Howdy everyone!
Just wanted to let y’all know that I’m actively working on some back-end stuff regarding the website!
Continue reading “Website Retooling Progress Update”Website Retooling Progress Update
Coming This Month: March Edition
Howdy y’all! I’m planning on doing a thing called Coming This Month wherein I talk about some highlights from the gaming and film and anime worlds for this month, and even some channel news, too!
Let’s get started!
Manga News!
So there’s quite a bit of a selection of manga releasing this month, but I wanted to share some that caught my eye!
Up first is Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai! To be quite honest, I’m not a big Dragon Quest fan, but I think the series as a whole is interesting enough, and I can certainly respect its popularity. I’m pretty sure I saw a Dragon Quest anime over on Crunchyroll a while back, too, so seeing a Dragon Quest manga reach the West is definitely a delight!
I don’t know if I’ll be picking this manga up… I think it depends on if it’s going to be one of those infinitely long series like Pokémon or Splatoon.
This one is definitely a surprise: Alice in Borderland! Based on the synopsis I found online, this definitely seems like a rather interesting take on the original Alice in Wonderland story, as it focuses on a teenager and his group of friends fighting for their survival.
I’m not entirely sure how gore-y this series will be, but it definitely has me intrigued enough to pick up the first volume!
So, we have an action-adventure manga based on a video game, a dark twist on a public domain story, and now we have… a cute slice of life? Yes! This manga is called Cat + Gamer and sounds to be super cute! The whole plot of this series centers around a young adult girl struggling to be sociable with her co-wokers when one day a stray cat decides to make its way into her life. She now must learn how to take care of this cat with only the knowledge she’s gained from video games.
I think this would be a wonderful slice-of-life comedy, and I will most certainly want to keep up with this series!
Indie Gaming Releases
I know as Gamers(TM), we all try to stay on top of all the gaming news out there, but i wanted to share a couple of indie games coming out this month that I think are worth Googling!
Up first, we have a creature collecting game called Coromon! This looks interesting, as it seems to be a cross between Pokémon and The Legend of Zelda. You collect and raise various monsters, but you also navigate an interconnected world and solve puzzles in various ways.
It’s got a release date of March 31st, so you’ll definitely have to wait a while to snag this!
You won’t have to wait nearly as long to buy ANNO: Mutationem, though, as it’s coming out on the 17th! This game is a gorgeous blend of pixel art with 3D environments. It looks like the levels (or… dungeons…?) of this game will be 2D side-scrollers but the hub world is a fully explorable 3D space.
This one is definitely one to look out for!
That’s All For Now!
I wanted to keep this one short, as I’m still trying to get myself into the groove of making articles again! I hope you all enjoyed reading, and I hope to see y’all back here for the next article!
Oh My, Oh My… What do we have here?
CONTENT WARNING: There’s mentions of depression and suicide in here. Just to let ya know, friend-o.
Well, give me a lap and lay a head on it, I do believe it’s time for a new blog post!
(mumbles)
What’s that?
(mumbles)
That saying doesn’t exist?
(mumbles)
And it doesn’t make sense?
(mumbles)
Well, why don’t you just fuck me sideways and call me Jerry because I don’t care.
Anyways, what on God’s Green Earth have I been doing since last May?
Fuck… So much, my comrades…
Shit Hit The Fan
In July, I went on a trip with someone, and then I fell in love, and then two months later I got dumped out of the blue, and then I had to deal with academic burnout and the pain of a breakup at the same time, which is just mean, and then my mental health went to shit, that wasn’t great, and then I almost went into an early grave twice, which wasn’t kosher, I’ll admit, and then that person who dumped me and wanted to just be friends did some things that hurt me even more, so now I’m not talking to them, and, like, just, so much other shit has hit the fan.
Like… fuck… damn near everything went to shit, huh?
Well… What did go right for me in these past 12 months?
Honestly… not too much.
The Video Essays
I released some video essays, which was fun!
I tried messing around with the concept of doing “lore” shit, like narrative stuff, but, honestly, it just made producing video essays a huge pain.
That video essay on the anime Healin’ Good: Pretty Cure? Took several months longer than it needed to all because I wanted to also include, effectively, a whole damn short film in it that required just one other person, and, let’s be honest, just adding one person into the mix made the whole thing a nightmare.
