Tag: hyperfixations

#oneaday Day 658: A random selection of pieces of music that make me smile

It's getting late and I haven't thought of anything to write and I'm full of curry, so let's do a MULTIMEDIA POST, shall we?

I'm partly inspired by a discussion I had earlier in a Discord that I'm a member of, in which we talked about things we liked from creators who clearly just made things for the joy of creating them — not in the hope of "going viral" or making a living out of them. I'm talking about stuff like Badgers, Badgers, Badgers and its ilk — although as it happened, a lot of those works did end up going viral and doubtless making their creators a fair amount of money. The point is that they weren't created with that in mind from the outset.

Funny, silly comedy songs and animations aren't the only thing I want to talk about today, though. More broadly, I just want to share a few things that always make me smile. Not always because they're funny, but because I just find them uplifting in some way. And where better to begin than with the irrepressible Hatsune Miku?

I'm not sure what exactly caused me to hyperfixate on this piece of music from Hatsune Miku Logic Paint S so much, but make no mistake; I most certainly did hyperfixate on it, as for a significant portion of my time playing the Picross-esque puzzles in Logic Paint S, I had set the in-game playlist to be nothing but this track.

I think I like this just because it's undeniably cheerful, bouncy and upbeat. It feels like it fits Miku nicely, and it's a good accompaniment to doing some puzzles — or just for when you need a bit of a pick-me-up.

My first encounter with Cave's classic bullet hell shoot 'em up series Dodonpachi was on iOS devices, where there was an excellent version of Dodonpachi Resurrection. One thing which still stands out about the mobile version of this game is that it features an exclusive game mode that not only has its own mechanics, it has a completely different soundtrack to the game's regular, rather more moody score.

People like the standard Dodonpachi Resurrection music a lot, and to be sure, it's good. But there's something I really like about these completely new tracks from the mobile version — and particularly this one, which accompanies the opening level. It's got that real adventurous "we're setting off on a brave, bold mission!" feel to it that I really like; it's full of hope for the future, rather than a bleak sense of submission to the endless horrors that await. And I think we could all do with a bit of that right now.

I maintain that Inti Creates' Gal*Gun games are some of the best games that no-one will admit to playing because they're about making girls collapse in euphoric ecstasy by pointing at them. All three of them are really solid rail shooters, each with their own distinctive mechanics and story to follow, and they all have great soundtracks, too.

This track, used for a lot of the regular levels in Gal*Gun 2, is a short but sweet track that really sums up the game's energy. There's not a trace of maliciousness anywhere in any of the Gal*Gun games, and their music never fails to make me smile.

Right, time we had a silly one. I remember coming across this one for the first time and absolutely pissing myself laughing. It still always makes me chuckle now… particularly the "Cock!" break in the second verse.

This sort of thing is very representative of what was going on in the Badgers, Badgers, Badgers-adjacent space on sites like rathergood.com, b3ta.com and Weebl's Stuff back in the mid '00s to the early '10s. The thing I like is that although endearingly lo-fi, particularly in the vocal samples, the whole thing is very well put together and works as a standalone song. It's just better with the animation.

Regrettably, the original animation for this piece is no longer available. It used to be that you could type in "2204355" into Google Search, hit "I'm Feeling Lucky" and it would take you to a technicolour Flash animation featuring a pixelated dancing guy from an old KFC advert and this delightful chiptune remix of the theme from ALF. Thankfully, the person behind the music came forward and published the music in its full glory on YouTube some 15 years ago, so even though the Google trick doesn't work any more, we can, at least, still enjoy the tune.

Side note: this blog is old enough that I blogged about when I first found this. It was, it has to be said, a particularly dark period in my life, when I had just split from my first wife and was at the lowest I've ever been. I happened to stumble across this one evening and found that it drove the darkness away for a few minutes at a time, so I watched that stupid animation over and over for hours. Thank you, mystery 2204355 creator, and thank you, Zalza, for helping me in my hour of need, even if you have no idea that you did so.

I wrote a bit about Sbassbear the other day, but I can't not mention their most recently published Game Grumps remix, as it's one of their best yet. Once again, this is a video I just keep returning to because it makes me smile.

Actually, to hell with it, there's another Sbassbear one I love also, and I can't pick between these two, so you're getting both:

I love BEANS because it's just so chaotic and ridiculous. But I love Shnigedy Ding Dong because it encapsulates the feeling you get when playing Tetris Effect Connected — and specifically, the wonderful mode where three people team up against another player, every so often bringing their independent wells together into one giant superwell, accompanied by a massive crescendo in the music and… as Dan says in the video, "ohhh, I love it so much!"

