There's a new voter bonus comic and a new ROM!

It's been a long time since I updated Ink, hasn't it? It's not that I haven't had time. Well, there were periods when I didn't have time, but there were others where I could have updated if I tried. The thing is, I've finished most of the easier work on it. With a couple of exceptions, the rest of things about it that I'd be posting here would take quite a bit of time and effort. And, when it comes down to it, between planning and teaching game design classes at work and spending a significant chunk of my free time working on Car Washer and Aurora's Nightmare, I'm spending enough of my day focused on game design already. I love it, but if I overdue things I'm going to get burnt out and, with all the extra time I've been spending getting Car Washer ready for launch, I'm pushing it a little already. I'll do one or two more updates (I want to get the last party member done), but then I'm going to bring it to an end for now. It's not like I'm giving up on Ink or anything. I still love the concept and the story, and I still hope to actually make the game someday. I may even continue it here on Pebble Version at some point. But, for now, I'm going to focus on other things.

Have a good weekend!

Josiah

Vocaloid music seems to have gotten fairly popular in the US recently, at least among anime/manga fans. If you're not familiar with the term Vocaloid, you can read more about it in my last random Japan comment from last year's stay in Japan (the RJC about Hatsune Miku at the very bottom of the page). In a nutshell, Vocaloid refers to a type of computer software that creates a virtual singer. With some skill and work, you can make them sing just about anything. They're useful for composers and song writers who don't have a singer to work with, but they've turned into an entire music genre of their own. A Japanese company called Crypton really popularized Vocaloid software by creating characters to go with the different voices available. The most popular of which is Hatsune Miku, who not only has hundreds and hundreds of songs, but a manga, video games series, and a ton of merchandise. She even performs in live concerts (via hologram). But anyway, as I was saying, Miku and the other Crypton Vocaloids (such as Luka, and the twins Rin and Len) have become fairly popular in the US. There was a Miku concert at Anime Expo this last summer which sold old almost immediately (I wish I could have gone), and Toyota even used her in one of their US commercials.

So why am I talking about Vocaloids now? Well, I was looking for something in Amazon's MP3 store the other day and, out of curiosity, tried searching for Hatsune Miku. It turns out they've got a pretty good selection of music with not only Miku but other Vocaloids as well. If you're curious, you may want to head over there and take a look. Unfortunately, they don't have Miku's greatest hits albums or the Project Diva soundtracks, but Supercell is an excellent Miku album and features some of her biggest hits like The World is Mine and Melt. It's also a fairly hard to find CD in Japan. If you want to hear some different Vocaloids, I really like the Rin and Len album Sunspot Cycle, and there are a lot of good Megurine Luka songs too.

Anyway, just something I thought was cool. Especially since it doesn't require importing Japanese iTunes cards or anything like that. Amazon is building up a nice little collection of Japanese MP3s (and not just Vocaloid music) and I hope they continue to expand it.

Josiah

This past weekend was a complete opposite of the last one. Aside from my usual weekly grocery run, I pretty much just stayed at my apartment and worked on things. I did manage to get quite a lot done though. Pretty much everything on my to-do list, in fact, which I really wasn't expecting. As it happens, quite a lot of that work was related to Car Washer. Everything is on track for a launch in the first half of February. Actually, I could probably rush it out a bit sooner but I want time to finish updating the Car Washer web site, make a site for my indie studio itself, and do a little advertising first. But anyway, it won't be long now...

Josiah