November 26 Excellence, KOF AS Stage - A Bloody Fate with Tekken

The King of Fighters and Tekken, two of the world's prominent fighting game franchises, finally meet by fate to see who's the strongest of all. Fighters of the two worlds gather to settle the score in the November 26 update brought to the Global players by The King of Fighters: ALL STAR. Eight characters from the Bandai Namco Games property were brought into the mobile game with various events and items available for acquiring.

This is the second and final part of the post, of which two of my favorite mobile games dropped their collaboration contents on the same date: November 26. EA/Firemonkeys' racing game Real Racing 3 released its new update featuring Formula 1 content, bringing in 10 teams and 20 drivers from the 2019 and the new Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, of which I already wrote the short review here. As of this post, the KOF AS collaboration with Tekken is close to ending, of which it included the Rush Event, Roulette Event, and gacha banners for Tekken fighters, both for fighters and Battle Cards, divided into two different volumes each.

November 26 Excellence, RR3 Stage - Formula 1 has arrived!

November 26 shall go down as the day of superb collabs with two games I play have their new versions featuring them released on the same date. Real Racing 3's newest update brought in the 2019 season of Formula 1 content which made it the game's biggest update yet with a couple of changes in game, while The King of Fighters ALL STAR brought in the collaboration with Tekken, a prominent name in the fighting game genre and living up the modern spirit of the series' beat 'em up minigame Tekken Force which existed in the older entries of the franchise, featuring contents based on Tekken 7, the franchise's recent entry.

That said, this post will be split into two parts, both dedicated to RR3 and KOF AS respectively. This first post will revolve on RR3 and its Formula 1 update which featured the 2019 season teams and a new track of Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, among others. The "big" in the "big change" isn't even a joke, as in adding "the same car" to the game. We're talking about dropping an entire motorsporting event like Formula 1 to the game with its dedicated content, something that appropriately has to be reacted with one Metal Slug sound clip.

The King of Fighters ALLSTAR - Putting a Mobile Spin to the Classic

(Image: Netmarble / SNK Wikia)

Internationally, SNK has taken spotlight once more in the fighting game industry as of late, especially years after The King of Fighters XIV released years ago. Joining Super Smash Bros. Ultimate through Fatal Fury's Terry Bogard for this November has been something special for the long-running Japanese video game company known for top notch fighting game franchises, but it didn't stop there as The King of Fighters goes mobile with a new spin on the classic, finally released internationally this October. The game has been released in Japan for quite some time, but October 21st was the day the The King of Fighters ALLSTAR takes the global stage, something I'm sure many people would want to play.

The thing about KOF AS is that I have never ever been hyped as much for a game to the point that I spent a lot more time to it than normal since discovering Turbo Sliders a decade and years ago, even as someone who's just months in the KOF fandom despite going through the means of series' soundtracks instead of one of the games (I'm not a good fighting game player, really). Looking at the gameplay before the release, the game looks fun, and with my new (better) phone prepared for the fight, I know it was time to add another game to a library, breaking my mobile gaming pattern beyond Real Racing 3, Motorsport Manager series, and Grand Prix Story 2.

The thing is that I just took a dive to the KOF world about two months ago when I tried to discover a techno-rock music I heard a long time ago, which revealed to be KD-0079, the Hero team theme from the '99 installment. The fact that I discovered how the rest of the installments' musics fared, played them on infinite loop (thanks to a music player plugin), and learned the lore despite haven't being able to play the game, quickly turned me into a KOF stan.

Back to My Turbo Sliders Nonsense...

Don't worry, it's just a mockup. You need to calm down!

So apparently last month saw me suffering from what I may call as the Ramadan Blues, sort of like Monday Blues but in the fasting month, in which in this case I ended up spending more time on bed than on the computer, apart from break fasting with friends at some point, plus some near-Eid works like house cleaning and new clothes. Even despite promising myself doing a lot of stuffs like continuing my 3D works or stuff like that, the only finished product I managed to produce in the last fasting month is none other than the E!Online TV ship competition recap, analysis, and spreadsheet, and not even race car-related stuffs like, for instance, the Formula car I just did prior to the fasting month, or any of my Turbo Sliders projects.

No later than one week past Eid, I started to have an urge to return to the creator's desk, and I just did, simply by opening one of my existing references and tried a new approach at carmaking. It turns out doing a new approach on the carmaking, which I will explain later here, is actually fun and more hassle-free than the last time I did. Apparently, I restarted with a bang as I jot down three main cars as a new WIP of mine and actually completed one for my long-term project. Earlier before the fasting month, I did work on one new track which I was inspired after watching the first World Tour event of the FIA-certified Gran Turismo Sport Championship, of which one of the tracks used was the latest addition at that time, being the Autopolis Circuit in Oita Prefecture, Japan, and I did another car as well...

