Castlevania 2: Belmont's Revenge running on Super Game Boy 2. Plant Castle - Custom color code (Moldy Ruins) - 2091-3519-4322 Bonus tip: If you use Holy Water on the rolling eyes they'll melt instead of exploding.

Metroid Dread (Nintendo Switch | 2021) "I asked if he had played Metroid Dread yet, which at that point was only a few months old, and he responded (and I’m paraphrasing here): “No, I heard the game is only like five hours long. I’d rather wait until Metroid Prime 4.”" [1/2]

I painted the final boss from Gimmick! on a cel. This was for the second issue of Hand-Drawn Gaming, and I wanted this one to feel like old game magazines that used cel art. My brother is an animator and had some cels I could use. It was very difficult! I haven't painted a cel since college.

The sculpted key art from my fake Famicom game Basilisk. This was my last entry into the Famicase Exhibition back in 2021. I wanted to do something that felt like it really came from the Famicom era. Something like the cover of Eggerland. I did a few digital touch ups since I was winging it!

Old Yo-Kai Watch illustration I did in classic Konami style. I was studying a bunch of Tom duBois box art trying to see how he laid things out and westernized characters. I leaned on the Mystical Ninja art for this one in particular.

Balloon Kid running on Super Game Boy Stage 1 Code - Early Rise - 0031-3219-5263 Stage 2 Code - Crisp Forest - 0812-7320-4331 Stage 3 Code - Evening Ride - 0681-9320-3226 Stage 5 Code - Electric Storm - 3692-0826-7136

Metroid NES Endings.

Dr. Wily confronts Dr. Light. For the story sequences that bookend HDGG: Mega Man, I did everything in pencil and hit them with a splash of color to make them pop. Here's a look at the original uncropped version of this one. [1/2]

Shining Force (Sega Genesis | 1992) "I’m not really into tactical RPGs. I generally struggle with them, and the slower, often lengthy battles are usually a turnoff for me. I was almost positive I was going to bounce off this game, but this little chapel moment sold me...." [1/2]

legendsoflocalization.com/articles/mov... I've been seeing posts about The Wizard, that Nintendo-centric movie from like 35 years ago So here's a look at the Japanese translation of the movie!

How to play Mega Man for Game Boy.

The cover for From Pixels to Prose by @nadiaoxford.bsky.social and @retrogamebooks.com. This was a nice one to work on. The original request was to include lots of characters that are written about in the book. Short thread: [1/5]

📚 𝐓𝐰𝐨 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐮𝐩 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐞-𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫! • 𝘍𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘗𝘪𝘹𝘦𝘭𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘦, by @nadiaoxford.bsky.social. Foreword: @jparish.bsky.social. Edits: @justin.futuregho.st • 𝘐 𝘈𝘮 𝘕𝘰𝘵 𝘎𝘰𝘰𝘥: 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘏𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘊𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘝𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘰 𝘎𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘴, by @natedrake.bsky.social. Edits: @rcmacleod.bsky.social. retrogamebooks.com More in🧵

Taking the kids to see Mario Galaxy tonight. Regardless of how it turns out, I'm excited to see Fox in action!

For Guts Man's map, I wanted to create a narrative around the mountain's broken platforms. That turned into the robots destroying bridges between mountains to keep humans out while they mined resources for Wily's Castle. Credit to @vgmaps.bsky.social for the original map screen used for comparison.

Final Fantasy 1's Fighter class.

Got this Mega Man 2 Tiger handheld for cheap. Half the buttons didn't work and the image on the screen was very light. Gave it a full cleaning. I added a little piece of bent paper to the back of the screen just to keep everything tight (image 2). It's now looking and working great!

Turtle power! I drew this one for the cover of Hand-Drawn Gaming #5. Probably my favorite issue to work on and I think the strongest one out of the six issues I made.

Assorted Castlevania tip art that would end up in Hand-Drawn Gaming Issue 1.

Nintendo Power (Vol 58) article about game design courses in Japan. This is from 1994. In the states we wouldn't see programs like this until DigiPen came around in 1998, so not too far behind.

Sea of Stars. I wanted to frame this one for my daughters, but the problem is that they both adore this game & I wouldn't know who to give it to! I played through this twice, once alone & then 3 player co-op with the two of them. Not my favorite RPG, but fun memories with them.

Map of Bionic Commando's (NES) overworld. I was playing Tears of the Kingdom when I drew this, so the look of the topography was heavily inspired by it.

Map and some tips for the dam of TMNT for the NES.

