science stuff have always been part of the story, but they are of secondary importance.

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Summary

So, what can I say? Movie sucks.

Why? T-3000 sucks. And almost total abscence of the traditional hunter-prey concept of the original Terminator movies.

And look at the DVD box again: it says "Genisys". But in the movie we are told many times that "Genisys is Skynet". Get it? Skynet wins. Run away and don't look back. :D

The actors are good, movie budget is massive, but the script and general design that are wrong.

This is average sci-fi action. :(

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Fun Fact:
In the ammo bunker fight scene Sarah Connor uses a grenade launcher to shoot a wall that is less than 2 meters away, and she survives the explosion unharmed.

Fun Fact 2:
After this Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor run from the exploding ammo bunker and meet Arnold in the exit tunnel. On the other end of the tunnel you can see random people and a bicyclist riding by as if nothing special is happening.

Fun Fact 3:
In the helicopter chase scene Sarah shoots at the T-3000's helicopter, scoring a direct hit to the cockpit with the grenade launcher. But the helicopter survives this and an earlier gas truck explosion without any serious damage and stays airborne. Only when Arnold jumps out and crashes into it, then it falls like a rock. :D

 

 

 

Added by: Master484 | Date: 2016-05-09 | Comments (0)

Looks like it's been some months since the last blog post...as usual I haven't had time to update this site. :)

I even forgot to add the latest free gfx set here, which I made at the end of last year.

But that has now been corrected, "Cute Platformer Sisters" has been added to the gfx section:

http://m484games.ucoz.com/index/cute_platformer_sisters/0-59

This set was put to OpenGameArt some three months ago, and it became quite popular right away, about 1000 downloads so far.

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So, what have I been doing lately?

Well, I've been converting Megaman X to the Amiga of course. :D

 

This project started after a very interesting thread appeared to the English Amiga Board:
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=80877

And so, now I'm programming the Amiga version, using the WINUAE emulator and Blitz Basic. Blitz Basic is of course the original program in the "Blitz" product family, which I have been using for many years now; BlitzPlus and Amiga Blitz Basic have very similar syntax and "program logic", and so it was easy for me to start Blitzing on the Amiga.

It's much more interesting to make stuff for a limited system, just 1MB of RAM and a 7mhz CPU mean that you actually have to plan your programs, unlike in the PC where you just "make them". And also it's more interesting because an average Amiga indie game project gets far more attention than an average PC indie game project. This is because for PC you get 100 new indie games per day, but for the Amiga it's 10 games in a year, if even that. :)

I'll make the Amiga Megaman X demo available on this website too after I have a scrolling level ready. But if you want to see some of the development versions, then check out the posts in the linked thread, the ADF files are there.

 

 

Added by: Master484 | Date: 2016-01-31 | Comments (0)

Lately, I have been thinking about the process of "new art creation", and what "inspiration" actually is.

And I have come to the conclusion that it's all about copying and remixing stuff from the "Realm of Ideas".

But in the Realm of Ideas there are no "new ideas" at all; instead it's all old stuff that gets recycled and remixed all over again. The only reason why we call something "new" is because we either haven't yet seen that particular re-mix of that particular idea, or because the idea itself is "new"; which simply means that no one hasn't "drawn it" from the Realm Of Ideas until now.

This blog post includes 3 of the most recent pixel paintings that I have made during the last few weeks, and so we might call these pictures "new art"...but if you look at them for a while, you'll soon notice that all of them are remixes of old ideas and old themes; I draw things and ideas that I have seen, or rather: I take material and elements from things that I have seen, and then remix this material using my "imagination" as a filter, and so we now have "new art".

This is true even for the "Metal Elephants of Arcturus"; it might seem quite unique and entirely a product of my own imagination...but this is so only because most people aren't aware of my sources of inspirations; I have simply mixed the following together: elephant heads in abstract form, the idea of living steel and artefact creatures, the "eye" found in egyptian hieroglyph art, and then I mixed this with a "color athmosphere" greatly influenced by a Amiga game called "Purple Saturn Day", and finally the fog and the sky techinques were inspired by a certain painting made by Frank Sauer, found in another Amiga game called "Agony".

