Ask Guru Gobbo #119

0) Bah! I knew I forgot to fact check something. I don't exactly do this any sort of a well organized manner. Normally I gank my questions at one place and then write the answers up later, typically off-line. Sometimes I remember to check things, and I sure don't re-read anything I write to see if it needs furtherly done up 'cuz, really, that'd just take too long.

1) The blokes at the animated series probably felt (a) Harry Potter was big and how could they cash in on that? And (b) what ability is least like any other? Kirby has a lot of powers, but a some can overlap while others are pretty one dimensional. Sure, a Sword can do a lot, but what can Laser do? Shoot beam... shoot beam... Clean, however, wasn't like anything by a long shot, so it made for a pretty good inclusion. Mostly, however, just (a).

2) Ugh! I'd sure hope he wouldn't be. If the show were to have turned out like the glorious five minute trailer, which ironically featured an appearance of Dark Matter as one of the evil minions, then it would have been spiffy for the now ignored villain to get some screen time. But, with the way it turned out, I'm glad he was spared.

3) It would have made more sense to populate Dream Land with Dream Landers, but that would have diminished Kirby's and Meta Knight's specialness, and they had to be made unique. No, really, Cappies were chosen for a simple and lame reason: they were the most easily modified. The Cappies could be dressed up in outfits, given "hair", and other features to make them more human, which in turn led to them being no different than a human settlement. Waddles don't dress up to well due to them being largely a head. The Cappies, properly and easily deformed, didn't suffer this problem.

... Disqualified? Where in the world are you pulling that non-sense from? The only thing that happened was I followed what I thought your description said. Square body, round head, one eye showing, mask with fangs. There wasn't any mention of a cross shaped pattern, of the knight have uncharacteristically long arms for how all of the official knights look (which is typically how I tend to start things off), or a series of blue ridges crossing various points perpendicularly. It wasn't said where there were crosses, where there was black or silver armor, or where there was blue strips.

No, saying things vaguely and then providing a more explanatory picture have nothing to do with the rules or entry rejection. I couldn't imagine having to describe every detail of that when a picture oh-so nicely fills out more with less. I don't think there is even grounds for any type of disqualification in the IFs. Typically, a submission is only blockaded at the front by not meeting requirements (ie: a weapon used by a Meta Knight, thinking its a mini-boss or regular boss, or maximum suckage). I really don't know where you got this weird idea in your head at.

Ultraman is awesome, though, and he only has three minutes to defeat Bogun!

One of the worse parts about answering questions is assuming I answered them before. Then, rather than waste space, I just look for the old answer and throw the person a link there down at the bottom of the session. That way, I'm not repeating myself. A problem comes when I only have half answered a question, not really directly at all, and spent way too much time trying find the scraps. It'd all be easier to just answer it on the fly, but, you know, what's the fun in that?

Anyhoo, there was a Wii Virtual Console port of Super Star slotted some time ago. However, they put the fork in that and shoved it off to the attic so that no one would ever remember it. Then, Super Star Ultra came out. Both are remakes of the same game, but, you are correct, they aren't the same game. Ultra varies in that it can generate much more money than a simple port. So, no, they aren't going to be porting it, at least not for a very, very long time, if ever. Can you blame them? Well, maybe you can, but I and the rest of the universal-yous who are marketing savvy are nodding with Nintendo's decision on this one.

A Note from Bimblesnaff of the Future: There was a release on the Virtual Console, in Japan only, in October 2009. No date has been released for America.

1) I don't know exactly how the controls will work for Kirby Wii, then again I don't know how any controls work for Wii titles as I've never played. I know that the motions generally make sense, which has me question what advantage the game even has on that system.

2) The same way folks get their fat head through a neck hole on a shirt. It's not like objects, espectially clothing, are rigid and wholly inflexible.

3) Kabby came across as less a fan character and more a fandom fusion which, no matter how creatively down, isn't really making something new, ultimately. Mixing red and yellow doesn't make orange. The pigments of both original colors are just equally dispensed throughout the paint and blur together to fool the eyes into thinking its a new color.

Asking my opinion on things is never good.

Venom is an alien symbiont obtained by Spider Man during the Secret Wars to replace his damaged suit which he rejected with the aid of church bells and drove the organism to bind to Peter Parker's personal rival, Eddie Brock, who bound nicely with it, went totally insane, and wound up saving him from cancer. Lame Ultimate makes it a cure for cancer instead. Pssh! But, yeah, I guess you can say I know a little 'bout heroes and what not.

But, yes, the two do have similarities. A dark, amorphic base, a hanging tongue, dark coloration, and a tendancy for good. Venom is sometimes a hero, sorta. Sometimes. He flips or rides the border like any good anti-hero. However, outside of shared characteristics, you can't really say that the two look like one another. That's just stretching too far.

0) Then I'll ruin it for you. The plot? Same as the graphic novel! Only with 50% more exploding bodies.

1) I've never really made the Waddle Dee to monkey connection, myself. I've always thought them to be in some sort of robe with a face sticking out, but that makes a lot more sense. Monkeys are big in Asia. As for the manga that calls Dees monkeys, I've never heard this line, but then again I've read next to none, but I'd say that's a good point. I mean, it's the only official word given on their nature. As for "what" they are, they are what they are. Things aren't something else. They're always themselves. It's like King Dedede. Penguin, duck, eagle, it's all irrelevant. He's King Dedede, obviously avian but not any bird in particular 'cuz, you know, he's not from Earth. They can both be likened to something, but it doesn't really change who or what they are in the end.

