First looks and impressions videos

In terms of confidence building and also varying degrees of success, the last week or so has been something amazing for me. I've been gearing up to ring in the new year with quite a few changes coming to my channels. I think I've also suddenly become a bit more visible to everyone on the internets. I don't know how or why this came about, but I am definitely happy about it! 
I was recently referred to a site called Keymailer by my good friend BurningPunch and it actually is working out in my favor. I have a bunch of new games to make videos on and I'm working on the first of (at this moment) four at this very moment. I need to reconfigure my OBS to make sure I can get these videos recorded and held to a proper standard of quality, so bare with me until I've got the formats for everything set! That being said, these four games are going to be used to start up two new series for my channel, stuff I probably should have been already working on, but I don't know, I never felt my opinion was all that warranted in the community (This has never stopped me from giving it though, haha). 
The two new series will be called On the Hunt and My Two (S)cents. On The Hunt (thanks for the title, Teth!) will be a series where I take a look at Early Access games that I play/have been asked to play and I'll let you know if I think these games are worth keeping a close eye on or not. My Two (S)cents will be more of a general opinion/review type show. I generally try to stay away from early access games, but there are just so very many of them out there. It's basically a genre in and of itself at this point, and far too many games are overlooked for no other reason than they are early access. I don't think I'll be giving a score for the games I feature in either of these series, but I will give you my personal opinion. I hope that's enough to help you decide whether or not you'll give the games I feature a shot! 

Video Quality

This is more of something I feel like I need to write down so I can remember for future reference moreso than a blog that I'm sharing with you guys and gals out there, but I figure putting it on the web means I can access it from anywhere should I need to! 

PS4 Video - 720p 60fps - Capture my microphone but not party chat (Needs in-game voice chat testing).

Game Capture HD - 1080p 60fps capture (w/ mic - use playstation eye and output sound through speakers if necessary to capture party chat/in-game chat)

OBS - 1080p 60fps - will capture video in full screen format (need a new monitor or to use tv and tweak settings)

Everything that PowerDirector edits will lose 60fps, but it will stay at 1080p or move to 1440p sometimes.  

Rerendering fraps videos -> "Best Quality playback" will make the video fullscreen size (Also drops quality down to 360p)

Schedule Changes for 2016

Alright, I know, I know, it's been a long time since I've updated the blog with a new entry. I've mostly just been crossing things off the request list (which can be found here), but that doesn't mean I haven't been working on stuff in the present. There's actually a lot of changes coming to my channel starting in January!
Well, first of all, some series are coming back (namely Unfair-Y Tales!), but also a really big change in terms of scheduling is coming to the channel. I want to spend more time and getting a little more serious in terms of uploads! Right now I'm having a lot of trouble with my schedule because everything I've been filming lately has been part of the same day's upload schedule, so I really needed to find a way to space things out so I'd have time to work on things. I'm going to be changing my schedule in January to a 7 day schedule, so I can have even more regular content! I'm not saying I'll be uploading every single day, but there's certainly a chance that that will be a case. 
Before I show you guys and gals the new schedule I need to let you know that I couldn't have come up with this without CreepshowKate and Valleyofegeria. Their brainstorming help has been absolutely invaluable to me the last two months or so! So without further ado, here's the 2016 schedule as it stands right now:

Sunday

                                                                     Vlogs 
                                                                  Unboxings

Monday

                                                                   Tutorials
                                                                     Guides
                                                                  First Looks

Tuesday

Let's Plays

Wednesday

Stream Highlights

Thursday

General Gaming
Requests

(If a LP is getting long or has a lot of parts, and it's not a fighting game/beat-em-up I may also upload parts of it today as well)

Friday

       Series (Like Okamigakure plays, or other videos that are part of a playlist/not one shots)
        (If a LP is getting long or has a lot of parts, I may also upload parts of it today as well)

Saturday

Fighting Games

Beat-em-ups

(If a LP is getting long or has a lot of parts, and it IS a fighting game/beat-em-up I may also parts of it today as well)

To sum up, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday are staying the same as my current schedule. The rest of the days are changing. The way my current schedule is, it's been very hard for me to work on specific videos because they end up getting pushed really far down the Tuesday pipeline, and it stops becoming plausible to even upload them by the time any of you guys would be able to see them, unless I spammed the hell out of the uploads. I try not to spam uploads because when there's too much content at once, a lot of it ends up being forgotten or looked over. There are a lot of days in this new schedule that have videos that can overlap, and I think coming from the rigidity of my current schedule, this will be a welcome change! Let me know what you guys and gals think! I hope you're all as excited about these changes as I am!  

I really should go to more concerts!

Last night I went to my third ever concert, and for the second time it was to see I Fight Dragons. If you are any kind of fan of chiptune, and rock n roll, please please please do yourself a favor and check them out! You will not be disappointed! 
They played last night at THE STUDIO, part of Webster Hall in NYC and I can describe the venue as nothing other than intimate. The opening act, Megaweapon was also pretty good, I can't leave them out of this post. They're still getting used to their stage presence, but personally, I think they've got what it takes to make it! I'll be following up on them in the future! 
When IFD started to play, CrazyBacon, Kaitylyn and I were third row standing and we could literally touch the band members on stage. It was amazing. I believe there were just enough of us in the crowd so that our singing and the band's singing were at somewhat of an equal volume. There are few occasions in my life where I have ever thought that the group I was with was one cohesive unit, but last night was one of those wonderful times. There's just... something about such a big group all shouting and moving in unison that I don't think you could get in any other situation but a concert. Music really does bring people together!
I'm also going to slip in a little channel stuff in here... I've been thinking, and I think I've officially decided that for every 100 subs and 100 followers I'll be doing a giveaway! I think that's a pretty decent thing to do, right? 

Ponderings

To be honest, before CreepshowKate had sent me that package with a new controller and SuperChargers, I was really on the fence about continuing with YouTube and Twitch and the like. I guess in some ways, my whole online persona and all that. She got me back on the right path, gave me that confidence that I seemed to have been missing since I lost the person in my life that gave me the most confidence I'd ever had. It's weird what exactly gives you that little bump in the right direction that everyone needs every now and then! 

Well, one of the things I had been considering for a while was to make a tubestart or a patreon or something along those lines. I had always thought "but why would anyone want to donate to me as opposed to anyone else?" It's true that I haven't ever been a shining beacon of quality, but I'm always around. When CreepshowKate told me she wanted to help out, I don't know, something that I had been missing just... well, it just clicked. I was going to give up on Skylanders, and really streaming in general before I received that package, but it's really been a huge deal for me as far as my online persona goes. 

It couldn't have come at a better time and it really was the perfect thing! My Twitch fanmily is growing ever-so-steadily and I'm actually interested in other people's streams, which is... well, relatively unprecedented for me! I've also just been... drowning in partnership network e-mails. For the first time in a long time I've actually got that "I might be on to something here!" vibe, and I love that! 

