It’s been a long minute since I posted anything here after the events that transpired and in the peace era. The peace era has been key to calm down and reflect what has transpired over the last few years. I picked up 3D printing and self taught in AUTOCAD. I was thinking more towards to learn abilities that can transcend my digital works and I wanted to be able to make my digital art tangible. After a while I realized that I don’t have the space to stock my works in and also the pitfalls of making arts and crafts creeped in like toxic chemicals that I have to deal with. I did fall in love with Resin 3D printing because it’s so good when the end results come to fruition. Alas at the end, I just have an occupied space full of materials and equipment that’s frustrating to have without using it now.

I’m going to fast forward to now, and society just entered a new era that was forecast a while ago: The Ai Era. In this time we got super smart pattern master systems that can talk back to you and solve issues faster when it comes to debugging code and conceptualizing art ideas. Unfortunately groups of academia that started up their own corporations have cheated their way up to their positions by immorally taking works from humble folks and essentially concentrated all data to create Ai Models of all kinds. This has caused a stir at the moment on how this has turned up to be, but the cat is out of the bag and everyone and their moms can access these tools on their phones now, leaving the artist and coder in the dust from a lower level perspective. 

Years have gone by since the first glimpse of this and arguments emerged in 2023, that now in 2025 is way more prevalent. There is so many copy cat Ai tools saturating the market as well and simple games are relegated as cute since Ai can make it as well. The years I have poured into Dark Zeta is null now as that game doesn’t stand up to because also that market is saturated which have better designed games. This put me off for a bit business wise to pursue in finishing up on the project, but then Ai emerged and handed me the option to solve bugs effectively and quality control my work that I can now feel able to author it and finish the project once and for all. Business wise I still feel there is no point in pursuing to make it out for money but for just the love of it for now. I miss working on Dark Zeta and when I was able to share it now with others, that opened up my heart to look at it again. 

This new opportunity and revived enthusiasm also gave me the option to experiment with different types of genres and gameplay. It enabled me to explore different concepts without thinking too much on syntax anymore. I’m reflected on being just a designer that can pseudo code the world around me and never really can be that master engineer that can manipulate reality as he sees fit. This is where Ai comes in to help with this as an assistant, to help me realize my concepts and choices. Thus my Arcade Zone has materialized! I forgot to mention too that I work 7 days out of the week and don’t have any real personal time to get my creative fix, instead, I have my downtime at work to make it happen for now.

So finally I have my game gallery up thanks to Ai! I used Claude to assist me and teach me how JavaScript works, thus you have my generic 3D maze game! Then after that I went to see how I can learn arrays with my Connect 4 clone! Then after that I went to start working on a generic vertical shooter game to replace my old GridXross game concept I worked on in the past. Don’t worry, that game project will return but for now I have found a way to get my kicks in learning a new language with Ai showing me working examples. 

The biggest achievement of all 4 is the ability to create touch controls for DARK ZETA! That blew my mind how Ai was able to take a game I made using GameMaker Studio, know that’s a game made in GMS and set up touch controls that are fully functional. The added features afterwards came about naturally as I progressed through the project’s design with my new tool I’m using, Replit. 

Now going forward I have discovered Pico-8, where I can have it listed in my gallery once I get a game working properly. I was thinking that maybe I won’t monetize Mariolegend.com because I’m going to have only my private galleries reflect my works exclusively. Maybe the blog posts will be monetized but the rest I feel there is no incentive to doing so here. Instead of all of that I’m going to dedicate a site that will mix all media with other authors in a site name that is more obvious and dedicated to working with a community. The Arcade Zone though is a prototype or beginning step towards the big one coming up later in time that will be fully monetized. 

So yes! More titles will come! And Dark Zeta development has restarted up again. The only thing right now I’m trying to figure out is to get a balance in my life again. Working 7 days straight to keep everything working is exhausting and I feel very well burnt out now. Writing this on my downtime though gives me the edge to make those things I mentioned possible but there are tools I cannot work with while at work, which includes GameMaker Studio. So I’m thinking how to use my PTO to lay out a routine time to look forward to having a my 3 day off that I want to realize as this year’s resolution. A few days off can help but also I need to fill my time working as well because I do spoil things out of habit since the era of peace was spoiled by not working on other media arts, but then I was ruled by anxiety and was chasing things that didn’t work out in the end. So I’ll figure it out.

Thank you my friends for coming back and I hope you all enjoy my new game gallery – Mariolegend’s Arcade Zone!

