Happy Spooktober, everyone! It’s time for the return of one of my favorite Community Game-Along themes: horror games! Playing a horror game or spooky-themed title is a great way to get ready for one of the best holidays of the year: Halloween! I may not go trick or treating anymore, but I can still get in the spirit of the season with a creepy game!
I’m thrilled to announce my brand new gaming podcast with Marcus of Pixel Pacas, Pixel x Pixel! Join us for fun and thoughtful discussions of visual novels, niche and retro games, and other media we love!
One of the most common requests I receive is to revive Chic Pixel Plus or return to podcasting in some form, so this is something I’ve been thinking about for a while. While I absolutely loved what Sarah and I made Chic Pixel Plus into, I felt it was time to move on from the really structured format and focus more on video games, since that’s the topic I tend to cover the most. When my long-time friend, Patreon supporter, and Chic Pixel Discord mod Marcus offered to step in and help me start up a new podcast, I couldn’t wait to get started!
Marcus loves all kinds of narrative-driven games such as visual novels and point-and-click adventure games, as well as horror and other niche areas that really compliment my own interests well. He also is a prolific writer, just like me, so expect lots of talk about our writing process and what we’re working on. I think we’ll have a lot of interesting things to talk about on the podcast! Like Chic Pixel and Pixel Pacas, we will occasionally talk about media that contains graphic themes, but we will always provide warnings beforehand and will not describe anything potentially disturbing or sexually explicit in detail.
The podcast format will be pretty straightforward: We’ll start each episode by talking about what media we’ve been consuming and what we’ve been up to lately and end with a discussion of interesting/relevant news and new releases. While the podcast will definitely focus on games, don’t worry! I’ll still be talking about what anime I watch, and we may also chat about other podcasts, movies, and whatever else we’re currently interested in. We will upload a new episode once every 2 weeks. And you can support my Patreon for as low as $1/month to get each episode 3 whole days before it goes live on the main feed!
We hope you enjoy the first episode!!
Pixel x Pixel Episode 01 – Pilot
09:46 – what we’ve been up to: 428: Shibuya Scramble, GameCube Anthology, Dr. Death, Attack on Titan season 3, Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu season 2, Tengai ni Mau, Iki na Hana
59:48 – Nintendo Direct with new Animal Crossing, new company Too Kyo Games, Smach Z at TGS, PlayStation Classic announced, PS Vita production to end in Japan
♫ “Willie Lomans,” “5 minutes pleasure,” and “6 pence and moon” from Alphabet Planet by Hiroki Kikuta
This year, I followed up the always-busy JRPGJuly with an Action RPG Community Game-Along for August, and I’m glad to see so many people participated! Some folks even doubled up and picked a game for JPRGJuly that worked for ARPGAugust, which is a great idea! Read on to see what everyone played in August, and look forward to the October Community Game-Along post in just a few days! (If you want to start preparing now, the theme is horror games!)
Over at Tales of the Backlog, Capsulejay reviewed Ys Origin and Beyond Oasis, and Jakejames Lugo also reviewed Beyond Oasis over on his Youtube channel. At JRPG.moe, Griffin reviewed the Japan-exclusive Dreamcast game with a fun title, Napple Tale: Arsia in Dreamland. I’d never heard of this game before Griffin started playing it before ARPGAugust, but it looks super adorable and apparently the creative team was comprised of mostly women!
Chestnut at Gamer Girl Confessions played Diablo III, and Fullmetaldrippy reviewed Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix. Then, the M Disc Gauntlet returned with Secret of Evermore.
Okay, looks like #ARPGAugust gives me good reason to get to SMT Devil Summoner 2. It’s one of the few of my unplayed games I’d bought new..like ten years ago. No clue why I forgot, the first one is great fun.
Oh! And it came with a cute Jack Frost plushie, dressed as Raidou! pic.twitter.com/FCpiyXhmK4
— Hayley Winter✨ (@driftglass) August 6, 2018
Meanwhile, @SweetieAshe played Ys VI, @Akrophin played Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, @cassiehalladay played Nights of Azure, @zhel played Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom, @bunnycartoon played Bloodborne, @driftglass played Monster Hunter: World, @kaitou_al played Bioshock, and @daswhalebeard played Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
#SquadGoals #ARPGAugust pic.twitter.com/MObQOymtzO
— Simon (@sparrowtimes) August 17, 2018
Finally, I’d like to congratulate @sparrowtimes for finishing Bloodborne, @mdiskplaylist platinumed Bloodborne, @felghanas beat Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and @charassic for completing Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom! Great job to everyone who completed their chosen games this month!
Thanks again to everyone who participated in August! Enjoy the last few days of StealthSeptember, and start gearing up for HorrorGameOctober!
When September rolls around, it’s time for the next year of Hobonichi Techo covers to go on sale! This year I decided to get a new Earthbound cover after using my 2017 cover for 2 years, and I couldn’t resist picking up a few extra goodies from the Hobonichi online store while I was at it! Check out my unboxing video to see my full haul:
Otomate Party 2018 was held on September 8th and 9th this year, and with it came a slew of new otome game announcements! Otomate holds the yearly Otomate Party event to celebrate its recent and more popular titles with events featuring voice actors from the games and reveal some brand new games while they’re at it.
Following the company’s announcement earlier this year that they would be shifting focus to the Nintendo Switch, all console Otomate game announcements were for Switch, rather than PS Vita. I’m excited for more Switch otome games, but sad to see companies slowly dropping support for my beloved Vita! Luckily, there are still lots of otome games for the PS Vita being announced, like the Kenka Bancho Otome sequel, Kenka Bancho Otome 2nd Rumble!!.
Otomate, however, is all about the Nintendo Switch now. Watch the reveal trailer to see the whopping nine new titles and ports for the Switch at Otomate Party 2018 and read on for further explanations and impressions!
In honor of Metal Gear Solid‘s 20th anniversary, the Community Game-Along theme for September is stealth games! Okay, I wish I could take credit for that, but I actually had no idea September 2018 was the 20th anniversary of Metal Gear Solid! It is great timing though, isn’t it?
The stealth Community Game-Along was actually suggested by @Westraid at the end of last year, and I thought it was a great idea! If you’re new to the Chic Pixel Community Game-Alongs, they’re monthly themed gaming events where all you need to do to participate is play a game that fits the theme. For September, grab a stealth game and share your impressions using #StealthSeptember on social media!
July marked the return of the JRPG Community Game-Along, aka JRPGJuly, and I dare say it was the biggest one yet! It’s taken me quite a while to sort through all the contributions. Phew! Unfortunately, I’m not able to include everyone, so I highly suggest scrolling through #JRPGJuly on Twitter to see the massive range of games played throughout the month. Read on for some highlights!
