jdodson1

Joined 01/23/2012
  Admin

I'm an Engineer and built the video game community Cheerful Ghost and text based mini-MMO Tale of the White Wyvern.

2753 Posts

An Epic AGDQ 2016 Speedrun of Diablo 2 Featuring MrLlamaSC
MrLlamaSC was featured in this years Games Done Quick charity speedrun event. He completed Diablo 2 + LOD in 1h47m in another hypnotizing speed run. The awesome part about watching AGDQ runs is that the runners talk about the strategies they use, a bit about the game and how it was programmed, different runners and whom holds the current world record. The current D2 speedrun record is by Teo at 1h20m.

MrLlamaSC does a great job here considering Diablo 2 is very random and he couldn't restart for something better.

http://www.speedrun.com/run/9mej6d9y

The Legend of Zelda HD on Wii U Launches March 4th With Amiibo Support!
The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess HD remake is dropping on the Wii U March 4th to flex your HD TV. You can buy the remake digitally, single game or a special game+Link Amiibo collectable that...

"Using the Wolf Link amiibo at a certain place will allow you to play “Thorough Battle: Trial of the Beast” (perhaps this is the Twilight Cave we heard about last week). If you clear this while owning the “Giant Wallet”, you’ll earn the “Bottomless Wallet”. This lets you hold up to 9,999 Rupees, compared to Giant Wallet’s maximum of 1,000. The leak also mentions something about how Link’s health inside normal dungeons can be recovered by the amount of hearts you preserved in the exclusive dungeon (which I assume is this one)."

As we discussed in the last Roundtable, Wii games suffer from artifacting and are not upscaled on the Wii U. Nintendo re-releasing Twilight Princess in HD allows this game to get a glorious HD remake and bring it to Wii U owners that may have missed it on GameCube and Wii.

http://nintendoeverything.com/famitsu-sheds-light-on-zelda-twilight-princess-hds-amiibo-features/

Are You Down With Zelda? The Most 90's Rap About One Of The Best Zelda Titles Around.
"Down with Zelda from the very start, I got the heart it's smart to play the part. Down with Zelda! Creepin' through with an overhead view because a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. So I stay on track collect the fact, never cut slack and I always watch my back for Jack. Down with Zelda! Don't ask them because i'm the man with the plan because the power's in my head and the power's in my hand. Down with Zelda!"

If you didn't understand 90's colloquially and didn't watch the video you might think this person want's to take Zelda down but these kinds of videos are so uniquely 90's you can't make them up. Like any Nintendo commercial from the 90's I remember this one and after I saw it had to share it. At one point at the 19 second mark there is some gameplay not featured in Link's Awakening of a huge ghost as well as some game art that didn't ship with the final version. Funny that this commercial was shot with such an early build but yeah, I imagine this ad campaign was envisioned before the final build of the game was out internally at Nintendo.

Down with Zelda? This game and commercial, for sure.

Cheerful Ghost Roundtable S4 E1: The Most 2016 Thing We've Ever Done
In this episode of the Cheerful Ghost Roundtable we talk about our highlights of 2015 in gaming as well as talk about what we are looking forward to in 2016. We take a break to read some Chick Tracts, discuss paid mods as well as our guesses or general lack of knowledge around Nintendo's new dream console NX!

jdodson may also have first coined "Triple Indie" to discuss Indie games with large budgets. Even if he wasn't, it's still nice to dream big! Come for the discussion stay for Scrypt drinking so much he can't think of what to say next!

Notes:

Cheerful Ghost 2015 GoTY Awards - http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/2753/cheerful-ghost-2015-game-of-the-year-awards

Hearthstone Dailies for Ghosts Episode I - http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/2767/hearthstone-dailies-for-ghosts-episode-1-the-show-begins

Consortium: The Tower Kickstarter - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/idgi/consortium-the-tower

New Doom Game Heavily Inspired By The Original
Game Informer has an incredible spread on the new Doom game that is slowly unlocking over the next couple days. In the next couple days they will do a story on Dooms new Snapmap feature which is the coolest part about the new game in my opinion. The detail and love iD is putting into the game really shows and it does seem to be a love letter to the feel of the original.

