Rockmelon Soda

When I first saw Gal Metal announced back in September, I was immediately interested. Its simple manga-style art direction and campy sci-fi themes would have been enough to grab my attention, but the idea of a heavy metal rhythm game that has you playing the drummer in an all-girl garage band made it fully irresistible. I followed the news and trailers, pre-loaded it weeks before its release, and dove right in when it finally unlocked on launch day.

Since then, a little over a week now, I’ve been having an absolute blast with this game. I started looking around on the internet, as ya do, to see what other people were saying about it, and found… not much of anything. It’s a weird feeling to be having so much fun with a new game and find that nobody else is talking about it. I feel the need to do something about that.

Worse yet, the top Google result at the time of this writing is this terrible impression from TGS on Polygon, wherein the author effectively says, “I don’t immediately understand this game, which is in a language I don’t speak, and since I didn’t ask anyone present at the booth to explain it to me, I’m forced to just declare it a broken mess.” Which is shockingly unfair, and frankly, pretty goddamn irresponsible journalism. Shame on Polygon for allowing it to stand published like that, but that isn’t what I’m here to talk about. I’m here to talk about this game, from the perspective of someone who does understand it, and has fallen in love with it.

Read More

Chapter 15 of Mari’s stories. This one is about The Forest.

You can read it here.

Chapter 14 of Mari’s stories. This one is about a girl named Tomi, and her doll Tomoe.

You can read it here.

Chapter 13 of Mari’s stories. This one is about balance, and is told by Mrs. Beedog.

You can read it here.

Chapter 12 of Mari’s stories. This one is about videogames.

You can read it here.

Chapter 11 of Mari’s stories. This one is about making mistakes.

You can read it here.

Chapter 10 of Mari’s stories. This one is about Mama’s guitar, and Senor Perrito del Burrito.

You can read it here.

Chapter 9 of Mari’s stories. This one is about a horse named Hajuro.

You can read it here.

Chapter 8 of Mari’s stories. This one is about Earth Day.

You can read it here.

Chapter 7 of Mari’s stories. This one is about Music.

You can read it here.

Chapter 6 of Mari’s stories. This one is about Papa and the Inufantry.

You can read it here.

Chapter 5 of Mari’s stories. This one is about Taka and Aki.

You can read it here.

Chapter 4 of Mari’s stories. This one is about Eleanor.

You can read it here.

Chapter 3 of Mari’s stories. This one is about Dr. Patches.

You can read it here.

Chapter 2 of Mari’s stories. This one is about Joe the Roofcat.

You can read it here.

A little story about Mari, as told by Mari herself.

Read it here if you like

Submissions for the Rhythm Zinegoku project.

Hi there, friend. Here’s TJS7, the long-awaited premiere of Season 2.

For best viewing quality, click full screen and then click the little square icon to view at actual size.

I want to thank the Rockmelon Soda community, who has hung around here all throughout the terribly long time it’s taken to finish this episode. You can join that awesome community if you’d like. We mainly hang out in the Rockmelon Forums, the forum for people who don’t like forums.

I hope you enjoy this episode. If you like it, you can help support future episodes of TJS over at our Patreon page.

Greetings from 12th place (Made with Art Academy Sketchpad for Wii U)

For a while now I’ve had this idea rolling around in my head for a Zelda spinoff featuring Link’s little sister, Aryll.

After Wind Waker, with the world at peace, Link returns the Master Sword and the Hero’s clothes to his grandma. These are family heirlooms by right, after all. He then goes off with Tetra and her pirate friends, doing piratey things. Perhaps somewhere on the great sea they run into trouble, and to grandma’s chagrin, Aryll takes up the sword and clothes to go rescue her brother.

Being small, she would have some difficulty swinging that sword. Once she has some momentum going she can keep it up, but the initial motion needed for her to begin an attack takes some effort. In some cases it will be more efficient and effective to look for creative methods of neutralizing enemies, rather than relying on a blade to hack mindlessly through every obstacle. Of course you CAN use the sword, but doing so should be a last resort, as it will seldom be worth the energy and may even put you at risk.

Probably not worth fleshing out the concept too much, but it sure is fun to draw.

Click the image for the full size, or the Art tab for more Aryll.

