Here's a preview from CTU-25. For a lot of reasons with people no longer being available, alongside many other things going wrong, this episode's progress was unfortunately restarted. Thankfully at this point I can near 100% guarantee CTU-25 will be done this year, partially because I'll be doing 99% of the work myself at this point (rather than relying on others to help large chunks of animation). Although there will be drawn images like this in the next episode, CTU-25 will still be predominantly sprite-based.

Some of you might've noticed the website for Chrono Trigger Unglued, as well as Ultra Publications in general, is now gone. Don't worry, this isn't because we dissapeared without a trace. I've still been working on CTU 25, but - Dear Lord - has this been a year where everything that could possibly go wrong, no matter how inconvenient, actually went wrong.

Let's list some things:

1) An important collaborator of Ultra Publications - Sunrie - got married and very recently had a child, we wish him the best-of-luck in raising his son (even if that drastically cuts into his available time). Sunrie's spot in our Pathfinder RPG group will still be waiting for whenever his life becomes less hectic.

2) My father was semi-recently found dead in his bedroom one morning, and we believe he died of a stroke. The fact that he was deaf, due to being a mortar operator in the army, meant no one realized this was coming. He'd recently passed a physical with flying colors, but it wasn't his physical-health we needed to be worrying about. I still wish we'd caught this sooner, but everyone wrote off his increasingly odd behavior - in the preceeding months leading up to his demise - on the fact he was getting up in his years.

3) I've been busy packing up for a move. I was previously helping to care for my father, since - due to him being deaf, and somewhat illiterate - he needed a lot of help taking care of any business-matters involving either the phone and/or letters. This especially became a lot of work when he started having a lot of car accidents near the very end (which should've helped clue us in that something was wrong, despite his limited communication capacity, as he was otherwise an impeccably safe driver up to that point). 

4) We've since been fighting to get my father's estate established, which hasn't been particularly easy since he never once bothered to create a will of his own.

5) A friend whom I've known for nearly two decades - whom I won't name, so as to remain professional - recently was caught being a sociopathic-manipulator, the internal investigations after the incident quickly unravelled their two decades of lies - and the innumerous times they deliberately played people against each other - leading to no one I know of talking with this person anymore. Having this discovery occur less than a week after my father died certainly did not help matters in the least.

I know the person in question probably won't believe me, but I do earnestly pray that - for their own sake - they change someday for the better.

6) Finally - due to still more real-life complications - the person whom was paying/running the website recently stopped paying the bill, and no one else was financially in a position to immediately pick up the slack either (and even fewer cared, since the website's forums were basically all-but-dead for ages). Thankfully we were able to back up everything important before the website went down, meaning nothing of value was lost.

I apologize that I didn't post that our website would be going down sooner - I really should have - but things've been crazy lately with scheduling around Pathfinder players that just had children, the sudden death of my father, the fact my father had no will, and various other time-consuming matters that recently came to light.

CTU's dream is not yet over, but Murphy is certainly doing everything in his power to slow things down.

Well, Episode 25 of "Chrono Trigger Unglued" has certainly hit a nasty setback.

As you may remember, Episode-24 ended up becoming late because of numerous collaborators whom didn't turn in their parts on time (some of whom were far worse about it than others). I would have worked on CTU-25 immediately after that - and I should have - but a friend of mine wanted to make it himself (from my script), and his talents seemed infinitely better suited to certain events taking place during CTU-25 than my own. I really should've learned a lesson from my fresh collaboration-clusterfuck, and - since I was effectively fooled twice in a row - you're all fully justified to blame and despise me.

Long-story short is that this person became obsessed with the idea of blowing my mind, and as such stopped showing me progress reports (although other eyewitnesses confirm he actually was working on the material). Unfortunately the other thing he stopped doing - beyond having multiple real-life crises in a row that all slowed him down - was backing up stuff, which is admittedly mindboggling. It's probably already clear where there is going, but the file - which had a singular copy - finally borked itself beyond all repair.

