Today I Smiled: Random Funnies and Musics

Hmm, its been a minute since I've used a title like that. Anyway, here are some random things that I'm enjoying at the moment - starting with Vought International. If you're a fan of the Boys and/or Gen V, this has a fair bit of extra content in here that ranges from intentional cringe to really hilarious. I've also been enjoying the FreeMMAGyms channel for both its humor and instruction.

Onto pure silliness we have this Catan clip that anyone can enjoy (sound on), translations of Westeners Chinese Tattoos, stealing a girl's car skit, and proof that live action anime style openings done well can work for anything. As I am compelled to add music stuff, here's Lord Vinherio playing some chickens!?

If you prefer some better musics, here's the One Voice children's choir with a Wicked Medley and their rendition of Golden from KPop Demon Hunters, and an orchestral one of Soda Pop. Note that last one is purely just the music, the visuals are "fake". Speaking of fake, Rick Beato has a quick vid of how easy it is to make an AI Artist. If you prefer something more live and less produced, here's Laufey on tiny desk.

Figment 2: Creed Valley and Machinarium

A pair of puzzle games.

Figment 2: Creed Valley

This is a worthy sequel to the first game, continuing the child friendly theme of adventuring across the imaginary(?) landscape of the mind to once again thwart singing nightmares. Seriously, the musical numbers are fun. Easy controls and easy puzzles combined with a good story and good voice acting make for a game worthy of your time investment. Recommended, though I suggest playing the previous game first if you haven't already.

Machinarium

In this voiceless and hand drawn point and click adventure you play a trashed robot trying to make his way back into robot city. Each screen is a puzzle to solve and they quickly progress into somewhat technical trial and error guess work of finding out what combination of levers or knobs do the thing you need to advance through the scene. I didn't have the patience for this one.

Miscellaneous Music Time

I haven't posted anything music related for awhile so lets remedy that now with some Eurovision 2025 stuff (which as always, I'm super late with). There were sirens, a sauna, a couple of ballads, a lot of techno music and numerous food related songs. As rare as it is, I agreed with the winner this time around as they were the best in the field.

If Eurovision isn't your thing maybe try instead these covers of Dancing in the Dark and We all Lift/for Narmer. Or if you want something with more class, the BBCs coverage of the 75th Military Tattoo is on youtube now and is very entertaining. Hope are all having a good day! :)

Echoes of Exile: The Prince's Pursuit

It's spruiking time as guildie Malkhia has released his fantasy novel Echoes of Exile: The Prince's Pursuit! If you're an avid reader please give it a try. Maybe you'll also enjoy Juris' The Golem City while you're at it. 

While we're doing all things guildie, I may as well up the link to Lyv's music youtube channel and the Dragonarm website where DL does monthly gaming posts or videos.

Wonka and The Little Mermaid

Movies with singing!

Wonka

A young Willy Wonka (Timothée Chalamet) arrives in a city with the hopes of fulfilling his chocolate making dreams but finds difficulty breaking in especially due to his lack of money and his zero sense in being street wise. At the same time he is a freaking magician who can seemingly conjure whatever he requires (except money it seems). Funny in a cute way and while the plot has no surprises I was surprised with the decent musical numbers. After seeing Timothée so dour and possibly bored in Dune: Part 2 it was great to see him in a completely opposite role. This kid friendly movie won't be for everyone but I certainly enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

The Little Mermaid (2023)

The woke live action version of the Disney classic still keeps most of the same songs and plot with Halle Bailey starring as Ariel, a mermaid who longs to be a human and can only do so by being someone's bitch using her strong independence skills. There's one shot where she crawls on a rock like a crab (which has ruined all mermaids for us honestly) and screams out despite trying to be hidden which is really off putting, and another where the human prince who is forbidden to get on a ship suddenly teleports onto one mid-song which is jarring. Is it better or worse than the animated one? Can't say as I haven't seen the cartoon one in years. All I know is I don't want to watch this one again with its weak acting and singing. If you need a Little Mermaid hit with better music quality and a much shorter run time have a listen to the talented Voiceplay instead (thanks Jim).

