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So, if you've been on the shoutbox recently or seen me on twitter you may have noticed me shouting quite a lot about someone called 'Homepride Fred' and his increasing creepiness, but I've never really explained anything about him. Hopefully this blog post should show you what all the fuss is about. 50 years ago, Homepride started using 'Homepride Fred', a small animated character in a suit who starred in all of their ads, and was unbelievably successful (Seriously, the amount of merchandise they made for him is huge, and there are apparently still people who collect it). Since his first appearance, Fred has been in every single advert for Homepride, even after the business split in half in the early 2000s (Kerry Group got the flour, and Dalgety plc got the cooking sauces). If you want to see some of his charming ads, I've put some in the spoiler below: Homepride's last advert was about 10 years ago now, and since then they've haven't been doing really that well sales-wise. To try and get people buying their sauces again, they decided to bring Fred back out of retirement for a new advert. But somehow, they failed badly with this slightly creepy ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBfzqk5EsWE This advert is just wrong in every way, but there are several things that stick out as very wrong: 1) HIS SIZE. In all of his other adverts Fred has been a tiny character about the size of the jars which he's trying to flog off to us. WHY is he suddenly human-size? It makes him seem way more sinister as a character than his usual tiny self, so why did they even do this? 2) HIS FACE. Well, just LOOK AT IT. That disturbing permanent smile, always there. How was that a good idea at all? 3) THE BATHROOM SCENE. If you haven't watched the video (I don't blame you, it's terrifying), here's a GIF of the scene in question: I shouldn't have to even EXPLAIN what is wrong with this scene, but if I had to, I'd use one word: EVERYTHING. The creepy lighting, the way Fred's head turns around to look at the camera, his unrelenting smile (again), the fact he's EVEN IN THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE, the slightly overexcited voiceover ("Everyone LOVES Fred!"), EVERYTHING. Not one thing about this scene makes you think "I should buy cooking sauces now!". Instead, it makes you think "Jeez, that thing is SCARY! It looks like a constantly smiling Slenderman wearing a bowler hat!", which overall doesn't sell products. After watching this, I thought that this campaign couldn't really get any worse that it currently is. But then it DID get worse. Much worse, in fact. I retreated back to Twitter to try and forget about the whole incident, but then I found a horrible sight. I found him STALKING people and (in a couple of cases) asking constantly for them to draw him. It was terrifying, and he also posted pictures of him staring at the woman from the advert while doing her ironing. So I tweeted last night: "Also, I was going to make my next Mr Phoenix comic about something else, but I may have to do one about creepy @Homepride_Fred..." 9 minutes later, I was completely surprised to find that FRED HIMSELF had replied with: "@AyliffeMakit Fred's a great cook & an awesome body popper. So he'd make a super comic #LoveFred #MultiTalented" Attached to this tweet was a Vine of Fred 'dancing', or as most would put it, 'taking part in a solitary mexican wave'. Now, how is being 'an awesome body popper' got anything to do with selling COOKING SAUCES to people? How? And that creepy inanimate face is ESPECIALLY deterring to people who may actually buy this stuff. Also, the last thing I need to see is Fred stalking me on Twitter with Vines of him dancing badly, and the bath scene from the ad doesn't really help at all either... So, there you go, my first ever ranty blogpost. Anyway, my next Mr Phoenix comic, which will be about creepy ol' Fred should be up later in the week. Try to Enjoy! :P

I was bored so I ripped the English text from LI2 GBC and made it a bit more readable. There's some unused stuff, some stuff that may or may not be unused but I haven't seen before, and maybe some stuff you'll just find amusing. There's no direct indication of where the text is used, it's all just shoved together as you see it - I just replaced some of the formatting stuff with line breaks and stuff. Maybe this will lead to us discovering some yet undiscovered secrets in the game... Who knows. I still don't know where to find some of the cards. I do somewhat like the writing from time to time... It's not really trying hard, it's just slightly quirky sometimes, and there's no voice acting and such to get in the way. Assorted NPCs around the bank... I haven't seen the second block of text. Is it used? Appears to be stuff for the pirate cave, but the only line I recognize is "Creepy and spooky!" for when Pepper falls in. Could the roars and clicks have been intended for the Rock Monster and skeletons, respectively? Bologna Roni's text for if you talk to him without a shovel... Only the second line is used. The unused first line is pretty noteworthy. I've only seen the first line in-game. Obviously, they're for Johnny Thunder. Is the second one used? All of these seem to be unused variations on lines of Adventurer's Island and Phanta Sea dialogue. Weird. No idea who this would be for, but it seems to be for the Imperial jail.

