Magical Perculations

It has been a wild past couple of months.

RoHoEn Rumble has been released on Steam, itch.io, SIMMER.IO, and Google Play and by all measures has been a great personal success.

Benjamin Leatherman and the great people at Phoenix New Times were incredibly kind to run a cover story on RoHoEn Rumble. I am beyond thankful for that article and the opportunity to talk with them.

Easley's Fun Shop of Horror is progressing superbly. Evil Tomato and Awacato are absolutely killing the artwork. I’m hoping to get the first level mostly built out and then create a WebGL version to share the vision of the game.

Below is New Times Volume 52, Number 17, published for the week of April 29th 2021 to May 5th 2021.

RoHoEn Rumble is coming to Steam March 1st 2021.

Today is an exciting day! As of this sentence, I have finally finished the process for submitting RoHoEn Rumble to steam!

This is a momentous day for myself. I never thought I’d be able to release a game on the Steam platform. As I have been developing for the past eight-ish years, it never really dawned on me to pursue this avenue.

This past week was spent processing applications and setting up the back end of the ‘The Firebrand of Phoenix’ developer page and submitting RoHoEn Rumble. I am shocked at how hard a lot of the steam store front appears at first glance. In order to upload a game to Steam you have to use ‘Steamworks SDK’ and to be honest I wasn’t able to successfully upload the payload via their SteamCMD. It’s definitely a learning curve and if I have files over 2gigs then I’ll need to figure out how to use the SteamCMD.

I’m not sure when RoHoEn Rumble will be approved but IT.IS.COMING!
I’ve slated the initial release date for 03-01-2021 pending everything is processed smoothly.

Looking back on the past year of development there is a lot I definitely had to learn. I’ve gotten more familiar with the 2020.1.7f1 build of Unity and their more modern solutions. I’ve switched from using ‘Tiled2Unity’ which was a phenomenal tile-map system at the time but the new ‘2D Extras’ tools by Unity has a built in tile-map with advanced features that works beyond my expectations at placing objects in the world seamlessly and with ease. I also signed up for a Unity Student account via the Github Student portal. That has been incredibly useful at giving me 5 seats to share projects with using Unity Collaborate. Which brings me to my last success which is using Unity Collaborate for Version Control. Before I was just making literal backups and storing them on a NAS but Unity Collaborate, for me, works really well and has been a total boon towards managing projects.

Regardless of what I learned, I think what I have the most pride and sense of accomplishment about last year is that I have made meaningful relationships and partnerships. I am very lucky to have been able to work with ‘Very Evil Tomato’, ‘Awacato’, and ‘MercuriusFM’ on RoHoEn Rumble. As much as I am able to do on my own, without out them my dreams of publishing a game would not be possible.
I am very very lucky to have been able to work with them on a project to completion. I take a lot of pride in what we were able to produce together.

With that, please look forward to March 1st 2021 for the release of RoHoEn Rumble on Steam and prepare for the grotesque and terrifying ‘Easley’s Fun Shop of Horror’ in the future!

鷺鳳園 (RoHoEn)

YOU GOTTA SEE IT! IT'S COMING!!!

Ahhh yesss!!! I am slowly closing out tasks and wrapping up items for RoHoEn Rumble that are left to be implemented. I won’t comment on what I have left as I think you’ll enjoy the full project in its completeness however I can tell you RoHoEn Rumble is VERY close to launching.

If you want, take a look at the most recent build on ‘simmer.io’. It has new sound effects from MercuriusFM, updated combat, and more!
RoHoEn Rumble (simmer.io)

To get stoked I offer you all an old Power Rangers Zeo Promo

You gotta see it(RoHoEn Rumble)! It’s coming!!!

This old promo was actually a inter-season promo that is really hard to find. It may be on the Power Ranger DVDs, I’ll have to check. Online it’s called ‘The Lost Prologue.’
I cannot emphasize how hype that promo made me when I was little. I loved Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and when Master Vile defeated the rangers and turned them into kids they had to have the Alien Rangers from Aquitar help them out instead.
The Alien Rangers would continue to fight Master Vile while the Rangers went on their ‘Zeo Quest’ to find the Zeo Crystals and gain new powers after losing the Mighty Morphin powers. During this moment in time, parts of that prologue would play out during commercial breaks until all of it was eventually aired. When Power Rangers Zeo came out, it was critical mass for Power Rangers hype.
Never forget the Lost Prologue.

See you soon,
-The Firebrand of Phoenix

RoHoEn Rumble - A Downtown Phoenix Story

I have made a loootta updates to RoHoEn Rumble!

