Author: Anne

Japan Envy: Le Café de Gaspard et Lisa

Have you ever heard of Gaspard and Lisa? The children’s book series chronicling two inseparable animal pals’ misadventures in Paris has taken Japan… and, well, maybe the rest of the world, by storm. In all honesty, I’d never heard of Gaspard and Lisa before going to Japan, but after becoming enamored with the adorable duo I saw plastered on everything from notebooks to aprons, I learned that they came from a children’s book series called The Misadventures of Gaspard and Lisa by Anne Gutman. They’re popular enough in the west to have garnered an animated series that has been broadcasted worldwide, and, as with many cute, albiet random, children’s mascot characters, the duo almost appears to be more popular in Japan than they are in English-speaking countries! Granted, I can’t profess to really know how popular Gaspard and Lisa are internationally, but where can you expect to find a themed café in their honor?

Le Café de Gaspard et Lisa is located in Numazu City, Shizuoka prefecture, and as you can see from the little mountain depicted directly below the words “Gaspard et Lisa” in the logo above, Mt. Fuji is visible in Numazu on clear days (other interesting, but useless, Numazu tidbit: the city produces more dried horse mackerel than any other region of Japan).

From what I understand, the area is a fairly popular tourist spot for its hot springs and Mt. Fuji views, but it’s still a little surprising that the café isn’t located in the heart of a big city such as Tokyo. Unfortunately that probably means I’ll never make it to the café myself… So instead I’ll spend the rest of this post drooling over its gorgeous food and decor!

I love how they’ve made literally everything Gaspard and Lisa-themed, all the way down to the presentation of the food!

Funnily enough, today is actually the 1 year anniversary of the café. To honor the event, they’re currently having a Gaspard and Lisa cheesecake campaign…

Too cute! It’s neat to see the Gaspard and Lisa versions so different from one another. I’ll take both!

All images are from the official Le Café de Gaspard et Lisa website, which I highly suggest checking out, as they have far more images of the café and food than I have space to share here. Don’t forget to head over to their blog, too, where you’ll be able to see more pictures of limited edition merchandise, special food items, and the area where the café is located!

Bonus Lisa curry:

Exclusive Japanese Club Nintendo Animal Crossing: New Leaf Pocket Diary

Way back in November, the Japanese Club Nintendo store introduced a new reward item that was particularly relevant to my interests: an Animal Crossing: New Leaf “pocket diary,” or planner for us foreigners. While I can’t profess to having very many Japanese Club Nintendo points, luckily they were holding a campaign where those who purchased the download version of Animal Crossing: New Leaf could snag the adorable planner above for a mere 80 points! And snag that planner I did, with the help of my very accommodating host mother who shipped it to me here in Australia. 
I’ve had the planner for a while now, but I’d been holding off sharing pictures of it until I finally picked up a proper scanner… and I’m happy to say that day has finally come! Not only will I be able to share good-quality scans of this limited-run planner, but I hope to publish posts that include many more scanned items in the future. Just think of the possibilities! Please be aware that I haven’t fully gained my scanning legs yet, so please excuse some shadows and weirdness in today’s post. 
Not sure why this one kept coming out so wavy. Argh!
The above images are of the alternate covers included. The last one is clearly a rehash of the game’s cover art, but the other two are unique to the planner. I love the little owl peaking out of the zero in the first one! The second is a particularly lovely color… If I weren’t just saving the planner as a collector’s item, I’d probably use that second cover (before you come at me with pitchforks for not actually using it, I already had a planner by the time I got this one!). 
I’ll be completely honest: I was a little disappointed by how sparse the pages are. There are so many cute touches that could’ve been added, but the decision to leave so much white space has left me a little lukewarm on the whole thing (I think I prefer the monthly layout style used in the Korean version). I do think it’s a nice touch how they themed each month differently, and that the colors from the game textures used ties into the color theme bars at the bottom of the page. Pascal and his little phrases are a nice touch, as well. I suppose Nintendo decided to go for a more “refined” approach to fit with the minimalistic pattern used on both the planner’s cover and the limited edition 3DS XL… 
At the back of the book are a number of extras, including some blank pages for notes that are decorated with different items from the game. The fish and bug pages are my favorites! 
Now this is interesting! They’ve included some helpful phrases and terms and their translations into English… which only further reinforces the idea that international versions of the game will be compatible with one another! By the way, players from the Korean and Japanese versions are able to visit each other’s towns, so chances are high that will be the case for the rest of the world, as well. 
The last page is for filling out your personal data, but I’m more interested in the exclusive Pascal design they included! I’m definitely going to scan that into my game. 
I have to say, however, that the stickers are the true highlight of the package. I don’t think I’ll ever dare use them, but they are truly adorable! I’m quite partial to the coffee cup sticker and the Doremi sticker (Doremi being one of my favorite villagers and a new character to New Leaf; she’s the brown doe on the far left). I wonder how they decided which villagers to include? 
The planner does come with the extra mini address book pictured in the first image, but it’s completely plain and unrelated to Animal Crossing aside from the house icon on the front cover, so I didn’t bother scanning it. Speaking of which, please do let me know what you think of the scans in the comments. If you have any tips/suggestions, they’d be greatly appreciated! 

