Otaku – Page 128 – Robot Claw

Small Things

May 23, 2011

“You’re very difficult to buy gifts for!”

Is a phrase I have heard a lot. Here’s a suggestion for everyone who thinks this, and who ever needs to buy me a gift: get me a packet of trading cards.

Because I love trading cards.

This is one of those other fascinations that goes back to the 1970s, when the first trading cards that I fell in love with came out. They were – of course – Star Wars cards and my brother and I bought as many packets as we can and both tried to form a complete collection. I don’t think we succeeded until Empire came out, but it was fun trying.

There were no chase cards in those days. These were also the pre-internet and pre-video days, so chances are you saw a movie once at the cinema and then not again until TV. Trading cards were a way to relive the movies, and study favourite scenes in more detail, especially when things happened very briefly on the screen (such as the shot of the alien in Close Encounters Of The Third Kind).

Besides, they were small, fun, and collectable. I liked opening the packs, sorting the cards, and looking through them over and over. I suppose, in a way, I still do!

If there were cards made for a sci-fi or fantasy movie, I’d buy them without hesitation. Availability was a bit of a crapshoot, because (although I never knew at the time) they were being imported from America. How they even ended up in suburban Australian ‘corner shops’ was – in retrospect – a marvel. But that they did was joy to 10 year old me.

I recall specifically trading Star Wars (ESB, ROTJ) cards at school, and quite possibly Star Trek (the movies) cards. And then there were the football cards as well, which I bought and occasionally traded for non-football cards. (Note that I never have and still don’t have any interest for ‘sports cards’, which I treat as different from trading cards as a whole.)

What happened to all my cards of yesteryear I wonder? As with many things, I don’t remember any more (aside from one set of ESB cards I still own to this day).

I got to America around the time the big comics speculation period started. Swept up with the comic madness was a growth in the marketing and sales of trading cards. In those days there were new sets released weekly into stores, and it was a bit of a renaissance for me. I particular became interested in cards featuring the work of various fantasy artists, particularly Royo, Achilleos and the TSR artists (such as Elmore and Brom). Comic Images was the company releasing the cards, and I was a good customer of theirs 🙂

I bought many cards in those days (the mid 90s), even going so far as to buy entire boxes, forming sets, and trading on the (juvenile) internet with other collectors. In this way I acquired full sets of cards from series I never bought a single pack of (most often comic-based series).

I also collected Star Trek TNG cards (we watched the series religiously in those days), even going so far as to trade – by mail – with some guy I found in the back Goldmine (of all places!) magazine.

And then came two things:
1) The speculation market busted, and with the bust came a massive decline in sales (and marketing) of trading cards
2) Trading card games began, which filled the void in the market

The dark days had begun. New card series were almost nonexistent in stores (trading card games had taken their place). One silver lining was that older packs of cards could in those days be purchased for a song. Many times I recall buying packs for $0.25 or less each from sellers at toy/comic shows on in comic shops. Even though the cards were often of second-string topics, you could often find a gem in a pack (such as the Kylie card, above).

Besides, it’s always fun opening the pack.

Trading cards would not die entirely. Some proven money-making series such as Star Wars would always seem to have sets released (Topps has just released the 6th set of the wonderful Star Wars Galaxy cards). But even though the quality of the cards has increased (along with the price!) it’s still a rare event to go into any store and see a new set worth buying.

This is not the case in Japan incidentally, where cards still seem to be quite popular. Most of the packs I have bought in the last decade have actually been purchased in Japan, where I always try and buy at least one pack from whatever set I see. This has led to a vast collection of a few cards from many different sets based on movies, games, anime and manga. The card technology in Japan is also advanced many levels beyond what the US market could support, and such things as hybrid transparent and lenticular or even holographic cards are often inserted as chase cards.

So there you go, I’ve outed myself: I love trading cards

Next time you want to buy me a gift and have no idea what to get, well you can’t go wrong with a pack of trading cards 🙂

Brave New World

May 1, 2011

That iPad MMO I tweeted about yesterday? Here’s my character, right after her creation:

Here she is fighting a crocodile:

The game reminds me a lot of vanilla WoW. It has all the trappings including guilds, grouping, crafting, auctions, quests, talent trees (I’m fire), gryphons teleporting, maps etc.

In fact one of the reasons I’m playing the hell out of it is because I wouldn’t be surprised if Blizzard shut it down due to copyright infringement 🙂

Here’s Momomo checking out the first town:

When an MMO can look, play and control this well on a phone (yes, the app is universal) – I have to believe the ‘big boys’ of the industry would be silly to not be a little concerned.

Game Dev Story

April 30, 2011

Game Dev Story is a charming iOS game that has had me hooked for the better part of the last week.

In the game you run a game company, and your goal is to succeed in the competitive world of the game industry. You choose which games to make (style and genre) and which system to make them for and then release them and hope they succeed! With success comes money and the opportunity to hire more and better staff. Eventually you’ll be upgrading your offices, making sequels to hit games, winning industry awards and even releasing your own console.

The above shows the first console I developed, the strikingly named Satan Engine. This was 17 years into the game, and in real-world-equivalent times this 64-bit Blu-ray drive monster was going up against 16 bit offerings from ‘Senya’ and ‘Intendro’. Obviously I wiped the carpet with them, quickly gaining 26% of the market. (The slightly blurred graphics are because I am playing an iPhone game at double-size on the iPad)

This was helped of course by my launch game:

Since Acrosatan X I have released a few other games, including a ‘music’ style game in the genre ‘cuties’ (called Pantsu Dreaming) that scored 40/40!

Even so, it was the long awaited sequel to Beating Jesus (BS: I expect a comment on this) that would be my first Game Of The Year. I guess those F1 Driving fans are more numerous than I thought?

The game is very cute and light-hearted, and one nice element is that there are certain… unusual staff members that can periodically be available for hire. The best is this guy:

Yep, Grizzly Bearington the legendary bear-producer. At his job interview, he said he had left the woods in search of honey! He’s perhaps not the most skilled employee I have, but he certainly brightens the office with his presence:

I’ve sunk many hours into Game Dev Story, and considering it was only $1.99 (on sale from $3.99) it’s well, well worth the price. There are few enough Japanese developed games on the US App Store, but considering the quality of this one (and the Cave shooters) I can only hope we’ll see more in the future.