I’m probably going to re-release those first two video essays without the narrative bullshit and the third one without the disclaimer saying that it’s “not technically finished” because fuck that.
(laughs to myself)
If I wasn’t so hell-bent on trying to do the lore scenes, I probably could have made a couple more video essays!
What else came about with the channel?
The Let’s Plays
Well, I had my Let’s Play of the 2005 version of Star Wars Battlefront II! That series was a lot of fun to produce! I always enjoy playing through Star Wars games but SOMEBODY WHO’S A FUCKING MOUSE hates fun and is a copyright monster.
I also did a Let’s Play of the remaster of Crysis 2 on Nintendo Switch, and that was loads of fun! It isn’t doing numbers by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s fine because I was mainly making that series for myself.
(slight chuckle)
Not much else happened in terms of what I traditionally call Let’s Plays because, well, I took quite a few breaks.
I was brought onto a Minecraft Survival Multiplayer Server for small creators called the Visionary SMP, and I’ve been having a blast on there.
This series also got me to start doing more with my thumbnails, as I used to just do a colored border, but now I’m trying to tie the whole thumbnail into the game!
I won’t be going back and re-doing all my past thumbnails because, well, that’s a lot of fucking videos, mate.
Like over 900 fucking public videos.
However, I will be doing these with future videos so nothing really feels copy-paste-y-y-y, which might also help keep me from getting burned out from making content!
Also! I’ve been doing things outside of the channel, too!
The Non-YouTube Shit
Did you know that I have an Itch.io profile that I upload stuff to?
(mumbles)
No?
(pause)
Yeah, okay, that one is on me. I’m actually really bad at trying to share my work on social media these days, and, honestly, I don’t know why exactly.
Also, yes, your eyes do NOT decieve you. I do indeed have a convient listing to purchase offline copies of Mini Pack (First Year Only BTW) for $5.20. Why? Because why not?
You do get the satification of helping me out, though…
Just saying…
Anyways.
I’ve been having a blast making small things and then posting them up on my Itch.io page for people to check out!
Wrap-Up Time!
Okay, I think that covers everything.
Or at least the things that I want to talk about.
I can choose to leave out specifics of my life because this is my website and I can do what I want.
I might try to do better about posting on here, but I’m taking, like, five classes on religion, of all fucking things, to finally get my degree, so we’ll have to wait and see what wonders are in store for this website!
Toodles~!
Quick Update! (May 17th, 2021)
Hey everyone!
I just wanted to make a quick blog post to give y’all an update on what’s been going on.
First, you may have notice that nothing has happened on the website since March, and that is because college completely took over my life, so much so that I had to put a pause on all of my personal projects, as I no longer had the energy to work on both them and college at the same time.
BUT!
This does mean that now that the semester is over, I can get back into making videos and articles again!
Additionally, starting this week, I will be working on the next issue to my new zine, The Palette Zine, but this does mean that the release cycle will now be at the end of the month versus at the start of the month.
Oh yeah! I started a new zine after spending some time away from that craft, as I was left dissatisified with Gaming and Creating.
I also might be starting a new job soon, so that may alter how much stuff I am able to do.
I think that’s everything! Thank you so much for being patient with me, and I hope to see y’all in the comments of the next episode of my Star Wars Battlefront II (2005) Let’s Play, or an article here on this website!
The Blog Section and Me
It’s a dim, overcast day. I’m sitting at my laptop, starring off out the only window in my room up towards the grey clouds above. It’s a peaceful, quiet day in the real world, but in my mind, it’s th emental equivalent of an old-timey newsroom with people running back an dforth trying to come together to figure out the biggest issue plaguing this website…
What the fuck am I going to do with this blog section?
Continue reading “The Blog Section and Me”Past, Present, and Future Projects
Earlier today, I made a “Morning Update” post on the FaceBook page that talked about how neglected that page was, as well as some other things that’ll be happening in the near future. Flash forward a few hours and here we are with a blog post to detail some stuff happening to the website, YouTube channel, and FaceBook page.
