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UPDATED: Next Wednesday, August 7th, Michael Damiani returns as the interim host of the Community Showcase. Daniel Bloodworth will join him to go through the latest offerings of art from our busy $10 and above Patrons. I will return as host in September with Michael Huber as my guest. I can't wait to see the new stuff!

- Brandon
SHOWCASE GUIDELINES

No submissions will be accepted past August 6th at 12:00 AM PT.

While you retain all rights to your content, by submitting here you’re giving Easy Allies the right to show the content in our monthly Community Showcase live stream.

You may submit a comment, an image, or an audio/video file. If you’re submitting anything other than a comment, please host the file elsewhere and link it on Patreon. You can make a tweet or Instagram post with your image, or link the audio/video from a YouTube account, etc.

If you’re posting a video, photograph, or drawing, keep your comment limited to a description of the work. Leaving a piece of art, or a video, in addition to a long comment is a bit disrespectful of people who just leave comments. If you’re posting a lot of images, we will only show a maximum of 9, of our choosing unless you specify otherwise.

Comments have been known to disappear from Patreon posts, unfortunately. Double check that your post remained active before the day of the Showcase. Leaving a comment helps to keep it from vanishing. If you’re submitting text, save a copy locally in case you have to re-post.

Any text to be read should be 500 words or less. Any video or piece of music should be 3 minutes or less. If the entry is longer, we will edit it down to a manageable length. We reserve the right to remove any content we find offensive.

Only one entry per month. Unless you specify what you’d like us to focus on, we’ll always use the last post from each Patron.

You may comment on any submissions, but keep original posts focused toward the Showcase so no submission is overlooked.

Comments

Anonymous

By popular request of one ally, here is a highlight reel of some of my favorite moments from my competition routine a couple months ago. I happily give up my throne as Thumbnail King until the next showcase rolls around. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzewNHWFuiI&feature=youtu.be

Anonymous

Hello Allies. This month, rather than my usual game dev update I’ll be sharing a fun art project I worked on. I drew myself and some friends as members of an imaginary Pokémon league. The music in the background is from my game’s soundtrack. (p.s. so glad y’all enjoyed Twin Sister!) https://youtu.be/_T0scwknmEs

Robert I.

I just wanted to clarify from the last Q&A that "The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell" is a very jolly, spooky crafts/cooking show on Netflix that was co-produced by an arm of the Jim Henson Company (so, yes, there are muppet characters). It was very short lived with only six half hour episodes. Christine McConnell is a real person who gained internet fame from her real life amazing and grotesque creations. She has started a Patreon to keep a simpler show going on YouTube, "From The Mind Of Christine McConnell". Sadly, there are no muppets or storylines. But she's great and her work is amazing.

Robert I.

Also this post might not be allowed, because aside from being a patron, I have no involvement in either show... so not really a community showcase to shout out another person's patreon... If it's disqualified, I totally understand. Love and respect.

Kitsunelaine

Okay! So here's my thing: A piece of music I've been working on. It's still a work in progress. I also have no idea what key it's in, only that it's based on D and seems to be some kind of made up scale. Because the list of notes in it is weird and it never seems to switch key. (The notes are: D, D#, E, F, F#. G, G#. A, A# B, and no, it doesn't sound like as much of a mess as that seems to signal). Now, I did my *absolute best* to shorten this down from 5:30 to 3:00, but only managed to get it to 3:30-- I hope that's okay. https://drive.google.com/open?id=12Rm8-xRp65sCl50rSWOJmv92ZBarFcgk

Anonymous

Hey Guys, To start this month I would really to congratulate everyone that was involved in the Glinny's Cauldron game jam. I don't use a PC so I can't play the games personally bit I loved seeing the creativity and ingenuity on display it was very inspiring especially in such a short amount of time, I hope that everyone involved continues to follow their dreams and if any of you have a game idea that they want to kick start I think the EZA community will be behind you. As for games I have just picked up Fire Emblem and look forward to playing that also picked up the doom trilogy on switch which has been heaps of fun. Most of my gaming time has been chewing through Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 with some of my favourite X-men although I do miss Iceman from X-men Legends. Night Crawler is my go-to but I will hopefully unlock Magneto soon. This game is a perfect 7, the only criticism I have since it doesn't feel like it was reaching for anything above a 7 is that in X-MEN legends you had gear to affect stats and more individual stat involvement and now you just have 4 moves and crystals which are sterile and boring. I look forward to MUA4 tho to see them expand and perhaps even add a budget to the game. Finally on the 22nd of July my wife and I welcomed our second child to the world, a little baby girl Artemis Luna Beaumont, named after the Goddess of the Hunt. Love and Respect

Anonymous

Good afternoon gentlemen, First of all, let me add to the chorus of people who want Bloodworth to know how much we appreciate all he does and to congratulate him on an outstanding Fiasconauts debut. And while I’m patting you all on the back, thank you Damiani for doing a great job with the Community Showcase. Now, on to July in gaming. This was an interesting month. There were two games that I dropped back into for a weekend and two that took over my life for a while. The first game that I dropped into was Tetris 99. I don’t play as much as I used to so I appreciate the Maximus Cups for giving me an excuse to play again. Plus, the ones where I get $9.99 in eShop credit are nice. I basically get money for playing Tetris. That’s literally the only thing about my life right now my 10-year-old self would be happy about. Anyway, I probably won’t ever use the Splatoon skin because the Game Boy skin exists. Speaking of Splatoon, of course I had to participate in the final Splatfest. (Sorry, Marina, I tried my best. I think Pearl cheats.) Things I am bad at in Splatoon: shooting and not getting shot. Things I am good at in Splatoon: maximizing my gear for speed and defense and taking my roller as far into enemy territory as possible before betting splatted. I love the game but there’s a reason why I avoid the modes that require actual strategy. As for the first game that took over my life for a bit, that was Super Mario Maker 2. I’m really enjoying it but I’m slightly worried that being bad at platformers is hindering me as a designer. There’s a lot of cool stuff out there that I could never come close to designing or attempting to play. However, I’ve taken the attitude that I’m making games for people at my skill level and ampretty pleased with my clear rates of 20%-30%. My favorite level right now is one where hopefully the player doesn’t even realize there are secrets until the very end. The beautiful and awful thing is that I will never know how many players actually experience it that way. Finally, the game that is currently taking over my life, is Fire Emblem: Three Houses which I am loving. I was worried about the school mechanics but then while playing it, I got even more worried that I’d lose them during the second half. I’m almost done with my current playthrough and am eager to try the other houses and get to know the characters that I’ve only gotten glimpses of so far. Although I’ll need to recruit all of my currents kids as well because I love them too much. Say what you will about Revelations, at least I got to save everyone (and then forced them into breeding supersoldiers). Anyway, that was July. Looking forward to this month and Astral Chain!