MINE EYES!!! THEY BURN!!! You get Â¤É·Í Í›ÍΣѬ▲. Oh. And you get a complementary HomePride Fred(He wrote the Voynich Manuscript. When it is translated, the elder beings are freed from their chains, and the world ends. Pleasant dreams.) *Inserts Dihydrogenmonoxide*

*looks at advert* They are coming. You cannot get out. They are coming. Drums. Drums in the deep. You cannot get out. "So, there you go, my first ever ranty blogpost." Hmm.... It must be an extremely successful advertising scheme if it got all its way to a small forum dedicated to a Lego game.

HomePride Fed sits inside your head... HomePride Fred lives among the dead... HomePride Fred sees you in your bed... And eats you when you're sleeping.

That's sort of what I meant. Spheres clumped together organically = cells. In the original story, Onu- Po- Le- and Ga-Koro had spherical houses, but really only Po-Koro kept them in that clumped-together, bubbly design evocative of cells. Le-Koro too, to an extent, come to think of it. e: also http://board.ttvpodcast.com/t/okoto-turning-dark/2613 It's a guide so LEGO employees know what to say when asked about BIONICLE. Okoto's our new island. I look forward to analyzing the etymology of the term and discerning how it will effect *flips over table* how dare lego not cater to my specific interests as a part of a fringe of a fringe group of consumers who wasn't going to buy your products anyway

@Jimbob: Nope, according to this “Our job was to retain the loveable nature of this iconic character whilst pulling him into today’s modern world and therefore helping to position Homepride as a brand suitable for the needs of today’s families." So nope, it's not trying to be creepy.

LEGO Racers HD will focus on replacing the low resolution textures of LEGO Racers with new higher resolution ones. Screenshots: LEGO Racers HD design philosophy: Keep the original LEGO Racers drawing style (no photo realistic textures) LEGO-fy textures (add studs) Most textures drawn in vector Tools being used while creating LEGO Racers HD: LEGO.jam File Extractor by JrMasterModelBuilder LR Textures thread by Cyrem

I would like to give you a taste of Piirates of the Caribbean: Body of the Black Pearl: Body of the HMS Dauntless:

Short answer: yes. It's a large improvement over the PC version and (in my opinion) also slightly better than GBA version. It is actually a good game in its own right.

Okay, now when I watch the Bathroom scene .gif I can't help but laugh. I hardly find it creepy (for some reason).

still have my copy of this by the same author lying around. 6/10. left a lot out, the minifigs looked pretty bad (as you can see by the cover), and the backgrounds were pretty subpar.

Let's not forget Krekka, Takadox, Vamprah, Tarix, Berix. Scodonius and Kirbraz. Some fans complain about the strict in-story gender-assignments, arguing that they limited the amount of female characters. The problem with that argument is that, barring 2008, whenever characters not of the Matoran species were released, they were all male (with the exception of Kiina,) despite no in-story reason for this being the case. It seems to me that the gender-limits actually got us more female characters than we would have had otherwise.

This reminds me of the "Never Say No to Panda" ads. But it seems to me like this might actually be a rather successful ad campaign. After all, it got your attention far better than it probably would have if it had just featured the traditional Homepride Fred, and it's got you telling us about the campaign. I imagine that was the intent of the advertising agency that conceived it. Oh, and thanks for the .GIF. I've got me a new BZPower signature.

And if you don't like them you don't have to look at them. Just don't go ruining it for others who actually like the set designs. Boba has a right to his opinions. For me, Hero Factory was a deglorified Bionicle. Thus a glorified Hero Factory could still be Bionicle. Personally I'm not hugely excited about this wave, but it's a huge step in the right direction, and I anticipate future waves, when things have become more streamlined. How is it a step in the right direction? I fail to see how the building is any different from Hero Factory. It's just still stacking armor on ball frames with some armor stacking on armor. And if you don't like them you don't have to look at them. Just don't go ruining it for others who actually like the set designs. Boba has a right to his opinions. For me, Hero Factory was a deglorified Bionicle. Thus a glorified Hero Factory could still be Bionicle. Personally I'm not hugely excited about this wave, but it's a huge step in the right direction, and I anticipate future waves, when things have become more streamlined. Look, I get it, he has his own opinion, and that's fine. But at this point he's just beating the dead dog with the same post. We all get it, you dislike the new sets because you think they look like glorified HF, but just stop, and start discussing how you think they could've made it better. This isn't a whining topic, it's a discussion topic, Boba could have simply said, "My initial thoughts still stand" instead of posting the same thing and gone on discussing what could have made it better. What? I don't intend to look at them again, nor do I intend to buy them for nostalgia's sake. I commented on preliminaries, and if these are final, then the situation is different. Preliminaries often have some key differences (the ADU preliminary of the crawler had trans-yellow windows, for example, which excited a lot of people), as do these. I also don't see why posting something like "my opinion still stands" is any better or worse than recapping my opinion.