Please take a moment to play it. I would love to hear your thoughts about the game.
RoHoEn Rumble on simmer.io

Just some of the task I put down to work on

I’ve started tweaking the combat’s attack range and attack power so their ought to be a better ‘feel’ for the game. A lot of new artwork/assets have been implemented, from new food items, new effects, to stellar new tracks by @MERCURIUSFM .

This update is pretty huge and for the most part show cases the relatively fulfilled vision of what I was looking to accomplish with RoHoEn Rumble. I still have a lot more work to do but just seeing the game in this state is awesome.

Let me know what you think. This was a huge milestone for me and I’m happy to be able to share it.

-The Firebrand Of Phoenix

What the fuck happened to.... Double Dragon 3?!?

Double Dragon is is a legendary series spanning multiple games and iterations of itself. The game is known for being one of the first ‘Belt Scrollers’ or ‘Beat Em Ups’ and defined the genre.
The first Double Dragon came out in 1987, with Double Dragon II following directly in 1988.
However Double Dragon 3 was released in America in 1990 a full two years after Double Dragon II, and three years later in 1991 for Japan.

Double Dragon I & II were created by Yoshihisa Kishimoto and team at Technos Japan.
Do you know who ‘East Technology’ is? I sure as hell didn’t know about them and these guys are the assholes that made Double Dragon 3.

I wanna be real clear here, these guys are assholes. In general I am pretty forgiving of Double Dragon 3 but ‘East Technology’ created the FIRST micro-transaction game….in an Arcade where you already pay per minute with your token.

Somehow, someway ‘East Technologies’ was tapped to develop Double Dragon 3 and what they made is kinda fuckin insane. Right from the get go the art style is so fundamentally changed that the game doesn’t even resemble Double Dragon I & II if you squinted.
Furthermore, what the fuck….. three players?!? Not sure how popular the cabinet was in general however there are two iterations of the DD3 cabinet, a two player and three player version.

Two Player Cabinet

Three Player Cabinet

The game is titled ‘Double Dragon’, what the fuck. The game is about two twin martial arts practitioners. Double Dragon 3 comes along and says nah, there’s actually a THIIIIIRD Lee brother…..Sonny Lee.

On top of a third Lee brother that fundamentally would change the title to “Triple Dragons”, there were also 3 (technically 9 if you count the player 2 & 3 iterations) characters you could play of outside of the Lee brothers. These characters being the Urquidez brothers (ユキーデ兄弟?) (mixed martial arts champions), the Chin brothers (陳兄弟?) (tai chi experts) and the Oyama brothers (大山兄弟?) (karate master),

Billy, Jimmy, and Sonny

Seime, Taime, and Sinme

Roney, Sunny, and Jonny

Masao, Kunio, and Akira

Look at that fucking mess of characters above! Nooooobody who likes Double Dragon was asking for more characters, let alone a third player and third Lee brother.

What is the worst part about all these characters, and this is what makes ‘East Technology’ a bunch of assholes, is that you can only access these characters by going into a ‘Shop’ where you are able to purchase ‘Extra Guys, Tricks, Energy, Power Up, and Weapon’.

If you didn’t catch it I wouldn’t blame you but EXTRA GUYS is how you get access to the characters. When you die as a Lee brother and IF you have purchased an EXTRA GUY then instead of coming back as a Lee brother you are replaced by the Stages respective character. The 1st level (America) is the Urqidez brothers, 2nd level (China) is the Chin brothers, and the 3rd level (Japan) is the Oyama brothers. There is also one other shop in the game located in level 5 (Egypt) halfway through where you can get any number of character.

What is worse than the characters though is that weapons and moves are actually locked away behind the token paywall via ‘Tricks’ and ‘Weapons’.

If you wanted THE Double Dragon 3 experience you would pay $0.25 just to start the game, and let’s assume best case everything at the store cost a token, so that would be 4 x $0.25. However you can actually pay for energy and extra guys more than once.
At a best case you’re paying $1.25 AT THE BEGINNING OF THE GAME for THE Double Dragon 3 experience.

FUCK EAST TECHNOLOGY!

Look at this bullshit, all of these options cost you $0.25.

To add insult to injury the game sees the Lee brothers and friends go on a quest to get Rosetta Stones so they can battle the most powerful person in the world who, spoilers, is fucking Cleopatra?!? Like alright, I guess they want to test their So-Setsu-Ken martial arts but Cleopatra?

I mean…..sure, Cleopatra is the most powerful fighter in the world? She just flying around and blastin tho?

