Mushroom Go

Author notes

22. Levels of athleticism

Tokoyoto

on July 30, 2010

Alright, so maybe I exaggerated a little when I said we were getting back to the "real action." Despite the "hmm, unimportant" vibe coming off this comic, I actually had to work my butt off to get it right. Piggyback rides = Hard to draw, it turns out. That, and I kept changing how Martello's outfit looked, or what sort of stuff she should be strapped down with, or what all was going to be in the background (I settled on simpler than I originally imagined, for the record). All in all, though, I don't think it turned out too awful. For the curious, the little blocks floating around are in the style of Super Mario Bros 3, but that pillar in the first panel was ripped from Mario 64. There's alot of freaking deserts in the Mario universe, for those of you unaware of such matters.

On a similar note, I am totally aware that quicksand doesn't work like I'm making it work. Quicksand is not an eternal vacuum of goo that forms oceans across the face of the planet. Actually, quicksand occurs most often in jungles, and is far less dangerous than most fiction depicts–but I'm not interested in realism, dang it, I'm interested in Mario. In pretty much any platform game to feature a "desert level," quicksand is a savage murderer that separates solid land masses, almost as dangerous as bottomless pits and rows of spikes. Depending on which game you're playing, quicksand either grips you and cripples your movement and hinders your jumps until other enemies can finish you off–or the quicksand may just instantly suck you beneath itself, resulting in a horrifying death animation. Oddly, Mario 64 has instances of both. The only thing more terrible than watching Mario drown in that game is watching him get pulled under shifting sand. Shudder.

On an UNrelated note, I can barely quit playing Dragonquest IX long enough to play BlazBlue. I'm cursed, CURSED I say with a month or so of totally sweet games coming out. Normally, the worst time of year for this is October-September-ish. There's like, eight games coming out around that time that I'm drooling over, with more rolling out all the way until early next year. They need to spread this stuff out more generously throughout the year, instead of blitzkrieging me with it all in a three month span.