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crispys-wishlist · 10 months

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Online @ The Perfect Time: A W.I.P. Love Letter to the 2000s

Online @ The Perfect Time (the title is stylized as such), is a semi-forum based visual novel that has the player, a college student in the midst of exam season quickly becoming enamoured with an anime known as Bizarre Galactic (or BIZARRE GALACTIC! as I like to style it!) and goin to an online forum to find out more. As people usually did in the 2000s

It’s got this cute, retro vibe that’s both charming and loveable, and the screenshots from the game’s page caught my eye immediately, and it quickly became the first game on my “Soon-to-play” game list on Itch. It’s a short demo, but upon finishing the game, I’ve already found a need to follow the game and play more.

…

I’m writing this like a formatted essay LMAO…..

This game IS REALLY CUTE is what I’m trying to say!! However, it’s an incredibly short demo, and as such its substance is… thinly spread at best. It’s not finished, but the good news about the demo is the fact that its not expected to be a finished game.

I played this game in my dnd discord server, on call with a friend of mine, when they suggested I stream the game! So I did. Along the way, a bunch more people joined the call and it quickly became a group thing lol.

Well, anyways, I now introduce to you… The O@TPT Demo.

When the game opens up, you are introduced as a college student, hangin out and spending time doing a whole lot of nothing after a long day of studying. It’s getting late and you’re getting hungry, so you decide to order some food. There goes your first choice of the game, which I’m not quite sure matters other than to flesh out your character a bit more. You get three choices for take-out: Chinese, Pizza, and Japanese food.

The first person I was on call with was half-Japanese, and I was half-Chinese, so we compromised and chose Pizza.

As you wait for the food to arrive - 40 whole minutes, in fact - you decide to turn on the tv and flip to a random channel. And that’s when you are introduced to apparently the greatest anime you’ve ever watched via an episode mid-season. And my GOD, you are instantly obsessed.

Since you opened to a random channel at a random time, you actually began watching mid-episode. So begs the question: How are you meant to figure out the name and where to watch it? Well, worry not, you fretting little college student, because there is hope! It’s the 2000s, and that means the INTERNET EXISTS!! So what do you do? You search it up as best as you could.

Aand it brings you to…. *drumroll pleaaaaaaaaaaase* The Bizarre Galactic Fan Forum!! A funny little place where you can talk to all kinds of fans of this show! And guided and all wrapped up in a nice little capybara bow (Who another person in the call voiced like it was a 40 year old chain smoker.).

And here’s where you FINALLY get to choose your name and pronouns. Er. Your username and pronouns.

While trying to come up with a username, the people on call with me suggested we combine all our names into one, which hilariously caused us to end up with “Xxasskrax7xX.”

And YES. I WILL be using this username when I eventually make an mc when the game comes out. It’s the perfect amount of unseriousness for me. Also we chose they/them pronouns. But I’ll actually change that when the full game comes out.

SO! asskrax (SDJFKL;ASF) makes their first post on the server without looking at anything else: Where can I watch this show? They get a very kind reply from user Celesteon (very pretty girl but unfortunately not romancable..) to watch the show on the offbrand crunchyroll, crunchyprawn! So, we open the website, and begin binge watching it (as you do when you are a jobless college student during exam season.)

Truthfully, the section where you watch the episodes is VERY long, and the information is not important for the demo, so I’ll spare you a paragraph explaining the lore for the show. Will it be important for the finished game? Not sure! But my god, is it long. I’ll talk about this later.

After binge watching and definitely losing sleep, you go back to the forum to get to know the rest of the forum. A mod proposes a selfie-posting thread to introduce yourself, and you get to see the other love interests for the first time! Their profiles are already on the game page, so I encourage you to look at them for yourself. Let me tell you, they are…..

[giggling uncontrollably]

This would be a good stopping point for the demo, but there is one more scene. You wake up the next day and log back on to the forum before you go to the library to study with friends. There, the (chain-smoking) capybara gives you a sneak peak of the chatroom, presumably used to talk to the LIs, but there's not much you can do after that. Once you exit the tab, the demo ends.