This could be a cool setup but all the levels are so out of place for Double Dragon that it really makes you wonder where ‘East Technology’ was getting direction from, if any from Technos Japan.

Take a look a the picture below, it is LITERALLY the entirety of Double Dragon 3. The players go through America, China, Japan, Italy, and Egypt in search of the Rosetta Stones and EVERY level feels so out of place compared to Double Dragon I & II. ESPECIALLY the 4th level, Italy, with it’s Roman Coliseum looking enemies.

I have to be very clear here, the Japanese release of the game removed the micro-transaction features completely and allows you to select a character at the beginning and during your playthrough.

None of this fuckin matters though because the game is still inherently flawed. There are only two weapons in the game, the nun-chucks and the sword, and you can only get them in Level 1 (America) and Level 3 (Japan).

The real cherry on-top is that the games animations all look like ass, like there is something so dissonant with the animations they chose to use.

So what the hell happened to Double Dragon 3? I do not know, I do not understand how this product even got made.

Going forward Double Dragon 3 marked the decline of Double Dragon for years until other releases came along. It is so bizarre how a series that was so powerful on it’s initial release that spawned arranged soundtracks, toys, a cartoon series, and catapulted a cacophony of ‘Double Dragon’ clones that it faded from annual releases of yearly iterative titles.

• (1987) Double Dragon (arcade and multi-console release)

• (1988) Double Dragon II (arcade and multi-console release)

• (1990) Double Dragon 3 (arcade and multi-console release)

• (1992) Super Double Dragon / Return of Double Dragon (Super Nintendo)

• (1994) Double Dragon V - The Shadow Falls (multi-console release)

• (2003) Double Dragon Advance (Gameboy Advance)

• (2012) Double Dragon Neon (PC and multi-console release)

• (2017) Double Dragon 4 (PC and multi-console release)

I love Double Dragon, but FUCK the American Double Dragon 3 Arcade release.

Shadowmoons Epilogue from Kamen Rider Black RX

Kamen Rider RX has definitely been interesting. Nobuhiko has returned from the dead however not as himself but as a hate golem with one mission; destroy Kotaro Minami, Kamen Rider Black RX!

I find his return interesting because RX is a direct sequel to Black and for the most part has disregarded any theming or direct relations to black as a series. The closet acknowledgement as a sequel series we have is that Acro-batter evolved/transformed from Battle Hopper, the motorcycle from Kamen Rider Black.

Shadow Moon really has a two to three episodes that I can recall and they're sandwiched between some decent monster of the week episodes, one particularly good episode is 26, 'Bosgun's Counter Attack'.

The end of episode 21 introduces Shadow Moon, or at least the homunculus of a vessel that is walking around the world. Battered, beaten, and looking as though he literally crawled out of the Golgom headquarters after its collapse.

Episode 22 is an episode spent exploring the VERY loose way that Shadow Moon came back and is ever so briefly partnered up with the Crisis Empire. Being forced to work with the Maribaron, Gatezone, Bosgun, and Gedorion Shadow Moon begins to actually overtake RX. However, General Jak's commanders turn on Shadow Moon using one of Gedorion's demon, the ant lion, to attempt to take out Black RX out of fear that they're capacity for promotion in the Crisis Empire was about to be superseded by Shadow Moon. Honestly that is a really interesting motivation for some of the main villains of the cast and I appreciate the dimension of depth they added to them.

Episode 27 has Shadow Moon convincing one of Jak's Commandor's Monster, Demon Alien Matt Bott, to work with him so that they can take down Black RX. Matt Bott's goal was to put a bomb into a volcano and ignite its interruption to better make a climate fitting of the Crisis Empire, the cost being human cities destroyed. Briefly working with Shadow Moon this partnership fails as Jak's Commandor's retaliate against Matt Bott.
More interesting Shadow Moon appears to fight Black RX in what is the beginning of the ultimate showdown. Having just started, they're interrupted by Matt Bott who has kidnapped Akane and her brother Hiroshi to lay a trap for Shadow Moon and Black RX.

Blinded by his hatred and what I believe to be the last of the programming by Golgom, Shadow Moon and Black RX continue to fight as the children are chained to a pillar and a fire is lit around them.

This battle is amazing! Black RX begs Shadow Moon to find Nobuhiko inside. In some capacity he still believes he could be in there. With no other path to the children Black RX resolves himself to finish off Shadow Moon. Black RX slices and stabs the King stone used to defeat Nobuhiko, Shadow Moon.

Shadow Moon has fallen.