My First Game: The Tightrope Walker

After announcing that I was going to participate in the Pulse Pounding Heart Stopping Dating Sim Jam last week, I’m extremely proud to report that I did it! In just two days, I completed my very first game. Granted, it’s only a very short Twine game and ultimately isn’t really a “dating sim” by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a great feeling to have completed something.

The early stages of The Tightrope Walker (that typo was fixed before publishing)

What I ended up with was a Twine game I decided to call The Tightrope Walker, and without giving too much away, I’d describe it as a meditation on balancing different kinds of relationships in one’s life. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to incorporate the “gay planet” theme of the MIT Game Lab QUITBAG jam into the game, but I purposefully left the genders of the characters ambiguous in order to make it as universally relatable as possible. I implore you all to head here, download the html file, and give it a whirl! It should only take 5 minutes to play through, maybe a little more if you have trouble finding the ending.

I’d like to give a huge thanks to Jake Lawrence, who provided the illustrations, and my husband Shaun for composing a short musical piece to accompany it. Unfortunately we only had access to a free music program that he had to learn how to use as he was composing, but I think the end result is quite sweet and fits the mood of the game very well.

But before I forget, I’d also like to say that though I’ve only played a few of the 70+ (!) submissions to the jam, I’ve loved every one so far. You can view the full list over at jam organizer Madam Luna’s Tumblr! I’ve especially enjoyed Rowan’s game about the online gay dating community, anna anthropy’s emotional piece about an Xbox Live date and a whole lot more, Jurassic Heart, which, as a dating sim about dinosaurs effectively combines two of my favorite things (dating sims and dinosaurs), and J.J. Cappa’s silly Javascript Persona 4 dating sim appropriately titled P4D: Persona 4 Ultimate Dating in Javascript Arena. There are so many other great games I’ve played and even more I haven’t gotten a chance to yet, so hopefully I can do a roundup post detailing my favorites and why you should check them out sometime in the future.

If you give The Tightrope Walker a go, please leave a comment and let me know what you thought of it! And for anyone who’s ever wanted to make a game but feels like they don’t know how, I highly recommend downloading Twine and just jumping right in. It’s not at all daunting to use, so it’s a great place to start. I guarantee you’ll feel great being able to say, “Hey, look, I made a game!”

Monster Hunter Beginner’s Guide Giveway Winners

Felyne Roll Call: Lagomi Armor art print available at Culty

The time has come to announce the winners of the Culty Monster Hunter Beginner’s Guide giveaway! Many thanks to all 16 who entered and to Culty for supplying two PDF copies of their amazing guide! The lucky winning hunters are:

Amy and acarno!
Please leave a comment with an email address that I can send your copy to! 
As for everyone else, I’m very sorry I couldn’t have a copy for each and every one of you, but I do highly encourage you all to head over to Culty’s website to view a 4-page preview of the guide and download their free item combo primer. And, if you like what you see, consider purchasing a copy of the guide for yourself! Culty is run entirely by two passionate Monster Hunter fans, and they definitely deserve your support. Not only have they penned the beginner’s guide, but they also have some great Monster Hunter-related original art (such as the one pictured above) available for sale, too! I’m currently drooling over this adorable limited edition Black Honey pin:
Last, but not least, Sarah and Roy also run a video podcast called My Fair Hunter that chronicles their adventures in the world of Monster Hunter, and I definitely recommend it for both novice and advanced hunters alike. Even if you’ve never played a single Monster Hunter game, it’s a great way to see what the gameplay looks like, so do give one of their newer Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate videos a watch! 

Pulse Pounding Gay Planets: A Weekend of Game Jams

It’s only the first week of April, but already things are busy with a capital B! In fact, there are not one, but two awesome game jams happening this weekend, and they’re both very much up my alley, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to spread the word.

