New features and a new look

I've added a couple of things to the journal:

At the bottom of the page you'll now find a list of links related to ICO and Shadow of the Colossus. At the time of writing this post I've only listed the official international and Japanese websites of both games. I'll be adding more links as they come in handy. If you have any suggestions please leave a comment and let me know.

Below that you can also find the new Google search bar and the Google Translate link. As you may know a lot of information related to ICO and Shadow of the Colossus is only available in Japanese. I'll be doing my best to give an accurate translation of the most relevant parts, but for anyone who'll want to get the full picture, this link will come in useful.

Finally, I gave the journal a new look. In my opinion, this layout looks cleaner and is more accessible.

Ebay Listings: Japanese Posters & NICO DVD

These three posters were used for pre-release promotion in Japan and are now availabe from some re-sellers. I've seen one signed by Ueda-san some days ago, but unfortunately I had already spent all my money on the Shadow of the Colossus premium box.

I've tracked down the Special NICO DVD as well. It's going for cheap and it's quite worth getting, considering it contains all official Shadow of the Colossus trailers (two of which are hosted on projectnico.net), concept art and a special ICO development video.

Understanding: The language in ICO

Ever wondered what sort of language is the one used in ICO? This website may hold some answers.

The concept behind this linguistic mystery is quite simple. You take a word, write it backwards and then replace everything with hieroglyphics.

Look at the example below:

(1) Take the phrase: "Kimitachi ga ite boku ga iru."
↓
(2) Put it backwards. It becomes: "Ihcatimik ag eti ukob ag uri."
↓
(3) Now write it using hieroglyphics. You take the original phrase's syllables and replace them with the corresponding symbol from this table.

In other words, you write the phrase using hieroglyphics (3) and read it in backwards Japanese (2).

Try it yourself. You may download the ICO font for your PC from here. If you're looking for the MAC version you may find it here.

Note: If you'd like to read the article on the featured page, you can use Google Translate, linked at the bottom of the page to translate the website into English.

Uploaded: ICO & Shadow of the Colossus Wallpapers

Below you may find the official Japanese ICO and Shadow of the Colossus wallpapers, also available from the games' websites.

ICO

Wallpaper 1
Wallpaper 2
Wallpaper 3
Wallpaper 4

Shadow of the Colossus

Wallpaper 1
Wallpaper 2
Wallpaper 3
Wallpaper 4
Wallpaper 5

Courtesy of:

http://www.i-c-o.net
http://www.playstation.jp/scej/title/wander/