Pixels and Bricks

Bionic Commando

2011-03-17T10:19:00.001-07:00

Ah, Bionic Commando. One of the best games for the NES, and one of the few that is superior to its arcade machine counterpart. It seems kind of weird to show you without your actual bionic arm, but that's just a long row of grey pixels, and therefore boring.

So I don't actually know this character's name. Your mission is to save the world and rescue Super Joe, who I always thought was the hero (and guy you controlled) in the original Commando. I looked all through the instruction manual, and this guy isn't given a name. I don't trust Wikipedia and its entry naming the protagonist "Ladd Spencer." That's a really silly name.

This guy couldn't jump; everything was dependent on that bionic arm. It sure was fun though, except when there were lots of spikes beneath you and you had to pull a Tarzan to survive.

Oh, and here's your green entry for March, of course. Because nothing reminds me of the Irish more than a guy with spiky red hair and a green jumpsuit....

Pokey ("Clyde")

2011-02-22T09:43:00.000-08:00

Alright, time to put you out of your misery. Of course you know there are only four ghosts, so you won't have to deal with any more Pac Man sprites until I start making the bonus fruits. Although I'd probably start with a key or the Galaxian guy. Wait, I already did that....

So Clyde here is the only ghost to undergo an identity crisis when we get to Ms. Pac Man. Everyone else retains their original names, but Clyde takes a different path. Perhaps feeling confused that Pac Man might be pulling a fast one and just wearing lipstick and a bow, Clyde decides he wants to be called Sue from now on. The other ghosts oblige, and secretely are disappointed Sue doesn't do anything to differentiate her/himself from her/his previous persona. At least wear a skirt or something....

Bashful ("Inky")

2011-02-15T21:00:00.000-08:00

Ah, the one that stopped me cold. You see that colour right there? It's sort of an aqua? That colour is super hard to come by. Oh sure, I could have settled for a light blue, or even turquoise, but this is the one that looks closest to the video game. And it wasn't cheap to get those pieces, I'll have you know. But anything for the sake of my art.

Fortunately, this colour can be used for other game characters in the future that I didn't think I'd ever want to get to. I even used this in the Tron one from December already. So at least it's versatile.

A few months back I was going to talk about MY original version of Pac Man. It certainly wasn't that awful Atari 2600 version. No, my first home version was played on the Atari 400. Doesn't look too bad, does it? But did you notice the weird ghost colours? Bashful here is green! If only I had thought of doing those versions years ago, I wouldn't have had to wait so long....

Speedy ("Pinky")

2011-02-08T11:16:00.001-08:00

It looks the same, and yet it's not...

Sure, I could have just taken the design and replaced all the red with pink, but instead I wanted to have a whole set. So I patiently waited for a source of pink bricks, and that's when I discovered the pink brick box with a whole bunch of girly colours. But this pink was more of a dark pink or magenta. I actually made this ghost originally with that colour until I discovered this light pink was also available. This is far more accurate to the game, so here you go.

You'll notice the bottom is different, if ever so slightly. That's because the ghosts have two frames of animation to make it look like they're gliding, or hovering, or whatever....

Shadow ("Blinky")

2011-02-01T10:07:00.000-08:00

So this month is going to be a little different, for reasons that will become quickly obvious. And I probably should have started this tomorrow, it being February 2nd and that ever popular holiday Groundhog's Day, but I wanted to get a bit of a head start.

This is one of earliest designs I made using Lego, and it's obvious why. Simple pixels, primary colours, and just an iconic design. I couldn't make Pac Man without having his enemies, and it's funny to see their original names used on the video game. No one calls him Shadow these days. I don't even know why you would call him Shadow. He's not that dark....

Pac Man

2011-01-16T16:17:00.000-08:00

I have to admit, even though Pac Man is the original game, it doesn't hold a candle to Ms. Pac Man. Only one maze, along with a very annoying siren noise, make it only useful if the Ms. Pac Man machine is being hogged up by some Billy Mitchell type trying to top the world high score. Steve Wiebe would totally let you go first, even if his quarter was up on the cabinet before yours.

Pac Man was one of the first designs I made with Legos, and I sure waited a long time to post him. He's obviously more simplistic, and I could have gone for a Ms. Pac Man, but he's already jealous I keep mentioning her too much in this post. It should be about him. Actually, I'm stretching this one entry out because the next few pixels I'll be showcasing will involve some enemies of his, and I won't have enough to write if I talk about my experiences with the game. Hint: they don't involve the arcade version....