For a quick recap, here’s all the recently completed projects brought to the website, channel, and FaceBook page:
- Webiste
- Mini-Pack
- Updated Let’s Play pages (for the most part)
- YouTube
- FaceBook
- Let’s Play BSG mod for Star Wars Empire at War
- Other
- Created template files for XY and ORAS for Pokémon Team Bios
Real quick: I just wanted to stay that I really love how these two templates came out, and just modular the design feels. I can’t wait to use these for my own teams in the future, as well as possibly using them as the basis for potential Let’s Plays of those respective games.
As far as future projects are concerned, I was going to go back to making content on the website known as Vlare, but the website has since shut down. The videos that I did make for the platform will eventually make their way to my YouTube channel.
I do have some (extremely tentative) plans to make some more Let’s Plays for the FaceBook, but I’m not sure when I’ll actually have the time for that.
Finally, I wanted to share a rough roadmap for future updates that’ll be coming to the website. Please note that I don’t have dates for these, as my schedule can be thrown out of the window at a given moment, but this is the desired order for things to be finished:
- Create Video Essay page
- Also subpages for each video essay
- Finish Let’s Play subpages
- Mainly the video pages
- Create Saturday Morning Splatoon
I think that about covers everything! I didn’t talk about future Let’s Plays for the YouTube channel, as I like to have those be a surprised.
Anyways, that does it for this post! Thank you for reading!
Content… content… content…
Recently, I’ve been trying to expand or bring back types of content that I’ve been really wanting to do. Things like video essays, short films, and even writing news articles or guides, all while still doing Let’s Plays, Mini-Pack, and Andrew Dornan’s “What’s New?”.
What’s been keeping me from doing all of these things I want to do have been energy, school, and resources.
The biggest offender is energy. For those that don’t know, I struggle with depression, and a good chunk of my energy is spent either coping or surpressing my condition. What energy is left is then taken up by school, and then later other projects that I’m working on.
To illustrate just how busy I am, my current projects include…
- Let’s Plays on YouTube
- Preparing the next Side and Main Let’s Plays that come out next month while also preparing future series
- Let’s Plays for Vlare
- These air one at a time, albeit I’m currently putting this on pause
- A Guide for Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow Versions
- An untitled RPG using RPG Maker
- Andrew Dornan’s “What’s New?”
- That news show that airs every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning
- Mini-Pack
- My weekly, website-exclusive series wherein I open those packs of trading cards that only have 3 or 4 cards a pack
- An untitled card-game
- Gaming and Creating
- This is my once-every-two-months newsletter wherein I cover some gaming news, give my thoughts on games, and give an update about what I’m working on
Of course, this doesn’t cover all the work I need to do for my classes, as that’s a seperate beast entirely.
Two biggest projects I’ve wanted to bring back have been writing news articles/reviews for the website and doing podcasts. The problem is that I don’t have the time or energy to constantly make posts on the website, or even cut out several hours to record, edit, and upload a podcast.
I will go on the record and acknoweldge that I did indeed post news articles and reviews on this website, but that was for my broadcast course. However, those were immediately dropped after my professor said she wasn’t actually checking the content of the posts, just that I was posting “original content,” ontop of sharing posts from other news sources.
Once May arrives, I will be done with my classes, and that will be one less thing that will be using up my energy, but I might be able to secure a part-time job afterwards.
That job will, hopefully, present me with more resources, namely money.
My plan is to save up the money that I would get from this potential job, and then wipe off my credit card all at once. That way it’ll be fresh for the next semester.
But… untill then, I’ve just been rolling with what I have, while still hoping to be able to deliver more content to you all…
The Launch of a New Project
What’s going on?
I’m so glad you asked! About a month ago, I was introduced to a new video sharing service called Vlare. The best way to describe it is it’s like YouTube before a ton of dumb changes. It still has a modern feel to it, but there are a lot of aspects of it that remind me of how YouTube used to be when I was in junior high school. In fact, I was so intrigued by it that I decided to make my own channel for it.
Vlare: Old YouTube in the Modern Day
You can really see the similarities in the amount of freedom people can have over their channel’s design. Above is how my channel is currently designed, with the color pallete being various shades, tints, and mixes of blue and green. While not entirely the same layout as the way YouTube channels used to have before they all became what’s used today.
An example of a channel that took full use of the channel design tools. (Chuggaaconroy, Circa 2012) 
An example of the modern channel design all channels use. (The Runaway Guys, Circa 2019)
The uploader is virtually the same as on YouTube, and there’s really no reason for it to be any different. The only change is that it fits Vlare’s modern, module design esthetic with the only down side being that you cannot set multiple videos to upload all at once, but I can learn to live with that.
