Games

Black and White Monobear Sundress based on Dangan Ronpa

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A sleeveless sundress with a hem above the knee and a scoop neck. It is split in half, with one half black and one half white. The white half is patterned with large black polka dots, while the black half has a strange red lightning bolt-esque pattern around the hem.Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

Lately I’ve been reading about a game called Dangan Ronpa (which literally means “bullet rebuttal,” but no one actually calls it that), and its sequel, Super Dangan Ronpa 2. It’s been getting some buzz lately, as a fan translation group has finished a patch for it, causing an onslaught of Let’s Plays, and there is an anime version currently airing in Japan. There’s also a full Let’s Play in screenshot form.

The premise of the first game is that a group of high-school students who are all supremely talented in one area or another are imprisoned inside their school and pushed to kill each other. The description may remind you of the Hunger Games or Battle Royale, but in practice it is a murder mystery with elements of Fallout and And Then There Were None, as you try to discover the truth behind each murder, the secrets of the school and the state of the outside world.

The leader of this murderous game is a bear named Monobear, or Monokuma, depending on whose translation you like; it’s also a play on the word “monochrome” in Japanese. For Monokuma has a distinctive design: he’s a white, sweet-looking teddy bear on one side, and a black bear with a glowing red eye and a terrifying smile on the other. He’s smug, seemingly all-knowing and his laugh sounds like “Upupupu.” He’s voiced by Nobuyo Oyama, who is best known as the voice of Doraemon, a popular character from a long-running manga and TV series. In other words, for Japanese players who grew up with Doraemon, the effect is probably something like hearing Winnie the Pooh or Mickey Mouse trying to manipulate you into killing people.

Today’s dress, then, is a jaunty polka-dot pattern on one side… and creepy red Monobear eyes on the other. It doesn’t really have any relation to the game, I just thought the design would be cute and slightly unsettling.

If you want to get in on the mutual killing fun, there’s the Let’s Plays and anime I linked earlier, and if you finish those up and want to get into Super Dangan Ronpa 2, there is an ongoing Let’s Play on the Something Awful forums, where the readers follow along, making suggestions for what to do next and forming theories as the game is translated. Sometimes a paywall prevents people without SA accounts from reading the forums, so check has the sa paywall gone yet on Tumblr or just succumb to despair while the game goes on without you. Upupupu~

Let’s have a contest! The winner gets to tell me how to color one of my black and white dresses. Standard rules apply: if you won either of the two previous contests, please don’t enter and only enter once per new post. Here’s the question: What’s Milo’s favorite thing in my kitchen? (Besides the food.) Please post your answers in the comments! Edit: Lauren got it! He has a love for spoons. Lauren, please post your request in the comments!

Red, Black and Gold Captain’s Outfit based on Puzzle Pirates

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Click for larger version; click for the list of dolls.

I downloaded Puzzle Pirates the other day — it just looked too cute not to give it a try. And indeed it was very cute, and I played a good deal of it for a couple of days. There’s a lot of puzzles to try, although I only really liked one or two of them, and the world is fun too: you can do puzzles by yourself, but you can also do them as a team, everyone working on a different kind of puzzle to make your little pirate ship sail smoothly, and it’s a lot more fun doing puzzles when you feel like it’s contributing to the speed of the ship or patching up the holes. You can also buy items for your house, or cute clothes to wear, which is where today’s paperdoll comes in.

The game has a lot of different items of clothing you can buy, and then the colors can be customized. Today’s paperdoll is based on a captain’s hat, a buccaneer jacket, flare pants and buckle shoes. One interesting thing about the clothing system is that different colors cost different amounts; this ensemble uses two of the most expensive colors, black and gold, making the estimated cost well over $100,000. Changing the colors to brown, green and white lowers it to about $7,000. So, of course, Sylvia is an admirable pirate, very skilled at plundering and puzzles, and wears plenty of black and gold. (My in-game character wears plenty of white and a shirt she got for free.)

I found this site when thinking about this paperdoll: Quid Pro Clothes, which is the website for one of the in-game tailors. (Players can just do puzzles, like me, or they can get into the metagame and the economy and start their own stores, buy their own ships, etc.) This site essentially removes much of my need to play the game, because of one reason: if you sign up for the site, it lets you play with the clothes without having to spend hours and hours saving the money first. You can also look at other people’s creations; I like this take on the Greek gods.

On a side note, apologies to Mom for driving her crazy today as I enlist her help in resume creation. “Remember it goes like this: letter first, paperdoll second” she says.