Light Cycle (Tron)

2010-12-10T22:42:00.000-08:00

So I watched Tron tonight. Hadn't seen it since I was a kid. I can see why I didn't latch onto it way back when. It's a rather dry movie with fewer action scenes than I remember, and a strange plotline that seemed more about computer bits and information than video games. But I can see its influence; the film is way ahead of its time. The weird thing is that while I didn't care for the movie itself when I was younger, I was surrounded by the look, feel, and sounds from the related products. So while I don't remember the movie plotline, I certainly remember going on the Peoplemover and seeing those scenes over and over again in the speed tunnel. And hearing the game sounds in countless arcades. And playing Discs of Tron in college, when a surviving machine allowed me to hone my skills. But that's a post for a different time....

I actually wanted to make a Discs of Tron character, but those sprites are way more complicated than I expected. They're full of added colours that you just don't notice under a machine with a working blacklight. More complicated sprites also mean they're way larger than you'd picture. Even this light cycle is surprisingly tall for such a tiny object on the monitor. And since it was the only section of the game that I rather enjoyed, I went with this. Even though I'm terrible with pretty much each of the four levels on that game. That seems to be a recurring theme here on this blog.

Berzerk

2010-11-20T16:04:00.001-08:00

Yikes, this game is 30 years old. I still remember it as one of the earliest games that was sitting around at Skateway, and I played it every once in a while even though I wasn't very good. Maybe it was the cool robot voice samples that made this game memorable to me. It certainly would grab your attention with real loud "Kill all humanoids!" samples blaring now and then. It was pretty repetitive, and the only differences were the speed and colour of the robots. I liked how the robots could shoot each other if they got in each other's way, and it certainly made my job easier, which apparently was to kill all robots.

It also was memorable for the giant evil happy face that would come out of nowhere if you took too long trying to dispatch the regular robots. This evil happy face was indestructable and faster than you. You could maybe outrun it if you were near an exit, but otherwise, the evil happy face would run you down and bounce on you with its evil happy face.

There is also a sequel called Frenzy, but I never knew of its existence until emulators came along. Basically the same thing with a few more obstacles, like walls that would ricochet your lasers and differently shaped robots.

This was the easiest creation I've made so far. I mean, 13 pieces, no weird angles, and all one colour. Took me less than five minutes total. Oh well, I already know what I'm making for December, another oldie that appears more difficult than I expected. Stay tuned!

Skeleton (Ghosts 'n Goblins - NES)

2010-10-12T16:51:00.000-07:00

It's time for another spooky entry, albeit from the same game as last year. But if any of you played that game regularly, you know how hard it was to even get to these guys. The mere mention of their existence in the manual was enough to pique my interest, but it certainly took awhile to see one for the first time. Even with unlimited continues, it isn't until you get to the castle in stage 5 (the second-to-last level) that they even appear.

And they don't just appear like this; no, instead you see some innocent looking skulls littering the ground. But if you get too close, watch out! They spring up, fully formed and wearing loincloths for some reason. Hopping around way more than any zombies, that's for sure. Once they're out of the ground they're much harder to kill, so I suggest just shooting the skulls when you see them. It will make your life much easier.

Speaking of easy, this was probably the hardest sprite I've ever had to put together. Not because it's complicated, but because I simply could not get a decent screen capture. Now usually I just grab an image off the internet and zoom in, but nobody seems to have any shots of the majority of the creatures from the NES version. So I figured I'd just get a screen capture from an emulator. I had to play the game and use the warp code and it STILL took me awhile to get a reference shot. Only that didn't work out too well either (it's rather blurry and some of the pixels are just not that distinct). So there's a good possibility that this skeleton is not pixel-for-pixel perfect. Oh well. When it comes to loincloths, I'm not too picky about the details. I just hope I got his awesome dark red innards nice and accurate...

Galaxian

2010-09-22T11:50:00.001-07:00

I've actually been playing a bunch of older games this past month, but nothing jumped out at me as being particularly interesting, so I'll stick with an old standby...

According to Wikipedia, this is referred to as the Galaxian flagship, or Galboss. I don't know who came up with that. It's hard to trust Wikipedia sometimes. I remember playing Galaxian a lot as a kid, and never being very good. This was in my "get as far as possible without dying" phase, which was not broken until college, when I finally decided to start going for high scores. I also don't know why I preferred this game over Galaga, which now is obvious as the superior game. Maybe I liked the look of the ships in this one better, or it seemed less complicated.

Nevertheless, I didn't know that if you saved the boss for last, if he flew off the screen, he'd actually go away and reappear on the next wave. so you could theoretically have up to 4 of these ships on the top row, rather than the regular two. I really don't know the point of that, because they're hard enough to kill when they're all coming at you at the same time.

This sprite also appears in Dig Dug as a bonus item, and a bunch of Pac Man games, including the original one, as a "fruit." It is obviously a Namco thing, much like the Capcom Yashici. What? You haven't heard of that one? Maybe another time, dear readers....

