It's Time To Raise Money For Educational Charities!
Hey everyone, as I hinted at during the first part of my Club Dead retrospective, this weekend will mark the start of the Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run. I will join those participating by streaming video game goodness this year as in previous years. My typical structure during the Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run (i.e., GBCER) is to play for about six hours on Friday, ten to twelve hours on Saturday, and another six hours on Sunday. I will modify that slightly but follow that template again. My plan of using these streams to echo my most popular blogging content on the site will perfectly mimic my streaming and donation goals. I will have a fun assortment of adventure games, RPGs, and overall weird shit you likely have never heard of until today. If you have been a fan of the blogs I have written or appreciate the Community Spotlight feature I author with the help of Marino, please consider donating. Even small amounts are appreciated, and the charity I am working with, Pencils of Promise, works to build schools, train teachers, send kids to school, and provide parts of the world with clean access to water. 100% of your donation goes to their charitable efforts and will NOT go to overhead or administrative payroll.
Nonetheless, it's BEEN A YEAR for the Giant Bomb Community. This year's charity drive experienced significant replanning and restructuring due to recent events associated with the site. This year will be one of the hardest for me to reach my donation goal. And yet, I'm still optimistic and happy to be a participant. If you are not in a position to donate this year, that's okay! Catch the fun in the Giant Bomb chat or Explosiveruns.com! Also, consider sharing the donation link to my charity page with anyone you know or on any platforms you can access that allow it. Any little bit you can contribute to bring some love, attention, and donations to this event is greatly appreciated. If there is one thing I know about this community, it is that you are all capable of accomplishing amazing things when it comes to making the world a better place. So, here are the appropriate links if you are interested:
Day #1 Plans: Weird Obscure Japanese Games (i.e., Eastern Mind+1)
Date/Time: April 28th, 2023 - 6:00 p.m. to 12:00 p.m. (PDT)
Did you know the creator of LSD and Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong Nou, Osamu Sato, retweeted my blog about both games and possibly read excerpts? Don't believe me? Well, I have receipts!
Thanks to Sato retweeting my blog, it briefly went viral and even attracted attention on the very Creepypasta and Fandom sites that inspired me to write that post in the first place. Weird how life works out like that sometimes! Nonetheless, I want to use the most popular subject I have written about on the site this year to be a part of my GBCER plans, and as a result, it will be how I start things this year. If you have no idea what the game looks like in motion, I strongly recommend you carve out some time during your Friday to tune in and bask in Sato's insanity. I will warn that some of my screencaps might have been slightly generous regarding the game's graphical fidelity, and I likely didn't spend enough time talking about how clunky it is to play. However, even if I spend most of my time struggling with the controls and trying to figure out what I need to do in it, there will always be weird and wacky visuals to keep you and me interested and motivated to keep going. Trust me, of my three days; this stream might be the one to check out if you want the most "bang for your buck," especially for those that want a better idea of how I think and take notes before writing blogs about games on this site.
Donation Incentive: (Can Take Place During Day #2) If I Reach $1,000, There's A BONUS GAME: Gadget - Invention, Travel, And Adventure
I said the theme for my first day of the GBCER was to play weird Japanese adventure games, and by golly, that's what I'm going to do! Gadget: Invention, Travel & Adventure is almost as weird as Eastern Mind and equally obscure. It's a game made in the same style as Myst, using pre-rendered 3D backgrounds that you navigate by moving left, right, forward, or backward. It's less of a video game and more of an animated movie, with its gameplay as barebones as a Mages/5pb visual novel. However, don't let that convince you it isn't one of the weirdest things ever made! Because its director, Haruhiko Shono, did not need to worry about building a text parser or adventure game engine, he spent all of his game's budget on the most insane early 90s pre-rendered cinematics. It's a true sight to see! I'm worried this donation incentive might not happen, which would be a MASSIVE BUMMER because I would desperately like to play it for everyone to see and enjoy.