Additionally, when you go to leave a comment, you’ll see the option to leave a video response. Those who have been on the platform the longest will remember this function that was quietly dropped at one point or another.
Vlare Comment Section (Circa 2019) 
Video Response and Top Comment section from YouTube (Chuggaaconroy, Super Mario Sunshine – Episode 1, Circa 2009-10)
While I personally didn’t use the feature that much, especially since I was A) 11-12 at the time and B) wasn’t well-versed in how to navigate YouTube’s features at the time. However, looking back, I do think it was a neat function that could aid in bringing a community closer together, which is why I’m rather excited to see that Vlare incorporated a similar feature in their comment sections.
What does this mean for the YouTube Channel?
Well, to be perfectly honest, nothing. The YouTube channel will continue to have videos uploaded to it, but, in addition to that content, I’ll be uploading exclusive Let’s Plays to my Vlare channel. In fact, by the time this post releases, the first episode of my Let’s Play of Dark Arena should be live.
I’ll also be using my Vlare channel as a test-bed for various ideas I might have.
Credit Where Credit Is Due
Before I close out this post, I just would like to thank the maker’s of the WayBack Machine because without that tool, I most likely would not be able to get screenshots of YouTube from so many years ago. Right now, they’re doing their annual fundraiser to ensure that they can keep both the WayBack Machine and the Internet Archive alive and well. If you would like to donate, you can do so by clicking here or by copying-and-pasting this link: https://archive.org/donate/.
The Closing
This is going to be a fun time! I’m excited to see what all Vlare has to offer, and what kind of community I might grow on there! Anyways, by the time this comes out, the new year will have started, and with it will come new challenges and new oppurtunities!
Preparing for Year 4
The Start of the Channel
According to YouTube, I made my current channel on July 10, 2014, however, technically speaking, I wasn’t the one who made it. When the Google+ intergration occur, YouTube accidentally created a second “Da12thKind” YouTube channel. After not using it for a while, as I was focusing on Doorman Net Productions, I decided to use it for my own Let’s Plays since I had instituted a new rule stating that I could no longer make solo series on the channel, as I wanted it to be more collaborative focused.
I personally mark the start of the channel with the uploaded of the first episode of my first of many Let’s Plays for that channel, 007 Nightfire, which aired on March 31, 2017, a whopping three years after the channel was made.
The Upload Schedule
The upload schedule for this channel has seen some changes over the years. I’m not exactly sure what the original upload schedule was, since I never actually wrote it down on paper…
{Two hours later}
Despite my best attempts at searching old chat logs, I could never figure out what that old upload schedule was… My best guess is that it was whenever the fuck I felt like; which was probably every day, for the most part.
Towards the end of 2017, I decided to go for a daily release schedule.
(Just imagine me with a look of dissappointment that’s directed to myself.)
I never wrote down what this schedule was either.
HOWEVER! I did managed to deduce through looking up the upload dates and marking them in an old 2018 day planner that it was something akin to Main Let’s Plays airing on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays at (probably) 1:30 PM Central Standard Time, and the Side Let’s Play coming out on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays at (probably) 3:30 PM Central Standard Time.
(Leaving a paper trail is important, kiddos.)
I don’t know why I thought that was ever a good idea, it seems I learned my lesson because I eventually redesigned my schedule so it is what we have now:
Main Let’s Play airing on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 1:30 PM Central Standard Time
Side Let’s Play airing on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 3:30 PM Central Standard Time
OKAY SO! Where does that leave us now?
The New Upload Schedule
Starting with Year 4, there will be a new upload schedule to mark a new chapter in the channel’s lifetime.
The new schedule will be daily, but not like the old way. A truly daily release cycle for both series: Sunday through Saturday with the main series coming out at 1:30 PM Central Standard Time and the side series coming out at 3:30 PM Central Standard Time.
Additionally, when I started using this channel, I made the rule that there would only be two series going on at a time. While I will still hold onto this idea, I will be modifying it slightly. As we saw with Stardew Valley, if a Main Let’s Play is long enough, many other Side Let’s Plays will come and go, making the numbering system a little weird.
