Howdy, strangers! Geez, it’s been a while since I blogged. I apologise for not having a lengthy, in-depth article for you, but I haven’t had enough time or desire to sit down and write one.
Instead, I have a grudge to settle. Remember way back in the day, when we were fundraising for the site? I started playing Super Metroid to do my part, and got about two-thirds of the way through the game before wandering away. Well, guess whaaaat?… [Read more…]
Well, I’m continuing anyway. I had such fun with Super Metroid last weekend that during the second part I suggested resuming it this weekend. When I then got word of how successful the fundraiser had been (while others have spilled the beans, I’ll defer to PZ for the big reveal), well, I simply had to.
As per my usual, I’ve already been streaming for an hour. You can catch up with it on Twitch, and later on the video will migrate to my YouTube channel.
This is another halftime post. I just managed a sequence break by bomb-jumping to get the ice beam, and I’m about to start a big long backtrack where I go back through prior areas with all my new gear. The second half of the live stream is currently active at this link, FYI.
If you like this, for loose definitions of “this,” consider donating to us or Skepticon to help pay off our legal bills. Either way, you can tune into the stream. Can’t make the stream? It’ll stay on my Twitch channel for two weeks, then migrate over to my YouTube channel.
As usual, I didn’t give myself enough time to write a post reminding you of the game stream before I started streaming. Oh well, at least I can make up for it during the break! The live stream is currently active at this link, and right now I’m just at the start of Brinstar.
If you like this, for loose definitions of “this,” consider donating to us or Skepticon to help pay off our legal bills. Either way, you can tune into the stream. Can’t make the stream? It’ll stay on my Twitch channel for two weeks, then migrate over to my YouTube channel.
Howdy, strangers! Gawd, I think I’ve promised myself and others that I’ll start blogging again a half-dozen times or so, and up until this moment it’s never stuck. This time is different, if only because I have a good cause: it’s fundraiser time again at this blog network! I’ve got two contributions planned, the first of which is a gaming stream on Saturday and Sunday. Since the theme this time is Mother’s day, I thought I’d celebrate two famous mothers.
Mother Brain, from Metroid (1986); “Samus and baby Metroid“, by zgul-osr1113 @ DeviantArt
According to the manga, Mother Brain raised Samus Aran when she was young, which played out pretty much as you’d expect. Aran and the Metroids are two different species (though Samus’ DNA is all kinds of mixed up, and like what is a species anyway?), but she spends some time protecting and nurturing a baby Metroid. Both of them check the minimum required boxes, and one’s even got “mother” in their name. It’s perfect!
Saturday and Sunday, at 10AM MDT, I’ll be streaming Super Metroid over on my Twitch channel. It’ll stay there for two weeks before migrating to my YouTube channel. I haven’t played the game in decades, so I’ll keep a map handy, but otherwise I’ll be winging it.
If you like this, for loose definitions of “this,” consider donating to us or Skepticon to help pay off our legal bills. Otherwise, you’ll see me in a few days.
To my utter shock, I was no less than two minutes past the official starting point for today’s stream of Stardew Valley! That was the main reason I never announced the stream, in fact, I was too tempted by starting it on time to tab away and write up a blog post. For the next two weeks the video is available on my Twitch page, and after that will pop up on my YouTube archive.
As for the guide on streaming…. ugh. It turns out I have so many tasks to do that I forgot about a rather major one, so after today’s stream I couldn’t resume work on the guide. I’ve got a fair amount of it already in the can, but I don’t want to release anything half-baked. My workload should lessen up mid-week, which will allow me to resume work on it.
I really hate to delay that, especially given how generous everyone has been. We’ve raised an astounding $3,006.94 during this round for FtB! I was pretty convinced we’d never crack $2,200, but you’ve soundly proven me wrong. Thank you so much for helping pay off this network’s legal bills, it helps all of us sleep better at night. You better believe that I’m going to repay the generosity with the best guide to streaming I can muster.
But, in the meantime, I’ve got to crank up the volume and get coding.
