Anime Festival by Dark Amari 24 Jul 2023 2:31 AM (last year)
“Hey ,have you heard, there’s an anime festival in town!!”
I look up from my chemistry notes. Miranda, Viola and I were in my room “studying.”
Miranda was really just messing around on her laptop and Viola was lying on the floor with her math book over her face moaning.
“Sounds fun, we should go.” I say even though I don’t fully understand what an “anime festival” is.
“Anything would be better than math,” Viola groans from the floor. “How are we supposed to under stand ANY of this mess!!”
Miranda looks down at what Viola was talking about.
“That’s only dividing fractions! It actually quite simple-“
“DON’T,” Viola says. “It is my firm belief that after a certain point math gets soooo hard that people go insane trying to wrap their heads around it and that’s why they can understand it and not the rest of us!”
I laugh, that’s Viola for you! Miranda shakes her head and opens her mouth to retort.
“Hey, why don’t we go to that anime festival tomorrow afternoon?” I say, trying to avoid a argument about math!
Miranda looks at me, “yes! I’ll bring the cosplays!” Miranda says, pumping a fist into the air.
“Then its settled,” Viola says, sitting up and grabbing her math book. “We’ll meet right after school.”
I smile, it would be nice to get a break from saving the world.
The next day…
I spot Miranda and Viola right outside out school. I wave them over.
“You guy’s ready?” I say. They both nod. I notice Miranda has a big bag over on shoulder, she sees me looking.
“Just wait til you see what costumes I got us!” She says with a mischievous smile.
“Then come on lets get changed!” Viola says as she grabs us both and pulls us to my apartment.
I smiled.
As we walk through the anime festival, I fan myself as I wish that Miranda had got us lighter costumes.
We are dressed up as the MCs of Protectors of the Forest (an anime about magical girls who protect endangered animals), I am Kinkajou, Miranda is Siberian Tiger, and Viola is Polar Bear.
I have to admit the festival is pretty cool, their carnival game are themed to include anime characters and references. There are treat stand featuring all sorts of treats from every anime I have ever heard about.
We stopped and got bingshas from a cart as we made our way to the center of the festival.
Miranda really wants to compete in THE ULTIMATE SUPREME ANIME QUIZ OF ALL TIME EVER.
“There it is!” Miranda squeals as we see the platform, Miranda goes to sign up an Viola and I go and find seats in the crowd.
The competition is so thrilling and Miranda cruises through it easy-peasy. You have to admire how she can remember all the members of Club 31 and their numbers!
It’s the final round and Miranda is up against a girl dressed up as Deforestation (the villain from Protectors of the Forest)
The final question is “in what episode does it first mention that Siberian Tiger’s favorite food is fried chicken?”
There’s a mad dash for the buzzer, Deforestation gets it first . “Episode twenty three!” she calls out.
Everyone in the audience holds their breath…
“That is… wrong! Miranda now gets the chance to steal!!!”
She hits her buzzer. “Trick question – Siberian tigers favorite food is omurice, and she’s a vegetarian, hah!”
“Correct!! Miranda wins!!”
We cheer as Miranda gets handed the collectors edition copy of Werewolf Shape Shifting Girl
She’s smiles at me and I smile back.
___________________________________________________________________
We walk around enjoying the rest of the Festival, Viola insist on trying to win one of those scam basketball games called “So They Do It In Animes.”
“You do realize those are made to make you fail,” Miranda says.
“Oh come on I’ve been playing basket ball since I was three!” Viola says as she steps up to play. She sinks it easily.
“Yes!” She does a victory dance as the administrator gives her a plushie of a boy from a mega basketball anime.
We walk through the rest of the festival laughing and talking.
The sun is setting so we grab some caramel popcorn (how caramel popcorn applies to animes baffles me) and we walk back to my apartment. We’re having a sleepover after the festival.
As the others get changed, I look out my window, reliving the last few hours I had spent with my friends, the lights of the festival with the sun setting behind it is so beautiful.
I smile.
Magical Girls and Prejudice by DarthAeris 24 Jul 2023 2:27 AM (last year)
A blue swirling portal opened up in the middle of Meryton. It was a magnificent portal. Filled with light, swirling colors, and lots of sparklies. Out came four teenage girls…
“Okay. I think this is where I got the distress call from.” I say looking around. There’s a large house behind us, and a couple houses further away, but theres no people in sight.
“Imogen, what Shakespeare play is this?” Paulina asks. “It looks too tranquil to be Shakespeare.”
