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Even though it's a leap year, February is still the shortest month of 2020, so March is right around the corner. Next Tuesday (the 3rd), at 12 PM PT, I'll be hanging out with Daniel Bloodworth for 4+ hours feeding all of your creative impulses into our ears and eyes. If you're new to the show or this Patreon, give the guidelines below a read (or re-read) to make sure everyone gets equal attention and we don't miss a submission, even when Patreon gobbles up a post here or there.

 
SHOWCASE GUIDELINES

No submissions will be accepted past March 3rd, 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

Game Dev Update: Battle Test for Bitna. All art assets and audio used are still works in progress. https://youtu.be/H3LyxxZ1UTM

Anonymous

Hello Brandon and Blood. I like battle royale games, but I also quickly get bored because gathering loot and chasing the circle isn’t eventful. But a few months back I’ve tried a new entry to this genre and since traversing environment in this game is extremely fun I’m still spending evenings playing it. So today I want to highlight this almost hidden gem by showing you a recording of my typical match. Of course I had to increase speed to fit entire match into 3 minutes, but I think that for this particular game increasing speed is just what the doctor ordered. https://1drv.ms/v/s!AsxRquOgIVix8TbaoKlH-iF1kaTR?e=JOaFXo (Brandon, please download file instead of screen capturing it)

Anonymous

Hello Blood & Jones! For a change, February was a good month for my gaming! I beat the Talos Principle as I wanted and even read the book I told you guys last show; in a personal record time of 9 days. I really thought it would take me months, since I’m not a disciplined reader; most of the time I fall sleep after a few pages, but I guess the mystery of "The Analyst" got me interested enough that I made a steady progress of 4 chapters per day until it was done Wednesday last week. So, finally Breath of the wild is my next game in the queue. While I would normally had started it immediately after the book was done, I was leaving in 2 days for a week long vacation to visit my mom and bother back in my home town, and since when the game launched I didn’t even dream of having a Switch, I bought the wiiU version. Had I known I would have owned the console and had a week to play it intensively, I would have bought the Switch version, but oh well, I still have a big 3DS backlog, so I’m entertaining myself with that this week. Now gaming, The Talos Principle. I promised my hot takes to Ian since last year, so I’m preparing my dissertation for him, but since Blood is here and he likes the game, I’ll share some of my thoughts this month as well. I think this game won me over from the second it started. Waking up in those beautiful environments, listening from a voice from the sky telling me to seek enlightenment… too much to absorb at once. Then the puzzles and tools start and it all feels fitting and into place. You find the first pc and get into those philosophy lessons, blog posts from people and the holograms with recordings from Dr. Alexandra Drennan slowly but surely unveil a sad history about humanity and the purpose of (your) my character. And then come the stars and its meta puzzles, in which you are encouraged to break the game, to take things out of their respective enclosures (not sure why that word keeps popping up in my head when thinking of all the challenge rooms, so I’ll use it) and use them in creative ways to get what is just out of reach. I thought this was a magnificent game with many layers that interconnect perfectly, and if you don’t mind laser puzzles (looking at you, Huber) it is one that can’t be missed. And to close, thanks for picking my entry for the Stream Team, Blood. I know Wild Guns was never going to win, but you wanting to give it a try means a lot, specially after the mess that was trying the PS4 remaster in a stream night back in the garage. That’s it for this month. Allies. Keep up the good Work. Love & Respect. César. (Cooking with Blood, great name).

Megan Linart

Hey Jones and Blood! I meant for this post to be about my trip to the reptile expo but it’s actually this weekend instead so I’ll save that for next time. I figured I’d talk about the one show that has taken over my life as of late...Buffy The Vampire Slayer. I’ve been rewatching it and it has completely pulled me in and now it’s all I think about. I remember first watching it when I was in middle school but I’ve learned to appreciate it so much more now that I’m older, I really want to do in depth reviews of each season on the showcase. But now I just want to gush about the incredible characters! Spike is honestly one of the best characters I’ve ever seen, the amount of growth this character goes through is actually awe inspiring! He has his high moments and his rock bottom ones but how he manages to learn and grow through the entirety of the show is just so good. James Marsters who plays him is absolutely amazing! He knows the character like the back of his hand and it shows. He works so well with every single person and when he is on screen he grabs your attention. Buffy herself is just an icon! Sarah Michelle Gellar is such an incredible and underrated actress. Her emotional journey through the series is one to see, becoming a role model for young women by not being perfect but being strong and persevering she is one of the best TV characters ever created. Willow is a character who struggles so much through the last few seasons. She is one of the characters who has the hardest journey all about personal discovery, struggling with addiction and loss. Going on that with her was hard and painful to see but worth it in the end. Giles and Xander, the show wouldn’t be what it is without them Giles being Buffy’s protector, her emotional support, and her dad. He cares so much for her and the group and you love him just as much as the characters do. Xander is the heart of the show, he goes through his struggles but he is fun loving and loves everyone no matter the mistakes they make he is the glue that holds the group together. I love every single one of them. Buffy is one of the shows where you can watch and see the surface but if you look deeper there is so much more meaning. It’s About growing up, guilt, love, and pain. There are so many iconic episodes and hilarious moments, but there are also missteps and low moments but it stands the test of time, objectively having one of the best series finales ever made. The series still thrives to this day, still being looked at as one of the best shows and I’m right there. I hope to dive into each season in the future but until then Have a great Tuesday!

Spencer from Canada

I wanna dance with somebody. I wanna feel the heat with somebody. Yeah, I wanna dance with somebody.

Anonymous

Hey Alexander. If you don't mind me asking, what software did you use to download youtube/twitch clips from the EZA shows to edit your "Easy ally" videos?

Anonymous

Hi Brandon and Blood, Been working away on my Mega Man project again this month. Have planned out a 30 second action sequence which I've started animating. The video I've submitted shows shot 1 as a layout pass, then the first animation pass and a comparison of the two. I'd say the animation is about 95% final, there are a couple of tweaks I want to make, and it may change to hook up better when I animate shot 2. Also at the end are some different styles I've been playing round with for the final look. Sorry no Jones VO this time. Not sure what I liked best last month, how much you seemed to appreciate it, or how much it confused Ben and (some of) chat. https://youtu.be/D4F3KMz0ih0 As always, love and respect, Dave Cleland

Anonymous

Hey Blood and Brandon! So I had a couple of ideas rumbling around for this month’s showcase but I eventually landed on Final Fantasy VIII’s “Balamb Garden”. This arrangement adds certain reharmonizations to various sections of the music as well as shifting the rhythm from straight eighths to a jazz waltz of sorts, with some exceptions here and there. Thanks for listening! Adam Hentschel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmOKtfyFwhU&feature=youtu.be

Anonymous

Hey allies! I mentioned a while back about writing a book...and I'd like to let you all know that I've finished it!!! Very exciting. Took about 4 years! Anyway, if anyone is interested in reading it, let me know. I would love some beta readers. The book is a fantasy fiction about seven fallen angels who represent one of the seven deadly sins. They are bent on eradicating mankind, who they blame for their fall from grace, and so it's up to a group called Hail Mary and their latest recruit to stop them. The book is about as long as the first Harry Potter. And if anyone is interested, feel free to send me message or reply!!! Thanks for your time!!! LNR, Gino

Anonymous

Good afternoon gentlemen, This is going to be a weird one as February was a bit of a wash in a lot of ways. However, March is Easy Allies Anniversary Month. So instead of writing about whatever I’ve been doing, I come bearing a request and a present. As you may be aware, EZX will be happening in a few weeks. I will not be attending for a variety reasons including money, distance, home obligations, and I’d have to actually be around people. However, in keeping with the overall theme of playing games with fellow allies, I thought it might be fun to have an official Easy Allies room in Tetris 99. To that end, I ask that the two of you come up with a 6-digit number for a private room that anyone can pop in at any time over the weekend to play against other allies (and a bunch of low level bots.) That’s the request. For the present, I knew I wanted to get you something but I wasn’t sure what. So I pulled out my Hallmark pocket calandar and according to the back cover, the traditional gift for the fourth anniversary is fruits or flowers. Since I’m on the other side of the country, that didn’t seem practical. So I looked at the column for modern gifts and according that, the suggestion for the fourth anniversary is to create a database of every game the giftee has ever streamed. So that’s what I ended up doing. I’ve called it the Interrnet Easy Allies Database because that’s the best I was able to come up with. I am very much open to better suggestions. The link is below this post so anyone can browse through it. I’ve also included my e-mail address so people can send in corrections if they find any errors. My intention is to update it on Sundays since that’s also when I post together the Panel Show Weekly Schedule for Reddit and I’ll then have one day for my Internet homework. I actually wasn’t sure I’d have this done in time for Community Showcase but as luck would have it, I spent a week in February in a hospital room with my mother. Don’t worry; she’s okay. (Well, okay for a woman in the upper middle stages of Alzheimer’s, anyway.) The point is, I spent several days with nowt but a sleeping mother, my laptop, and some passable wi-fi. And I was not only able to get this done in time but I was also able to add a tab of every game brought to Frame Trap. This was actually fun for me to put together. It’s a good half brain activity when catching up on podcasts and audiobooks and something I find relaxing while doing and satisfying when done. I hope it’s something you and others find interesting and/or useful and not too weird. Anyway, the point is, Happy 4th Anniversary Easy Allies! Much love and respect, Asbo Zappruder / screaming_argonaut https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bXi0wTXhwOGwWZVJFC9TIDiJ9kuFZCpYmr87KX8L_8s/edit#gid=823990889

Anonymous

Stop, the post you save may be your own. Darling look both ways before you cross me. You're heading for a danger zone.