Anonymous

Holding the hold. ETA a random thought, not part of my submission: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/byH5BHoe_Nc/maxresdefault.jpg This is a screenshot of the title screen of SMM2. Is anyone else disturbed by the part where Mario looks like he's about to drop a small, cat-version of his brother down a red pipe to a waiting piranha plant all while smiling blankly at the camera?

Joseph Caruso

I know it's easy to get excited about next-gen hardware now that details are starting to be revealed, but as someone that has invested thousands of US dollars into his PC and follows PC hardware news extensively, I also think it's wise to be skeptical of these details. Damiani and Blood, as two of the most venerable Allies, I'm hoping you can back me up here about my skepticism based on the history of console detail reveals and the current trends in technology. Let's start with Microsoft talking about gaming at 120Hz. Assuming most consumers are not anticipating upcoming visually complex first-party titles at 4K 120 FPS, but rather just as a possibility for less visually complex games, most televisions do not even support native 120Hz refresh rates, let alone at 4K resolutions, a combination which requires HDMI 2.1, which JUST started showing up on the latest televisions. Not even the latest graphics cards released last month from AMD and Nvidia support HDMI 2.1. And the next playstation will supposedly support 8K resolutions. So even if these resolution and framerate improvement promises are kept, most consumers wouldn't be able to appreciate them without getting brand new televisions. There's also much talk about load times being significantly reduced, to the point of them being "a thing of the past." While it's true that a solid state drive is usually a significant improvement over a standard harddrive in game load times, game worlds still have to load on a PC, even with the most state-of-the-art and expensive drives available. Finally, Sony and Microsoft are talking about hardware accelerated ray-tracing, which in its current form is very limited on PC titles, and running just one aspect of ray-tracing will often cut your frame-rate in half. For reference, a game as visually basic as Quake 2 runs at below 60FPS with ray-traced reflections, shadows, and global illumination on an $800 graphics card at only 1080p resolution. Frankly, I think there's a fair chance that Microsoft and Sony are simply talking pie-in-the-sky dreams of hardware power to get consumers fantasizing about super powerful consoles at an affordable price, but that seems highly unlikely in the next 18 months at the slow rate PC hardware is accelerating. If anything, perhaps they're actually talking about features the likely Pro versions of these next-gen consoles will have when they release 3+ years into the life-cycle of this generation. Remember, the Xbox One shipped with a 4K-ready HDMI cable, but only the S and X models supported 4K Blu-Rays and eventually 4K gaming visuals, respectively, and it's best not to re-watch the reveal of the Playstation 4 when thinking about what's being revealed for the Playstation 5. I wonder if it's right for Microsoft and Sony to market their next-gen consoles towards a high-end consumer that practically doesn't even exist yet. But the sad truth is that more realistic promises are not bold enough to get headlines and our attention this early in the battle.

Anonymous

Hello Blood & Damiani! July 21st was my 7th wedding anniversary, and how did we spent it? Playing Super Mario Maker 2 of course! My wife said that after I showed her 4 youtube videos about it, she took the hint that I wanted it, so she bought it for me as a present; but we have been playing the story mode and the endless challenge together. We haven't dared to build a level, but it will eventually happen. Another thing that I played on July was Minit. When I heard about it I thought it looked interesting, but Blood's stream just solidified my desire. I liked the Majora's Mask-esque mechanics of having just a set amount to time to progress, and while it's not the hardest game out there, I did get stuck way more times that I'd like to admit. I started the second challenge right away but have not been able to pick it up again after that. I will come back to it eventually.. Another one I played was Box Boy for the 3DS. I think I got this one on a sale and got interested on it because Nintendo Minute has covered all the games in the franchise. Not very challenging, but fun nonetheless. Looking forward to play the other Box Boy games. And Moving to another Hal Laboratories game, I played Kirby's Dream Land 2, and this is confession time. I think I don't like Kirby. I loved the Game boy original, but hated Super Star in the SNES and Return to Dream Land in the Wii, I think the NES one is OK, but I don't consider it a Master Piece as people usually do. Dream Land 2 was also just OK. I'll stick to playing Dream Course on the SNES for my Kirby fix. That one I LOVE. And to end the beaten games portion, we finally got the platinum in Until Dawn this month. I think we played it around 5 times total and repeated some chapters to get everything, but it was great fun every time. Looking forward to the Man of Medan. And to Damiani, I picked up Triforce Heroes and let me tell you. For a game about totems poles, they really didn't care about being up in the Zelda one. I'd put it right at the bottom just on top of Four Swords. It doesn't help that this is a party game but the online is dead and I really don't dare to ask my wife and cousin to play with me, specially since I'm not really enjoying myself very much with it, so I think I'll just stomach it, beat one level per day and be done with it by the end of the month; and after that I'll finally take a dive into Breath of the wild. That's it for July, allies. Keep up the good work. Love & Respect, César.

