Dank Zine - Page 2 of 9 - Following classic gaming

Get your Pulls in… Collecting in 2018

Everyone I know has a collection. My father has been collecting classical music for fifty years and has one wild museum (when it’s that big it’s a museum). It’s floor to ceiling stacked with his favourite composers, the albums that had the better art, the obscure and rare recordings. The only thing that was on par with my fathers’ music collection was my mother’s book collection. Together, they married into a movie collection, and that was normal and was “every day” feeling for me. I naturally started collecting comics and video games at a young age and learned you had to shop around to five or six different stores in a day just to find all your stuff.

My good buddy Greg and I meet up once a month to go collecting and drive out to a few locations or any shows that might be happening. Greg usually has a better idea of what he’s looking for where I often take my chances as I know I can be very fickle. This time we were going to Gotham Central which connects with a collection flea markets, comic shops and even this place called Game Experts which I like to check out for games.

First a bit on Gotham Central which is pretty much how I want all comic stores to look like when I walk into them. It’s wall to floor selection, tonnes of huge collectable action figures, toys, games, and even a huge candy shop where you can get sugar breakfast cereal or a 3-pound gummi bear. I often get so overwhelmed with this place that I forget I am there to get comics, but they have an amazing selection, and they often carry the trades I am looking for as they usually have those in inventory. Greg told me the candy store wasn’t open the last time we were there, so I took my time walking those isles slowly to kind of drink up everything,

I only grabbed a few photos from inside, and I am regretting not getting more photos of some of the candy there. As you can see, everything is very neatly stacked so you can find it and they have a range of unique merch.

I have never seen this game in the wild ever. I have only seen videos of it and had an idea that it was going to fetch a high price. I knew enough that it was “That game that’s a lot like Valis” and it stands out as having a wacky sense of humour so of course, I wanted it. I always try to find that something that is a little different when looking for games and this cart was stuck all the way at the back of the jewel case.

Like most people I know who collect you kind of “hmmm” & “hawwww” over things especially prices. There are a few games that I keep bumping into where I see the price tag hanging around $40 which often makes me pass. I think Alex Kidd for the Genesis is one of those cases where I saw this game hovering around $40 for a while but always chose to pass on it. I’m glad I did as I picked it up for $20 which is not bad.

Finding imports is somewhat rare around here these days, but I always manage to find a few dirty Famicom carts, and they are usually decently priced to move. I passed up on a few items, but I never try to go over a budget when I am out shopping these days as I don’t have the cash flow for it.

We decided to check out the flea market that was inside this connection of buildings and Greg must have warned me a million times over that we might not find what we are looking for here. Usually, you can find one or two vendors set up in a flea market who are selling games or comics. We found a few who had some alright stuff but nothing that stood out enough to buy. I did find a laser disk seller in that mole-cricket maze, but I am unsure if I am ready to make the plunge into collecting laser disks.

Some people can’t do a real flea market like this. Seriously you miss out not checking these places now and then for deals. I used to go to sites like these all the time in my teens with my family, so I’m never intimidated to check out the bargain bins.

Easter with the Family.

I saw my parents last weekend for Easter lunch. My mom recently learned how to work a DVD player, so that means my parents are focused on collecting DVDs and are starting to trickle down some of their VHS collection. You will not find a more eclectic collection of movies than on the shelves of my parents. They range from the best of the best and the best of the worst and even a few titles that will make you wonder if my parents were hippies. Shocking reveal: my parents are not hippies and are in fact Star Trek fans.

Dank Art

I have been so busy with Zine work that I don’t have as many Danks to share this time around. With the new issue already at the printers and feeling a bit worn down and sick I really just need a few days off to get things sorted out. I was hoping I could have done that during Easter break, but instead I got sick and now I need a break from my break.

Facebook Page Launch

After almost an entire two years of making Dank Art, I have finally caved in and made a Facebook page. If you want Dank Stuff on your Facebook feed then follow this link and hit that like button. The Facebook page will act as sort of a permanent home for a lot of the stuff I share as well as another outlet for people to find me.

I am currently working on the next few isues, so if you would like to submit work or have a great idea, give me a should over social or email me here at dankzines@gmail.com

Special Delivery of all the things!

Dank Zines are in!

Dank Zines have all been shipped and are arriving to mailboxes across the globe! This months issue features streamer Chuboh with all of his delightful point-clickery, an in-depth interview with Omnigamer on his side of the “Dragster” high score fiasco, an article about the unreleased arcade game “Chimera Beast” by LordBBH himself and a 10 Questions with Neo-Antwon. There’s also a bunch of awesome Dank Art by not only myself, but from contributing artists CyRaptor, Dasyati and MakotTruth. All backers of the Patreon also got a free sticker sheet that features a few of Chuboh’s sub icons so if you still want to get your issue make sure you snap up a copy soon before they sell out of my new Dank Shop.