I'm sorry this happened, and I'm sorry I have nothing to show for the time you've spent waiting, and I'm really sorry nothing I'm about to make by myself will even remotely make up for the waiting you've gone through. Maybe you would've received something worth the time spent waiting if I'd made this myself back in 2015, but the episode - made entirely by myself now - will be inadequately arriving in 2017 instead. Either way, I'm going to try all the same to bring you Episode 25 - entirely crafted by myself - during the first half of 2017.

OTHER INFO:

The missing menu-songs from various episodes of CTU is not some mistake, I recently worked - 100% willingly - with Newgrounds Staff to remove infringing audio-material for the sake of Newgrounds'  Safety.

http://ifanzine.com/the-best-iphone-and-ipad-games-of-2015-part-one/

Some of you might remember that I'm the Lead Journalist for iFanzine.com, and here's my personal Top-Ten list for 2015. I personally certify that every game on this list is fully worth your time, and half of them are even available for free. So - assuming you have an iOS-based device - it's my personal opinion the above article is fully worth reading (but I might be biased, seeing as how I wrote it).

(By the way, CTU-25 is still coming. However, we've since made the decision to split the script into two separate episodes. Normally I wouldn't mention something like this, but it has pushed the promised "Thriller" sequence back another episode.)

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/648564

Crono and Company - while en route to Arris Dome - have to first go through Site-16, wherein Crono bumps into a "Furry Whiskered Spawn of Satan". This rude rat promptly makes off with all of Crono's precious Ethers, forcing him to chase down the vermin in order to retrieve his sweet-sweet MP restoring drugs. Unfortunately it seems that the smelly people back in the last dome they visited forgot to tell the gang a few things about this location, and Crono is now about to have a rather unpleasant run in with the undead.

***

Yeah, that took way too damn long to make... didn't it?

What have I learned? I have learned that collaborating with people can be a lot of fun, but it can also be a pure nightmare if you collaborate with too many of them all at once. I am really sorry that this episode took so long to make, and certain people won't ever be helping with CTU again going forward (sorry, not naming names).

Anyways, here is the 24th episode - thusly keeping Cryo's dream still alive - that I hope you will all enjoy. The 25th episode - which Sunrie, of "Captain R: The Game Ranger" fame, will be helping me make - is hopefully going to be out far more quickly than this particular episode was. In fact, I think you just might find this next episode to be a "Thriller."

Finally, Cryo - if you're reading this - please get in contact with me... I haven't heard from you since 2010.

Okay, I meant to have this ready for all of you by Christmas... but I guess your Christmas present ended up being a little bit late. Anyways, here's some iron clad proof that I have indeed been working on Episode 24 of CTU. Here, in its entirety, is the entire Gaspar Narration intro: http://ultrapublications.com/ctu/noway/Chrono%2024.html

I'd ask for your awe... but in reality I should probably be begging for all of your forgiveness! This one goes out to all of the patient people everywhere for not stabbing me, not matter how much I deserved it... although maybe a little more stabbing in the future folks, and I'd forget less often. Just remember to leave me with enough blood to live. Expect more previews and progress reports as I go. I promise to never again touch Warframe until CTU-24 is on Newgrounds, no matter how much that makes me cry and no matter how much I will undoubtedly regret saying that before I am done.

It's possible someone else at NG has already made a post about this, but I'm still going to post this myself as it really can't be stated enough...

KICKSTARTER LINK: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/production-i g/masaaki-yuasas-kick-heart

Production IG is trying to fund an original short animated film through Kickstarter since getting anything backed that isn't either (A) a remake/continuation (B) an already popular novel/comic/game or (C) Creepy Moe is pretty much impossible right now.

Why Kickstarter?

During the mid 80's and 90's Japanese animation directors, such as Mamoru Oshii, pioneered a new era of animation. Their films inspired animation fans around the world, including many well known Hollywood film directors.

