When I went to visit Rare’s Studio and check outViva Piñata: Pocket Paradisefor the DS, one couldn’t help but consider the future of the franchise.VPis an incredibly original and inventive IP, one that most definitely deserves a long future, but I realized there was a crucial flaw in the game — Rare can only continue the series for as long as they can think of animal/candy wordplay.
Or can they?
As this musing reached its climactic peak, I imagined the bleakest future possible, a future where Rare had run out of candy portmanteaus and had to move onto chemical substances. In order to help my pals at Rare, I have taken it upon myself to draw up their concept art … concept art from Hell … and design creatures for the latest installment in the franchise —Viva Piñarcotics!
[Drawing by Jim Sterling, coloring by the awesome Topher Cantler]
Appear Requirements:Have a set of weights in your gardenVisit Requirements:Have an intense pressure to perform at physical peakResident Requirements:Have a “best of Chris Benoit” DVD in your gardenRomance Requirements:Under cook dinner and cause a hyper violent ‘roid rage fit
Appear Requirements:Have strobe lighting in your gardenVisit Requirements:Garden is 90% water (bottled)Resident Requirements:Free glowsticksRomance Requirements:Vomit onto the back of the person you’re screwing in a dehydrated stupor
Appear Requirements:Grow some perfectly legal, unprepared mushroomsVisit Requirements:Pick some perfectly legal, unprepared mushroomsResident Requirements:Maaaaybe do something with a perfectly legal pot of boiling waterRomance Requirements:Put your head in the boiling water after tripping out and thinking that Spidorpions are coming to stab your face off
Appear Requirements:Lose your girlfriendVisit Requirements:Lose your jobResident Requirements:Lose your houseRomance Requirements:Lose your razorblades
Appear Requirements:Build a StarbucksVisit Requirements:Build another StarbucksResident Requirements:Build another StarbucksRomance Requirements:Build two Starbuckses
Appear Requirements:Chemical set in your gardenVisit Requirements:Magic eye charts on all the wallsResident Requirements:Some Hendrix on the radioRomance Requirements:Stop having horrific hallucinations about the killer brainroaches
Appear Requirements:Jack DanielsVisit Requirements:Southern ComfortResident Requirements:SmirnoffRomance Requirements:Aftershave chased up with floor polish
Appear Requirements:Build a porn-and-booze-filled squat in your gardenVisit Requirements:The first hit is freeResident Requirements:Have a wallet that keeps having cash “disappear” from it in your gardenRomance Requirements:Go on the game to support the skag habit
Appear Requirements:One radiatorVisit Requirements:One set of handcuffsResident Requirements:One bloodstained mattressRomance Requirements:One television playing Trainspotting all day, every day
