Gamer Culture: Gamer Cakes

If you're as big of a Nintendo fan as me, you've no doubt had a video game birthday cake or two in your lifetime. When my cousin was eight, his cake had the Link art from the Legend of Zelda original art style. When I was five, Super Mario Bros. 3 had just come out and my cake reflected that. Two years ago for my birthday my sister made me a Mario Bros. style cake with a Pac Man cameo. I'm definitely not alone though in this sort of cultural phenomenon. Today, my buddy Smerd over at Negative World had his birthday today and his lovely wife made him a pretty awesome cake. HAPPY BIRTHDAY SMERD!


Seems better than any cake Peach ever made. Below are some more gamer-cakes. Submit your own if you've ever had a gamer cake made for you!

My 23rd Birthday Cake

My Cousin's Link Birthday Cake

Katamari Pushes Cake

Wayne's Sonic Cake

(Note the fact this cake has a better character model than Sonic The Hedgehog 4 did...)

Majora's Mask Cake

Waluigi Face Cake

and finally, this cake, which admittedly hit the Nintendo/Romantic in me,

Mario and Peach Wedding Cake

(Literally hundreds more Gamer Cakes can be found here at Flickr.)

PK Gaming Podcast: Episode 2 Part 3

It was a little late on the delivery but here is the final chapter in the second episode of the PK Gaming Podcast. This part of the episode was about an hour and forty minutes long. (You see why we're splitting them up now?) Be sure to listen after the end music for a little piece of discussion not fit for the main podcast... but if there's any fans of the furry out there, it might be something you can relate with.

You can write in with questions or comments as we'd love to address them on future shows! Send questions or comments about the podcast (or the site) to PKGamingPodcast@gmail.com. We'd like to answer some perhaps in future shows.

In this part of Episode 2 we talk about;

Hopes for the Future: 2011

Download the episode here!

PK Gaming Podcast Episode 002 Part 3

(Click on the Orange "Download" Button to Begin Download)

(Previous PK Podcast)

OC Remix Wakes The Wind Fish

While I can't guarantee this, I would hope that any readers out there already know about the fantastic video game remix website, OverClocked Remix. I have been a frequent visitor of theirs for years and a decent chunk of my iTunes library is dedicated to it. Once in a while they pull together and create an entire album surrounded by a similar theme, a game. Just released, OC Remix wakes the Wind Fish with their The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening tribute album called "Threshold of a Dream."

The Threshold of a Dream Logo.

You can find artist bios, director's notes, and information about the project here. Of course, you can find the download link there as well or if you prefer, you can torrent it. Find that at the link as well.

If you don't know better, Link's Awakening is one of the greatest Zelda games ever made and yet it's an off-shoot from the main timeline. Link finds himself stranded on a mysterious island and he meets a mysterious girl named Marin (my favorite Zelda-series female). Link must figure out how to wake the Wind Fish and get back home... but will it come with a price? I hope Nintendo will be smart enough to release the game itself on the 3DS Virtual Console (perhaps with 3D!). Until then, find yourself navigating over to the OC Remix site and listen to some great remixes of some great tunes.

Gaming Pumpkins

Here in the Eastern Time Zone, Halloween has less than two hours left. Still though, that's 100 minutes I have left to post this.

This year I decided to only do one Halloween pumpkin with a gaming theme, and I wasn't even able to do what I wanted to because of time constraints. Still though, I thought I'd post them and share my pumpkins with the readers and encourage you all to link to yours as well. If you're reading this after Halloween, just pretend it's a "Harvest Pumpkin" thread...

This year I did one as an owl (which I'll throw on at the bottom of this entry) and one of Commander Video from the Bit.Trip games. Here he's represented from his Runner stance but I was originally going to also cut out his standing stance on the left, his Fate 'leaping' stance from Fate, and then shave the pumpkin to allow for that rainbow type thing to shine through. Alas, I only had time for one, and the lines to emphasize my point. Still though, it was nice for a quick little job.



Last year I had more time, more pumpkins, and perhaps more ambition.

This one was my favorite and a completely original idea from me. The Cow from Harvest Moon.



Here I used the shaving technique and a framing-style to allow myself to have a solid cow but still have the thing nicely defined. I also did this Wario pumpkin (though admittedly from a stencil). It looked great on a pumpkin this size and shape.



Finally I did Totakeke, or K.K. Slider from Animal Crossing. He was simple but great nonetheless.



The year before that (or maybe it was two or three years) I also did this Hylian Crest Pumpkin. It was quite a hit back then and still people seem to love it now. I personally love how the light shines through, as if it were some activated crest from the game. The Legend of Zelda: The Pumpkin of TIme.



Many of my pumpkins can be seen as best-picks from the contest Kotaku did last year. The file names even say DrF so you know I'm not bullspitting you. So to finish this out, I want to ask anyone out there to link to their own works of art. Seeing other people's pumpkins is a great pleasure of mine, especially when they're gaming related. Again, if you're reading this after Halloween, just pretend it's open to holiday gourds. Happy Halloween everyone!



(Just an owl looking creepy, but believe me, I did consider Kaepora Gaebora...)