-Later –

-G-

It’s been a while amigos but I’m back…

To start this off, I’ve been recovering from what transpired last year. I settled in now in a new location within the city 🏙 as previously mentioned that I wanted to leave but couldn’t. As I said, I’m still recovering ❤️‍🩹 from all the bullshit, even the last 4 years. Since now I’m in a temporary yet stable position, I’ve been working hard in getting back up into production. The sale of my childhood home was a nightmare to say the least. Everything was against me — my coworkers, my friends, and ultimately my own blood 🩸. I didn’t have a choice since I was the enemy to everyone with this motion. I was looked at as the bad guy with this. Coerced to fold on such incredible pressures from my siblings as they went thru my domain and threw out and destroyed my stuff. An invasion into my area without my consent.

To make matters worse, i preemptively told them I cannot sale the house before my conditions were met financially. Simply getting things situated to move my stuff out safely was a huge tasks, as well I have offered my siblings the same amount to obtain the property and renovate it with a team i would have had for it to conserve and bring the place up. I have trusted reliable sources to do this but my siblings denied me of it as they didn’t feel trusting of what I could’ve made out the place. They didn’t fucking care anyway! And My sister promised to see an alternative solution if the expected amount fell off, but she lied to me as they sneaked their way through. They cornered me, threw me under the bus and slander me via group text. This is when I had it with them. They are no longer my blood. I dejected from them as I realized the deep disrespect I got from all this and that’s why I no longer will ever reach out to them.

In this time of high tensions with my own family, I take a break and focus on what I was doing before the calamity of this event.

It has taken me about a year to recover from deep sadness and depression to little by little build what was put down by the gravity of the situation. Definitely if my girlfriend and her friends weren’t there, I would’ve had to die on the hill against my siblings. The only one really I could trust even though just before we weren’t having a good time, when shit hit the fan, she was there to support me all the way through. Even my own friends I couldn’t trust as they cooperated with my siblings to control and keep a stranglehold on me. The only one that I had to truly hold me up and fall back to was my girlfriend. The paranoia and anxiety of being in the center with my siblings was uncanny as I felt I was always being prosecuted by them. It was defining of their true colors or lack of it. My girlfriend was the only one who had my back in such an embarrassing and humiliating situation. Can’t I repeat this and drive it hard to base— that my girlfriend saved me from the fiends that was all of this mess.

In parallel, the neighbor had sold the property to a contractor that ruined the driveway by building a house on it. My brother being okay with this continued to be a menace and a grade A assohole. The only thing I can speculate with this is because of years of him being loud and obnoxious thru the night. Music 🎶 blaring until 5am while he and his buddies go about being drunk and annoying. Years of this madness would basically have gave into folks next door to give up and have no respect for us. Just the stress of paying bills was hard enough to paying attention what’s going on in the neighborhood but definitely if my parents were still able, the neighbors would have respected my elders and not consider to destroy the beautiful driveway (regardless if it was for profit). Sadly my brother was for the destruction of the driveway because he thought it was socialist to hold back owners from doing what they want on their own property, not knowing that we commune in the same area (loud machinery and obstructions, and being a hazard for anything to be around). Ultimately the Contractor didn’t give a fuck about the place and once the building was done it was later positioned in the market for sale. it was always all about profits, in the fullest extension of greed. But my brother didn’t ever see it like that as we argued about it before the window was closed to save the driveway. Unfortunately everything came to and blew up altogether, my brother mostly being an asshole and enjoying it as well making his escape from the neighborhood.

In the final days as I received the addendum to sign off the house, I was planning not to sign it but a few days later I visited my brothers of Madink, and cried my griefs to them about this. I promise never to speak with those who have knocked me and humiliated me again. I truly couldn’t believe the gross outcome and i couldn’t hold the teardrops as I then conformed to the motion to sign off on my childhood home, where so many memories were made. Where I conceived so many artworks and had experienced so many things. I promised my brothers of Madink that I’m gonna use this money to finally realize my dreams and help each other out in doing so. So I signed and gave a big emotional group hug to my brothers. I cried a bit and simply understood that they, my siblings, were doing all this for themselves and I had no grounds to hold up something they didn’t care anymore. This is when I realize it wasn’t worth it to waste time with them anymore.

One year ago, the pain of all this stuff started. In December it will be a year then when i was pushed to sign off and hopefully the next few months I succeed realizing my plans to fruitions.

(this is how I felt about the whole situation….)