Small shark (Jaws)

2010-08-16T15:07:00.001-07:00

August started off with a bang this year with Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. I don't get cable, so instead I picture other shark-related activities, like playing video games. Only my memories turn to one of the worst Nintendo games that I ever invested a significant amount of time on.

Jaws for the NES was awful. Loosely based on Jaws: The Revenge (aka Jaws IV aka Jaws '87 in Japan aka Michael Caine missed accepting his Oscar because he was filming this aka How do sharks know to exact revenge?), this game had you travel around in a boat that was being followed by Jaws. Then you hit something. Then you swim around shooting rays and jellyfish and small sharks like the one pictures here. You then collected shells, which are exchanged for things like transmitters and submarines. Apparently shells are valid currency around these nameless Caribbean islands. Sometimes you get in a plane and bomb jellyfish for more shells. When you get powerful enough you attack Jaws by setting off a strobe that somehow causes him to jump out of the water. You then must ram your boat into him using the bowsprit, thus impaling him with your sailboat of death. Then you start all over again and repeat.

I never saw Jaws: The Revenge. I never owned this game, thankfully. I still wasted too much time trying to get to Jaws, but I don't think I even did that two decades ago. I learned early on the LJN made the crummiest games for the NES, because they relied solely on the licensed characters they procured. This will probably be the only entry of a crummy game you will see on here. At least until I get enough bricks to make the actual Jaws sprite....

Scrooge McDuck (Ducktales)

2010-07-18T22:35:00.001-07:00

So yesterday was Disneyland's 55th birthday, and I have to say they did a mediocre job of celebrating it. So here I am celebrating it with a character they really don't have walking around the park anymore. He probably hasn't walked around the park since the mid-nineties when there still was a Disney Afternoon programming block. I did learn that Scrooge has been around awhile, even longer than the amusement park, so while I certainly didn't see this character yesterday, I did wish he was around somewhere...

Scrooge has a really cool backstory that was touched on in the cartoon, but apparently the comics were where most of that stuff came from. I'll have to check out those reprints and such and see how interesting they are. I only remember having some weird book that had him, the nephews, and Donald seeking out some mysterious lost city. It also had a flipbook in the corner of each page.

Oh, this is supposed to be about video games. I liked the game, but never got into it enough to want to own a copy. Since it's probably never coming out on the Virtual Console, and Disney isn't being smart and releasing these games as part of some sort of compilation, I will have to seek out a working copy someday. I think the graphics of most of them are all pretty great, and I'll probably make a few more characters from games I never even played. Any requests?

Tanooki Suit (SMB3)

2010-06-08T23:01:00.000-07:00

So here I was, all about to go on and on about the strangeness of the Tanooki suit, and how it never made sense to turn into a statue. But then I typed "Tanooki" into Google and got this. Japanese Raccoon Dog? Who has ever heard of those things before?

Apparently they are master of disguise and shapeshifters, which I guess explains the statue thing. It was always a difficult thing to actually keep the Tanooki suit for any length of time, because you were so excited to get it you would inevitably start getting distracted by its weird powers and would stop paying attention to actually finishing the level. I think the Hammer suit was even rarer, yet this one was certainly more stylish.

It gets even better. Read the rest of that Wikipedia article and learn about its 'backpack' and 'drums' and you'll know what I'm talking about. Apparently they make a soup out of them as well. I don't know, if forced to make a choice, I'd think I'd prefer badger soup....

Thomas (Kung Fu - NES)

2010-05-11T14:54:00.001-07:00

Kung-Fu Master tormented me so much as a kid. I liked the look of it and wanted to master it, but whenever I put a quarter into the arcade machine, I would get beaten so badly, that I would immediately mark it off my list of games to keep pouring money into. I don't think I ever made it halfway past the first level. The regular henchmen, called Grippers, would latch on to you and wouldn't let go. I couldn't get rid of them. I would mash buttons, move the joystick, nothing. I would die. And keep dying. Game over. It was miserable. The NES version was much more forgiving, and I actually finished that one after borrowing it for awhile. I kind of want a copy of it now, since it's doubtful it will ever come out on the Virtual Console.

Apparently Nintendo shortened the title to just Kung Fu, without a hyphen for some reason (which to further confuse things was actually called Spartan X in Japan). They also gave the hero black hair and a less attractive girlfriend to save. The game was based on a Jackie Chan movie, although it is terribly similar to the finale of the Bruce Lee film Game of Death. Too bad there's no character like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the game.

So, 20 some-odd years later, I just learned that in order to throw the Grippers off of you, you're supposed to wiggle the joystick back and forth. I tried that. 20 some-odd years ago. It sort of works, but they still kill me. I still hate arcade Grippers....