First up is the Pulse Pounding, Heart Stopping Dating Sim Jam, which not only has one of the best game jam names I’ve ever heard, but it’s centered around one of my favorite game genres, as well. The full details are here, but basically anyone and everyone is encouraged to take part using simple, free programs such as Twine and Ren’Py and to post their work online using the tag #PPHSJam on Twitter and Tumblr.

My favorite part of the jam is that the curator Madam Luna (a very talented lady, I might add!) has decided to leave what constitutes a dating sim open-ended, so the sky’s the limit! The term “dating sim”  is actually a little problematic, as I find it implies some kind of stat management, or at least more involved gameplay than your usual Choose Your Adventure-style visual novel, but by not defining the term, Madam Luna has enabled virtually anyone to participate.

Next we have MIT Game Lab’s QUILTBAG Jam, which will take place on the 6th and features a very special guest… Christine Love of Analogue: A Hate Story fame! The theme will be “gay planet,” which sounds very fun indeed. More information can be found on the MIT page, which also assures potential participants that you don’t have to be local to attend in spirit! There’s a lot of crossover between the two jams, so hopefully we’ll see some dating sim games that explore queer themes early next week.

And now, I have a little announcement to make: I’m going to be participating in the PPHS Dating Sim Jam! I’ve never made a game in my life, but I’ve done some research on Twine over the course of the week and think I’m ready to take the plunge. I’m certain whatever I come up with will be a dinky little text adventure that may or may not even really qualify as a “dating sim,” but that’s what jams like these are for, right? I hope to tweet about my progress throughout the weekend, and Shaun has agreed to offer moral support, so be sure to follow me on Twitter if you want to stay up to date with my dating sim antics. Basically, I’m hoping that putting my intentions in writing will actually push me to finish something! Expect a follow-up post sometime next week where I’ll (hopefully) share the final product and talk about the experience!

Is anyone else going to be joining in the fun? Even if you’re not, do you have any rad ideas for dating sim games or something that could fall under the “gay planet” theme? Share them in the comments, and I promise not to steal!

Mad for Monster Hunter + Culty x Chic Pixel Giveaway!

Monster Hunter may be a series I’ve always found myself interested in, but I never expected to fall for it so hard. I’m eating, drinking, and sleeping Monster Hunter – for the first time in ages, I actually find myself thinking about playing the game between sessions, pining away for the next hunt!

I’ve been trying over the last week to pin down exactly why I enjoy Monster Hunter so much, as at first glance it doesn’t really seem like the kind of game I’d enjoy. Obtuse systems, steep learning curve, and a large emphasis on grinding? Normally, descriptors like these would make me turn up my nose in disgust, but so far (I say this because I’ve only put in about 10 hours, and I’m positive I still haven’t gotten to the real meat of the game) Monster Hunter has been the right mixture of charming ambience, thrilling battles with dinosaur-like monsters, and mindless, yet relaxing, gathering sessions.

First, to clarify, I’m playing the 3DS version of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, and since I don’t have a Wii U to connect to the online multiplayer features of the game, my adventures so far have been 100% solo. I also don’t have a Circle Pad Pro, so I’m using the notoriously-frustrating single-stick control scheme… which I haven’t had all that many issues with, surprisingly!

I know many are wary of giving Monster Hunter a shot due to the game’s reputation, so as someone completely fresh to the series, I thought it might be helpful for me to go over my experience with the game so far. Keep in mind that I am no way an authority on Monster Hunter, and I really have only scratched the surface of the game! But, if you’ve always been on the fence, perhaps my impressions will be of some use to you.

Of course, when talking about Monster Hunter, it’s hard to skirt around the supposed difficulty curve and the game’s penchant for sucking literally hundreds of hours away from players’ lives. Why, just the other day my friend and fellow games writer Brad Gallaway declared that he had finished up his review of Monster Hunter 3U, lamenting that he had only put in 75 hours at the time of writing (read it here!). Let me tell you, I can’t even think of a game outside of an MMO that you can put 75 hours into and still not have accessed the majority of its content!

But do you need to put 75 hours in before the game is enjoyable? One thing’s for sure, if the first 10 hours are supposed to be the slow part of the game, then I think I’m going to be in for a real treat from here on out. It cannot be denied that the beginning of the game is a little on the overwhelming side, but a deliberate, systematic approach to learning how the game functions is all that is necessary for learning the ropes (i.e don’t jump into online multiplayer straight away and expect to know what you’re doing!). Oh, and taking some advice from fellow hunters doesn’t hurt!

