Monthly Archives: March 2012

Ron Gilbert is back with a brand new game

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Do you remember Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion? These two games were planned by Ron Gilbert, now a videogame legend, under the LucasArts label. Many time has passed though, but I still remember how I bought my The Secret of Monkey Island game the first day it was released and played all night to finish it…

I’m not going to get melancholic, but the great news is that Ron has collected money among his fans to prepare a brand new game with an old idea! Doesn’t it sound great? This is good news for videogame lovers and especially to those who believe that graphic adventures are an erroneously forgotten genre. You can search for it on the net and will find a couple images and no plot yet…

Youtube young musician hordes

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Guess what? While I’m writing this article I’m listening to some music on Youtube. Now it’s the turn of Jordan Jansen, a male kid that is currently rocking a bit on the video platform. But there are more. Many more. Seems like parents are trying to make a Justin Bieber out of their children!

And there are other who are older, 18 or so, like Tiffany Alvord, or Christina Grimmie. And many teenagers, like Sabrina Carpenter, or Maria Aragon, or Connie Talbot…

It’s easy. You fall in love, have a child. When he is nine, you teach him how to sing. If he/she sings well, then you upload a video of him/her singing to Youtube and voila! Justin Bieber. But you have to be careful, because, as some people say, what is born on Youtube, stays on Youtube. Though we mustn’t underestimate the power of that video platform.

Deconstructing Lana Del Rey

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I do not usually talk about mega mainstream artists, but I will make an exception with Lana del Rey, because I like her music and because her success was built on the net (and isn’t this a blog about internet culture?).

Whatever. I must admit I like her style a lot. It has taken 8 months or so for this girl to directly place herself on top of the star ecosystem. And she deserves it. She’s fresh, original, she’s not the same. When I listen to the radio, I’m always hearing those commercial music themes, with a built-in dance rhythm and some vocals on it. But this is different. I wish all musicians were like her, so original, so special. And, of course, she uses violins, harps, some instruments that were banished from the pop scene a long time ago (Since the 60′s, 70′s of the latest century)!

In sum, I don’t know why she is so successful; I like her music a lot and I hope she does well. Long live Lana del Rey!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

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Happy St. Patrick’s day from Pedroalonsopablos.com!!!

To make you have a wonderful St. Patrick’s day, I’m pointing you to a video called “How to Catch a Leprechaun”, featuring an old character of mine, called Moshi. You’ll learn some funny stuff on how to catch one of those mysterious Irish elves. Link to the video on Youtube here. Enjoy!

Youtube International video contest

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Youtube, the international video-oriented megacommunity, is accepting films for a contest called “Your Film Festival”, organised by the website, with $500,000 in prizes and opportunities to film with great directors like Ridley Scott.

I don’t exactly know the rules but seems like they’re very open and currently they are accepting films! http://www.youtube.com/yourfilmfestival

How to create videogames without programming

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In this post I will be talking about a new computer software that will help you create games in no time without programming. It’s called Stencyl.

I’ve had a quick approach to the software and have downloaded it and played around with it. And I must say I’m impressed with its capabilities. I’ve created a mini game I won’t release because it’s so mini, but I’m planning to create a sequel of one of my games with it.

There are many duties that are easier to make when creating a videogame with Stencyl. Although creating game assets (music, graphics) is the same, there’s a great community of uploaders that share their works and if you are in a hurry you can use those pre-made assets for your game! And of course it’s easier to plan and develop levels, manage music & graphics & sprites, and create menus or other stuff. It’s great!

There’s a logic section in which you can create code in a very visual way just by knowing the basics of programming (or logic, which is indeed almost the same), and a “true code” editor if you want to code it for yourself.

In sum, I think this software will help people out make games without having to work so much, with tutorials and samples ready to use for certain type of games. So if you are planning to make a game and don’t want to bother by the rough stuff, you should get into Stencyl.

How to become popular on deviantART

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Now here comes a long post. Hope ya like it. DeviantART is one of my favorite places on the net, with lots of drawings and paintings made by people like you and me. I visit dA almost every day, to check what’s a trending topic, for instance, on the net, and to amuse myself with wonderful paintings. I’m not on the ‘become popular on dA’ run now, but I’ve studied what people with many views on their profiles have in common and I’m explaining it here.

