R.I.P. H.R. Giger

You may wonder why a gaming blog is offering up condolences regarding the sad and untimely death of Swiss artist H. R. Giger yesterday.

For starters, I'm doing so because I've been a big fan of Giger's work since I first encountered it while watching what has become one of my favorite films, Aliens. (Giger was responsible for the design of the eponymous creature that has been the focus of all four Alien movies.)

Each of the Alien films has spawned a number of video-game adaptations, of course, so I think Giger's death is well worth noting here for that fact alone--despite the fact that few, if any, of said adaptations have been all that enjoyable.

Another reason I'm noting and commemorating Giger's death here: his surreal designs were utilized in a handful of games over the years--Cyberdreams' spooky, point-and-click PC games, Dark Seed and Dark Seed II, as well as Hudson's Jaseiken Necromancer, a gory (for its time) PC Engine RPG, among them.

I've actually owned a copy of Jaseiken Necromancer for some time now (the photo above is of my own HuCard), but I've yet to play it because of the language barrier.

Maybe I'll finally pull it and my PC Engine Core Grafx II out soon and give them a go in honor of Giger's life. And, who knows, maybe I'll even use the experience as an excuse to re-start my Japanese studies?

PC Engine and Dreamcast designs for your Animal Crossing: New Leaf pad

Early yesterday, the guys over at tinycartridge.com published a post about a trio of Animal Crossing: New Leaf designs that, after being applied to the cushions that can be purchased within this addicting 3DS title, allow players to plop adorable Mega Drives, Super Famicoms and even PlayStations in front of their retro TVs (or, if they're like me, their modern/mixed-wood TVs).

As much as I liked those designs, I couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed that the person responsible for them didn't create Dreamcast and PC Engine ones, too--especially since both of those systems actually were square-shaped, unlike their aforementioned 16-bit and 32-bit counterparts.

So, what did I do? I whipped up a few of my own designs. Four, in fact: a white Dreamcast, a properly gray Dreamcast, a PC Engine and a PC Engine Core Grafx II.

Here's what my first PC Engine design looked like after Re-Tail's Cyrus got through with it:

I've since changed it up ever so slightly, although I'm guessing most folks won't notice the alterations.

Here's a closer look at the design, by the way, as well as its associated QR code:

And here's the Core Grafx II design I came up with, as well as its QR code:

Like I said earlier, I ended up making two Dreamcast designs--one of which is gray, and one of which is white. 

I know the Dreamcast's actually a light gray, but for whatever reason I prefer the white design to the gray one. (Maybe because a cushion bearing it is sitting beside a PC Engine cushion in my male New Leaf character's "man room," and I've always had a thing for symmetry.)

I'm pretty sure most hard-core Sega fans are going to want their Dreamcasts to be gray, though, so I made a design to please them, too.

Anyway, here's the gray Dreamcast design:

And here's the white one:

Finally, here's a screencap of the Dreamcast and PC Engine designs--affixed to cushions courtesy of Cyrus, of course--sitting in my above-mentioned man cave. 

Should I make any other console-inspired designs? If you think so, feel free to let me know which ones in the comments section below.

Note: just in case anyone's wondering, I realize the lid on the Dreamcast design is a bit smaller than it should be. It was the proper size in my original design, but it looked all sorts of wrong when applied to a cushion. So, I shrunk it a bit, as my intention was to make a cushion design. If anyone would like me to make and share another Dreamcast design--one that features a properly sized lid (so you can hang it on your walls or something)--let me know in the comments section below.

See also: other Animal Crossing: New Leaf-centric posts