No exact date is set yet but it should be in the first couple months of this year. Doom is coming out on PC, PS4 and XBox One and I am curious how you plan on playing it and if you are going to pick this one up on launch day?

http://www.gameinformer.com/p/doom.aspx

Even the Ocean To Release Summer of 2016 As New Site & Trailer Drops
Joni and Sean and the two part super group behind the Indie Zelda-like Anodyne are close to releasing their follow up Even The Ocean. Even the Ocean is a story based side scroller where you "follow Aliph, a technician for Whiteforge City, as she investigates a recent string of power plant failures..." It features an interesting power mechanic that you can balance to use in your favor situationally. From following the game in it's early stages it looks to have changed some but it still looks great.

When the game launches i'll post more but you can find out more by checking the games website.

http://www.eventheocean.com/

We also talked to Joni and Sean back in 2014 about the game which Scrypt and I saw at that years PAX Prime. You can read that interview below:

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/1557/even-the-ocean-the-upcoming-game-from-analgesic

Square Enix Giving Away David Bowie Game Omikron The Nomad Soul
Beloved musician and entertainer David Bowie recently passed away to the grief of many. It's hard not to see the effects of Bowie's long career in music and pop culture. Many may not know but David Bowie was featured in a game called Omikron: The Nomad Soul.

"Responding to the desperate pleas of a mysterious character from another dimension, your soul must enter the dark and futuristic city of Omikron. This heralds the beginning of an epic adventure through an increasingly strange and dazzling parallel world, trying to solve the many puzzles that prevent you escaping alive. Think, fight and interact with the immense gaming environment to defeat the menacing demons that have tried to trap you."

As a memorial to Bowie, Square Enix is giving away The Nomad Soul for free on PC and Steam and you can redeem your copy at the link below using the coupon code "omikron" at checkout.

People from the United States should use the link below:

https://store.na.square-enix.com/product/281956/omikron-the-nomad-soul-pc-download

People from everywhere else should use the link below:

https://store.eu.square-enix.com/emea_uk/games/pc-windows-download/Omikron-The-Nomad-Soul.php

Hearthstone Dailies For Ghosts: Episode 1 The Show Begins
One goal of 2016 is to do more Cheerful Ghost video projects. Keep the Roundtable going strong, do more local developer interviews and game streaming. I love Hearthstone and I know some of you do too and thought it might make sense to do a new Hearthstone series where I play the game and talk a bit about it. Specifically i'll be focusing on grinding my Hearthstone gold dailies, talk about the game in terms of strategy to help people understand the game a bit more and learn that they can do pretty well playing the game for free. In this first episode I grind out one of my daily quests while playing 3 ranked matches. I talk about and use two of my new decks specifically my Dragon Priest and Warlock Zoo.

Recording this using OBS on my Mac and everything went very smoothly. Eventually I may start doing this on Twitch but I figured to start out simple and see how it develops.

Drop any comments you have on this episode and thanks for watching!

ASMR Reads 90's EGM Magazines While Whispering
YouTuber ASMR made this video where he pages through Electronic Gaming Monthly while he whispers his thoughts about them. His channel is dedicated to him doing playing games, crinkling plastic and going through magazines while whispering. If you were really excited about looking over some EGM magazines while someone softly talks to you, get ready for an amazing time!

Decided to share this because this was so different I had to share it with somebody.

Watch Speedrunner Yagamoth Beat The Secret Of Mana in Less Than Two Hours
We've shared some absolutely incredible speedruns and this one is no exception to that tradition. Speedrunner Yagamoth was present at the 2016 Games Done Quick charity drive which raised 1.2 million dollars for the prevent cancer foundation. His speedrun is of the 90's classic I am currently playing called the The Secret of Mana. Secret of Mana is an old Square game that is a real time hybrid that mixes Zelda and Final Fantasy elements. As Yagamoth runs through the game he talks a bit about it and how he uses glitches to achieve a faster run. Under two hours is a really impressive effort as my current game is well over 15-20 and I just unlocked the final Mana fortress.

https://gamesdonequick.com