GREDLEN'S PROFILE

I'd like for people to post in this topic towards the end of the day.

Aside from the basics (sleeping, eating, working), what have you done today? Or what has happened to you? Played any games, made any progress developing your own game, watched any TV (or movies, or anime, etc.), read any books (comic or otherwise)?
Don't just list what you've done; elaborate! Give us some thoughts about it!

I used some of the 4000 MS points I had bought yesterday to obtain Bomberman Live and Carcassone, and played a little bit of each. Bomberman was good fun, and I hope to play lots of matches with my friends (including certain people on this site =p). Carcassone was enjoyable as well. I like it a lot more than Catan. I don't get the chance to play these tabletop games in their original forms, because I don't have any friends that play them, so it's an interesting experience for me.

I wish I had friends that played D&D and the like, though...

After that, most of my day was spent working on character sets for Generica townspeople (which you can see here: http://www.rpgmaker.net/forums/index.php?topic=67.msg2245#msg2245).
It was a little hard at first, as this is the first character set I've made from scratch, as opposed to copy/pasting, palette-swapping, and minor editing. I still don't know if I can honestly say it was from scratch, as I often referenced Dragon Quest IV character sets.

In any case, I was able to make some headway into the task. It's hard for even me to gauge my abilities, seeing as this is my first serious attempt at both character sets and tilesets, and they are deliberately derivative (and lacking in detail). However, I'd like to get a lot better!

It wasn't a terribly eventful day for me, since I spent a fair amount of time napping in between all this.
I hope to play more games tomorrow.

I completely forgot I haven't finished watching Ouran High School Host Club. I have the whole series sitting around on my HD, too. Guess I'll get around to that next.

I know some of you people out there watch anime (and read manga). Let us begin a grand discussion in a largely unorganized fashion!

What's everyone been watching/reading? What are you looking forward to?

I haven't played many games or watched much anime since the beginning of the year. But I'm making an effort to change that right now!

I finally got around to finishing Honey and Clover II, started (and quickly finished) Nodame Cantabile, wrapped up the final two arcs of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, started on Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai, and am almost through with Zero no Tsukaima (just in time to catch up to the second season). I may move onto Hidamari Sketch as well.

On the manga side, I've been obtaining the Honey and Clover manga (only $3 a pop; gotta love the prices for Japanese manga).

I'll probably start buying the domestic release of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (aka When They Cry) soon, and I look forward to seeing the domestic release of the Honey and Clover manga and anime.

I haven't been keeping much tabs on this season's anime (aside from the next seasons of the ones I've already watched), as you might have noticed from what I've been watching.

General thoughts about what I've watched:

Honey and Clover is great. Absolutely my favorite romance series. The manga is entertaining and contains some little things that were left out of the anime, but I definitely prefer the anime. This is one of the rare instances in which I prefer the anime to the manga (where the manga comes first). The voices, animation, and music all really contribute to making this series shine. I would not hesitate to recommend this anime to anyone who is interested in a romance series that isn't aimed at young boys.

Nodame Cantabile was pretty good. I read a volume of the manga in Borders, then decided to watch the episodes I had downloaded and not touched earlier. Once again the voices, music, and, to a lesser extent, animation all make this anime worth watching to people who've read the manga. Especially since this is a series that deals largely with music. Unfortunately, the anime ends before the manga and it's unlikely there will be a second season. There's really no good excuse for this, either, since the manga ended well before the anime began. It's not a terrible place to stop, however. The Nodame Cantabile anime has gotten me reinterested in classical music (especially concertos).

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni ended pretty damn strong. The last episode contains a scene that easily lands a spot in my top 10 dramatic moments in anime. I would definitely like to play the games someday, but it's unlikely they will be translated to English, and it will be a while before my Japanese is good enough. I unfortunately spoiled some of the big reveals of the last arcs, but I'm still fairly in the dark about what will happen, so the second season is something to look forward to! And I LOVE the opening songs.

Zero no Tsukaima is entertaining. I never found the fanservice and crazy antics in Love Hina (or any other harem anime) to be laugh-worthy, but Zero no Tsukaima has actually had me laughing out loud a few times so far. Whether that's a testament to its humor or to how I've changed since high school (when I read Love Hina), I don't know. It's not a thought-provoking or emotionally-touching anime, but it is pretty good at what it does.

After I've finished watching the second season of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni and Zero no Tsukaima, I'm not entirely sure where to go. I suppose it's not too bad to have nothing more on my plate for a while, though, since it's about time I started hacking away at my video game backlog as well...

Indeed, those doors are meant for special occasions, like castles. The NES Dragon Quest games were pretty light on doors that didn't serve a particular function. I've made a couple of smaller doors in the tileset (right below the wells and fountain) that should be more commonly used than the big ones. I'll definitely be moving them to the upper layer later for easier use, when I start finalizing the layout.

Also, I'm willing to try and whip up custom sprites. I haven't heard any concrete ideas regarding the playable characters, and I'm still not through with the tileset, so I haven't gotten around to trying any yet. Since I'm limiting myself to a 16-color palette for both the characters and the tileset, I've decided to give more priority to the colors I need for the tileset, rather than the colors I would like for the characters.

I might see about a couple of villagers, guards, and the like when I have some more free time, though. I should be able to manage them easily with the colors I've already used.

Generica: now with 33% more animated door action.