Archive for the ‘Otaku’ Category

Thanks Mr Dever

Thursday, December 1st, 2016

Most of you probably haven’t heard of Joe Dever, even though he was an author of over 50 books that sold more than 10 million copies combined in many languages. As the owner of more than 50 of his books (in several imprints), it was sad to hear that he passed away the other day at the age of 60.

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Starting in 1984 Joe Dever was the creator and sole author of the Lone Wolf series of gamebooks that continued for 29 installments and spun off into other gamebook series, novels, computer games, audio books, role-playing games and even a phone-based adventure game. It’s still going strong (more or less) with iOS games, reprints of the books and even a new installment which was released a few months ago. Lone Wolf was every bit as important as the Fighting Fantasy series, and is as much-loved today by it’s legions of fans.

As a 12-year old already caught up in gamebook mania via the Fighting Fantasy series, I ate up the Lone Wolf books when they were first released. Unlike the FF books, they were all set in the same world and told a continuing narrative where you played the same character through each book. You could even use your old character sheet, which was remarkable in those days! The world of Lone Wolf, inhabited by the jedi-like Kai Lords (and more powerful Magnakai) and the evil Daaklords was exotic and dangerous and fascinating and illustrated by the wonderful art of Gary Chalk.

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In those days I had no way of knowing when (or if!) a new book in the series would ever come out so it was a real treat when I went to the bookstore and found the latest one. I must have played through at least ten in the series before I grew out of them (as a youth at least). As an adult, when I fell back into gamebooks about a decade ago, it wasn’t long before I’d acquired most of the low-number Lone Wolf books. My collection grew to include a mishmash of USA, UK and Australian imprints and would soon expand to include Dever’s other gamebooks (Combat Command, Grey Star and the Mad-Max Freeway Warrior) as well as Long Wolf novels and the (long sought-after by myself) The Magnamund Companion Lone Wolf Atlas. All of these are now important parts of my collection.

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And yet to this day even in my expansive and encyclopedic gamebook collection there are a few books that remain elusive. And many of them are from the Lone Wolf series. I have books 1 through 20 (in some cases, multiple versions of each) and then book 25. This leaves 9 books out there to be one day found, with evocative titles like The Hunger Of Sejanoz and Vampirium. These books had small print runs, are quite rare, and very expensive (hundreds of dollars for some). One day I may own them.

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I’ve read every Dever book I own and enjoyed them all. The gamebooks in particular are among the best written, and the quality of the Lone Wolf novels was a great surprise (since my expectations were influenced by the for-kids FF novels). The Lone Wolf books though are the keystones of his legacy, and I’m just one of millions that have enjoyed them now for over thirty years. Apparently Mr Dever was still writing new installments up until he fell ill. Even though those books will never be read, I believe the many works he left behind will keep readers entertained for many years to come.

My Collection: Wonderswan

Thursday, November 17th, 2016

In 1999, Bandai – no doubt tempted by the oodles of cash Nintendo were raking in via their Gameboy – released their own handheld system called the Wonderswan. It was notably designed by legendary hardware engineer Gunpei Yokoi (who created the Gameboy and many other Nintendo products) and was less expensive, more powerful and had longer battery life than the Gameboy. Bandai leveraged their contacts within the anime industry to deliver a wealth of licensed games unique to the system. It was quite a success in Japan in the first couple of years, obtaining almost 10% of the portable market. Then along came the Gameboy Advance, which killed the Wonderswan almost immediately, and despite two updates in as many years, the Wonderswan was discontinued in 2003. It was never released outside of Japan.

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I bought mine in Japan in 2004 for Y3600, or about $31. This was the final iteration of the system, called the SwanCrystal. It boasted better battery life and a colour screen compared to the original version, but is reverse compatible with all Wonderswan games. Mine came with two games and I bought 7 more at a total cost of an additional $45 (approximately). Here are the games I bought that day:

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I bought it in Akihabara, on the first or second day of the trip at a branch of ‘Super Potato’ if memory serves me correctly. Of the games shown above, only Final Fantasy IV (Y1900) and Front Mission (Y1800) cost much at all – Densha de Go! was an incredible Y80 (about $0.70)!

I still have fond memories of playing the system in the inn at night during that very trip to Japan. In those days, this was extremely advanced handheld technology.

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The system uses a single AA battery and has a (non backlit) 224×144 resolution colour LCD screen. It’s very reflective, which made taking photographs difficult. As you can see the cartridge-to-system ratio is enormous, and the cartridges for the WS are not just big compared to itself, but amongst the biggest handheld system cartridges I’ve ever seen. The pool game (Sidepocket) was made before the colour version came out and is B&W only. Here’s a shot of the graphics:

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The Wonderswan feels more like a toy than it’s competitors, but delivers in the gameplay department. The screen refresh is much better than it was on the gameboy, and the graphics and sound are still impressive today. I forget the battery life but it was surprisingly long for a single AA, and I very much enjoyed playing the FF games on this system long before ports came out for the Gameboy Advance. As you can see, it took me over 28 hours to reach the end of Final Fantasy IV:

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The game is of course all in Japanese (as would be virtually every game for the system) but I had played it multiple times before so that didn’t bother me. Here’s a photo of the fight against Bahamut:

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Note the unusual controls of the system, specifically the two d-pads on the left. This was so the games could be played either vertically or horizontally, or even by two people at once. No game I have supports vertical (or 2P) mode so I don’t know what it’s like, but the small size of the system would make holding it vertically uncomfortable for an adult.

