August 2023 Report (Patreon)

...okay, so while there technically wasn't a main channel video this month, this month was very much super packed for me! There's the trip to Tokyo that I mentioned previously (we'll get to that), and a bunch of other minor videos and game pickups etc. all happened. So let's go over each of them, starting with:

YouTube Shorts

Yes, I've turned to the dark side and tried my hand at making two YouTube Shorts this month! One is a quick video about two interesting pickups I got that day, and the other is a video about four different Super Famicom controller releases.

While I do think this format is pretty suitable for some super quick spontaneous videos about nuggets of facts, I'm not sure if I'll be regularly doing them yet! The two experimental Shorts haven't necessarily blown up, and obviously you're supposed to be churning them out more regularly until one sticks, so that doesn't sound too feasible to me unless I dedicate the entire channel to Shorts making. In another universe maybe I'd be a successful TikToker but look that app is blocked in Hong Kong lol

That being said, these Shorts pretty much cost me less than one days' time to make, so if the opportunity ever arises for me to make another one, then you will probably be seeing one every now and then!

The Joy of Nintendo DSi/3DS Camera & Sound

...until a better suggestion comes up, this is the tentative name for the next core video!

I previously mentioned that I won't be making too much progress on this video this month due to the Japanese trip, so aside from telling you all that writing is still in progress, I don't have too much to update on this at the moment! There's no creative burnout though -- I'm still very pumped to talk about this topic.

Patreon doodles!

This month I tried something new: I asked Expansion Pack patrons for doodle ideas of any characters they'd like to see! And this is the final result, which I'll be posting publicly soon after this report is done:

It was pretty fun to work on these! I got 11 suggestions this time, so there's probably gonna be even more suggestions coming in the next time I do this, and I maaaay have to put a limit. But uh, we'll get to that when we get there!

Tokyo trip!

Alright, I'm sure you'd be interested in hearing me ramble a little bit about my week-plus-long trip to Tokyo. I haven't really been there since I was like less than 10 years old, so this is practically my first time around, getting used to the life and culture there. And of course, I went across plenty of places, including Akihabara, the Kirby Cafe, the Nintendo Tokyo store, and many others.

Spoilers! That's all of my haul.

I took plenty of photos and videos on my trip, and eventually, I'd like to sort through them all by date, jot down some notes, and sit down and ramble for a Plus channel video eventually. Hopefully I'll get started on that soon while the memories are still fresh, but in the meantime...

Plus channel videos!

On the Plus channel for you lovely people, I have two videos about some of my pickups from Japan: Dance Dance Revolution GB for the Game Boy Color, and various Nintendo cleaning kits that I just happened to come across!

The DDR pad was a neat find, being a game-specific Game Boy accessory that you usually don't see a lot of, and finding all those cleaning kits in Japan might put me down a rabbit hole of finding more Nintendo cleaning products, oh god please help. There are still a few Japan pickups that I think would make for good Plus channel content, so stay tuned for more!

Recent pickups

...yes, in addition to ALL that stuff from Japan in the above photo, I still have more pickups to share! Let's start with me committing sin.

Yes, that's a PSone and a Dreamcast! Both cheap pickups since they were listed as junk, and in the case of the PSone, purely because I found a LCD monitor for it in Japan for a...relatively decent price. Of course, both of them being disc-based consoles listed as junk, I had to go in and get them working myself. In the case of the PSone, I had to cobble parts together from two different junk machines, and for the Dreamcast I had to get a new replacement power supply, then spent 3 hours tuning the disc laser...it now at least reads CDs.

In terms of official discs, I only have one legit PS1 disc and none for the Dreamcast, so that will probably be something I have to change in the future if I want to test them further. Though I most likely won't be starting new game collections for them since I'm running out of room as is! I'm considering maybe giving them ODE (optical drive emulator) upgrades eventually even though the Dreamcast one is pretty pricey and one for the PSone is still in the works as of this post! We'll see what happens next.

This counts as a pickup, right? I bought a few IPS screen and transparent shell kits from Taobao and tried my hand at Game Boy modding! I've taken apart Game Boy Color and Advance systems before, so these ended up pretty straightforward, just had to learn how to work with the additional ribbon cables and hopefully not break anything! I also picked up an Everdrive to go with the Game Boy Color, so I now have a pretty dang good Game Boy playing experience between these two systems, and while I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, the borderlining-on-prison-tech transparent aesthetic is chef's kiss. Not sure if I have what it takes to turn Game Boy modding into a side gig yet, but this has been really good practice!

And finally, a physical Switch copy of Atari 50! Real talk, this is a very in-depth coffee-table-book style game about Atari, and I admire the effort Digital Eclipse went into making this, their catalog and re-release efforts have always been very impressive.

Okay you've already noticed the signature on that...this copy was signed by none other than Nolan Bushnell, co-founder of Atari.

I was invited to a private event at the HK retro computer museum around a week ago, where we basically hung out with Nolan Bushnell for an evening while he got a tour of the place. While Atari is obviously way past my time, but I obviously wasn't going to pass up meeting a legendary figure in the gaming industry. It was fun hearing Nolan talk about his past experiences, pass on some wise tips and even discuss a bit about the projects he's working on, and for 80 years old he's still in great shape! Definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me, and I look forward to possibly sharing more from the retro museum in the future!

Aaaaand that's about it for what I've been up to this month, which is a doozy, and I'm apparently not off the ride yet, a few days ago I was informed of a potential new job opportunity in a gaming-related company that I've ACTUALLY heard of before. Nothing's set in stone yet, but this might signify yet another major life change...before that happens though, I'll try and work on the core video more in September, and hopefully that can be done before the onslaught of Mario games in late October! So stay tuned to the Discord server for more updates, and I'll see y'all soon!