The game itself is really, REALLY charming, with its aesthetic very, very much a callback to how forums and old desktops used to look back in the day. Each character you see on the forum has a really distinct voice, and they really feel like friendly strangers you’d meet on any online forum in real life. The demo ends at just the right cliffhanger that leaves me excited for the full game.

But… there are some small nitpicks that I had while playing.

The writing in the narration sections are… not the best. There are many, many run-on sentences that feel sort of off, and you can often find some words used in the wrong tense, or a word or two spelt incorrectly. Nothing too bad, since the real charm is in the forum itself, but just enough that you’d start to notice them.

Also, there’s the section where you watch the anime. It’s long, a little boring, and feels a bit unnecessary. Honestly, it’s really likely that the information will be more important when the game is finished, so I’m not too mad about the length. It was just something that didn’t work in the context of this being a short demo.

So, what’s my final verdict? Should you play Online @ The Perfect Time?

YES. Of course you should! It’s a sweet demo and a game being developed by hardworking people, and you should always give visual novels a chance. These are just my opinions on it, and you really shouldn’t be basing your desire to play games on someone else’s opinions.

MY GOD i just wrote this whole essay in like 2 hours. am i going to proofread this? god no.

have a nice life :)

Online @ The Perfect Time : Completed! ✓

#oatpt #visual novel #cricket #2hot2griff #xyzephyr #otometumblr #otome

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holytheoristtastemaker · 4 years

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The common theme in this month’s collection of new tools and resources is “things that help you show off your work.” Many of these tools are made to help you better web products or apps or showcase designs with others.

Here’s what new for designers this month.

Naturaltts

Naturaltts is an online text to speech converter, that allows you to download an mp3 recording. The tool has more than 60 voices to choose from in six languages. There’s a free plan for personal use (based on characters converted) and affordable paid plans for higher volumes and commercial users. One application of this tool is voiceover for videos or tutorials.

Handz

Handz is a library of hands with different gestures in three-dimensional shapes. The collection includes 12 gestures with nine skin colors, and three different sleeve types. Put all that together and you have 320 potential combinations that you can use for projects. The library is completely free and works in a variety of formats with different tools.

Isoflow

Isoflow allows you to create isometric diagrams for presentations and illustrations with ease. You can edit and then export diagrams for print or website use, thanks to vector rendering.

Device Shots

Device Shots is a small web app that helps you generate a high-resolution device mockup using a screenshot of your website or mobile application. It supports almost every device type you can think of and resizes for social media platforms.

Barchartrace

Barchartrace is a simple MIT open source bar chart generator. Use it to create some of the animated charts you see on social media. Just insert your information (upload via CSV file), choose animation settings, and go.

Zettlr Markdown Editor

Zettlr is a free and open source markdown editor for Mac OS. Zettlr supports simple notations, references, includes a dark mode, and tagging. It’s made for note takers who need a tool to amp up their projects, and is used primarily in higher education.

CSS Leaning Card Effect

The CSS Leaning Card Effect replicates the bookshelf feel you get when rectangles lean with a shadow against planes. Lynn Fisher does it in the pen with code that you can see and work on with your own images.

Lemon.Io

Lemon.io is a tool that matches you with freelance developers to get projects moving more quickly. You are guaranteed a match in 24 hours and there is no risk if the match doesn’t work out. Just tell Lemon.io what you need and the algorithm will match you with a dev from the database. Prices for development through the platform start at $35 per hour.

Papercups

Papercups is a customer messaging tool that lets you chat in real-time. The customizable widget works with your favorite tools, such as Slack and Gmail, and is free to use. Chat apps are one of the most in-demand website features right now.

CSS Click To Animate Gif

Christian Heilmann has created a great guide/experiment in pure CSS that adds a play button on top of animated GIFs so that users can control the motion. He developed the concept because GIFs can get overwhelming and annoying. Learn how he did it and see it in action.

3D Book Image Generator

Here’s another little bit of CSS magic with a 3D Book Image Generator. Just input your image and set some specifications and get a 3D book cover image that you can use in projects. (There’s also an accompanying tutorial if you want to learn how to generate the CSS on your own.)