Dank Art

Black Queen from Battlemaiacs SNES @Macaw45

Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume @TheOmnigamer

Mazin Saga for Mega Drive @Macaw45

Splattoon 2

Q*Bert for ChibiUFO’s Birthday <3

Splatter House 3 @Macaw45

Madly Monogatari Sega Mega Drive @Goatistream

Gourmet Sentai Bara Yarou @Macaw45

Bubble Bobble arcade @LordBBH

Earthworm Jim on Sega Genesis @Lrock

Terminator 2 on Sega Genesis @Macaw45

Death and Return of Superman @Macw45

Metal Slug X and

Rushing Beat Shura for Super Famicom @Macaw45

Altered Beast Arcade @LordBBH

Mario Odyssey on Nintendo Switch @TheOmnigamer

Hacha Mecca Fighter Arcade @LordBBH

The Incredible Hulk SNES @Macaw45

I’m starting to follow so many streamers on Twitch that every week I have piles of stuff that I am constantly working on. I’m not posting up all of the Dank Art now (as there is a lot now) but now I am focusing of showing off the best ones. Check them out and watch for them to go up for sale in my new shop soon or if you’re lucky you might score some freebies when I have giveaways on my streams.

Streaming Stuff

Right now I am trying to stream a bit more to take some time to focus not only on playing games I want to play, but to take a few hours out of my day to just relax and enjoy it. Sundays I am always going to follow my “Wake, Paint & Play” format, but if you want to catch my late night stuff I try to stream on Tuesdays, Wednesday’s and maybe Fridays if I don’t have something I need to do. I am currently obsessed with two games that I will go into a bit more detail here on my blog. One of them is a cute little Penguin game but before I get into that FRKINSEALLND thing, Le t’s talk Sega and Shining Force.

The North American Release

The back of the case

The Euro release had to be different and mirror the NA cover with different colours

The original Japanese Sega CD cover

Growing up I was a Sega girl and most of that is thanks to my father who felt that Sega was the far more superior system on the market at the time. For me, Sega was all about arcade imports, Sonic games, and a library of strange 2D platformers. My knowledge and experience with RPG’s didn’t start until I my friends started to play Earthbound on their SNES. After I discovered that what I called “Computer adventure games” could be played on a gaming system, I set off to find RPGs for the Sega systems I owned. This proved to be a bit of a problem.

The cover of the Gamegear release

Back of the North American box art

I would blame that because of where I live as my home town was a lot smaller than it is now. Because of the size of my community, the shops would only get the top-selling games for the systems and everything that was “strange” and “different” would either come in limited quantities or not at all. The shelves were always stocked with the latest and greatest hockey and sports titles, then followed by any and all cartoony platformers. I was very lucky that in my home town there was one video rental place that had not just a section for Gamegear rentals, but they also had Sega CD and Saturn rentals for a few years. That’s where I first got my hands on the Gamegear version of Shining Force II.

Shining Force Gaiden: Ensei – Jashin no Kuni he (シャイニング・フォース外伝～遠征・邪神の国へ～) was released for Gamegear in 1992 following up with Shining Force Gaiden II: Jashin no Mezame (シャイニング・フォース外伝 II ～邪神の覚醒～) in 1993 as the first portable Shining tactical role-playing game in the games series. Sega re-released The Shining Force Gaiden games later on for the Sega CD on what is called “Shining Force CD”, along with the secret games that you can unlock playing both games and meet certain conditions. The Gaiden series takes place 20 years in the future from the original Shining Force JRPG series that was featured on the Sega Genesis. Some of the characters come back or are the direct descendants of characters from the original series or as secret characters that you can discover in the game. For some strange reason, only Shining Force Gaiden II made an English release in North America where the first game has only been available in English via the Sega CD release. I’m unsure if that is the reason the Sega CD price is listed for around $150-75 complete, but it is one of the more desired games for the system and one of the only ways you can play the first game in English.

Gamegear

Sega CD

There’s a few differences between the Gamegear and Sega CD remake. The first thing you’ll notice is a huge overhaul of the graphics and the sprite animations. The Gamegear has its charm, but with the larger colour pallet on the Sega CD the designers could do a bit more and really pay attention to detail from gradients to small details such as Eric’s red nose pixel on his overworld character sprite. Levels have a bit more depth and in battle animations have more movement and casting healing spells now have cuter anime styled sprites as fairies over the smaller ones featured in the Gamegear games. The girl reading you the books at the start of the game has also changed drastically in appearance and is no longer a young maiden, but now much younger in age and appearance.

The biggest reason you need to get the Sega CD release is because of the soundtrack. They went full orchestra for the remake to capitalize on the CD sound playback of the Sega CD. It’s an amazing soundtrack and worth downloading on its own for your own enjoyment. Doing mundane things like catching the bus or grocery shopping have more importance when listening to the overworld battle themes. The Gamegear soundtrack is good on its own, but there’s no question that the arrangement on the Sega CD version is the better of the two.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L0dacYSgrk8

One of the drawbacks of having the Sega CD release is there are not enough save spots on the system to meet the conditions to unlock the extra two games included on the CD. The work around for that is using the Sega CD Backup RAM cart. This cart looks just like a regular Genesis game cart and connects right into the Sega Genesis. It was around $60 when it first came out, which was almost the same price as a full game.

If you are looking to play Shining Force CD and want to play on the original Sega CD you will NEED the CD Back Up cart. It should go for $25, but most places will demand that you fork over $40-60 for it. You can find 3rd party knock-offs that will work just as good. Do check that the battery in the cart us still good, if not you can always replace it. For some reason, my cart gives me a lot of issues and I can’t access my saved files half the time and almost always when I move my Sega CD system from room to room it somehow reformat the entire cart. Maybe I just have a bad back up cart. Because of this, I might recommend that you emulate the game first to see if it’s worth hunting down as with the backup cart you will be forking out around $200 to play. If you happen to be like me and get a bad backup cart this could be game-save devastation as part of the fun is unlocking all the games using your saves with the CD Back Up Cart.