Anonymous

This is a submission by Christi Anne Abraham. Could you read these pages Jones, would love to hear your take, I will be submitting new pages each month, so every showcase we can all get a little father threw the story together. Feel free to share your thoughts or theories on it afterwards, thanks. The name of the comic is The Message of Cyan, if anyone want's to read ahead it can be found at themessageofcyan.com Cover - http://www.themessageofcyan.com/images/Page00.png Page 01 - http://www.themessageofcyan.com/images/Page01.png Page 02 - http://www.themessageofcyan.com/images/Page02.png Page 03 - http://www.themessageofcyan.com/images/Page03.png Page 04 - http://www.themessageofcyan.com/images/Page04.png Page 05 - http://www.themessageofcyan.com/images/Page05.png Page 06 - http://www.themessageofcyan.com/images/Page06.png Page 07 - http://www.themessageofcyan.com/images/Page07.png Page 08 - http://www.themessageofcyan.com/images/Page08.png That's the limit of the 9 images :) hope you liked it so far, can't wait till you see what's coming next.

Kitsunelaine

So this submission is a piece of music I've been working on for the past couple of months on and off-- a cover of the Power Rangers theme. The mix is tough, because symphonic rock is really hard to make play nice in the frequencies (it's also pretty hard to arrange), but I think I made it manageable in the end. The full length of this is five minutes and five seconds, but I managed to somehow cut it down to four and a half minutes. That's still a minute and a half over time for the submission limit, but I'm going to submit it anyway, because screw it. I'll let you guys decide where you want to cut it. I already cut out a decent chunk from the big intro-- it starts off really small and gradually gets bigger, and I cut into the middle of that. I plan to edit a video to this, but editing a five minute long tribute sequence to something as energetic as this is a daunting prospect and I keep procrastinating. It probably doesn't help that I edited a three minute long music video to a thing professionally a couple months ago and that was hard enough. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ti0DfrlpP2JCECplhcX5fcxUgOV1_lXg/view?usp=sharing

Anonymous

Hi Jones & Blood! Even with Sony dropping out, this year’s PAX East was still a great time, full of excellent games and an enthusiastic community. I ended up splitting my time between games, panels, and volunteer work, so I decided to highlight all three, giving a cross-section of three games to keep an eye out for, three panels that made an impression, and three organizations for the community to consider supporting. Games: - Sakuna: Of Rice & Ruin – The PAX demo was combat only, but the game itself will feature both fighting and farming. The combat feels smooth and exciting, with combinations that build on each other into incredibly satisfying kills. - Greak: Memories of Azur – A single player adventure where the player alternates between characters with different skills to solve puzzles, with a cute art style reminiscent of Hollow Knight. - Raji: An Ancient Epic – A beautiful action adventure featuring engaging combat and an exploration of Indian mythology. Panels: - Baldur’s Gate III – A gameplay demo rather than a panel, but I can’t pass up the opportunity to express how incredibly excited I am for this game. Divinity’s gameplay combined with the Baldur’s Gate world looks amazing, and I can’t wait to get my hands on it. - Am I Geek Enough? – A validating and uplifting hour of women and nonbinary folks sharing their experiences in male-dominated geek spaces, and their efforts to build communities within communities. - It’s a 10/10, Actually – A delightful hour where the panelists (including Jessica Lynn Verdi & the Hashtagonist) pitched the audience on games they believed were a 10…whether or not they actually qualify. Major bonus points to Rami Ismail for the truly inspiring feat of giving one of the funniest presentations I have ever seen while being directly in the middle of dealing with the announcement of GDC’s postponement. Organizations: - Take This – Runs the AFK room (a quiet space for recharging at cons) and works to raise awareness of mental health challenges within the gaming community. - I Need Diverse Games – Focuses on sponsoring marginalized creators to help them attend industry conventions, consults with big-name game developers to make sure that issues of diversity are handled respectfully, and promotes streamers and game writers of color on their Twitch & blog. - Jimmy Fund: Let’s Game – Organizes streams to help fund cancer research at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Look into supporting any of these great organizations, or if you end up attending any cons in your area, check out if there is a charity attending that you’d like to donate an hour or two of your time to. So that’s this year’s PAX East update from me. I’ll miss making it out to EZX this year, but hopefully I’ll see the Allies either at Year 5 or out here in Boston for next year’s PAX! (links for those reading, if interested: Sakuna: https://www.xseedgames.com/games/sakuna-of-rice-and-ruin/ Greak: http://playgreak.com/ Raji: https://www.rajithegame.com/ Take This: https://www.takethis.org/ I Need Diverse Games: https://ineeddiversegames.org/ Let’s Game: https://danafarber.jimmyfund.org/site/SPageServer/?pagename=jimmyfund_letsgame_cancer )

Anonymous

Hola Jones y Bloodworth! Going straight into my backlog catchup list. Some of these were already being played prior, but just now hit credits in February. As usual, these were played on the Switch unless noted otherwise. Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden –Hard for me to turn down a game with anthropomorphic characters, especially when they’re mutated animals with powers. Good turn based tactical rpg set in a post-apocalyptic setting. While I’ve only played a handful of strategy type games, none I’ve played before allowed me to fight certain enemies in a large map area. Normally you’d hit that first enemy and it starts the whole battle sequence, but here, you can pick off stragglers making the “large” fight easier to deal with. Ghost Recon Breakpoint (Xbox1X) – Yes, this game is extremely copy & paste, and still buggy. With that said, I really appreciated the variety of character designs. If you look at all the important players of the story, there is a design variety that I don’t often see in other games. Still felt Wildlands was better. Pokemon Omega Ruby (2DS) - This will be spoiler free Jones. I’ve only played Red/Moon/Let’s Go Eevee, Shield, and Silver, all in that order. Decided to go gen 3 next. Right off the bat, I fell in love with it. Removing the nostalgia I have for Red, this is my favorite one so far. Thanks to the EZA twitter community who gave me great advice on which games of each gen to invest in moving forward. My Memory of Us – A noir like puzzle platformer that reminded me a lot of Valiant Hearts, only here you control two children. The story is based on the occupation of Poland during WW2 and it’s clear who the evil robots that are painting certain people red are supposed to be. Also, had NO idea that the game was narrated by Sir Patrick Stewart himself! Nice little surprise hearing him. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 –I know what you’re thinking folks. Huber said it’s “lifeless” during the GOTY Best Seven talk. Never once felt the almost 40 hours I put into it. Was the story cheesy? Sure! But seeing super hero after super hero was fun for me, especially the small lore bits given here and there. ISO-8 shards felt unnecessary for the most part and I loved all the voice acting. Brian Bloom, Erica Lindbeck, Ashley Burch, Nolan North, Gideon Emery (my favorite voice actor) and even Yuri Lowenthal reprising his role as Spiderman (yes from the 2018 game). Challenge Rifts made me come back for more and loved finding good character combos. Played almost exclusively with Spidey, Deadpool, Wolverine, and Scarlet Witch until I got my DLC 1 gang. Really wished the DLC’s had story to them. DLC 2’s Danger Room was beyond frustrating. Only have Thanos left to unlock and can’t wait for the Fantastic 4 in March to complete the Roster! Great “7” in my opinion! Til next time, Amor y Respeto!