Kotaro saves the children however at the very end Shadow Moon truly was defeated and falls to the ground.

These Shadow Moon episodes are truly some of the better aspects of the show and I didn't expect them to be. They actually tie RX to Black and provide MORE depth to Minami Kotaro and the loss he faced with the Golgom Cult.

My initial expectation is that the rest of RX will be on a downward trajectory with the death of Shadow Moon, but hey!, I was surprised by these episodes. Here's to hoping for some good episodes in the back half of Kamen Rider Black RX


Shadowmoon Episodes:
21 - The Front of Love and Friendship
22 - Shadowmoon!
27 - Great Counterattack! The Prince of Shadows

Fantastic updates from The Firebrand!

I’ve made TREMENDOUS strides on 'Cap Mossman and the Return of Chacon'. Four levels, four weapons, and a whole cast of characters have been implemented. I am incredibly proud of what I was able to put together so far.
Give Episode 1 of 'Cap Mossman and the Return of Chacon' a play and let me know what you think.
https://simmer.io/@FirebrandOfPhx/cap-mossman-and-the-return-of-chacon

I've gotten together an alpha of a Beat Em Up I've called 'Road of Brawl'. It's got the fundamental game-play elements I am looking to use in the project I'm working on….
https://simmer.io/@FirebrandOfPhx/road-of-brawl

….that project being tentatively titled 'RO-HO-EN Rumble'!!!
I have received the artwork commissioned by Very Evil Tomato and Awacato. They have truly produced some phenomenal artwork and I have eagerly spent the past weeks implementing it.
Please play the build I’ve uploaded, it’s still very much a work in progress.
https://simmer.io/@FirebrandOfPhx/ro-ho-en-rumble-alpha

SIMMER Rewind April 2020 - Forever Grotto and Extinction Event Featured!

Very exciting news!

The Forever Grotto and Extinction Event were featured in the April 2020 SIMMER Rewind!

If you’re interested head over my ‘simmer.io’ page to play these games.
https://simmer.io/@FirebrandOfPhx

My two current projects are a Beat Em Up based on a location in Phoenix and a western Retro FPS.

In parallel with Streets of Rage 4 being released I have been working on the Beat Em Up proof of concept and finally got a working prototype system going.
I put this together using assets from the GameDevMarket by 'Fassous' and a beat em up template by 'Osarion'. My intent with this project was to understand how Osarion's Beat Em Up engine worked for a future project. Keep your eyes posted in the future for that! For now here is ‘Road of Brawl’!
https://simmer.io/@FirebrandOfPhx/road-of-brawl

It's a small project but it has laid a lot of ground work for me.

---

I have been playing Streets of Rage 4 and it is just a phenomenal game. It feels like it is the gestalt of ideas from the whole series and executes so well on making a good 'Streets of Rage' game.

Beat Em Ups really shine when they have three things:
1: Phenomenal Artwork with a story being told by the level art as storyboard in the background.
2: Bangin music that keeps the inertia of the player going through the game.
3: A decent combat system.

Streets of Rage 4 knocks all of these out of the park. You can play as any character from any of the games once you unlock them. Each of them retain the nuances from their series such as the Streets of Rage 3 characters having upward and downward rolls.

If you have not played it yet I truly recommend playing Streets of Rage 4. It is one of the best Beat Em Up games in the past twenty years.

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Kamen Rider Black RX continues to be good and is trending slowly into better.

The first four episodes introduce Black RX, Acrobatter, and Ridoron as well as the Sahara family(Shunkichi, Utako, Shigeru and Hitomi).

Episodes 5-11 had Crisis Empire attacking the friends of Minami Kotaro, and failing.

In episode 12 were introduced to the concept of Crisis Empire Rebels and General Jak audible states that they cannot mess around with the Sahara family and Reiko.

This has me interested on where the trajectory of the show goes from here.

Episode 15 we see the birth of RX Robo Rider after Hitomi of the Sahara family was kidnapped to the Demon World in an attempt to make 7 girls that were kidnapped become one of the possible candidates of Princess Garonia through some miracle water?!?!
The audience at this point I don’t think understand who or what a Princess Garonia is, I mean I don’t know who that is.
Minami Kotaro thinks that the kidnapped Hitomi is killed when Black RX and Death Garon are in a battle. Through his sorrow over her death a new power is born. RX Robo Rider!

