Archive for the ‘News’ Category
OCR NiGHTS: Lucid Dreaming Preview
I sometimes forget that the blindingly epic songs I've been listening to for months still haven't been heard by the rest of the fanbase. My bad.
The release of the upcoming NiGHTS: Lucid Dreaming album by OCR is nearing closer, so just to poke more proverbial sticks into the anticipation bonfire – here's a preview from a selection of the songs featured on the final product.
I'd also like to divert your now jiving attention to our previous post regarding the donation pool for this project. Thanks hugely to the people who have helped out so far but we still have a long way to go to reach the goal. Help a man out and salute Level 99's determination in getting a batch of these albums made in hardcopy. All the funds raised will be going directly to the printing of those physical copies, which contains two CD's and an artbook. NiGHTS merch collectors – this will be one bit of gear that will become quite rare in a few years time. So help out all you can. After the amount of time and effort each of the musicians poured into this it's our duty to make sure the project is a success. Remember - If you donate $25 or more, you will get a copy of the physical release!
Without a doubt this is one of the most professional and beautiful fan projects that I've ever seen, so hats off and dig deep folks.
July 5th, mark it in your calenders.
We are slowly but surely approaching the release date for NiGHTS: Lucid Dreaming, the OverClocked ReMix album headed by Level 99. With that in mind, donations for the project have now officially opened. "Donations?" you say. Why, yes. But this is not something for me to explain to you. Please read the quote below taken from Level 99's recent post at the OCR forums explaining everything about the process, what it means for the project and what it means for YOU the fan. Read on for the details -
"Alright, so, now that things are winding down, I'm getting ready for the physical release. As of right now, it is planned that I will be ordering a bunch of physicals, consisting of a double disc version of the project (no bonus disc), including most (if not all) of the art as an insert book.
I'm looking to gather about $1000 to completely pay for this batch. NONE of this money will go into anyone's pocket: I will raise money until we hit the desired amount. If I don't hit it, some way will be found to pay it off (probably out of pocket). If I do gather that much, great. Any additional money I would possibly get OVER the price of the physical distribution will be put towards the cost of shipping copies out. If I gain enough to cover all shipping and STILL have money left over, the rest will be donated directly to OC ReMix.
If you donate $25 or more, you will get a copy of the physical release!
If you are interested in donating, please contact me."
It is normal for OCR album projects such as this one to open for donations leading up to the release. If you have any questions and/or are interested in making a donation yourself then please contact Level 99 at our forums via the 'Contact Information' section on the bottom left hand side of his profile page.
Last year, Level 99 and myself brought you the Winter Dreamers EP, a small selection of NiGHTSy related songs to play during your Holiday season. It was nicely received by the community and it got such a good level of feedback that Levs did mention that come next year we could probably do a follow up EP to Winter Dreamers. Well it is now 'next year' and i have good and bad news for you, my funky friends.
The bad news is we do not have the sequel to the Winter Dreamers EP for you this year.
The good news is Level 99 recognized his promise to you last year and most certainly did not want to leave you all empty handed, so he went back and remastered the songs from the EP. Now your favourite tunes from the EP have had their quality level ramped up so it sounds even more crystal clear than it did the first time around. All the more fresh for the winter season, i'd say.
Furthermore, Level 99 has also officially included instrumental versions of Hey Dreamer and Hey Dreamer (Can't Dance Sleeping Mix) in the download pack so now you can karaoke your little festive hearts out! 
Truth being told, neither of us did forget about our idea to make the sequel for you all. The problem currently lies in the realm of having time to make a sequel. Level 99 is currently overseeing the finishing touches to the OverClocked Remix album NiGHTS: Lucid Dreaming which releases mid next year, as well as numerous other music related projects with various other people from the OCR community. I can't say i've been as busy as Levs in terms of projects but i couldn't do a sequel without him, he is the guy who does the real technical work after all. And besides, i wouldn't want to make an EP alone anyway, it just wouldn't feel right seeing as we brought you the first one as a SEGA super team-up collabo~
For the download files as well as previews of the remastered Winter Dreamers EP, click this link here.
