What Is Black Skies?

I'm back!

This concept happened somewhat by accident. I was in the process of updating some old mockups. While looking at my original pitch mockups for Ducktales Remastered, I came across an old revamp of Chip & Dale on the NES back in 2014. Given that I had to isolate all the elements to apply the changes, I suddenly had workable game assets and some extra time on my hands. Things just snowballed from there.

One thing I did want to address from the original was to properly show the scale of things. The NES game was all over the place (mouse sized rhinos for example.) So making sure the big robot dogs from the first level where actually appropriately imposing was important. The game also implied you travel to locations by plane, but you never got to see it.

While the mockup is scaled for modern systems, I've composed the music and sound effects using SNES limitations to give it that old Capcom home-console flair.

This video is not endorsed or licensed by CAPCOM CO., LTD or THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY and is not a game under development. This is made only for fun.

APOGEE - A fictional survival game where you must escape the moon of a Class-V gas giant before it reaches its apogee. 

Art by @rinth444. An interpretation of 20 characters from the first four books in The Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolf. Done in the style of a 90s CRPG.

strange occurrences in games that don't exist

“Children” Famicase design by Cory Schmitz ⊟

The My Famicase Exhibition show has opened in Tokyo’s METEOR store, and though the gallery isn’t online yet, pictures from the participating artists are starting to trickle out.

Here’s one by super cool designer/Tiny Cartridge site designer Cory Schmitz. His concept:

“THE CITY IS THEIRS.” While the grown-ups are hooked up to their VR machines, the children sneak outside & The City becomes their playground. Create your character, explore the decaying mysteries of The City, & watch out for rival gangs. 1 player.

Nubuwo has a roundup of some other fictional Famicom cartridges shown off on Twitter! And, as I must always mention when talking about Famicase, we had a design in the Famicase 2011 show, made with Ashley Davis!

BUY Famicom stuff, upcoming games

Some old cancelled Saturn game

Sweet Home (Walkaround Ambiance #1) [from “Barnbellow’s Estate”] (Gonkaka)

This is something long overdue; actual music for my Barnbellow’s Estate project.

For those of you that haven’t been around long or don’t follow my exploits closely, Barnbellow’s Estate is a Clock Tower inspired project that has existed, in some form, since about 2007, though it has gone through quite a few tweaks and changes within that time frame. Like a lot of my projects, it started out as an idea for a game I was certain I’d somehow make, but once reality caught up with me a bit I rejigged it into a “fake soundtrack” Gonkaka project. Because I might not be able to make full games, but I CAN make soundtracks and write an obscene amount of flavour text!

There are two primary modes of ‘gameplay’ in Barnbellow’s Estate, were it to exists: one wherein you explore the impossibly large estate the game takes place in, solving puzzles, reading lore, and engaging with all manner of survival horror tropes; and one wherein you have to escape from the designated pursuer of whatever area of the estate your in, using the environment to your advantage (either to hide from or hinder said pursuer), or in a pinch, use Yuna’s digital camera to stun and temporarily disable them. This is a piece that would play during one of the former sections- specifically, it’s intended to be the primary walkaround music for the very first area of the game (the hysterical laughter and/or sobbing sample that I messed about with in the final section is a giveaway here, as it’s intended to tie into the game’s first pursuer; the Vengeful Mother, whom makes an appearance in and has some of her backstory expanded upon in this short story I wrote). It’s also a good demonstration of the general sound direction I wanted to take the walkaround tracks in: a sorta free-form, experimental semi ambient style with more melody driven breaks and a shot or two of some 80s-styled synth patches for cheesy horror flick fair.

This piece does have some more specific sources of inspiration, though; the use of rave stabs owes itself more to the music from G Darius than more dance-floor ready tracks, as G Darius’ score did tend to make use of orch hits and rave stabs in unsettling and sometimes dischordant ways (here’s an example track). The track’s general vibe also owes a lot to the Ancient Castle Stage music from the first Devil May Cry - the idea to use some effect-ladden and otherwise messed with samples of orchestra tune-ups and an opera singer belting out in a freeway in particular were inspired by the sudden appearance of a pleasant string melody overlaid atop the offputting ambiance (the big, bombastic organ/string section also owes itself to the Ancient Castle Stage track). The name is also a deliberate reference to the NES/Famicom horror title Sweet Home, because I don’t think I’ve made my love of that game quite clear enough yet.

Fun trivia fact: this is technically a stealth remake of an older attempt at the first-area-walkaround-track for Barnbellow’s Estate, called “Tragedy United Them”. About the only thing it borrows from the original is that organ section, though.

This song includes the following sounds from freesound.org:

orchestra warming up (BeeProductive)

underpass (Simon Gray)

Chamber Ensemble Tuning 2 (Cunningar0807)

G51-09-Woman Sobs and Laughs (Craig Smith)

Game Idea: Urban open-world survival game where you play as a suspiciously sapient possum.

It’s Fallout Meets the Secret of NIMH Meets Untitled Goose Game.