Here are some points that will help you out become popular on deviantART:

  • Make good art. This is not necessary but I had to say it first (LOL). Art is a subjective matter; I’ve checked which pages on dA have more visits and trust me, Kerem Beyit has few pageviews compared to people who make silly webcomics or silly fanarts.
  • Make deviantART your headquarters on the net. When you start a profile on deviantART you’ll find out that you’ll be given a subdomain like myname.deviantart.com. This means that, for Google (as far as I know), your profile is an entire new page, as Google treats subdomains like standalone pages. So point people to that website first and all around the net; if you’re using a signature in a forum, place that URL instead of others; tell your friends about that URL. You have a blog there so you can populate it with stuff instead of making another blog… In sum, make dA your headquarters on the net.
  • Choose your name or a pseudonim and stick to it. Make your name or your pseudonim an easy way people can identify your work on the net. Sign your artwork with that name always, and use it everytime you write down anything on the net. A name is like a brand, you must make people recognise it and make it valuable and trustful.
  • Make just art. Many people have a blog, then they have some videos on Youtube, then they have their Facebook account, then they have a Tumblr, because they make art, music, videos, games, and other stuff (like me). dA works better for people who just makes painted art, like a painter or a manga artist. If you are a multi-talented artist, perhaps dA won’t work as desired.
  • Respond to every single comment anyone posts on an artwork you made. When you exchange comments with another person, an emotional tie appears between you and that other person. If becoming popular means making a lot of people believe that your art is interesting, then the more emotional ties you make the more friends you’ll have and they will more likely comment or help you on your duty. For instance, Pikiru, an emerging young artist on dA, which has more than 500,000 views on her profile, doesn’t leave a comment without an answer. You can ask her about whatever stupid thing you may think; she will answer (I’ve exchanged comments with her like three or four times already and believe me, that’s true).
  • Be active on the community. Comment, give feedback, know interesting people. Watch people.
  • Make friends, not enemies. This suggestion is tied to the previous one. Don’t tell anybody ‘your art is bad’ because you’ll make an enemy and he/she will do the same to you. Try to make as many friends as possible.
  • Make fanarts. I’m not into this so much but, if you’re stuck on getting views from your creations, make fanarts. This will help people place your art on their minds and recognise what you’re doing and what you like.
  • Fanart for fanart. Make a couple friends on dA (they can be real-life friends if you have them) and tell them to make fanarts of your OCs (original characters) and in return make fanarts out of their original characters too. This will make your characters become ‘more popular’ or at least look like if they were popular!

So, if you follow these steps, I don’t know where you’ll go, but I’m sure they will help you out. These are some profiles on dA which I follow or I know they’ve got many visits, you can judge for yourself if they deserve them or not (LOL):

Pikiru – http://pikiru.deviantart.com/
Kerem Beyit – http://kerembeyit.deviantart.com/
RainCookie – http://raincookie.deviantart.com/
Wen-M – http://wen-m.deviantart.com/
ArtGerm – http://artgerm.deviantart.com/
PhoenixLu – http://phoenixlu.deviantart.com/

New York Shark: Pure Fun

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Today I want to talk about an online flash game everyone should play: New York Shark. For those who just want to play it, here’s the link to the game (free) on Newgrounds.

For those who want to analyse the success of the series, keep on reading. It is a 5-minute game in which you are a shark and start eating and destroying everything you see on New York Bay area. The complete series, including “Miami Shark” and “Sydney Shark”, have been a major success on the free online flash game industry, and together and just on Newgrounds they have been played more than 12,500,000 times. Impressive, isn’t it?

But what’s the secret of the success of the series? As I like to say in this blog, Mausland Entertainment (by Felix Wiesner; company and creator of the series), has stuck to the basics: pure fun. There’s violence on the game, but well deserved. The idea is superb, and so the execution. This tandem (great idea + great execution), is the basics of many successful stories. But in this case the idea exploits the 2d field to the maximum, and the game itself is great fun. You can see all those people shouting “OMG” before you eat them, and you can destroy a cruise ship, a plain, many other things, and what’s in between.

Some people in the online gaming industry don’t give a penny for those 5-minute gameplay games. They want complex RPGs or Tower Defenses with many levels and scenarios. Well, here’s the opposite. The simplicity of this game beats them all. It’s a game everyone should play.

Make others create a Fan Art

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There’s a sign you can follow to check the popularity of your creation. This sign is the amount of Fan Arts created on that topic. You can surf deviantART or Youtube communities to see if there is something about your stuff made by fans. This is in fact a great thermometer to measure the interest of your piece.

But beware! Those precious fan arts could be made out of scholars who are trying to make its brand buzz greater! There are some companies who do it. There are other people who make a fan art out of your creation if you make a fan art out of his/her creation… So sometimes there are tricks in this field.

Either this is made this way or the genuine way (a true fan art), I must say that on deviantART I’m watching two big brands people are fan arting: Hatsune Miku (Japan) and My Little Pony (US). That place is full of those fan arts! Youtube is also full of these two brands either.

In a following post I’ll tell you about a girl who has managed to get fan arted by others very well on deviantART, she’s very young and she’s from South Korea! I will also tell you about a Chinese girl who paints so good. But they deserve a post for their own.