Kevin, I took the liberty of cleaning up the email reply a bit Why did ATD go out of business? Partly due to the cancellation of LR4 - we never really reached agreement as to what the vision for LR4 should be with the Lego Digital team, impossible to achieve milestones when you can’t agree what it should be (we were aiming for something where you could design your own vehicle and then race it - Banjo & Kazooie did something similar with Nuts & Bolts). Were there any other Lego games that were cancelled? yes, several in various stages of production (more Lego Soccer, etc.) – I think the cancellations were a result of less-than-stellar sales of the games, leading to the closure of the digital group that handled them. The break-out title was TT’s Lego Star Wars in 2005… Were there any other planned areas/worlds for the game? Not that I can remember, sorry - we were led pretty strongly by the toy ranges LEGO wanted to feature, so I think we settled on those pretty early. Why the change in weapon system from LR1? I realise it was a different company, but surely you would have analysed LR1 for inspiration. It was mostly due to wanting to build on lessons learned about power-ups on Rollcage and Rollcage Stage II. Who was Nod? Lyndon Sharp, nicknamed Nod - biggest petrol-head on the team! We've heard that ATD's first collaboration with LEGO was Rocket Racers, an attraction at LEGOLAND Windsor. Rocket Racers is obviously based directly on the original LEGO Racers, and going by video footage, it seems that it may even use some of LEGO Racers' textures. LEGO Racers 2 also recycles some minifigure face textures from the original LEGO Racers. So, what was the relationship between High Voltage Software and ATD? Was ATD given more than just textures? Honestly unknown. I doubt ATD got more than the textures - the game was built very much on the Rollcage engine, so it's unlikely that we took much in the way of code. But I could be wrong. In certain versions/languages of the game MPH is used, and others KPH. Was this simply just a text edit, or did the speedometer actually change between versions? If it is just a text edit, which speed measurement is most accurate to follow? Almost certainly - the number had no world relevance, so we probably just changed the KPH/MPH tag. What/when/why was Rocket Racer's design altered in LEGO Racers 2? An early trailer for the game has FMV clips featuring the original design, concept art for the game's box shows the original design, and the ice statue of him in the Arctic foyer in-game even uses his original design... It seems to suggest the redesign didn't come until later in the game's development. I seem to remember the new Rocket Racer look being connected to Xalax, so the old design being used to represent his previous incarnation in Lego Racers. (a looong time ago so memory's a bit fuzzy) What happened with the Xbox port for Drome Racers? Either it was never released, or it's incredibly rare. I'm fairly sure that Drome Racers was our first X-box Lego game. I completed the Xbox port of Drome Racers after Rob had laid the groundwork, and we delivered it to EA unlocalized. It was my understanding that EA had decided to take on the cost of localization themselves. I don't know why EA didn't proceed to full production, my guess would be the untimely demise of ATD probably caused licensing and ownership issues with LEGO and the liquidators. Why was Professor Voltage replaced by Sparky? Sparky was seen as being easy for children to associate with. Going by certain developer comments in the scripts, I take it you guys had a fun time making this game? Certainly did. It was the first game made with a new game-engine and proprietary tools. Loads of challenges but loads of those magic moments. I remember the first time Rob came out with his water effects. I had an absolute hoot scripting the conversations on Sandy Bay.. suffice to say that most had to be shelved. Why did you use visible objects like curbs for ambient sounds and not an invisible one? We assigned different sounds, grip and drag to different textures on the worlds. We needed ways of defining tracks in certain areas, without those paths confusing the route in other races using the same world. Rather than change the whole world, it was much more efficient to mark them out with a few separate objects. As indicated by an unused piece of dialogue, the character of Captain Geoff was originally intended to be a regular in Sandy Bay, as opposed to merely a passenger in a mini-game. Furthermore, he is named in the files as "Lighthouse Keeper." No lighthouse appears in the final game, however. Can you elucidate us concerning this scrapped building? I based all the characters in Sandy Bay on members of the dev team (Geoff was our AI guru, amongst other areas). Some of those minifigs didn't make it into the final game and others had to be relocated to fit the game's flow. I remember us having a lighthouse but it not being close to Captain Geoff's location; I thought it was near the caves but I guess I need to go and look at the game. While most of the AI racers are extant minifigs with ties to one of the in-game worlds, a few are entirely original. They are, I believe, the wild-orange-haired, red-suited, Barron Rosso and the bald, tuxedo-wearing Franky-Solido. What was the reason for their existence? I seem to remember us being given those boss characters by Lego Digital. How were parts chosen for the character creator? Good question. I think that was down to Captain Geoff (see above) Were there any substantial features cut from the games? Yes, network multiplayer. I believe there were issues with determinism and syncing everything up. Not sure if the code stayed in or was never committed.