Back to the Patreon/Tubestart dealie, I've been strongly considering those as of late because I finally feel like people may actually have a reason to help me. I know that sounds really weird, but I'm one of those people that gets wildly uncomfortable when other people do something nice for them for no reason. Even though I do stuff that other people would consider the same thing for others pretty often, I don't know how to deal with it when it's directed at me. 

I mentioned previously that the thing about me and my channel is that I'm always around. I may not give people HD content all the time, or play the newest-released games, but people come to me for stuff that they know I can provide. Recently the screen on my laptop died and that means I'm now out of a way to film older consoles (My Easycap doesn't function on Win10 so I can't use that). I will clarify, I'm talking about direct capture in this case. I could point my camcorder at the tv, but I feel like that's not really something I should do, it's like stepping back instead of stepping forward once you've already had direct capture. 

That's where the tubestart/patreon stuff comes in! I feel like this might be a good time to start one, since you guys can help me get my laptop back in working order. That way I can continue to give you guys older console footage and games, and get through the remainder of your requests! I'm not saying I'm going to make one of either of those right this second, but, it's something I'm strongly considering. 

If any of you that read this blog would like to offer your thoughts/ideas, please do! I'm all ears!

So I beat SuperChargers...

As many of you know, or have guessed from my personality, I'm all for things getting better in subsequent iterations of a series. That sounds like it's a pretty reasonable thing to think is going to happen, but especially in game design, that's just not the case. I firmly subscribe to "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," but many game developers don't seem to subscribe to that formula. I can't tell you how pissed it makes me when a game removes something from a previous iteration. 

Take for example, something simple like how in Skylanders: Trap Team, they introduced an entirely new customization item, the trinket. The trinkets don't exist in SuperChargers, but then again, neither does your ability to capture villains, also a bummer. It's not just elements that get removed in subsequent iterations, let's look at Capcom for example. Marvel vs Capcom? The first game had six buttons. Then we lost a set of buttons, and they did the same thing with Power Stone 2. They removed an entire set of combos from the first game. Why? So you added two more characters, but you also removed a layer of depth. Is it worth it? I don't think so, since all the previous characters are now dumbed down.

I recently finished Skylanders: SuperChargers' story and while I loved the story and all the graphical updates and stuff... There's a lot missing from the game. I'm relatively certain that this game (number 5, if you're counting), is actually shorter in length than the first game. I'm 90% certain this is the shortest (story-wise) game in the entire series. Not only that, but they tried to make it longer by removing features that have existed for four games, namely the ability to bring in legacy hats to the game by putting them on characters' heads. You can't unlock hats that way anymore. Instead you have to buy/unlock each and every one of them one by one. In order to facilitate this need, they've made it really difficult to make money in the game compared to past iterations. It's been 3 games since they've raised the max level cap and this game is ABSOLUTELY the easiest to level up in. Before I played SuperChargers I think I had a single Skylander that was max level, and that's only because I had two people that exclusively played him for four entire games. Do you see what I'm getting at here? Why are games getting so short yet maintaining their price tags? Such a silly thing to be happening...

The fact that instead of regular PvP or the AMAZEBALLS SkyGoals mode, we have a racing mode doesn't really bother me. It's just that because they had to develop something all new they basically just have two short games put together. The racing is actually its own game (literally on the Wii and 3DS), and then there's the regular Story, which is incredibly short this time around. How about instead of mashing up two short games into one game, how about the next game goes as long as development needs to make a full game? How about that? 

AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON HOW YOU NEED TO PLAYTEST CO-OP. FFS, IT'S BEEN FIVE GAMES.
PLEASE. PLAYTEST. CO-OP. BEFORE. RELEASE.

That's the one thing you keep!? Get real, guys.

My laptop has the worst luck

So I tweeted about this a couple days ago, but I don't know how many people actually follow me on Twitter, so I think a blog entry might be a good choice too. For those of you that don't know, I use the Easycap to record from my PS1/PS2/GC/DC/Wii on my laptop. My laptop's screen failed about a week ago, and even though I have it hooked up to a monitor right now, I won't be able to film anything with it for a while, until I can figure out what the actual issue with the screen is. I thought for a second it was the GPU again, but it's not (THANK YOU SKY WIZARD!). I'm banking on it being the inverter, because if you look really closely you can tell that the screen is on, it's just incredibly dark. That being said, I won't be able to record anything on any of those consoles in the near future. Looks like I'm actually being forced to play current gen things, oh no!
Speaking of that, one of my big get-together plans for one of Okamigakure's videos has always been a server of just people we know all playing Fistful of Frags on Steam. Just GrimJak and CreepshowKate make for an amazing round, but I think a whole room of us would be absolutely amazing! If you'd like to join in on the fun, please let me know. Fistful of Frags is free to play, so don't worry if you don't have the game, everyone can grab it! 
I'm looking to sink some time into some series that I have begun and not done anything with in a while, so you can expect me to be bringing them back in the near future! What with me only being able to record from semi-modern devices, most of my content should be HD coming up too, haha. I'm also looking for an alternative to Fraps for recording on Windows 10. Since I upgraded to Win10 I have not been able to edit any of the videos I record in Fraps without first re-rendering them in Windows Movie Maker on my laptop. Any other thing I try ends with the videos breaking PowerDirector, causing a myriad of errors. The most common of these errors is a "media source error," which I can't seem to find a way to circumvent. It slows down the video editing processes on a grand scale if I have to re-render each and every video before I can edit them... If anyone has any suggestions for an alternative to Fraps (besides OBS, which I also use), I'd greatly appreciate it! Please and thanks!

NYCC 2015

Another October brings with it another New York Comic Con! Let me tell you guys about my experiences this year!
First of all, we expanded past the Jacob Javits Center and also rented the Hammerstein Ballroom. While that's great and all that we're getting bigger and bigger (we're no SDCC, of course), it's a little strange to make people leave the center to see certain attractions. No one in our group partook in any panels or showings at the Hammerstein Ballroom this year, as we were all much too lazy to walk out and then walk back in. Besides, the best time to walk into NYCC is obviously before the doors open so you can stand in that huge throng of smelly nerds and be one with your people. 
While we didn't make it to the Hammerstein Ballroom for anything, I actually made it to the Main Stage for the Firefly Reunion panel this year along with The Laundry King!

 I FUCKING MADE IT

To get to an event on the main stage, you need to head to the "Queue Hall," which is an entire hall devoted to people just standing in line. You have to wait on line for each panel that you want to see, and you have to run there the absolute second the show opens. Even if you book it to the queue hall you still might not get a wristband, but I suppose knowing at the beginning of the day whether or not you're going to get into a panel is better than standing outside one for the entire day and then finding out you can't get in. Alan Tudyk, Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres and Jewel Staite were at this panel, and it was friggin' amazing! It was so good, that I took notes! Here's a wonderful excerpt:

When asked about their favorite desserts, Jewel just kept rifling off answers, and then she said: 

It's really bad, my nephew asked me the other day if I dyed my hair because I like pumpkin pie so much...