So now that I got this off my chest (In which has taken over a week to write this here) —- I can focus on showing you the stuff I’m building. That will be in the next post but a reminder to know— This is the last post I’ll do about my personal accounts on here. In the future those posts will be behind a wall and I’ll mostly focus on promotions from here on. And as I said in my Gerardolegend blog, I’m creating videos that will contain my deeper thoughts 💭 and personal things coded to shield 🛡 away from those who simply just want to bring misery and are highly critical about me.

Thank you for reading 📖 and I wish you well.

I promise I shall return with the goods to showcase! So see you later! ⭐️

Now that I’m done with G-Legend X Episode 01, I’m going to focus more on getting the game library worked on for this site since I got critique at work from it. What I wanted to do was to kill 2 birds with 1 stone doing a new series for this site and my youtube channels – to bridge everything together and let folks know about all of this stuff.

So here I made 2 versions of the same episode (slightly different director’s cuts).

And

The slight edits show a bigger picture of my narrative direction with the series. This idea comes from my game design mindset (originally the story was suppose to be an RPG game). The RPG game, Tribus Fabula X, is still coming out, but the series live action video series will connect to it in parallel first. In this video also I added easter eggs from other series, specifically Dark Zeta. In the timeline, G drops into the world of the real in Dark Zeta’s universe. Dark and Jetty aren’t around as they are adventuring elsewhere. There is a door that leads into Jetty’s lab underground in the house, where all his gizmo and dimensional transport system are. The red sphere is a gate projector from the system below (where Jetty can link into the surreal world with).

Other than that, the end scene (the Crystal room), was inspired by both the movie inception and Final Fantasy. If you notice, G goes through 2 doors – in inception, the characters must sleep themselves into a deeper dreamstate. The doorway is representable of how deeply G is dreaming as well as crossing into another universe altogether. The Mirror scene is inspired by Nightmare on Elm street and direct reference to Edward Mordrake, where the demon side of himself snickers at his displeasure and discontent with life. The shaving off the hair is to get rid of the past and uplift G into a better mindset. 

The Dualism in the mirror scene is also foreshadowing something unique in the story coming later 😉

Tribus Fabula Is the place where I’ll map out a story branch on where everything ties together. The Prologue will be up there too later in the fall as well as G-Legend X series and Dream X. The project suppose to be an anthology of many different stories together in many universes that will eventually come together. It’s like the marvel universe meets Doctor Who with many spin off character stories. This concept was thought of way back in 2001 when I was in film school and I was thinking on how to implement it. So I took the initiative now in starting it with G-Legend X and continuing their after with many different wonderful stories. 

So stay tuned! 

The month of March and April has been an action packed one that really tested with my mental health and overall limits. I already fore saw something gross was going to happen when I was returning from my vacation in Feb 1st, but i didn’t fathom it would be this bad. I endured and at work I gained more hours to grind. That really took a lot of me but I gradually got to do some really cool stuff and connect with folks to start on different projects. Still though, the pandemic has affected many in my community. This global event has also affected my mental health as i am practicing social distancing, yet I miss the things I took for granted – hugs and my family. I don’t want my family to catch anything and now things have gotten worse as there are folks with the virus coming in the store. Some have “beaten” it, but like the diseases of the past, they can still give it to others as 14 days isn’t really sufficient time as experts are saying as it’s a case by case thing to get over it. Folks who are asymptomatic also aren’t aware they are carrying it nor got the test done either. This creates a sense of paranoia like no other. This is why folks are freaking out and it’s truly depressing. Seeing people who I used to talk to at work really have high anxiety about it can be draining.

So I’m looking for an opportunity to continue creating and building out my ideas that have been left on pause for a while. I wanted to populate this site with a constant stream of information and content but then I got off the rails and worked on something else. Now I’m back again to set this site to launch soon, but I still don’t know when. I need to be able to unlock it and publish it so folks can know it exists. I also need to add ads to this site so it can start making some revenue. My plans is to post more videos of my past and present and also link it with my game page in itch.io marketplace. I just need more time to do this though, and I’m also focused on planning out Dark Zeta’s game/animation project, which is monumental! I found a new program tool that really helps me lay things out better than what I was doing before. That will take a huge amount of time to accomplish, going back to the drawing board as they say I feel this is. Is better to iron out everything as much as I can so execution can be smooth enough the next time I try to do things again right?

{to continue to read this article, hit the next page}

The reason so is because i filled up my time trying to focus on the content that I’m about to add in this site. The weather conditions are a factor in this and also it’s time sensitive as well. I need to gather all location shots in my house before any construction happens. At least I’ll have peace of mind once I get pre-production done quickly before anything.