Rendy's Car Skinning Life Ep 07: Completed Product and Polished Concept

It was a usual morning a week ago until I found out that the filming for Wynonna Earp's fourth season got delayed due to monetary issues from the production house. Tons of fans rallied on Twitter with the hashtag #FightForWynonna and has tagged SyFy and IDW Publishing accounts in hopes to make sure the filming can continue. I had no expectation that this day won't come and my show would face the same situation that once suffered other shows like Timeless, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Lucifer, with two of which were actually renewed after its original cancellation status. Apparently, this fight was also parallel to One Day At A Time as well given the show's production hiatus as well. Many brought their GIFs from the show, but many brought in fan arts and creations as well to help strengthen the rally, and show that there are a part of the Earpers with artistic tastes.

Yours truly? Well, I haven't considered making anything until I found out I actually made a Wayhaught MP4-12C a long time ago, and that I haven't done skinning in a while while I already packed myself a new concept at disposal, both the livery and the project. It's been quite a long time since I worked something along the lines of skinning which, actually, was almost a year ago when I reworked my old car and made something out of the Formula RaceRoom (and on a side note, I haven't touched any inches of the PVP Engineering Aston Martin yet, but I'll go into that later). Barring my work on the Bachelor's thesis, I focused myself on making some 3D stuffs just to learn myself at it and did a couple of watered down liveries I'd like to work in the future with the Wayhaught car's designs being one of them. Working with that, new ideas materialized and a new concept just popped.

My Misadventures in Coding an Autonomous Racer

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In thesis defense, we talk business. What happened afterwards is that I've finally succeeded. Yes, your homeboy is now qualified for graduation now 🎓 (taken by my Supervisor, Arini, M.T.)

A post shared by Rendy Andrian Y (@tsukasa_kadoya) on Feb 7, 2019 at 1:33am PST

I've promised myself that 2019 will be my year of return. 2017 was kinda hard for me and I wanted to treat 2018 as my recovery year, to which I successfully did it in the final days of the year by finishing my paper. I started out this year with a bang by having a thesis seminar in January (from now on, any instance of "final paper" would be considered as "bachelor's thesis" here) and since then I've been busy with completing my administrative requirements for my thesis defense which in turn is the reason why I don't post anything about this Awards Season on my other blog. So far, nothing's special happening as all that remains is the waiting towards this year's Oscars, the awards season for TV ended in SAG Awards, and the online couple competition hasn't begin yet, maybe next week? Nobody knows...

One week ago, however, the same day where I properly posted something nice on Instagram again like above embedded post, was where the end of the road for me in a spectacularly successful fashion despite the college feeling like a ghost town with only a few people around which would explain why there's a lack of more festive shots after my thesis defense. Yes, the actual word I was looking for to describe the final test for my final paper is basically "Bachelor's Thesis Defense" ("Bachelor's Thesis", as in the "final paper" I always refer to + "Thesis Defense") which I did during when the photo was taken by one of my supervisors (obviously). It actually went well despite a little stuttering at some point, and there was the feeling where I opt for straightforward actions, answering the examiners' questions without any difficulty since the topic I've chosen was in sync to my interests and the fact that I struggled during the development of the application helped a lot.

But then you started to wonder what kind of application I developed that it took too long for me to develop it. It is actually something to do with artificial intelligence, something I haven't considered as I tried to find something that could reach my multimedia roots as well. Apparently, I came across a game that eclipses both entertainment and education values needed for my project in the form of The Open Racing Car Simulator (TORCS), an Open Source racing game that has been used by researchers as a platform to test out artificial intelligence-based controllers of varying approaches. Considering that the game has been used by international researchers and I came across zero papers from my country that discussed this topic, the decision was ultimately made at that moment. The project took roughly more than a year due to the fact that I have to re-learn programming languages, as well as the approach I use and how to make a controller in the game, but the end result was satisfying enough.

Mission Revival 2019 - A New Year's Miracle!

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HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! 🎆

A post shared by Rendy Andrian Y (@tsukasa_kadoya) on Dec 31, 2018 at 2:11pm PST

After my long struggle against the final paper I've been working and all the hiatus decisions I have to make due to that, plus all the procrastinations that came with it due to exhaustion in between my paper works, I have finally finished it just before 2019 came, and actually ended the year in a high note (in this case, 2018). I'm really glad that things have turned out well despite all the mess, and I can't wait to return to my old life with a new wisdom I've developed during the course of the paper work.