Brandon K Gann

Normally, I don’t become aware of games outside of presentations. For example, conventions like E3, or bite-sized chunks like Nintendo Directs, State of Plays or other one-off announcements. But this year, I’ve come across games more frequently in ways I’m unaccustomed, so I wanted to speak about several of these lesser known titles. Early this year I heard about Ghost of a Tale, an action RPG where you play as a mouse looking for his wife. It starts with you locked in a castle dungeon and you eventually can explore said castle and surrounding areas. Originally released on Steam in 2017, it came to Xbox last year, and while it’s rough and has some issues, the whole thing was made by one person and has some redeeming qualities. Personally, I’d say it’s a 6.0. One day I came across a trailer for Wrath: Aeon of Ruin. Being made by veterans from the Quake community, you can tell both in terms of visual aesthetic and fast-paced retro FPS design. It’s been pushed to 2020, but I’m very excited to give it a shot, especially since it’s coming to all the expected platforms. I went to my first ever PAX this year (and the first time I’ve ever been to Boston) and while there, I was exposed to three games that have interesting concepts. Splitgate: Arena Warfare is the melding of Halo squad-based multiplayer with mechanics from Portal and is free to play on Steam right now. However, as appealing as it sounds and looks, there isn’t a sizeable player base for quick matches which is a shame, because its success determined if it would be ported to consoles. I was able to watch a friend demo two games that hooked me INSTANTLY. Get to the Orange Door is an FPS which plays like it came from Respawn, looks it came from Tron, and incorporating brief slow-down moments reminding me of Super-Hot. Currently, it’s coming to Steam and Switch. The other game has been covered by EZA in the Pre E3 2019 Indie Preview! Creature in the Well was awesome to see in person, especially since the developer talked to both myself and my friend and made the demo even better! Playing a robot where you’re trying to restart a weather machine and defeat the titular creature, I can’t wait to get it for Xbox soon, but for those who are more PC or Switch inclined, it will also launch on your platform as well. The last game I’ll touch on I initially saw in the first State of Play, but it was actually Easy Update that did a MUCH better job on selling the game: Observation. Playing the first 20 minutes and ending on the twist did more to sell me on it than the trailer, so thanks to Mr. Hinck for showing it off. While I enjoyed my time with it, I felt the end didn’t land like I hoped, but I’m in agreement with Mr. Bloodworth’s review.

Anonymous

Greetings Damiani, Blood, and allies! I am currently on my yearly camping trip to Orcas Island doing facilities and stage setup for the Doe Bay music festival taking place this weekend. I'm gonna miss the live stream, so shout-out to the regulars! I will probably try to share some more from the actual event next month, but here's a couple of pictures of the resort before everyone gets here: https://twitter.com/Tokyo2Slim/status/1158498545713836033?s=19

Anonymous

Hello Damiani and Blood! This past month, I have had the honor and privilege of working with an incredibly talented team to create a little video game called 'Swordcery'. We thank everyone who had voted us to be the most vile video game of this year's Glinny's Cauldron game jam, and we would like to shout out all of the incredible games that were created by and for this amazing community. It was an amazing experience to connect with fellow patrons (many of which I've seen share their work in this very showcase!) and see their talent first hand. Here's to hoping this is not the last time we see Glinny's Caludron. We decided to cut together a short video of the creative process behind making the video game and we hope you enjoy it! https://youtu.be/FgNTP4OWkfE L&R Mason Victoria

Alexander Zyryanov

I’ve already made Easy Ally videos for Blood and Damiani, so today I’ll tell you about my first half of 2019. In winter I was cleaning my backlog. The highlights were: Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales. I was very surprised by quality of its story, variety of its card battles and amount of stuff you can do besides playing Gwent. Divinity: Original Sin II. Sometimes it’s hard to understand what to do, but the amount of freedom is well worth it. Amazing companions, especially Lohse. Red Dead Redemption 2. A landmark title for the industry and defining game of 2018. After my backlog was cleared I’ve decided to try every single game on Xbox Game Pass. Most of them weren’t winners, but I really liked quite a few (including some that I never heard about). The highlights were: Late Shift. It’s a 3-hour chose-your-own-adventure crime movie, which I enjoyed a lot. DiRT 4. I never suspected how demanding and challenging rally is. It’s more satisfying than beating Bloodborne’s bosses. Mortal Kombat XL. No idea who those people are (I never played Mortal Kombat), but I still enjoyed its story mode. Also insect-lady is very cool. Onrush. It’s hard to explain why, but this game is much more fun that it looks. The Gardens Between. It’s a calm puzzle game with quite unique core mechanic. It’s easy, but still very enjoyable. Also Xbox Game Pass gave me a chance to try several games I was interested in, but would never spend money on. So it’s one of the best things in gaming industry. Another great thing is Epic Games Store, because during sales they offer discounts on pre-orders. I’ve bought Control for $10 and now I wish for every game to be released on Epic. Speaking of new games I also want to mention: Apex Legends. Unlike Fortnite it doesn’t change all the time, so there’s a reason to learn & play this game. Also it’s really fun and even shitty FPS players like me have a chance to win. Anthem. I played it in April. Yes, online components wastes a lot of your time (community was already dead), but I enjoyed flying, shooting and getting this game for $10. Dreams. My PhD was about Human-Computer Interaction and I must say: Dreams has the best UI I’ve ever seen. If you want to learn coding, modeling, animating, etc. and specialized tools like Visual Studio & Photoshop intimidate you, just play Dreams. Alas, E3 was disappointing. I really loved Watch Dogs: Legion, Xbox press-conference & Doom Eternal, but that’s it. Well, at least now I can continue to ignore Final Fantasy series without worrying that I’m skipping something I might like. What I really liked was HBO’s Chernobyl. It’s basically a documentary, so watch it: this story needs to be known. Also season 8 of Game of Thrones is the best. I’m surprised so many people hated it, but as you just heard with Final Fantasy, true art is never liked by everyone.