Ghost

2010-04-27T11:11:00.000-07:00

I've been sitting on the Pac Man ghosts for awhile now since they're some of the first designs I made in Lego form. However, I've been holding out for all them in their normal colours in order to somehow put them all together in a nice group portrait. The only problem is, I can't find enough aqua Legos to finish off that fourth ghost. They are rare and someday I'll get to them, but in the meantime, you get this generic blue ghost. Which I guess really is Inky.

I had a Pac Man board game that looked like this. Sure, it had a bunch of cool marbles and looked relatively decent, but it only ended being more confusing because it had strange coloured pac men and a yellow ghost. Plus, I was an only child and so it was hard to get anyone to play it with you. Who would want to be a green or blue pac man? I wish I had one of these instead....

Frogger

2010-03-17T19:44:00.001-07:00

A few months ago I was driving along when I saw a rather large frog, literally hopping up into the air in great leaps, starting to cross the highway. It would have been rather comical if it weren't for the fact that it probably didn't have two extra lives left. Fortunately, I didn't see a lot of traffic or a horrible aftermath, so I like to think that it survived to get to the next dangerous part of Irvine, with all its fast lumber and beavers that come up behind these logs to tip them.

One thing that always bugged me about certain video games is how they ignored obvious things like frogs being able to swim, or moon patrol vehicles that can't handle small boulders on the moon. I guess they were early game attempts to create obstacles, but I usually steered my quarters clear of illogical game concepts. Like that childhood logic makes sense in a world of mushrooms that make you big, or space insects that steal your ship away in a tractor beam...

Knowing I was going to be away from my supplies, I prepared a few pictures of things ahead of time for the upcoming posts. After I took some pictures, I realised I once again needed to put together a green subject, and fast. Funny, I almost forgot last year's scramble to find something green for St. Patrick's Day. And yet Frogger doesn't actually have that much green in him. What is up with that?

SOPHIA

2010-02-19T23:35:00.001-08:00

"This game is about a guy named Jason.

Jason had a pet frog named Fred. One day, Fred decided he had enough of being locked up in a fish bowl and made a dash for the door. As fate would have it, Jason was there when all this happened and he gave chase. Once outside, Jason was totally amazed to find Fred running toward a huge radioactive chest. As soon as Fred touched it, he grew to an enormous size, and the radioactive chest fell into the earth along with Fred. Jason tried to reach for Fred but fell into the hole along with him.

When Fred landed, he found himself alone next to a huge armoured vehicle. This was not just any vehicle, but one designed for the ultimate challenge against the radioactive mutants living under the Earth's crust. These mutants, created from escaped radioactive waste, are controlled by the Plutonium Boss.

Your mission is to fight your way and destroy the Plutonium Boss before he destroys you.

Along the way to your final encounter are many warlords of the underground you must destroy."

Greatest backstory ever.

Duck Hunt

2010-01-28T21:20:00.000-08:00

I thought I would try something different this time around. Oh no, not by choosing another obscure subject like that Goonies game. Because this is about as obvious as it gets, and I don't even need to mention where it's from (except in the title, of course). I thought I'd be a little artsy this time and leave the edges unfinished. Well, that's mainly because I ran out of light blue bricks, but what can you do? In the past I would have waited to post this until I had replenished my supply of necessary bricks, but since this isn't about trying to create some elaborate background, there wasn't any real point to doing that. So tell me what you think. Does it look too unfinished, or does it have a bit of a artsy quality to it?

The first time I ever played an NES was in a store that was either a Gemco or K-Mart. I'm leaning towards K-Mart (the one that is now an Albertson's, diagonally from the Gemco that is now a Target). The demo was almost always this game, and of course I was amazed at the light gun technology. And of course I never owned a light gun. It hasn't even been on a list of things I should pick up, mainly because I don't like those ugly orange ones (most of the surviving examples are coloured that bright orange). Find me an original grey one that works, and then we'll talk....

The Goonies

2009-12-23T21:16:00.000-08:00

So you don't recognise this? You don't remember this pivotal scene from the movie? The one where the ghost pirate is chasing Mikey in the caverns after they go underground from that restaurant where the Fratellis were hiding out? Don't worry, neither do I.

So while I was traveling this fall I just had to visit Astoria, Oregon, home of some enjoyable movie locales. And since I don't believe they made a Kindergarten Cop video game, my mind immediately went back to the NES Goonies 2 game. I never understood why it was called Goonies 2, even though no earlier version that I knew of existed. That is, until the internets enlightened me....

So there WAS a Goonies 1 video game, but it only came out in Japan. Wait! That's not true! It actually did come out in the US, but only on one of those arcade "Vs." cabinets. When capturing the above picture, the memory of trying out this Goonies game flared up. I certainly didn't get far enough to find a ghost pirate, but he's only really a few levels beyond the beginning. I should know, I made this cool screen capture on the emulator. Oh, and Mikey wears a jacket in this version, whilst wearing short sleeves in the sequel. There are similarities in graphics and enemies between the two games, but Goonies 2 goes way off on another tangent and is more of an adventure game.

