DANK ART
Macaw45 got right into some Lighbringer and The King of Dragons arcade runs before signing out for the Easter long weekend. I know Funkdoc is right into doing 1CC attempts of The King of Dragons game right now, but he’s choosing to use the Cleric where Macaw often will choose the Fighter and stick with him all the way thru the game. The King of Dragons looks a lot like the same art style that Capcom used in the Dungeons & Dragons games. I am unsure if they did use the same artist at Capcom to design all the creatures and characters in the game, though.
I missed Funkdoc’s 1CC attempt at King of Dragons earlier in that day but stuck around to see Twilight Struggle, a strategy card game that has a cold war theme to it. FD has always been into card style games for as long as I have known him and often would stream other strategy intensive games on his stream. The crazy thing about Twilight Struggle that I didn’t know before watching FD’s stream is that it is an actual board game that you can buy thru Amazon & hold in your hands as well as available to download to your computer to play. It looks interesting enough when FD was playing thru it and I am a huge sucker for physical boardgames,, I just wish I had more friends around me so I could play. That’s always been the sad truth for me as a kid when I wanted to play D&D or any kind of boardgames as there never seemed to be anyone around my age willing to get in and set up the boards so we could. Thats the nice thing about having a downloadable option for the game as now I can play without people or often I can connect with friends who do want to play online.
Murph had a whole day where he went thru all his boards and played them on Good Friday, possibly just for fun but it was a great way to see what kind of boards he actually has. I’m always excited and looking for people who stream from the actual PCB’s or the boards themselves as the amount of effort that goes into showing off arcade games as they are originally were meant to be played is insane. I always see people who get offended when arcade players will use MAME to play games and that really needs to stop because people who say these kinds of comments don’t understand the amount of effort that needs to go into not just streaming but preserving the boards themselves. If you are dedicated and love arcade games that much and you want to take on the task, please do (and let me know so I can watch) but I am saying it is way more easier to stream that stuff using MAME. I myself run into all sorts of issues just trying to capture video from my systems and I often try to show off the original hardware as best I can. However there are things that I will just emulate to save myself the hassle and the time in order to keep the stream looking as best as I possibly can. I also never knew Murph owned a GROWL board and now that I know he does I can keep bugging him to plug it in when he streams :3
LORDBBH VIEWERS CHOICE EXTRAVAGANZA!!! Yup- it’s that time again when BBH does his huge Viewers Choice Extravaganza and plays viewer requests randomly all day. When he announced on Thursday it was going to happen Easter weekend where I moved my family lunch around so I could be around to take part and paint. You might be thinking thats a far stretch, Ann- don’t go shoving your life around just for some arcade and paint time. Well you don’t really know me if you had to make that statement and also my family is so laid back these days that it doesn’t matter which day we get together just as long as we do. My family dinners these days are more like lunches and when I told my parents that the Friday
Though most of these were done for the extravaganza, but because it was the long weekend I got a bit behind with all my other work and decided just to post all the stuff up from Thursday in one impressive block. Personally for me I adore the Arkanoid Dank Art the most because I find any game that has a Moai Head statue in it to be hilarious. This is probably because of the hours I have spent playing Space Harrier, but to me Moai Heads are ridiculous and every time I see one I get this obnoxious voice in my head and I picture the stupid thing trying to tell me that you totally can install Android Apps on an iPhone or “my SIM card in my iPhone stores all my information so why can’t I recover it?” in the most nasal-dripped voice possible.
I also wasn’t feeling all that great, possibly due to my mom’s cooking at Easter lunch, so I sort of held back in chat & just enjoyed the show. I always have the best intentions of making Dank Art for EVERY viewers choice, but sleep always gets the best of me and as long as I get 6 Dank Art’s done I am happy with myself. I always go overboard with my Dank Art, but it’s all mine and it’s what I love to do so it’s totally OK.
I also had a mini-Dank Art Giveaway on Thursday where 6 more pieces of Dank Art were offered for free on my twitter. I always try to give away as much as I can and six lucky people got their chance to get their hands on these. If you see a Dank Art you really want then you can contact me via email or on twitter buy one- I sell them for $20 which includes the shipping and materials used and goes towards pizza and me making more Dank Art. I stress this as now a lot of the nicer Dank Arts will go towards my Patreon backers and often they do end up being given away. Sometimes when I do giveaways people will ask for a certain one. I always try to do my best, but the best thing and possibly worst thing is that Dank Art is one of a kind and I can’t make promises! All you need to know if that the opportunity to get what you want is there next to the opportunity to get something!