 I also had the chance to attend the Disney Infinity 3.0 panel, and in it they gave us some really cool info on a new expansion coming out called Marvel Battlegrounds. In the Battlegrounds, you'll be able to have 4 player arena brawls (like Power Stone 2) with the Marvel characters in Disney Infinity. They also debuted some new figures coming out on the horizon:

 Hulkbuster and Maskless (MCU) Captain America

 They also were kind enough to hand out a Hulkbuster figure to everyone in attendance!

There were still a lot of issues regarding actually getting into panels, but I have to say, renting out the Hammerstein Ballroom really did help with the overcrowding. You could actually see the floor in most spots while you were upstairs on the show floor, which is something I definitely was not accustomed to. They refused to clear people out of panels, so there are tons of people that literally sit in one room all day, and that causes people who wanted to do other things to be left out of panels they were hoping to be a part of. 

The real difference this year though, was that for the first time in my life, I put on a costume! CrazyBacon and Kaitylyn had different costumes for each of the three days that we attended, but they included me in their Saturday costumes!

I can now say with absolute certainty that attending a con is costume is an entirely different experience than going without one. Everyone you pass is at least 100% more likely to talk to you, and they were already pretty friendly to begin with. The interactions you have are also great! I got chased and speared by two shy guys while lining up in the morning, and a zombie mario and luigi tried to eat me during the day! It was an absolute blast! I've decided from now on that I'm going to try my best to get dressed up at least once whenever I attend NYCC in the future, because that is definitely an experience that I want to relive! 

Hiccups in scheduling and NYCC!

Sorry about the whole, me not streaming thing yesterday. My internet crapped out and was out until about 1 PM this afternoon when I called FiOS support. Robot told me there was a problem, but I still haven't discovered what it is, and the service rep didn't know either. So very helpful!
On top of that, after finally getting internet back, I've come to find that I can't export anything from Twitch to YouTube. I know that it takes a few tries every now and then to get the videos to go through, but I just can't get any to go through today which is rather disconcerting, to say the least. I'm trying everything but I still can't get it to upload anything, so... there may not be a stream highlight upload this week. I'm going to keep at it until it actually works though, I swear it! I feel as though I should at least link to the video somewhere, so more than just my twitch followers can see it. I played through the entirety of X-Men: Destiny on X-Treme difficulty with Shadow Matter Adrian, and I was really hoping to get that up on YouTube. I was planning on starting a brand new playlist of Longplays, since I have a few up there already, and I have more coming down the line! 
Also, this weekend is New York Comic Con 2015! That being said, I won't be around until Monday or so, but I shall return with items to stock my eBay store to the brim and lots more stories! As always, you can expect a vlog next Sunday all about it! I am actually really far behind on stuff so I haven't had a chance to plan out my panels or anything yet... But I will be cosplaying for the first time, so there's that! You can expect to see lots of stupid pictures on this blog in the near future.
I also have a phone interview of sorts for a job I might actually have a chance at getting, so I'm currently freaking out about that. As much as NYCC is stressing me out, I'm glad that I'm stressed about NYCC instead of this interview. I have a lot to think about if I actually get the job...
Also, in terms of games, as most of you know I just got Skylanders: SuperChargers, so you can expect quite a few new Skylanders videos coming up AND I got my hands on a Wii U, so once I have that all set up and ready to go I look forward to playing some new games! 

My friends are freakin' AMAZING!

So I don't know if you've seen some of my recent posts, but I recently made a post about how far I've come in the last year in terms of YouTube and Twitch. I can say at this point that I've come even further since that last post.
For my birthday this year, GrimJak and CrazyBacon got together and upgraded the hell out of my PC. For the first time in my life, I can play video games on ULTRA settings. This is... a momentous occasion for me, to say the least! They bumped me up from 8 to 32GB of RAM, and I got a new Corsair CX 600 PSU and a brand new 2GB GeForce GT 740. This means you can expect more games and better quality videos and streams from me in the future. Now, if only I could figure out what the hell happened to my internet connection, that'd be absolutely stellar. Well it doesn't matter that much, to be honest, since we're going to do our thing again soon where we switch ISPs to avoid a rate hike, hahaha. 
This birthday has been amazing for my online persona. Another friend of mine, you may know her as CreepshowKate (formerly VirtuousTraveler, who I also came to the realization recently was my very first fan!), has just sent a package my way that should help even more with me being Kage_Okami and you guys getting to see stuff. I'm going to be doing an unboxing of that package, whenever it gets here ('CUZ I DON'T ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT'S IN IT). You can expect to see more of her in the near future as she has a brand-spankin' new PC now!  
So, in short, be on the lookout for some new stuff from me and the gang, I'm more pumped than ever to get out there and enjoy some games with all of you!

Upcoming specialty streams!

Hey there guys and gals! I'm not sure when I last wrote an actual new entry here as I've just been updating the request thread as of late, but here I am! Here's some updates and a bit of getting the hype train rolling!
A couple posts ago I had said that Liz decided it was best not to join me for the Kaos Doom Challenge stream and I'm happy to officially announce that ValleyofEgeria will be taking her place for the stream! That stream should probably be coming up next week or so, so get ready for that. I'm also going to assume that Liz has no interest in playing through The Nightmare Express adventure pack in Trap Team either, so VoE will probably take over that stream as well. 
In regards to the Star Wars Battlefront II streams, I've still got two conquests left to complete, and I'm hoping that Rebelmonster23 can join me for at least one of them, as afightingpenguin and CrazyBacon have already helped me complete one each (BOTH PERFECT RUNS, might I add), and I wanted to have the three of them help me out. 
There will also be a PvP (conclave) stream of Warframe coming down the line as well as some Evolve streams with a whole lobby of Okamigakure members. Now that so many of us have a copy of the game, we can definitely get at least five of us in a room at any given time, so expect to see myself, GrimJak, JackBauer, Tethrinblaze, CreepshowKate and PianoNox screaming at one another on a twitch channel near you soon enough! 

Power Stone Tournament Rules

Now that I finally have a set date in mind for my birthday party, I could get a little further into the details on the actual tournament rules. You guys and gals can tune into my Twitch channel on Oct. 3rd for the tournament! Not exactly sure what time, but I've got plenty of time before then to figure that out! I'll be sure to let you know, and if you don't check here I'll definitely be tweeting about it! NOW! LET'S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS! (To defeat the... Huns?)