I was a little too ambitious attempting to make a full scene, and ran into a few problems, but overall it looks alright to me. Next time I'll try to actually recreate a scene most people would be familiar with. You should try out this game, or the NES sequel, if only to hear 8-bit Cyndi Lauper over and over again. I wish I could figure out how to make it a ringtone....

Goomba (SMB)

2009-11-23T11:40:00.000-08:00

Ah, I didn't think I was going to get to post this month, ruining my streak. But I found one that I took a picture of ages ago and never posted, so here you go...

I just purchased the new Super Mario Bros. game for the Wii, and haven't even had a chance to play it yet. When I get home we will partake in multi-player goodness, but in the meantime I give you the very first enemy you see in the very first game. Unless you count regular Mario Bros. as the first game. Which I don't since I can't even climb into the pipes in that one (and I'm a so-called plumber).

Did you know this enemy is named Kuribo in Japan? I thought I mentioned that before, but apparently not. That would explain why you jump into Kuribo's Shoe in Super Mario Bros. 3. I wonder why they didn't change the name to Goomba's Shoe? This earlier version looks a bit angrier than his counterpart in SMB3, but maybe it's just a more pronounced unibrow...

Zombie (Ghosts 'n Goblins - NES)

2009-10-05T11:55:00.000-07:00

Spooky! Now, with a zombie movie atop the box office, I can finally post my creation for all to enjoy this Halloween season. Usually I would stick with the arcade version of a character (if I had a choice), but in this instance, the arcade one had all these shades of blue and grey that I couldn't quite pull off, so you get the NES version instead. That certainly didn't make the game any easier, because Ghosts 'n Goblins is one of the hardest ever. Even with the code it takes forever to get through. And the warp code isn't even that easy to input, nor remember (unlike the good old Konami code). Apparently you would have to play through the whole game once, and then it would tell you that the final level was an illusion devised by Satan and return to starting point again!! I think those exclamation points were included in the original screen. EDIT: OK, so my memory is mixing those words up with some other game, but I was close.

I actually don't care for zombie movies. Not because I'm scared of zombies, but because I find them extremely repetitive. I do like comparing the original Night of the Living Dead to The Birds, as was mentioned in one of my film classes, but how many times can we remake the same scenario of people barricading themselves in a protected space while waiting for the ever increasing horde of undead to come bashing in? I do like Shaun of the Dead, as it pokes fun at the whole genre, and everyone seems to like Zombieland, so maybe I'll catch it on Blu-ray for next year's Halloween season. In the meantime, I'm surprised I never considered doing Ghosts and Goblins characters for this blog. There's a whole bunch of cool ones that actually sort of look like the monsters they represent. Hell, The Devil and Satan are actually two different bosses! I originally typed "heck," but then I realised I was talking about The Devil and Satan...

Space Invader (2)

2009-09-10T00:15:00.000-07:00

Or really, Space Invader 1, since he's the one on the lowest row....

So, after posting a fish, I ended up last week in the ocean floating amongst fishes in a wonderful setting for the first time in many years. I hope posting a Space Invader does not mean I will soon be abducted by aliens, or shot at by them with flimsy barriers protecting me. I have a terrible xenophobia, especially from those big black-eyed grey aliens that are always abucting people. Don't even get me started on those "friendly" aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind; anyone who abducts you for decades and then just dumps you home with no preparation is just cruel. I still have trouble watching the end of that movie without wanting to run away from their creepy alien kids with their creepy fingers.

Sorry you get another boring simple design this month, but I've been busy once again and traveling a lot and well, I think Space Invaders are pretty iconic and look cool and I'll probably even do the boring tank at one point. Don't worry, I've already completed next month's design, and I think you'll enjoy it. One hint: it's spooky!

Cheep Cheep (SMB3)

2009-08-18T12:32:00.001-07:00

Ah, Cheep Cheep. Has there ever been a more appropriately named character such as yourself? You're fine in the water leisurely floating around and swimming back and forth, but the moment you start flying through the air you become the biggest pain ever. I'll just be walking around with Mario or Luigi and you'll miraculously gain powers of flight and oxygen-breathing, or maybe you're just holding your breath as you lunge out of the water and smack into me while I'm trying to perform a well-timed jump onto some sort of spinning or collapsing platform. You are truly evil. Why must you torment me so? Stay in your element and I can handle you, even without the frog suit...

