This
is Nathan Karr, author of the game Weegee. Before I get too deep into
this, I'll admit that before writing this I had no clue what
"modernism" and "postmodernism" were.
I believe in the differences between good and bad, male and female, and
objective truth in general; it is disbelief in these sorts of things
that is the drive behind postmodernism. So, strange as my game is, it
is not a piece of postmodern art.
I think it's a work of modernism, but my grasp of that movement is
still sketchy.
***
Before I get into my game about Weegee, allow me to supply you with
some history of Weegee.
In 1983, Nintendo made a game called Mario Bros. in which you could
play Mario, the newly renamed hero of Donkey Kong, and his brother
Luigi. Luigi not only fits with the Italian name of Mario, but is also
a pun in Japanese (being pronounced the same as their word for
"similar"). Puns are fun.
In 1987, Nintendo made a game with an Arabian Nights theme called "Doki
Doki panic." Because Super Mario Bros. Lost Levels was basically just a
harder version of the original, Nintendo retooled this game into Super
Mario Bros. 2 for the American release in 1988. The "Mama" character
was changed into Luigi.
Charles Martinet, who has voiced Mario and Luigi in all games where
they get voice acting (save Mario is Missing and Hotel Mario) sometimes
has them call Luigi "Weegee." - Such as Luigi saying "Go Weegee!" when
starting battles in Super Mario Bros. Superstar Saga.
In 1991, Nintendo and Mindscape released the game Mario is Missing for
NES and Super NES. It was a shoddily designed geography game with a
Mario theme thrown on to increase sales. In 1992, it was released for
the PC, but Lugi's graphics were drawn in a strange way.
In 2007, someone called MonkeyInCloset drew an image based on the PC
version of Luigi's sprite. It has since been pasted into images all
over the Internet to make them creepy and/or funny; unlike most memes,
however, he just keeps getting stronger instead of dying.
In late 2010, I decided to remake Nintendo Quest in a way that made it
more obvious the game was meant as a joke, so I redid some of the
characters as Internet memes: Pac Man became Puck Man Jr, who goes
"omnomnom"; Mega Man became Shoop Man, who fires his lasers; Luigi
became Weegee, who just stands there and has a crapton of HP. I
scrapped that project, but kept the sprites.
In 2011, I had few resources to make a fan game with, so I hurredly
named my file "Fan.RPG" and started importing graphics from my old
games. I found a large number of them to be Mario based, and Weegee
seemed the perfect candidate for a hero. Being Nathan Karr, I naturally
drew him with three colors and yellow skin.
So here's the progression for the hero of my game:
***
Nearly everything in this game is a reference. If it seems terribly
different from Maces Wild in execution, the reasons are actually simple:
* Linear level design instead of exploration
* Single hero instead of party of heroes
* References are aimed at modern Internet phenomena, rather than
cartoons and games from my childhood.
Really, it's the same type of thinking and the same determination to
make something good that went into both games.
The game starts out simple enough; there's Goombas, Koopas, and the
overworld music for Grass Land from SMB3. There's a sun, which Luigi
comments is not too bright (a quote from Mario in the SMB3 cartoon) and
a house.
The house belongs to Gwonam, the wizard on the flying carpet from the
CD-i game Link: Faces of Evil. He's here because he's in a lot of
YouTube Poops and I like YouTube poops; I based his graphic off of the
old men found in caves all over the first Legend of Zelda game.
Talking with him, you can piece together that the princesses are safe,
that the game has an instruction book, and that he [i]had to gouge out
his own eyes to protect himself from the villain's mind control[/i]. If
you're well-versed in creepy pasta, you'll have your first hint as to
who the villain is.
The gameplay works like this: You attack enemies until they die. When
dead, they leave dead sprites on the field and give you nine thousand
experience. If there is another enemy still alive, you can keep
attacking the dead enemy and get thirty-four experience and an item;
most such items teach Weegee a new spell.
Spaghetti and Bagels restore Weegee's HP and MP respectively, but
there's a few seconds of delay between downing them and digesting them.
Now, since I only had sprites for Weegee, a Goomba, a Koopa, and an
angry SpongeBob, I decided to ask people on the Internet about what
they'd like to see Weegee fight. With the exceptions of Dr. Robotnik
and the final boss, all of the enemies from here on out were chosen by
other people.
SpongeBob makes a reference to a YouTube Poop that included both he and
Weegee before the fight. SpongeBob drops a Bubble Wand if killed when
dead, which teaches Weegee the Fizz spell.
Surlaw wanted to see him fight America. Remembering that there was an
anime where the characters were named after countries, I looked up the
character named America -- just enough to give him a stupid line and an
appearance. When dead, he turns into an approximation of a map of the
United States. Recalling the meme "Guile's Theme Goes With Everything,"
I hunted down Guile's stage music from Street Fighter 2 to use for this
fight. I also gave America one of Guile's moves -- the Sonic Boom. That
sound clip was very difficult to find.
Baconlabs wanted Weegee to kill Robotnik's badnik Penguinator from
Sonic the Hedgehog 3. I made him use an attack that causes damage and
then stuns - gaining this useful move is tricky, since the animals that
break out of Robotnik's robots always run away. The penguin is named
Tux.
