A ton of screenshots from the upcoming Arvale: Treasure of Memories, Episode IV. There have been a lot of overhauls to the menus to make them sleeker, more usable, and honestly, sexier, especially for mouse users (you keyboard users out there, stick around, as there is still some cool stuff below) 🙂 Take a look around.

As seen above, you’ll notice the main HUD (heads up display) has been slimmed down and added a new button for loading any of your save games at any time. Comes in handy, trust me. Also, the main cursor when walking to-and-for on the maps has been updated to a nifty little walking dude icon.

When you mouse-over things on the map, the cursor will change depending on what you can do with it. As in this picture shows, you can open up that treasure chest and grab the contents inside (oh, and these cursors are animated, and look super cool when you do the mouse-over).

Same applies for when you can chat with another character…

Open or Close a door….

Or inspect/read an item on the map.

You might have been thinking, hey, that HUD is now slim and sexy, but what about the information? Maybe I don’t know what those icons mean! Well, know all you have to do is slide your mouse over the icon, and you’ll get a slick little text description pop-up telling you what that button will do when you click on it. Looks really cool, and is really handy.

Oh yes, and if you can fight a monster, this little attack mouse-over will happen. Speaking of battles…

Enemy Hit Points are now clearly visible with a nifty little bar by them (just like your characters!). In addition any status ailments they have will show up under that bar (i.e. sleep, poison, stunned, etc).

Also notice the brand new battle menu stuff for the Escape and Attack selections (also animated, you should see that little guy run when you mouse over him!). Oh, and the main cursor changes to that metallic cool-looking cursor as soon as you enter a screen when you have to select from menus. You’ll love it!

The main actions in the battle are also spiffed up (and animated) and add a really polished feeling to the battles now. Hard to describe in words, you’ll just have to see it in action!

After you spend all that time fighting a monster, now you can see the actual results in detail. If your character leveled up, if they learned a new skill, and as a personal touch, each character will say something regarding the situation (this is really, really cool actually).

And enemies will drop more stuff now. For some reason they didn’t in the last few episodes and I couldn’t quite put my finger on how to make it fun. Now I have 🙂 Although, in this case, the monster didn’t drop anything…

But in this case, they did! (although Sakyra feels a bit hesitant about touching it) 🙂

I know you Old-Skool Keyboard control enthusiasts are feeling left out, but fear not! The new battle menu stuff is all working swimmingly with keyboard controls as well as….

You can now switch smoothly and effortlessly back and forth between keyboard controls and mouse controls (if you switch to keyboard controls, EVERYTHING will return back to the oldskool style of playing, such as in Episode I and II) including…

The oldskool menu system you came to love to much 😉

And everyone, I’m sure, will enjoy the new save file system which allows you to save up to 20 slots for your save games, includes a neat little preview of the map you were on, playtime, gold, character stuff, and the map name.

That’s it for now. More to come soon.

I know, it’s a lot to take in. But remember, Episode IV will be the Final Episode of Arvale: Treasure of Memories, so I’m planning to do everything I can to make it the awesomest (yes, that is now a real word) it can be!

See you soon!

This post will be really boring if you don’t understand Japanese, or if you aren’t studying Japanese.

But if you are , then it should be a good source of material from every stuff to random-ass-kanji you’ll rarely see anywhere else. This kind of stuff is a gold mine for people using an SRS. Or just finished Heisig. Or simply looking for actual Japanese material to study from.

I won’t bother to type out the kanji, nor the readings. In fact, I won’t even rotate the original images. That’s more fun for you 😉

Snack.

Healthy snack.

For your safety.

Scary gum!

Kitchen tool for donut-making.

Tasty aliens!

Starting soon…

Analog TVs are going away, so you gotta prepare…

And here is how to do it!

With some caveats.

These books are popular among kids-teens right now.

Authentic…. children’s newspaper actually.

Oh the things we do for smooth looking skin…

This stuff goes great with beer actually.

And… my fingers are tired, I’ll do this again shortly.

Enjoy for now!

Sometimes the stress is worth it, maybe 😉

In any case, above you’ll see the proof that I passed the  日本語能力試験 N2, which is the new version of the old 二級

Don’t let the numbers fool you, the old version was categorized into 4 levels, with 4級 being the easiest and 1級 being the hardest. The new version has 5 levels with N-5 being the easiest and N-1 being the hardest.

According to the Japanese Government N2 level is supposed to should take 3 years of intense studying to achieve (I won’t brag that it took me roughly 1 year, I’m just saying…), and is equivalent to Business Level Japanese.

I’m not sure what Business Level means, so I’m aiming for N1 by the end of the year, which according to them means Native Fluency… and according to everyone else, sounds impossible.

But you know, I like doing impossible things 🙂

You can’t resist a title like that, can you? 🙂 I had some capsule endoscopy action going on. Or as they say in the business, a stomach camera.

That’s right!  I went to a doctor, numbed up my throat and they shoved a big tube down it. As far as the procedure goes, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone; you feel like you’re going to vomit and choke the entire time, and some things simply shouldn’t happen in your stomach at the touch of a button. But I would totally recommend doing it if you have the chance simply because it’s incredibly cool!