Galavant

A musical, fairy tale epic!

It's fun times with this lot.

This two season fantasy musical comedy series made me feel good with every episode and starts of with the old classic quest - the hero Galavant (Joshua Sasse) needing to save his fair maiden (Mallory Jansen) from the evil king (Timothy Omundson). Twists happen immediately and the ridiculous story just gets better and better as it goes along as characters get plenty of development. Despite the low budget effects and being more like a stage production than a TV show, I really enjoyed this and can easily recommend it. A good gauge if it might be for you is to watch the intro song here and see if you want more.

Eurovision 2024: The Code (of War)

It was an interesting Eurovision this year with Sweden acting as the host. Ukraine had a better song this time around and Germany set the stage on fire, or was it one of the more eye-candy type acts? There was also a twisted fairy tale, a demon summoning, and a guy with no pants which I classify under the same theme of "horror" (though purely based on some vocals/songs more entrants could fit into this category). There was also a disqualification, and it ultimately came down to Croatia's Baby Lasagna and Switzerland's Nemo. For a change I managed to pick the winner correctly from the semi-final stage! Congratulations Nemo, not only for winning but for one of the best performances in Eurovision ever. Highly recommended you watch it. :)

Here's Raiven, fully clothed.

Since this seems to be a post about nations competing against each other let's check in on Russia's special 2 day operation to take Ukraine which is now on day... 817? It's been a long time since I posted anything about this (ironically, it was my previous Eurovision post) and in that time Ukraine was actually losing ground due to dwindling reserves of people and supply (due to other countries *cough USA cough* delaying support) and Russia's seemingly endless supply of people to take hits and further tire and disarm their opponent.

That battle continues as does the one of Israel (who actually had a Eurovision contestant this year) vs Hamas, a militant and designated "terrorist" arm of Palestine supported by Iran, who recently lost their president in a helicopter crash. President Bill Clinton tried sorting that out in 2000 but unfortunately was unsuccessful.

Scattershot

It's time for a random bits containing all the miscellaneous stuff I found just never got around to posting over the past few months!

Starting off with an unposted [Chess Campaign] post (remember those?) where I actually beat Stockfish 4 (as White) using a London vs its Pirc and got its queen early with a pawn push, then had two games against Rose, the first one I was White and sed a London but found myself constantly on the backfoot, staving off checkmates from Queen + Rook and Queen + Bishop but Queen + pawn finally got me and in the second game I played Black. Caro Kann won early pawns for me then we went into a LONG game where both sides were attacking and I lost pieces for her pawns. Eventually got a slayer queen to constantly check her king to clean the board and she resigned when it was just her king left against five of my pawns. I also discovered Josh's ELO is 1300, and then promptly stopped playing Chess entirely because I got sucked into Elden Ring (then forgot to go back).

I had also tried out a solo card based RPG called Deathship where you are a slave aboard an alien ship you must do your best to ... get a high score? What? Yep, your escape will only end in your death - but you might be able to make some friends and kill some guards on your way there. Not recommended. I can't even find the link to this anymore.

Speaking of RPGs, do you need to generate a city map really quickly? This free online Medieval Fantasy City Generator might be just what you need. Other things I found interesting was this method of watering plants using a fog condensation net, weapons testing against a Prince Rupert's drop glass and the Sphere Stadium in LA. That exterior just looks amazing and can be lit up to look like almost anything!

As I usually spruik a musician in these types of posts, for this one I'll highlight the young Aimee Carty who has some good composition and performance skills. Also if you just want some free music, check out NEFFEX. Props to Heartlessgamer for that bit of info! Switching into something funnier, here's an AI's attempt at close captioning the German National Anthem. Might as well follow that with more funnies from Yoleendadong, ISMO, and this old but amazing clip of how to win a cotton candy eating race while maintaining composure. :P

Tower of Fantasy: Tower of Music

[Part of my Tower of Fantasy journal]

With the cult dealt with I have some time off which I spend at Mirroria where I moonlight as a bodyguard for a young DJ who in turn moonlights as an animal rescuer. I also go on patrol with a rookie cop which eventually leads to her in a coma. LOL. Fortunately the two previous comatose victims, Ruby and her mom, are now fully awake and since Ruby's birthday is fast approaching Lin asks that I help her assemble a band and act as their manager for a surprise performance for the kid. Members include the most unlikely of choices (wasn't I in the middle of chasing one of them?) but after a low effort quest line the performance is actually pretty cool.