Power Stone Tourney Rules

• 99 Second Timer
• Matches will consist of 2 Best of 3 Matches
• 3 Power Stones
• Power Gauge Timer OFF
• Extra Items/Damage Recovery/After Rounds Recovery ALL ON
• Transformation Damage 50%
• Transformation Attack 100%
• Final Valgas is BANNED
• NO stages are banned, play what you want!
• Can change characters between MATCHES not between rounds
• One practice match (single round of a match) per character change (IF the player desires)

For those of you in attendance, I'll have a big white board on the wall with the rules, should you forget any of them. Hopefully this tournament goes by a lot quicker and more efficiently than the long-ass Skylanders tournaments of last year, hahaha. 

Okamigakure Hosted Tournament #2

I decided last year during my birthday party that I'd start hosting an annual tournament. Last year's tournament actually ended up being three tournaments, and it took WAAAAAAAY longer than I expected to get through them (If you're interested, I've got a playlist for them here). I'm going to make sure that this year there is just one tournament, and I'm relatively certain a lot more of our partygoers will enter, since this year's game isn't going to be too niche, like Skylanders is.
While I don't actually know when my big birthday shindig is going to be yet, since I've got a ton of other crap to plan beforehand, I DO know what game we'll be playing this year. A few of the core Okamigakure already know and console-permitting have had time to get a little bit of practice in, but I'm going to announce here what we'll be playing and streaming this year!
The 2015 Okamigakure hosted tournament will be.... 

POWER STONE

When I have more information on the time and all that jazz, I'll let you guys and gals (and also my partygoers of course) know! I've got to decide the rules we'll be playing by and all that.
You might be wondering why I chose Power Stone 1 and not 2, but that's actually a simple question to answer. I prefer 1 over 2. While Power Stone 2 had more expansive levels, more items and four player action, there actually was a whole set of combos removed from the game. That's one thing that I absolutely abhor in game design, when you remove something that existed in a previous game in a series. Examples that I ESPECIALLY ABHOR include removing the blinkers from cars in Saints Row the Third and REMOVING TWO WHOLE BUTTONS in Marvel vs Capcom 2. 

Even the best laid plans go awry

I finally got around to asking Liz about YouTube/Twitch stuff and I got a definite "no" this time about the Kaos Doom Challenge stream. She definitely wants me to do it with someone else. I am not sure who I'm going to be running through it with at this point, but I'm probably going to have it done by the end of the year. At this point, I don't have any real intention of buying SuperChargers, so Trap Team just might be my last game in the series. Honestly, Skylanders isn't as fun without someone to share the awe with.
Though, speaking of Skylanders, I've gotten the second Skylander done in my Skylander Path Guides series, and I just got the a-okay from Liz to start working on the third. I'm going to be explaining Eye-Brawl's paths next and I wanted to make sure she was okay with me using her baby, Pumpkin Eye-Brawl. Really the only person that plays him and S2 Chop Chop is her, they're her babies. I just have custody, I guess you could say, haha.
She also gave me the a-ok to use her stories, so as Season 1 (I'm going to do 20 episodes of my life as a whole, mostly my family, and then another 20 episodes -- a season 2 if you will, of stories from school) of Unfair-Y Tales draws to a close, you can expect to hear more about her! Ideally I would have liked for her to actually tell the stories herself, but something tells me that won't happen, ever. Heck, one of the reasons I started Unfair-Y Tales was for her, and as of right now I'm pretty sure she's going to be the absolute last person on the planet to watch them!
I'm also going to be going full circle with the series as the first season comes to a close. Remember how I mentioned all those "stories for later" at the beginning? Well, all of them are coming up real soon! I've been getting better and learning more about PowerDirector with both of these series, so expect more from me, editing-wise, in the future! 

Where have I gotten in the last year?

So it's been about a year since I last posted what I was working towards to improve my internet gaming cred, and a lot has changed since that last post! I've spent the last year or so buffing up my YouTube and Twitch channels, and I've even been able to sink some cash into upgrades that were needed. 
I posted last time that I was working towards getting an HD Capture Card, and I fulfilled that goal, with my ElGato HD60. You haven't seen me use it as much for YouTube as of yet, but that will be changing in the near future. I've been using it mostly for Twitch. I recently upgraded to Win10 though and I'm having a few issues with streaming, so hopefully I can get all of that sorted out as soon as possible. 
I also got my hands on an HD camcorder, thanks to Grim, which really helped me expand my repertoire of videos. It's so much easier for me to work with things that aren't on screen, like Unfair-Y Tales, to give an example! I owe him huge props for that. 
While we did do quite a few Superpowerful Bonanza videos (Which you can find here), I'm not sure if I'll be doing any more board game videos on my channel. My buddy Tethrinblaze is hoping to start up a little more of that in the future, but I'm not really all that interested in board games, truth be told. 
Also thanks to Teth I picked up an S-Video cable for the GameCube so you can expect at least a couple more GameCube videos coming in the near future, both on Twitch and YouTube. Now that I'm in a really good place, I've got time to work on and flesh out all the ideas I've been writing down and brainstorming about since I started to get serious about YouTube! 
Anyway, the things that I'm currently working towards are:

• PC Upgrades

Moreso than just the RAM, I'm strongly considering also getting an upgrade for my graphics card. The more power the more games I own that I will potentially be able to share with you guys! This is the only major item that I haven't had a chance to set any money aside for from the last time I wrote one of these up. If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears!

• Laptop Battery

 As you know, I love me some good old fashioned tech, and while it's probably about time I get rid of my laptop altogether, I'm just not ready. I could really do with a working battery though, as my laptop has begun to freak out from all the direct power, and I mean... It's a laptop, it sucks to have to treat it like a desktop because you can't move it. I have a Sager NP2090, which is the same thing as a COMPAL IFL90, so batteries are kind of hard to find. I'm trying to find a good third party, but I need to do a little more research at this point. If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears to those as well!

• S-Video Cable for Wii

I now have an S-Video cable for all the consoles I own that are capable of accepting one (PS1-3, GameCube and Dreamcast) except for the Wii. While the quality improvements to the video are only viewable by me and whoever else is with me, splitting the signal makes sure that the video doesn't get incredibly dark. For some reason when you split a Yellow RCA cable's signal and display it on both things you're splitting to, the signal ends up getting super dark. I've also got plans for quite a few Wii games' videos in the near future, and I'd like for them to be... As visually pleasing as possible.

The only other item that I'm looking for would be a digital camera, but I'm still kind of on the fence about that one. My old digital camera is sucking the life out of batteries like there's no tomorrow, but my camcorder has somewhat of a decent camera capability, so I don't think it's altogether necessary. Really, if I could get those three aforementioned things, I believe I would be set for the near future in regards to YouTube and Twitch! 

Another LP done, what next?