They say that you should show personal stuff on your blog to appear more human. Since naked pictures of me would be rather boring, I figured the inside of my stomach might do the trick instead (hey, it still takes guts… hahaha, get it?! Guts! Oh, I crack me up). And I love playing House as much as anyone (no, not the kids game House, where you pretend you’re the daddy and mommy; the TV Show House) so let’s take a closer look at my stomach!

First off, this doesn’t look anything like a stomach, this looks more like the underside of a pig. But since I do eat pork, I guess it makes sense? The gooky stuff lining the walls is either saliva, mayonnaise, or used motor oil. Next.

Yeah! That looks more stomach-y! I like the wavy lines. Good job, stomach! The gangrene looking stuff near the top is nothing to worry about, according to the doctor, they’re simply supposed to be there, they’re aliens from a distant planet, or I drink far too much Green Tea. I’m going for the alien theory. Next!

While this could be a blob of pudding, yogurt, or cake mix, it’s actually a part of the gastrointestinal tract, uh… somewhere in there. That red spot with the white stuff is actual irritation from stomach acid. Nothing permanent, just think of it as a bruise. Next…

If you stare at it long enough, it starts to look like Jupiter or Mars. But this is really inside my tummy! I have Jupiter inside my tummy! Nah, just more stomach stuff. I’m guessing the red stuff is more irritation and the long hole is just more stomach.

Damn, I should’ve been a doctor. This stuff is too cool.

There were a bunch of other cool pictures too, like one where you could see the stomach acid dripping, and another where you could see the tube of the camera in my stomach, but the doctor wouldn’t give me everything (yeah, I’m one of those patients), just this much 🙁

In the end, there’s nothing seriously wrong with my stomach, just normal wrong. So, nothing to seriously worry about 🙂

What do you think? Any second opinions?

Like, you think it looks more like Venus? That’s an opinion too, I think.

Hope you enjoyed my stomach!

Click on that picture to see it in all its full beauty. Then be smart and Right-click, Save-As and set it as the most exciting desktop wallpaper you’ve used in months!

I received this full screen, beautiful artwork from my artist… honestly, as a personal request (because I still had up the wallpaper he made for Episode II on my desktop).

Anyway, it’s awesome, and it’s 1280×960 so it should look good on pretty much all computers. Even if you don’t want to use it as a desktop, you really should check out its full size; as compared to the in-game titlescreen of Episode III, this has tons of little details that make the picture really come alive (including the colosseum in the background, the flowers, and the axes, and the little trimmings on the, oh you get the idea!).

In any case, enjoy!

I figure I damn big picture is worth a big damn thousand words. 🙂

That’s right, Arvale: Treasure of Memories, Episode III is released! Click on the above pic, or that last link for all the juicy info.

You can start a topic in the Forums and post your thoughts on the game, or if you get stuck… you know, forum-y things if you feel so inclined 😉 Like… about how awesome the new mouse controls are.

In any case, I’m super happy the game is released I sincerely hope everyone enjoys playing it as much as I enjoyed making it!

It will soon be available on the wonderful Amaranthia, Aldorlea, and OverCloud9 sites as well. So be on the lookout for them!

And have a wonderful Saturday!

The Good News is, the game is freaking awesome!

The Bad News is, I need one more day. So you’ll get it on Saturday (in the Western world). I promise. Even if I have to use Hawaiian Time Zone to do it.

To hold you over until the release, here is a picture of a kitten wearing a hoodie:

🙂

Honestly, Episode III of Arvale: Treasure of Memories is pretty much done.

It’s playable, it’s beautiful, and it’s fun. But it currently looks a bit like this title art:

While you can see everything that’s going on, it still looks great, and it’s fully functional, it seems to be missing a few things around the edges. Fine details and such. So I’ve got a few things to fill in before the game gets released.

I’ve also realized that stress is a real thing, not a myth. And I seem to have noticed an interesting pattern. Remember what happened just before I released Episode II? This happened.

While this time I didn’t end up going to a hospital, perhaps I should have. Not nearly as serious in the short-term as kidney stones, but stress tends to screw up all sorts of things in your body. So… take care of yourself so you don’t end up like me. 😉

That being said, gimme one more week. Let’s release Arvale:TM, Episode III on August 6th.

Here is rough sketch of another new character who will appear in Arvale: Treasure of Memories, Episode III. His name is Brodyn.

If you’ve played the original Arvale: Journey of Illusion (I highly recommend it, as it’s free!); then you may have encountered this character before 😉

Brodyn is the Elven Prince of Kytar. He joined up with Duncan in his very first quest as part of the underground movement, Veritaes. During that time, he had run away from his duties as next in line to be a prince (for various reasons). Since Journey of Illusion, he has returned to being a prince and will be coronated as the next King soon. No extra information to spill, except that he’s recently been betrothed and is not enjoying being cooped up in a castle all the time.

Oh, and he joins Duncan’s party while they are on the second continent of this episode. And… he fights with a spear. And he is very interested in— Oh no, I’ve said too much!

More soon!