Afterwards I bid farewell to the crew for its back to Innars for me, and actually back down to the active volcano where the abyssal rift remains open. Scanners sent in detect a new land that it bridges to and I'm sent to investigate, popping out in Domain 9 which basically is China - if China was made of islands floating in midair. I help the inhabitants here fight the gray entities too, which they refer to as "the Darkness", and it looks like this set is led by some strange, flute playing lady.

Magical floating leaves can support the motorbike so it must be safe!

Most of the darkness is sealed up in an underground vault but the Domain 9 master reveals the power that keeps it that way is dwindling quickly. In preparation for the coming war they have begun research and development of combat capabilities for Smart Servants - AI Companions of the cute chibi variety you can bring around with you. And that unfortunately is where I leave Tower of Fantasy for now at level 51 as I've consumed all the main storylines. Maybe I'll revisit again in a year or so. :)

Tower of Fantasy: Tower of Deception

[Part of my Tower of Fantasy journal]

Instead of continuing the pursuit, Lin calls me back to Mirroria for an urgent mission. The doctor who we saved from the Abyss has come out and in of her coma just enough to warn everyone that the gray space entities are amassing in the grand sea, and as communications to the city there has recently been cut off we're tasked with investigating the relay stations in the marshlands between.

Sure enough the marshes are full of the more animalistic gray spacers and the paths trapped with a tangle of explosive webs. While one rookie staff member is rescued at her outpost, the remained are being used as birthing pods for egg laying creatures.

As each relay is also destroyed it soon becomes evident that this was an inside job and the rookie we rescued is actually being used as a puppet by the voluptuous abyssant that has its long digits deep inside her. We slay the creature and then call for the engineering teams to repair the communications and tunnel passage that leads to the grand sea.

While waiting for that I'm tasked with assisting a floating carnival, run by robotic children and a single tech, to deal with some low level raiders which is easy enough. It is then revealed the tech is working on subduing robo-Shirli for the cultists who have abducted her!? I would have given chase but then this awesome song started playing with fireworks and everything and I was mesmerized. Apparently if you are in the right spot in the right in game time you get treated to a light show and some awesome tunes.

No warning, no cutscene, and no doubt one of the best experiences in the game.

Anyway, the cultists escaped with Shirli and the tech escapes punishment as apparently Hykros higher ups have history with her.

Warframe: Railjack Assembly

Building on the archwing system that lets you fly in outer space, you also get to build you own spaceship (aka "a Railjack") on which you can take your co-op team of four (or just go alone with hired NPCs) to do some pretty neat missions on a second star map. I might talk about those later but this post is purely focused on how to get one, because it's a little sneaky. Not only is this quest "the Rising Tide" hiding behind the Natah chain, but you also need to buy a Railjack Cephalon blueprint to unlock it - which isn't advertised too well.

Luckily that bit is pretty simple. Just go to the readily available market place and buy one for a measly amount of credits! As you might expect, this quest will demand a fair number of resources to construct each stage of your own railjack but nothing too out there - except for maybe argon crystals which are annoying things you can find in the void. I say annoying because they're used in many things, can only be found occasionally, and expire in 24 hours if you don't use them!

Anyway, each main component will need to be salvaged from a planet which involves "scanning" it by standing close to it for awhile. The scan is interrupted if the endlessly spawning enemies get too close, or if you get too far, or if special baddies just cause interference. You can treat this like a defense mission if you want and just kill things really fast OR do my sneaky method: start the scan, run away from the enemies so that they all chase you far, far away, then run back to the scan. Did you know nothing runs as fast as a warframe? Especially if you bullet jump (sprint + crouch to slide then jump).