Claude

Dawn

Luke

Shining Force Gaiden is a bare-bones early Tactical RPG and often when I stream it I have a lot of people who join in for the first time saying “This feels very Fire Emblem-y”. However, where in most Tactical RPGS they feature “permanent death” where if one of your characters dies in battle no amount of phoenix down or revive is going to bring them back. You are simply stuck loading from a save and re-doing the entire battle again losing all the experience you have gained. Shining Force Gaiden doesn’t have that and instead has a “buy back” feature where you can spend gold to get your characters back. Also if any of your characters die they still keep their levels and items that they have gained in that battle. This is helpful when you are trying to level up weaker characters. However, if your main character dies, not only will you need to restart the entire battle, but your money is reduced by half making raising the dead a horrible game of “Sophie’s Choice” if your funds are getting low. If you’re looking for a cosy Tactical RPG to get into I highly suggest picking up this collection of games. It’s rich with fantastic character personalities, a well thought out story, creative fantasy characters from Centaurs, Bird Men, Cat Mages and Zombies. It’s a must for your Sega collection and just overall one of my favourite game series out there.

//As a side note, I am leaving out the Saturn Shining Force Gaiden game for another review//

Lousy Smarch Weather

Dank Art

CHECK OUT MY KILLER TATTO Blood Warrior @LordBBH

Can’t go fast! Zero4 Champ RR SNES @Macaw45 @TheOmnigamer

Do you come with the car? Zero4 Champ RR @Macaw45

SD Gundam Psycho Salamander No Kyoui @LordBBH

Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume @TheOmnigamer

Draw me like one of your French Girls @Goati_ @Macaw45

Quick! To the Pachinko arcade! Zero4 Champ RR-Z @Macaw45

Being tempted by sweet lady Pachinko @Macaw45

More Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume @TheOmnigamer

It’s been a while since I updated! Here is a huge Dank Art Dump for you to enjoy. I’ve been a bit under the weather with a slight lung infection (gotta love winter) but still trying to do my best to ensure my work and deadlines are met. That just means extra stuff like my blog & social life suffer. I’ll be back 100% soon though with more updates & more Dank Art.

Chuboh in Dank Zine

Our favourite dungeon crawler Chuboh is our feature streamer of the month for the March Issue of my Dank Zine! If you are not already backing my Patreon you’ll have to wait for this issue to hit my Dank Shop. All backers will be getting a bunch of special Chuboh style stickers in with their zine featuring his sub emotes.

Mr Gimmick!

Hats off to my pal Eyes5 who I interviewed in a past issue of my Dank Zine for making such awesome and adorable plushes! This guy here is Mr Gimmick from that incredible NES game. If you follow Aquas then you know he’s got one as well as should anyone who’s a huge fan of the game. Mr Gimmick is very rare and only pops up in Eyes’ Etsy shop once in a while so the next time he make an appearance I’ll be sure to let you know. In the meantime, check out her store and see what she has currently.

Fixing the Blinking Light

My NES came to an untimely death a few weeks ago live on stream in a very frightening manner. In fact, that NES was a cheaper Retron that I was using because I couldn’t get my original NES to work without wiggling the cart all around.

As a child I never really had to blow into carts as I had a Master System (both a Master System 1 and 2) and often if the game wasn’t inserted properly I’d know because a Snail game would come up on my Master System 1 and Alex Kidd would play on my 2. It always seemed a bit odd to me that NES’s didn’t have a built in game like this. The other thing I liked about the Master System is that it was top-loading so I was usually sure I’d always be getting the game inserted the right way.

Over the years it has been proven that the North American “VHS” style NES has several design flaws and the biggest one was the whole “Pressing the game down” to play. These guys came up with an awesome solution to upgrade your old system to bypass this issue and get a clean connection every time you insert a game with what they call The Blinking Light Win. I was seriously on the fence with the fix at first as I figured buying another Retron would be an easier fix, but my boss talked me into it and I ordered one.

Here’s what the old pins looked like! Gross!!

It did take a bit as I do believe these guys are a humble and small operation but everything came packaged up nicely all wrapped in plastic with the most easiest instructions ever. They were even nice to include a few stickers as well. I got everything set up on the work bench at work ready to install it and before I could I got busy with a few customers. When I came back 10 minutes later my boss was screwing my NES back together with a laugh saying “That was easy!” Thank you, Tyler! You can’t leave a broken anything around that man when he’s in work mode and even though I was excited to do it myself he did it quicker plus he cleaned the layer of dust off my NES just because.

Dig out your old NES and get this fix! For the same price that it costs to get a Retron you could be fixing your old NES and get better results. You will not be disappointed and I cannot stress how happy I am with this amazing fix. The pins are a bit tight as new pins tend to be, but my last Retron was atrocious with how tight those pins were. Make sure you clean your games and keep your stuff dust free to ensure a long life of classic retro gaming in your place.

The Dank, the Dead NES and the Jones in the Fast Lane

Dank Zine Updates

Issue 11 has shipped, and all my Patreon backers should be getting pink envelopes of Dank in the mail soon. Back issues will be available soon in my new shop after I work out a few technical bugs. Here’s a handy Q&A thing I made up that will help to address some stuff concerning back issues of my Dank Zine.