“I don’t think it is Shakespeare.” I say. “The distress call mentioned something about Jane Austin and a proposal.”
“We must be in Pride and Prejudice.” Rosalind says with a self satisfied smile. “The proposal in pride and Prejudice is infamous. This could be Longbourn, where Elizabeth lives.”
“Wow. That’s a weird name.” Miranda says. “Long-born?”
“Yes. You’ve got it right.” Rosalind says. “Have any of you read pride and Prejudice?”
“Well, I started it. But with all the magical girl stuff I never finished it.” I say.
“Imogen…” Rosalind says shaking her head.
“I read it, but didn’t understand most of it.” Pauline admits.
“I can’t stand books with no pictures that have more then two hundred pages.” Miranda says.
“There are manga versions.” Rosalind says.
“Oooh! Manga!” Miranda says. “Wait, are they still hard to understand?”
“I don’t know. The original book is so good I never bothered with the manga.” Rosalind says. “Anyway, why are we here?”
“Well, apparently Mr Darcy’s proposal was ruined, and we need to help.” I say, specifically holding some things back.
“It was ruined by Mr Darcy’s own stupidity.” Rosalind says.
“They’ll get back together eventually. But what do we need to help with?” Paulina asks.
“Well…” I start with a smile. “In the book, I bet it wasn’t ruined by giant robots with laser blasters.”
“I do not think it was.” Paulina says.
“If it was I’d read the book!” Miranda says. “Well… Manga.”
“Wait, if the proposal was ruined by giant robots then we’re in the wrong place.” Rosalind says. “He proposed while they were in Kent. Not in Longbourn.”
“Oh. I, uh, didn’t know where to go exactly. Never finished the book.” I say, sort of embarrassed. “I set the magic portal thingy to default.”
“It’ll be a long walk.” Rosalind warns.
“I bet there are some horse carriages around here.” Paulina says. “We could use those.”
“And there are not seven of us, so it should go well.” I say.
We laugh and then look around for horses.
“It looks like everyone must’ve left after the robot invasion.” I say. “And they used their horse carriages.”
“That’s A bummer!” Miranda says.
“I guess… We might as well start walking.” Paulina says. She is very cleared upset and kinda scared.
“Can you just open another portal?” Rosalind asks. “You know where to go now.”
“I don’t think so.” I say. “I mean, I’ve never tried before. Maybe…”
A giant robot drops down in front of us. It starts shooting lasers and has a sword for an arm!
“Quick! Stratford upon Avon high drama club, transform!”
We all transform in a flash of sparkles!
Now we aren’t just the Stratford upon Avon drama club. We’re Magical girls! And we have new names too!
“You’ve already lost! I’m Ingenue Emerald!” Rosalind says.
“Its time to see what I can do! I’m Ingenue Aquamarine!” Paulina says.
“I’m Ingenue Citrine. In the name of the… Cosmos I’ll punish you.” Miranda giggles after saying it like she always does.
“And I’m Ingenue Garnet, and we are the Stratford upo… Ahhhh!” The robot fills the air with red lasers. We all jump out of the way.
“I guess robots don’t care about our introductions.” Paulina says, she uses her sceptre to throw ice at the robot. It makes a small dent, but the attack it manages to slow it down.
“How rude!” Miranda says. “In anime, the villains always wait through the introductions.”
“We’ll we aren’t in anime. We’re in modern classic literature!” Rosalind shoots fire at robot. The robot uses its blade arm to shield itself. The fire bends the blade. Then the mech knocks Rosalind into a stable.
“Rosalind!” Paulina calls. “Are you okay!” Miranda runs to Rosalind and uses some healing magic.
The robot turns on me. I manage to dodge. I try using balancing act on it but it does nothing. The people who managed to do the most damage on the mesh were Paulina and Rosalind, so…
“Paulina! Rosalind! You have to unite!” I say.
“We’ll try it!” Rosalind calls.
Rosalind and Paulina both sync their powers.
“Unite!”
Ice envelops the giant robot. The ice dramatically shatters and the robot falls to the ground.
“Did that do it?” I hesitantly ask.
“I’m not sure.” Paulina says. “Everyone stay away until we make sure…”
“Cool!” Miranda runs over to the robot. “Its just like an anime robot!”
“Be careful!” Paulina yells. “We don’t know if it’s safe!”
“If anime has taught me anything,” Miranda says climbing inside of the robot. “Then you flick this switch, and turn this knob, and if you move these two levers, it’ll…”
The robot springs up.