Doing laps seems to be the easy mode for this quest line, but I strongly recommend doing the fighting path if you are up against corpus (who continue to have excellent songs), because you can get a decent haul of oxium (another rare and highly required resource) from the endlessly spawning oxium ospreys that come with them.

Warframe: Natah Problem

The quests in this game seem to squarely fall into one of two categories: the ones that introduce a new mission type, area, mechanic, and/or grind and those that advance the story. Natah is definitely one of the latter, and is a choke point for many other quests that require it (or something that hangs of it) as a prerequisite.

I quite like that "locked" quests have small bullet points of what you need to do to unlock them, and while Natah's ones are listed - the scan drones task can be a bit puzzling because said targets sometimes just don't show up. Yep, its RNG but apparently the more you do missions on that planet the more chance they have to appear (took me around eight). Don't worry about "missing" them though - when they arrive the lights flicker, much like when the stalker and the other new assassins come calling, followed by white way points appearing on the map. Get to those quickly and do the scans you need (which is the easy part).

This starts a cascade of some really epic and rewarding quests with the culmination being "This is what you are" (music only link), which really refreshes the game a bit with a new mechanic and cool lore. Definitely one to work towards if you haven't reached it yet.

Return to War(frame)

Morphius convinced us to get back into Warframe which I'd stopped playing in 2014 and boy, has it had a ton of updates since I last played. Better UI, nice quests and excellent songs are all part of the reason it has basically booted out Neverwinter Online as my daily MMO and GTFO from our Friday night rotation. We've just been Warframing the whole time. :P

Since I'll likely be posting more about this in the future I thought I'd start off with my two current favorite frames sitting in my "stable":

Loki - my starter frame who excels at being invisible (which does bonus melee damage if things can't see you). I've also geared him to be pretty much permanently invisible, wherein the energy he spends to "cast" invisibility naturally regenerates before the invisibility wears out. This makes any mission where you can take your time killing things (or specifically killing one non-boss thing) super easy, and any mission where you don't have to kill anything a walk in the park. There's actually a surprising number of those in this game!

He doesn't kill things as fast as other frames can though, and isn't very tough if things can actually spot you which means I take cover a lot if I have no energy while every one else just sprints headlong into battle.

Titania - a fairy themed warframe earned from the Silver Grove quest who has abilities to cleanse harmful conditions, do minor heals and hold an enemy in stasis but my favorite is shrinking to fairy mode, which uses a different set of (stronger) weapons, makes her very hard to hit, and best of all puts her in archwing flying mode even in areas you aren't meant to have archwings! This makes a good number of agility challenges moot, and nullifies the danger of many enemies, including bosses, who don't think to look up.

Again I've tried gear her to be as energy efficient as possible to stay in fairy mode because at regular size she's about as vulnerable as the Loki but that's ok. Seems I prefer function over DPS at the moment.

Anywho - if you haven't played Warframe for awhile you might enjoy "We all Lift Together", the intro song and cinematic when you first get to Fortuna on Venus.

January 2022: You will be Okay

Now that I'm done with Deadfire I've been finishing off Neverwinter Online's Dragonbone Vale campaign and hammering away at Pathfinder: Kingmaker which is a really long game . Certainly feels like it anyway. I'm still going through the steam freebies and have a few more suggestions to post but that feels like it's running out of worthwhile content too. I mean I'm only searching for free, Non VR, English single player games that interest me.

I do question the stupid discovery queue though. Despite explicitly selecting to never see "coming soon" titles, they are still being displayed - possibly because I've just "killed" so many games already (put on the ignore/never show me again list - around 9500+ titles). The result of showing me something not available or "coming soon" is... I kill/ignore that title too - which means when it does become available I won't see it anymore. Good way to shoot yourself in the foot there Steam/developers. Oh well.