Anonymous

Hey can I do a PSA on Microsoft Rewards? With the new Game Pass quests system I thought I would share some tips & tricks for earning points efficiently. Starting with the new Game Pass quests. Some are efficient and some not so much. The ones that ask you to play a game or log in to the app only take the few seconds required to launch the game or app and are totally worth it. The rest of the weekly and monthly quests that require you to actually play the games and earn achievements are not really worth your time, even with the completion bonuses, UNLESS you are having fun while doing it. Looks like if you complete all the Game Pass quests in one month you will earn around 3600 points which is almost enough to get a $5 Microsoft Gift card if you follow my advice. There's lots of rewards to choose from but the best value in my opinion is the Microsoft gift card. You want to wait though, until they put a "Hot Deal" on the gift card, which only happens once or twice a year. This lowers the cost of the $5 gift card to 4000 points each, (normally 5000). Plus you earn more points for every dollar spent on the Xbox Store, making the gift cards even better. By the way, you can even use the redeemed gift cards balance on hardware like an Elite Controller or the Series X. The better place to earn points is on the Microsoft Rewards website. There's a set of daily polls, quizzes you can do in a couple minutes by blindly clicking on things. You can also get a big amount of points per day by searching with Bing on your computer and your mobile device just by typing a letter into the search bar, pressing enter, then type another letter and pressing enter and continue like that until you complete the maximum amount per day. Here is a cool trick, if you press F12, it will bring up your browser console and under "more tools" you can have your browser emulate a mobile phone so you can do those searches right on your browser. For other efficient ways to earn points sign up for the rewards news letter, get the Bing app on your phone and get the Rewards app on your Xbox. If you stick to the most efficient stuff and save up for the "hot deal" gift cards I would estimate you are technically making a solid, supplemental hourly wage for your effort. If you have fun taking the extra time to do the achievement and gameplay related quests, then you might as well do those too. I actually fell in love with State of Decay 2 thanks to these quests. Hope this helps anyone interested in the rewards system. Thanks for listening and keep up the good work!

Anonymous

Greetings Jones and Bloodworth, Let’s start with a book update. After writing the book layouts for Book 7, I decided to go back through first three books and expand them a bit, because I wrote the layouts in shorthand and feel I could broaden them and flesh out some of the scenes or correct things I didn’t like. As of right now, I have completed the rewrite of Book 1, which means I have now written five and a half books worth of layouts since November. After this, I’m going to take a bit of a break before drawing concept art and covers for the books. Anyways, since I have a backlog that could blot out the sun from years of not being able to buy new games, I have slowly and steadily bought several that I’ve want to play through for a while. Right now, I am finally playing through the RE2 Remake, as well as Undertale, and both are fantastic. I can see how much of Earthbound is in Undertale, especially after beating it on the normal route, and I immediately fell in love with the characters, and the RE2 Remake might be a better constructed game than the original (Apologies to Huber if he’s upset by this). I also have Horizon Zero Dawn, Persona 5, and Soul Calibur VI to wade through. While I haven’t throw myself into P5, I have beaten Horizon and am doing a New Game + on the hardest difficulty. SCVI was more of a desire, because it’s been too long since I’ve played a Soul Cal game. I also have one more game I’m getting so I can assist a friend of mine with her stream and co-op games with her. That game? Animal Crossing New Horizon. Never been one for Animal Crossing or farming games, but her enthusiasm with the game is contagious, and with her dream being to become a full time streamer, I figured I’d try to help in any way I can. I’ll link her Twitch channel at the bottom, it’s been a chill stream of easy going games, and who knows, maybe you’ll hear my strange voice in the future. That is all for now on updates. As for drawing, I might start posting some of it to the Showcases, as I know there are a fair amount of artists in the community who could help me through the process of learning. Thanks everyone for listening. Love and Respect, R.F. Switch https://www.twitch.tv/lazigamer95/ https://twitter.com/RFSwitchArt

BeardedScotsman86

Hey Brandon and Bloodworth, As last month I didn't talk about my gaming at all, this month I will give both January and February progress.  At the start of January, I finished off LEGO DC Super-Villains to get the Platinum, and then I moved on to Shenmue 2 to get the platinum in that. I enjoyed both games, although I felt Shenmue 1 was better than 2. Two felt a bit too long, whereas one was more to the point. I started Apex Legends in the middle of the month and in just 2 weeks had reached level 50 and got all the trophies. It is a fun game, although I wish they would fix the buggy server connections. On multiple occasions I would get disconnected from my group when starting a match as I lost connection to server, or I would get in a game and be missing 1 or 2 other players on my squad, probably due to this same error on their end. I did a ranked match at one point and was the only player in my squad. Since it is ranked, I couldn't quit or I would be punished with a 5 minute timeout of ranked. I dropped late, looted everything I could, made my way to each circle. I had one guy run into my building, so I got that kill, thankfully he was the last member of his squad. Then it got down to me versus a squad of 3. I downed one of them and ran away. Went back a took another health down low. I then hid again. The circle started to close, and none of them made it in, so they all died and I got the win. I am fairly certain if they had charged me together, they would have won. I also started Horizon: Zero Dawn. I have enjoyed it so far. Still getting to grips with taking out some of the bigger robots. For February, I picked up Real Farm in the sales for 24 pence. I figured, even if it is terrible, it hasn't cost me enough to care. It has been a fun game to chill with when I watch TV shows. Although it got too repetitive near the end when I got the platinum. In the sales I picked up Guacamelee 2, Stranger Things 3 and Doom 3. All fun games. Doom 3 has been getting me more excited for DOOM Eternal which will be my first pre-order in years.  I have also been working my way through some more of Red Dead 2. Still on Chapter 3 as I take a long time to do anything as there are too many distractions in that game. I am jumping between the single player and the multiplayer. Just need to reach rank 50 and finish the multiplayer off. Love and respect, BeardedScotsman86

Anonymous

Reserved

Anonymous

Cutting it close. https://youtu.be/aA8YzsJIPK8 ——— Hey Brandon, I truly apologize for getting it in just under the wire, and any stress that causes. Internet problems at the house pushed everything back. To answer a query you had from my last video about practicing a trick over and over. The best analogy for most juggling is basketball. I practice for hours and hours such that every throw/shot I make when I’m performing for an audience is the result of hard won practice. The goal isn’t necessarily to run a juggling pattern for ages and ages, just that it’s so solid that I could if I wanted to. Happy March! L&R -Eric

Anonymous

Hey Brandon and Bloodworth! I return to you once again with another entry in my Doom retrospective! My original plan was to cover Doom 64 but as we are in the month of Eternal I needed to make the hard cut so here’s Doom 3 instead. Now the plan is to get Doom (2016) done before March 20th, all ready for April’s showcase. Then finally cap off the Retro series with a Doom Eternal review in May’s showcase after I’ve had time to collect my thoughts on the game, rather than rush out some spicy hot takes. For a summary on Doom 64 though – Pretty great to be honest. Some of the best atmosphere of any Doom game, a little slower and heavier feeling, bit forgettable in places. Just below Doom 2 on my rankings, but not by much. Also apologies for the video being over 3 minutes slightly but I had a lot of thoughts on Doom 3 I wanted to express and it was hard to make cuts anywhere. If you need to cut anywhere then it’s probably best to do the intro and just start it at 0:30. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGJGd9p-cYw Love & Respect, Jack Price

Anonymous

Hello Allies, ...Jessie Blu Here! This past month has been a whirlwind of activity. I had a ton of stuff to do to prepare for Anime Milwaukee which was the highlight of my month. Going to the show was a lot of fun. My daughter and I got a hotel room nearby so we wouldn’t have to go all the way back home if there were late panels we wanted to go to. It was so crazy busy I don’t remember what we did which nights but we saw the cosplay masquerade, the Jen Brown “Women in Caskets” horror podcast, a couple of really bad Voltron panels and a couple of really funny D&D panels (one where the person running the panel never actually showed up and attendees just shared DMing horror stories). We spent a lot of time in the vendor hall looking at all the merchandise and all the artists there have really neat stuff. I attended the “How to Book A Gig” panel that was about Anime auditions with Joel MacDonald who used to work for several years at Funimation and, in case you didn’t know, is now THE voice talent selector for GEARBOX. Yes that’s right...Borderlands. Sunday was the “Voice Acting for Video Games Auditions” panel again with Joel MacDonald. There were about 50 people in line and when I got up to read for one of the characters, he said "you read for 'such and such character yesterday, right?'". I was the first one he seemed to remember and he gave me positive feedback in combination so it made me feel good and bolstered my confidence. So, as I was walking back in the dark room to sit down I slipped him my business card and heard him whisper, “Smart Girl!” This made me smile all the way back to my seat. Later I went to get an autograph from Erica Lindbeck, who has been on Easy Update and Mysterious Monsters and is the voice of Jessie in the Final Fantasy 7 remake and she has about a 40 minute wait, and who do I see at the very next table but Joel MacDonald. So when I get done fawning over Erica and getting my picture with her, I turn to leave and I step over to Joels table. Then I hear your Brand Manager voice in my head, Jones, and it says "it’s not about the “in”, its about the “out”". I Introduce myself to him again, thank him for his feedback, what a pleasure it was to be in his panel. He talks about my reads and about my demo, he gives me some suggestions, all just nice and casual. I thanked him again, shook his hand and then I was “out” and it felt good. I know I am just starting out and I don't have any credits yet, but I am really thankful for the advice and connections from you and the other Allies and other VO friends like Amanda and Jessica Lynn Verdi that have helped guide me and will be very helpful in the long term. I think after EZX in a few weeks I will be able to take the connections I've been making this past year and the work I've been producing and it will all click together and I will start landing jobs. I know I have the skill, it's only a matter of time. And then I'll have all of you to thank! Looking forward to seeing you at Disney! Take care and see you soon!! L&R Jessie Blu ---- Ammended ---- Hello Allies, I don’t have an audio file this month because between the migraine I had last weekend, my daughter having activities this past week and me just getting home from putting in a 12 hour day (after forgetting to take my pain meds this morning) I’m gonna type up this here little ol’ comment and call it a night.