Luckysheet

Luckysheet is an online spreadsheet – it’s a lot like Microsoft Excel – with powerful data functions and tools. It’s user-friendly and open source. It even has quite a few built-in mathematical formulas and supports various table types.

RevKit

RevKit is a design system UI kit that works with Sketch, Figma, and Adobe XD. It includes plenty of organized components that you can pop right into designs to help get them started faster. It also includes a style guide, elements, and form controls. The download is free.

Card

Card allows you to store social media profiles, websites, and files in a customized profile. Share it in one click. Replace awkward contact exchange and multiple usernames with a simple QR code or link.

Scale Nucleus

Scale Nucleus helps visualize data, curate interesting slices within your dataset, review and manage annotations, and measure and debug model performance. This tool claims to be “the right way” to develop ML models.

Previewed

Previewed is a mockup generator to create beautiful promotional graphics for your app. Browse a variety of templates, pick one, customize, and download your design to show off.

NSFW Filter

NSFW Filter is a browser extension that blocks images that aren’t safe for work. The best part is that it runs locally in-browser and doesn’t access any of your data. Plus, it saves you from on-the-job embarrassment.

ColorFlick For Dribbble

ColorFlick for Dribbble is another browser extension that makes it easy to copy hex codes from the tool to your clipboard with ease. You can also create palettes you can share from your favorite shots using Coolors.

Tabler Icons

Tabler Icons is a collection of more than 550 SVG icons that you can customize. Change the color, size, or stroke width with on-screen controls and then click to copy the icons you want to use. It’s that simple!

Teenyicons

Teenyicons might be some of the cutest icons out there. This collection includes minimal 1px icons in outline or solid fills. And there are plenty of icons to choose from. Adjust the size and grab the ones that you need for projects.

Basicons

Basicons is a set of simple icons for product design and development. Plus, they are updated weekly.

Chozy Mermaid

Chozy Mermaid is a super funky novelty typeface to close out summer. The characters feature beach themes within slab characters. It might be hard to find an application for this one, but it is too fun not to share.

Dotuku

Dotuku is a dingbats font with a back to school theme. The limited character set features filled and outline styles that are perfect for classrooms.

Margin

Margin is a fun retro style typeface with a 1970s vibe. It’s a “chubby serif” with 60 characters and 58 glyphs.

Rollanda

Rollanda is a signature-style script with a thicker weight and rough stroke. The character set is pretty robust.

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drink-n-watch · 4 years

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Genre : Science Fiction, music, wish fulfillment, parody

Episodes: 13

Studio: AIC, A.P.P.P.

Oji, I mean Gabriel, is not having fun! One minute he was a lean mean rock god at the night if his glory and then he blinked and it was all gone. Now he’s just another middle-aged salary man shlub working way too many hours at a boring desk job just to keep his modest lifestyle. His wife doesn’t get it. She’s throwing out his guitars to make room for appliances. His son doesn’t get it, all he cares about is his silly power rangers like show. His friends don’t get it, they’re all old suddenly. But deep down there’s a passion still burning in Gabriel’s soul and it might just save the galaxy.

When I saw this older series (1999 – whoa) pop up on Crunchyroll, I was intrigued how that title matched up to the unassuming man in a tie, obviously not enjoying whatever he was typing on a computer that as pictured on the thumbnail. I read up on the synopsis. A washed-up metal guitarist turned salaryman has to fight an interstellar battle through his rock! Sounded delightfully oddball. I had to give it a watch.

you don’t need to take notes…well, if you insist

I am a staunch defender of the quality of contemporary anime and the importance of visuals to the medium. So it might surprise you to hear that I really enjoyed the classic look of this show. Don’t get me wrong, it looks old, retro even. You get a super strong 80s vibe from everything (despite being released almost 2 decades later) that was so popular 2 years ago. (I like to pretend I actually know what the 80s looked like. I don’t. I’m assuming…)

I suppose the visuals didn’t bother me because they must have been fairly impressive at the time. The designs are old fashioned but good and realistic enough to not look stupid. An odd thing for what is essentially a parody. There are occasional stylish touches added to backgrounds or scenes edited to look like old school hair rock heavy metal videos, both of which added a lot of visual interest in my opinion. And the unpretentious voice acting only made the production more charming.