So, in a nutshell, both of the above statements are true: Monster Hunter can be quite the time sink and it does take a while to get the hang of. But, for me, at least, herein lies the game’s charm. So far, I’ve loved the communal aspect of the game: everyone who plays Monster Hunter is extremely eager to coach newcomers and swap stories with one another to figure out the best way to tackle the game’s many monsters or determine the best armor layout. Moreover, I dare say the Monster Hunter community is one of the best game communities I’ve encountered yet – everyone is so friendly and just overflowing with love for the game, which, unfortunately, seems all too rare these days. Add this to what I believe to be the closest a game has ever come to presenting my ideal fantasy world, and Monster Hunter is a game I am happily looking forward to spending tens, if not hundreds, of hours with.

Now that I’ve gotten my first impressions out of the way, it’s time to move on to the juicy part of this very special blog post: I’m extremely excited to announce that I’ve teamed up with the lovely Sarah and Roy of Culty to give away not one, but two digital copies of their amazing Monster Hunter Beginner’s Guide!

You may recall that I wrote about the Monster Hunter Beginner’s Guide once before, and now that I’ve spent some time with Monster Hunter 3U, I just can’t stress enough how helpful it’s been. It’s done wonders for enabling me to quickly grasp the various systems presented in the game, and all the information is presented in an interesting, easy-to-understand format. The input they received from different Monster Hunter players is also a great introduction to the wealth of knowledge the community holds, and everyone’s excitement and love for the series is contagious!

So, have I sold you on the game and Culty’s amazing guide yet? Well, I guess you’d like to know how you can win one, right? All you have to do is comment on this post with what interests you most about Monster Hunter (if you’re already playing, just tell me your favorite aspect of the game) before Saturday, April 6th at 9 pm EST to enter! I’ll decide the lucky winners using a random number generator and announce the winners on Sunday. The a PDF of the guide will be emailed to the winners for viewing on your computer or tablet of choice.

Good luck, and happy hunting!

The Horrifying World of Alpaca Niisan

Come ’round, gather around the campfire. What I have for you today is a tale so terrifying, so bone-chilling, that you’ll lie awake at night for weeks wondering just how something so horrible could even come into existence…

Okay, I don’t think anything I’ll write on this blog will ever be that scary, but the free iPhone app I discovered this week comes pretty darn close. The name of that app is Alpaca Niisan, or “Alpaca Brother” (also known as Alpaka Evolution on Android devices).

This cigarette-sporting alpaca quickly sets the tone
of the game

Alpaca Niisan starts off innocuously enough – players are presented with a single alpaca leisurely meandering around a green pasture, a pleasant, upbeat tune adding to the strangely-endearing quality of the slightly-ugly alpaca. But before long, more alpacas start to appear, and it quickly becomes clear that there is only one aim to this “game” – knock other alpacas out by tapping on them so your alpaca can absorb them, gain experience, and evolve into increasingly horrific alpaca hybrids.

The aftermath of alpaca-on-alpaca violence
Your alpaca fusing with the bodies of its fallen comrades
Macho level 2 alpaca

Pressing the star on the bottom right corner will show you what level your alpaca is and provide a brief description about its current form. Alpacas respawn even when the app isn’t open, so it’s important to keep checking it frequently in order to level up quickly.

Getting into nightmare territory… 
Sorry if you wanted to sleep tonight

Now, if you’re already following me on Twitter, you’ve probably noticed that this app is literally all I’ve been talking about for the past week (if I’ve subjected you to that and you’re still reading through this post, thanks for being such a trooper). The reason for that is that it’s both horrifying and horribly addictive! Not only that, but I’ve gotten my husband into it, as well, so whenever I forget to check on it he’ll enviably do some alpaca fusing for me. So what exactly makes this creepy-cute game so addictive? It’s hardly even a game – all you do is tap the screen!

Well, I’m certainly not the only person who finds Alpaca Niisan amusing, as it’s quickly become one of the most popular apps in Japan (it’s good to know I’m not the only weirdo out there…). I think everyone who tries it quickly develops a morbid curiosity to see what will happen next – just what will the monstrous alpaca evolve into, and how will each form move around and interact with the other alpacas on screen?

Since half of the fun is discovering the crazy forms your alpaca evolves into for yourself, I’ll refrain from posting some of the later (and even more disturbing) evolutions. Alpaca Niisan is currently available for both iOS and Android devices worldwide. For some reason the title hasn’t been translated for the iOS version (nor the app itself, for that matter, but you definitely don’t need to understand Japanese to enjoy it), so find the game on an iOS device paste アルパカにいさん in the search bar of the app store or view it here online. Android uses will find the game under Alpaka Evolution on their device or the online Google Play store. Note: These instructions apply to the North American Google Play/app stores, so the name of the app may be different depending on your region