Ice Climbers Amiibo

Ice Climbers were cut from Smash Bros., so I knew I'd have to make them to truly complete my amiibo collection. 

I tried using the model from the new IC trophy, but I took a few liberties. I made Nana looking the same way as Popo, and I moved her closer so that I could glue them together. Her tiptoes and hammer touch the base. This was for proper support. I also thought Nana should have less fuzz bumps to separate herself from her brother, and both of the hammers are darker than their usual color. Just my preference.

Here's a few insights into how I made them:

All the spikes on the feet were made separately and glues on. I fluffed the coat by dabbing the clay with soggy clay.

 I made the hammers out of hollow straws so that they'd weigh less than heavy clay. They have toothpicks as frames for support. I used another tooth pick to cut textures of woodgrain.

 I began with the bodies and heads, and all the limbs came after. The arms I allowed to fully dry before attaching them. Also, I used a sewing needle to make a skeleton for Popo's hammer arm. The gloves have the same sort of sewn texture as Dedede's. 

Since Popo was the most self-supporting character, I saved Nana for second when it came to fixing them to the base. I made all their parts at the same time, though, so that they'd look the same.

btw, massive shoutout to /r/amiibo for keeping me entertained lately

My next custom project is going to be BIG. Yeah, that's a hint...

IF YOU LIKE THIS, CHECK OUT MY MEGA REVIEW OF SUPER SMASH BROTHERS 4! JUST CLICK HERE! I DID A BUNCH OF ILLUSTRATIONS!

New Ice Climbers Game + Playable Demo!!!

That was not clickbait. I have created new concepts for an Ice Climbers game and there is a playable demo level that you can go try right now. Yes, I’m nuts.

Perhaps I’m the only person who still loves the original Ice Climber for NES. It’s hard, the controls are not modern, but somehow I still love how it plays. It was such a simple concept: Climb up a mountain, kill birds and monsters, get vegetables. Nintendo has an eye for taking simple concepts and weird premises and making them into games. It’s wonderful.

A condor takes the Climbers for a ride! Woo!

Unfortunately, there was never a followup to Ice Climber. Super Smash Bros. brought them back in a major way, reenvisioning the characters and pairing them as a team. Smash 64 had been my favorite game, and when they added my favorite retro game’s lead characters, it was like heaven.

But, unlike Pit with Kid Icarus, the Ice Climbers never got a new game. Well, I changed that over the past month with my new demo….

 

ICE CLIMBERS: DAWN OF THE EGGPLANT!

It uses the LittleBIGPlanet 2 engine for Playstation 3. I wired sackbots to become playable Ice Climbers that function as a team (like in Smash). It’s pretty neat, so I hope that you check it out! In LBP2, search for “Ice Climbers: Dawn of the Eggplant” or search for my PSN username, which is “oxyborb” to try it out! Also, if you play my demo, you get the assets I've made to make your own Ice Climbers level! No joke! Go make more and leave a comment so I can try it too!

Click here to see my level's page!

I created this to bring fresh ideas and attempt to modernize Ice Climbers a bit for a new game. I hoped someday, maybe, someone at Nintendo might see it or play it and realize the potential for a new game. There are multiple powers you can choose from as you navigate the level.

 The Ice Shot from Smash is in, and, as you can see, it launches a freezie along the ground. Other ideas from Smash I’ve brought over are the ability to throw tethers from Nana to Popo so that you can scale mountains. I imagine if Nintendo made a new Ice Climbers game, you might see more of the duel hammer twirling and stuff, but I didn’t include that due to the limitations of LBP2’s engine.

 

Of course, you can use your basic mallet swing to break ice blocks and fight. Here is a

picture of Popo fighting a Topi enemy. In my level, you can also choose to throw mallets into the air.

New ideas I came up with include a freeze gun that you can use to build bridges across gaps, the ability to grab your following ice climber and throw her, and a giant iceberg attack to flatten enemies. You can also use the iceberg to get across water, since polar water is too cold to swim in. It’s pretty neat to hop from island to island like this.

The art style for a true sequel to the game could be very well done in a Paper Mario cartoon look, as can be seen here, but my fantasy is that the new game would be developed by the same people that made Castle Crashers, The Behemoth games studio. That art style mixed with frantic mallet mashing would be awesome! I actually talked to one of the developers when I went to PAX Prime about that idea, but he seemed disinterested. Oh well.