Megan Linart

Hello Gentlemen, its finally time to continue my Twilight saga review and we are now onto the third film in the franchise Eclipse, which is my personal favorite because things actually happen! So the film directly picks up after the events of new moon Edward has finally returned thank goodness, but unfortunately bella’s character went from trash bag to full on dumpster diver in this film, somehow she becomes even more despicable than before. She is just annoying, whiny and manipulative through the entire thing. The film starts out with a person we don't know getting attacked and bitten by a vampire in Seattle, turns out the Vampire Victoria who has been the main antagonist up to this point is creating an army of newborn Vampires while she hides behind it, her motivation is so poorly thought out. I guess she is still mad at bella and edward because they killed her mate in the first film but this is all her character is. Anyway, Jacob makes his debut being the sad sack he is, still trying to get with bella even though bella has told him 10 times already that she wants to be with edward, but bella basically enables this constantly by going off with him and at one point makes out with him right after she accepts Edward marriage proposal, it's just a big mess. This pointless love triangle takes up about 95% of the film while the other 5% it about the army. The acting is bad as you would expect, but the action is pretty fun in this film, when the vampires and wolves team up it’s cool to see, the big fight scene at the end is also great. The dialogue is laughable and the writing is just very bland and nonsensical. Then they introduce one of the creepiest things I think ive seen in a movie, the process of Imprinting. The Werewolves when they find that one person who they have this deep and unexplainable connection with, they do a thing called Imprint on them. they basically become whoever the girl needs him to be, a Lover, Protector, or a Friend. But what is super creepy about this is they can imprint in someone of any age, the werewolves will actually wait until they are old enough to start dating them but they are still kind of in love with them as soon as they see them. Yeah, its gross. Overall, this film is not that bad, I really like it. There is actually some good action set pieces, the plot moves along and the directing has a bit more life in it, the terrible writing, laughable plot and dumb characters are just an added bonus. Sorry if this review is a bit all over the place had to rush through it to get it done by submission day. Next time ill be reviewing Breaking Dawn part one and get ready because i'm going to be tearing that film a new one.

Anonymous

Greetings Damiani and Blood!! Easy Livin’ 3 was awesome and big congrats on the relatively smooth stream! Also, a big shout out to the EZArt Discord for the #EasyLivinArt we all put together throughout that weekend! Here was one of my submissions. I had a lot of fun putting it together and it was great to see everyone’s response to all the great artwork! https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A-nOHSqrygE54fhtd7ByAosQS3a25j0K/view?usp=sharing I also did a Mario Maker 2 level for the event and if anyone is interested, here’s the code: https://twitter.com/ZephyrMoon2/status/1155345829504225280 Much love and respect, Sara Imshaug Zephyr Moon

Anonymous

Hi Damiani and Blood, I really did it and released chapter one of my Dreams game. It has now an official title and is called MIMEO PROPHECY. Blood even saw the intro two months ago when he joined the showcase at the time. Remember Blood? The old lab, lightning hitting it and Cody calling his best friend Ian. The gameplay you're about to see is directly after the intro. In chapter one is only one fight which I don't want to give away (sorry) but the battle system is in real-time and I can show that when there is more fighting in the months to come. Play time for now is about an hour if you do the sidequest. I couldn't fit in here but I hope everyone who owns Dreams, will check it out, play it and enjoy it. Enjoy, L&R Sebastian Link to the video: https://youtu.be/ttB9MzydeXg

BeardedScotsman86

Hey Damiani and Blood, a small update this month. I got the platinum in Prototype 2 at the start of the month and then spent most of my other gaming time with The Witcher 3. Towards the end of the month I went back to Hitman 2 to finish off Hokkaido. As I don't have much of an update, I will use the last bit of my post to shout out Noclip on youtube. For anyone unaware, this is Danny O'Dwyer who previously worked at Gamespot. He left and started making Documentaries on youtube. His latest is on Hitman, and it is a very good insight into what happened with Square Enix break up and how they developed the latest Hitman games. Love and Respect, BeardedScotsman86

Anonymous

Hello Allies and Chat, First, I wanted to congratulate you on another successful Easy Livin’. I wasn’t able to catch live as much as I would have liked but I saw the beginning and the end and a few parts in the middle. I wanted to thank you specifically, Bloodworth, for the efforts you put in to archive all of the footage so we can watch it later. You put in so much work behind the scenes that not everyone is aware of, and especially earlier in the year with Ian out and then Huber out and now Brandon out, you have really stepped in to fill whatever role is needed of you (even being on Fiasconauts!) You are the true tent-pole of EZA (and that’s not a joke about your height!) as this company would surely collapse without your support. When I had started watching EZA programming at the end of last year, I had only ever seen Tabletop (both at GT and here at EZA) so those were the only Allies I knew. I started watching Cup of Jones and heard “oh Bloodworth’s in chat” and saw you on a couple of the EZA Podcasts but didn’t really know your role with the company. I saw you were knowledgeable, well spoken, you kept notes that you referred to when doing previews and seemed to make a great effort to be clear and concise. Then I saw you on a couple of group streams and on the podcast playing “The Gaming Game” you told Ian you could “go both ways”, and I saw a humorous side to you. The younger Allies, Ian, Huber, Brad and Bosman, can get pretty rowdy if left alone together, but really respect you and look up to you. I think the support you give the other Allies has been largely underappreciated by the public, but with all of the absences over the past several months you have filled the gaps and helped keep everything running relatively smoothly, and I wanted to tell you it has been noticed and is greatly appreciated. One of the reasons I watch the Allies programming is because you are all so quick to step in and assist each other and fill roles as needed, and you have gone above and beyond these past few months making sure information was conveyed and files were uploaded. We wouldn’t be able to keep up with all of the content that comes out of EZA if we had to watch it all live and I wanted to personally say “Thank you”. Finally, I wanted to thank you, Damiani, for stepping in to coordinate and host the Community Showcase these past two months. You all have so much on your plates and this is not a small undertaking, though I am glad Jones and Huber will be back next month, I do like the new format better! =) Take care and after Jones comes back, Blood, take a REAL VACATION! You deserve it! L&R Jessie_Blu_

Anonymous

First gameplay update for my Dreams game is coming August 4th. I will share a video here.