Right, that's enough. Off to bed with me now.

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

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#oneaday Day 303: Uhoh, new hyperfixation

The thing with being autistic, I have both been led to believe and experienced first-hand, is that every so often you get a Great Idea in your head about something you are going to be Into. Sometimes these Things That You Are Now Into stick around and become long-term hobbies and interests, at other times they fall by the wayside. But in my experience, they're usually worth following along with for at least a little while, unless they involve a major uprooting of your entire life. Which they usually don't.

While at the Portsmouth Anime and Gaming Con yesterday, our friend Dan spoke a little about collecting stickers. For some reason, Dan's enthusing about this tripped something in my brain, which suddenly and uncontrollably exploded with a chorus of "I want to be into collecting stickers!".

I actually used to be into collecting stickers when I was a kid. For two separate years, I collected stickers for the Panini sticker album themed around The Beano, and I used to swap stickers with my friend Joanna. Joanna herself is probably a story for another day — and one that, for once, I don't think I've actually told here previously — but all you need to know for now is that we were both pretty avid Beano sticker collectors, but I don't think either of us ever actually completed one of those albums 100%.

Panini stickers were, of course, one of the original "booster packs", and doubtless our parents grit their respective teeth any time we asked for a pack of stickers to go in our albums, particularly if a significant number of them ended up being duplicates of ones we already had. But it was a fun thing to do as a child, and an opportunity to socialise, too; I don't remember anyone else collecting Beano stickers, but I always enjoyed the chance to spend some time with Joanna. As I say, though, story for another day.

So anyway, with that in mind, my brain decided that Now I'm Into Stickers, so I immediately took the opportunity to wander off and buy a few packs of stickers that had caught my eye earlier. And, today, I dug out one of the lovely "journal"-style notebooks I've had in my drawer for ages but never really done anything with, and I started sticking stickers in it. Not only did I stick the stickers I bought yesterday in it, but I stuck some stickers I've had hanging around for ages in there, too; I had, up until this point, resisted sticking them anywhere because I was worried about the "permanence" of whatever I might have stuck them on.

This is actually something that Dan expressed yesterday, too, and thus my immediate solution was to stick them in a book. What's more permanent than a book! Unless you throw it away, obviously. But I'm not planning on throwing this away any time soon.

Anyway, do you want to see? Of course you do. Here:

I like doing title pages in the style of Victorian novels. I have done this for many years now, and I have no intention of stopping.

On the first page, a Neptunia sticker that's been floating around various rooms in my house since Neptunia Game Maker R:Evolution showed up. I finally stuck it in something. So to speak. On the second, one of the first batches of stickers we did as a bonus extra in Evercade cartridges: a selection of sprites and artwork from Indie Heroes Collection 1, a compilation of "modern retro" games made by today's indie developers for vintage systems.

On the next page, some stickers from Piko Interactive Collection 2 for Evercade, which technically came out before Indie Heroes Collection 1 and thus was the trigger for me to add the "in no particular order" caveat to the title page of this volume. On the following page, a selection of stickers from the Goodboy Galaxy/Witch n' Wiz dual cartridge for Evercade, focusing on the former game. If you've never played Goodboy Galaxy I highly recommend it; it's an excellent exploratory platformer.

Then we have the stickers that came with Toaplan Arcade 3 and Data East Arcade 2 for Evercade, mostly based on the original cabinet or marquee art for these games.

And the same deal for these stickers, from Toaplan Arcade 4 and Atari Arcade 2.

Then a bumper crop of stickers from the Strictly Limited Games release of Sisters Royale, a shoot 'em up by the folks who made the Castle of Shikigami series. A lot of folks have beef with Strictly Limited for the amount of time they take to make their physical editions of games — I have some orders that have been outstanding for multiple years — but they always come through eventually. Their special editions are some of the highest quality but most affordable special editions I have on my shelves.

A bit of overflow of Sisters Royale stickers here, plus the first of the sticker packs I bought yesterday from the Portsmouth Anime and Gaming Con. This "Pretty Girls Sticker Pack" is by an art studio called Kumigaki.

And finally, for now, anyway, a few Final Fantasy VII-themed stickers I nabbed from a local outfit known as Taroball Studios.

So there we go. Stickers! And none of the dissatisfaction with empty spaces you got with Panini albums. I wonder if I'll ever fill this book? Only one way to find out!

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.