Guys! I got an email back! I guess posting the whole email is the best idea! Hi Kevin, I’ve collected together answers (they are in answered order rather than asked order) – we struggled with some as it was a long time ago, and slightly humbled that people are still playing and modding! I am trying to get you source code to some of the tools to fill in any gaps in your knowledge; it’s proving tricky! Here are my own recollections / additions: Why did ATD go out of business? Partly due to the cancellation of LR4 - we never really reached agreement as to what the vision for LR4 should be with the Lego Digital team, impossible to achieve milestones when you can’t agree what it should be (we were aiming for something where you could design your own vehicle and then race it - Banjo & Kazooie did something similar with Nuts & Bolts). Were there any other Lego games that were cancelled; yes, several in various stages of production (more Lego Soccer, etc.) – I think the cancellations were a result of less-than-stellar sales of the games, leading to the closure of the digital group that handled them. The break-out title was TT’s Lego Star Wars in 2005… Cheers Fred Were there any other planned areas/worlds for the game? Not that I can remember, sorry - we were led pretty strongly by the toy ranges LEGO wanted to feature, so I think we settled on those pretty early. Why the change in weapon system from LR1? I realise it was a different company, but surely you would have analysed LR1 for inspiration. It was mostly due to wanting to build on lessons learned about power-ups on Rollcage and Rollcage Stage II. Who was Nod? Lyndon Sharp, nicknamed Nod - biggest petrol-head on the team! jamesster We've heard that ATD's first collaboration with LEGO was Rocket Racers, an attraction at LEGOLAND Windsor. Rocket Racers is obviously based directly on the original LEGO Racers, and going by video footage, it seems that it may even use some of LEGO Racers' textures. LEGO Racers 2 also recycles some minifigure face textures from the original LEGO Racers. So, what was the relationship between High Voltage Software and ATD? Was ATD given more than just textures? Honestly unknown. I doubt ATD got more than the textures - the game was built very much on the Rollcage engine, so it's unlikely that we took much in the way of code. But I could be wrong. In certain versions/languages of the game MPH is used, and others KPH. Was this simply just a text edit, or did the speedometer actually change between versions? If it is just a text edit, which speed measurement is most accurate to follow? (My note (Kevin): The MPH/KPH is probably a region/language specific thing) Almost certainly - the number had no world relevance, so we probably just changed the KPH/MPH tag. Not sure if this is a question to ask Kevin, but: What/when/why was Rocket Racer's design altered in LEGO Racers 2? An early trailer for the game has FMV clips featuring the original design, concept art for the game's box shows the original design, and the ice statue of him in the Arctic foyer in-game even uses his original design... It seems to suggest the redesign didn't come until later in the game's development. I seem to remember the new Rocket Racer look being connected to Xalax, so the old design being used to represent his previous incarnation in Lego Racers. (a looong time ago so memory's a bit fuzzy) What happened with the Xbox port for Drome Racers? Either it was never released, or it's incredibly rare. I'm fairly sure that Drome Racers was our first X-box Lego game. Why was Professor Voltage replaced by Sparky? Sparky was seen as being easy for children to associate with. Going by certain developer comments in the scripts, I take it you guys had a fun time making this game? Certainly did. It was the first game made with a new game-engine and proprietary tools. Loads of challenges but loads of those magic moments. I remember the first time Rob came out with his water effects. I had an absolute hoot scripting the conversations on Sandy Bay.. suffice to say that most had to be shelved. (Why did you use visible objects like curbs for ambient sounds and not an invisible one? ) We assigned different sounds, grip and drag to different textures on the worlds. We needed ways of defining tracks in certain areas, without those paths confusing the route in other races using the same world. Rather than change the whole world, it was much more efficient to mark them out with a few separate objects. Quisoves Pugnat 1. As indicated by an unused piece of dialogue, the character of Captain Geoff was originally intended to be a regular in Sandy Bay, as opposed to merely a passenger in a mini-game. Furthermore, he is named in the files as "Lighthouse Keeper." No lighthouse appears in the final game, however. Can you elucidate us concerning this scrapped building? I based all the characters in Sandy Bay on members of the dev team (Geoff was our AI guru, amongst other areas). Some of those minifigs didn't make it into the final game and others had to be relocated to fit the game's flow. I remember us having a lighthouse but it not being close to Captain Geoff's location; I thought it was near the caves but I guess I need to go and look at the game. 2. While most of the AI racers are extant minifigs with ties to one of the in-game worlds, a few are entirely original. They are, I believe, the wild-orange-haired, red-suited, Barron Rosso and the bald, tuxedo-wearing Franky-Solido. What was the reason for their existence? I seem to remember us being given those boss characters by Lego Digital. 3. How were parts chosen for the character creator? Good question. I think that was down to Captain Geoff (see above) I completed the Xbox port of Drome Racers after Rob had laid the groundwork, and we delivered it to EA unlocalized. It was my understanding that EA had decided to take on the cost of localization themselves. I don't know why EA didn't proceed to full production, my guess would be the untimely demise of ATD probably caused licensing and ownership issues with LEGO and the liquidators. Were there any substantial features cut from the games? Yes, network multiplayer. I believe there were issues with determinism and syncing everything up. Not sure if the code stayed in or was never committed. --- Wow! The fact that he wants to give us some source tools... And cut out network multiplayer! :o