Episode 15 wraps up and Black RX is still looking for Hitomi. Fascinatingly in episode 16 Shigeru is talking with Reiko says that Minami Kotaro has been gone for half a month since the kidnap of Hitomi. That’s like two weeks for her to be in the clutches of the Crisis Empire.
Episodes 12 through 16 have some length to their continuity. They're really a shocking set of episodes and bring some weight to the plot that was lacking in the first 13ish episodes. I’m very stoked to see where this all goes. Could fall flat on its face though.

__________________________________________________________________________________________
//RESOURCES FOR ROAD OF BRAWL//
GameDevMarket - 'Fassous'
https://www.gamedevmarket.net/asset/48x48-brawler-foes-sprites-3339/
https://www.gamedevmarket.net/asset/brawler-pack-1-1597/
https://www.gamedevmarket.net/asset/48x48-gameboy-brawler-game-pack-3542/

Unity Asset Store - 'Osarion'
https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/templates/systems/beat-em-up-game-template-78297

Retro FPS Update and Kamen Rider Black RX

New updates on the Retro FPS. Been making a lot of quick progress which has been nice. The asset pack has a lot of enemies that I've implemented however I need to work on their AI. I have a lot to learn from that. Slowly the features of this project are amlagamating into the ludology of a game.

UPDATES:

• Gold Door that opens with Gold key.

• Silver Door that opens with Silver key.

• Implemented the rifle and crossbow.

  • this includes ammo counters.

• Updated UI to include score and new ammo types.

• Created Score in UI.

• Created dollar, dollar bills, dollar bag, gold bar, and gold coin to add to score.

Changed the exterior walls of the desert sand level to be a real wall instead of the rocks.

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今日はしましたょ。

I absolutely adore Showa Era Tokusatsu. There is something about their production pre-ubiquitious CG that has such an alluring charm.

I finished Kamen Rider Black a while ago and have constantly started and re-started watching Kamen Rider Black RX.
The show is just SOOO different than Kamen Rider Black that preceded it and that it is a direct sequel too, something that no Kamen Rider series has done since.

Black was a show about Minami Kotaro who he and his adoptive brother, Nobuhiko Akizuki, had been candidates for a secret organization Golgom, to be mutated in to Black King(Kotaro) and Shadow Moon(Akizuki) and fight for the title of Century King to lead the Golgom Cult. Nobuhiko's real father and Minami's adoptive father broke Minami's mutatification process and busted him out before he could be brainwashed, a fate that Nobuhiko would subcome to.

The show spends the remainder of the 50ish episodes showing Minami Kotaro fight back against Golgom and their monsters in their attempt to retrieve Minami and at the same time fulfill the prophecy of the Century King, which Minami and Nobuhiko are fated to battle and eventually become.

The show is great, it's dark, atmospheric, and took a lot of bold risks with the production I feel like. I cannot recommend Kamen Rider Black, it is the pinnacle of what the Showa Era has to offer.

Kamen Rider Black RX however is very different in regards to it's setup. After the Golgom Cult is defeated Minami Kotaro becomes a helicopter pilot(sure I guess?) and works for the Sahara family and I guess casually lives in their house? During a flight the Crisis Empire kidnaps him and offers him a place in the Crisis Empire. He rejects them and the King Stone that allows him to turn into Black is broken and he is thrown into space. Somehow the Suns radiation mutates the King Stone and allows him to transform into Kamen Rider Black RX.

I feel like this setup is just so different. Instead of his family, someone he is close to, he is spending time with the Sahara family. This is a family that really is just played to max as a foil for comedy for the monsters of the week that show up.
The Crisis Empire feels like it doesn't really have any backstory besides wanting to conquer earth? Which I'm not sure why? They say the want to rid humans on earth and take it over? Because?

Besides the weak plot setup the show is amazing production-wise. Every monster-of-the-week is so well designed and looks like a main villain. RX just LOOOKS cool.

"俺は太陽の子！！！”

Not sure what happened but after RX aired it would take until the year 2000ish to get a new Kamen Rider Series.

Watch some old Tokusatsu, it's good stuff.

FPS Update

My favorite Mexican food place appears to be closed. Part of me wonders if we'll ever be able to recover culturally after this.

I'm making great progress on an FPS project! After the last FPS system I was using from the Unity Store deprecated I didn't know where I was going to go to look for an FPS System. Serendipitously GamesPlusJames has a perfect tutorial on how to get started, his stuff always seems so elegant.

I think for now I'll be using the Super Powers FPS asset back to put together a small game. This whole asset pack has more than enough to make a decent Wolfenstein3D clone.

I have some ideas for a Retro FPS Project I wanna do but I'm need to mull them over, might just meld some thoughts together.

TASKS:
Create exploding barrel
Add more weapons
Design 1st level