Recently in Japan, its been very difficult for the next generation of innovators to create more artistically driven projects-- mainly because of the economic situation in Japan. Most of the focus has been put on creating projects that carry less risk-- such as remakes of older animation projects or well-known established properties.

So we had an idea: What if we use Kickstarter as a platform to connect the fans across the globe who want to see cutting-edge animation, with highly skilled anime directors? By using crowdfunding to help support and promote these talented directors, we can enable them to push the boundaries of anime to inspire others to innovate alongside them.

This is a bit of an experiment for us, and we are trying to see if is possible to make these types of artistically driven films with the help of crowd-funding. If this goes well, we would definitely like to pursue more projects like this in the future.

The film seems to be an attempt to retell Romeo and Juliet using what seems to be Mexican Style wrestlers and an art style that would seem more at home in the old "The Tick" animated series than something you would normally expect to see in normal Anime. While the story itself is not necessarily the most compelling (although I assume it will probably be amusingly weird), I would really like to see a departure from the rut that is currently going on in the Anime industry. To that end, I have decided to back this with my own $60 (minimum donation necessary to recieve a Blu-Ray disc of the film when its done).

***

CTU-24 MINI UPDATE: Script (100% Done), Custom Sprites (99% Done), Custom Non-Sprite Still Shot Artwork (100% Done), New Preloader (100% Done), Custom Hand Drawn Animated Segment (100% Done... WAIT, HAND DRAWN ANIMATION?!?), Voice Work (0% done, still waiting on people).

Wow, apparently I forgot to update this thing massively for a while.

Anyways, we recently interviewed Jake Richmond - the creator of Modest Medusa - and his cohort, Nick Smith, about the hilarious web comic and upcoming P&P RPG that will be based on it (technically it's actually the other way around). You can hear all about in Episode 13 of The Revue. Those who want up to the minute updates on the RPG's progess can follow the (still under construction) Magical Land of Yeld Facebook Page. Remember, those who arrive late will only have themselves to blame if Medusa eats all of their chocodiles.

But wait, before that we did a podcast on the Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon series. I don't know how I completely forgot to mention Episode 12 of the The Revue, but it somehow completely slipped my mind. We cover how the series spun off from the earlier Harvest Moon games, the five games released so far, and what is currently known about the upcoming 3DS title. I will try to not to let something like this happen again in the future.

I have also reviewed many iPhone games over at iFanzine.com lately, such as Pitfall! and Keri Racing. It is a useful site for fair in-depth unbiased reviews of iPhone software, and it has been a positively wonderful company to write for so far. They also regularly hold competition for free releases of upcoming popular iPhone games. so reading it could even score you something completely free for your time.

Also, fear not, there will be an Episode 24 of Chrono Trigger Unglued.

To start things off, here are my first four reviews up over at iFanzine.com:

Little Labyrinths: http://ifanzine.com/little-labyrinths-review/
Towers N' Trolls HD: http://ifanzine.com/towers-n-trolls-hd-review/
BattleLand: Warrior and Monster: http://ifanzine.com/battleland-warrior-vs-monste r-review/
Brandnew Boy: http://ifanzine.com/brandnew-boy-review/

Anyways, on to Super Mario 3D Land. I want to say that I really like this game, but more importantly I want to clarify why I really like this game. I am not going to disparage games like Super Mario 64 or Super Mario Galaxy, although I would disparage Super Mario Sunshine, but they ultimately feel more like a cousin to the main Mario series before them rather than a continuation of them. From a gameplay perspective, almost nothing in these games resembles anything from the games that came before them outside of the fact you have Mario and jumping. It was nice that Nintendo recently started making the New Super Mario Bros for the delight of people who wanted a neo-retro experience, giving them a new old style 2D platformer, but it wasn't until I played this game that I realized I had been craving an actual evolution of the original Mario gameplay.