Q- Will you be reprinting issues 1-8?
A- Probably not. I would need to do a bulk run print of the issues, and those start at a minimum of 100 copies. I would need to pre-sell around 50 to make this work. Reprints are unlikely, but that makes each issue highly collectable.

Q- Can I still get issues of 9-11?
A- Yes but I only have a limited number of issues to sell or for giveaways. Once they are gone from the shop, they are gone.

Q- Will you make a digital copy?
A- No. Digital copies change a lot of what a Zine is and what my vision for this project is all about. I am open to the idea of digital copies in the far future, but right now I am happy making physical media.

Q- Will you do a compilation of issues 1-8?
A- I haven’t put much thought or stock into making a compilation of the older issues. I am the kind of lady who likes moving forwards so if anything I would love to do some follow up interviews with some of the people who were featured in the pages of the first issues of my Dank Zine as they continue to grow with their projects and careers. Things I am working on are compilation art books but shhh!!! I don’t want to spoil everything.

Dank Art Gallery

Here is the Dank Gallery for this week from all my featured streamers. Thank you to LordBBH, Macaw45, Lrock, capnClever, Chuboh, PJ and everyone for the stream. Please enjoy!

Dark Lord for the Dezaemon CD @Macaw45

GUTS worms! More of the Dezaemon CD @Macaw45

More of the where we play a shmup where we are an angel & men for the Dezaemon CD @Macaw45

Remember! 102 games await all of us on the Dezaemon CD @Macaw45

First Queen 3 for PC 98

Chuboh’s mighty beard

Dolmen @LordBBH

Goindol (HOMO) for arcade @LordBBH

Willow for Arcade @LordBBH

Chips Challenge for DOS capnClever

Numan Athletics @LordBBH

Yoshi’s Safari @lrock617

Tradition! Ninja Gaiden 2 For PoematoCX

Final Fantasy 1 on NES with pjdicesare

inal Fantasy 1 with pjdicesare

Final Fantasy 1 on NES with pjdicesare

X-Men arcadev @lrock617

Ye Old Point Clickery within Ye Deep Dungeons by Ye Who Shalt Be Called Sir Chuboh handing off beard blessings with the Holly Slide Puzzle of Agrathia (oh its Might & Magic 3) @chuboh

OMG TUESDAYS @LordBBH

Taki Soul Edge @LordBBH

Since were going to be on the fire escape for a while….. here’s some Dank Art of DD Crew @LordBBH

Fantasy zone @LordBBH

Fire Shark @LordBBH

Risky Jewel PC 98 ROOM SERVICE @Macaw45

The thrills of watching Pachinko. Mankai Denshoku PC98 @Macaw45

Jones in the Fast Lane

A few years ago, my friend Tony shared a link with me online for something extraordinary. That was an online multiplayer for one of my fave Sierra games, Jones In The Fast Lane. It’s a quirky board game that has a strong “Game of Life” feel to it, and it has the strange yet amusing Sierra humour. It was incredible that I could play a classic old DOS game online with my friends.
Jones in the Fast Lane came out in 1990 making it one of the first games for Windows 3.0 at the time. Its board game theme is inviting that players can quickly pick up the concept of going around the board. Your marble (player piece) travels around the board where you attain money, happiness and education to pre-set requirements at the start of the game. The name is a direct play of the idiom, “Keeping up with the Joneses” where neighbours/friends are always trying to out-do each other in their life.
I’ve always been interested in trying to transform old classic two-player DOS games for online multiplayer and here was this beautiful package that someone just carried up to my marble. My logic was if you could play it online you could stream it with someone and play it live- something else that interested me in streaming. I dabbled with it, tried out streaming and playing with it not streaming when I first had access to it and enjoyed a lot of fun with my friends, and then one day the server went down…

…and the sever stayed down. For two years.

Until I started bothering people to fix it. I knew trying to set up my server was something I couldn’t do myself so I had to ask around in y circle of friends and find out who was up to the task of fixing the Jone’s server. My one friend, DanZeeMan, did the one thing none of us ever thought of which was to track down the people who made the online flash game and ask nicely for the server code. Well, not only did he get that but they were kind enough to send him the game as well! That rocks!

I have been trying out the server on my streams as part of a fun new way to share in the fun of this game. Dan is also working on testing out a few mods for the game, and we’re even thinking about having a whole new updated Jones game to play online with everyone. Last Sunday, I challenged DanZeeMan and Omnigamer to a round of Jones so you should check that out here.

The DEATH of my NES

Yeah, the title says it all. I have a replacement Blinking Light Kit arriving soon so I can get back to streaming my NES catalogue. Technically my NES has been broken for years, but I have been using a basic $20 Retron which “did the job” and did the job. My only complaint was that the new pins in those guys are TIGHT which ultimately lead to the quick destruction of this Retron. Oh well. Enjoy that mad spooky clip of my NES dying.

Cool Stuff This Week

PJ Has Shirts

PJ has Tshirts available in a new Teespring shop. Make sure you get your orders in quickly as I tried to get a yellow women’s shirt & it looks like I lucked out. That’s OK; I can get another colour cause I don’t want to chance not getting a shirt. I’m looking forward to getting mine soon.