I'll finish up this post with some musics for you all, starting with Peter Hollens doing a Disney and Anime medley, Phoebe Bridger's version of "Friday, I'm in Love" and "You will be Okay" from Helluva Boss which is a really great song.

Most Viewed Posts in the last 30 days:
GTFO: R6C2 - Blind (Main)
Interactive Stories
GTFO: R6B1 - Hexahedrons (Main)

Proving once again that maps and walkthroughs seem to be the best types of posts. :P

November 2021 Review: The Crusader

This free games crusade I'm undertaking on the Steam store is much bigger than I thought! So much so that I'll be adding a new section to my end of month posts for them, including a "highlights" section to spruik the ones I liked the best in case you missed them.

Otherwise I've been enjoying a number of shows including the popular Squid Game. If you've already seen that or don't care to watch it at all, I recommend watching TwoSetViolin's Squid Game: Music Edition on youtube (turn close captions on for more fun). It's very cool! Here's a hint as to the other show I'm really enjoying...

Crusade of the Free: 210 games this month, 210 total.

Free Games Highlights this month that you must try:
Dinner with an Owl - show casing that sometimes less is more in this short point and click adventure.

Liquidators - a first person game where you must stop the meltdown at the Chernobyl reactor. No monsters, still horrifying.

High Entropy Challenges - first person stealth puzzler with short levels and is the best free game so far.

Most Viewed Posts in the last 30 days:
Strange Brigade
Steam Discovery Queue - Crusade of the Free II
Tales of the Blight II: Morrigan

Hmm I wonder if Strange Brigade's position is helped by DL's video link of it. Also it's not surprising that it's Morrigan's Dragon Age story that makes it to the top three, but I am surprised Sera's one was a close fourth. :)

Ironcast

A steampunk match-three roguelike.

France and England are at war, but to make things fun they are fighting using steampunk mecha and as the pilot of one of these it is up to you to go on missions to take out enemy armor and ultimately the boss... via tile matching. Base tiles give you either ammo, energy, coolant or repair and filling up your reserves let you do various things on your turn such as fire, power up shields, run, etc.

Still a large element of luck as usual.

In between missions you can upgrade your mechs systems and gain abilities through exp points but if you die, prepare to start from (almost) scratch. Yes, its a roguelike but the further in the campaign you go the more campaign unlocks you receive meaning you can start with different pilots, mechs and upgraded stats. For such a simple game I had quite a lot of fun with this one and actually do recommend it for idle or non-gamers as it is super simple, yet quite addictive. I also quite like the France boss theme so I'm scoring: two and a half shields out of five.

Insight: You can chain diagonally and always kill enemies if you can for their salvage (unless you are going to lose). Also, its worth spending to upgrade so that you last longer through the campaign. Make it to the boss and you'll probably have enough to unlock some campaign stuff even if you do get killed!

BDO: The Sly Queen

[Part of my Adventures in Black Desert Online]

Among the elves there are those classified as "saints" and it is one such saint who uses her rank to overrule my arrest when I manage to read the song on the ancient tablet I found from the koalas (I guess the Robber Team did do something useful after all). Said saint basically blackmails me into saving the massive Kamasylve Tree that Grana is based around, which has long been withering away and why the power of the elves (the saints in particular) is weakening.

Since that's better than being locked up I agree and look into the death of Queen Brolina's other sister, Catherine, who was working on this very problem when she became a casualty to the civil war. First I have to prove myself to a race of brass golems whom Catherine befriended by fighting two boss versions of them - a slow but deadly hammer one and a quick and invincible twin sword one who you just need to run circles around until it gets tired and becomes vulnerable.

They give me part of a song she was composing which goes well with the ancient tablet I found and locate the last part of the song at the site of her death (with the help of forest spirits who I've been helping throughout). With these powers combined, I am Captain Planet I basically sing to the tree and revive it fully.

The song isn't specified, so I assume its "Bloody Stream" from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure season two.

It's a magical place.

Queen Brolina is impressed and declares I am forever to be a friend of her lands then in the same breath also withdraws her request for aid from the Calpheon military, ends trade agreements with the humans and sends me East to help her other neighbors who have a dragon problem. That is a pretty sly queen.