Well, as of today my Sonic R commentary-less run has been completed, and now I'm sitting here wondering if I should start a new LP or a new ongoing series for YouTube. Speaking of LPs, the Genghis Khan II one I was supposed to be doing on Twitch ended up being a complete bust. Game is hard, boring and all around, just not very interesting or fun. There's no way I'd be able to stomach playing through the whole thing. On top of that, absolutely no one wanted to watch. Teth went so far as to tell me the game was boring after I was already struggling to continue to play it!
I have the basics down for a new game series as well as a new vlog(?) series. Don't worry, I'm not going to quit Unfair-Y Tales or anything like that any time soon. I'm actually considering making it weekly instead of every other week for the second season, which I'm going to be subtitling THE SCHOOL YEARS, and it will be all stories I've picked up via school. A couple high school stories, but mostly college stories, because there's a just a HUGE mass of them from those four years. The best four years of my life, seriously!
I'm getting off topic for this post though... As usual. Anyway, I'm thankful for having good friends that are always willing to help a brother out, so you can expect to see a lot of Okamigakure-centric videos and streams coming up in the near future! I know that I'm not in this alone, and I want to make that more apparent to the rest of you guys as well! Speaking of that, if you haven't had a chance yet, and you want to keep up with what we're doing as a whole, why not drop by our clan facebook page and leave a like? I swear there's a lot of good stuff coming from us in the near future, so stay tuned!

New Month, New Plans

Long time no see, folks! Actually, it hasn't been that long, I've just been updating my older posts lately on the blog. Mostly the requests post, since I've been getting requests and completing old ones too!
Our visitors finally left, so I will be back into my regular groove of streams every other day and actually getting work done! Speaking of every other day streams, as far as that goes, now that I have some time to myself, I intend to start up a new Let's Play over on Twitch in the same vein as the one I did of Knights Contract not too long ago. I haven't actually decided what the next game is going to be, but I'm thinking of playing through Genghis Khan II: Clan of the Gray Wolf for the SNES as the next game. I think it's about time I did something Wolf-related, and also got to playing something on that huge list of games I've got going on my Twitch list of upcoming streams.
I may take breaks of whatever I film next for more Skylanders streams, obviously, and I intend to go through the remaining Galactic Conquests in Star Wars Battlefront II with afightingpenguin, CrazyBacon and Rebel_Monster23. I might end up streaming one versus conquest, because I think that would be a lot of fun, actually.
In addition to those, I've also got some more... secret plans in store for you guys! I know that we said that Liz and I were going to stream the entirety of the Kaos Doom Challenge, but that's kind of up in the air at this point. I bet her children miss her too, haha. No one plays S2 Chop Chop and Pumpkin Eye Brawl but her!

Next couple weeks

For those of you that have been keeping up with Unfair-Y Tales, this post is going to make a lot more sense than for those of you that haven't. The Favorite Child is coming up to visit with her family next week, and they're going to be staying in our house for at least a couple days. I suspect that for the entire duration of their stay I really won't be able to do anything. Thankfully I'm so far ahead on things at this point that nobody may notice that at all!
I'm actually super far ahead on uploads, so I'm trying to make sure that there's a steady stream of content flowing even when I'm unable to really work on anything. I hope to devote a little bit of time in the next couple of days to working on Skylander Path Guides, the next two episodes of which will be devoted to Legendary / Free Ranger, so you can expect that when the Sonic R videos stop flowing! About that though, sorry again for accidentally releasing what was supposed to be the final video first, but, what can I say? I've been a little stressed out lately! 
The real issue in the coming weeks for me will be streaming, as I don't think I'll have any time/the ability to stream without being interrupted in some fashion. I intend to make up for that by starting a new game after The Favorite Child's visit has ended, so at least you guys and gals out there will have something to look forward to over on my twitch channel! I'm actually starting to enjoy myself when I stream, and I have all of you out there to thank for that!
Even though I may not be actively working on anything, I have a slate of requests coming up on Saturdays for the foreseeable future and I'm going to be working on more of those after I finish up the next set of Skylander Path Guides!
That about wraps up the updates. Hopefully I see you all sooner, rather than later! 

Music in games

It's no surprise to anyone that I'm a huge fan of video game (inspired) music. I guess I don't have a preference for what kind of music it is, as long as it's somewhat video game related. What I'm getting at is that while not nearly as important as gameplay, the BGM in a game can really influence whether you feel at home in the game's world, whether or not you like the game. 
There's lots of iconic video game soundtracks out there that even the slightest fan would recognize after just a five second sampling. There are tons of amazing video game composers out there in the mix, some well known and some... not so much. One of the games with a soundtrack that's stuck with me through the years that I almost NEVER play has been Sonic R.
It's a... 3D racing game where instead of you racing cars, or, as was popular at the time, karts, you actually just race with/against the characters in the Sonic the Hedgehog universe. I never really understood why Sonic needed a car in Sega Superstars Racing. Let's face it, he can run at near-lightspeed, and he can even fly with chaos emeralds. What does he need a car for? When he goes super in that game he even ditches the car altogether. Unless he's afraid of getting tired, I don't really see a point in him driving the car at all. 
The reason I'm writing this article is because I am gonna try something a little bit different in the near future. I've been looking at my notebook and trying to decide what I want to do for the next few weeks in regards to Tuesday uploads. I played Sonic R to completion sometime in high school, and I have never played it after that, but I am 100% sure that I know all of the music to it, and it has stuck with me to this day. I'm going to start a LP of the game without commentary on my channel once I get things figured out (As we all know Win8.1 can be rather finnicky when it comes to installing older programs). I want all of you guys out there to be able to enjoy the music to this game like I do, even after all these years. 
I know that I have a lot of work to do getting to your requests and other things I've said I've done, but I'm actually really backed up on fighting game/beat-em-up videos at this point. I've got Saturday uploads scheduled ALLLL the way until September! I've got Tekken, Bloody Roar, Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 and MUGEN requests coming up, as well as some more Okamigakure-full videos! 

Stay tuned, the best is yet to come!

First giveaway went a-ok!

I actually did something people have been telling me to do for ages, and it kind of went a-ok! It didn't draw the kind of crowd I was hoping for, but I can't really complain, considering I decided to host it via Google+. Yeah yeah, I know, that was my first mistake. 
In any case, I was giving away two Xbox One Smite Beta keys, but literally only one person entered the giveaway, so if you've got an Xbox One and you're reading this, I've got a beta key, just comment or message me and I'll send it on over.
Still, one person, one winner is definitely a good start, it could have been worse, right? I actually had someone half enter, and then remove their entry, which I thought was absolutely hilarious. I've never realized some people revoke their own entry to free things. I don't have anything else to giveaway at the moment that I'm willing to part with, so you guys will have to wait and see when I do this again! I think that I'll go for a different social media outlet than G+ next time too, ha.
Unrelated to the giveaway, but the new thing within Okamigakure's core group is Evolve on PS4, so if you want to come join in on the fun, I'll be streaming it every other night over on my Twitch. Hopefully I see you guys and gals there! 

