and all I did was make this silly picture for her.



BUT WAIT, THAT'S NOT ALL. There's also this thing made for Stella and Mikey, because those guys are pretty cool cats and stuff.



Good lord, I am terrible at updating this thing, but with time constraints and other excuses I lack motivation to come up with, it's hard to get on it. Doop doop, going to try to change that soon. Possibly.

Since it's not only been a while since I've posted a blog here, but also that there is a particular event occurring by this week's end, I figured now would be a good time to write something that I've thought hard about over this past weekend.

Ashley, Anthony, thank you so much for everything you have done for me.

Ashley, since the day I posted that first art piece on my blog for the first time, your comment (and the fact that the same picture is still in your sidebar no less) as well as every other Dtoider who responded helped give me the inspiration I needed to help me pursue my interest in drawing. I have had several ups and quite a few downs this past year, but I still kept going, continuously finding ways to improve on what I did (and do now). Your kind words in a few of my past blogs were motivation enough to keep me going and still do. I can't give you enough appreciation for this.

Anthony, from the first video I ever saw you in, I thought you were a pretty cynical bastard (and I'm not going to lie, I still kind of do). But I won't lie, your words in your various rants and articles helped me see video games and other forms of media under a new light. And it was good timing as well, back then, my interest in gaming wasn't too high at that time, I was almost ready to hang up my controllers. Because of you, though, I managed to find not only different ways to enjoy video games, but also picked up in interest in checking some indie games.

If not for you two, I'd probably be a guy who spouted memes all the time, griefing others for the sake of it. Okay, maybe nothing that extreme, but I definitely wouldn't have a skill that I'm constantly finding ways to improve on nor would I have as big of an interest in various media as I do now.

Destructoid is very lucky to have two people like you. From the bottom of my heart, I wish you both the best.

Education. People were thinking of ways of children to receive such a trivial thing. Games. Higher-ups were well aware that kids like to play games. Fusion. Perhaps there was a way they could blend them together. One of the first "games" to come out of this is The Oregon Trail. At first glance, it seems harmless, letting the young ones get a chance to step foot into the adventurers of the 1840s, allowing them to know about the perils that awaited them.

Then they actually played it. They were never the same again.

This is one's personal account with the game.

Numerous versions of The Oregon Trail have been made, but today, we're taking a look into the Apple II version, which may also play a part into why I don't buy anything with the Apple logo on it to this day.

Anyway, it starts off simple, with a set amount of money, you have to buy an X amount of Y items. These can include food, oxen, ammunition, the list goes on. You buy the things you need, and prepare your journey for the road ahead. It becomes quite a different story once you take that first step. This game doesn't hold back on the variety of illnesses you and your companions can catch. You can catch anything from typhoid to cholera to dysentery. You had to have the luck of the gods themselves if you wanted no one to get sick.

And not only your party members, but the oxen would get sick as well. And for good reason, they're walking a couple hundred miles carrying the crap that you decided was worth holding. Come on, you know you're not going to eat that fifty pounds of wild game and it's going to go bad within two in-game days anyway. What are you, a pig?



The trail itself was also treacherous. Often times, you would have a choice to find ways to cross a river, and in one run alone, you came across at least ten different rivers and each time you made a choice, you were always taking a risk of someone getting injured or even dying from it. Sure, in theory, the river wasn't that deep and you could cross the river without any damage to the wagon, but little Jimmy would find a way to stub his toe and drown in knee-high water.

Now what is my personal dislike with the game? I could name a few reasons, whether the fact that it really requires patience to actually reach Williamette Valley and I would always rush through the game by fording every river, no matter how deep it was, or the fact a good chunk of the game is based purely on luck and getting anywhere without a party member getting sick is impossible. Those play a role in my dislike in the game, but it comes down to one thing.

It's too truthful.

Think about it, all of these illnesses your party is catching were very severe, any medication to take care of it were either very poor or didn't exist at the time. Trying to care for blood loss was a difficult thing to do, as there were little ways to cauterize the wound if at all. It's pretty accurate to what the people in those times dealt with, and it is stuff I don't want to think about when I'm on my journey to a town with my members who are nothing more but a bunch of pixels.



So why do I respect it?

Because I find it to be more realistic than games that developers today are calling "realistic." All games nowadays focus on trying to be "realistic," focusing more on making the games look and feel as real as possible. And they all miss the point, those characters don't get sick, they don't wince to pain when they are injured, I don't feel a strong bond with them.

It's a different matter completely when I play The Oregon Trail. People die, sometimes for the stupidest reasons, but they still died and your other members, if you still have more than two members at the time, would hold a funeral for that person. I felt bad when my oxen died as well, not only because he took the willpower to transport my stuff as far as he did, but also because I couldn't find a way to get a good bargain to get more oxen from other people in the game.



