Tag: videogames

Minor Mixer Modification

This is a rather small post, but the idea came to me rather recently. For anyone not familiar with Mixer, it’s a streaming platform like twitch that is owned by Microsoft and has been slowly gaining popularity. Recently they introduced what they’re referring to as “season 2” for their content. What this means is that for their partner programs, they introduced a system that generates revenue for streamers that if a partnered stream receives spark interactions in their stream chat. (sparks are earned for watching streams and can be used to spawn fun effect and stickers in the chat.) While this is certainly a great improvement and a neat way to support streamers, it does leave a gap for those who haven’t achieved partner status yet.

I can understand that they simply can’t hand out revenue to every streamer that receives spark interactions, so I recommend a different path. While mixer is much less competitive than the current twitch environment, it can still be a challenge to get noticed as you make your attempt to reach partner status, so perhaps sparks could be used to bolster viewability. Currently there is an up and coming section on the main site but ultimately it is a little hard to understand how this system selects who gets to be shown. My suggestion would be to introduce a “hot spot” system in that the more sparks a non-partnered streamer receives, the more likely they are to be seen in another division of streams. This way viewers can donate sparks to lesser known streams and help their favorite streamers receive the attention they otherwise wouldn’t get and thus aid them on the path to becoming proper partners.

While it may not be perfect, I feel as though it could be a possible improvement to help get new dedicated streamers started and give the community an extra tool to support their favorite content creators. If you have any of your own ideas or suggestions, then feel free to add them to the comment section.

N7 Day Sketch

Happy N7 day everyone! To celebrate I figured I’d try my hand at drawing Jane Shepard (a.k.a. FemShep). As my favorite video game series of all time I couldn’t resist. Feel free to share your favorite mass effect moments in the comments or talk about what you hope to see from the series in the future.

For me I actually hope to see more from the Andromeda spin-off. I know the game is far from perfect but I actually really enjoyed my time playing it and I would love to see them either release the quarian arc DLC or a new game altogether. Other than that I wouldn’t say no to a trilogy remake/remaster.

What Ifs #5: Can’t Stop the Music

Odds are you’ve seen at least one musical or musical number. They’re fun, spontaneous, and logically they pretty much make absolutely no sense whatsoever, but we tend to love them anyway. Even if you try to avoid them these little gems tend to make their way into some unlikely programs. This lead me to my current what if.

The spirits of musicals can’t be stopped! To appease them you have to choose one show or game to get its own dedicated musical episode or level. Bonus geek points if you can either come up with a crazy enough scenario for the musicals to happen or even imagine some of the things the characters could sing about.

for me I think I’d pick Doctor Who to receive its own musical episode. The Tardis crew would land on a planet or galactic entertainment center where everyone speaks in song and they find themselves getting dragged along by the crazy choreography and music. And just to make the entire thing more epic, the enemies could be the cybermen who spend the episode singing with synchronized auto-tune voices and electronic music in the background. 

What Ifs #4: Frankenstein’s Reboot

We all have shows, games, and fandoms that we wish we could bring back from the dead. Maybe they never got a chance to finish properly or maybe there’s just nothing like it out there now and you feel like it’d make a spectacular comeback to fill the void. So this lead me to this particular what if scenario.

You have now been given the chance to bring back any finished/canceled show/movie/game franchise back from the grave. The catch? You must combine it with one or more other canceled media to bring your new Frankenstein’s monster reboot to life.

I think if I had the opportunity I’d probably go crazy and combine Danny Phantom, Kim Possible, Ben 10 (alien force), Generator Rex, and American Dragon: Jake Long all into one epic avengers type team up show that has them working against all of the major threats to earth, both supernatural or extraterrestrial.

What Ifs #3: A Particular Set of Skills

So here’s a quick one in honor of National Video Game Day.

If you could use the set of powers/skills/gameplay of one game for any games you play, then what would you choose and why?

As tempting as it may be to choose something like the Doom Slayer or Kratos to just go on a rampage through normally difficult games, I think I’d actually choose my Splatoon inkling for my one set. The idea of laying down turf and using ink to do tuff like scale walls or stealth through levels (if a cardboard box or barrel can work then I don’t think NPCs will care about paint on the ground) just sounds unique and cool to me. Plus I like the idea of an inkling stealing clothes from the different worlds they go to so can they add to their style and “freshness.”

Pikachu Sketch

Just a quick drawing of Pikachu I made on my phone. It’s not much but it feels nice to practice and post something on the blog. Need to keep working on that to make sure I dont keep getting so may large gaps between posts.

Anyways while we’re on the topic of pikachu and pokemon, what are you all thinking about the new Let’s Go games coming out soon? I think its nice they’re taking such a casual approach with this one since it means they can likely go deeper with their official main titles next year.

My Splatoon 2 Main

I’m not that good of an artist but I figured I’d try and practice my drawing skills by making my splatoon 2 inkling on my Note 9 in honor of the switch online service that launches today. Once I get better I might try and go back to add in some shading but until then I hope you enjoy it. Feel free to discuss your opinions of the new service in the comments below.

What Ifs #2: Game on!

After recently watching all of Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series and remembering just how crazy it was that basically everything revolved around a children’s card game, that got me thinking of today’s prompt:

If every conflict (both in your life and in society) had to be resolved by one game, what game would you choose and why?

I’d probably choose the Smash Bros. franchise. I’m not even a pro at the game but remembering their SETTLE IT IN SMASH! advertisements (https://youtu.be/XTVcoedDbxA just in case you need a reminder), I can’t help but imagine how geeky and awesome it would be to have everyone playing Smash Bros. and taking it that seriously as well. Plus with it being the most played game ever I can imagine the roster having well over 200+ characters to choose from as everyone finds their mains and battle it out. 

What Ifs #1: Multiverse Adventure

I realized that with most of my post ideas getting really long and life getting in the way like it usually does, I need smaller posts to interact with the community with so that I don’t end up with long hiatuses in between the big posts. As someone who reads lots of fanfiction, I know how much that can suck. So, I decided that one of the ways I’d do that is by introducing some geeky “what if” topic and then my answer, to spark the imagination as well as a discussion. Here’s the first:

You have been transported to the world of the last anime/cartoon you saw, but you have also been granted the powers/equipment/skills of the main (playable) character of the last game you played (if you play as your custom character then you can choose whether or not you want that body/form as well). Assuming you aren’t completely screwed, what do you plan to do using your new powers? Do you follow the main characters on their path or do you forge your own? 

For me, I ended up with the powers of my Destiny 2 hunter in the world of My Hero Academia. So not the worst situation but it should be interesting to be a magic robot space soldier in a world of natural born superheroes. I’d probably try to become one of the school’s staff so I can at least try to aid the school and its students. Maybe sponsor an after school club that helps students develop their sense of style and how to best use one-liners and quips. Also I can easily imagine a situation where one of the students or teachers accidentally “kills” me and they just stand there freaking out until my ghost just revives me like nothing happened. Knowing his luck, It’d probably be poor cinnamon roll Izuku worried that he accidentally murdered someone with an out of control SMASH attack.