(Slight) Schedule changes!

Hey there, guys and gals! As you may have discerned from the title, this here post is going to be about some changes to my upload schedule! Nothing is changing streaming wise (You can still find me streaming every other day, usually ~8-10 PM EDT on my Twitch Channel), so no need to worry about that! This is all about dem YouTube uploads.
The small changes are coming in two-fold, really. The first change is that I'm not going to keep a limit on uploads for the week anymore, so I won't just be stopping at four uploads per week, wherever applicable. I've got a lot of footage building up and I feel like it's time to let the floodgates go! Don't worry, it won't be like last year or so, when I just uploaded like 10 videos the last Saturday of every month, the upload days will continue to remain the same. 
For those of you that don't know my existing YouTube upload schedule:

• Sunday: Vlogs/Unboxings
• Tuesday: General Gaming
• Wednesday: Twitch Highlights
• Saturday: Fighting games/beat-em-ups

The other change is that since I've been taking Twitch a little more seriously, and I have a huge backlog of highlights, I'll be changing my tune and uploading twitch highlights every Wednesday from now on, instead of every other Wednesday. I think this is a good way to bring more people over to my Twitch channel, and also to show you guys that I WILL be streaming, as regularly as possible from now on. So come on down and join me! 
I'm going to try and make sure that I have something uploaded on all four upload days each week, or, at least all three of the gameplay days. I won't be doing unboxings every week when there's no Unfair-Y Tales, so no need to worry about that. Wanted to keep y'all up to date with the happenings of my YouTube channel, so here you go! Hopefully I'll see you all around soon!

The Summer of Visits!

This summer is going to be extra strange for me, since it'll be the first summer I've basically got a never-ending slate of people visiting me! This means a couple things for you guys, as Kage_Okami's audience, besides what it means for me!
Since I'm so far ahead on uploads (at least as far as Saturday uploads are concerned at this point, anyway), I've had a lot of time to work on what I'm uploading next, as you all know. This extra time has gone a long way into planning exactly what will be coming next! I've got big streams planned in the near future, as well as more filming parties! Seems like now is just as good a time as any to start getting serious, RIGHT?!
In addition, I've been keeping the schedule up as much as possible, which has been kind of nice. I need to find my niche on Twitch, like I've got on YouTube at this point. I've been noticing lately that I could try to bring my old community back together through Twitch MUGEN streams, but the AI is so annoying! The coding, everything, just a hassle. If I'm going to be bringing back that kind of community, then I'm going to need friends to help me out! Come join me every other day on my Twitch channel and hang out! I've got big things planned, I swear!
I think that gives you an idea about what kind of big group streams are coming soon, but there will be more than you think! I'm going to attempt to get two new series off the ground in the near future, so, stay tuned to my YouTube channel, especially if you like Skylanders or Rogue Legacy. 

Streaming is going okay, for once!

It's been like two weeks and I've actually kept up with my streaming schedule, every day that I've been home! It's actually been sort of enjoyable, just having people stop by and chill out with me. That's the kind of experience I've wanted to gain from streaming, and it finally seems like it's a reality. I guess I've grown to hate streaming a little bit less than I have in the past. 
I've been working on Knights Contract every other night for a week or so now, and I think I'm about 2/3 of the way done with the game at this point. I'll probably end up streaming it on another difficulty after I'm done with Squire. I want to see if you can take your upgraded/unlocked spells with you when you move on to another difficulty! As my first complete Let's Play via stream, I think I've done pretty well with it, wouldn't you say? 
I'm working on some special multiplayer streams, so stay tuned to my Twitch channel in the near future! Now that I have time to work on things and actually plan, I'm pretty happy with myself, and I think that's already spread to my work ethic as well. 
Unrelated to streaming, but our little group has secured tickets to NYCC again this year, so if you're going to be going, let me know and we can try to meet up! 

IT'S GONNA BE MAY! Oh... I'm late.

Hey there guys and gals! I... um, I'm late again, but that's fine, right!? RIGHT?!

Anyway, wanted to catch you guys up with some more stuff that I've been working on! I'm super excited and I feel like I've finally accomplished something since I got my first payout from Fullscreen! I DID SOMETHING RIGHT IN MY LIFE GUYS, ISN'T THAT CRAZY!?
That's not what I wanted to talk to you guys at all about, this post is mostly going to be about Twitch plans for the near future. After I sat down and worked out what I wanted the next steps for YouTube to be, I went ahead and worked on what I wanted the next steps for Twitch to be! I've had that table up on my Twitch channel for ages, but I haven't actually used it, oddly enough. I figured that was something that was drastically in need of a change, so I sat down and schemed... MWAHAHAHAHAHA-- Um. I planned out what I'll be doing. 

I don't know if this is common knowledge or if it's only widely known within Okamigakure specifically, but I'm actually not a huge fan of streaming. I legitimately began streaming because of Tethrinblaze, as he would not stop bugging me about it. Streaming is something that's actually really difficult for me to accomplish as my internet is relatively subpar, and well, y'know, there is my well, "aggressively stupid" family. The likelihood of me having a stream going off without a hitch is almost in the negatives, but, I should probably give it a real shot. I would love to have a community again, like we used to have on the now retired Okamigakure forums...
So how will I accomplish this? Well, first of all I separated and planned different occasions for all of the games that are in the table currently, and then I added a few more. I've got four different planned groupings for streams: Single Player streams, Full game streams, Multiplayer streams, and Co-Op streams. If you've been keeping up with my Twitch channel, you'd see that I've actually decided to tackle Metal Slug first. I've already played through Metal Slugs 1-5 & X as part of the Metal Slug Anthology on the Wii, so that only leaves Metal Slug 6. After that I intend to change games for a while. I'm not sure yet what i'll be doing next, but I plan on streaming every other day for the foreseeable future, at least an hour a day. 

I think there's something about May, but it seems like now is the time everyone wants to start doing things on twitch, whether they be big or small. My buddy VinnyOmerta just began a 120 day stream challenge recently, and one of my favorite YouTubers, STAR_, just decided he was going to start streaming regularly as well for the foreseeable future as well over on his Twitch channel. Now just seems to be the right time to get into it, I guess! 

While you already know the games in the table, as you've probably been staring at them for months, hoping I would actually play them, I'm going to let you guys in on some of the other streams I've got planned, in addition to the games in the table. I'll let you guess which of the four groups they're part of though. 

What, you thought I wasn't going to be a jerk about it?  