Chances are that this will be the last update before 2011 so from Level 99 and myself, as well as all the Staff here at the site, we wish you a very Happy Holidays and hope you enjoy the New Year to come.
~
DiGi Valentine
Kentilan made a fan game called NiGHTS: Christmas Reverie a few weeks ago so chances are most of the our regular members would have already seen this by now. But for those of you who have not here's a video of the fan game -
As well as the standard form of play the game also features – Link Attack, Time Attack, Chase Mission, Battle, Race, 2-Players Battle, 2-Players Race, and a Sonic mode.
And if you play in December, you activate a "Christmas mode" with some graphic changes.
The game can be downloaded from this link here.
If you're like me and you love a bit fresh music for your playlist (because there's only so many times we can listen to the same NiGHTS music over and over again, right?) then you're gonna luuuurve this!
OverClocked Remix is a website i am hoping a lot of NiGHTS fans will be paying attention to over the next year as the highly anticipated remix album 'NiGHTS: Lucid Dreaming' will be releasing for NiGHTS 15th Anniversary on July 5th 2011. I've been involved in the project, hearing what is being created and i can only speak of good things to come. What i did not expect to see (or in this case, 'hear') was remixer and old friend of mine DCT dropping a quick remix for everyone to enjoy for this winter season. His remix of 'Take The Snow Train', neatly titled 'The Polar Express', blends a soft and cozy chill factor to an already established song. You know what the original sounds like, now how about we take you on to that legendary train with a nice glass of whatever-you're-having and watch as the snow comes down outside on the opposite side of that windowpane. It's the perfect music for this festive time of year and i couldn't think of a better tune to bring us in to December.
This particular remix can be found here and is available for your free downloading pleasure.
A big shout out to DCT for coming with a NiGHTS remix, i personally appreciate it as i'm sure other NiGHTS fans will too. NiGHTS remixes are few and far between and i like to think that makes them all the more special.
Happy Holidays everyone, here's to a pleasant December to you all.
~
DiGi Valentine
Those of you who remember the humble beginnings of this website might remember an old piece of artwork I done called 'Paradox' featuring Claris, Elliot, NiGHTS and a whole lot of little details from the game. The image featured on our splash page for many years long before we were a wordpress site. Back then we didn't have much in the way of direct contact with SEGA themselves, we made our own fun and our community was small but very hardcore and closeknit.
Fast forward to November 2007. Journey of Dreams was about to make the rounds and a Mr Kevin Eva (AAUK) popped into our lives to unleash the frankly-awesome-power of SEGA's community team. And what a top job he did too, even securing us an interview with Iizuka and coming all the way up to our house in Scotland at the time to promote the new game. Back then he took some prints of my artwork to show Iizuka san in London and talk about the NiGHTS fanbase. As a gift Kev brought back some signed things, one of which being my print of Paradox signed by Takashi Iizuka:
Well then fast foward some 3 years to 2010 where I now work for SEGA Europe myself and AAUK is currently visiting SEGA Japan on work related business. Kevin asked if I wanted to pass anything to SonicTeam, soooo….
I gave Iizuka san the original framed painting to keep! And he remembered it! He liked the print the first time he seen it in 2007 so i figured it'd be fun to suprise him with the actual real one instead. Just to keep him on his toes. Just incase he ever y'know… forgets NiGHTS or something ;D I wrote him a letter in Japanese on the back telling him us NiGHTS fans are still going strong and care about the character AND that we really want to see this port happen. After the comment he made about NiGHTS 3 a while ago I wanted to give him an extra 'across the ocean' nudge. So it's safe to say he's up to date on our situation and even congratulated me for getting into the company *lol* Yeah I've been grinning all day
Thanks AAUK, as always you're the man 
… Also, I've heard that Kev is bringing back some mad flavoured Japanese KitKats to give away in Freestuff Friday, so look out for that.
Win!