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As with most retro game systems, and despite being at best a footnote and at worst unknown, the WS seems to be appreciating in value these days. A boxed SwanCrystal can be picked up for about $80+ on ebay, although apparently mine is one of the less common colours (‘blue violet’) and may cost twice that. Games range in price from a few dollars up to over $1000. And yes, that’s no mistype: go and search ebay for ‘Judgement Silversword’ to see what I mean. I just checked ebay for the ‘value’ of my games and found most of the WS Colour ones to be going for about $20-30 each (boxed).

However to me my most prized game is actually this one:

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It’s an adventure-type game based on the Uzumaki manga by Junjo Ito. It’s B&W since it was for the basic WS, and virtually unplayable for me due to the language barrier, but I’m a big fan of the manga so I couldn’t resist buying the game ‘for the collection’ when I saw it a few years after I’d bought the WS during a later Japanese trip. Here’s a screenshot:

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This game was also the reason for the one-and-only Wikipedia edit I ever made. But that’s another blog entry…

Air Powered

Sunday, November 6th, 2016

It was time to assemble the Lego kit I’d gotten for my birthday. It’s a Mercedes Benz ‘Arocs’ truck with a pneumatic crane. Even by technic standards this is a complex kit. The manual alone is over 400 pages!

The kit is made in five broad parts: the chassis with gears, the pneumatic crane, the cab and the bed. The gearing mechanism is dazzlingly complex and requires careful assembly.

It’s also quite large. Here is the complete chassis (sans wheels) shown next to a rather large house at for scale:

The pneumatic system is even more complicated, and we’re not trivial to assemble! Many times I thought I’d attached the wrong hose to the wrong nozzle, or feared that once I’d finished it wouldn’t work and I’d have to take it apart. For this kit, that’d be a nightmare!

This is a real pneumatic system, which means the kit includes an electric pump that pushes air through these tubes to power pistons. It’s amazing just how much functionality they’ve worked in (four pistons and dozens of tubes) and how the kit is designed to fit all this in the crane itself. Here’s the truck 75% finished, only needing the cosmetic parts added (the cab and bed). Until this point, I’d been working for maybe 6 or 7 hours.

The remaining sections were easy by comparison, but that’s not to say they were simple. The mechanism to tilt the can forward was particularly nice. Here’s the finished kit in ‘road ready’ mode:

And here it is with the supports out, bed up and crane functioning:

All the functions you see above are controlled by the motor and switching system (via the astonishing gearing). I was very relieved it all worked first go πŸ™‚

It’s a beautiful, massive, complex (and yes expensive) kit and was enormously fun to put together. Highly recommended πŸ™‚

Con Haul

Monday, October 31st, 2016

I’m shamelessly borrowing a post format from AW here; everything I purchased at the local comic con I attended yesterday. I arrived with $106.50 on me, and left with nothing! Here’s the swag…

A pack of Voltron tattoos from 1984. The guy that sold them to me (from a mostly full box) seemed surprised when I said I’d use them. ($2)

Three packs of trading cards. As should be obvious by now, I can’t pass up non-sports cards. At $1/pack these were a bit pricey though. ($3)

A stuffed stegosaurus. I bought this for KLS from the girl who made it. This is actually the second one I’ve bought over the years, although this one is cuter and fatter! ($7)

A Japanese money box ‘sound bank’. I haven’t opened it yet. I think it’s a tiny bank that plays a sound effect from Super Mario Bros. when you put coins in. ($5)

Loads of comics. The average cost was just under $0.50 each. I tend to gravitate to non superhero stuff pre 1990 if possible. That’s the first eleven issues of Indy! ($14.50 in total)

An Avalon Hill fantasy board game from 1979. Yes it’s complete, and yes it will be played. The rules seem delightfully complex! ($10)

A fat Rilakkuma thing. I overpaid for this, but it was my white whale in a UFO catcher in CA early this year. Plus it’s cute! ($40)

Dungeons & Dragons lite-brite set (from 1983). Yes it’s unopened and yes it will remain that way! How could I have passed up such a curiosity! ($15)

Not a bad load of loot is it? For those keeping tabs this totals to only $96.50. What about the other $10 you ask? That was the admission fee.

After a string of disappointing years the con roared back this year and impressed me to no end. Next time I’ll be sure to have more cash with me πŸ™‚

Rogue Friday

Friday, September 30th, 2016

Today was ‘Rogue Friday‘, which is the day that merchandise for the new upcoming Star Wars film Rogue One hit stores. Obviously I had to go and check things out.

Apparently Toys’R’Us opened at midnight! Of the five stores I went to, they were the most disappointing so I suspect anyone that did arrive at midnight may have regretted it…

Target seems to have made a bigger deal out of it, with signs on the doors, this display just inside the entrance and…

…a whopping big (cardboard) AT-AT towering over the toy aisle endcap! They had the most new stuff by far, with all sorts of toys, costumes, models and Lego kits.

I don’t know much at all about the film, having only seen the trailers. It’s my intention – as I did The Force Awakens – to go into it as spoiler free as possible. Even so, these toys give a little glimpse at what’s to come πŸ™‚

That’s the Walmart display, or at least some of it since they were still setting up! Happily I found the new Rogue One trading cards there, which made me a happy nerd πŸ™‚

My last stop was probably the best, and that was (surprisingly!) the Disney Store. They had oodles of exclusive stuff including some very nice diecast figures. I bought the hell out of this one:

No I don’t know this character, who appears to be an R2 unit but is called C2-B5. He looks like a baddie with his dark paint, but then almost everyone does in this film. My guess he’s a lovable rogue of a droid πŸ™‚

So it was a pretty good day of Star Wars toy shopping; certainly better than I had expected. In addition to C2-B5 I bought a couple of figures, a bunch of trading cards, some kitchenware (!) and a few other things that may end up as gifts.

Now the hype can really start for the film!