LOL it’s hilarious translations at Legends of Localizations

My buddy Mato has an update on his Legends of Localizations site where he took a closer look at some of the funny bad translations in Battle Rangers AKA Bloody Wolf for Arcade.
For those familiar with the game, the translation is so bad it’s infamous within the arcade community. Do check out this story as I have always been a massive fan of Mato’s work over the years and he’s still got quality content just to spend hours reading. Try out the game yourself too and get a great laugh at its translation.

Ommnigamer’s New Book

Omnigamer is working on a new book called “Speedrun Science” which focuses on the history and philosophy on Speedrunning that is set to come out at Fangamer this Spring. He recently was featured on the TechnoFunkBoy podcast where they discussed the book and touched down on his involvement in the Twin Galaxies Dragster controversy.

Countdown to a full year of DANK

Dank Zine Updates

I can’t believe I have been making Dank Zines for almost a year! Thank you so much to my backers and readers for a crazy year of dankness. I’ve come from a little one person operation making a little 30 paged Zine to expanding it to over 44 pages with a team of editions, writers and contributors. I couldn’t have done it without my team and my Patreon Backers so thank you all for making this project a huge success in its first year.

This month’s featured streamer is Bouphe who just recently was partnered! Congratulations, Bouphe as I know you have been working very hard to get partnership. For those who don’t know, Bouphe is an amazing girl who streams classic retro PC games for the Amiga, DOS and PS1 to list a few. She’s a delight to hang out with and has a solid backup team of kitties to help her along her quests and achievements in games. Bouphe was incredibly charming to interview and she really opened up about herself, the retro community and how streaming has had a positive influence on her life. If you are a Bouphe fan make sure to back the Zine before the end of the month.

7898033F-3469-4219-A9C9-EF5E92D289D4 — Zallard1 at AGDQ2018 where he played both Punch Out & Super Punch Out at the same time

Also featured for this issue is an interview with Zallard1. We sit down and take a closer look at his run at AGDQ where he played Punch Out and Super Punch Out at the same time using a cool controller rigged up by Omnigamer. It’s an interesting way to play a game and different then just playing a game blind for exhibition. Get a bit of a closer look at how Zallard1 came up with the idea to run both games at once.

Macaw45 is alsocreating a new written feature in the Zine called Obscure Games where he takes a closer look at some of the games you never heard about from back in the day in Japan. If you follow Macaw45 then you know he’s an endless source of information when it comes to classic games for old Japanese computers and he also frequently talks about the lore behind the games and the people who made them. For a while people have been asking if he could share those stories and I kept thinking they would make a great addition to the zine.

As always each Zine comes with all the art and articles as well as an included sticker pack. Since Bouphe is our featured streamer I made these custom retro PC Gamer stickers so you can dial-up to the Sexy BBS anytime! Put stickers of old computers on your new computer for added fun or stick them up around your community and feel a little dangerous for possibly vandalizing. Just remember to not blame us if you get hit with a hefty fine sticking these where you shouldn’t.

If you want to get your hands on the 12th issue of my Dank Zine make sure you are backing my Patreon at www.patreon.com/DankArt

Dank Art

Lrock– I met up with this Speedrunner at AGDQ2018 and we ended up hanging out a whole bunch on the Sunday. When I got home I promptly followed and got banned seconds after posting this Dank Art. It was all good, it was totally my fault for not making my link-posting shenanigans more up front. Most of my friends and followers know its me when I’m posting a link, but there have been a lot of bots over Twitch. I’m not upset or anything. We all had a good laugh about it and I got un-banned really quick. Lrock was working on some cute NES Disney themed games but also is working on other Speedrun attempts so do try to check out his stuff and give him a follow.

LordBBH had his Hard drive go down recently which means he’s trying his best to recover anything that might be left on it. That meant that he had a Monday without Mame Roulette but he managed to get things pulled together and was back up and streaming. The super big downer about all of this is BBH lost all his copies of Dank, Jank & fan art as well as his other files so he’ll have to start from scratch collecting them back. BBH was also working on a feature article for my Dank Zine for February but it’s going to be pushed back until he can see if it’s recovered or if he needs to start the story all over again from scratch. I hope BBH get’s his computer sorted out sooner than later but it is good that he’s still finding a way to stream.

It was also BBH’s birthday last Sunday and I just wanted to say Happy Birthday BBH! I made a quick Dank Art to help celebrate the occasion.

I featured ex-mortis in my most recent issue of my Dank Zine and he started streaming Popful Mail again after trying out a new game & kinda hating it. I’ve realized I haven’t played thru this game myself and I should make more of an effort to do so as its one of the better Sega CD games out there. Yes I am aware that this game first came out on the home Japanese PC’s before being ported to other systems, but the English voice dub is actually very well done for a Sega CD game and because it’s such a good game it fetches a huge amount on eBay. I’ll look into this and maybe you’ll see me Popin’ it like it’s hot on my stream soon.

Macaw45 is playing a whole bunch of what I call “Sooooour many tiny big dudes” Strategy games for the PC88 and PC98. That’s when all your little warriors and fighters fill up the screen doing the actual battling in real-time while you sit back and watch or actively control your main character around the playing board. There was also this crazy PC game that was a lot like Space Harrier but with an insane difficulty level to it as well as melee boss battles to switch things up. Yeah, it was hard as hell and had a very weird saving system where you could only save after every 2 levels? The big story behind this game is that it was so crazy hard that Macaw just figured no one was that stupid enough to actually finish it and set off to actually do so.