That is changing, too, to be more streamlined. Each Main Let’s Play will get one, and only one, Side Let’s Play. When that Side Let’s Play is done, another one will not take its place, and the Main Let’s Play will just continue on until it, too, is finished.
Unfortunately, this puts my current series, Stellaris, and my future series, Mariokart 8 in a bit of a bind. If my estimations for the lengths of these two series are correct, then they’ll run well based the channel’s anniversary of March 31, 2020, or, at least, Mariokart 8 will.
The solution? Simple! Roughly two weeks before the anniversary, I will pause all channel uploads, as I will also need that break to prepare for my anniversary video. Then, on the following Sunday, April 5th, the next episode of Mariokart 8 will air at 3:30 PM Central Standard Time with Stellaris, or whatever the next Main Let’s Play will be, will air that same day, but at 1:30 PM Central Standard Time.
The Future of the Channel
As of now, I do not know what the future holds for this channel, but I hope to continue on making content. I am slowly making the push for more content to be uploaded to this website with stuff like the current Mini-Pack series and the future Saturday Morning Splatoon series.
I honestly don’t know if I’ll be able to host all of my channel’s archive on here, as WordPress no longer offers unlimited bandwidth at their highest subscription tier, but I will find ways around it.
Eventually, I will, however, start uploading more of my series onto here, starting with 007 Nightfire, and then working my way up. That will have to wait, however, as I probably will need to put down quite a bit of money…
The Wrap-Up
And that’s a wrap for this post! Thank you so much for reading. There was a lot I had to dig up just to write this post, and I will most certainly be refering to it a lot whenever I need to talk about my old upload schedules. Other than that, I’m still super unsure about the future, and I’m just happy that you’re here for the ride!
Some New Changes
Greetings, everyone!
It’s been a long about a month (probably more-so a month on the dot) since the last post. To be fair, there’s been a lot of behind-the-scene changes and updates going down.
Team Bios
The first thing I would like to talk about something that I’ve been working on: Pokemon Team Bios!
I got the idea when taking a break from homework. I saw my Snorlax plush and thought to myself, “Man… It sure would be nice if I had bios for the members of my Pokemon: Blue Version team… Wait.”
I immediately opened up a project file from my Pokemon: Blue Version Let’s Play.
Right away, I knew what information I need and don’t need to show. I started with removing the evolutions and the Game Boy gameplay window. Then, I replaced the “Catch Rate” line with a “Version Obt.” line.
Add in a box for moves and an area for nicknames, level, and some other stuff and bada-bing bada-boom!
I was really happy with how this came out! I thought that would be it, but then I thought, “What if I made templates for all of the games…?”
And then I did…
Pokemon Gold 
Pokemon Silver 
Pokemon Crystal 
Pokemon RSE 
Pokemon FRLG 
Pokemon DPPl
As of now, I’ve got Team Bio templates for all of the titles from Red/Blue/Yellow all the way to Diamond/Pearl/Platinum.
Originally, this was just going to be for me, but I have since decided to open this up to commissions. I was also going to wait to open up until after I made all of the templates, but after talking to Gunnar, we agreed that it’d make more sense to create the templates at the time of it being requested.
I’ll be accepting commissions through the official Da12thKind Twitter page and my Etsy store later this month.
New Series
Pretty soon, a new, exclusive series will be airing on the website on Saturday mornings called Saturday Morning Splatoon!
This is the thumbnail template I’ll be using for this series, and I really like how it came out! I wasn’t sure how to do a paint-splatter-border, so I decided to grab all of my general thumbnail templates, import them into one file, and then go nuts with the eraser tool.
This series will see us play through a couple of matches in the original Splatoon, and so each episode will be roughly six to nine minutes each, but the file sizes are a little too large to upload them directly to the website, so I’ll be uploading them to YouTube, mark them as “Unlisted”, and then embed them into their own pages on this website like with how I set up the Let’s Play section.
Some General Changes
Just a quick list of some general changes…
- Updated the “Other Content” page to include a blurb about Saturday Morning Splatoon
- Removed the “Other Websites” link from the “Other Content” drop-down menu
- Added Saturday Morning Splatoon link to the “Other Content” drop-down
The Closing
That’s it for this update! Thank you so much for reading this post, watching my videos, and supporting the channel and the website!