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[cj_iwakura]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fredrin/megatokyo-visual-novel-game

Megatokyo's a long-running manga-ish webcomic about an anime/game obsessed pair who wind up stuck in Japan and subsequently dealing with everything from robots to ninjas to psychopathic Sega employees.

The creator, Fred Gallagher, has always been inspired by his love for visual novels. So now he's making one!

It's, uh, doing pretty well so far.

1,646 Backers
$103,895 pledged of $20,000 goal
26 days to go

Megatokyo is a long running and complex story that has filled six volumes and is not close to being over yet. That's a lot of material to cover. We did the math: The comic has so far covered 71 days, 488 different scenes and roughly 144 different locations. When divided into the different viewpoints of different characters, adding additional story branches and developing multiple endings that go beyond the scope of the current comic... it's a big game with many hours of gameplay for each character. Like any good adaptation, the game won't reflect a word-for-word, panel-by-panel approach. We will edit and parse things as needed to make the game flow smoothly, but the intent is to abridge the Megatokyo storyline as little as possible.

Given the overall size of the game, we have decided to produce it in three parts:

Each part will offer four to six hours of gameplay per playable character (though this will vary, depending on story branching). All paths in Part One will come to some sort of stopping point that you will be able to continue in Part 2 and Part 3 when they are released. These parts will be available as packages you will add to the base game much like downloadable content to eventually form one complete game.

The base goal for this Kickstarter is to raise enough funds to cover the production of Part One of Megatokyo the Visual Novel with Piro and Largo as playable characters. Additional playable characters and the production of part 2 and 3 will be stretch goals. Release dates for Part 2 and Part 3 will be announced if and when they are funded.

This game will not contain any DRM (digital rights management). When finished, the game will be available for purchase as a download or by physical media from the Megagear store and possibly other outlets. It will NOT be a free game - each part will cost $15 to purchase a download, but there will be no DRM scheme to enforce this. (Note that if you support the Kickstarter you will get your copy of part 1 of the game at the $10 support level.) I am simply going to rely on the concept that Megatokyo fans who want to play the game will understand and recognize the effort that has gone into making it and do their share to support it. We are not licensing this out to be produced by others - I will be doing a large bulk of the work myself with the support of a team of people I have worked with on other Megatokyo-related projects for years.

 

[Khezu]

I had no idea this was still a thing.

 

[EmCeeGramr]

megatokyo still exists!?

 

[The Boat]

What a blast from the past!

 

[XANDER CAGE]

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent?

 

[Pirabear]

megatokyo still exists!?

This along with it's apparently still active fanbase is the most shocking news I've heard all day.

 

[wonzo]

not kawaii

 

[Tomat]

What the fuck are those faces?

 

[tokyostomp]

Why does everything have a kickstarter?

 

[StopMakingSense]

megatokyo still exists!?

This.

 

[Village]

This still exists, oh wow.

 

[cj_iwakura]

This along with it's apparently still active fanbase is the most shocking news I've heard all day.

I think it's a testament to the longevity of the characters he came up with.

 

[Branduil]

How to draw a face:

1) Draw a triangle

2) Draw eyes and a mouth at the corners of the triangle

3) Put a dot in the middle for the nose

4) ???

5) Profit

 

[Permanently A]

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent?

this is genius, pure and utter genius.

 

[TangerineCloud]

Wow, I remember scoffing at this comic whenever I passed it on the shelves at Borders back in my weeaboo days. Was it actually any good?

 

[Rickenslacker]

I can't believe the art's remained so consistent for over a decade, particularly because by now you'd think he'd improve the faces.

 

[Ashodin]

What the fuck are those faces?

Someone who is not good at anime style drawings attempting to mimic.

 

[CheesecakeRecipe]

I still have my 3vil l337 t-shirt from back when this comic was still just barely going, before Rodney got kicked out and it turned into a total weeaboo fest.

I regret nothing. Seeing this makes me feel a little nostalgic.

 

[XANDER CAGE]

boy I sure had a crush on the gothy one when I was like 13

 

[Tucah]

megatokyo still exists!?

Honestly surprised to see that it's still around.

 

[kasane]

What is this? Mildly interesting.

 

[ezekial45]

Is there a stretch goal for improving the art? It looks like someone made a bunch of sketches from the Draw Your Own Manga books.

 

[Professor Beef]

Holy shit, Megatokyo is actually still a thing. I stopped reading once the Magical Girl sub-plot happened.

 

[Black Door]

Didn't Piro run off the original writer because he was starting to get obsessed with super-sappy utsuge vns and the writer wanted to keep everything jokey?

And he never learned how to draw real human faces in almost 20 years. That's sad.

 

[Grisby]

Wow, this is still going? Crazy.

 

[A Black Falcon]

I wish he'd put this effort into updating the comic more than once a month, but as a quite long-time reader of the strip, I'll take what I can get... and yes, I backed it (for $25, to get the full game).


I wonder if it'll get $500,000, though... I'm not sure if I want that. The series has always stayed away from that kind of thing... it would be kind of weird so see him do that kind of thing. Like, Piro/Miho or Piro/Kimiko would work, but Piro/Yuki? Don't have that one...

