EPISODE 65: "Open The Vault!"

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The main thrust of this episode - the need for the license-holders to classic games to get that material back out there for the good of the medium, the fans and themselves - is one I expect to see become a BIG discussion-point as digital-distribution tech becomes as prominent for gaming as it is for music and movies. Golden-age games are going to get out there (much moreso than NOW, I mean) one way or another... so the industry might as well get out in front of it. The all-but innevitable spectacle of Nintendo (and you KNOW it'll be Nintendo) morphing into Metallica to downloadable-classics' Napster would be a pathetic sight I'd rather we avoid.

ALSO! This is the first of the new episodes to "fully" embrace the new presentation-format for the story-segments - i.e. a brief "teaser" before the opening credits followed by a (sometimes) lengthier chunk of it at the conclusion of the main episode. This particular "chunk" involves a MAJOR development for the "RetroThinker" character that I can't wait to hear what people think of. Embedded episode and SPOILERS after the jump:



So! If you're wondering, this is NOT the way RetroThinker's story was originally set to play out; though it has been since at least shortly after I began shooting the live-action footage for these segments.

When I initially sketched out this whole arc, the Yellow Jewel (and now you know why RT wears his silly yellow shirt) was going to be the power source for a time machine RetroThinker would seek out and attempt to use to return to his own era - which would then malfunction and A.) set up an easter-egg for the NEXT arc and B.) "generate" an evil version of himself called NecroThinker (who was concieved, from the beginning, as a Black Lantern parody who commanded video-zombies.) RetroThinker would then battle NecroThinker - ultimately sacrificing his chance to return home to defeat him - and the "malfunction" would be revealed to have been a deliberate act by the Monster Voice Guy.

But while setting up the "final" scripts, it occured to me (and yes, audience feedback was a contributing factor here) that there wasn't really all that much "difference" between OverThinker and RetroThinker as characters - in as much as OverThinker and "real Bob" are both pretty fixated on retro-gaming as it is - so having the new bad guy fought by a guy who was already too much like the hero was going to come out sloppy and could probably be made more interesting. What you now see the beginning of here, a sympathetic good-guy becoming a villain and OverThinker having to combat a retro-centric villain, was the obvious choice is terms of taking the story in a different direction while continuing the goofy/low-rent Tokusatsu send-up vibe I've been aiming for.

The only aspect of this episode I'm not 100% satisfied with is that NecroThinker's costume doesn't look as good here as I wanted to - we had a narrow production window for the matching-shots on the transformation, so we went with temporary version of his cape as I hadn't finished making the "final" one at the time. It looks alright (the final version is made of heavier material but has the same basic color and design) but I'd prefer it "move" a little less like the plastic tablecloth we made it out of. Ah well. The mask, at least, remains suitably creepy IMO.

As for what comes next? Stay tuned ;)