Yeesh, I always forget how long it takes to encode video. All complaints aside, FtB’s Discord has started running a usually-weekly game of Among Us among the commenters and bloggers. For the fundraiser, I asked if we could record one of our games, and the group agreed! Lyrandar, Zankou, and myself recorded our streams, and Zankou did the heavy lifting of stitching it all together.
Follow this link, and in about fifteen minutes you’ll get to watch the results. If you like it, or just like what we do around here, think about forking over some funds to us or Skepticon to help pay off our legal bills. This is just one of many events we’re putting on, too! Check’m all out.
Just over two point five hours late, but it’s happening nonetheless! Tune in to my Twitch channel to watch. And if you want to help out the blogging network, chip in some funds to us or Skepticon.
I knew this fundraiser would be trouble for me, as it coincided with a probable work crunch. I’d actually been counting on a bit of trouble, in fact, as I figured the deadline pressure would help lift me over my COVID-19 lethargy.
It didn’t pan out that way. Quite the contrary, in fact; after ticking off my absolutely-must-do-or-else items, I crashed. That coincided with yesterday, which was supposed to be my catch-up day for fundraiser tasks. So as I’m typing this, around when I was supposed to go live with some Stardew Valley gaming, I’ve still got some graphic design work to finish off and splits to write before I can go live. The good news is that it won’t be delayed more than two hours, very little of my gaming setup has changed since last time so I’m not reinventing the wheel.
My post advertising the Among Us game kept getting kicked in favour of those absolutely-must-do-or-else items, too. At this point I’m probably better off writing something an hour before it premieres and linking to the resulting video. But it too doesn’t require much work on my end: the recording was all done a week ago, and Zankou over on the FtB Discord delivered an edited version of it to me, so I just have to slap the aforementioned graphic design on the start and end of it and fire it off to my YouTube channel. If I can’t get that finished today, something’s gone horribly wrong.
My big worry is that streaming guide. I’ve already got forty-plus slides for it, practised one of the live demos I’d planned, and know what I’m going to do for the other, but there’s still a tonne of recording and prep work to be done. If everything falls into place perfectly I could still get it out the door today, but I doubt my luck is that good. Tomorrow works better, in fact, as my plan was always to split Stardew Valley across two days. Four hours of gaming in one day is just…. woof, so this fundraiser has always been a two-day affair for me.
So sorry for the delays, but I don’t intend to roll back my plans for the fundraiser. It’s the least I could do to pay back your generosity.
My thought process for choosing this game was pretty straightforward: fall is a time of harvest, some sort of game where I’m harvesting makes sense, so why not play Stardew Valley? I’ve fallen head over heels for sandbox games, yet never played Harvest Moon. And Stardew Valley is an indie game originally made by one person. It ticks every box.
Alas, it also ticks one more: colonialism. The game gives you a farm once owned by a grandparent, for free, and allows you to develop the place into whatever farm or mining business you want. The context and location sound very North American, which implies there were once First Nations people on that land (though apparently the game actually takes place in Russia?). In reality, if you’re stuck in a soul-sucking job there’s no shortage of options to wiggle out, like starting up an art collective or striking for improved work conditions; in game, though, your “choice” is either to remain in stasis or move into someone else’s place. The game never gives you that choice, though, the moment you gain control of your character is the moment after you’ve taken over this new space. To add insult to injury, you’re still not free of capitalism; oh no, you’ll spend a fair bit of time finding ways to earn cash to trade for goods and services, planting the seeds of your old society in this new space.
This doesn’t make the game any less fun, but it also lingers over it like a faint smell. On Saturday December 5th, at 10:00 AM MDT, I’ll be both enjoying and dissecting this game on my Twitch channel. If you like the concept, consider donating to our fundraiser. It’ll help pay off the legal fees we’re still paying thanks to Richard Carrier. Alternatively, toss some money at Skepticon to pay off their Carrier-related bills. No funds? Not a problem, though you might want to read this to get into the spirit of things.