#We're talking SIXTY SLIDES OF ART

[stardestroyer81]

This past Saturday marked the five year anniversary of Mega Man Ultimate's conception, and my good friends got to see a slides presentation of my sizeable archive of five years worth of concept art and early sprites dating as far back as late 2017!

One such early sprite was the very first stage select portrait for Zap Man, in which I had drawn him in a front-facing angle rather a 3/4ths angle. My sister @stephysalcido suggested I ought to remaster Zap Man's original stage select portrait, and what I ended up with not only exceeded my expectations but looks wicked cool too! 💙✨

[joytraveler]

61. Special Treat For Super Players

The screen goes black, and one by one, sixty stars light up on the screen, which must be the game counting up how many games you've finished. When all sixty stars disappear, Joyce's face reappears with that same big smile.

["You are a wonderful player! You make me feel very appreciated. Thanks from Joy Traveler!"

["Did you know that many of the games in this collection were made by children?"]

Joyce hides her mouth but you can tell she's giggling. ["Sometimes it shows! But the children made them all by themselves! And now..."]

She slides off the screen and is replaced with a new logo: JOY GAME MAKER. ["...so can you!"]

"AaaaAAAAAAAAAAaaaaa!!!" Bea, who looked like she was on the brink of dozing off, is suddenly full of energy and spinning around in her chair! Good thing she put down the controller first! "HOW DO I DO IT! Tell me moooore..."

Baconnaise: Bea. You're drooling. Chill. aroseahorseboy I'M drooling HNV: I don't think you'll be able to do much, you don't have a keyboard!

Upon pressing start, the player is brought to a screen with what looks like a big schoolroom, with Joyce herself sitting at the desk at the front. Every element in the room seems to have a function. There's an art easel, which is presumably for drawing sprites; a piano, for music; a tape recorder; a map on the wall; and an open door leading to the playground outside. Hard to tell what some of these things mean at this point! Looks like you can select Joyce too.

Bea has quickly doodled several of her followers as bees (their "beesonas") before she even clicks on Joyce, presumably for tips on how to actually MAKE a game. "I should probably have realized sooner that you guys won't actually be able to PLAY this but, too late now"

Syrupentine: YOU DREW HONEY SYRUP! *dies happy*

When you pick Joyce, she stands up and pulls down a screen, prompting:

[What kind of game would you like to make?]

There are at least 30 different game models to make, starting with side-scroller, shmup, 2D fighter, all the way to JRPG and Board Game!

She selects 2D fighter! "FIGHT FOR MY AFFECTION, HAHAAH!!"

The screen closes and returns to the classroom, but now "2D Fighter" is written on the chalkboard-- and two people are practicing fighting outside the window! Looks like that's where the game design happens.

When Bea chooses the playground, she takes control of Glem! By standing on different spots and pressing the shoulder buttons, she can change how he handles, making him faster or slower, jumping higher or lower, even changing his friction against the ground.

aroseahorseboy: is it odd to anyone that we're making a game in a genre that we haven't even seen yet in this collection?

"Well there's got to be at least one, or it wouldn't have the option!" she tries to adjust the controls to make a good balance of strength and speed. "Too floaty, too slow.. there we go, just right"

berd_snurglar: make mine a bumblebee cuz i bumble shit up all the time lol

"FINALLY! Ok, I think, maybe, we can take this for a test run now, at the very least. Thanks for your patience, guys! ....Guys?"

"...Well that's it for Press Bea today, see you tomorrow with more Joy Traveler!"

aroseahorseboy: no no i'm awake, kinda

When Bea chooses the computer disk to save her game, a truck also appears labeled "Export".

She selects it right away, not really thinking. "And off into the wild you go, little friend."

Options appear: [ PC / Mac / Android / iOS ]

".... PC, I guess? This thing's got wireless??"

[Compiling...]

A 'document' opens up with 36 pages to view. Each page has what Bea at first takes to be meaningless garbage, until she scrolls down and sees the boxes in the corners-- they're actually highly complex QR codes.

Baconnaise: Ok anyone speak robot talk GlockRoach: Bea my character has a special move. he has a gun. his special move is he just fucking shoots people with his gun Please put this in berd_snurglar: guys this is a program file that looks like it checks out except bea didn't do shit Klickitat_Street: This is fucking Objective-C... and you wrote it by mooshing a little man around on screen. I write code for a living, Bea. They're paying me to come in, eat donuts, and write things that are less elegant than this.

"NO IDEA WHAT I DID.. That's how kids made these games, it really was just that easy. I thought this was supposed to be a bunch of games for kids, but it's game for kids to make games with!"

GlockRoach: Well that explains a lot Syrupentine: I hope "Renk" finishes his game someday! GlockRoach: He's probably like ten or twenty years older by now at least. Or dead.

"This is ahead of its time NOW, I can't imagine it's all that old!" She looks for a way to test the game itself

Klickitat_Street: It can't be THAT much older if this lets you export to ios and android?

There's a poster of a movie clapboard that says 'action' on the wall; when she chooses it, Bea's game launches!

BUZZKILL! (that's the title she wrote in the fat cartoony font she chose)

Two angry little bees duel with their stingers on the title screen! Pressing start takes you to SELECT YOUR BEE!

"I can't play this because I can't believe it. Sorry, I can't...BEElieve it!"

Syrupentine: I wonder if there's something to let you make a random game... ...that's what the bingo cage on the desk is for, isn't it!!

"Let's find out!" she says. Syrup's bee just defeated Glock's anyway! Sadly she, too, perishes shortly after, having lost her stinger. "Uh.. maybe I can edit that out later"

Syrupentine: I can't believe you put that in... T_T ...I mean literally, that the game even gave you the option to make that happen! GlockRoach: GOTCHA BITCH

"Hey hey be civil now, if I can find out how to send this to you you can just kill each other that way!"

Zooming in on the bingo cage, it spins a few times and spits out a bunch of balls. They're decorated with symbols that aren't immediately meaningful, but there are some familiar icons, including some sprites from other games. Two more balls form a button: OK ?

berd_snurglar: i see some old friends of ours

"Let's see what you come up with on your own, game!"

[Compiling...]

A blue stone title screen pops up with the name written in block letters: PIZZA HERO.

After a moment, though, Joyce's face leans in, looking sheepish. "Is this title okay? If there's anything you don't like in a randomized game, you can pause and change it any time!"

"Looks good to me, Joyce! I come up with worse titles all the time! Besides, those are two things I like, can't go too wrong!”

When the game starts, the player is lost in a deep, dark forest, with only one person in sight to talk to. The player, however, is the green fuzzball from Fuzzed, and the NPC is an Angul! It's not attacking, though.

When Bea approaches the Angul, a dialogue box opens up:

[O BRAVE HERO, WE PRESENT TO THEE A QUEST!] [YOU MUST RETURN THE PIZZA OF COURAGE!]