AGDQ2018 or How I stopped worrying and learned to love Speedrunning

After not getting tickets to SGDQ in 2017 I made a point of doing my best to give it all I got and put my bid in to get a ticket to the January event. When I actually got tickets, I kind of sat there in my chair and thought, “OK, I got in. Now what?” I thought that because I had no real idea what games were going to be played or if any of my friends’ runs would be accepted. I had to give it time and wait. I waited too long and missed out on a chance to get a hotel room on site so I was forced to book an Air BnB a bit off-site just to sleep.

I keep hearing people say “GDQ’s were better before 2013” or something to the effect. I can’t speak to that as I was only watching those at home and not at the event itself. I would safely say being there has its own set of advantages as well as negatives. However, GDQ’s are events that are designed to celebrate Speedrunning and working towards raising money for a selected charity. They really don’t have anything else behind the scenes that you would find at a regular convention because the event is the main draw. So there were really no artist alley or merch booths that you would expect at other cons. There was a booth set up that focused on the charity itself so you could learn more about where your donations were going and if you wanted to keep supporting the charity they could give you more information. Nice.

A wild Omnigamer and PJ appeared! — Pho time with Omnigamer and PJ

I checked into the event on early Sunday morning and since I was travelling alone I asked PJ very nicely to meet up with me at the event so I wouldn’t feel as awkward waiting for my Air BnB to be ready later on in the afternoon. He totally didn’t have to, but he said yes and because he & Omnigamer were kind enough to let me tag along with them for a few hours I gave out a bunch of PJ stickers I had lying around from when I made him the Feature Streamer in my Dank Zine. I had no run in for this event and besides seeing a few choice runs I was mainly there to find people to write about. I had my own agenda and it involved Zines, burgers, beer and watching a lot of games.

One of the important things I wanted to do that week was to catch Aquas’ run as I always try to watch his stuff when I am at home watching this event and seeing it in person would be a great kick. His run was around 8 am on Monday and Mr B & I both woke up early to go to the event with him. We met up with one of Aquas’ streaming friends Figbird and to our excitement Aquas said it was alright for all of us to sit on the couch for his run. First GDQ & already on the couch. I was glad I was as Aquas made a very touching speech before his run about his dad who passed away because of Cancer and he wanted to dedicate his run to him. I kept getting so many alerts on my Apple Watch during this that I just switched it to Do Not Disturb for an hour so I could focus better on his Contra III run. Lots of you were all tweeting “I see you on the couch!” Which was very nice, but since I had one of the best views in the house I didn’t want to comment till it was over. Aquas had a very good run, it wasn’t deathless, but it was still something to watch as this guy plays like a beast when he needs to bring it. Check out the video from the event:

My time was spent hanging with people, being social, and playing games in the set up arcade that was on site. There was no pinball this year which was kind of depressing, but there was a Neo Geo multi-cart in the room which I sat on most of the time with my pal Zerst and together we clocked in a lot of hours on Money Exchanger. Zerst also got the Donkey Kong 3 machine to its max score which was fun to watch as I love that game myself and it is always exciting to see someone master a game you like. I also met up with a few of my friends from Macaw45’s chat to play a bunch of dank games in the practice room and this C64 that my buddy Dana had going with an everdrive. Let’s say that when we had the C64 going we put a few good hours playing around with the games on that.

It was really exciting to see my friends up on stage playing games when it came too their runs. PJ managed to break an arcade button in the middle of his Battletoads run which could only be described as “PJ’s dumb luck”. He had a backup planned and it only took him a few moments to switch over to a backup (what a backup? Yes if you know PJ….). It was also really fun to watch The Mexican Runner play the rocket ship part in Battletoads for NES blindfolded. There’s always going to be a few blindfolded donation incentives and I didn’t want to miss this one as it’s known for being extremely frustrating even without a blindfold. I have huge respect for TMR as he played every NES game as part of a challenge and that meant playing all the Powerpad games. If you know me I love the powerpad and try to stream it as often as I can and knowing someone else actually beat Street Cop gives me hope that I can do it too. I also saw Zallard1 do his amazing Two-Punchout One Controller challenge. Fellow streamer Omnigamer helped out and rigged up this splitter that would help him use one controller to beat both games at once.

Zallard1 who played Starfox2 and Punch Out & Super Punch Out at the same time

Please when you share these runs don’t use click-bait tactics like “Some Dude just killed Contra” but share links properly as in “Watch The Mexican Runner play Battletoads blindfolded” as its more about the player and less about the game itself at these events. I was also reading a lot of game devs upset with people who were using words such as “this game is broken” to describe certain manipulations and taking offence to it. I can’t say that for all games, but having see some of the codes from some of my most favourite games I would be safe in saying that not all games are broken, but having broken mechanics and code in a game does make the game more easy to be manipulated hence why they can use glitches to a speedrun advantage. I can think of many fan translations projects my friends worked on where they had to clean up the original source code and fix game ending bugs left in the code itself simply because a game was rushed into development to make a sales date. I’m not saying all games are like that, but I also don’t put any game up on a pedestal of perfect coding either. Even great paintings have mistakes in them and it is those mistakes that we as players love/hate to our advantage.