Anonymous

Hi Jones and Bloodworth, My girlfriend is a huge animal crossing fan, and has been doing some fan art in anticipation. Her favorite villager is Stitches, so you could say the wait has been....unbearable. L&R, Justin & Gina Stitches the Bear https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ERk9h9cUcAArFQ8?format=jpg Lucky the Dog https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ERk9h9dU0AAu3kF?format=jpg Tangy the Cat https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ERk9h9fUUAImgrK?format=jpg Coco the Bunny https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ERk9h9fUUAEiGYN?format=jpg

Anonymous

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlxF227EOYg Hey Blood, last year I briefly described MAGFest, the videogame convention with a major focus on live musical performances. All I had to show you before was a clip of my brother cosplaying as Voldo from Soul Caliber. This time I have a montage of all the kinds of music from the most recent event in January. There's everything from bluegrass to acapella to a rap about people at cons who don't practice good hygiene. Also you may spot a certain videogame composer icon, but they'll be featured in an upcoming video. Hope you enjoy and can make it to Maryland one year. It's a must experience if you love videogame music. Real quick story - this year there as a cosplay dance contest. One of the judges of the contest was Ellen McClain, the voice of GLADOS from Portal. My brother got second place as Voldo and afterwards Ellen took him aside and said he was the best and should've won. It must've felt strange to get unironic praise from GLADOS herself.

Anonymous

Jones, the video is much longer than 3 minutes but I have a break at around the 3 minute mark for you to stop the video there during the Showcase. Please keep watching for just a minute or so for some content that I chose just for you. L&R

Anonymous

Hey guys! These past 2 weeks me and a few friends have been playing Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem. It just released from Early Access after 4 years and we just found out about it. It's a Diablo-like game and that Diablo 4 void many people feel meant everyone jumped on this poor game and they weren't ready for it. It has been so hilariously broken we spend half the time joking about how bad it is and half the time enjoying the really great skill mechanics and gameplay. It has a lot of potential as it's borrowing a lot from Path of Exile and Diablo and the mix combined with new ideas actually feels pretty fresh! The bugs are plenty though: Bosses freeze in T-pose mid-fight, we "town portal" into a lone waypoint in a black void or struggle to find the right pixel on a bat to target them, progress gets lost, stashes get emptied, tooltips get stuck, items can't be moved. It's... a lot. They're patching things pretty quickly now so maybe we can recommend it soon. The way the game lets you build your character any way you want and modify your skills is really entertaining so I think we'll stick with it for now. The launch and online was a disaster for a week but it is shaping up now. Online betas well ahead of launch really isn't optional for this kind of game. It baffles me how devs are surprised every time that people want to play their game especially for a game like this that has a lot going for it. Sidenote: don't forget Rocket League! I still can't stop playing 4 years in. It's so good, and the community keeps doing more unbelievable stuff every week. I got Champ 3 rank this past month so I'm about 45% as good as the pros now that I have reached the next highest rank in the game. The skill difference is insane between the the low-end top ranked players and the pros. The greatest thing is that the matchmaking is so good that anyone can start and play with complete beginners and improve from there. There are of course some smurfs lurking but for me it has worked a lot better than other competitive games like CS:GO and Overwatch which is a nightmare to get into at this point. So, play Rocket League if you find the idea of rocket powered car football appealing even the slighest!

Anonymous

Hello there Blood and Jones, I'm back again with a "Let's Meditate" video. For those of you who missed last month, I have been wanting to share the positive aspects of meditation with more people after it's helped me. To accomplish this, I've recorded a variation on a song from a game I enjoy, so we can all sit back for three minutes, breathe and meditate together. A lot of people new to meditation have difficulties with their first few times; mainly because of the length of the sessions, and because trying to relax in this way can sometimes remind you of how tense or stressed you really are before eventually letting that tension go. Please do what makes you comfortable, so if you don't want to try, or meditation is just not for you, I hope you'll be able to relax for three minutes with us while we all enjoy some calm music and decompress just a little bit. For those of you who want to try, just do your best! Love and Respect, Brian from Happy Gaming https://youtu.be/KhkyU7EBu9g

Brandon K Gann

These first two months have been sparse (I should be talking about Ori and The Last of Us Part II right now, but you know, delays), so I’ll use this month’s post to talk about the interests and collaborations that I’ve had over February. Starting with my interests, I’ve been primarily filling my free time with two things: Gaming to prepare for the upcoming deluge of great titles and following along another passion of mine: College sports, or more specifically for this time of year, basketball. Primarily, I’ve played Gauntlet: Dark Legacy, The Last of Us: Remastered, and I just finished my third or fourth New Game Plus run of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. New game plus really makes the latter better as you can start a new game as OP as you can get, completing a lot of the 300 missions in the game earlier than normal. Now with the Remake demo going live yesterday at the time of this showcase, ALL free time between now and Ori’s release, will be dedicated to going through it again and again. Yes, I am THAT hyped. As far as me following basketball, for the most part it's been a fun season and I always look forward to the major 68 team tournament every year. Though, I envy everyone who isn’t a sports fan because of the inevitable heartbreak everyone but one team has. As far as collaborations go, I’ve been able to do stuff with friends a lot more so than in the past and it’s just the best. If it hasn’t been said already, being able to participate in the EZA Forums’ GOTY threads is a lot of fun and I’m pleasantly surprised six of my eight nominees made the cut for the top 25 for 2019. They’re always a fun time, and I can’t wait for the next one, which should be another previous year as we cover two or three GOTY threads every 12 months, including the current topical year. But outside of that, I’ve been helping with a couple of other projects: I’ve sat down with a couple of friends of mine and I’m a part of two separate Fantasy Critic leagues, and it was a blast to put together. We’ll be checking in once a quarter to see where things stand, and I can’t wait. The other thing I’m helping with is a podcast called That Ultimate Video Game List Show where me and three others build then rank the top 20 games of all time with two restrictions: one game per franchise and one game per system/platform. It’s kind of like our own version of Hall of Greats. We’ve built the list already and we’re about to use the next four weeks to rank them and ultimately “retire” the top ranked game into a Hall of Fame which only has one game because I’m on season two. That one game? God of War 2018.

Olie

Hi Allies! Third times the charm they say and here I am again trying to show off my friend Steves drawing work. Still loving what you guys are doing, the Magic the Gathering tournament was especially excellent, hope to see more stuff like that from you guys in future! I stream a load of retro games myself, and the timelapse you are hopefully seeing as you hear this is one of the drawings done live alongside our playing of horror games every Thursday at 7pm GMT. I thought I would show off my amazing artist friends work here and invite everyone to come and see the live drawing sessions at channel twitch.tv/olicon. We've gone through a lot of the classics like Turok, Soul Reaver and of course Blue Stinger. The one in the video you're watching here is Silent Hill 4. Keep putting good vibes and positivity into the world and love and respect to all! https://youtu.be/K9GvcqSFnIE

Anonymous

Hi Jones & Bloodworth! Just something short this month that I am deeply, deeply proud of. Something about watching all the churches go by when I'm in the car on my Tennessee streets just gets me thinking – and that usually gets me writing. See y’all next month for EZX! <3 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yWrOfAkiknJ2hLBf0MdGLls0tRhgHudszgnZUyOEvQ4/edit?usp=sharing L&R, Spencer (@spoolesofthread)

