Throwback: My superheroes (2013)

Last year, on May 23rd, 2025, I married the love of my life, Joey. We met on FilipinoCupid when I was looking for someone to travel with in the Philippines. We Skyped a lot in the months before the vacation, but we didn't plan to meet, because Joey lived in Baguio, a 6 hour drive from Manila. While getting my PADI diving certificate in Puerto Galera, we kept Skyping and eventually I decided to cancel the rest of my trip and travel to Baguio to meet Joey. We met on May 25th, 2013 and have been together ever since. Well, together as in a long-distance relationship. We did spent vacations together in both the Philippines and the Netherlands and in July 2020, Joey and her sons Vash & Cloud, came to the Netherlands.

In 2013 I also started experimenting with GameMaker Studio. I found some free game assets and got some sprites from the mobile game Marvel Alliance (ripped by Cyrus Annihilator), which I modded to my needs. And with modded, I mean I ripped the heads off an replaced them with pictures of Joey, Vash and Cloud. I used the Spider-Man sprite to create Spider-Cloud (5 years old then), Vash (10 years old then), already crazy for guns, became the Punisher and I took the body of Black Cat for Princess Joie (Joey's internet handle at the time). With this I made a couple of 'games'.

One of the games involved Spider-Cloud having to rescue Princess Joie from the evil Dr. Vash. Cloud was able to try to open the door, but it wouldn't budge. He could then walk up the ladder, but then Dr. Vash would should him. So Cloud could take the elevator and sneak behind Vash. He could then pull a lever which would raise a platform to a computer, where Cloud could use the computer to turn off the magnet, which would then release a metal crate, which, in turn, would crush the evil Dr. Vash. The day would be saved!

There were some bugs though. Spider-Cloud could only face right. So he rolled to the right of the screen and then roll backwards to the left. He also didn't have a climb animation, so he would climb the ladder in his crouching idle pose. The elevator didn't work. It did open and close, but it didn't move the character to another floor. And pulling the lever, which did nicely raise the platform, caused Cloud to clip and slowly sink to the floor below.

The other game was just Spider-Cloud shooting Spongebob's Patrick. Patrick was moving up and down and Cloud could do the same and also shoot his web-fluid, which ... didn't do anything actually. I think the game's background also came from Marvel Alliance.

Outside these games about my heroes, I also made a comic strip about the boys fighting zombies.

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