As for the art I think it's fairly good, but Piro was an architect before being a webcomic artist, not a person artist... you can kind of tell -- the backgrounds are extremely detailed when he draws them.

Megatokyo's a long-running manga-ish webcomic about an anime/game obsessed pair who wind up stuck in Japan and subsequently dealing with everything from robots to ninjas to psychopathic Sega employees.

I presume you haven't read MT much in some time? The series is about that stuff too, but it's also about the differences between different peoples' realities (anime reality vs. real reality, and such...), the nature of anime fandom in Japan, and more. The good story is probably the top reason why I've kept going back... I mean, I like the characters and art too, but the story is the most interesting part. It's gotten weird. Very weird.

 

[Professor Beef]

Didn't Piro run off the original writer because he was starting to get obsessed with super-sappy utsuge vns and the writer wanted to keep everything jokey?

Largo wasn't ran off, he left on his own. But the rest of the stuff you put is pretty much what happened.

 

[.JayZii]

Megatokyo is gross. This is gross.

I cannot get over how amateurish and inconsistent the art still looks. Different stroke for different folks, I suppose, but yuck.

 

[XANDER CAGE]

remember how the main girl characters would always be in their underwear when they worked on their 7074lly l33t computers because of reasons

 

[Flying Toaster]

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent?

Brilliant! This level must be achieved!

 

[Andrefpvs]

Amazing. This is so going to reach $500k now. The last 12 years of building up sexual tension between the characters were, in the end, a way of getting into the pockets of frustrated fans. This is pure genius. Truly some sort of dark art from the depths of the endgames. Fred Gallagher is a visionary. Have this man run the country's economy.

 

[kasane]

Dat guy on the first strip definitely looks like Conan. Oh and I'll back 400k for the excessively romantic level.

 

[CSX]

With a goal like that I could see how it reached 100k already

 

[Watashiwa]

Funny, I checked up on Megatokyo last month. Was surprised to see that nothing had changed ten years later--or rather, was surprised that I was surprised. I shouldn't have expected plot development from melodrama.

 

[0xCA2]

How to draw a face:

1) Draw a triangle

2) Draw eyes and a mouth at the corners of the triangle

3) Put a dot in the middle for the nose

4) ???

5) Profit

Funny thing is, dude is apparently actually a trained architect, which was his job before this.

I actually like his style, and I'd love to see a game with a similar Anime-Inpsired style. I'm not sure if I'd be into this, though.

 

[Ken]

How to draw a face:

1) Draw a triangle

2) Draw eyes and a mouth at the corners of the triangle

3) Put a dot in the middle for the nose

4) ???

5) Profit

 

[Tomat]

Let's kickstart this. I like it.

 

[Zeouterlimits]

Hoooolly shit, that $500k tier is real clever.

 

[KojiKnight]

This thread is nostalgic... but it doesn't really belong in gaming side does it?

(edit) Misread visual novel as just plain novel.

 

[Etzer]

Megatokyo is a long-running manga-inspired webcomic that has been entertaining readers for over 13 years with its involved storyline and large cast of interesting characters. Noted as being "the best-selling manga series ever by an American artist" by ICV2.com in 2005 and as one of “the 30 Most Important Comics of the Decade” by Comic Book Resources in 2010, Megatokyo has held its own against many popular Japanese-created titles.

I'm confused. Why haven't I heard of this?

This will be an official Megatokyo project and I will be doing much of the writing and art production for the game myself.

I don't know if it's any good, but I can't get over the art. This is after 13 years? What did it look like when it started? Maybe a stretch goal should be added to hire artists. It's over 100k with 26 days to go, so it looks like there's a decent sized fanbase.

 

[A Human Becoming]

Haven't read this since I was in high school. All I remember is Largo referring to himself as Great Teacher Largo.

 

[Rickenslacker]

This thread is nostalgic... but it doesn't really belong in gaming side does it?

VNs are games.

 

[KojiKnight]

VNs are games.

Yeah, I missed the visual novel part. More precisely, I read it as "graphic novel" which is what I'd more likely have expected.

 

[Professor Beef]

Haven't read this since I was in high school. All I remember is Largo referring to himself as Great Teacher Largo.

Largo was the best for a while until Rodney left and Fred got to control what Largo did.

 

[Jintor]

Fred's still around? Good on him.

 

[A Black Falcon]

Fred's still around? Good on him.

He had heart surgery a few months ago, but fortunately has recovered.

 

[Sax Russel]

Blast from the past indeed. Maybe one day I'll catch up. It's still going? I think I'm only like a thousand behind o.o

 

[Kagari]

And it still has bad art.

 

[cj_iwakura]

He had heart surgery a few months ago, but fortunately has recovered.

Wow, I had no idea. Is his wife alright? I recall she was fighting an illness too.

 

[Erekiddo]

I dislike how our brains are generally wired to read words as a whole. I saw 'Miyamoto' 'kickstarter', and thought Christ, Nintendo must be hurting.

I wonder if this is how Kotaku, Patcher and everyone else gets their Nintendo is doomed headlines.