What's weird about the Super Mario Bros. 3 version of the Cheep Cheep is that it's actually less detailed than the original version. Which is fine by me since I don't have the colour to make it look right anyways. He also comes in green, but I think I was hallucinating when I thought I saw him in orange. I even played the game on my NES for a few hours just to see if I could find one. There were a lot less water levels than I remember, even on the so-called Water Land. And here I was, all ready to call it Water World and make a Kevin Costner joke....

Tektite

2009-07-19T20:02:00.001-07:00

So I was in the desert for a week, and let me tell you, it's hot. Especially in the summer. But the weird thing was the enormous variety of insects out there. I saw enormous Palo Verde Beetles and heard loud cicadas and some weird true bug I'm still trying to identify. Fortunately I avoided any scorpions or tarantulas, although one giant spider was spotted. I was far, far away from the area when it happened.

While I guess these aren't spiders, Tektites sure are big, and apparently they have fangs. Never noticed that before. Also, when you image search Tektite, you get this. Who knew tektites were real? The Zelda versions are way better....

Pengo

2009-06-24T22:26:00.001-07:00

I wish I could be writing about how I came back from an awesome Medi-terranean cruise this week, but instead events conspired against me. Instead I shall write about my childhood adventures....

When I went on my first cruise way back in 1983, I was amazed to find an arcade on board. But it was my second cruise in 1985 that really wowed me. You see, the arcade in this ship wasn't big or anything; it actually only had 3 or 4 games. BUT THEY WERE FREE! Do you know what this means to a 10 year old who has to survive on quarters meted out by his parents in small doses? It doesn't matter how lame the games are (well, luckily it didn't have Moon Patrol; I hate that game - I'll rant about that another time, pink moon buggy), I got to play them over and over and get good at them.

I only remember Time Pilot '84 and Pengo. Only I never really got very good at Pengo. I don't think I grasped the awesome ability to squash the Sno-Bees with ice blocks really well. I could stumble around and avoid them half the time, but the game is kind of clunky and it's hard to get away from them and smash while on the run. Nevertheless, I like the cheesy electronic attempts at classical music, and Pengo just looks cool. He also trips a lot and has some weird friends that never help him out, but they sure like to dance and wiggle their rear ends.

I don't think I'm ever going to get to a Time Pilot '84 ship, there's too much grey going on. And I did so much better on that game. Maybe because missiles are way easier to destroy your enemies with than ice....

Bubble Man (portrait)

2009-05-20T22:35:00.000-07:00

When I first conceived of these video game recreations, I thought I would stick to the oldest games because they were simple to put together, and I could do them fast. Unfortunately, some of the games that I've always liked don't always translate so well when you just make one character at a time (see Legend of Zelda for what I'm talking about).

I've wanted to tackle most of the Mega Man villains, but they're big and take a long time to map out correctly. So how did I end up with this, my largest portrait to date? I have no idea. I just got inspired one day to make the actual portrait on the menu selection screen, instead of the guy himself. I'll get to him someday. I almost ran out of those light green bricks. Sadly, he'll probably be the only portrait I do because all the others ones have colours I cannot replicate in Lego form.

Darn, I just noticed that I screwed up a bit right before posting it. I fixed it. This one actually didn't take too long because the different colour lines make it easy to avoid (major) screw ups.

Ice Hockey (Poland)

2009-04-14T23:52:00.000-07:00

Finally, the NHL playoffs are among us. I've been excited all season for this, and I can't wait! Oh wait, I don't follow hockey. Although I did go to a regular season game for the first time ever this year, so I guess that counts for something. It had a bunch of guys skating around that sort of looked like this.

In the meantime, in honor of this momentous Canadian occasion, I give you the Nintendo Ice Hockey player that represents Poland. I chose Poland because when I first met my friend Alex, she brought this cartridge over. Playing it for the first time in many years was also reminded me why this game was not very fun in comparison to Blades of Steel. The players are clunky and the controls seem all over the place.

There is an interesting bit of strategy in that you can choose to set up your team with as many skinny/medium/fat players as you choose. So if you like to play fast, you can load it up with a bunch of skinny guys, but watch out if the opposing player makes a bunch of fat guys flatten your lithe team. This particular character is the medium guy. I'm sure someday I'll get to the skinny Swede and the fat Czech. Or maybe the skinny Russian and the fat Canadian? The possibilities are endless! Or as many you can come up with using six countries....

Kuribo's Shoe (Goomba)

2009-03-24T23:01:00.001-07:00

So I was finally inspired last week to come up with something green for St. Patrick's Day, and Kuribo's Shoe popped into my head. Normally my inspiration comes from replaying a game, and not a holiday, but I quickly slapped the shoe together and was about to post it when I realised it was just a big green boot. It looked kind of sad all by itself. And here I was so happy that I put something together in record time.

