New articles on Beep City and The Naked Gamers
I recently did two new write ups for some other sites. The first one is over at Beep City, and is an interesting concept (even with some artwork by me!).
Welcome to Stage Select! What is that you say? Well I shall break it down for you now. This series looks to take chiptune songs and use them to tell a tale. Imagine something akin to a music video, where every note and tempo change tells part of a story.
The first song we bring you is one that has been playing in my head for some time since I ran across it last year. It comes from the debut EP Challenge! by Swedish musician Comptroller. The full album is available free over at GM4A Records, but we will be focusing on the second track from this EP, the song Galactic Hero. The album in full feels like the soundtrack to an epic space opera, and that is the theme I am going with today to describe this song. Follow along as you listen to the track and I hope you enjoy!
Read more over at this beepcity.com link.
The second one is over at The Naked Gamers. This one is a rewrite of an old Megas article from The Start Screen. I rewrote and cleaned it up a bit, and think it is a good article. I will have a completely new write up for TNG next week, but for now, check out this rewrite.
As jazz bands have standards, the types of songs many musicians rearrange and make their own, the video game inspired music world also has their standard video games which everyone covers. It seems one of the most often rearranged, remixed and recreated soundtrack is the NES classic Mega Man 2. That is surely not to say that the game is overdone. There is one band though, who has not only taken Mega Man and created something new, but just as much, have given something back to the game. Musically they have infused the game with a new background, depth, and mentality that should have never existed in the minimalist colors and dimensions of a humble platformer from 1989.
Read more over at this The Naked Gamers link.
Hope you enjoy the articles! More soon! And of course I am always looking for more outlets to post at!
Time to take out the trash
So I have a ton of things to get done, and even more things to get done with some recent news. I have things to write, then some more things to write…then some stuff to write.
Looks like I will be writing for Beep City soon though! I think I am going to title the article series “Stage Select.” Luckily I do not need any fancy graphics or anything for this one. The basic idea for the article is that I will take one chiptune track from my collection and plunder it’s musical depths and gleam from it a short review of the imagery the song conjures up in my mind. Was that description a little over the top there? Yeah, probably. Well basically I review and discuss one track per article.
Above and beyond that I have to draw a small pixel art “screenshot” of the image I have in my mind from the game too. If you look a couple posts back I kind of did something like that with the song Galactic Hero by Comptroller. That is initially where I got the idea for these articles actually.
I am also looking for other websites to write for as well, I really feel like the next step to being a writer is working with deadlines, expanding my writing style with different types of articles, and simply getting my name out there. This comes right on the heels of my former guest writer stomping ground The Start Screen (not linking it since it doesn’t exist anymore) shutting down forever just last week. So with that I am also looking to rewrite and re-host my articles, and let me continue writing them. I am really hoping for an established video game website to host my articles. Are YOU that website!?
Well I would prefer one that could pay me, but who am I to demand such things just yet? I would love some more financial security though, and I wonder how much better I would write if I got paid for it. That is a whole other thing to think about though, and won’t dwell on it now.
Hey What?
I need to start posting here again, I have a ton of new things to work on, but right now I am sick. cough cough cough. goodnight!
Been gone from this blog for a while
But not because I haven’t been busy! Well okay I haven’t been busy, at least not until the past week or so. Allow me to explain. The day after Christmas I unfortunately broke my old computer. So sadly I was left sans computing power for several weeks until I gathered enough spare change to head down to Fry’s and grab myself a new one. I accomplished that feet about two weeks ago, give or take. And since then it has been a slow trek to getting things back in order. I think I have done well for myself in that respect thus far.
I have been able to get This Week in VGIM back on track. Started releasing new episodes of Ballad of the Wind Fish once again. Not to mention GM4A’s upcoming concert.
Another thing I am proud of is the slow but steady success of the GM4A Records netlabel that has started up merely two months ago. Since then we have been lucky enough to have two great album releases in Comptroller and Doug Leinen. Also several exciting upcoming projects which I hope will see the light of day as well.
Now to change things up a little.

That there is a simple astronaut man I drew in tribute to the Comptroller track Galactic Hero, which I have gone on record as saying highly visualizes the moments building down to a heroic launch into space. That also leads me to another artistic endeavor I am undertaking, although I don’t want to reveal what that is just yet. I am not sure exactly when it will be popping up, but I have been putting a ton of thought and some bit of work into it, and hope that it comes to fruition soon because I am very excited about it.
One more thing, before I was sadly ripped away from my former computer last year, I was working on another new thing, which explains that blank post below this one. Though it has not seen life just yet, I am happy to be resurrecting it very soon. That should be exciting as well!
Into The Wilderness
It has been raining most of the day today, which seems to have ratcheted up my productivity a notch. I got a good chunk of writing done, listened in to KyleJCrb’s new radio show, and have now finished up a bit more of that World game map I have been working on. Still no new dungeons, but did work on some transition pieces. Check it out.
Here we see the northern river going from ice into a free flowing river. I don’t think I made the transition as smooth as I would like, But I still think it looks pretty good. This is of course the Northern part of the map, and just east of where the snow dungeon resides.
And to the East the gentle grass slowly turns into a harsh magma filled hellscape. This will be the location of the fifth dungeon as well. Though I am still not sure exactly what my plan is for that dungeon. Perhaps it will come to me in a dream?
Also big plans for a very special Ballad of The Wind Fish tomorrow! On that note I should mention that the last weeks episodes are available to listen to on the appropriate GM4A page. I look forward to tomorrow afternoon’s show, so with that I am off!
Oh yeah, before I go, we also have a cool contest announcement coming up soon on GM4A, keep an eye out for that one!
So what if we like to do what we do?
It’s not like we’re gonna stop any time soon.
