"Dancing Girl vol.1" by Ryo Nakae and guests

 So, here we are again, with a smol review while we wait for the next shipment of goods to arrive. One thing I noticed, is that my Mandarake wishlist is steadily reducing, and I might actually... run out of stuff I want?! unlikely. Still missing two Robamoto, and there is more stuff that is simply sort of difficult to track down. As I collect only original and non-h dōjinshi the pool is a bit smaller than the average collector's, but I'm far from done. For some of the rare things I might have to go back to Otaku Republic, the pricier option. 

For today, let's take a look at a semi-vintage (2015) offering by designer, developer, and fellow dog lover Ryo Nakae (whose portfolio you can find here). Similar to people like Robamoto, CHOCO and others I have reviewed in the past, the artist's mindset as a professional graphic / web designer filters through, and Nakae's illustrations have a sleek, striking sense of depth, field and color that manages to evade typical PIXIV manga / anime tropes. This is added value to me, as I really appreciate dōjin creators who bring elements of professional / commercial design to their craft.

This is particularly the case with Dancing Girl vol.1 (yes, there is a vol.2, and I will get it eventually). A high quality full color publication, though a bit on the side of slim at only 14 pages, it features a selection of illustrations designed to look like brand advertisements from a fashion magazine, with a number of nods to real-world houses. I do learn from the captions that the model sporting the clothes happens to be character Ran Shibuki from Aikatsu, a gacha game I'm unfamiliar with - as it often happens in the case of this sort of dōjinshi, the reference makes litte difference, and you can simply enjoy the illustrations as 'pretty character wears nice clothes in well-designed panels'. 

We also have a couple of guest artists. One is Daisuke Nagai, the other is Futa. Both entirely new names to me - though, much like Nakae, they both seem to be designers-by-day who dabble in illustration and dōjin work as a side gig. One illustration each is a bit too little to pass judgment, so I'll keep my eyes open for their stuff. 

Not much to add about this one, a nice short offering displaying a professional's keen eye for design and composition. Well done! The dōjinshi also has a dedicated website, which is pretty cool in its own right - you can find more links both for Nakae and the guest contributors. 

Hardfest 3

So, here it is - Hardfest 3, a collection of difficult maps from various Doom modders, to which I contributed two maps and a number of MIDI tracks. I have been part of both its first and second installment (the latter won a Cacoward, if you care about that garbage beauty pageant), so it's nice to be able to say that I am one of few mappers who took part in all three editions. Yay! More stuff of mine here. 

The first Hardfest was one of the first Doom community projects I took part in, after re-discovering Doom modding after... oh, I don't know, a twenty year hiatus? My map for it, "The Smegma Flow", was rudimentary at best, especially if seen through the lens of my mapping skills today - still, I'm somewhat melancholically attached to it, and it has a kickass MIDI by LPad. It's definitely a mood, and I think that map has a something that no other map of mine really recaptured afterwards. The project itself was quite a ride - from humble beginnings, from a number of droputs who are probably eating their liver out now, to very minor recognition.

Hardfest 2 was a much bigger affair from the get-go: more mappers, more musicians, more of everything. I made my, so far, only linedef limit-grazing map ("The Dollhouse", 100 lines short of the Boom limit), and a secret shitpost map which really stretches the limits of 'doable'. Regrettably, this project also coincided with me opening my eyes as to the sort of toxic place most of the classic Doom community is: it was, in many ways, my 'community divorce' project. When it came out it wasn't particularly popular even with the difficult maps crowd, and I still believe the Cacoward was an inside tribute. But hey, accolades are accolades, amirite?

Hardfest 3... heh, good project, but I don't have much to talk about. I joined it when it was pretty much in the final phases, all I saw is that a load of the people who showed interest ended up making nothing for it. A few, I guess, are now too popular to bother with community mud; others were probably hoping for another easy Caco and fell by the wayside. My contributions to the project are two heavy reworks of previous maps of mine: both, in my opinion, fairly high quality, but I'll let you judge.

Now that this is out, aside for a project I have already turned my maps in for (and that might very well never happen), it's fair to say I have exhausted my Doom commitments. Mapping aside, I was never crazy over the game as a player: if a different game had afforded this sort of ease of moddability, I would have certainly chosen it over Doom. Couple that with disillusion over most of the community around the game (especially Doomworld's holier-than-thou, hierarchical, OB-oriented mentality; but also a couple of super toxic Discord servers), disappointment with current mapping trends (ie the trend of shitting out speedmapping projects at the speed of light, gotta get that quick dopamine shot right?), and it's fair to say I'm pretty much done with Doom. My time is better spent elsewhere: visual novels, writing, YN fangames, touching grass perhaps.

So yeah, I might make a map for RAMP2025 if it happens, but that's a big 'if', and that's pretty much it. Anything of mine you'll see from now on is likely stuff I turned in ages ago, and gets released only now. It was a good run, I had my fun, glad to leave the toxicity behind and see what's in store for me from now on.