Day #2 Plans: Final Fantasy V Four Job Fiesta
Date/Time: April 29th, 2023 - 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. (PDT)
What would a GBCER be without me playing a Final Fantasy game for charity? For this year's marquee event, I will be joining @thatpinguino, @arbitrarywater, and @personz in a simultaneous Four Job Fiesta for Final Fantasy V! Now, if you are asking yourself, "Wait, what's a Four Job Fiesta?" then I'll ask you the question "Do you like to impose limitations on yourself while playing good games to have 'more fun?'" Have you done a Nuzlock Challenge or watched someone attempt one? So, here's the deal. Final Fantasy V is well-loved by Final Fantasy fans for having a dynamic and robust job system that allows you to play around with an inordinate number of options to make every playthrough unique and engaging. What if you got rid of that and instead forced yourself to stick with four jobs throughout an entire playthrough? Four points in the game bestow you and your party with a set of new jobs. When attempting a Four Job Fiesta, you roll the dice and stick with only one of the jobs at that point. You only get new jobs once you reach a different point in the game, but once you reach the game's second phase, your selections are set in stone.
Usually, a Four Job Fiesta requires a great deal of research. It is recommended that you prepare strategies and try all the jobs in the game at least once before developing favorites or banking on specific techniques. Likewise, understanding exploits associated with some jobs is essential to avoid having a bad time. Did I prepare for this event in any way, shape, or form? NOPE! I have never claimed to be a professional; I am, at best, a fraudulent entertainer. I know thatpinguino, being the highly competitive person they are, practiced multiple playthroughs and has memorized the floorplans of each dungeon like the true alpha nerd they are in their heart. For me, I plan to make a complete mockery of the event and will take it as seriously as I take my bowel movements. Case in point: we have someone playing the PS1 Port, another playing the Pixel Remaster port, and someone even playing the GBA version. I, on the other hand, will be playing the Android/iOS port that looks like complete dogshit! Why? Because it's fucking funny! Do you want to see me ramble while getting lost in dungeons and being stuck with the worst job classes in the game? BOY, DO I HAVE AN EVENT FOR YOU!
Donation Incentive:ZombiePie's Head Bonking Chocolate Review System™ - How do you judge the cocoa content of chocolate? If you're like most, you rely on the label on the wrapper, but I've never trusted those percentages. Industry-led standards only exist to screw over consumers! Therefore, I have my system of assessing if a bar of chocolate is of poor to elite quality: I remove the bar from the wrapper and then bonk it on my head. If the bar shows significant bend marks or scuffs after only three to four taps, then you know the manufacturer put way too much sugar or milk in their product. However, if the bar retains its shape and does not warp, you know it's made from "the good shit." I want to make it clear that this is not a joke. I genuinely do this, and before you discount it, I plan to put my belief system on the line! For every $250 I raise, I will take one of eight chocolate bars I had my sister seal into unmarked paper envelopes and bang it on my head and will have to guess if it is milk or dark chocolate. And if it is dark chocolate, I must guess the cocoa percentage. I feel less good about the latter of these two tasks, but I am all but sure I will nail the first part with at least 80% accuracy.
Day #3 Plans: Quest For The Worst Adventure Game (Gothos+1)
Date/Time: April 30th, 2023 - 1:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. (???) (PDT)
We round things off with a vapid, abysmal, ugly-ass video game. Hey, it's for the kids! Gothos can be best described as an FMV adventure game that looks like a high school stage production with some of the worst costume and set designs you will ever see in a commercially released video game. However, the "best" part has to be the game's FMV acting, which is so bad the game has been frequently called a "hate-play" experience for anyone that loves bad FMV adventure games. I have never played Gothos, but it has been on my "Must Play" list for some time now, and this seemed like an excellent opportunity to give it a whirl! I know blind playthroughs of adventure games can be a bit dicey, but I feel good about my ability to navigate the expected monkey wrenches that FMV adventure games tend to throw at you. After all, I have played a handful of genuinely terrible adventure games for your entertainment. Also, look at this guy trying to be a vampire!
Donation Incentive: (Can Take Place During Day #2) If I Reach $2,000, There's A BONUS GAME: Spaceship Warlock
Remember when Vinny played Total Distortion, and everyone loved that game's irreverent goofiness? What if I told you if I reached my donation goal before the end of the GBCER, I would force myself to play the first game the team behind Total Distortion made, Spaceship Warlock? Spaceship Warlock is not as riveting or wild as Total Distortion, but few things in this world are. Nonetheless, Spaceship Warlock has its moments, and you can see that many of its design lessons went on to inform large swaths of Total Distortion. Likewise, despite its short length and sometimes basic game design, Spaceship Warlock is a bizarre game worth a casual examination. If you love the "You Are Dead!" song from Total Distortion, wait until you see what the opening for Spaceship Warlock is!
And with that, you now know what I will do for three days for the GBCER! one more time, here are the links for anyone interested in supporting my efforts during the event or the actions of my fellow participants.
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