“Cool!” Miranda begins walking around in the giant robot mech.
“That is cool!” I say. “Miranda, pick us all up. Then we won’t have to walk to Kent!’
“I got it!” Miranda lowers an arm Rosalind and I climb on. Paulina is a little hesitant.
“Uh, I get car sick easily.” Paulina says. “Do you think this’ll be stable.”
“It totally isn’t!” Miranda says. “But if anime characters can hold onto the shoulders of giant mechanics while the maths are running, why can’t you!”
I quickly climb up to the shoulder and find a grip. Miranda is gonna start trying out the mech’s capabilities, and I don’t want to fall off.
Rosalind claims the other shoulder. Paulina stands on my shoulder. She braces herself with one arm and I hold her hand.
“Don’t worry. I’m sure Miranda won’t try to kill u…” But before I can finish, Miranda makes the robot take off.
…
“I think I’m gonna be sick.” Paulina says when we finally get to climb down off the robot.
“I’m keeping the robot!” Miranda says. “This is so cool! I can do this to fire lasers and this to wave my sword arm!”
A swarm of lasers comes flying at us. I duck. Paulina puts up a shield, deflecting them.
“Be careful!” Rosalind says. “We don’t want to cause any unnecessary issues.”
“Yeah, yeah. Got it!”
The streets are covered in evil robots. The robots are destroying everything they can. People are running around and screaming.
“Come on! We have to fight the boss robot before its too late!” I say. “Stratford upon Avon high school theater club, lets go!”
We run down the streets, fighting robots and saving people. The sword arms really aren’t that hard to dodge or block, but the lasers and beams really get you. They can shoot so many at once that it gets hard to dodge A full swarm. But Miranda’s mech helps with that. The mech are immune to lasers so she can cover for us.
“So, the plan.” I say. “Defeat the boss robot. Wherever it is.”
“And then we have to make sure Mr Darcy properly badly proposes to Elizabeth.” Rosalind says. “Without it, the whole story is ruined!”
“Uh, right. Properly, propose, badly.” I say.
There’s A loud thud right behind us. I whirl around. Theres a giant robot.
“Could that be the boss robot?” I ask.
“Possibly.” Rosalind says.
“Stay focused everyone.”
“Do we have to introduce ourselves again?” Miranda says.
“No. I don’t think so. Come on, lets go..”
The robot opens up, revealing A young woman.
“I’m not here for a fight.” She says. “I believe I heard you utter my name.”
Elizabeth!
The spunky heroine of Pride and prejudice. Of course she’d be the one to pilot a mech.
“Uh, yeah! We did!” I say.
“How knowest thou my name?”
“We’re here to fight the robots.” I say.
“We’re all knowing!” Miranda adds.
“Elizabeth, you’ve been here since the invasion. Did you notice a robot bigger then the others, with some more attacks?”
“I believe one matched your description, over near the parsonage.” Elizabeth says.
“Uh…” I say, I lean over to Rosalind. “Do you know what a parsonage is?”
“It’s A house, for a member of the clergy.” Rosalind says.
“Can you give us a general direction.” I ask Elizabeth.
“I’ll gladly show you.” Elizabeth says. “I’d like to know more about what has been occurring.”
“Well, there are, like, robots.” Miranda says.
Elizabeth runs off. Miranda manages to keep up in her mech, the rest of us have to run to keep up.
We arrive at the house panting. Miranda is kinda explaining things to Elizabeth and talking a lot about stuff that has no relevance whatsoever.
“Wow. I need a break.” I pant.
“We still have to fight the boss.” Paulina reminds.
A giant robot flies over and lands. It has six arms, A laser canon, A flamethrower, A sword, A claw, A circular saw, and a chainsaw
“Wow. That robot is decked out!” Miranda says. “Just like this other robot I saw, in…”
“It doesn’t matter.” Rosalind says, not meanly, but firmly.
“Initiating extermination mode.” The boss robot says. “Destroy all moving targets! Destroy! Destroy! Destroy!”
The flame thrower spouts fire at us and the chainsaw roars to life! We jump away. Paulina manages to temporarily plug the flamethrower with ice.
“I got the chain saw!” Miranda says. She runs over in her mesh and tries to fight it using her blade arm. The chainsaw cuts the blade in half.
“No fair!” Miranda complains, but she has to move quickly before the chain saw cuts uo the rest of her mech.
The ice in the flame thrower melts, and all the fire bursts out.