Don’t get me wrong. It shows its age. There is very little movement. Still shots and reused scenes are both very frequent and of course, the aspect ratio is the old 4:6 letterbox which made me have to play with me screenshot settings every time. None of this matters much until you get to the space battles. There, the repetitive imagery and lack of dynamic animation really brought down the action. But otherwise, the production fits the narrative well.

what more can you ask for

The tag line of The Legend of Black Heaven is “Hard rock save the space” isn’t that awesome! It’s not quite up to the glory of “all your bases are belong to us” but it’s in the same vein. And it fills me with joy. Weirdly enough there are a few scenes that take place in the US with English speaking characters and it’s maybe the best English I’ve ever heard in an anime. They could have just let that voice actor proofread the tag line. Or maybe it’s that way on purpose to which I would have to tip my hat!

That’s a bit of a running theme through the series. Either because I’m not familiar enough with classic space fighting anime or 80s metal bands but I was never really sure of what’s funny on purpose and what was funny just to me. In the end, it doesn’t matter all that much but I still felt like some things were getting lost in translation. Speaking of which, the Crunchyroll subtitles did explain the silly Japanese wordplay which I thought was a nice touch.

Generally speaking, the story is pretty much what you think it is. The official synopsis really sums it up well. And the characters are quite realistic if a bit one-note. Note…get it… Cause music. One thing I should say, it often looks like a middle-aged dude’s fantasy in anime form. Oji is bored and disillusioned with his run of the mill life, annoyed by the responsibilities of having a family and a full-time job. And he’s not particularly devoted to either. Then all a sudden he can save the world through his sweet guitar riffs. He is very selfish in this new endeavour, ignoring his wife, blowing off work and even putting his son’s life in danger in the process. And the consequences are, having beautiful women throwing themselves at him. Having his poor wife (he puts her through a lot) appreciate him more because he’s in a better mood, earning the admiration of his son and all those around him. It’s pretty funny in a way but also a little sad at times. Gabe/Oji is fun enough to watch but I couldn’t help but think that it must be awful to have to put up with a guy like him in real life.

I’m sorry

I should say that this show didn’t really speak much to my sensibilities. It purposefully chose themes and topics I just have no connection to. Moreover, there isn’t all that much to the story. The space fights and music scenes are all the same so it did get a bit boring and the middle drags at times. As such, the fact that I still had fun with it speaks to its quality and I’m glad to have watched it.

If you are into the retro vibe, old school heavy metal or old school space battles (although that’s a rather underused element) you might want to give the Legend of Black Heaven a try. If nothing else, you can live your midlife crisis vicariously through anime and get it out of the way. Efficient!

to be honest, I’m not sure which is which

Favourite character: Eriko

What this anime taught me: Your partner will probably forgive just about anything as long as you look cool doing it

A drunkard is like a whisky bottle, all neck and belly and no head

Suggested drink: Black Heaven (ooohhh yeeeaaahhh)

Every time we hear the word “dream” – take a sip

Every time Oji’s family ruins everything – roll your eyes

Every time ladies be gossipy – sigh

Every time the three stooges show up – raise your glass

Every time Oji has bedhead – take a sip

Every time there’s a concert flashback – light your lighter (don’t have one? take a sip then!)

Every time we see or hear about the “Flying V” – take a sip

Every time Oji’s wife gets mad – agree

Every time we see the guitar store – take a sip

Every time Yuki wears green lipstick – take a sip

Every time we see the food cart – get a snack!

Every time we see the city lights at night – take a sip

Every time Oji gets drunk – join him

I love Bones’ visuals. They really speak to me. So once again I uploaded a whole bunch of screencaps to Pinterest and Imgur.

The Legend of Black Heaven and The Power of Midlife Crisis Genre : Science Fiction, music, wish fulfillment, parody Episodes: 13 Studio: AIC, A.P.P.P. Oji, I mean Gabriel, is not having fun!

#anime #comedy #parody #sci fi #The Legend of Black Heaven

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