Another thing though is that I wanted to monetize this site as soon I could but unfortunately I need more time to study and work things out. Once I have confidence again that I can nail the date and time down and re-initialize the launch of this site, I’ll post it. I just feel with so much happening that I am not even close in getting there yet, although I am confident that surely I’ll get stuff done by the end of summer.

It isn’t easy to get everything done like I used to since I need to focus on paying bills first. I’ll have time this week to get everything connected and up to my own expectations. As the site stands now, it’s totally open for critique. Leave a comment in the videos you watch to let me know what you think about them. You can also comment on this post to let me know your personal experience about this site and what would you like to see more of. 

The sure thing is that more content will come! I’m always keeping my followers notified about it, so follow me on Twitter @Mariolegend_ to know what’s happening.

Thank you for your patience and understanding and please do check back in later for more.

-Gerardo

So I changed the Official Launch date of this site for later next month so I can focus on getting stuff done on it. Getting feedback on the page is greatly appreciated and that’s what I’m acting on for it now.

In accordance to many who have given me their input on this website, I’m going to modify some stuff and as well keep adding things to it. Since my time is split with life, I can only do things so quickly. I usually don’t catch things are wrong until either someone tells me or I later notice after the fact. So I apologize as the site is still in a very early stage of development.

Also another point to talk about is how this site currently more of an example of my capabilities, thus why I center it off first on myself. The reason why is because I don’t know what else to create a center for everything else that I will branch off from. 

The plan of branching off and diversifying this site with collaborative works I first need to start with myself. The path going forward though is going to be much more interesting, I promise that. 

One of these things is to have video I created with other people, like the Computer Clubhouse. These will be here, as well as games in the arcade section (coming soon). 

It’s not fun to have something of this operation without the help of others. This is fundamentally a reason why I have felt a bit of a drag just doing this with only having a narcissistic angle, since everything cost money to license. Another point is that I’m looking to help others work things with visual art and design. So before I do have collab work to showcase, I’m going to share what I am capable first. 

Tribus Fabula RPG html5 game

The model design of this website I’m referencing it off from newgrounds.com. I’m going to have html5 stuff all over the place. The games I’ve made in the past will appear in here too as an html5 as well. This will include Dark Zeta Demo (v0.14s 2013 demo action adventure), Jetty Ball html5 (A shooter made in 1999), GridXross:Dreams html5 (action shooter), and Tribus Fabula Dreams X Episode 01 (RPG) in the Arcade section. I’m also adding storyboard/comic book stories too but at a later date from launch.

Those games won’t appear until later in August of this year because I have to port some of them over, while some already are ready to go. The RPG won’t be ready until further notice since I restarted that one from last year. The game engine for that one is Unity, but I’m using a tool from Steam I found that is so good for that type of game that gives me the key ingredients to make a more solid story game than the library package I was using before ever did. It’s a lot closer to RPG maker but I can finally do everything without worrying so much to code and use both 3D and 2D assets. So maybe I can actually finish this game this year (hopefully). But I’m going to put less time on it than the other projects I’m up working on first, so don’t hold your breath for it.

Just to point out, Dark Zeta project comes first but then I need to learn another new tool for it since it’s an Action RPG. Pre-Production is on, and the remake of the website is going to go with the development of the game to make it more cohesively interconnected to better showcase the concept. It is though looking really nice so far, but I won’t release the countdown until I can get it in shape at 50% completion. This page will then link to it and as well have an html5 2019 demo update. Well, maybe not this year, but hopefully have a demo ready by next year. 

So now you guys know. I’m a very busy person. Priority I have to give first to finding ways to make money so I can keep these things going. I just hope you guys understand that the narcissistic start is only temporary, and more diverse things will happen that will mix things up better. It will be much more fun as time goes when I join forces with others and be able to show that off later.   

If you read this far into this little article, thank you! I hope you have a wonderful day and please check in from time to time <3

3 Weeks later I quit my job and had to stay home after suffering some major pains from my crohns symptoms. I had lost so much weight and I was also suffering from a dip in depression. I basically looked like a crack addict how badly I was that time because I was so thin. 

Armor, created by Fernando Vega, animated by Gerardo

But this gave me time to focus and put together the video. I wanted to impress Fernando and Sean at the time by my discovery on making the characters move. I was basically obsessed in making an impression, I lost so much sleep over it. I then had it ready by the end of April and was able to showcase it one Saturday afternoon at the computer clubhouse. Everyone keep saying I had way too much time on my hands, but I perfectly used it to improve myself in this field to better express my ideas. This is when I got the letter in the mail and was accepted to go to the Academy of Art College in San Francisco. 

