Audio Blog
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Audio Blog ♪
There’s a ton of gaming news this month alongside my attempt at Kickstarter and the future of the website. As always the written portion of the blog is made with brevity in mind, so please listen to the audio above if you want the full details and nuance with this month’s update. If any links I provide to you do not work, I would consider getting any VPN local to your region and setting a server somewhere in the United States.
Let’s get the business topics out of the way first. I’m officially running a Kickstarter for web hosting fees for the year of 2023. In a nutshell, Squarespace has finally decided to give dedicated video hosting a try and can offer it to its members for an additional fee on top of their current plans. I’ve detailed the rationale behind why I decided to give Kickstarter a try, and hopefully answered any potential questions you may have about it (and my motivations) in this detailed post here. The video I linked you above is from Devin Nash, a fantastic content creator that focuses on the nitty gritty of online platforms and the various issues and observations related to such things. For those of you with a good memory, I quoted one of Devin’s videos regarding streamer mental health issues back in my retrospective for 2021. In any case, I wanted to link the video to you all first and suggest you give it a watch, because it helps explain my motivations on why I really wanted to start up my own platform and have (almost) complete creative control over it. I really want to create content (especially video) that does not have to “live in fear” of being blocked, banned or hidden for no reason whatsoever other than the platform I chose to host it on. If the Kickstarter is successful, I’ll have the opportunity to make that reality for all of you (for free!) on the website. If it fails, then everything will remain the same and it will be business as usual going forward. There’s a proverbial “fork in the road” now for the website and me as a content creator. I’ll leave it to you all to decide the path I will walk for the upcoming year!
The time is finally upon us! Behold, Nikke is finally launching on November 4th world wide simultaneously. So many questions remain about the game amongst months of speculation, and I hope to be alongside all of you to find out those answers. I’ll be making a couple of videos and posting them to the main feed on YouTube (if it will let me) and approaching the game not as some type of expert or veteran, but rather just another player trying to figure things out. And believe me when I say I feel this game is going to go through a ton of changes in the first couple of months of launch, I wouldn’t hold any “starter” guide with a lot of weight until things ultimately settle down. I really have nothing else to say on the topic, since I’m probably playing the game right now as you’re reading this! Go get it.
For my long time visitors to the site (and the YouTube channel) you may be wondering sometimes if I may have heard of something “cultured” in the last few months. The answer to this is probably “yes”. The only reason you don’t hear me talk about it much is because I mostly can’t. Not in video format anyway. And on the website I have to try and space out content that’s balanced between life topics and gaming topics so that I don’t lean too heavy one way or another. Dolphin Wave came out recently which is a heavy fan service game courtesy of the developers of Senran Kagura. I have yet to actually dive deep (ha!) into the game because I’ve been busy with a lot of personal things to take care of since September. But rest assured I will be talking about the game eventually once I have the time to do so. It’s a shame that it came out so close to Nikke’s launch that I will have to put it on the back burner for a bit. But for whatever reason Nikke isn’t your thing (or you just want even more culture in your life), you can try out the game to see if it’s your cup of tea. Keep in mind the game (to my knowledge) has no consolidated English community as of yet. But that’s probably going to change real soon. I’ll keep you updated once I actually start playing.
For those of you who want more mechanic based games with a touch of fan service, E.T.E. Chronicle was also recently released to not much fanfare. The reason the launch was a bit muted is simply because there wasn’t a lot of buzz in English speaking circles and the developer/publisher BiliBili is often associated with “less than friendly” monetization practices. It’s a fantastic looking game and I was able to play for a few hours on release, but haven’t done much else in it since. It’s not because I don’t want to either, it’s just that I’ve been really busy personally on top of ALL OF THESE GAMES seemingly releasing within a 30 day time frame. November is really shaping up to be sensory overload, especially if you’re into mobile gaming.
A blast from the welcomed past. One of my old haunts was a game called Dungeon Maker, and for those truly old school followers of mine; I did a couple of guides for it way back in the day. I became privy to the fact recently that they had started development on a new game called Dungeon Squad, a P2P ($4.99) game that sits in the tower defense genre. It should be noted that although the game is officially launched, it really should be seen as an “open beta” or “early access” game. It still has a lot of development to do down the road, so content can seem a little thin at the moment. Still it falls under the “cultured” category and has some fantastic pixel art. The gameplay loop is simple and addictive and should kill a couple of hours for your first day or night with it. I would keep an eye on this title if the asking price is a bit much (it shouldn’t be frankly, but to each their own) and highly suggest you take a look at it. Please support a developer who has been good to me just as I have to them over the years.
One of the things I wanted to start doing in the future was including games I call “diversions”. These category of games fall into the “highly cultured” but “not much else” category of entertainment that I think would be fun just to mention. More importantly I always try and keep an open mind about stuff and understand that a lot of folks out there are into different things - even if they aren’t completely my cup of tea. More to the point, I have come across a fare share of games that really check some boxes quite well, and then completely ignore or miss others altogether. That’s why I would like to start listing and including these in future content videos, and showcase what their strong points are. But I’m not going to be able to do that with YouTube, who gives me enough trouble already with things I’m heavily interested in as it stands. In any case, the game in the video above is called Refantasia and it’s one of those collector games that heavily focuses on the collection part. The only reason I bring up this game (in a sea of games like it) is that this one actually has Monster and Furry waifus in it. As strange as it sounds, that’s very brave of a developer to do so, since the typical market for these games usually deal with the very mundane “real life” or “lifelike” characters and artwork. Remember, these games are “diversions” and it’s fun just to give them a try for the heck of it (I wouldn’t advise spending on them, but you do you). And I’ll be bringing a lot more of them in the future to you all; if the Kickstarter is successful and I finally have my own video hosting.
Enough with all that gaming stuff, let’s head back to reality and Earth. The video above is from a creator that needs no introduction. If you’ve been living under a rock or in a cave (no pun intended!) for the last couple of years, the video is from The Internet Historian. Unlike his usual hilarious works, this one is quite heavy on the story telling side of things. And I really think it’s a good one to tell this time of year near the holiday season; contextually so for November and Thanksgiving. I think in our modern day lives we all can relate to an older time where things were a lot more clear cut and simpler. And a story of a man completely trapped in a cave and what happened leading up to it and after it might be a stark reminder of the universal human condition. Either way I hope you enjoy the hour long story of years gone by; I certainly did.
Let’s end this massive blog with some quiet time. For those of you who don’t know, I really enjoy the outdoors as much as I do the memes and spicy stuff on the internet. And I’m one those folks who unapologetically likes peaceful walking tours of various places in the world I have no hope of visiting anytime soon. Typically this is where I would give you a video of some place cool in Japan. However for this month’s blog, I wanted to change things a bit and give you an extremely tranquil walking tour of a beautiful place in Switzerland. I really don’t need to explain the content as much as it does so itself, but I will say that if you like this kind of stuff, please check out the other stuff on the channel. I hope everyone takes some time out of their day to relax, reflect and rest. It’s important to keep your life in perspective and everything and everyone around you.
Artist is 奶油鱈魚
That’s it for the November blog! Hope you enjoyed this extremely content rich update. Naturally I’m going to link to the Kickstarter stuff below one more time before you go. It only runs for 30 days (the month of November) so thank you all in advance for your consideration! See you next month with the results!