I felt more of a bond with those oxen than I did with Jason from Heavy Rain, I'm not joking.

I also took an opportunity to see a stream of someone playing one of the recent versions of The Oregon Trail, like pre-2000, unsure of the exact year. They really simplified a lot of things in that version. You know one of the hazards that your wagon actually stops for?

Dust.

No one caught a severe illness, no one has a broken leg, a wheel didn't even break on your wagon, you are stopping because you have to cough a little from some dirt that happened to be floating in the air. This wasn't The Oregon Trail I know, long and dangerous journeys like this aren't supposed to be sunshine and rainbows.

It's like if they remade Homeward Bound again, and Shadow never felt any pain when he was travelling with his two friends, despite the fact that he's an old dog and they're travelling through a forest with who-knows-what lurking around there. Also, the worst thing they deal with throughout the entire trip is some dust. Not only would that be the worst movie ever, but it would ruin everything I love about the original.

And it is because of this that I respect The Oregon Trail. The truth can hurt, but sometimes, it's needed in order to make it an experience that sticks with a person for a long time.

There seems to be lots of nice throwbacks to previous music from other Sonic games, Splash Hill Zone Act 3 is easily my favorite thus far, and the Mad Gear ones don't seem too bad either. Good to see that Sonic 4 will deliver music-wise at least.

Update: Music gone from original link, new link posted by Jon B in the comments.

Christmas may be over, but it's still December and I'm still in a giving mood. Anyway, early last week, I was getting frustrated about the stuff I scanned since nothing really stuck out. No matter how dark I made lines or how much I shaded various areas, it would always turn up as a really dull gray. So I went out and bought some black Prismacolor charcoal pencils and they make my life a bit more easy. Though not when I first started using them, since I would make lines too dark, and the lines would often smudge so I clean that up, and redraw the line, but it's too thin so etc.

After I finally got the hang of them, the work I did finally got a bit more cleaned up, not quite up to par to a professional, but enough to make me satisfied for now. That, and I wanted to try out some different styles and try to get comfortable with one before I did other big projects.

Words words words, and some arts.



lol easily the messiest one out of the bunch. And that's due to the fact that this was the first, maybe second thing I worked on since the pencils. I was probably a bit too excited doing this.

Even so, it still manages to probably be my favorite because things that invoke flight have always captivated me at a young age. And wings are pretty fun to mess around with.



Now getting to where I started to clean things up a bit more.

And this was an idea I've had since A Boy And His Blob was first announced, because at some point, I was thinking about Klonoa at the same time, and thought he had a weird blob-like friend as well. And he did, his name was Huepow. Then came this silly idea which I found amusing.



Here was when I started to slow down, and try out something more simple before I did more heavy duty stuff. Thought about making something holiday-themed, thought of Jack Frost from the Persona series, then at some point, I was thinking about the Mario series as well, then came...this. I dunno, I like it.



This is still the most adorable thing I've seen, and I feel bad I didn't do anything for it until now. Actually, I had three separate ideas that I messed around with regarding this for a little under a month, but they didn't feel "right" as I worked on them, so it was something I put on hold. Then some time off later, I did this and felt more happy with myself.



Maybe this came from me looking at my old blog for this and I wanted to touch up on it a bit more. Or perhaps because I want to make something for y0j1mb0 and I want attention from him, but this happened. And this showcases one of my biggest problems, and that is having too many folds. I usually do end up getting rid of some, but even if it's only one, I end up arguing with myself whether it has too many or too little folds, which impedes my process of getting anything done. Not fun to go though.

And I think the eyebrows are a bit too dark, but aside from that, I like it.

Anyway, still working on different styles, but I've cleaned up a bit since doing these, so things should probably get better from here.

Probably.

...OMG

Yeah, kind of a big deal for me. I've been wanting to post this earlier this week, but schoolwork and family stuff got in the way, so I didn't have as much time as I could to work on it. And the time I did work on it, I spent more time constantly making very small edits to it rather than actually making progress on it. I go insane whenever I have days like that. And a lot of days spent on this were like that. They sucked. But I persevered and finally got this thing done, I'm happy.

Life story out of the way, back to Jimbo.

Facial hair was fun to do, trying to get any resemblance of a sword was not, that's something I need to learn how to do in the days to come. The eyes took a while to do, as I had about four different takes on how to do them, trying to choose the best pair took a day in itself. And trying to do a robe at first feels like a chore, but gradually became a bit more enjoyable as I neared the end for that part.

Also, Jimbo constantly coaxed me to do this thing, true story.