Now, I've seen people put Mario in there, and he does look good when he's stomping all over the place, but I wanted to be different. I looked at my ever-expanding array of colours, and there was good old orange-y brown. I had never used orange-y brown before. It was perfect for a Super Mario Bros. 3 Goomba, so I started piecing him together. Whoops. I only had a few squares, and still didn't want to post this boring green blob with no context.

I found a place out there that can give me access to a few more colours. So I placed an order, and a few days later, he's done for all of you to see. Doesn't he look swell? Oh, by the way, it's actually referred to as dark orange, so I shall have to retire the name orange-y brown or apply it to some other muddled colour out there if I stumble upon something comparable. And so there you have it: your green-inspired post, only one week later....

Space Invader

2009-02-25T10:57:00.000-08:00

The original Space Invaders game was (mostly) in black and white. It's boring to make any of these pixels in just white, so I went with this creative pink. I seem to recall there was some green in the game, but that wasn't for the space invaders themselves (at least until they got to the bottom, and by then it was too late). I also bought a lot of pink bricks so one day I could make that one Pac Man ghost. What else would I use them for? This is the first true 1x1 pixel design I've made; it looks decent when it's a small character like this, but I find that you need bigger bricks for big chunks of colour for it to look good on the big sprites. It doesn't look as crooked when you've got all those little bricks that can end up slightly rotated in funny ways.

There's a street artist out there that takes this particular character and places him in locations around the world. I've seen them in Los Angeles, of course, but was pleased to find one in London, and I took a picture. I think it was on the bridge across from the Houses of Parliament. Wow, there are a lot of them; go here to pick a city and see where he (or his imitators) have been. His name is Invader, strangely enough....

Octorok

2009-01-21T17:36:00.000-08:00

I didn't want to have to do this. I've been so busy lately that I haven't had any free time to make more of these, so I'm down to my last one from the stockpile. And he's not even that exciting.

Octoroks. Probably the easiest name to remember of the random enemies Link faced. Don't remember the rest? Maybe this will refresh your mind: The Legend of Zelda NES commercial. Without that ad flashing their name quickly and repeatedly into our adolescent heads, we would never have learned that the random tree-shaped things that came in blue and red actually were land molluscs that shot small boulders out of their snouts. Just like snails do in our world.

I really wanted to start out with Link, but as I've mentioned previously, he just doesn't look good in the two versions I've made him in. The first used yellow for skin and it was alright, but the tan bricks I used for the second one were just too light for this weird elf-looking guy with a shield that can protect him from rocks if he just doesn't swing his sword at the same time. Besides, I'm here to talk about Octoroks. Um, I'm really going to have trouble stretching the entry out when I get to a Zelda II: The Adventure of Link Octorok....

Rockman

2008-12-23T12:19:00.001-08:00

OK, so I never really call him Rockman. He will always be Mega Man to me. He's the most complicated character I've made to date, so I thought I'd end the year with him. He's so nice I haven't had the heart to disassemble him and work on his adversaries. Magnet Man calls to me....

When I first heard they were bringing back Mega Man (and in 8-bit glory no less), I got so excited I pulled out all the old games and tried to beat them all. I even played Mega Man II on the difficult level, which I had never done before. Unfortunately, I didn't finish III in time, since Mega Man 9 showed up for download right in the middle of this run. It was a little jarring to try and finish up III while still trying to check out the new game. I have never even finished IV, but then, I got that one off Ebay and haven't had years to try and defeat it over and over like the others.

Mega Man 9 is the hardest one since at least the original Mega Man. Even after getting a few hints online, I got so frustrated I haven't played it in weeks. I'm going to play it right now though, as I'm strangely inspired for some reason....

Lakitu

2008-11-27T16:44:00.000-08:00

I probably shouldn't use up my small stash of backlogged photos, but Thanksgiving is making me sleepy, so I better make better use of my time.

You remember Lakitu, don't you? He's known as Jyugemu in Japan. Perhaps you are more familiar with the spiked eggs that he throws down on you, as you attempt to avoid a bunch of other obstacles. They hatch instantly, and become Spinies, those little spiked turtles that for seem reason seem less intelligent that the other turtles in the game. Maybe because they don't have big eyes and necks. You better hope you have fireballs.

Oh, I was supposed to talk about colours awhile back, wasn't I? The tan that Lego uses doesn't quite translate so well to a generic skin colour, so I've had to pick and choose which characters work best with it. So far, generic Jumpman and Lakitu here pass the test, but when I made Luigi using the exact same colours, something just didn't look right. Sure, I'm tweaking the contrast a lot when I post these here, but maybe the tan wasn't swarthy enough for a green and white-clad plumber. Actually, for some reason, the game uses a real orange-y hue for Mario and Luigi. I have to go with what Lego gives me. I had the same problem with Link, which is why I haven't posted him yet. It's actually good that Lego doesn't give me a lot of colour choices, because then I'd probably go crazy buying them all up. I've already bought some questionable colours in the hopes that I'll have a need for them in the future. Maroon, orange-y brown, and forest green: I'm looking at you....