Games not in the table that will be streamed in no particular order:

• Skylanders: Trap Team (PS3)
• Knights Contract (PS3)
• Star Wars Battlefront 2 (PS2)
• Blue Toad Murder Files (PS3 - I'm not sure if this will be a series of videos on YouTube or a stream, we'll see)
• EX Troopers エクストルーパーズ (PS3)

Let's hope these plans don't go awry

Look at me, actually blogging on a somewhat regular basis, WHAT IS THIS SORCERY? HAVE I BEEN POSSESSED? Possibly. Though my sister hasn't screamed "SATAN, LEAVE THIS PLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!" in quite a while. In any case, I'd like to catch you guys up on what I spent yesterday doing.
Since I'm now just about two months ahead on uploads for YouTube, and I've got nothing left to edit, I've taken the time to sit down and plan out the next steps for my channel! In regards to Unfair-Y Tales, I chose a new 20th episode (One of my original twenty was added into another existing episode), and then went about ordering the remaining 13. Then I spent pretty much the whole afternoon working on the outlines for ALL of them. I was hella proud of myself, but I certainly didn't stop there!
I started working on my new series, (I'm just in the planning stages right now, I haven't had time to sit down and get footage) and I've got the first set of videos planned for Skylander Path Guides. I've decided that I'm going to cycle through the elements, but if I've got two of the same skylander, try to hit up both paths in one pair of videos. I was debating on whether or not to just go in alphabetical order, but I figured that would not be very fun. 
I'm going to go through all the skills in the tree when I do the top tree of a Skylander. If I've only got one of that Skylander, and I'm in the bottom tree (assuming none of my friends have the same Skylander), then I won't be touching upon all of the skills, only the bottom skills in the tree. This way, if one of us gets a Skylander later on that I've already done the bottom skill tree video for, then I won't confuse the audience by having all of the skills touched upon in the Bottom Tree video instead. The other confusing thing will be Wow Pows, so I will list in the title the version of the Skylander, so you'll know if they have a Wow Pow or not.
I was trying to decide exactly how to deal with the Skylanders, as in, where to start for each game, which Skylanders to start with... and I came up with a progression of where the Skylanders come from. It's going to go like this: Trap Team>Swap Force>Giants>Spyro's Adventure>Spyro's Adventure>Giants>Swap Force>Trap Team. Then the cycle will start anew! I have the entire first cycle planned out, so sorry if you want to put requests in... Not just yet! The Elemental Cycle is going to go like this: Darkness>Air>Undead>Tech>Magic>Fire>Water>Light>Life>Earth and it will reset when I'm done with Earth each time. When I run out of skylanders in a particular element, I will just continue onto the next element (You might have guessed that there aren't many videos I could do for Light & Darkness since there are only two different skylanders in each of those two elements). 
On the Twitch front, I've been looking at that table I've had sitting on my channel for ages, and haven't actually done anything with. I spent a bit of time yesterday planning out how exactly to have those streams go, as in, how to play those particular games. I now have a set of games that I intend to play the entire way through, games that I should do in multiplayer, and games that I should play in Co-Op. Some of those overlap in multiple sets, but at least I know now the format in which I intend to play them! This is, in addition to the other streams I have planned.
There's a lot of good stuff coming, both on YouTube and on Twitch, so stay tuned!
 

Movin' On Up!

I've had a pretty good last couple of days, so lemme tell you all about it! 
On the eBay front, as of yesterday, I finally got to the ALMIGHTY CYAN STAR, AW YISSSSSSSSSSSSS (That's 100 feedback, aaand I'm still at 100%). This will bump me up in the search rankings, and my store has actually been doing pretty well as is recently too. It's actually really exciting to be succeeding at something that I've been working on for quite a while. That feeling of success through perseverance is just the best.
On the YouTube front, I don't know if you all out there know this, but I take weekly notes from my analytics. For the first time in... I honestly can't tell you how long, my most watched video last week was not a legacy video (When I say "legacy," I mean a video from back in the day, usually one from pre-college). My most watched video last week was How upgrades work in Dungeon Defenders 2. This is exciting for many reasons! 
For my most watched video of the week to be a non-legacy video, that means I'm doing something right. I've been sticking to YouTube for like a year and a half now, and I was kind of getting worried that I'd never get anywhere. That all changed when the fire nation att-- I MEAN, when Unfair-Y Tales began, but it really seems to be taking off now. The other thing that this makes me happy about is that I've been able to help someone, somehow. 
I have a really vested interest in tutorials or breakdowns/walkthroughs. I love to be able to help people, and especially when it's something that I know a lot about and I know other people might not. The fact that it's a tutorial that is doing so well only makes my desire to work on Skylander Path Guides intensify. I was worried about what kind of tutorial/breakdown to make after I stopped playing Rumble Fighter, but I think that I'll be doing fine with all that I've got planned at the moment! 
I'm actually right now about two months ahead on uploads for YouTube, so I have time to work on new series. I also realized that I need to get some requests done too. I can't forget the people who have helped to shape my channel over the years, and I want to support you guys just like you've supported me!

Filming devices

After using my Vita, camera and camcorder to film Superpowerful Bonanza games twice in the recent past, I've learned some things about them! I figured I should write them down so that I can remember. In case anyone else is wondering about them or is attempting to try recording videos with any of these devices, maybe I can help you out too!
The camera I used, and have been using for a while (I recorded [SGS 001] Mystic Defender and a few other Genesis games with it), is a Sony Cybershot DSC-S700. It's actually a hand-me-down from my good buddy Tethrinblaze because the only other cameras I've got are a polaroid I-Zone and this really old somewhat fancy camera that when you take a picture, it imprints images of the TMNT on the film! Neither of those are very good for recording video, so he gave me his old camera. I've got a 1GB card in there now, and I've learned through filming SPB that you can fit just about one hour of footage on a 1 GB card if you're recording video. The video is recorded in full screen mode. 
The PlayStation Vita is the next device that I used and I filmed the first two Unfair-Y Tales (Not counting A Dramatic Reading of a Yearbook Signing) with it. I've got a 16GB card in there right now and I haven't even come close to filling it up yet, and I have a lot of junk on that card! The Vita has a hardware limitation where it can only record 30 minutes of video at any given time, so you have to keep that in mind. The good thing about that is that it has a beep alarm to tell you when your 30 minutes are up. I kind of wish it told you beforehand, but any kind of alarm is a-okay by me! You need to manually start a new recording once the 30 minutes is up too! Regardless of which camera you use, video is recorded in full screen. 
My fancy-pants new Camcorder, the Samsung HMX-F90 is my newest piece of hardware and also takes the prettiest videos. I've got a 32GB card in there at the moment and I haven't come anywhere close to filling it up at this point. What I learned about recording video with it while filming SPB is that instead of the 30 minute limitation that the vita has, this camcorder has a 20 minute limitation. It automatically starts the next video after the 20 minutes are up, but there is a 3-4 second delay between the two video files, which can be kind of annoying... This is the only recording device I've got that records in widescreen format. We've also come to find that while the memory card is not an issue, the battery life is only good for recording about two hours, continuously. I used italics there because it's not really two hours, it will die before the second hour is up, but you can turn it on and record a bit more before it dies for good. 