I’ve also thought about how cool a 3D game would be, like… what if the first level from Super Mario 64, that one with the giant mountain, were like an Ice Climbers game. Climbing to the top to win. That would rule. However, I feel like a downloadable game might be more of a good first step to bring them back and make them popular again.

Anyway, that’s my concept, go play my demo! Nintendo, if you’re listening, feel free to email me, oxyborb@gmail.com. I got more ideas in my head for you! Hahaha, as if. I also made a killer Pikminlevel in LBP2 where you control an army of pikmin in a sidescroller. It’s awesome!

For a grand finale, here’s a sneak peak of the demo’s boss!

January Ventablogging – Getting back into the groove

It’s already halfway through January. Weird.

I guess it feels weird because I was out-of-town for the first 6 days of it, add seven more and here we are. That’s not that much, I suppose. I started out the year at MAGfest, which is a video game and music convention. It was awesome, but the last part of the trip was so stressful and taxing that I was burned out in general afterwards. I’m still feeling a little traumaburn from it, honestly. There was some major drama and then a car ride over a sheet of ice that nearly got me killed… fun story… The rest of MAGfest was extremely fun, but man… that last bit took it out of me.

the push

I’ve been trying to force myself back into the groove ever since that vacation. I haven’t worked on my writing / editing / etc. very much since being back. I was also sick, to top it off. I spent an entire day sleeping, just to recover all the sleep I missed. I haven’t felt very artistic.

What little art I have been making has been going into my new YouTube channel. It’s actually a pretty cool thing I’m working on, and I hope that it helps me promote myself as an author. I’m dedicating myself to making a new video every single day. Sometimes it’s a vlog, sometimes a musical poem or a Let’s Draw.

Here’s a few examples from “oxyborb2”:

I also own “oxyborb” without the 2, but that channel is my higher-quality, less quantity channel.

Selling personality AND my book

Making a video every day has forced me to come up with creative ways to think about film. I set out to start video blogging because some of my favorite authors do them, and I really like the way they sell their personalities along with their books. I want to be that kind of author. I want to be personable. I know it’ll help me when it comes time to promote my novel, but I really enjoy talking with people about art.

I’ve always been a good public speaker, but I’ve never felt entirely comfortable in front of a camera. As someone who wants to be in the public eye with his writing, this daily video/vlog thing should help me perfect my camera personality when the time comes. 

 

Think creative

But I’ve been doing other cool things on my new channel. Shorter videos, that I might have otherwise never posted, are getting put up on my second channel. I’m making stop-motion. Doing animation. Reciting my poems and short songs. Learning how to edit film—which might teach me a bit about crafting dialogue! I am enjoying it, for now. I hope I keep it up.

Other than that

I’ve got to get pushing myself. I think one thing about this whole process is how lonely it is to be an unpublished, unknown writer trying to make his first novel a reality. Nobody has read my book, so I have nobody to talk about it with yet. All my friends just think I’m crazy for being so dedicated to something, and I don’t want to pester them with links to my blog and stuff. That’s one thing—I wish more of my friends were readers. I can’t really get my friends to read my book, because none of them really make reading a priority. That just makes writing all the lonelier, I suppose. There will be no gratification or validation for the insane amount of hard work I’m doing until I get an agent and get published… but that’s the way of it, I suppose. You just have to keep pushing. Keep believing.

Belief

That’s what we’ve all got to do, right? Believe in our novels, ourselves. Nobody else is going to believe in you until you’ve proven yourself, sadly. The only way to prove yourself is to get published. Ahhh… Alright, I guess writing this all out has made me feel better. I just needed a reminder that writing will be lonely until I break through into the business and gain actual readers.

One last thing!

I’m still looking for a critique partner. Are you out there? Do you like fantasy for teens? (Big bonus is you happen to live in the St. Louis-area!) Well, I’m looking for a critique partner. Here’s a link to a post all about that: http://unravelreads.blogspot.com/2013/12/now-accepting-applications-for-critique.html

Take care! Drive safe on icy roads! Pussssh!