You get Ziggy. *Inserts the Voynich Manuscript*

[6:48:28 PM Alcom Isst: So I've been thinking about... err... ponies. I remember when I first watched MLP, I hated it, but I also took it as a dare, forcing myself to chug the whole series, assisted by simutaneous use of LDD. After the first season I built up an immunity, I was enjoying the show, everything was fine, I was effectively a brony. I watched season 2, then 3, then got bored with the series. Fastforward several months without MLP and my immunity completely died, and I can't stand the site of ponies again. [6:48:34 PM] Alcom Isst: Which is really interesting. [6:49:46 PM] Alcom Isst: Like, would anyone develop an immunity and liking for a media like this? [6:50:31 PM] Alcom Isst: If I tied McJobless to a chair clockwork-orange style and forced him to watch My Little Pony, would he eventually develop a same immunity too? [6:50:46 PM] McJobless: No.

I like the that bible, I find it quite cool actually. But would you trust an angel who'd look like this? Reminds me of a pedophile. And they could have picked a better head for baby Moses.

Quote by Ayliffe: on today at this time: -------------------------------------- Great! Got any examples of your drawing skills to show us? ------------------------------------------------------------- This isn't in TCAD, but I threw this together in P.N for the anniversary. Notice it's only lines and circles. Not freehand. Also, I drew a minifig in TCAD (I'll link it later cause my phone hates RRU, hence the wonderful quoting above) But anyway that's what I can do.

Here is a list of what I know is possible to do in LEGO Racers. Can Do Extract and recompile the JAM archive Roughly modify all audio Modify all textures (tracks, objects, characters, you name it!) Modify the strings Modify almost all files in a binary fashion (pain in the butt for certain things, but it is still better than nothing regardless). This includes: Visually edit Powerup Locations Record/Create Ghosts Paths Change the vertex colour on a model (even tracks) to complete white. (Will made and sent me a tool when I requested, due to vertex coloring ruining a track when I tried to texture edit it) Beat this game in one sitting (this is a joke) Cannot Do Make custom models (tracks, objects, etc). We are lacking the tool(s) to do so. Change functionality of powerups Change gravity physics (if you can, this hasn't been found yet. Friction was found, so maybe this is out there somewhere like it is in LR2.) Go past 30 bricks in the Bricks Listings Go past #(?) of minifigure pieces limit. By all means help me out with this list! I get a hunch I'm missing some things from the cannot list.