History of Banzai Pecan, Part 2

So time for another installment...

Last time, I talked about Manic the Lad so now we move onto Hell-Kite.

So, after some more Manic the Lad sequels were canned, Brotha Kyo and I decided we wanted to do a dark and edgy action platformer. This was after our final and greatest Sonic fangame, Neo-Sonic Godspeed. So we wanted to use a game mechanic from Neo-Sonic Godspeed in an original action game. This mechanic was a special move used by Shadow the Hedgehog called Advanced Control, where Shadow was home in and destroy lines of enemies in a flash. This move was used to get Shadow over gaps and destroy a bunch of enemies in seconds.

So to create this game we needed a character and her name was Victoria "Vic" Ghost. She was a French half-demon adventurer and overall badass. I wrote and extensive plot line with a back story and possible sequel hooks while Kyo composed, programmed, and animated. We had a possible project on our hands until Kyo hit a wall. The game development program he was using, Multimedia Fusion, had a limit to how many frames of animation a sprite could have. This limited our potential moves and attacks severely. Eventually, the project was canned because of these limitations. (I had put so much thought and planning into Hell-Kite's story that I decided to keep the idea. I might turn it into a novel series someday.)

Moving another from a platformer format, we tried out hands at a beat 'em up style action game, Chakra Tapestry. CT was a beat 'em starring Lorelei McDougal, a high-school girl with a martial arts hertiage giving her the ability to use her Ki and Reiki in different moves and attacks. Also, she could combine the physical and mental energies into chakra (Eff U, Naruto!). I didn't write an epic story for this one, but Kyo had a few sprites done. Once again though, we ran right into the same wall that was holding us back. Lorelei McDougal still exists for use of a comic later.

Kyo and I stewed on this for a while playing with various ideas for games. Conjurer Meyj was a game idea that come up, but that will be a different kind of game. The last fangame and Manicteam game ever was Maximum Kyo in 2005. It was a King of Fighters parody and it was hilarious! The gameplay was alright, but that wasn't so much the point. This was Kyo's love letter to SNK.

2007.

The year everything changed...

We started Banzai Pecan version 1.

More later.

Project K-yo Episode 1 and 2 are up.

It's a show about nothing. How do you know when it's over? By clicking the X Button.

A little bit of sprite work ala Bouncek~

The talented Bouncek shows a bit as he works on one of his favorite bosses~

A bit of This and That.

In Indie news:

Apparently, it's not just a professional game design company these days: Yuzo Koshiro's team created an indie game on the side. This one harkens back to the days of getting a few friends on a Sunday to become weekend warriors on 8-bit adventures, protecting a princess who reward you with her hearts to upgrade powers while fighting demons, zombies, succubi, and whatever the fuck the Man-Dragon is....

The biggest challenge though? Blowing into the cartridge in the beginning of the game to get it to work.


Ladies and gentlemen... Protect ME, Knight!!

They even go so far with the design as to give the "English Version" a more "western" cover like it was the 80s. Has plenty of Engrish, and Yuzo Koshiro music.

It's like 3 bucks. I highly recommend it.


~Brotha Kyo

History of Banzai Pecan, Part 1

Every game has a story behind it's development and production. Banzai Pecan is no different. Despite the game not being close to completion yet, the game has a long history behind it. Back when Kyo and I were Manicteam, making Sonic fan-games (you gotta start somewhere), we wanted to make an awesome action game. This action game would take many names and faces. Banzai Pecan will be the fruition of nearly a decade of ideas, canned projects, and the evolving nature of action games in general.

However, all of this started with one character now lost in time. This character was Manic the Lad, a super-fast anthro cat in a futuristic conflicted world. While Manic the Lad first appeared in the Sonic fan-game, Neo-Sonic 3, he would star in his own title, Manic the Lad. The game, Manic The Lad, featured side-scrolling action. Manic had a two-hit combo, dash attack, and an airborne attack. In a way, you could say this game was an ancestor to the Banzai Pecan game. Kyo was figuring out basic melee controls. Manic the Lad was a basic, but fun game (in my opinion). Sadly, no sequel was completed. A remake was done but no sequel. Manic The Lad 2 had many versions, including ideas for a 3D action-adventure game. Manic the Lad's last appearance would be in Manicteam's final and greatest fan-game, Neo-Sonic Godspeed.

Plans for Manic The Lad sequels would include an improved combo system, projectile moves, and multiple playable characters. While Manic The Lad sequels fell through the cracks, the ideas generated by them did now and would carry over to the next incarnation of our action game, Hell-Kite. But that is a story for another day.

Edgey signing on...

Co-developer and scenario writer, Edgey, had joined the party!

Busy, busy, busy.

Those are the three words to describe us through the entire month of April!

Testing Testing.

Umm... is this thing on?