Ahhhhh! THE BORDERLANDS!

I've been a huge fan of the Borderlands series for years. I can't even tell you how many hours I've logged in total across the three games and the many platforms I've played on. I don't usually go out of my way to repurchase games that I already have, unless they're going to be giving me a lot extra. The first game I did that with happened to be Kingdom Hearts II.5, because I have wanted to play Birth By Sleep for YEARS! I never had a PSP so I didn't get a chance to try it out...
Wait wait, wasn't this supposed to be a post about Borderlands? Oh yeah! Anyway, Grim was kind enough to get me and a bunch of other people a copy of Borderlands: The Handsome Collection for PS4, and we started to play it last night. Within the PlayStation ecosystem (PS3-PS4-Vita), you can actually transfer files around willy-nilly for one character at a time between consoles, so I could have potentially moved over all twelve of my Borderlands 2 characters onto the PS4 but I chose to take it slow and only move over one character, my level 14 Mechromancer, Gaige-archy. We ended up doing the beginning again and... for all of the hours I've put into the game, especially doing the first 2-3 hours of the game 12 times for me personally, and countless other times helping people... For the first time ever, I found playing Borderlands boring. 
I don't know if it's because I've done it so many times, or... I don't want to help new people or what... But... It's actually kind of scary that I suddenly became bored with something I absolutely love. I did absolutely everything in the first game with Brick and Lilith and I never got bored jumping back in to play with my friends. Hell, I didn't even get bored slumming through Pandora all alone. 
Maybe once we get past the beginning everything will be peachy-keen again and I'll discover that love I once had, but... maybe not. There's still The Pre-Sequel! to play, and that will at least have something new for me to do. I have a copy on Steam so I can't move over my characters like I can with BL2, but I haven't played Wilhelm, Nisha or Aurelia yet, so that will hopefully (fingers crossed) be very very fun to try out! 
The real thing I want to get down to is how many times can you play the same game before it gets boring? How many times can you re-hash the same thing before it becomes stale? Apparently fifteen is my limit, give or take. There's a lot of remakes and remasters coming soon, and I just don't think it's a very sustainable environment, in any sort of medium, yet... There are more of these re-'s coming out now than ever before. I'm a little worried for the future of entertainment at this rate...

Just one of those days

You ever have one of those days, where you wake up kind of early, and you don't feel sluggish, there's no haze about you, and you just... I don't know, feel good about the day? Today is one of those days for me, got up, got ready, didn't hit a single snag, and now I'm ready to deal with the day!
Well, the filming parties, though we didn't do everything on the schedule I had originally planned both went relatively swimmingly (Minus the whole GrimJak falling down the stairs and kneeing a hole in the wall... That's some Unfair-Y Tales stuff right there!), and I'm happy to announce that I'll most likely be making filming parties a regular thing. Okamigakure will live again, not in forum form, but in FUN form! HELL TO THE YES! 
In other words, I may be separated geographically from my clanmates and many of my friends, but that's a silly thing to stop us from getting together. It's high time I realized that. I used to have a phrase I would use with the international students at college and I don't know why I haven't applied "Distance can't separate friends" to my friends from home and elsewhere in the States. Seems kind of silly, doesn't it? 
I should have enough footage to tide me over, and I've learned enough about PowerDirector at this point, that I can officially start my next tutorial-type project. I'm really happy to announce a new series coming to my channel in the near future: Skylander Path Guides! 
For those of you that don't know, each skylander has a branching skill tree, so generally speaking, you need two of the same character if you want to have all of their moves at your disposal, without constantly resetting or with Series 2 skylanders on, switching trees. I haven't seen too many people actually do this, and I think that it's actually really important to know which path you want when you jump into working on your skylander! You might think one tree is really cool, and then absolutely hate it, and that ends up making you reset the skylander back to level 1... Nobody wants to do that, and I figure I know enough about all of the skylanders at this point to actually make these videos a reality.
I had a specific plan for skylanders that have been around since Spyro's Adventure, and I'm happy that I finally realized how to make it happen in the actual videos! I'm really excited to have something to do that can help a community that I'm part of now that Rumble Fighter is no longer in my life!
Don't forget that Unfair-Y Tales releases every other Sunday for the duration of Season 1, but... If I have enough footage from these two filming parties, I might even get to start up a third series too! Be on the lookout Tuesdays on my YouTube channel for Skylander Path Guides in the coming month and also for a surprise new series in the future too!

Filming Parties

So, I've got a lot of time on my hands lately, and I've had plenty of things sitting on the backburner just waiting to be completed for quite a while. I think it's high time I started getting to all those little notches in my work notebook, don't you think?
One of the things I have realized, or at least have been seeing more and more of over time, when it comes to gaming channels on YouTube (Like mine), they don't exist in isolation. For the most part, every major YouTuber has a community that they exist as part of, as well as collaborate with on a regular basis. While I do have great friends like Tethrinblaze, Kenbei and TheBurningPunch, I just don't do enough stuff with them. I do a lot of streaming over on twitch with the group, but certainly not enough stuff on the YouTubs for it to sustain.
THAT'S ALL ABOUT TO CHANGE! You can expect more videos of group plays on my channel in the near future! This started with the Superpowerful Bonanza party, where GrimJak made a very valid point: It's not necessary to have a holiday for us to party! I intend to take this to heart, so... There will be another Superpowerful Bonanza party in the near future, but you'll have to wait a bit to see the results, since... I'm still airing the original!

In addition to that, right after we have that filming party, I intend to have another filming party for another game that I have been meaning to film for years! With that video I'll be introducing you guys to someone new in the group, if all goes according to plan! I've been too lazy and/or scared to get a lot of this stuff done, but... not anymore! 

LET'S GET THIS PARTY STARTED! 

 

The next Let's Play

I know I had been telling you guys for a while that the next Let's Play was going to be Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, but since y'know, I'm not part of a couple anymore, it'd be pretty difficult to play Couples' Co-Op! Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects story will be over by the end of this month, so I would have been starting Brothers next month. With that being said, I have a few other ideas for what to do instead! 
There are a lot of other series I have been planning out for quite a while, so I think I'm going to spend some time getting a few of those off the ground, while getting requests done and giving a lot of games with very little footage some love. I'd like to have at least one video game series that I can come back to every now and then like I have with Unfair-Y Tales going right now. For far too long since I stopped playing MUGEN regularly, my channel has just been all over the place... I'd like to get at least something of a bread and butter kinda game/video in place.
You can certainly expect more tutorial/guide series/videos in the future cough Skylanders cough though, so you needn't worry about that. I may not be teaching in a classroom setting, but I still love to help people! I might even be starting up one of those new series pretty soon, so keep your eyes peeled!