The previous year I graduated High School but didn’t know exactly where to go. The pressure from family had me extremely worried but I took a year off to concentrate in getting better at making 3D art and finding a way to fix my life then. I felt at a loss because even though I graduated high school first, the pressures reflecting my sister going to college made me push to find something soon. Fernando surprised me by passing me a catalogue booklet from Academy of Art, and seeing big names like Sega, Konami, and even universal printed on it made me want to head over to california. 

Getting the letter from the school really helped my mood get better, and I prepared myself for 2 months to getting there. That year I turned 20, but regardless my cousin, who turned 21, pushed me to drink with him. That was the first time I had a drink of some beer and rum, and also hid from patrol officers in the bush when they were around lol

Anyways, that time was everything, and making that video first before college was the end of me making anything 3D because I signed up for Motion Pictures/Film degree as I was too dumb to pass the exam to get into 3D field then. I just wanted to leave home as well, since my sister was doing the same. Sibling competition there for sure because my family members were just overly bad with pressure at that time.

The next time I make anything 3D is in 2002, as I started learning how to make games using GameMaker and RPG maker 95/2000. This prompts me in continuing creating Dark Ball (Dark Zeta now) in 3D and finishing up on the first chapter to the comic book series. In 1997 I used Macromedia Extreme 3D to animate Dark in 3D. I thought having to do so I would learn, but then stopped once I was finished with the desert fight. That’s when I incorporated him in other works, then finally restarting on it in 2002 in 3d Studio Max, renaming the series as Dark Sphere. 

Next up, Dark Sphere and the many RPGs ideas I had… 

So currently I’m working on adding ads to the site and I just included the link to the M-Videos page. The next step after that is to work on the video reviews for the products I have plan on selling on this site and youtube. Don’t worry, it’s just an assortment of little things I’m personally consuming, like Tea and also experiences with hairstyler shops, cameras, computer accessories, video games (indie games), and other things until I find a niche that sticks.

I’m also working on a video game project that is now posted on the M-Videos page to show you what’s happening with that too. 

Due to my schedule, things are gonna be hard to get everything in here done, so please come back periodically. I will be adding little extras that is also stuff I love, like animatics (storyboard animations), and cool other art stuff. 

Another big thing is that I will be also working on cutting up 4 hours worth of video and uploading it here as well. That is listed part of my tasks to do this year, on top of the reviews (which are priority). 

In the business aspect, I need to make money first before I can do the really fun stuff, so I’m going to focus first on selling things from amazon, then slowly create my own brand with amazon after I get all these things working. In the meantime I’m surviving paycheck to paycheck until this baby starts doing something so I can focus on it more. 

I hope you understand and enjoy it! Have a nice beautiful day!

-Gerardo aka Mariolegend

In a year after the revolutionary Nintendo 64 had released, I was learning how to recreate scenes I’ve seen, at the moment exclusively on TV, on the computer. How you questioned? I pirated software from the local after school computer program called the Computer Clubhouse when I was just 16 years old. In this time, me and two other friends embarked in learning how to understand and do the impossible on something that nobody ever thought it could work on.

The first system I was managing to use to do such thing was on an Intel x86 processor that was as fast as molasses. It was clocked at 75 MHz, with Shadow RAM memory of 8MB and 4MB of video ram was firstly introduced that was dedicated for special high quality graphics. It contained as well the first mass market hard drive capacity of 1GB. At that time it was unheard of to see such a thing. I managed to fill it up in less than 3 months with all the work I was doing on it.

I was also introduced to JPGs for the first time as the graphic format I had output to was Bitmaps. This of course all for the sake of learning it as I was blessed to be in a lower middle class hispanic family. The software i first used was Macromedia Extreme 3D. It gave me a glimpse of all the trials I would have to face and made me much more strong willed to persevere as it was then riddled with bugs and limits that would make anyone cry for their mother. 

It was fun for me to see things fly across the screen and learn what the definition of the shapes and forms were. It’s nuts how so much work I put in and yet, lost a huge set of it due to the hard drive failure years later. It was always hard to maintain and keep things around that’s for sure, but that didn’t bother me much as my focus went in the direction of game creation now.

I’m going through some classes on this specific category in selling things online, so bare with me for a bit. I also need to link up my discord here as well so you can have access on what’s happening behind the scenes.

I also plan to get game reviews here too. 

baby steps….

Talk to you guys later! <3