Anonymous

Hey Allies, Two things! First, comin out of a down and a toxic environment, I’ve been feelin the art itch! Here’s some allies I drew from memory, hopefully you can tell who they are ;) https://twitter.com/flexhealer/status/1232138812014448647?s=20 Second, as I’ve been feelin more comfortable in my own skin I’ve ventured into makeup and such! Here are some of my favourite looks! https://twitter.com/burrnside/status/1218439210689974272?s=20 https://twitter.com/burrnside/status/1229582886690414592?s=20 As always, love and respect Kit L Burnside (ps jones I recently got way into Star Wars for someone who had never seen it previously and all I wanna say is I’m in love with Obi-Wan and the prequels thanks)

Anonymous

Hi Jones & Blood, Long time listener, first time caller. Going to use this opportunity to promote a long running Korean comic I've been reading which is getting picked up for an anime adaption by Crunchyroll called Tower of God. Here are a few back of the box points to entice the allies who like anime to not sleep on this soon-to-be hit show Bonds - Teams and the bonds between their members and rival teams is the core dynamic for the series Story - I've been reading this for nearly a decade and the seeds of plot planted early are still only just materialising Tournament arc - The majority of the focus is on teams passing trials, and they almost all play out like a classic tournament arc Bad guys - One of the most hatable villains in a story, talking around the same levels as Gendo (Eva), Griffith (Berserk) and Light (Death Note) Schemes & Intrigue - Everyone is up to something. Everyone. No one is safe - You're looking at The Walking Dead danger levels for characters getting picked off. Don't get too attached! I'll admit the animation on the newly released trailers looks a tad rough, but if the story hooks you there's always the comic version. Unrelated tangent: I was rooting for Blood the whole time during the Magic tournament, boy that was an exciting watch, you did great dude. May I recommend that if he mains blue decks that he takes up the monkier of 'BlueBlood'? L&R Anon

Anonymous

Hi Jones and Blood! February has been a pretty weird month, as most of my attention has been spent trying to find a new job. In between applications, I’ve been getting in some gaming time where I can. While I said I would stick with Yakuza Kiwami 2 in my last submission, I haven’t felt the drive to go back to it yet. It’s strange that in 3 separate Yakuza games that I’ve played, they’ve each had very different combat and level up systems, with Kiwami 2 not quite engaging me in the same way as the previous games. The loss of the bowling mini-game hurts too. One day I’ll finish it off. Instead, I ended up getting absorbed in a type of game I previously thought wasn’t my thing. Rogue-likes never interested me because I thought the procedural generation of levels and dying over and over would get boring, but then I decided to take a chance on Rogue Legacy. Yes, I know this game is pretty old, but it was 3 bucks on PSN so why not, right? What I got was the ideal podcast game, with the legacy mechanic getting its hooks in me deep. I couldn’t stop playing, as it hit that “Ok one more run” vibe that is so hard to capture. I have now finished the game twice all the way through, and I’m sure I’ll hop back in many more times. Next, I’ve been craving Persona 5 and since it’s going to be a while until I can play Royal or Scramble, I started a NG+ run of the original. It has been so much fun playing through with most of my stats maxed out and with the best weapons, because it makes the whole process move so much faster. Right before the second palace, I decided to take a break so I didn’t burn out on it. Now, I’d like to point you to a date we passed about a week ago. 2-21-2020. What is the importance of this date? It was the original release date for The Last of Us Part 2. Since the series has been on my mind, I decided to start playing the original again. Now that I have a newfound sense of confidence in my ability to get through it, I’m so much less stressed than my first run. Joel and Ellie have a permanent place in my heart and I’m really enjoying a chance to explore the world looking for all the collectibles without having anxiety about it. I’m about halfway through Pittsburgh and I’m dreading the sewers that aren’t too far away. My hype for Part 2 is sky high right now. That’s it for this month. What will catch my fancy next time? Guess we’ll have to see what’s left on my backlog. Spoilers, the backlog is considerable. L&R GOTYlocks

Anonymous

Greetings Brandon and Blood, I want to start this month’s showcase by giving props to Brandon for his excellent impression of Phil Spencer- I really wish I traded a burger in for an Xbox One S now and look like a pillock while doing it. Shame Ian and Elyse wouldn’t play Sea of Thieves with you. Kyle’s Dan Houser impression is also stellar. I want to ask Blood what did you make of GRID reboot? I thought it was very underwhelming. Also what are your favourite racing games? I love Blur, Wreckfest, Sonic & Sega’s All-Stars Racing: Transformed Forza Horizons 3 and 4 and Dirt 3, the original GRID and Burnout 3: Takedown. Would it be possible for the Allies to visit the UK at some point? I’d like to once again send my commendations to all the Allies for their tireless efforts, the world would certainly be a lot hollower without your endless passion and ceaseless efforts. Thank you for everything you do and enjoy my creative works-Love & Respect. It Must Be Sick-A Madness Parody I always thought I smelled it The throw up On the floor And I never thought I would stay here The way my guts start to churn As soon as my eyes look Down and up, up and down I know just what I need A mop and a spray It must be sick, sick, sick It must be sick, sick, sick Always gross Always sour Sick is a mess How can I stand here and ask Why no one, cleaned this up Curse here and Curse there Curse the rats And the pigs I've got to clean you up and down, down and up My nose won't be free Until it goes away It must be sick, sick, sick It must be sick, sick, sick Always gross Always sour Sick is a mess Dirty Birds Swooping down precariously on my shoulder the gentle finch farted It flailed, fluttered and flinched for a second thereafter, then readily parted The smell of a rosebud blossoming in a smoky husk of volcanic ash and dust Of all the odds, what made this pesky twitterer squelch out a putrid gust? I saw the twee fella up there with its brazen brood of balding bitchy birds All of a sudden I see them circling the sky before they pelted me with turds The cocksure sparrow, the conniving kingfisher and that riotous retched robin All gathered around furnishing fiendish frolics like an Italian American mob kin Oh lord, please stop thine harsh torment and rid of this saggy salacious swallow Send me your sanitations, end the filth, give these flying vermin orders to follow Curse these flying avian pests, those plucky petulant parading pious puny paltry This torment is making me blush in embarrassment, now I’m boiled and sultry Now I get my revenge for their sophomoric silly sensations with my trusting rifle Then get back to my family, ready for tonight’s main course- a nice feathery trifle

Anonymous

I'd like to give you my pitch for the next Insomniac Spider-Man game, if I may. Remember how Spider-Man on PS4 gave you a list of crimes to stop in each New York district? Remember how they were fun but a bit repetitive in that way open-world games usually get? Well what if, in the sequel, each district had a different New York superhero assigned to it - Luke Cage in Harlem, Daredevil in Hell's Kitchen, and so on. And what if instead of going around foiling the same set of crimes, you foiled a different set of crimes unique to each hero, like purging demons for Doctor Strange, or tailing a white collar criminal in Wall Street for Jessica Jones, or looking for Squirrel-Girl's lost acorns in Central Park. And what if you develop bonds with these heroes that influence how later missions or story beats play out - alliances, if you will? Wouldn't that be cool. I call it Marvel's Spider-Man, colon, Easy Allies. Ted Price will be hearing from me shortly.

Anonymous

Hello Jones and Bloodworth. We've now officially entered the month of Animal Crossing, and between that, the new Risk of Rain 2 update due for March 31, and the new Magic the Gathering expansion in April, I've got a lot of things to look forward to this spring. It's also my brother's birthday later this month, and since his favourite video game of all time is Pyre I've decided to get him some official merchandise from the Supergiant games store. Speaking of my brother, he bought me Monster Hunter World: Iceborne as a (very) early birthday gift. I haven't played too much of it yet, I honestly need to get back to it, but it seems the expansion really messed up the game's performance on my PC, as I now can't even get consistent 60 FPS with everything set to as low as possible, and that's a real bummer. But let's talk about something that isn't a bummer. In fact, it's about as much of the opposite of a bummer as you could get. Because this February, I played Sayonara Wild Hearts, and it's honestly one of my new all-time favourite games. I loved every single moment of this game, from the glitzy music to the fabulous visuals to the narration by Queen Latifah. I adore how unabashedly cool the game is, too. Sayonara Wild Hearts clearly isn't interesting in trying to coax people over, you're either not gonna vibe with it or you'll be head over heels with it like I am. Sayonara Wild Hearts isn't necessarily deep or complex, but it's a powerful, moving dose of pure euphoria that I think a lot of people might need in this day and age. Other than that, I don't actually have a lot of new stuff to talk about for this month. I've been picking up Dead Cells again. It's good, but I kinda hate pretty much every single boss in this game. They feel sloppy and never play to the game's main strengths of tight movement and bouncing between enemies like a particularly deadly pinball. I think Dead Cells could do with a boss in the vein of Dark Souls 3's Deacons of Deep, where you need to manage an endless horde of smaller enemies while also juggling several more powerful elite enemies. Just a thought really. I guess I'll use my remaining words to shout out a youtuber I recently discovered. If you like video essays that deep dive into a host of diverse games and genres, check out "Sometimes Pauly". With only 3.2k subscribers at the time of writing, is criminally underappreciated for all of the hard work he puts into his videos. Well, that's all for now, I'll be seeing you all in New Horizons! Love and Respect, Small Leviathan p.s. Please tell Kyle to just stop it with his Animal Crossing hot takes. Whenever he talks about the series he sounds like a Redditor with "anti-SJW" in their username trying to explain to me why Animal Crossing isn't a "real" video game.