Insight: Actually, running in circles is a very valid combat strategy in any fight. Very few boss enemies I've met have good aim tracking and generally depend on swarming, cheap shotting or simply being overlevelled to win. The random ranged mob is usually the most dangerous in any group - especially if they don't stand out.

Eurovision 2021

As usual I'm posting late about this again, but at least it wasn't Covid-cancelled this year! In fact, it has returned strong with some "interesting" dance moves, sparkly people, religious connotations, and a whole lot of eye candy. I'm pretty sure the Italian winners would also fit into that category for some people.

Stefania from Greece wins the eye candy prize.

My special mentions go to team Iceland and the Finland rock #joiners, as well as France and the Black Mamba band from Portugal either of whom I would have been happy to see win. Oh well, maybe my picks will do better next year! :P

April 2021 Review: Encrypto Currencium!

This has been a strange month in that while I got a lot done, it's not really news worthy... oh, other than my initial attempt at cryptocurrency which ironically was suggested to me by my Uber driver a few years ago. Made an ok profit (+266%) with XRP (Ripple - which is trying to get adopted by banks), and should they win their pending court case (updates on Apr 30 hearing, May 14 SEC report and June 4 Ripple Formal reply with the discovery phase ending Aug 16) I'm expecting that price to go up for what I have left in there.

Meanwhile as an experiment, I've put some of the earnings into VRA (Verasity - an esports gaming crypto), VET (VeChain Thor - crypto supply chain of VTHO), and DOGE (Dogecoin - a super volatile joke currency that seems to go up everytime Elon Musk tweets or talks about it). While the others are pretty much a wait for years sort of deal, I really need to keep checking on DOGE. With Elon hosting Saturday Night Live on May 8, most are expecting that to go up again. He did say he'll take it to the moon (could be an April fool's joke), so we shall see.

Sometimes that's all it takes!

Doesn't seem so hard to crypto actually. Compare old news with the price chart dates then keep track of current news for each to better gauge the direction. Mostly it's just watch and wait. Don't treat this as financial advice though and remember if you are going to to try it out, only put in what you can afford to lose as it's basically gambling. :P

Anyway on to gaming: I've been playing Black Desert Online and have found it to be pretty damn cool so I'll be posting about that a little after posting my Tyranny play through story which is coming up next!

Also, Rundown 5 of GTFO releases around the time of this post, so I'm excited to get into the new  stuff and we're also thinking of adding Remnants: From the Ashes to our co-op game session nights (probably only after we get thoroughly stuck in Rundown 5 though).

Lastly, some bonus stuff for you this time around in the form of musicians Seth Everman and Mina GF Band, both of whom I found through Davie504 who is still cranking out the Lolz.

Most Viewed Posts in the last 30 days

GTFO: R4D1 - Nucleus (Normal - Part II)
GTFO: R4D1 - Nucleus (Normal - Part III)
Pillars of Eternity: Dulf Demented

I'm surprised my early game over in Pillars of Eternity made it to the top three here. As for the other two, it looks like some people were trying to finish off one more mission in GTFO prior to Rundown 5 - I really hope those posts helped! :)

Where the Water tastes like Wine

Tough luck if you dislike wine.

In this strange walking simulator, you are tasked with collecting stories all across the USA to then "use" on other travelers to unlock their stories, which is the main challenge as not only do they wander around but they ask for specific types of tales before sharing their own.

You run into all sorts of things!

That bit is interesting enough, though I did wish they had a female voice actor for some of the lines. Unfortunately the walking bit - which is both tedious and the main part of the game - is quite slow despite having options for a temporary boost or hitch hiking. What did grab me was the fantastic sound track to the game... some of which I'm already learning!

Unfortunately it's not enough to earn a recommendation. I give it two dire wolves out of five.

Insight: Always scout nearby points of interest before heading to a camp so you have more story options. Remember to check your "I"nventory to swap stories around too.