Anonymous

Hiya! First off I'd just like to say that Easy Livin' was very fun to watch. Everyone did a great job playing the games but Bloodworth in particular showed some real nerves of steel while playing both Alien Isolation and Shrek. This month I thought I would just give some shoutouts to a couple MMORPG's in development that I've been following. Some backstory first. I'm an EverQuest guy. So I was looking forward to EverQuest Next until... it got canceled. So I started searching for an alternative and these are the two that caught my eye: Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen and Ashes of Creation. Pantheon is almost like a spiritual successor to EverQuest. It has a similar combat style and most of the fantasy races/settings you would expect. It even has one of the original EverQuest developers working on it. The main draw for me is what it doesn't have. No traditional quest hubs, no npc's with exclamation points over their heads, no waypoints, no instanced dungeons and no pay to win. So it's bringing back what I liked most about MMORPG's, exploration and interacting with other players. This game actually started out as a failed Kickstarter, so it kind of shows how determined they really are. Crossing my fingers that they can go all the way. Ashes of Creation on the other hand had the most successful Kickstarter for a MMO at 3.2 million. The main draw for me here is the Node System. Basically everywhere on the map is divided into sections called Nodes. As players do things like quests or harvesting, the nodes will gain experience points. When the nodes level up, a campground with npcs show up somewhere in the area. That campground will turn into a village, then a town, and then eventually to a metropolis. Only 5 metropolises can exist at a time so then they will be targets for other players to siege and destroy. That's about all I needed to hear to get hooked. Seems like it will even be fun to watch how the world progresses. Hopefully these games will actually release and maybe even will be cool enough to get Easy Allies coverage. Thanks for listening and keep up the good work!

Anonymous

*insert Evo comment here*

Anonymous

Hey Blood and Damiani, To start, just a quick note to say congrats on another great EZLivin’! Now on to game stuff: I havent had too much time for BOTW this month, as a trip and Fire Emblem have eaten my time, so no update there, but next month Ill have one! Instead I just wanted to (spoiler free) talk about how Persona 5 is like, the perfect game, as Im close to the end of replaying it. I first played Persona 5 in the summer of 2017, right before my senior year of high school started. It hit at the perfect time, as I was in a slight rut of gaming, and the storyline about being young in a crazy world fit. My favorite genre has always been RPG’s, and after playing (and enjoying Mass Effect Andromeda that year) I didnt really have a game to dive into. I beat Persona 5’s 100 hours in 10 days, and almost immediately bought a Vita play P4G. Playing through it again over the past few months has reminded me why I loved it so much, and now with some more experience with the franchise (P4G and some of P3FES) I can better identify it as a piece of media. Persona 5 manages to be both incredibly cynical and hopeful all at once. It can articulate that power is often concentrated among the wealthiest and most deviously ambitious, and that many will cling onto whats popular or makes them feel secure. Yet, through the cynicism, it still takes care to note that people generally aren’t bad. That people get beaten down by bad fortune and bad experiences, and that at their core are good. The personal stories of Yusuke, Kawakami and Yoshida are good examples of this. They aren’t perfect people, they’re characters who have messed up, but who hasn’t? For a game so popping with flare, stylishness, and demons, its a surprisingly nuanced and realistic take. The final two palaces in particularly feel particularly apt to a lot of the globes political situation at the moment. Anyways, I hoped that all made sense. I love Persona 5, and want to take the opportunity to gush about it at all opportunities, and I cant wait to gladly buy P5The Royal next year. Since I have a few extra words of this post left - to all of you in chat, which House did you pick in Three Houses? Black Eagles here, but Golden Deer was tempting for Claude. Lastly, I just got a decentish headset, so I may be doing streams once school starts up! Give me a follow over on Twitter at @tmgm528 and Twitch at the same name for details on that!

Anonymous

Ahoy Mr. Damiani, Mr. Bloodworth & my fellow allies. This month I present a jovial tune; the Main Title theme from Wave Race 64. Please enjoy. L&R Matt B https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0xz3wUtVcE

Anonymous

Hi Damiani & Blood, When you are reading this submission post I will be on my summer vacation in Tuscany - Italy. Hopefully, I can provide some sweet Assassins-Creed-esque photos next month since I will be staying in Florence for a few days. In July I finished two games “Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night” and “Hellblade: Senua’s sacrifice”. I already spent last month’s comment on Bloodstained, so I only want to add two things: The combat is really satisfying once you found a combination of shards that works for you. I even appreciated the difficulty spike in the last area - and especially the last two bosses - since it was a great test of skill. The game almost gives you too much choice. The amount of different Shards categories and Shards within that category, weapon types , armor and accessories is crazy. It is neat that the developers want to encourage experimentation, but I was simply overwhelmed. Consequently, I settled for the first combination of shards and weapons that worked for me, which is sad in hindsight, but seemed like the most efficient way to tackle the game. Concerning “Hellblade”: it is one of the most unique stories that I have experienced in quite some time. The psychosis of Senua is really intense. The voices she hears an absolutely irritating mixture of helpful and annoying. However, I am ultimately disappointed with the combat. The enemies are rarely a challenge (only in big numbers) and you can easily beat the game with an easy evade and slash strategy. I only needed to block in one single boss fight throught out the 6 hour journes. I know that the game is ultimately not only about fighting, but after Bloodstained I was expecting a little more. That being said, Hellblade is ultimately a game worth checking out – it is short and has a lasting impact. That’s it for this month. Thanks for reading my comment. L&R Thim

Anonymous

Hold up!