2) The colors didn't have to do with color. They were related to being distinctive from Kirby's original color. Since pink is already the "girl" color, they compromised and went another route. Of course, they didn't want to use blue, either, since that's normally the pairing with pink for gender bias color schemes. That led them to green and yellow, which have no significance in color theory to pink. Well, green is the direct opposite of red, which pink technically is, but that'd only work for an inversion. Split compliments would have been blue and yellow, which they didn't do. If they wanted it to be like Lola, or whatever that crummy Lololo/Lalala fusion was call, like I care, it should have been the two neighboring colors, purple and orange, but then they'd have too much purple in use, I guess. So, the colors were pretty much just picked with no real deep, color motivated insight. Coulda been but didn't.

3) No. No species. No families. No classes. Unless it has the name "Waddle" or "Dee", then it's not gonna be a relative of Waddle Dee. Plus, you already asked this, about half a year ago. Minny ain't Dees. Right there. Leirin. Unless it was an impostor.

4) Maybe you already asked about this one, too. Nah, it was Error Taxi, and he provided the truth about encountering Batamon.

1) Adeleine is Ado was one of the earliest controversal statements I ever made in this joint.

2) Unnecessary, maybe, but it sure can screw you up. This is a surprise, "It's not over yet" to sucker punch the player. Normally, they see a life bar tick down and think, "Oh, good, it's over now", and may let down their guard. If they just skated by with life, then they could have to do the battle all over again. If you know it's coming, then, yeah, it loses a lot of value.

3) He also turns into a ball in Dream Course, Tilt 'n' Tumble, and Dream Land 3 at appropriate times, but I guess those don't matter to you. Anyhoo, he's just rolling up into a ball. That's not the same as what he can do with Ball. The ability amounts to more than just a round form. Kirby would be 90% there on any give day if that was the case. Ball's ability comes from high powered bouncing to barrage foes with. Rolling and being flipped around aren't part of it. Also, it's a game. They didn't want him to eat a guy at the start of every round.

It's joooooke. "I am sometimes mischief" is, as far as I know, only said by three people: myself, the Ometon, and the originator of the phrase, Aru of the Fanart Gallery. If more folks than that are saying it, then it looks like we've gone and made ourselves a meme~!

She made a comic comparing Cosmic Chaos' Emperor Neo to Tulip, and, what can I say? It was adorable. ... I'm a total sucker. As for which part was adorable, you can be the judge of that.

Talent? With Game Maker? I don't really consider anything involving that pre-packaging to be related to talent. No, all it requires is a basic understanding of computer logic and formulation. Sadly, that's something a lot of people don't have. I just picked the thing up and started tinkering away at it, but it seems most people need to suckle the teat of a from-the-box game shell to get anything going. That's a shame. Microwavable games lack flavor and are often high in sodium. Health, yo.

Anyhoo, Dream Land Dash. Ugh, what an over-stayed waste that thing is. Fun fact, the actual game code data for that file is called "2D Test", as that is what I made it for -- a test of a two dimensional game. The very first thing I ever did on Game Maker, proto-filed as "q" to show how little was expected of it, evolved into the top-down scrolling shooter that became known as Squish Pod. I many used that as a sandbox and just tested out what I could get done. After toying with that for way too long, I wanted to try my hand at a platformer. That became Dash.

It's a rather sad story, really. Sad in lame, not the teary kind. The game was assembled from graphics that I had laying around. Squish was made entirely from sprites drawn in MS Paint, but I wanted to try and have a bit more organic looking visuals in this game. That, right there, was a mistake as my ever shifting desires really hamper sticking to something as it is. Anyhoo, I had a bunch of weird foods and some Dream Land enemies drawn up for what I wanted to use as a Kirbypedia layout, no joke, and some running animation made for a Squeaky Bogg avatar used at the forums. That li'l runner has had a lotta uses. I figured, "Well, I can just use him as a stand in," and then never got around to actually putting in anything else.

Anyhoo, that thing is dead, and should be as its a relic. I've learned so much since those early practice things, it's not even funny. Both of those early testers have actually been rebooted, the prior recently (as in six months ago) and the latter more than once. I tried cutting out the Dream Land aspect and went for the zany platformer target instead with Dungeon Delver, but after Freddy Greenborne sat around with no where to go due to his lack of attack possibilities, I've recently (as in a month ago) tried to see how much of a 2-D platformer I could make with only 24 hours of programming effort behind it. This time, I went back to the original player but changed the gimmick.

Squeaky Bogg Jammer is technically just a non-associated, cartoonish platformer featuring the green gremlin and a few other rounded characters that look like they could be featured in many game's universes. Squeaky just runs, jumps, bounces, and wall-springs through levels while spitting globs of acid (yes, I brought it back) at enemies to stun them momentarily. And I waste way too much time during the "programming" just bouncing off the walls in that one.

The Squish Pod sequel, Lunar Labyrinth, features a large, shifting dungeon that changes every time a new game is booted up, ensuring that the same game is never exactly played. All that really needs tossed in is boss battles, and the old Pod can be flushed down the drain, which while that won't happen to the original, such will go down for Dash.

That's all perspectives and horizons, however, and my "near futures", as indicated by my "recent pasts" are far coming. The real, and fully playable despite constant development, fruit of my wasted times is Barrack Breaker. I call it "reverse castle defense", but it's really more of a demolition platformer set in days of yore with brightly colored, tiny knights each with their own armament. But, BB, SBJ, or SP ain't Kirby related, so they really don't have any relevance here and shouldn't have even been a topic of discussion.

Whew. That's way too much talking about myself and my projects than I would normally care to stuff into a session, but, what can I say? There were a lot of repeats in this broadcast and felt a new one was due to pump out. So, I dug this question out of the "maybe" pile.