The Dank Zine core staff: Aquas, AnnK, Lady Te and trap15 (as JJ Squawkers)

The BEST thing about the entire trip was finally meeting up again with Lady Te who I hired to edit my Dank Zine. We’ve known each other before the Dankness set in, but this was the first time we have met up face to face since she’s been staff. I was able to get a very rare staff photo of Aquas, myself and Lady Te and hopefully one day we will be able to get trap15 in there as well. That’s pretty much the core Dank Zine staff right there and I am lucky to have these wonderful people in my life. My little zine has really grown in just under a year and now I have people who contribute to it all over the globe so it makes me getting a photo with everyone harder. I hope that in the future when my zine gets bigger I can start actually traveling to these places and meet everyone.

Overall it was a great time and I was happy to meet up with a bunch of people I have only known thru Twitch, chats and over the internet. Maybe when I get things figured out I’ll work on my fishing game and see if it’s something I want to submit and if its something people would like to see at an event such as this. In the meantime I’ll be hard at work making Dank Art, Dank Zines and trying to give back as much as I can to the retro gaming community.

Updates & AGDQ Fun

I am at AGDQ this week to help support Aquas and all my other friends as they raise money for Cancer Prevention! Stay tuned for a HUGE post about what I have been up to at the event and also what I have planed for my Dank Zine in 2018. I have been very busy here on my trip to America and one of the best part of this event is finally meeting friend from streams & chats face to face. Stay tuned for a HUGE AGDQ Dank Art dump and few other surprises :3

Patreon Announcement

As many of you already know, Patreon is making a bunch of changes to its services as of recently. These changes might affect how some people are backing my Zine and because of the concern of the most recent changes to Patreon I have decided to give people more options on how to get a copy of my Zine and how they can be part if it.

Currently I rely on Subscriptions/Pre-Orders for my Zine to offset the cost of printing and shipping for each issue. I am looking into having online subscriptions via Paypal as well as making huge changes to my online shop to make getting back issues quicker.

It will take me a few weeks to implement the new changes to my blog to accept this new way to subscribe so I ask my Patreon backers to be patient while I make these adjustments. I will state that I am not leaving Patreon as of yet, but merely giving my backers a choice to use the platform or to start supporting me 100% directly thru another option.

These are changes I knew I would need to make as my Zine grew over time. However, with the recent changes to Patreon I feel that I owe my subscribers a choice since many of them signed up to Patreon only to back this project. I want to make it clear that I am thankful for everyone’s support and often when things happen that we all don’t agree with that you can either accept it or change.

Change doesn’t happen overnight and making a huge jump to direct subscriptions will take me some time so I do ask that my backers are patient while I take these needed steps to being fully independent.

As soon as I have the new subscription services up I will post it on my blog so everyone can choose how to back me going forwards. Patreon was an amazing service when I first started up and I am thankful that services like it are around to help artists and makers everywhere support their projects. If you choose to use my direct service or stay with Patreon that is up to individual choice, all I ask is that you keep supporting me and the Zine.

Thank you,

AnnK

End of the Month Wrap Up

Christmas stickers are IN!

My gift to all my backers of my Dank Zine will get one of these limited print Milky Christmas stickers as my gift to them. Make sure you are backing by the end of November to get one of these stickers as thats the only way to get them. These will not be in the shop afterwards & are strictly just for the backers!

Dank Art

Angler Dangler @LordBBH

Power Balls @LordBBH

Champion Wrestler @LordBBH

Willow on NES @LordBBH

On American Thanksgiving, LordBBH decided he was going to leap headfirst into playing Willow for NES which happens to be one of my fave RPG’s for the system as well as one game on my “to finish” list. Though I am not the biggest fan of Willow the movie (I was far too young to really appreciate the movie as a kid) I am a huge fan of the game and made amusing Dank Art along BBH’s frustrations and trials with the game. BBH got halfway thru before realizing it was going to take much longer to get thru it, so he shut it off and gave everyone the THANK they were waiting for and played a 1CC Credit of Willow for Arcade.

DOS fun! @Macaw45

Future Dimension for DOS @Macw45

Super Star Wars on DOS @Macaw45

Super Starwars on DOS @Macaw45

Olymp on DOS @Macaw45

Not Ultima @Macaw45

Macaw45 is going thru his collection of DOS Shareware games which range from palaces from Russia, Spain, Italy and Japan. For those who don’t know, back in the days of DOS people would dial into BBS’s and download shareware to “try it” before buying it or stores would have compilation disks of these programs to help sell more parts of the game. This was one way new or indie game devs would get their games out into the market and hopefully be their big break into the world of game development. You gotta think that there’s probably hundreds of thousands of games that are like this just floating around in some archival space on the internet and it’s part of Macaw’s ongoing project to discover and preserve the best of these games. Often these games seem too simple or even silly when you first start them up but often if you play them a little bit longer there’s something that sticks out about them that’s attractive or interesting. That’s a typical Macaw stream these days so check out some of the real ripe stuff he’s been unearthing from the dankest depths of the shareware market.

