Weighing In

I loved it.

I loved it.

I am referring to Half Blood Prince. I enjoyed the crap out of it, and I had to throw my blogging hat in the ring, since I have one of these and I've had to withstand much Potterhating since last night from some disappointed coworkers.

Had a great night celebrating a Jackie's birthday, and went to the theater. I was so excited: and here's the real thing...I wasn't disappointed! It was one of the very few movies this summer that didn't totally bum me out!

More than that: I liked it best of all the Potter films so far. The performances just sky-rocketed in quality, as far as I'm concerned. No more than one spit-riddled "POTTER!" from Malfoy, even! And it didn't suck!

Other people are better critics and reviewers than I, so I will resist the temptation to break it down spoiler-style. I just had to air my opinion. See it? Love it? Please?

Also: YAY! AUTO-TUNE THE NEWS 6 IS THE BEST YET!

Much love,

-Nick

Piper's Pet! For Serious! Finally!

Well...
So, there was a little problem.

You see, a few weeks back my comic for Myspace Dark Horse Presents, Piper's Pet, went live on their site. There was some sort of hiccup in the server, however, and the colors of the entire issue wound up too-green and lemony on some monitors, and completely inverted/yellow-explosion on others. Most viewers seem to have been treated to the yellow explosion variant. 

I did, however, get permission from my lovely employers to post the 2 whole pages of it on my blog and deviantart, so that I can share it with the world! (well, you guys at least :D). So, without further ado, Piper:

I hope it's been worth it :D I was really excited to do it, and I am still very pleased with the outcome. It was a very satisfying way to put a cap on my senior year at RISD. It's not a huge epic, but hopefully it touches someone out there, and hopefully some of you who were so supportive to begin with (and were rewarded for your kindness with the electric boogaloo version) will be glad to see the thing as-intended. Colors will now vary only according to your monitor. 

Myspace Dark Horse Presents is a great publication, and you can visit them here for more updates by other (more talented) artists. And if you really like this, it will be printed in a future issue of the MDHP Anthology. I keep you posted! 

I hope you are well and that you are thoroughly enjoying your summer. 

Enjoy and God bless you! 

-Nick

Rosemary Reviewed!

Hello everybody!

I have some news that is blogworthy again, which is exciting!

Over the last semester, there have been a number of things I've worked on that I wasn't allowed to post (Piper's Pet, a 7-pager called "Spring Requiem" for SofaWolf Press, and my work for GAMBIT at MIT among them). 

But today the GAMBIT Game Lab has released our work from last semester online!

Sooooo: you can actually download and play our project "Rosemary" here:

Rosemary - A GAMBIT Game

You know what's even cooler? Just a week after it's release, it's been reviewed on Destructoid, and very positively at that! You can read the review here.

Thirdly, there's another game we collaborated on was The Bridge, also just recently released on the GAMBIT site. Our RISD art team were responsible for the background art and monster animation, while the character design and animation were handled by MIT artist Alison Malouf. 

I was one of three RISD artists set to work on Rosemary and The Bridge (both projects which had been rolling long before we got there). All the UI, Characters, Settings, Menus, and Intro were drawn up, painted and implemented by myself, Fabiola Garza, and Brandon Cebenka. 

I'm actually still working with both of them at the lab over the summer, though this time we're spread across several projects, and we've been involved from the earliest conceptual process in driving the vision for the games!

Credit for the art goes all around, since we were all in eachother's work so much it's actually hard to remember who did what on Rosemary or The Bridge. 

I'm working on a particular project right now at the Lab, and I can't wait to be able to unveil when it's published, but it's not even close-to-finished yet, so that may be a few months!

Highly recommended Youtube-ed themes of recent life in Boston: 

The Go! Team - Get it Together

and

Amanda Palmer - Astronaut

(I've actually been REALLY into Amanda Palmer these last weeks...her solo album is amazing, and I highly recommend checking her out: she is a singularly weird and fascinating individual. A really powerful lyricist as well. Songs for the not-easily-offended: Strength Through Music, Delilah(better to find recorded version...AMAZING song), Runs in The Family, Leeds United)

Alright, that's it for now! Let me know what you think of the games, sorry to mac users without emulation - Rosemary is PC only!

Much love, and thanks for reading!

-Nick