I’m thrilled to announce that the Press Start Adventures website is now live! Check it out at www.pressstartadventures.com.
I anticipated a few questions, so I thought I might include a little preemptive Q& A:
Are there any differences between the Bonus Levels episodes and the Press Start Adventures episodes?
Yes! Most notable is the addition of new music and sound FX. We’ve also cleaned up the audio quite a bit, and the intros are different to reflect the new title.
In addition, I’ve done a little re-editing to tighten them up. That means you might notice a line missing here and there, but I think overall you’ll find the alterations to be positive ones, if not unnoticeable.
But I wanted to watch them in their original form!
No worries! The original Bonus Levels versions are preserved for posterity on their Newgrounds page, so you can always see them there.
Why are the season 1 episodes in Flash video format rather than normal SWF?
When I re-edited the episodes for PSA, I used a video editing program rather than Flash. That meant I couldn’t output to SWF — only video. However, future episodes will appear as SWF files and we’ll be back to business as usual.
Why is “Beer Comes a New Challenger” now called “A Brew Challenger”?
Hehe… well, it’s because when I added the episode numbers to the titles on the main page, “Beer Comes a New Challenger” wouldn’t fit…
When will new episodes be released?
Soon, I promise! Kevin is animating the first episode of season two as I type these words. I’ll keep you posted.
Have other questions? Email me!
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey there, Raptor here.
I just watched Endgame Part 1 again, and noticed you removed the scene where Vile kills the Dark Mage, is there a reason for this? Are you going to make this dark mage (Or just one) a character? (quite honestly, I’ve always liked that guy, even though he never talked. {To Vile’s confusion.})
Secondly, perhaps it is just me, but has the quality and crispness of the flashes gone down a bit? It seemed a bit flaky.
Third, while you removed the little intro bits for each episode, will they be returning for PSA? Maybe more distinct, relating to the episode at hand, because having the same intro droning over and over again is a nuisance. Maybe that’s another reason you removed it, besides the name change.
Fourth, In the recent news post on the blog (in fact, the one I’m responding to) it’s seems that you neither answered to the full extent, my, or even Justin’s question.
Fifth (Last one, and a bit random) With the inclusion of David Humphrey and Robert Belgrade, have any other video game, or even proffesional, voice actors talked to you?
Fifth .5 Zack is in Press Start Adventures (a, or even THE main character) no? Since he is just a bunch of pixels, he needs a voice actor to come to life. In other words, Who voices our spiky-haired hero in PSA? Or is that not done yet.
Thank you for your time, The Raptor
PS: In the old Bonus Levels website, Zippy is there with the line ‘Zippy sez’.
Am I looking to far into this, or were you inspired be the old “Sonic sez” from the cartoon Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog?
Hey Raptor! I promise I'll be answering those and previous questions soon! Sorry, I've been trying to space out the Q&A posts a little, but the answers are coming for sure.
However, to answer #2 real quick, you're right — it's because rather than pure SWF flash files, they're hosted as video files on blip.tv. My apologies for that, it was unavoidable. However, future episodes will go back to normal.
Also also, you're absolutely correct about "Zippy sez." :-)
Hey Ed,
I’m safely assuming that The Answer To End All Answers to my question about how Zack’s world works is forthcoming, so no worries about that here.
While I’m feeling mixed bag about the edits to Bonus Levels, I am kinda curious as to why ‘Beer Comes A New Challenger’ / ‘A Brew Challenger’ was shuffled around in episode order with ‘Pit Fallout’. Did you feel ‘Pit Fallout’ wasn’t quite as strong an episode, humor-wise or was there some other logic at work?
I do have one gripe with Bonus Levels and it’s incredibly petty but I’m still really missing the Mario power-up sound effect from the original cut of ‘Beer Comes A New Challenger’. It just felt so right. I’m sure you guys don’t need Nintendo hitting you with copyright infringement or anything like that but still…
Digressing back to The How’s and Why’s of Zack’s Reality, am I far off if I were to posit that Zack’s world, as we see it in the movie, is paralleling video game reality, i.e. the day of Zack’s life that we see in Press Start is as if we turned on a console and started a new game? That he’s experiencing certain things with wide eyes because, like a main character in a video game, they are our interface to a world that operates according to different rules? That he’s had a life prior to the events chronicled in the movie but that we only know about it from secondary character exposition here and there?
If I’m completely off base, feel free to tell me; this just felt like the very obvious answer that was staring me in the face. And if that is the case, then the answer you have forthcoming certainly will clear everything up in due time. :-)
Have any of us thanked you and company for giving us the Press Start universe to mull over? I have to say that not a day goes by that I don’t find myself quoting either Count Vile or Vlad in some manner – “I remember your story, Johnson; I have a photographic camera” or “That makes about as much sense as your screwed-up family tree” or calling any reference to “The Jesus-arang”.
Thank you!