The last half of 2014 hasn’t been the most opportune time to be into videogames. If you pay the slightest bit of attention to game “culture”, then you don’t need me to remind you of how some people saw fit to flip over the dumpster where we keep all the stupid and send a wave of it washing down the street. The stain’s still there, and I dunno if we’ll ever get the smell out, but at least we’ve still got the games, right? Luckily, all those “triple-A” titles so many people were looking forward to delivered on their promi…

…Oh.

“Nightmarishly broken trainwrecks”, you say. “Crippled heaps of unplayable garbage”, you say. “To shreds”, you say. Well then. That… yeah, that sucks. But hey, look around. There may be a blight on the garden and we do have a pretty serious case of weeds, but there are still a few flowers coming up. See? There’s a blue one. And there’s a nice yellow one. And there… oh wait, that’s a mushroom. Wearing a backpack. Read More

Several people have asked about the updates I’ve been making to characters for TJS Season 2, so I figured I’d make a post to show what’s different and explain the logic behind some of the changes. The short version is that I’ve been fixing things that have always annoyed me and just generally making everyone prettier to look at and more versatile / easy to work with.

For the long version and a peek at Season 2, hit the jump.

Read More

Hey handsome, want a TJS shirt? Sure you do. You should head over here and check out this swank selection of Tshirts and hoodies available for the grand opening of the official Rockmelon Soda merch shop. Put something cute on that chest of yours and show the ladies you’ve got a sensitive side.

And ladies, would YOU like a TJS shirt? Well, each of the designs is also available as a fitted ladies’ style tee, or a ladies’ hoodie! Rock some Mrs. Beedog or Marikon and show the fellas in the above paragraph that you’re not about to fall for that thing about sensitivity.

We also have stickers available. They’re outdoor-safe, so you can put ’em on your car, or vespa, or um… I dunno, boat? Whatever is outside right now that would be cooler with a sticker on it. Also, if you buy 6 or more, they’re 50% off. That’s pretty swell.

Also also, each purchase comes with a free hug if I see you in it. So there’s that, too.

Check it out. <3

The Journalism Show: Episode 06 from Topher Cantler on Vimeo.

I’m especially pleased to present this episode, as it’s the season finale. It’s also the first one to be available in HD, as all future episodes will also be. (You’ll have to view it on Vimeo to see it that way, though. Sorry.)

This marks the end of TJS Season 1, and it’s the Katamari episode. Couple of things:

1. If you’ve got some kind of photosensitive Epilepsy, you may want to rock some meds, or skip this one. There are a lot of very blinky things happening. Sorry. :(

2. If you’ve got an iOS device, Vimeo has recently released an app, so you can watch TJS on your phone or iPad if you want. It’s pretty neat. It also affords me the opportunity to stop bothering with Youtube, which is something I’m seriously considering, because Youtube sucks.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. You can click the image above or hit the Episodes page to watch it.

Most of all,thanks for watching TJS!! I won’t be taking too much time off between seasons — just enough to tidy up some things around the shop here and freshen up some character packs. TJS Season 2 will start in the Fall, and the Beedogs will be back, with new and improved visuals.

Episode discussion, like everything else around here, is in the Rockmelon Soda forums.

I’m pleased to announce that Story Builder Toys now has Geraldo Beedog plushies for sale on their website! These started as a limited run, mostly for our community here, but with the recent tragedy still unfolding in Japan, we’ve decided to make some more in an effort to help raise money for disaster relief.

When you purchase a Beedog plushie, 100% of Rockmelon Soda’s profit will be donated to Global Giving’s Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund. Each little Beedog sends $12 to help support emergency services and organizations like Save the Children and the International Medical Corps.

You can click on the picture above, or follow this link for photos and purchasing info.

I thought it would be fun and easy to write up a list of the albums I enjoyed most in 2010. Only one of those adjectives applied. (Hint: “easy” was not it.) But I did it anyway, so read on after the jump if you’d like to know what they are.

Read More

Here’s a thing. The Journalism Show is getting its very own panel at the 2011 Music and Gaming Festival, AKA MAGFest, AKA Better Than PAX. You can come to it if you want.

