Of music and midterms

Lame title, I know.

Anyways, I’ve been away from this blog for a while, and I apologize. I still plan to write to it, when I get time. I’ve been preoccupied with a music project and midterms coming up.

I’ve actually got a midterm for my intro to psychotherapy class tomorrow…and it’s pretty late here. I should be getting to sleep, but hey, I can always nap just before the class (I’ve got a 3-hour break).

Anyways, on to the exciting part. For the past…some amount of time, I’ve been working on writing music to what’s looking to be a really cool megaman battle network fangame, called “Chrono X”.  There’ve been a lot of them out there that never get finished and I have to say, I was skeptical to join at first.  But then I saw the videos and downloaded the demo and I was completely on-board.

Anyways, you can find info on it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiWzSWyWX_8
(make sure to check out all 3 parts)

http://mmbnchronox.webs.com/
(official project site, including a demo!)

My music isn’t in any of the videos or the demo YET, but that’s only because I was taken on late into the project. From what I hear there’s something good in the works so just sit tight.

SoulHow to make a more successful fangame

Skill Level: N/A

What do you think is the most frequently made fangame?  Mario?  Sonic?  Megaman?  Nope, you’re wrong.  The most frequently made fangames, are bad ones.  And sadly, these poorly-made fangames’ reputations tend to rub off onto other fangames and shoot their chances as well.

I really don’t care about original vs. fangame; all I care about is whether a game is good, and I’m sure most of you will agree with me if you truly think about it.  Seriously, who out there has played, for example, Hard Hat 3 by Damaged, and disliked it because it was unoriginal?  The real deal breaker is (should be) the game’s quality.  If you find yourself disliking a fangame only because it’s unoriginal, you should think be thinking a little harder.

And with that said, I will now write something more like what you were expecting in a SoulHow article: how to get your fangame more successful.  This doesn’t mean matching the original game to the T, but making different levels and bosses.  Actually, it involves a number of things.