Anonymous

hey jones! hey blood! it's been an eventful couple of months since my last showcase submission. i bleached my hair white, publicly changed my name, and began a new relationship! speaking of that last one, the art i'm submitting this month was a valentines day gift for my partner featuring two of our favorite pokemon. spencer (spoolesofthread) and i met each other through eza and i'll forever be grateful to you for bringing us and all of our friends together. so thanks for that. excited to see everyone again at ezx! art: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ERy-5poWoAEJBov?format=jpg&name=4096x4096 - love & respect, esther (estherdevil in chat, aka the artist formerly known as stephct) ps: i cannot wait to get to play animal crossing with everyone in the community!

Anonymous

Hello, Bloodworth and Jones! Like I said last time, Animal Crossing is getting closer! Loved that Direct, and the fact that you appear to start with less than in previous entries, but end up with so much more possibilities to shape your village. I can't wait! Especially since these first months of 2020 are way emptier than originally planned in terms of releases, but that's not like I don't have dozens of games to finish anyway... Obviously, this time, I prepared some Animal Crossing-themed music! What if you could ask K.K. to perform the Easy Allies podcast theme? Well, it would be called K.K. Allies, and I imagined it for you! Also, keep listening until the very end, there's “One Last Thing” especially for Jones! Love & Respect, Kévin Gillet Link to the music: https://youtu.be/tC-SijpYaP4

Anonymous

Hi Brandon and Blood! Over the past few months I've been focusing on creating and listening to video game music. It's incredible to think how far video game music has come in the industry - let alone the technology that has allowed composers to create everything from looping chiptunes to full orchestral pieces through their laptop! I would love to know what was the first soundtrack that 'wowed' you when you were playing a video game? For me it was the original Metal Gear Solid soundtrack and how real the orchestra sounded to me at the time. Today, I'm sharing a composition I wrote inspired by action games with orchestra such as Metal Gear Solid and Call of Duty. Love all that you do, and animal crossing, animal crossing, animal crossing. https://soundcloud.com/masonvictoriamusic/action-demo-orchestra-mason-victoria L&R Mason Victoria (@masonachu)

Anonymous

Hello Jones and Blood! We’re having another fairly light month, as my gaming time has been severely limited by copious amounts of papers to be written for my classes. Turns out taking five COMM classes in one semester means a lot of that (though, to be fair it is my major!). Mostly my monthly gaming has been taken up by returning to my Hearthstone addiction. Blizzard is an awful company, but damn if they make a good card game. At the very least I’ve promised myself not to spend money on it and am abiding to that rather strictly. I’m also feeling the KOTOR itch again, perhaps time for my yearly playthrough? Really I’m just waiting for Animal Crossing to release. I need this game. While I played a bit of New Leaf I was never really able to sink into it as I felt kind of out of the Zeitgeist so to speak. Being able to play it along with everyone else and have something to check into every night genuinely feels like the perfect game while I’m in college. Plus, we have Persona 5 Royal out in just a few weeks, so the next month is looking pretty good! As I’m typing this out I’m currently waiting for the final episode of Doctor Who to be available on Amazon Prime. This season has really been phenomenal, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so intrigued at what a season finale will bring. That’s all for this month! L&R, Tyler @tmgm528

Anonymous

Hi Brandon and Blood. 1) Just watched Sonic movie last weekend. This was the bad 1st try as you can see from overuse of correction fluid. 2) Final one with watercolor. Still used ink to make lines. 3) Drew Nishiki when I finished Yakuza Kiwami. Almost done with Kiwami 2 so expect another Yakuza-themed drawing next month. 4) WIP of Nishiki 5) Original work. A butcher. 6) In color 7) Another original work with a classic trope on TV. When you're sad you just get hungry. 8) WIP of it. 9) RE3 remake is just a month away. So drew Jill again. Short history. Beat it multiple times to get all epilogues and raked lots of points in Mercenaries to get infinite ammo for everything. So I'm really HYPED for remake. 1) https://twitter.com/tearjuengi/status/1233843126684569601 2) https://twitter.com/tearjuengi/status/1233843507942563842 3) https://twitter.com/tearjuengi/status/1230886377128103946 4) https://twitter.com/tearjuengi/status/1230885795910868993 5) https://twitter.com/tearjuengi/status/1230885181818621952 6) https://twitter.com/tearjuengi/status/1230885264530313221 7) https://twitter.com/tearjuengi/status/1226078694613094400 8) https://twitter.com/tearjuengi/status/1224944350519611392 9) https://twitter.com/tearjuengi/status/1228796676581793794 That is all this month. Love & Respect. TearjuEngi P.S. See you soon.

Axel

Hey guys! We've recently completed our own 2019 GOTY elections on the EZA forums, as we like to do, and we'd like to hear your thoughts! As a reminder, this is how we did it: we all ranked our favorite games of the year, with #1 to #4 earning 5, 4, 3 and 2 points respectively, plus up to 4 optional honorable mentions getting 1 point each, and we tallied the votes to determine the final ranking. In case of a tie, the game with the most #1 votes wins. If still a tie, the most #2 votes, and so on. Here's the countdown: #25. Tetris 99 - 9 points #24. Borderlands 3 - 10 points #23. Judgment - 11 points #22. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening - 11 points #21. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III - 11 points #20. Apex Legends - 12 points #19. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night - 12 points #18. Gears 5 - 12 points #17. Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled - 13 points #16. Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown - 13 points #15. A Plague Tale: Innocence - 14 points #14. Outer Wilds - 14 points #13. Disco Elysium - 15 points #12. Days Gone - 15 points #11. Kingdom Hearts III - 17 points #10. Metro Exodus - 22 points #9. Devil May Cry 5 - 25 points #8. Astral Chain - 28 points #7. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order - 30 points #6. Death Stranding - 39 points #5. Control - 41 points #4. Fire Emblem: Three Houses - 42 points #3. The Outer Worlds - 45 points #2. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - 52 points #1. Resident Evil 2 - 68 points A few additional fun facts: - The Outer Worlds placed 3rd without receiving a single #1 vote, so nobody truly loves it. - Three Houses is the best-ranking Fire Emblem game since we started doing this, beating Awakening's 8th place in 2013. - Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (7th) is the first EA game to place in the top 10 since Dragon Age: Inquisition in 2014. - The top 15 games are all singleplayer games! - 6 games from the top 10 are from Japanese developers! - 4 Switch exclusive, 4 PS4 exclusives, 1 Xbox One exclusive, 1 PC exclusive. - The major snubs: Luigi's Mansion 3, Pokémon Sword and Shield, Dragon Quest Builders 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare... - Don't Call Me Mama But Yes I Am Your Mama scored 4 points, placing it above Yoshi's Crafted World.

Anonymous

Hello Brandon and Blood. This month I bring you a twist on the typical and present the idea of Eldritch Crossing. An art project that sees the townsfolk hiding weird secrets (or the oldest truths?) and wicked night time forms. I made these day time versions and figured you two may like them. There's more lore/info in a twitter thread folks can find @teeketch but just art for now. As always thanks for fostering a great community and for all the work you do. L&R https://drive.google.com/open?id=1KhQEBXTjdVY5Oc2g_BMxCYFm-0Sw-RgD

Anonymous

Hey Brandon and Blood, I am finally out of my video game slump and feeling good. My son was the impetus of my reinvigoration as he has been on and off playing Kingdom Hearts 3 and crit pathing to the bosses at which point he hands me the controller to finish the fight. By the end of the Frozen world I realised we were massively under levelled so I decided to stay up late that night and grind it out. So it all came flooding back. That top 10 Dopamine of levelling up. Then I found myself flying around in the gummy ship collecting loot and it felt good. Pokemon Home came out so I now have every Pokemon I have caught from gen 3 to now residing on my phone and it feels good. I am only missing 8 Pokemon for the complete national Dex which are the 6 Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon mon' s and the 2 Pokemon Go exclusives and I can live with that. Now I have finally started Fire Emblem 3 houses 'properly' although for me that is grinding out the free-time battles to get everyone up to as high of a support level possible before moving on. I am 37hrs in on part 1, chapter 4. with 60,000 gold and a level 31 healer so I think the back half should be pretty breezy once I am ready to move on. *grinding grin* finally my son had been asking for the Donkey Kong DLC for Mario + Rabbids for a few weeks so we struck a deal for him to save up for it and man that is a fun few hours. I am really look forward to a sequel because the super clever use of the tactics environment given Donkey Kong's simian abilities change the game in fun and unique ways. Donkey Kong can climb walls that others would need a pipe or team jump to access, he can also carry friends or foes with him on his turn and throw them for extra damage or tactical advantage as an ally can cover twice as much ground if DK throws them before they take their turn. if you haven't played Mario + Rabbids but love tactics or SRPGs it is such a good game and always seems to be on sale so don't skip it. Love and Respect.

