My favorite panel from storyboarding, showing that I am not above a "oh HI cleavage" joke.

Then again, it IS Leslie.  "Oh HI Cleavage" is implied.

Personality

I don't mean the words to cut you, but I know they will.  It seems the way of words, in that.  But it must be said:  There are two many people who equivolate "human" with "person", when we've both been around long enough to know this isn't the case.  You're inhuman, though often humane.  This doesn't change the fact that you're not human and never will be, if you wanted it to begin with.  That doesn't change the fact...  There's a word for it, you know.  Some people translate it to mean "human being" but I prefer the other translation.  Mensch.  Person of integrity and honor.  That's where I think you fall.  Take of it what you will.

Split Concept Art 3 - Red

... I know she has no hands.  Future pictures will have them but I wanted to share our bold protagonist.

Also I drew her wrench WAY too small

Split Concept Art 2 - Airship Silouette

When I did this, I intended a full on painting for cover art.  I then took a look at the amount of time until I had to print, and gave myself a swift kick in the ass.  In the end though, I feel this result was MUCH more striking.

Split Concept Art 1 - Sky City

In my PPD, I used this with a low opacity.  It hides many sins

In the actual worldsetting, what you can't see is a: how high these mountains really are, and b: the lower layer of cloud cover.  This makes it rather hard to see, meaning Red gets a NASTY shock when she actually ends up on the ground.  It's NOT all toy sized!

Caged

“Jones!  Jones, open up!”  the voice leaked through his door as the young metalworker pulled his pillow over his head. 

Kirby Mass Attack

            In the interest of full disclosure, the game I speak of now was not my original choice.  However, my intended game, Sword of the Stars II released a patch on the 19^th and once again crashes repeatedly on my system.  At any rate, I decided to pick up the game Kirby Mass Attack, released for the Nintendo DS in September of 2011.  Normally, I would not have picked it up, no matter how much I enjoy the Kirby games.  The reason why is simply a personal preference:  I do not like platforming with a touch screen.  I grew up with an NES controller in my hands, or a keyboard under my fingers, and platforming with a touch screen (or motion controls, for that matter) feels strange for me. 

            First going into it, I knew very little about it.  I knew it was a Kirby game.  I knew you controlled many Kirbys at once.  I knew it relied heavily on the touch screen.  I knew a few people I followed online liked it.  That was about it.  Now I could draw some conclusions.  It’s a Kirby game, so the art and music would generally be good.  It would also have a high amount of polish, so even with my dislike of touchscreen controls, I should be able to pick it up.  Anything else I had seen on it, I do not much recall – I’ve not had much time to read reviews lately.

            To be blunt, I was right.  It took me a few stages to get used to the touch controls (especially the flicking motion – every game seems to require a different method to properly ‘flick’) but after that, it was mostly smooth sailing.  The game is incredibly enjoyable, and easy to play in either short bursts, or longer sessions.  The mechanics, once learned, are intuitive and easy to grasp, while the fact that they introduce new mechanics throughout which keeps you on your toes.  Also, for all the game looks cute, it can get quite legitimately hard – however I have never been left feeling that I lost, or struggled, because the controls wouldn’t do what I wanted them to do.  It works well with the capabilities of the system, and is one of the first games I’ve actually played that used the touchscreen to its potential.

            Not only is the gameplay enjoyable, but the art is fantastic.  The Kirby games generally do have very good art direction, and I am glad that this one did not disappoint in the slightest.  The environments are varied and colorful, and more importantly, there is always a distinct contrast between your mass of ten Kirbys and everything else on the screen.  The enemies stand out, the obstacles stand out – this leads to a distinct lack of surprise attacks, unless it was caused by a direct action of yours (such as pulling out a plant).

            The music is also very good, and in fact one of the quickest ways to suck me into a game.  It is not as stellar as the art, true, but it is still very good, and while not every tune is memorable, none of them are grating.  There are several familiar themes, but they are well remixed to both invoke nostalgia, and provide a new view on them.  Truthfully, those are some of the most stellar tracks I’ve experienced in the game.

            However it is not a perfect game.  The middle of the game (Around world three or so) starts to lag terribly in pacing, as you are thrown into a world that begins with a bunch of minigames.  I found myself sighing, and just looking for the next world, or at least a stage that wasn’t minigames.  However, those stages were good for replenishing my Kirby supply.  I, truthfully, have not reached the final boss yet.  This is not for lack of trying, however.  The reason I have not reached it is I have not managed to get all of the items I need to get in every stage prior to get to the final boss, even after 9 or 10 hours over four days.  I do not care much for this, and upon discovering that I would need to do so, I felt a sudden lack of desire to play the game.  I can understand why it is done – it encourages exploration of the stages which are, in fact, fun to explore.  However it still feels like an artificial barrier to completing the game, and worse, it feels like blatant padding. 

            Despite that problem, I would still recommend this game to others.  DS games are not terribly expensive, and you will definitely get your money’s worth of gameplay.  Just be warned that you will find yourself needing to go back to many of the stages in order to complete the game, unless you are completionist enough to get everything the first run through.  Unfortunately, I am not.  Still, the game is a great deal of fun, and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys platformer, as well as any fans of the Kirby series.  It is another well polished entry and your thirty dollars could go toward far worse games, for sure.