FF9 @PJdicesare

Dragon View @PJdicesare

Next month it’s going to be all about PJ in my Dank Zine so I have been going by his Dragon View & FF9 streams to see what he’s been up to. For me, its the Final Fantsy 9 playthru he’s doing right now because when that game came out I didn’t give it the attention or credit it needed. I think everyone has an opinion about which Final Fantasy is the best and which are not, but I think this Final Fantasy was a true gem and the last of its kind. It’s charming and it has all the signature fantasy elements that made the series what it is from black mages to airships to special abilities like “EAT” it’s there. Often you don’t know how good you got it till its years later and someone shows you what you’ve been missing out on and I feel like I missed out hard with Final Fantasy 9.

PJ Stickers are in!

Hot off the presses are all the backer reward stickers featuring PJ’s sub emotes! Make sure you are subscribed to the Dank Zine before November 30th to get yourself a copy of the Zine featuring his interview as well as a free set of these stickers. Also, backers will get a special bonus sticker for just being awesome and backing my Patreon. Thank you always gu

I also have a sneak peek of what next month’s cover will look like! This months cover is done my Anthony Brennan who was actually featured in the first ever Dank Zine for his papercrafts and his passion for dressing up as Pro Wrestlers at conventions. Anthony is also a skilled illustrator and has had his work featured almost everywhere. I asked him to draw up something nice that reflected who PJ was without it catching on fire or glitching out. Thank you, Anthony!

New changes in November

Dank Art

Rygar @LordBBH

Spelunker @Chuboh

Batman @JimmyQballs

Thunderzone @Macaw45

Metal Black @T4N3

JJ Sqwakers @trap15

Splatterhouse @Owlnonymous

R-Type @Dumplechan

Salamander 2 @ExtruderX

Gradius 4 @Aquas

Bullet @Goati_

Metal Slug X @ juno973

Super Punch Out @Zallard

NARC @JimmyQBalls

Shock Troopers 2nd Squad @LordBBH

Kiki Kakai @Neo_Antwon

Dodonpachi @Bananamatic

Mystic Warriors @Scoop

Knights of the Round @Zuq_

New Zealand Story @Dumplechan

Magician Lord @Jaguarking

Batrider @Aquas

I made a LOT of Dank Art on the weekend watching the 1CC Marathon. I missed a lot of Friday because I was working, but I did my best to try to catch most of it between IRL stuff and eating. It was a lot of fun and I always love watching skilled players do their thing in events such as this. I hope more fun events like this pop up on twitch that will help to encourage more people to go for their gaming goals, meet new friends and find new streamers to follow. Most of friends on twitch I met thru the 1CC Marathon, so don’t be shy when it comes to signing yourself up for events like these.

I caught some of Ultimoice’s Final Fantasy 7 runs over the weekend as well as more Mother 2 runs in between of the 1CC Marathon as I was cooped up around the house most of the time. A lot of people are going to say that FF7 was the game that changed everything back in the day and they are right. I remember seeing the commercials for Final Fantasy 7 on the TV and freaking out that it was being called Final Fantasy 7 and not FF4 AND it was coming out for the PlayStation and not the N64 as what was expected. The biggest thing was when suddenly EVERYONE wanted to play Final Fantsy 7 and almost overnight people who were never into video games suddenly wanted to be. I’m not joking, everyone was so blown away at the graphics and the sheer size and complexity of this game that you had everyone dropping serious coin on PS1’s to just play this game (minus the nerds who bought the PC release of the game and who had to suffer thru playing that hahaha).
Though Final Fantasy 7 isn’t my favourite game (it’s not even my favourite Final Fantasy) it does hold a special place in my heart just because of that experience and what direction video games started to go after it came out. The fact that Ulti speedruns this game is absolute insanity to me, but he pulls it off and it is a run you have to catch at least once if you have played the game. FYI the first time I saw him run though the game was at the last SGDQ and I stayed up to catch most of it.

Dank Zine

Backers for my Dank Zine who back before the end of the month will be getting this amazing limited print run sticker featuring Milky from Shock Troopers! This design was created last Christmas during one of BBH’s streams when Twitch had a bunch of cute holiday emoticons that you could play with. I made a Dank Art from it and decided to clean it up this year to give it make it my gift to my backers.

Make sure you back my Dank Zine before November 30th as this month’s feature streamer is none other than PJ. I got a chance to chat with PJ just over Halloween about his experience speedrunning, streaming and Gin! I also have a special interview with Cathodedaze who works at a special Arcade Museum in Florida where they have over 50 arcade and pinball machines and what its like to have a cool dream job. Fantastic Planet returns with a great Christmas feature as well as a bunch of cool art and extras for the holidays. The other neat thing is this issue will have featured PJ Sub Stickers so if you’ve been following PJ and want these stickers then you better back before the 30th of the month together yours.

The BIG BIG BIG news for me is that my little zine has grown so much in the last few months that to meet the demands of my printing fulfilment I will be changing printers. Subscribers should instantly notice a HUGE upgrade to the quality and look of the Zine as now I am big enough to move away from print-on-demand orders. This means a lot more control on my part when it comes to the look and feel of each issue so I am very excited to be moving up with these new changes.

This means a huge change for Dank Zine because each issue now will be limited to the one production run and once all back issues are sold THAT’S IT. This means if you are backing my Zine you will get an issue with all the fun stickers each month and there will only be a few back issues in the store for those who were sitting on the fence. Even more reason to back the Zine so you never miss out. This also means starting in January my current Dank Shop will come down to make way for the new shop, so if you were thinking of grabbing any back issues that are in my Dank Shop right now do it soon before they are gone forever!