The game is set in a few square blocks of an urban environment, with a mix of survival and stealth mechanics. You have all the standard aspect of a survival game, locating food and resources, building or locating shelter, etc,  Humans, depending on who they are, are likely to be hostile and if they become too aware of you they’ll devote time and resources to hunting you and making your life difficult, destroying your nests, laying traps and the like.

Fortunately, you can see in low light, so the night is a cooly lit world brimming with hiding spots. Daytime, by contrast, is swarming with threats and it’s brightness makes navigation and difficult. 

Carefully observing humans can unlock new crafting and skill options, however, making getting near them worth the risk. Early skills fit with abilities a possum might possess, like climbing, playing dead, and opening latches and working door handles. As the game progresses, skills open up like “stand upright”, “craft weapons”, and “imitate human speech.” 

You see, you’re not learning, you’re mutating. Through the course of the game, your aberrant intelligence grows and you connect with a network of abnormally intelligent animals to discover why you are the way you are, and what that means for you and the humans whose shadows you hide in.

Features:

Explore a familiar world turned alien through the nocturnal eye of a small, screaming marsupial. 

Scavenge the leftovers of civilization without the looming bummer of a nuclear apocalypse. 

Alternate playthrough styles including Racoon, Coyote and Skunk, each with different strengths and weaknesses (Racoon has advantages with anything needing hands but is combat-averse. Coyote is good in a fight, is active during the day and is able to work around humans (mistaken for a dog) but is terrible with mobility and crafting. Skunk takes a slight hit on hand-skills but has the spray which is very effective. Draws tons of aggro from humans)

Scavenge, farm, build, steal or fight to survive. Claw your way from scavenger to renowned cryptid, become one special human’s life-changing friend, or reclaim the world in the name of nature’s forgotten. It’s your choice!  Or just wander off to enjoy the survival loops and endlessly torment the human character AI. 

Elaborate branching dialog trees but all your lines are just various hisses. This provides no impediment to understanding you.

EDIT: Cover mock-up, I couldn’t resist.

I really never post art here bc nobody ever sees it, but here are my fake y2k CD-Rom girl game rpg pieces anyway

planning to add some animation and music and make a little vid for them at some point

Nightmare Busters Prototype Tracks, by Gonkaka

13 track album

Today, 103 Records presents a special treat: the long lost soundtrack to Nincom’s first ever game, Nightmare Busters!

More well known as an arcade-style 3D action game for Zony’s original FunCentre console, the game’s true origins date back to the mid-to-late 80s; Nincom, newly founded and hungry to prove themselves, set out to make a cutting edge, horror themed title centred around two brave toys named Copper and Little Red Hood, who had to save their owners from far more malevolent playthings still bitter about being abandoned many years ago. Unfortunately, the project’s scope far outweighed what technology was able to replicate at the time; the graphics and animations were too process intensive, for one thing, and the idea to have fully unique enemies in every level proved to be a strain on the memory. Even the music was somewhat hamstrung by ambition; this was the first time the various members of what would become Nincom’s in house band and sound team, Gonkaka, had worked with the Yomeha FY5212 sound chip- or any sound chip for that matter- and it showed in both the roughness of the sound programming, as well as the fact that almost every song used entirely different soundbanks and waveforms. The collapse of the project threatened to destroy the company before it even got off the ground, but thanks to a last minute developer partnership with Gesa North, the company was able to prove their worth (and learn some valuable technical insight) by aiding with the development of their surreal, existentially horrific space shooter “Schadenbergiana”. But you all know that story, surely?

Through our continued publishing partnership and working relationship with both Nincom and Gonkaka, we are able to secure the original sound files for the unproduced arcade version of Nightmare Busters, and are happy to present them for your listening pleasure; devout old timer or fresh face newbie alike, the origins of Gonkaka’s long career are an essential listen for any fan of the band!

Forever Nightmare (Nincom Logo)

We Loved, Once (Attract Mode)

The Busters (How to Play/Continue)

The Beatthings (Stage Introduction)

Nightmares Don’t Shuffle (Copper In-Game BGM)

Nightmares Can’t Disco (Little Red Hood In-Game BGM)

Bitter Beatthings (Regular Boss Battle)

Spiteful Beatthing (Final Boss Battle)

Nightmare Beatthing (True Final Boss Battle)

Tears for the Brave (Bad Ending/Name Entry)

Sweet Dreams, Old Friends (Good Ending)

Against the Dark (Stage Clear)

Perish Greatly (Game Over)

released August 21, 2017

project directed and concept art created by Decon Theed

music composed by Shinji Namiki, Fumie Saso, Takayuki Mitsuyoshi, and Denji Koshiro

cover designed and produced by Dio Maxwelle

DOWNLOAD INCLUDES: FULL RES SCANS OF THE SKETCH AND FINAL VERSIONS OF THE COVER, AN EARLY PIECE OF NIGHTMARE BUSTERS PROMO ART, AND 12 PIECES OF NIGHTMARE BUSTERS CONCEPT ART