There’ll be an exclusive screening of the first 2 minutes (give or take) of TJS Episode 06, followed by a Q&A session where I will A your Qs about TJS and Rockmelon Soda.

If you’re attending MAGfest this year, please come join us. The panel starts at 10am on Sunday, which is a horrible time slot, but you should come anyway. It’ll be fun.

Finally.

Episode 05 is a tribute to Street Fighter, and features a guest appearance by Capcom’s own Seth Killian. Click the screenshot above to watch it on the Episodes page. I hope you like it.

Please excuse the shitty audio. Somewhere along the line certain parts came through quieter than others, because Flash sucks at everything. That was as good as I could get it without redoing the whole thing. (it’s also off by a frame, but let’s pretend not to notice, ne?)

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. Sorry it took so long. <3

And as always, episode discussion and all the good stuff is happening in the forums.

Pinky swear, he says. Terrible.

Just thought I should update to let everyone know that episode 05 is indeed on the way soon. What’s taking so long? Well, there are a few reasons it’s not up yet.

Firstly, the whole “redoing the entire episode from scratch” thing, as outlined in the last update. Secondly, I’ve been working a new day job for the past few months which has been devouring a considerable amount of my time, so I don’t get to dedicate 80+ hours a week to TJS like I did for the first 4 episodes. Add to that the fact that this one is packed full of human characters that take much longer to draw and animate, and there you have it. The June episode becomes the September episode. Lateness. It’s dreadful and I’m sorry.

But the good news is that this second version of ep 05 is turning out better than the original, so it’s my hope that it will have been worth the wait. I’ve been grinding away at it every chance I get, and will have it finished for you as soon as humanly possible.

As for the front page here, it gets neglected due to a combination of my hatred for WordPress and ongoing consideration of redoing the site entirely, and the fact that – no, really – all the action around here takes place in the forums. The community here never ceases to amaze me with how awesome they are, and if you enjoy the show I invite you to come join us.

In the meantime, work continues and nears its completion on episode 05, and I hope everyone will enjoy it!

It occurred to me today that I spend so much time in the forum I forget to update the front page for my RSS friends and those of you who don’t do the whole forum thing. Whoops. I’ll be better about that from now on, pinky swear.

In any case, if you haven’t heard, I suffered a catastrophic hard drive failure last Friday in which I lost absolutely everything I had stored on it. Aside from all my music, software and 4 years’ worth of artwork, photos and personal stuff, that “everything” unfortunately also included Episode 05, which was already about half done.

Sometimes life gives you lemons. Other times it’s a fierce kick in the throat.

But the good news is, I had the first 4 episodes of TJS backed up, along with my character packs and everything I’d done up until about the first week of April. Now that I’ve picked up the pieces and gotten things relatively back to normal, I’m in the process of rebuilding the fifth episode. (Here’s a peek at the revamped show intro if you’re interested.)

So I just wanted to apologize for the hideous lateness of episode 05, and let everyone know that production is back on track. It’ll be a few weeks late, but it’s on the way. I hope you understand.

In the meantime, you can catch me on the new podcast Electric Hydra, or on Sega Addicts as per usual. And there’s still a ton of awesome stuff happening in the TJS forums, so if you dig The Journalism Show, drop in and hang out. If there’s anything else you’d like to see on Rockmelon just let me know. <3

Hi. Thanks for visiting my new site. Forgive me if things aren’t quite working yet, I’m still back here hanging drywall. Chances are you might even stumble in here late at night to find everything broken, and that’s always fun to watch. But in the meantime, feel free to browse around and see what will eventually be here.

You can also join our community forums, which have been so active already it actually scares me a little. We’ve got a bunch of awesome people hanging out in there, being awesome. There’s a collectible badge system in place, lots of fun discussion going on, a thread dedicated to pictures of pretty girls, and plenty more cool stuff on the way in the very near future. Hit the link at the top of the page and come hang out with us. You can get in on the ground floor and brag about how you were here before all the noobs showed up.

I’ll be getting things finished up around here over the next several days, so if there’s something you’d like to see that isn’t in place yet, check back soon and it’ll probably be there. If you have any questions, shoot an email to support@rockmelonsoda.com.

Thanks for visiting! <3