And from all that I then "mixed" the final picture, and put my signature into it, officially making it "new art". :)

And that is how all new works of art come into reality.

Imagination is simply a "remix filter" that in itself doesn't create anything new.

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Everything that exists is a manifestation of mathematics. All forms, ideas and colors are mathematical. Objects of nature and living beings copied their forms from the Realm of Ideas...and the artists then either copy the nature (the things we see) or reach to the Realm (trying to get some new ideas, glimpses of things that we haven't seen before)...And this way art too is one of the manifestations of mathematics. The ability to create new art is actually an ability "channel" mathematical forms through the filter of our imagination; and in this process the forms and ideas are transformed into a new remix; the outcome and quality of which is dependent on the style and skill level of the artist.

And so we might say that the best artists are the ones who can first in their minds successfully remix old stuff into an idea of a "new" art piece, and who can then most accurately copy that idea from their imagination into some "real world" medium, such as a painting or a music song. If both the remixed idea is good and the copying process is well executed, then the resulting art piece will be good. But if either of stages fails, then we get either "nice idea, but poor execution" or "techincally good, but a dull idea and lack of vision"; those two classic reasons why art pieces fail.

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But what about the "Realm of Ideas" that you mentioned o our most belowed ascended Master484, how can one directly get ideas from this Realm? Teach us how to "channel". :D

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Disclaimer: Everything below this line is bullshit
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Well, here is wisdom. New ideas always enter the brain from a specific direction: from behind. The Realm of Ideas is situated behind the head, and from there we draw all new ideas into our heads. The "remixing" and processing of these new ideas then takes place in the front part of the head. This process is nothing unusual, and everyone does this, more or less, so it's not hard and doesn't require any special skills. Anyone can get "random ideas". Some can get semi-random ideas belonging to a chosen field. And the experts (using the ability either knowingly or unknowlingly) can even receive specific information of scientific quality; accurate ideas that lead into actual scientific methods and inventions in the real world ( = scientific innovation, which in itself could also be described as a process of remixing old and "new" ideas).

That is the theory of the process, but it's hard to reach any other "idea pools" than the one of this planet...so usually the things that you get aren't anything special; interesting maybe, but previous examples most likely already exist. :)

 

Added by: Master484 | Date: 2015-10-18 | Comments (0)

Yesterday, on Saturday 15.8., there was a big concert here in my hometown in Vaasa, Finland; the main artists being Alphaville and Roxette.

And because the event was held at a sports stadium located next to my house, I could basically listen the whole thing for free, including Friday practise sessions. Can't beat that. :)

The Roxette part lasted for about two hours, and they played many of their most famous songs, including "Joyride", "Dangerous" and "The Look".

And it was "The Look" that caught my attention with it's "nananana" chants, the sequences were clearly arranged in a certain way, a little bit like morse code...and so I put those nanana parts into God's Calculator, to see what would come up.

And bingo, the very first "nananana na" part resulted in values of "360" and "90"...which I instantly realized were codes for geometrical patterns: the 360 degree full circle and a 90 degree turn.

And so I went through more of it, combined the results, and came up with an interesting image:

So, what we here is a circle within a circle, and a cross that divides the circles into 4 parts, symbolizing the 4 elements. And in the middle there is a half circle, symbolizing a cup and the holy grail, and the "P" is something that grows from the cup, symbolizing the soul and the fifth element.

This image is a mandala, a meditation pattern of the holy grail...and the "Nananana chant" in the song itself is a "pop music version" of the same thing.

And as always, there is more...the lyrics of the song "The Look" ask: "What in the world can make a brown-eyed girl turn blue?"...now, when a brown-eyed girl "turns blue" she of course becomes a "blue girl". And all of these words: "the look", "blue girl" and "joyride" give the number value of 516...and so do the words "triangle", "pyramid" and "infinite"; so the brown-eyed girl turned blue, and took a joyride to the top of the pyramid. :)

And of course, more hidden things can be found in other Roxette songs, but you can discover them for yourselves. :)

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Stuff like this can be found in many songs from many various artists...and the usual explanation that the conspiracy theorists give you are that "the illuminati" put those things there...but usually that's not the case. It's just mathematics that manifests itself in this way...everything that we say or sing carry subconcious messages...and there is no way to hide these messages from "coming out" in one way or another, the truth of all things is mathematical, and mathematics is "open source", it's a subtance that can be coded and de-coded to discover new meanings.