Anonymous

Hey Damiani, Blood, and chat. I just wanted to give a quick shout-out to this wonderful community. Last week, I did 3 nights of streams for Extra Life, and not only did my fellow allies show up, they showed up in a big way. Together we managed to raise $850 for Gillette Children's Specialty Healthcare in Saint Paul, Minnesota. I just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who donated, and to all who dropped by the stream, which included many allies I was only meeting for the first time. The Love and Respect they showed me, quite simply blew me away, and I am extremely grateful for that. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Donations are still open if anybody was interested in helping out. You’ll find me on Twitter @BeatenDownBrian and will find a link to donate in my pinned tweet. L&R

Anonymous

Hi Damiani and Blood. Couple of works from this month: https://twitter.com/tearjuengi/status/1157586039030124544 https://twitter.com/tearjuengi/status/1157586135327154176 https://twitter.com/tearjuengi/status/1157586203845308416 https://twitter.com/tearjuengi/status/1157586279439241216 https://twitter.com/tearjuengi/status/1157586587573788672 #1. Business woman preparing to go to work #2. Wanted to try combining ink with hair and some correction fluid #3. Just an ordinary family #4. A master training his pupil. #5. Agumon for digidestined entering Digital World 20 years ago on August 1st Played and finished Judgment, started Sekiro but not sure if I'm gonna finish it(beat O'Rin of Water) That's all that happened this month besides returning from Japan. L&R TearjuEngi

Anonymous

Hey Damiani and Blood! I took last month off from posting because I felt like I’d just be regurgitating hype from E3. This month I have much more to write about, though I’m going to be holding one game back until next month when Huber’s on (feel free to draw your own conclusions which 2019 game that would be). There are quite a few games I’ve spent some time with over the past couple of months, so let’s dive in. First, I’d like to touch on a game I picked up after Blood talked about it on one of the podcasts, Where the Bees Make Honey. After Blood brought up how it had some Edith Finch vibes, I wanted to check it out, since I’ve been dying for something similar to that game. While I think there are a lot of very interesting ideas present, you can definitely feel it strain against its boundaries. With a few more people on the team and a bit more budget, I think they can make something on the level of Edith Finch. Unfortunately, the story didn’t leave the same impact with me, and I struggle to remember what it was about despite beating it twice to get the Platinum. Next up is Horizon Chase Turbo. In the seven months since I started getting PS+ games, nothing has held my attention as much as Horizon. Racing games aren’t really my jam, but the fast paced, hop in, hop out nature of Horizon hits a great balance for me. It feels really good to memorize the track, learn where the coin pickups are, and manage to get a super trophy. Cool music, good vibes. Now, one of my most anticipated games of the year, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3. As a fan of the series going all the way back to X-Men Legends, I have been dying for something to fill the void. Once the license left Activision, I had lost all hope. But in comes Nintendo and Ninja Theory to answer my prayers. With that said, the game isn’t perfect, and I didn’t expect it to be. I love the variety of characters, but it does stink to feel like your superheroes have power levels similar to street thugs. Shouldn’t I be bodying these fools? Regardless, it still hits the spot, and I was never going to hate a game with Spider-Gwen and Elsa Bloodstone in it. And finally we come to a big one, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. As the first AC game I’ve played since Revelations left a sour taste in my mouth, it is interesting to see the ways the series has changed over the past 7 or so years. While there are some improvements (weapon variety, cool kills) other things leave something to be desired (dumb writing, bad VO outside of Kassandra). My number one complaint about Odyssey is the same as Arkham Knight; it doesn’t respect your time. We’ll see how I feel later on. L&R, GOTYlocks

Anonymous

The Shenmue EZA-DUB has been DELAYED until next months Community Showcase. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Anonymous

Not because the game got delayed and its funny to mirror that fact. But because next month Huber is back baby. I heard he likes Shenmue.

Anonymous

I'll try this again as I always have been late posting. Hope you enjoy Damiani and Blood. https://youtu.be/JYL0yNsq8yc

Anonymous

Hello Bloodiani ! Summer is being slightly too hot for my taste in France, so I'm hoping my favourite season comes quickly ! I'm also adjusting to my new job, so I don't have any fresh music for this month, which means I'll present to you something I've been doing for a while but have not yet submitted. Some months ago I finally finished remaking the entire A Link to the Past OST using Ocarina of Time instruments. Making the SNES game's music sound as if it were coming from an N64 was great fun, particularly the process of transcribing everything by ear and diving deep into those Koji Kondo pieces of art. Now that this is finished, I've started picking random tracks from all over the series and giving them the same treatment. Recent examples include Grandma from Wind Waker, or Mount Crenel from Minish Cap. It's also fun to « de-make » more recent music, some oh which feature live instruments, down to N64 quality, which is what I bring this month. It's Kass's Theme from Breath of the Wild, except the live accordion is now replaced with the one from Ocarina of Time's Windmill Hut ! Love & Respect, Kévin Gillet Link to the music : https://youtu.be/onCLRBDKw4k

Anonymous

Hello guys, July has been a great month for gaming for me. I went on a long road trip where I played games, and as a teacher I have lots of time to play games. One thing I noticed as I traveled across country was how much of the country has poor or no wifi, I would say more than 2/3rds of the areas I was in had no or poor wifi. Now as far as games, I started the month on Mario Marker 2. It is a really fun game and I had a lot of fun, but I really miss having the Amiibo function. I would use the outfits and make a sort of Kid Icarus map where you play as Pit. I then played Dragon Quest Builders. I had so much fun with the game. I enjoyed the building and the paragliding was a cool touch. I found the camera better than the first game, which was my main dislike of that game. Lastly I got Fire Emblem, which is easily my game of the year so far. I have beaten it twice, and will move on to the last house to beat again soon. I still think I would put Awakening and Sacred Stones a bit above in my favorite games list. I do miss a bit of the weapon triangle too. I however liked the story and the main character story arcs.