From Famitsu magazine:
Yuji Naka’s upcoming game has been teased in Famitsu and it won’t be published by SEGA. The game will be published by Kadokawa Games. Never heard of them? I don’t blame you, all they have done was a port of RPG Maker for DS and some other girl anime game. But it seems the company wants to become bigger, first step is with the Yuji Naka HD game (along with a game by Grasshopper).“The game itself is an action title that takes place in the sky. The action gameplay is what I’m focusing on the most with this project — interactivity is the most important attraction with any sort of game, and if that doesn’t evolve, then games won’t be everything they can be. Sonic was all about completely taking over the land, and Nights brought that same concept into the skies. I had always thought that action games that take place in the sky are too hard for players to cope with, but then I thought up a new method for dealing with it. That’s how this project got started. If I had stuck around at Sega, then I might have used this concept to make a sequel to Nights!” – Yuji Naka (Prope)
It is most likely that SEGA passed on publishing Yuji Naka’s title. Most likely due to how poor a bigger known IP like NiGHTS did on Wii and how he compares the concept to that or it could be due to how poor Let’s Tap did. We will never know. We wish Naka luck with his new title and if its good, of course we will all be playing it, regardless of publisher.
So there you have it, Yuji Naka did have something in mind for a NiGHTS sequel. Be it something similar to Air NiGHTS or something completely new and off the wall. Naka has been quoted many times in the past right up to current day saying that he had no desire to create a sequel to NiGHTS because he deemed NiGHTS into Dreams to be perfect as it was. So this news leaves some interesting questions and emotions. The main one being for me, what is this new game going to be? It's certainly not NiGHTS, but I'm still excited to see what Naka and his team can do independently. What if Journey of Dreams had used this concept or a third game had been created? I think bittersweet is the best term to use here
Thoughts? Discuss here in our [ forums ]
Thanks to ShadiWulf for the find.
You know me, I rarely post anything here UNLESS it's NiGHTS related, but I think today should be an exception. Today the long awaited sequel Sonic 4 is released. Available to download from XBLA and PSN today (Wiiware on Friday,) I can assure you that it is more than worth downloading. I've been a Sonic fangirl for years since I was 10 and I've been dying to play a 2D Sonic game on a console for way too long. DiGi and I have been playing the game today and we absolutely love it! A free demo is available to download, so give it a go if you think it sounds too good to be true. Be warned, the game is very addictive … especially with the online leaderboards haha
Welcome back Sonic, we missed you.
If you're a regular to DeviantArt.com you'll most probably also be a member of the main NiGHTS fan club there. NiGHTSFan has been around for many years and the growth of the fanbase coupled with the busy life of the owner means things are becoming hard to run it by herself. Jamie is looking for staff to help out, experience running a club prefered but not essential as long as you can follow orders and get work done. Good dedicated staff are hard to come by online, a lot of people are interested for about 3 days, get bored and then just float on over to the next thing. If you're going to offer help make sure you are actually able to do so on a very regular basis.
Interested? Then head on over to this journal here, read the details – then drop Jamie a note telling her why you are suitable for the job.
Thanks
Today I'm very happy to report that our NiGHTS digital port campaign has reached 3000 fans. Thank you for all your support in spreading the word and getting people talking about NiGHTS again. When we started this campaign we weren't expecting so many of you to sign up. So a major thanks is due to each and every one of you who told a friend, posted a topic online, linked back or just simply clicked once on the button.
This number may seem like a lot but we need a lot more than this if we are to convince SEGA that a digital port of of NiGHTS into Dreams is worth their time and money. So keep all that NiGHTS attention coming our way and pass the link around your gaming friends. You don't have to have been around in 1996 to vote for this – if you have a genuine interest in the NiGHTS franchise and want to see it get more recognition then add your click to our page
Great work guys!
And in SEGA related news – I got the job at SEGA Europe as a games tester. To say today is a good day would be an understatement. So happy I could explode in raging-fangirl glitter lol. So I guess now I work for SEGA. How long did that take me? XD 17 years of my life! Never give up on your dreams kids 