There are a lot of Easter eggs hidden throughout HDGG: Mega Man. This is the only one I'll ever tell you about.

Castlevania 3 sketch I did a few years ago. Working on a Castlevania Hand-Drawn Game Guides project is the "new" dream. Perhaps I can begin the process of willing it into existence. If I ever had the chance to do CV3, it would be presented like a Choose your Own Adventure.

Metroid II: Return of Samus (Game Boy | 1991) "But there was one friend, three years my senior, who didn’t put on skates that day. He didn’t even play the arcade games. He was posted up near the arcade, playing his Game Boy." [1/2]

Simon Belmont ready to storm Dracula's Castle. I originally drew this for the first issue of Hand-Drawn Gaming.

I probably won't show much HDGG: Mega Man 2 progress for a while, but this afternoon I created the first piece for the book... the logo! The past couple of weeks I've been replaying the game, working out tips, and writing the story and character bios. So, things are moving.

Mega Man making his way through Elec Man's Tower in Dr. Wily's Revenge. This is a really difficult stage. I debated whether it should be the 2nd stage in the route when writing the book, but Elec Man's weapon is so useful that it's worth the player's frustration upfront to make the game easier.

Getting back into the swing of things after an extended break. I needed a bunch of new supplies and also decided to get some "research" material.

UPDATE Thanks to some refresher notes from @heyphilsummers.bsky.social Hand Drawn Game Guides, I have once again defeated Ganon and saved Hyrule.

My sister moved into a new house a few years ago and my brother in law found a storage area above their garage that apparently had a ton of Nintendo Power mags just sitting up there. He gave me the whole thing last night. Incredible haul!

Famicase submissions opened today, and I’m back after several years away! Here are some of the cartridge designs I made from previous years.

Contra was the first game I ever made a guide for. Hard to believe that was 8 years ago. I didn’t really know what I was doing. I just knew I wanted to draw an entire game. It’s light on tips because the focus was more on maps and characters. To color it I used ancient markers I had from college.

Drawn map of Bomb Man’s stage from Mega Man. The sphere towers in the background always made the level feel massive to me, so I wanted to play up the sense of scale in this setting. I then wondered, what if Bomb Man was threatening to topple one of these towers from the inside? [1/2]

There is always lots of talk about how games don't come with manuals anymore. Well what Fangamer did with UFO 50 is pretty incredible. A full strategy guide, lots of hand-drawn maps and notes, even a fake newsletter. All played as if this stuff really existed in the 80s.

Vic Viper flies again.

I appreciate Shredder's thoughtful take on Simon's Quest. He comes at it from a unique perspective and while I love Simon's Quest, I totally get his angle. Fun video!

I found and caught a Zapdos. Is it shameful to have this dude in my squad?

One of the original 100!

Happy 40th anniversary to The Legend of Zelda! Here's the guidebook I used on my first visit to Hyrule as a kid next to the new guide I'll use on my next journey into the game. Very fond memories of playing Zelda with my mom and helping her through it.

Happy 40th to The Legend of Zelda. 🍾 Here's the introduction running on real hardware. I picked up the Disk version of this ages ago at random. Saw it at a store and bought it even though I didn't have a way to play it. Though I solved that not much later. Cheers to my favorite game series!

The Legend of Zelda turns 40 this weekend! 🎊 To celebrate, I thought it would be fun to post my entire strategy guide, along with production shots and some additional thoughts. So, whether you've seen this guide a million times or not, I hope you learn something new. MEGA 🧵

Here's a quick behind the scenes look at Hand-Drawn Game Guides: Mega Man where I flip through a bunch of the original art.

The closest I ever got to actually playing Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth back in the day was when I worked at KB Toys in the late ‘90s. It was closing time and I stood there with a copy of Vanishing Earth which was marked down to 10 bucks...

Super Mario Land and its weird, not-very-Mario-like shooter stages.

You can technically play Virtual Boy games without the VB accessory on Switch but it'll look like this. I did try it on the new headset and directly compared both versions of Wario. It's a nice approximation but nowhere near as sharp as the original VB screen.

In Ninja Gaiden (NES), the right "foot" of the castle consists of Act 5 and the first Scene of Act 6. The two pillars are where Ryu fights Bloody Malth and where he's sent back to if he loses against the final boss.

Final Fantasy V's Lenna as a Mystic Knight.

Use this password to skip to the final level of Kid Icarus and get the best ending. It'll work on your original NES copy or Switch Online.