Anonymous

Hello... Damiani and Bloodworth? Jones not being here feels weird. This time around, I wanna talk about Splatoon. This July, we reached the end of an era. Splatoon 2 received its final major update. No word on if they'll continue doing balance patches, though a lot of people suspect they'll keep tweaking it for at least a while since it's a major esport in Japan. I did not play Splatoon 1, as I did not have a Wii U. Rather, the biggest factor that led me to getting into Splatoon was, in fact, Chuggaaconroy's Let's Play of Splatoon 1. His detailed walkthrough of both the singleplayer and multiplayer really grabbed me, and by the time he finished the final episode, I had an appreciation for the game I didn't have previously. Splatoon 2's release was a big reason why I eventually decided to get a Switch. I was gonna get there eventually as a diehard Pokémon fan, but Splatoon 2 gave me the push I needed to buy in early. Turns out that the series jived with me even more than I thought they would, and soon I was completely hyperfixated. I remember my first Splatfest (which was fought over the way toilet paper should face. Thanks, European Splatfests!) vividly, and I remember the excitement I felt when I turned on my Switch not long after moving out for the first time to see the Splatoon 2 Version 2.0 announcement trailer in my News tab. And then eventually came the Nintendo Direct on March 8, 2018. To many, this was the Direct that blew them away with the first tease of what we would eventually know as Smash Ultimate, but to me, this was the Octo Expansion Direct. What a fantastic trailer that was, finally paying off YEARS of people wishing for Octolings to be playable. Splatoon 2 was more exciting than ever. It was not long after this that I decided to, on a complete whim, join a Discord server run by a semi-popular Splatoon fanartist on tumblr, a decision that would go on to change my life. Many members of this community, which was never larger than 40 people, would go on to become close friends, who stood by my side and helped me keep going when my financial situation took a sudden nosedive, which caused me a lot of stress and anxiety. Together we revelled in our shared love for this game, and in doing so loved it even more. Splatoon 2 is an important game for me. It's tied inexorably to some of the most important friends I've made online, but even putting that aside it's an outstanding game in its own right. At just over four years old, Splatoon has already shown that it deserves a spot alongside Nintendo's other giants, and I believe that this franchise has a bright future in front of it. But for now, all I want to say is: Thank you, Splatoon, for all the good times. L&R, Small Leviathan

Anonymous

Hey, Allies! This submission comes to you on behalf of Team Racket, to talk about our experience with Glinny's Cauldron jam. We've made a video narrated by the wonderful Michelle Jackson, to share some fun curiosities about the development of "Twin Sister". There was a lot more to it, of course, but this is as much as we could fit in 3 minutes. Audio mix is a little bit messy, so I've added subtitles on youtube in case you feel they're necessary. I also want to briefly say that this whole game jam idea was fantastic and that I hope you guys do it again next year. Cahrsurraurher won in the end, but I hope we made Glinny proud. Love & Respect, Ray, from Team Racket https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfACQ20HKkA

Anonymous

Hello Damiani and Bloodworth I’m happy to say I’ve begun the path to being an untrained, unqualified amateur game developer! I’m designing my game in GB studio, a very cool program I learned about from the Kyle makes a Gameboy game streams. GB was the perfect place for my to start because it’s a very straightforward system to use and has a great feature that allows you to export your game as a Gameboy rom, meaning it can be played on any Gameboy emulator or an actual Gameboy through a flash cart. The biggest challenge in designing the game so far has been creating the assets since I have never done pixel art or really any kind of art before. GB studio limits you to using the original Gameboy’s 3 to 4 color palette. This is both helpful and difficult because while I don’t have to worry about things like color theory or matching, I do have to make things clear and coherent using a couple shades of green or grey. The game is set within a still unnamed renaissance esque kingdom at a prestigious university for the children of the elite, well the second and third children of the elite. The main character is a freshly hired historian who had her pick of any school in the country to work at and the reasons why she chose this place are revealed throughout the game. So now enjoy a few pre-alpha screenshots of the main character and few environments in varying stages of completion, including the university’s main courtyard and lecture hall, a classroom and the main character’s office, which is really a converted storage closet in the basement. https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZmQQQ1vW79B3XhVMA

Anonymous

Hello Damiani and Blood. Greetings Chat. Last month I completely forgot to write for the community showcase, so I’m back this month with my update with the playthrough of the Yakuza Franchise. I’m glad to let you guys know I was able to finish all the Yakuza games from 0 to 6 and add to that Judgment. I loved them all and I can tell you it has been one of my best experiences in gaming in the last few years. Definitely 0 is the one that made me want to play them all but Kiwami 2 is such a great game and made me love the franchise, not only on the gameplay is great since is a remake of the original 2, but the story was engaging and Kiryu was such an amazing protagonist that I just couldn’t stop playing it. Yakuza 3, 4 and 5 were definitely rough to play them, because they are on PS3 and not only the frame rate was not good but the improvements of gameplay the franchise received from 0 was not there, but again, the story was so amazing that I just couldn’t stop playing. I won’t say much about 6 since anything could be a spoiler but I can tell you guys that the ending was just perfect. Finally Judgment was the perfect dessert for the franchise, after playing all the Yakuza games, now I had a lot of points of reference in Judgment, and even if the protagonist, story and motives are different, the core Yakuza franchise gameplay was there and was just very fun to play. I’m not sure what will be my next franchise playthrough. For the moment I’m back to the grind on Destiny 2 and I still have to finish Fire Emblem Three Houses so I have a lot to play for the moment. Well that is it from my this time, I wish the best for all of you. Amor y Respeto. Miguel.