Rosalind plugs it, but this time she uses rocks. The pressure builds up and the flamethrower explodes!
“Alright!” I say. “My turn!” I use balancing act at the chainsaw. When I aim at the blade it does nothing, and the attack diminishes in a flash of light. Next time, I aim at the gears. The darkness swirls around the gears, theres a horrible noise and the chain saw stops moving.
Elizabeth is using her mech’s blade to fight with the boss robot’s blade. While that’s going on, Paulina freezes around the claw, completely stopping it from moving. Elizabeth manages to slice the boss robot’s blade clean off.
Two arms left.
The laser cannon and the Circular saw.
Two arms, four girls. That means two unites.
“Alright Paulina!” I yell. “Lets unite!”
“I got it!” Paulina says.
We syn uo our powers, and then…
“Unite!”
Our attack completely dismantles the circular saw. And Miranda and Rosalind’s take out the laser cannon.
Elizabeth smashes what remains of the boss robot.
“Initiating all units self destruct.” The boss robot says. “10, 9, 8.”
“Wait! What!” Miranda freaks out. Elizabeth climbs out of her robot without mobbing phased much.
“7, 6, 5, 4.”
“Ahhhh!” Miranda topples out of her mech and bolts over to us.
“3, 2, 1.”
All robots disappear in a puff of smoke.
Miranda breaths heavily.
“Wow! That was panicking!” Miranda says.
“Miss Bennet!” A young man runs over to us. He must be Mr Darcy. “You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”
“No! I do remember previously when you uttered those words, strange machines attacked!” Elizabeth says. “I’m leaving for Longbourn. Good day!”
She runs away. Mr Darcy hesitates before going after her.
“Uh, was that how it happened in the book?” I ask Rosalind.
“Umm, no. But I guess its as good as we’re getting.” Rosalind says. “With any luck they’ll start talking about Jane, and Mr Darcy will still write the letter.”
“So, I guess that’s as good as we’re getting for now.” Paulina says.
“Lets go home.” Miranda says. “I actually wanna read pride and prejudice now!’
Rosalind looks confused. “Really?”
…
I walk over to Miranda after school. She has a book out.
“What are you reading?” I ask.
“Pride and prejudice.” Miranda says.
“Really?” Rosalind asks walking over. “Pride and prejudice is a lot thicker then that.”
“I know.” Miranda says. “This is the abridged abridged manga abridged version.”
I can’t help but laugh. Who knew something like that existed?
This Way Madness Lies 6 Apr 2023 3:31 AM (2 years ago)
Let us begin our tale, in the quiet city of Verona, Italy. A town for lovers… and giant, mutant flower attacks.
As the leader of the Stratford-Upon-Avon High Drama Society, Imogen is no ordinary girl! Sure, she goes to school every day and helps produce plays for the community, but beyond that, she’s a magical girl! With her powers, she can teleport to alternate dimensions based on Shakespeare plays, fight back the forces of Nightmare, and still get back in time for dinner!
Join Imogen, Paulina, Viola, Rosalind, Miranda, Beatrice, and Kate on an epic adventure throughout the Shakespearean metaverse in this comedy JRPG!
• Unique, turn-based combat!
• Hang out with your friends!
• Put on plays!
• Shakespearean dialogue too difficult to parse? No problem with our unique Ye Olde English to New English translator! 110% accurate!
• Multi-character unite abilities!
• Teaches you while you learn!
• Get a pet!
• Pacing that doesn’t waste your time!
• Fun for the whole family!
We believe that world needs more bite-size turn-based JRPGs – short, self-contained games that you can enjoy over a weekend or a few play sessions when you want a change of pace from big epics. Something that’s all killer, no filler. We estimate that a single playthrough of This Way Madness Lies will take around 5-10 hours, depending on difficulty & playstyle, and we hope that you will enjoy every minute!
Get This Way Madness Lies on Steam!
Cthulhu Saves Christmas 29 Jul 2019 7:41 AM (5 years ago)
Cthulhu Saves Christmas
Santa Claus has been kidnapped by the League of Christmas Evil and only Cthulhu can save him! Join Belsnickel, the Snow Maiden, and Baba Yaga-chan as Cthulhu Saves Christmas! From the creators of Cosmic Star Heroine & Cthulhu Saves the World!
Fight the Krampus, Mari Lwyd, and other Christmas League of Evil villains in unique, turn-based combat!
Insanify your enemies!
Build your R’lyehtionship levels with friends and foes in the life sim segments!