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In other news, I have just released an expansion pack for the Mini Knight GFX set check it out:
http://m484games.ucoz.com/index/other_gfx/0-39

This pack adds better level tiles, more animations, and more enemies...all free and released into the public domain, can't beat that. :)

 

Added by: Master484 | Date: 2015-08-16 | Comments (0)

Check this out; according to all major religions this guy is going to hell:

So he has launched a crowdfunding campaign to "live it up" for whatever time he has left on Earth: http://www.gofundme.com/wxgf78r

That's a really nicely made video and well argumented: the facts are all there in the holy books, the guy is definitely doomed and will go to hell...in fact the mortal sins committed in this vid are enough to assure that: he rejected Jesus, ate wrong foods and drank alcohol. :D

So, share the video folks, to get this campaign rolling, Money for the Movement. :)

 

Added by: Master484 | Date: 2015-07-18 | Comments (0)

So, a while ago I finally managed to draw a picture that got a decent amount of faves at Pixeljoint. :D

Here it is, the famous German WW2 pocket battleship "Graf Spee" :

21 faves so far, way to go Admiral Graf Spee, you didn't sink for nothing lol.

And indeed, it's a nice pic, although I basically copied it from a photo of a painting made by Roy Huxley, that I found in an old 80's Matchbox catalog.

And after this I draw another ship, the HMS Exeter:

Used the same technique, and this one too is pretty good, although in PJ it got somewhat unluckly; quite soon after getting posted it "sank with the flood", managing to grab just 3 faves before disappearing from the page of new submissions. But of well, that happens.

Also I have made a new "WIP section" here, where I'll post "work in progress" screenshots from my works, including reference pics, if any were used:

http://m484games.ucoz.com/index/pixel_art/0-48

3 WIPs have been added so far: the two ships and the "Turbo Race" that I made last year. But for a lot of older stuff I don't even have WIP shots, so not everything will be added there.

 

 

Added by: Master484 | Date: 2015-07-11 | Comments (0)

Happy summer everyone, new stuff has been added to the graphics section again. :)

"Open Gunner Expansion pack 3" and "Mini Knight" are the new sets, the first one can of course be found in the Open Gunner section, and the second one is in the "Other" category.

Or just get them from my OGA gallery: http://opengameart.org/users/master484

 

The Open Gunner expansion pack 3 adds better forest tiles, one new mini turret enemy, a big "skeleton boss", and also boss health bars.

The "Mini Knight" on the other hand is just a quick and small sprite set that I made a while ago, it's a sort of a "little brother" of Knight of Finlandia. :)

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The Open Gunner gfx set has already become quite popular, and many people have contacted me and told they're using it in their games.

Here is a video of a recently released Android game called "Antroc" that uses the Open Gunner sprites:

The game is made by Kirworks, and you can get it from the Google Play store:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kirworks.Antroc

 

 

Added by: Master484 | Date: 2015-06-21 | Comments (0)

I have again added a new graphics set here:

http://m484games.ucoz.com/index/kof_graphics/0-47

Although I actually made that about a week ago, but as you know, all new stuff that I make I first put to OpenGameArt, where it'll be instantly available to much larger audiences, and then later the stuff gets added and announced here. :)

Also, I have updated the Open Gunner basic gfx...I upgraded the walking animations of the main hero, it now bounces up and down as a runner should, and many small issues were fixed with the legs and shading. The new version is already up both here and at OGA, definitely check it out if you're using the Open Gunner GFX set: http://opengameart.org/content/open-gunner-starter-kit

And also I recently added "OGA-BY" as a possible license to all my CC-BY 3.0 licensed works at OGA...they're actually almost the same license; OGA-BY just removes the "techincal restrictions" clause of the CC-BY 3.0 that seemed to bother some people. :)

More great stuff is on the way, so stay tuned.

And here is a great band that I found, listen:

 

Added by: Master484 | Date: 2015-06-03 | Comments (0)

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