Anonymous

greetings blood and damiani hope you guys are recovering from easy livin made it 42/50 hrs of it and had a blast. i played and finished dragon quest builders 2 on switch and i had a blast its a overall better design wise than 1 and the story and dialog was great, loved the monster dialog. also been playing ultimate alliance 3 and loving it and cant wait for the expansion content. theres a few games i cant wait for astral chain and metal wolf chaos which sould be a group stream just for the cutscenes. hope we get some good stuff at gamescom would love another damiani picks trailer stream agian.

Anonymous

Got back in to the swing of gaming in July. I played the Twilight Garden update to Moss. It was really nice revisiting that world and makes me anticipate the sequel all the more. While I had my VR set out, I decided to check out the Spider-Man Far From Home VR Experience. It was a lot better than the Homecoming one, but that doesn't really say anything. This one lets you swing around. It doesn't look stellar, but it's free. It's worth wasting a half hour in before deleting forever. I played Rise of the Tomb Raider. It was on sale for less than 10 bucks, so I figured why not. I enjoyed how it played. Story was a bit by the numbers. The VO for the artifacts you find is super stale to the point where I would have preferred them not to have any and just read the descriptions myself. They just sounded bored when they recorded those and it may me not care about any of the collectibles to find. Overall, a fun time but not memorable. One Piece had an exciting month. It celebrated it's 22nd anniversary. Lots of great developments in the manga. The anime started the Wano arc with a completely new art direction that has been nothing short of pleasing to watch. One Piece: World Seeker had it's first story DLC which allowed people to play as Zoro. All the gameplay issues are still present excpet now instead of being able to fling around the island using Luffy's rubber abilities, which is when the game is most fun, you get to now run from place to place. Luffy was able to fling himself to rooftops for items, how do you do this with Zoro? You jump up the side of the building. He does a regular jump, then you press jump again to go a little higher, and little by little you get higher until you reach the top. They also released a music pack where you could play a variety of opening themes in the background, but with the game's music being as good as it is, there really isn't any desire to do so. Pirate Warriors 4 was also announced, and I'm actually looking forward to that one. I think the One Piece Warriors series is the only one of those types of games that I've genuinely enjoyed. As much as I love the Legend of Zelda series, Hyrule Warriors didn't really do much for me. Never felt any motivation to do thaat adventure map thing. I just wish they would dub the Pirates Warrior games. It is inane to just have subtitles trying to tell you objectives when so many other things happening on screen. You failed the mission because instead of reading that someone needed help as they audibly said it in Japanese, you were too busy playing the game! Thank you, Bandai Namco. I wish they'd bring back the Grand Battle series, but it is probably unlikely.

Anonymous

Ugh, looks like Patreon ate my comment, even with a reply for safety... Past the deadline now, but I'll re-post just in case. Hey Damiani and Blood! I raised my Pateron tier last month, but missed the deadline, so this is my first community showcase submission! I was going to write a long, introductory comment, but decided I'd save that for next month. Instead, here's a short anecdote and accompanying piano cover: One of the first videos I ever watched from EZA was a stream Blood started almost exactly 3 years ago today. He was playing a game I had heard of before, but never played, as it was just a little before my time. After watching the first couple parts on YouTube, I immediately stopped, downloaded a ROM of the game, and beat the whole thing before watching the rest of the stream. I can now confidently say that this is one of my favorite games of all time, and one I really think more people should experience. So, I wanted to make a short musical tribute to that stream, as well as thank all the allies for all of the streams since then! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7q6lgnqThIk L&R - Ben

Anonymous

I screwed up and completely forgot. I am sorry, theres no Popn Music song today

Anonymous

Hi Jones and Huber, I have missed the last 2 or so showcases due to busy life and all, but thought it’s finally time to return for yet another Star Citizen post. We have had patch 3.6.2 out for a while now with 3.7 looming around the corner. The thing that had me and my organisation most excited was the addition of the new Origin 890J ship. This is the LARGEST ship thus far, and very different from what we have gotten before. This is not a fighter, but a diplommacy ship. Matter in fact, it is so large, that it got its own hangar that can be opened for an additional ship to land inside of it. As atmosphere flight can make the 890J very heavy, it’s smarter to have a smaller ship which you can use to transfer yourself and your company down to the surface of the planet you want to visit. So what are you going to do with a ship this size if you cant fight in it? Well, Invite leaders from other organisations for creating business deals, or maybe sign a peace treaty after a war. Maybe smooth them up with a trip to the onboard bar. Or Just for a meal on one of the ships restaurants? Or you can do like we did, just take a dip in the hot tub and sauna after a match of pool whilst your pilot smoothly flys you around the verse. Unfortunately, we went a little bit too far. After I had unloaded supplies from an Aegis titan from Arccorp, we decided to go for an evening into uncharted space. This…. Was a mistake. After cruising around in space and getting frisky, the ship started to shake like crazy and a message came from the bridge with a simple “oh-oh”. I ran out to the central gathering room and look out from the ship. Our amazing pilot had managed to discover and get stuck in the gravity pull from what can only be described as a dying star. Soon after, my friend came running in with his eyes wide open (facetracking FTW) just staring at the star stating “well this is it then”. It didn’t take long for us to get sucked in and torn to shreds. So much for a ship worth around 890 USD. Hope you enjoyed this little walkthrough of a different Star Citizen post from the other ones. Might not been as action packed, but it was still a fun event. Oh also, I’ve gotten questions on how I could take some of the screenshots. In game you can set the camera to a more “cinematic” view and adjust its position and distance for some extra cool shots. All the best Lotias https://imgur.com/a/KR842qI