I Finally Played Yoshi’s Island

The most I knew about Yoshi’s Island was the fact that most (if not all) people who play it find baby Mario’s crying extremely aggravating.  In fact, I knew there were several Yoshi games out there, and I didn’t even know which one it was that included such a…unique feature.  (I was mainly confused about the difference between Yoshi’s Island on the SNES and Yoshi’s Story on the N64.)  When the Switch Online provided us with a collection of SNES games, I knew it was time to finally play Yoshi’s Island, the cover art telling me right away that…oh, this is the game with baby Mario.  I see…

Practicing the Rubber Hose Art Style with Cuphead

G’day, everyone, I’ve got a new set of fan art to share with you all!  Earlier this year, I finally got around to playing the immensely popular Cuphead.  You know, that super difficult game that was drawn in the classic rubber hose art style from the 1930’s?  Well, as I so often do when I enjoy a game, I decided to draw some fan art and, while I was at it, get a little bit of experience drawing in a totally new art style I had never tried before.

Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair Renews My Hope in the Franchise

Back in 2017, I played and reviewed the original Yooka-Laylee game over on Virtual Bastion, the spiritual successor to the much-loved Banjo-Kazooie series, made by the very same people who brought us the famous bear and bird duo back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s.  I had some mixed feelings about the game, and owing to the fact that I wasn’t alone in my feelings, considering the game’s lukewarm reception, I assumed that was that.  Yooka-Laylee was a rather unsuccessful experiment to revive a long-lost style of game from the dead, and there was a good chance we’d never see our chameleon and bat pair ever again.  And then, much to probably everyone’s surprise, along came Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair.  And while I wished Playtonic luck in their endeavors, I must admit that I was a bit reluctant to give the series another chance.

New Horizons Island and House Tour

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about my plans for Quackville, my island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.  After hours of terraforming and painstakingly attempting to make my plans a reality, my semi-Disney-inspired island is now complete, including a condensed version of Main Street USA, Frontierland, Adventureland, New Orleans Square, and Tom Sawyer Island on the left and a three-tier residential area and zen garden on the right.  If you’d like to see a tour of my island and house, you can find the video below:

I’ve Got Big Plans for Quackville

Not too long ago over on Virtual Bastion, I wrote about how I finally got a 5-star rating in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.  With that milestone now out of the way, I decided that my next goal was to terraform the island of my dreams.  After watching a whole bunch of island tours on YouTube and general brainstorming, I had a pretty solid idea of what I wanted to do.  But before I could get started…I spent several hours painstakingly drawing lines all over my island in order to create a very helpful grid, followed by a detailed map on Photoshop.  Because I’m kind of obsessive like that.

100 Theme Blog Challenge No. 26: Tears

Today’s theme is tears, and I’ve been thinking a lot on this one, as I didn’t know how to write about tears without being depressing.  We’ve all had sad experiences in our lives, so who wants to rehash them?  But sometimes, ironically enough, being sad is sometimes a pleasant experience, a good way to release emotions and end up feeling happier as a result.  To quote Sally Sparrow from my favorite Dr. Who episode Blink, sad is “happy for deep people”.  So in today’s post, I thought I’d list a few of my favorite sad things.

Cuphead: A Swell Time

When Cuphead was originally released in 2017, people just wouldn’t stop talking about it.  And based on the screenshots I had seen, the game looked cool enough with its 1930’s style graphics.  Nevertheless, I was never actually tempted to try it myself, but rather decided to watch a playthrough of the game on YouTube.  And at the time, I was confused.  The game appeared to be nothing but boss battles.  And while I quickly grew to appreciate the game’s aesthetic and unique, over-the-top animations for said bosses, I was left ultimately disappointed.  So this is the game everyone’s talking about, huh?  A bunch of battles with a few platforming stages thrown in.  Plus the game looked so difficult that I wasn’t sure how much fun it would even be.

Hollow Knight Color Palettes

In the past, I had seen some artists on DeviantArt try their hand at using color palettes to color their pictures.  It looked like a rather fun, little challenge, so I hunted down those color palettes myself in order to try out some of my own.  I had recently played Hollow Knight, and due to the game’s unique art style, I thought it would be a great choice for some color palette goodness!

The Room: Puzzling at Its Finest

The Duck recently had the pleasure of playing a little puzzle game called The Room, which I heard about from fellow blogger The Shameful Narcissist.  Originally released as an iOS game in 2012, I got to play the Switch version, which came about far more recently (2018…I’m always late for things).  This game was a short and sweet experience, so this review will be, as well.

The Duck’s New Thoughts on New Horizons

The newest Animal Crossing for the Switch is here at last, and I have been having a great time with it so far.  As of writing this, I’m not terribly far into the game, but I think I’ve played enough to get a decent feel for it, so it’s time I shared my initial impressions, plus a few tips that you might find useful.