Mogri said "Science," so I assumed that he wanted Weegee to fight it,
but he might have been telling mjohnson that science is what Weegee is,
now that I review the thread. Still, finding an image that summed up
the word "Science" was a difficult task. It dies into a refutation of
the notion that E = MC^2, and drops herbs that teach Weegee to poison
things.
Voltire gave three enemy ideas: Bob the Hamster, Mario, and Father Time.
I made Mario the boss of the SMB2 World 1-1 remake level, using
FnrrfYgmSchnish's Mario sprites and reducing them to three colors. I
forgot to put his name in the credits (sorry) but will fix that with
any future update. Mario can change his fighting style, and will do so
based on how you fight him (sometimes).
* Hammer Mario drops a hammer, which will raise Weegee's attack power.
Hammer Mario has the highest attack stat of an enemy in the game,
including the last boss.
* Fire Mario throws SMB fireballs, but yells "Hadouken!" when doing so.
If I alter this, the caption will read "Kill It With Fire" instead. He
drops a fire flower, teaching Weegee to do the same.
* Jump Mario is the weakest; he just uses a wimpy jump attack. Beating
him gets those same jumping shoes gained by killing goombas.
* Laughing Mario can either do the "Huh-haw!" laugh from Hotel Mario,
usually used before declaring that there are too many toasters, or the
"Ahahaha" used after incredulously asking "MAMA Luigi?!" He drops
Laughter, which teaches Weegee to use the laugh from the 1987 Super
Mario Bros. direct-to-video anime movie.
Bob the Hamster appears after World 1-1, in the Deconstruction Zone. He
complains that Luigi is more popular than himself and starts a fight.
His moves are shout-outs to his allies in Wandering Hamster: Fizz for
James, Quick Attack for Gisli's Berserk, and Fireball for Rathmara. Bob
drops a hammer like the one dropped by Hammer Mario, or sometimes a
bubble wand like SpongeBob. At this point I was really crunched for
time, or I'd have let him give you Berserk, which would have functioned
differently from Quick Attack.
Father Time is the boss of the Deconstruction zone; he thinks Weegee is
an old, unfunny meme and ought to die (inadvertently quoting several
DIE memes in his fury; irony intentional on my part). I used the
appearance for Father Time from The Smurfs Adventures, a rare
non-videogame cartoon I loved in my childhood. He uses his scythe to
good effect. When double-checking his appearance on YouTube, I caught
two lines: "Am I too late?" and "Don't tell me Grandpa used the time
crystals!" so I remixed the first one into his death quote and made
reference to the time crystals in his death item.
FnrrfYgmSchnish wanted to kill Pikachu, so I made it a common enemy
replacing some of the Shy Guys and Tweeters in World 1-1 (and recycling
Goombas, Koopas, Science, and Penguinators). Pikachu is a glass cannon;
it'll usually die after one successful hit, but its Thunderbolt can do
some decent damage. Instead of learning that, however, you can catch a
defeated Pikachuby grabbing a its Pokeball. Pikachu then triggers a
reference to the Mama Luigi episode of the Super Mario World cartoon.
I asked the girl I've been holding an Email correspondence with since
2007 what she'd like Weegee to fight. She picked narcoleptic manatees;
having little time, I threw them into the Deconstruction Zone and made
them drop spaghetti and bagels.
Robotnik is extremely popular in YouTube Poops. To be more precice, the
version of Doctor Ivo Robotnik from The Adventures of Sonic the
Hedgehog, who was voiced by the blues singer Long John Baldry. Robotnik
in this game declares you to be snooping as usual, because that line
often has the ends cut off to produce "pingas", which sounds remotely
like "penis." I hated this meme at first, but it grew on me. He also
gives himself and his minions promotions (raising attack power), yells
to silence you (disabling all attacks that use voice clips), and falls
on his back when defeated. He declares you to be a rapscallion if you
kill him when he is helpless, but you get to learn how to yell for
silence in Baldry's legendary voice.
***
The final boss is another Internet meme. This is ZALGO, who often
appears either in long stretches of text or in comics.
First, he starts replacing individual characters in the text with junk
sybmols. He does this more and more, the text itself becoming more and
more desperate to warn you that Zalgo approaches.
In comics, small alterations are made to the images, focusing mostly on
the eyes. Bleeding, dilating, becoming tentacles...it varies, but the
eyes always get messed with.
"ZALGO, HE COMES" or "HE'S HERE" written in legible text usually serves
as the equivalent of a punchline, often with the image (if applicable)
having hollow eye sockets.
The text for him in this game I made with the Alt key; if you don't
remember the days before CTRL+Space, this is how we used to always have
to enter those nifty little icons for item names. His first couple
boxes are obvious enough, but his fully messed up ones are:
"Weegee, I am Zalgo. I am a reflection of your soul -- I will prove
that I am the creepier pasta; then I will conquer th[sic] entire
universe."
and
"You killed me."
That thing about him being a reflection of Weegee's soul? BS, even
in-universe. He's just taking Weegee's shape to creep him out and get a
psychological edge in the upcoming fight.