Anonymous

Good day, Jones & Bloodworth! Before I get into this month’s pictures, I just wanted to say thank you so much for the love on my first post! I had never really interacted with the Easy Allies community before that, and it was a very warm welcome :) This month I bring you, Vail, Colorado! I’ve been traveling here for ski season since I was a kid, and it’s a beautiful little city I think is very underappreciated. It’s definitely in my top 5 for places a non-American should visit here in the USA. This year, I had a cold all the way through the trip and I was too weak to ski for more than an hour or two. To keep myself busy in true tourist fashion, I ran around the town, camera around my neck, taking pictures of whatever struck my fancy. My results are these nine pictures! I hope you all have a good March, with so many big game releases, I am both very excited and very nervous. I'll try to make something for next showcase before Animal Crossing releases on the 20th and halts all my motivation elsewhere. 1. A snowstorm from afar 2. The town square of the neighboring Lionshead Village 3. Sun filtering through the shades 4. Fireworks at a parade honoring the 10th Mountain Division; a group of soldiers who trained for WWII in the harsh Colorado mountains. 5. Snowfall at the river 6. The view from the Vail Village bus stop 7. Icicles! 8. Sunset from the empty bus (my favorite picture of these!) 9. The mountains from the plane https://imgur.com/a/BMrSqzh

awesome_express

Hey there Bloodworth and Jones, We're pretty far removed from the Glinny's Cauldron Jam, but I have a relic from the past that I would like to share. I worked on the soundtrack for the game "Allied Adventure" by Fanttum. The event was quite fun (and challenging), and while I was able to get most of the music done, I had a few tracks that straddled the deadline and were not included in the game played on the group stream. The piece I am sharing today is the "Boss Battle Theme". The soundtrack was composed entirely in the program “Famitracker”, which creates authentic NES music (that can even be exported onto an NES cartridge). https://soundcloud.com/jibunzo/boss-battle-theme Glinny’s Cauldron was an excellent and insightful experience; it was a wholly unique avenue for creative expression, and if Kyle ever wishes to follow up with a similar event in the future, I would relish the opportunity for a second attempt at video game music composition. Love & Respect, -Jarett (@Jibunzo) P.S. Bloodworth, any plans on another Nebraska Mini-Meetup? It's been a blast the past two years.

Anonymous

Hello BLOODBRAND! This is Part Seven of the Shenmue EZA Dubarooski, https://youtu.be/B6J9e4jgj18 Starring: Michael Huber
Ben Moore Daniel Bloodworth Brandon Jones Ian Hinck Kyle Bosman And Dice #3 All of the Love. All of the Respect. Dan Allen Detroit, MI PS: Katamari Damacy for Hall Of Greats. FULL SHENMUE DUB SO FAR Youtube.com/litmitmedia

Anonymous

Hello Brandon and Bloodworth! I have been away at Disney World all week with a group of friends I play Dungeons and Dragons with. We are on the bus back to the airport as I write this. I thought I would upload some pictures from my trip. I was the videographer so I dont have too many photos. I even met someone from chat who works at the Pandora shop when you get off Flight of Passage. They recognized my Love and Respect t shirt. http://imgur.com/a/9oFEVlF

Anonymous

Hi Jones and Blood! Hope you all are well and managing to keep up with all the awesome videogame releases we are getting this year. Last weekend I went away working on site for a client. I don’t know if you (Jones) remember the tail of my last epic hike adventure when we ended up getting lost in the Welsh mountains last year. This time I ended up with some colleagues in Cornwall, England and persuaded them to do a day hike with me to explore the landscape. Let’s just say that we got quite the adventure. This time we used our mobile phones instead of a papermap, which worked until we realised the signal was horrible down in the valleys. Anyway, We set out in the morning with packed food and a vague idea where we wanted to go. The sun was out, the sky was blue and there was a light breeze sweeping across the fields, If only we had checked the weather for the full day. Being close to the coast meant that we ended up experiencing all four seasons before the day would be over. We followed some mapped out walking routes and crossed some muddy fields when suddenly saw some dark clouds on the horizon slowly coming our way. Our mood was high and silly enough we laughed and thought “how bad can it really be?”. Around 30 minutes later the wind started to pick up and we could feel the temperature dropping to then quickly turn into a hailstorm directly from hell. Being on open fields we just had to curl up behind some bushes and try to stay as dry as possible. Unfortunately the wind grabbed everything that was loose and we had packing flying all kinds of directions. Luckily enough the storm disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. After about three hours hiking we made our way to the town of Looe. This was an absolutely beautiful town on this amazing beach where we had our lunch whilst watching people surfing on the waves and having fun, until another storm arrived, this time a mix of rain and snow dragged in and soaked us again. We decided to follow the coastline for an hour or so before everyone started to feel cold and a bit beaten up from the weather. The mood in the group started to dampen and it was easy to tell that we all just wanted to come home and things felt hard before all of a sudden, one of us started to “sing” on 500 miles by the Proclaimers. It didn’t take long for us all to join in and we all laughed and bellowed along as loud as we possibly could. When we finally got home we had some pizza and everyone collapsed into the hot tub with aching bodys. Despite the long hike and changing weather it was so much fun and we are already talking about spending another weekend somewhere in England to go hiking. Also I am sorry that the images got a bit mixed up when I uploaded them, but hope they are enjoyable anyway! Lots of love and respect Lotias https://imgur.com/a/6gfsGzR

Anonymous

Hey Allies! I’m here once again with another one of my Smash matches. For this one, my buddy and I were playing doubles online. He was the Roy, and I was playing Captain Falcon: a character I rarely play as and am not as good with. But I enjoy landing his hype moves like the falcon punch (and that becomes very apparent in the first part of the match…). So that’s all I’ll say about this match except for a couple of notes: when playing online, you can lose two stocks if you kill yourself without the opposing team hitting you; and yes, I feel bad for how I stole my friends last stock right before he died. I was just focused on getting back in there, but to be fair, I think I made up for it. And since Animal Crossing hype is in full effect and since you are both Animal Crossing experts I set this match to the newest Animal Crossing remix in Smash, the Happy Home Designer theme. I love this upbeat , more intense version of Animal Crossing music in Smash and though I’ve never played an Animal Crossing game yet, the music in that last direct alone has me hyped for this game! So I hope you all enjoy! Thanks for all you guys do! Love & Respect! -Beeks Link: https://youtu.be/Fg0RL-u3ZaQ

Anonymous

Hello Blood and Jones. Greetings Chat. Each and every day we are getting close to the release of Animal Crossing, I JUST CAN’T WAIT ANYMORE but I’m trying to think about other things in order to keep myself sane. During last month I went back to my addiction, I’ve been playing Destiny like crazy again and I’m enjoying it so much that even I can’t believe it. A little bit of context on how I came to this game again; as you may have already guessed by the times I’ve written about Destiny, I really love this game and I’ve spent a lot of hours grinding and playing with my friends, however at the end of November of last year I felt burned by the game, I really didn’t wanted to play it, so I stopped and played a lot of the games I had on my backlog. During January I played Tokyo Mirage Sessions and really loved it, but then I started to Play Dragon Ball Kakarot and this is when everything started; or maybe ended. DBZ didn’t click with me, in fact I think it was very boring (Maybe I’m crazy). After 5 hours I decided it wasn’t for me so I started to see what else I could play. I spent a lot of time thinking on what to play and the problem is that when you have a big backlog, you end up not playing anything since you don’t know where to start, and finally, there it was, the game that was waiting on my Dashboard that I hadn’t touch in months, yep it was Destiny. For the last month, I’ve been playing like 3 hours daily, grinding like a madman and playing with my friends, there is something special about this game and I can’t put into words. I just know that whenever I start that game and think what I will grind on that day, or what kind of weapon I will be testing to try to be a PVP god, it just makes me smile and enjoy my time on the game so much. I’ve learned something important with all of this. It is ok to stop playing a game you love so much, in order to keep the love for that game intact, sometimes you just need time to play other games in order to come back stronger to that game you always love. Well, that will be everything from me this time and as always, I wish you the best. Amor y Respeto. Miguel.