Back in the day, and in some cases even still today, people talk about the difficulties of reinventing a series in 3-D. Maybe half the problem was the very fact they were trying to reinvent them at all, rather than making the 3D games an extension of what the series already was. While having fully 3D movement, Super Mario 3D Land features all the tenants of gameplay that is more associated with the original games than the 3D ones that came afterwards: directed linear leve lpaths rather than giant multi goal playgrounds, flag poles at the end of levels, racing against the clock to finish a level under a time budget, destroying the bridge bowser is standing on by stomping a button, classic power up and power down system instead of a life guage, Bowser's airships, etc. There is a lot more to this game then just the fact that it has Tanooki leaves, and the results of it all coming together make it feel like an actual evolution into 3D of the original series.

Now, to be fair, I know that something like this wouldn't have been possible on the N64 when Super Mario 64 was made. Part of the entire initial inspiration for the playground style multi goal levels was to find a way to make the game long enough to justify the purchase cost while staying within the constraints of the cartridge size that was being used to make it. Cartridge size space was always a production cost premium issue for developers to deal with back then, and as the absolute first N64 game the title had a cartridge that was abysmally tiny by the standards of what would end up being considered normal for the system. The decision was similar to how many NES games had to be made brutally hard in order to keep the player from finishing it too fast when there was in most of them only about 5 to 10 minutes of actual walking distance in the game due to the cartridge constraints.

Anyways, if you found yourself wanting something in the vein of the original games - but more 3D than New Super Mario Bros - this is in fact the game for you.

In other news, our Let's Play group recently produced more videos:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrBm-CeIfVs
Tink!Tonk! Land: Tuk Goes to Town (Atari 800 XL): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrBm-CeIfVs
Tink!Tonk! Land: Tinka's Mazes (Atari 800 XL): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1sa5qe3HFI
Haunted House (Atari 2600): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syGqRi8Q9SE
E.T. (Atari 2600): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_bmaQxITjE

And now for a moment of some random rambling upon something that irks me. A while back I pre-ordered something from Amazon that got delayed many times over before it was eventually released, but that's not the part of it all that is irritating. The annoying part is that once to twice a week, pretty much every week since the initial order, they have sent me an e-mail first most and foremost reccomending to me that I might want to buy it. Such great deductive logic there deciding that I might want to order something that I have on pre-order from you guys, I'm sure your dedicated staff of algorithm making programmers must be terribly proud of the fact they don't cross reference things that I already ordered before generating a list of reccomendations. Anyways, I eventually did get the item and they're still sending me these e-mails reccomending that I buy something that I already bought from them. Sigh.

By the way, do you guys like Pencil and Paper Roleplaying Games? The creator of Modest Medusa - a webcomic series famous on Deviantart - is currently hard at work finish up an RPG system set in the universe that he's been working on for the last few years, The Magical Realm of Yeld. He currently has a preview module out that introduces the rules of the system called, Mermaid Hunters ($5.00). The system is designed on creating an end experience that feels more like playing an SNES era jRPG than something like Pathfinder or Dungeons and Dragons, with the end goal of being to keep everyone moving rather than having everyone argue over what the wording of a rule means. My group ran the module recently and had an absolute blast with it and they're currently eagerly anticipating the release of the full book. If you like the comic, or perhaps you just want something different, I heavily suggest you take a look into it.

Finally, here's a reminder that my book - The Vagrant's Tale - is now available in 3 ways:

Amazon, Physical Book ($13.45): http://www.amazon.com/The-Vagrants-Tale-Clovis-D ye/dp/1463735359/
Amazon, eBook ($2.99): http://www.amazon.com/The-Vagrants-Tale-ebook/dp /B007TGGRFU/
CreateSpace, Physical Book ($14.95): https://www.createspace.com/3627225

As always, all published editions are heavily revised for continuity corrections and massive readability improvements. Furthermore, they all contain the two extra epilogue chapters never before seen online, as well as the pronounciation guide for all the names and terms in the book.