MUISC
My records finally arrived from Mondo this week. I felt like I was waiting a very long time for these to arrive and when they did I had to go fetch them as there was still taxes to be paid on them. I hate that! I don’t understand why all the monetary transactions can’t take place at checkout. It’s bad enough that my mail often goes missing or gets lost, but when stuff such as duty comes up I often never pay it, return to sender and get a refund. Just have me pay that at the checkout so I can just get my stuff delivered to me- saves me so much hassle.
I don’t get hit with duty fees all the time when I order online and I have bought records online before where I didn’t have to pay duty or it was included in the price. I guess it’s different no matter where you go so my hint for the shops is to include this pricing on your checkout if you want to keep international buyers such as me. Normally I would rather buy my records in a shop where I can inspect the quality right then and there and not have to endlessly worry if they will be ruined on arrival.
Overall, the records were very sharp, clean looking and the artwork wonderful. Records are now super trendy and I’m seeing a lot of video game soundtracks being released from places I wouldn’t even assume would even get into the record business which slightly worries me. One of my bosses is a HUGE record junkie and takes huge pride in his collection and spends way more money then I do for his own collection. Right now he’s stuck waiting for two albums he ordered online to arrive and because of some packaging mishaps he might be waiting even longer for his stuff to come in. These are records he ordered all the way back in November. Hopefully he’ll get his order soon and I can show off what he got once they do come in.
EXTRA DANK ART
I went to my parents condo for Easter lunch on Friday. My family is very casual about holidays and the only rule we have is that you just show up. We don’t go anywhere and my mom tries to put the years of mothering into 3 hours of cooking to good use. I got my parents to switch up our Easter movie this year and we watched King Kong Lives while we ate lunch and I told them all about my Dank Zine that I am working on.
I also noticed that my dad framed the Dank Art I gave him when he came by to take care of me when I was sick in February. Aw, thanks dad :3
ANNK STREAMS
I have streaming a bit more in the week, not so much to play games but because I have so much work to get done for my Dank Zine that streaming part of the creation process seems to kill two birds with one stone. I had been using other things such as Facebook live to try and reach out more with my work, but I always seem to get the best response when using Twitch.
With another Sunday I completed playing thru Castle of Dr. Brain, a popular point and click Sierra game where you go thru the Castle of Dr. Brain solving a wide range of puzzles from math to words to programming and more. I actually played this game as a kid in my school and could never get past the first room so completing this now as an adult was super rewarding. 
I also played thru a cute and popular DOS game, The Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy. I used to play Dizzy at a friend’s house when I would go over and I was marvelled at the gold cartridge that it came in. Dizzy I would say was reasonably popular for a little egg character. The game came out in 1991 by Codemasters and Dizzy appeared not only on the NES but on EVERYTHING. DOS, C64, Amiga, Dizzy even was out on Gamegear. It’s a simple little collection game with simple mind puzzles where the hardest obstacles are always something along the lines of “Where do I use this pick up?” and “What does that thing do?”
Dizzy was created by two brothers known as The Oliver Twins Andrew and Philip. Dizzy was an idea the two had years ago when they first started programming as kids in their bedrooms. They had a Kickstarter in 2012 where they wanted to come out with more Dizzy games, but sadly didn’t reach their goal. That doesn’t mean Dizzy is dead! There is more life for Dizzy these days and the Twins Oliver the community is still alive for this game and you can check it out here. They actually finished a NEW DIZZY GAME in 2015 and a new Kickstarter was backed recently that features a book that tells the story about Dizzy, so there’s still love for our little hard-boiled buddy.
I like Dizzy! I’ll have to get a map and try to make more sense of this game as it’s quite good and a lot of fun to play. It’s definitely something to pick up. Check out this video clip of The Oliver Twins talking a bit about how the concept of Wonderland Dizzy first happened in 1993 and it took years later in 2015 for this game to finally happen.
In other news, Squash has found a new “nest” in my retro controller box. Just enjoy this classic “I hate everything” Squash shot sitting on all my junk.
You can always follow me on twitch and tune into Sunday mornings when I regularly stream! I also try to stream during the week, so make sure you follow and have your alerts turned on so you don’t miss my next one!