How To Make A LocoRoco Piñata

If we had hands, we'd do the mannerism!

There are many reasons why one would make a LocoRoco piñata. Perhaps you’re a Mexican who likes the game. Perhaps you’re a Mexican who hates the game. Perhaps you’re a massive nerd holding a Mexican-themed party. Or maybe you’re trying to erase bad childhood memories of your grandfather filling piñatas with coins so that, upon smashing said piñata, bits of metal would come flying at your face. Yes, perhaps you are trying to replace those memories with new ones, ones where candy would come hurling in your general direction rather than, say, shrapnel.

Whatever your reason may be, you may or may not want to read this guide to making your own piñata. Jeremy Pencil of Terminal Atrocity and I collaborated on this craft-tastic project, painstakingly documenting every step of the way. We were so industrious, we made two!

The following guide will teach you how to make the piñata. If you would like to read about the experience from someone else’s perspective, then Mr. Pencil has done his own little write-up about our LocoRoco adventure. Anyway, enough with the jibber-jabber. LET’S DO IT!

PICTURE POST: I Met Spongebob, For Real.

This was supposedly what we were there for.

I don’t like the beach, I don’t like sunshine, and I’m not a fan of Bondi and its perfectly tanned and toned individuals. But I do like Spongebob. I do like him quite a lot. In fact, I like him enough to haul my shade-loving arse to Sydney’s painfully sunny Bondi Beach, all in the name of a Nickelodeon media event where I was promised I’d get to meet Spongey and Patrick Star. So, with my sunscreen, sunnies, hat, jeans, enclosed shoes with socks, cardigan, and backpack full of hand-held consoles on me, that’s exactly what I did this morning.

Are Game Mods Fan-fiction?

God of Carbs. Om nom nom nom.

When it comes to game modifications (mods), I’m a fence sitter. On the one hand, I think it’s great that people can take existing games and push them to newer and better heights. But on the other hand, I don’t entirely agree with tampering with what’s already there, especially when said tampering can completely alter a person’s experience with a game.

I suppose that’s the whole point of mods, though. You wouldn’t download a mod unless you wanted a different experience. But I’m trying to get at a few things here. First, should a person who has never played the original version of a game before play the modified version? Second, if the people behind the mods – presumably hardcore fans – love the game they’re modifying so much, why would they want to change it in any shape or form? And finally, where do these mods stand in the bigger picture? Are they to games what fan-fiction is to literature and, essentially, bastardisations of the original? Or should they be accepted as legitimate additions to the game, even when they are developed by people unaffiliated with the original title?

Will A PS2 Keep You Warm At Night?

I was going to use a photo of Sophie and I from our last winter holiday, but then I found this in my album. It features two of my friends playing Twister. So I'm using it.

My dear friend Sophie is currently on exchange in Europe, learning all sorts of crazy things like Swedish, or something.  At the time of writing, she was learning Swedish in-jokes. She recently sent a message to my circle of friends — all of whom have significant others; I being an exception — telling us about all the wonderful things she’s been getting up to.  The final paragraph of her long message read like this:

In summary: everything is beautiful. Hey, how would you chooks like to go on a short holiday this winter? We could bring the boyfriends and girlfriends and so on. Tracey, you could bring a PS2. Oh and board games, of course. Thoughts?

FML.

WORK: Don King Boxing Preview

His shirt looks like it's covered in the nuts they make Nutella out of.

I realise that, with the game now on sale, a preview seems a bit redundant. But I also realise that a lot of people aren’t going to buy or play Don King Boxing on DS. So here is a preview I wrote that appeared in issue #186 of Hyper magazine. Now you’ll know what you may or may not be missing out on! Clickety click for more words on a page!

WORK: Good Game – The GFC’s Impact

I accept pies and cake in exchange for my sweet JRPG skillz.

I did another thing for Good Game! It you would like to view the story, you can go and stream it from here. If downloading the entire episode is more your thing, you can go here and click on episode 8. Easy peasy.

The impact of the global financial crisis on the games industry was one of the first stories I pitched to GG when I started on the show. I’d been reading an awful lot about the closure of development studios and the huge staff-cuts that were happening across the board, and it had me worried. If studios no longer had the same man-power that they used to, what would happen to the games in development? Would there even be any games in development? Would there be fewer choices?

Those were some of the questions I posed to the industry representatives I interviewed. And yes, I did make that sign myself using part of a cardboard box from the recycling bin and a permanent marker.

RECIPE: De Blob And Tetris Cupcakes

I modelled mine on the Japanese de Blobs.

You may or may not remember that I wrote an article for IGN AU and Kotaku AU the other day about a professor who claimed that violent videogames (“violent” being interpreted quite broadly as anything that involves destruction) cause people to be more aggressive.  Well, I have a new theory to throw into the mix. Videogame cupcakes make people more aggressive.

My goodness, I was one angry girl when I was baking those de Blob and Tetris cupcakes. They were the most frustrating things to make. In the time it took me to sculpt a de Blob, I had grown a luscious beard that reached the floor and, because I’m incredibly uncoordinated, I kept stuffing up and had to try again and again and again. All for the sake of a mother trucking cake.

Below is a recipe for the marshmallow decoration I made. You can use it on any cupcake — chocolate, vanilla, orange — and you can even cheat and bake those Betty Crocker-style “dick cake in a box” things, and then add the decoration on top. It’s not like anyone will actually care whether or not you baked it from scratch. If they ask, you can lie and they’ll never know. Conveniently, I didn’t document the cake-making/baking process this time, so you’ll never know whether or not I actually made these cakes from scratch! Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t; I’ll let that play with your mind for a bit while I show you how I made the marshmallow fondant.

Click through to see what I did…