Tentacles!
Fun for the whole family!
Trailer and details coming soon.
????? 3 Jul 2019 10:38 AM (5 years ago)
The reunion at hand may bring joy, it may bring insanity, but let us embrace whatever it brings…
…for HE is coming back.
Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.
Cosmic Star Heroine is out! 10 May 2017 8:38 AM (7 years ago)
Cosmic Star Heroine is out!
Steam!
PS4!
Humble Store!
Cosmic Star Heroine preorders up on Humble Store 16 Jun 2016 1:32 PM (8 years ago)
Cosmic Star Heroine is now available for preorder on Humble Store. DRM-free + Steam activation. 20% off for preorders. Spread the word!
Cosmic Star Heroine E3 2016 Trailer! 2 Jun 2016 2:26 PM (8 years ago)
Here’s the E3 2016 trailer for Cosmic Star Heroine! Enjoy!
Rhomu World map pic! Vita RAM! 18 Sep 2015 12:21 PM (9 years ago)
Short but sweet update time!
Here’s a teaser pic from the second world in the game, Planet Rhomu!
One more world map to go!
Unity for Vita just recently had an update that gives devs the option of freeing up more RAM by disabling certain multitasking apps. So you get a lot more RAM but you can’t run the web browser while the game is running. Anyway, we tried this option and got the game to run on the Vita’s default RAM setting (as opposed to the devkit setting which has extra RAM)! We still have a handful of optimization areas on our schedule that we’re going to do before we’re done to ensure it stays under that RAM limit for the entire game & runs as smoothly as possible but we’re very excited about this milestone!
Back to work!
Planet Araenu World Map, Over 200 Maps, Character Themes, Spy Base, and More! 14 Sep 2015 1:46 PM (9 years ago)
Time for another update!
Here are some pics of one of the three main world maps in the game – the Planet Araenu. Note, there’s no combat on any of the world maps.
We hit a major milestone recently – we have created over 200 maps for Cosmic Star Heroine! To be precise, we’re up to 203. This is just over twice as many maps as Cthulhu Saves the World had & almost twice as many as our biggest game to date had (Penny Arcade 4 with 113). And of course, the maps in Cosmic Star Heroine are generally larger & higher quality than the maps in our previous games. From the look of things, final map count in Cosmic Star Heroine will be between 210-220. We still have more stuff to finish after the maps are created, but we’re quickly running out of things left to do which is a great feeling!
Oh and in case you didn’t know, a map is an area that can be explored without leaving the screen. Most of our maps are 1024×1024 pixels in size, with most of the smaller maps being 512×512 (used mostly for small building interiors). The demo we shared at PSX, E3, and PAX and that can be viewed online had a total of 9 maps in it, although you only see a small part of one of the maps (the demo ends before you really have a chance to do anything on the final map).
We haven’t shared any of the character musical themes yet (although you can hear parts of Alyssa’s theme in the original Cosmic Star Heroine teaser music) so we thought it was time to fix that. Here are 3 song teasers – Z’xorv, Psybe, and Sue’s character themes!
In the original Kickstarter pitch, we talked about having your own spy headquarters. Now that the game is nearing completion, let’s talk about how that works.
Originally, your headquarters were going to be just a large building, but given the planet hopping nature of the game, we decided to kill two birds with one stone and have your base double as your own spaceship so you didn’t have to constantly be traveling back to any one location. Your base has 3 main floors & 2 smaller floors and as you recruit more people to your base, you unlock new rooms. We’re looking at around 20-25 different recruits (a few of which automatically join) – all of which can be equipped as your support teammate to give the entire party a bonus like higher stats, improved healing, more credits earned from combat, bonus turns, and more. Recruits also may give bonuses in your base itself like being able to buy high-end equipment or even being able to fly away from the final “point of no return” dungeon to go finish up any last minute business you may have.
Your base also has a dining hall. Periodically, you’ll be able to dine with your allies and chat with them – if you’ve played the Grandia games, it’ll be similar to the dinner scenes there.
In other news, we’ve got the Vita version up to a decent performance level. We’re still working on optimizing the code to make it run even better, although right now, our focus there is on lowering RAM use so it’ll run on actual Vita hardware (as opposed to just the dev kit which has some extra RAM). We’re making good progress there and hope to have Vita RAM use and performance in an awesome state by the end of the month.
That’s it for this update! Thanks again for your patience – the game is really starting to come together now and we’re really excited about how good it’s going to be when it’s done!