Jumpman

2008-11-12T22:30:00.000-08:00

Did you know that Mario wasn't originally called Mario? He was Jumpman. I'm glad they didn't call him Hammerman. Or Generic Construction Worker. Whatever his name, he worked in the most dangerous environment ever. Even if the ape wasn't throwing barrels around, you could fall off a conveyor belt and die really quickly. They looked like pies would be coming towards you, but I think they were deadly dishes of concrete, or perhaps a very coarse sand. After watching King of Kong, I was determined to get to this level I've just described, because they inexplicably left it out of the documentary, even though it was totally another screen to delight and entertain the audience! The only problem was, that game is too damn hard. It took me weeks to just get to that level and watch conveyor belts destroy poor Jumpman, leaving his love for Pauline unrequited.

And don't even think about jumping very well. For a guy called Jumpman, he couldn't jump very far. Those Track and Field guys would waste him. They even had similar mustaches.

I really think i should start writing descriptions this way. Maybe I didn't think of this before because I didn't have good Dig Dug anecdotes. It's also scary if I actually do have real video game anecdotes....

Fygar

2008-11-06T23:21:00.001-08:00

Funny, they didn't have green when I was a kid...

Lego Mosaic came to the rescue by providing me with nice little transparent bases to put my pixels on, as well as a bunch of 1x1 bricks in a variety of colours. The basic idea is that you have a picture that you place the clear base onto so you just stick the bricks over the grid one at a time. Kind of like the old Lite-Brite patterns, but re-usable. This is fine with the Lego-provided instructions, but for some reason they didn't give you a blank grid that was sized to the Lego studs. So, when you want to make your own pictures, you just have to improvise. Maybe I'll make and photocopy some blank grids someday.

Now here's the kicker: when I counted the number of dots on these bases, I found they were 16x16, which is exactly the same number as the patterns for the dot-s pegboards. So whenever I use those instructions, everything is translated nice and easy. Except for trying to match colours when they're not simple primary ones. But more on that next time....

Pooka

2008-10-26T12:54:00.000-07:00

The dot-s website shows a bunch of sets that I probably never would have had a chance to pick up without spending a lot of money to import them all. But it is great nonetheless because it has alternate "recipes" for some basic characters, as well as some lesser pixels such as fruits or bonus items. Pooka here can also be shown being blown up, and I should totally make that version for a later entry.

Pooka uses basic colours, but I learned early on that my Lego collection wasn't as extensive as I remembered. Since I mostly had space and castle sets, my colour palette was very limited (mostly grey and blue). Scrounging together red and yellow for Pooka was fine, but any larger character would require me to buy a bunch more. Luckily I found the solution in Lego Mosaic. More about that next time....

Dig Dug

2008-10-18T16:21:00.000-07:00

The first one of these Lego creations I attempted was Dig Dug.

He's easy because I already had these colours and looks like an expression-less Smurf. A Smurf that impales you with an arrow and pumps you full of air so that you explode. If the Smurfs had used these tactics against Gargamel and Azrael, there would still be Smurfs around today. I was never really good at this game in the arcade, but I picked up a Windows version years ago and I became quite dominant. Then Bill Gates became evil(er) and wouldn't let me transfer this to newer versions of Windows even though I was using the original floppy discs. I can sort of play it on Vista, but then it crashes all the time. I guess at this point I probably could just play it on my phone....

Dots and Pegs

2008-10-16T22:16:00.000-07:00

OR, How I Learned to be Pseudo-artsy from Tiny Japanese Products

Welcome to my new blog, placed here just so I can share my slight obsession with old-school video game graphics. It started when I first discovered dot-s at the Giant Robot store in LA.

These little products are self-contained kits that have all the colours you need for a particular bunch of video game characters, and a wealth of patterns to vary your purchase. They're only a few inches high, so the pegs are very tiny and a bit difficult to switch around if you get bored quickly. You can also connect the backboards together and make bigger scenes. The instructions are very simple and have grids on them to make placement that much easier.

Now, since they're imported from Japan and I believe mostly out of production, I started thinking of other ways to create these characters. I've seen lots of people tackle this kind of art, so I got a lot of ideas. There's these things called Pixelblocks that are translucent and do a good job since they're stackable, but I didn't feel like investing in a whole bunch of them. That's when I realised I could pull off the same effect with Lego, and I already had a bunch of those.

So I pulled the boxes out of storage, waded through all the space pieces to get to the basic bricks, and started putting things together. There's plenty of references online, and I took a few lousy pictures with the cellphone camera before I decided I should document these better. So here's a website to stick everything I deem worthy.