EasyAllies

James, I must confess, I'm not sure what the "Madness Parody" is a parody of. I've looked up some songs and nothing seems to fit. Is Dirty Birds a parody as well, or just a poem? - Jones

EasyAllies

The link points to one image, and by your text above I'm guessing there are supposed to be more? - Jones

Anonymous

Aloha Brandon and Blood, This month I'll be doing something different from my normal month in review (or two in this case since I missed Feb), and talking about one of my oldest hobbies: Lego. I've been building various sets from as long back as I can remember. I had a lot of Space and City sets as a child. I think I might have had a couple Castle and Pirates as well, in addition to a bunch of Technic. One of my creations in late elementary school was even chosen for a build prize by Lego, after my parents submitted it. So to see the resurgence of Lego in popular culture makes me quite happy; from the movies in recent years, to the TV reality show, to the news article I read that adults are finding it a good way to relax and unwind. I also built quite a few plamo (or plastic models) as well. I had an amazing DeLorean from Back to the Future II when I was in junior high that could convert from drive to hover mode via toggle. I've got a bunch of Bandai models now as well, from Gundams, to One Piece, to Star Wars. (some still unbuilt cause of my hand injury) I know quite a few Allies build Gundams or similar plamo, but it seems like the Lego bug has bit a few of you too. Ben started building Star Wars Legos recently, Blood seems to have enjoyed the Forza Lego Champions DLC (any favorite car?), Brad has a couple I think, I think as well that Brandon mentioned he wants to add some to his Garage now after I showed off my new Lego shelving a few months ago (any progress?). I find it a great way to relax in addition to physical therapy for my hand. I put on some music, like a Final Fantasy piano collection or game soundtrack like SSX3 or KOTOR, and build away for a few hours. This month's submission brings in 2 other interests that I have, the Harry Potter universe and model trains. My grandfather had a few HO scale model trains when I was a kid and we loved setting them up in the kitchen, whenever I came to visit during the summer. Hope you enjoy the pictures and as always, Mahalo nui loa for everything you do, L & R, Samo Rozman @Namzor https://imgur.com/a/jLSh3IX

Anonymous

Get hyped. L&R Matt B https://youtu.be/yDmo7Q87CDM

Anonymous

Hey Bloodworth and Jones! February has gone by and I have officially completed the first month of daily Animal Crossing drawings to countdown to the games release! This is the first time I've ever made it through a whole month drawing something everyday for a challenge and there's still 20 days of March to go! The first two drawings were already shown last community showcase but I kept them in this one even after the drastic style change just to keep the entire month of drawings together. Also thanks to everyone who helped suggest villagers! Love & Respect -Youchube https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IEEfvLEz5_dxOwqzxr6St8bwV0CNUPNH/view?usp=sharing

Anonymous

Another month, another tenuous and speculative connection: Bloodworth is organized, and reads books - so perhaps he enjoys a good library? I bet he knows the Dewey Decimal System. The Seattle Public Library, designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and opened in 2004: Ann Hamilton is a large scale visual installation artist that did the wood flooring on the first level of the Library. https://tinyurl.com/uf68ej2 https://tinyurl.com/r6co22l Part of the building overhangs the street. https://tinyurl.com/un9nrmo https://tinyurl.com/tchrt48 From the 4th floor, looking down to the 2nd floor and up to the 6th floor. https://tinyurl.com/rcfegph The elevators and escalators are easy to find: https://tinyurl.com/skoopmf https://tinyurl.com/rgomnqk 99% sure those cameras are there to catch someone not paying attention walking into that wall. https://tinyurl.com/s3pkdcp The 3rd floor is meeting rooms and everything is red. https://tinyurl.com/qpgyt7m Cheers to libraries, librarians, and public funded community resources!

Anonymous

February was an interesting month. We even got an extra day! Did I spend that extra day gaming? No, of course not! It was a Saturday; I went to Busch Gardens, indulged in fermented beverages, and saw Collective Soul. I did play some video games, though, including entering the world of Death Stranding. In keeping to the 2020 rule, I'm not going to talk about how the plot is absolute garbage. Nor will I address how the writing is pretentious tripe. While the game controls well and the gameplay is solid, I'm not going to go into how it's all undermined by an incessant stream of rubbish thrown in the player's face to the point where even my brother, watching from the peanut gallery, exclaims "Jesus Christ this game is full of itself!" And I definitely won't delve into how the game keeps us cackling at the absurdity of it all, as though it were a movie of Mystery Science Theater 3000 calibur. We'll see if my view changes as I continue my adventure with Thick McRunfast next month. So, keeping to the 2020 rule, I did play more Monster Hunter World: Iceborne. First, a huge shoutout to Ben. I took his advice on getting an external SSD and it made a massive difference in cutting down load times. It's also nice to be able to store more games without having to delete anything. Second, the game is just fun! Looking at all the hours I've poured into the game as a whole makes me scoff at the time when I had played the demo and thought it was trash. Though I'm curious as to what I'll think of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake demo, currently on the download docket as we speak. I wonder if it can win me over. As for my thoughts on the original Final Fantasy 7... uh, 2020 rule, so, no comment. Anyhoooo, the movie posters were revealed for Monster Hunter. Saw lots complaining about no monsters being shown, but honestly, the reveal of a monster is better suited for motion than a still image, so kudos if that's what they were going for. People just want everything spoiled these days so they can complain there was nothing surprising when they see a movie, I guess. I dunno. I saw the Sonic the Hedgehog movie as well. It was fun! Leaving the theater at 12:49 AM, kids were shouting "Gotta go fast!" while running around the parking lot, so I guess good job movie, bad job parents. I also introduced a few more people to VR. Scaring people on their virgin VR voyage is always a grand time. One of my friends was screaming bloody murder, but they were having a blast. So many of my friends who don't play video games just love the thing! I also brought it into work for team building where we played Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, using it as an exercise in communication. Everyone had a blast!

Anonymous

Back up video link and safety comment~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsmSbEoZqDc&feature=youtu.be

Anonymous

I made a thing! I've been paying the Yakuza series, starting with 0, and I'm now on 4. Playing Kiwami 2, I had an idea, thought it was pretty funny, so here it is. I submitted it for Huber's community queue, but I don't know that it fit there, so here it is, enjoy! https://youtu.be/tfORmfNvyRg

XWF Outlaw

Good Afternoon Jones, Blood, and Chat. I got a few games I have finished or currently playing that all feature a common theme that is a favorite of this month's guest: great soundtracks. Over the past few weeks I have been playing two games nightly as a perfect late evening cocktail and chaser. I started my evening with the adrenaline-fueled, nightmarish, heavy metal, ripping and tearing of the demons from Hell in Doom (2016). Then as my chaser I wind-down with the mellow, tranquil, somber, indie platforming tale of the escape from your mental demons in Gris. The former I am replay to get ready to rip and tear until it is done in a little over 2 weeks in Doom Eternal. Doom (2016) has the best metal soundtrack to a video game. I will not be taking questions at this time. While my chaser, Gris, is a calm storm of indie bliss. There's no worry about death or life count, there are no enemies to kill. Just an easy story and beautiful artwork to gaze at with an important message to discover. Not to mention a beautiful soundtrack that got me misty by the time credits rolled. As about 90% of this chat has already done as of yesterday, I played Final Fantasy VII Remake... demo. Hehe. Today was originally the day we were all supposed to be playing the full game, but until next month, we have a small, hour-long demo was an attempt to put a band-aid on a broken hearts. By the end, I was like Oliver Twist shouting at Square-Enix, "Please sir, can I have some more?" And back to my theme of soundtracks, it goes without saying that score is phenomenal! So much so that I booked a ticket to watch the Final Fantasy VII Remake Live Orchestra in October. That's it for this month, chat. I'll be back next week with updates form my March games with the aforementioned Doom Eternal and Persona 5: Royal (yet another phenomenal soundtrack). Not to mention all the goodness with all the events and shenanigans the Allies will be getting into on EZX weekend. To all those allies who are returning, I can't wait to see you all again. Love & Respect, everybody.

Anonymous

Had to pause the community showcase when I heard about this! Would love to take a stab at reading this!

Anonymous

This is the wrong post. This one is from last month.