SirTapTap.com In The Year 2024

2024, sounds so futuristic, doesn’t it? I’ve got some plans for this year and I figured what better day to post them. Not quite New Years Resolutions as I’ve started on most of these items at the end of 2023, but more how I’ll be focusing my work.

Ownership

The big things for me this year are quality and ownership. I’d like to get some proper custom emoji art and other supporting art for my videos and community, start selling some basic Merch, and upgrade my equipment where I can get the most bang for my buck.

I don’t make a ton online, but I make more than you might think; delightfully in that frustrating middle between “not worth caring about” and “actually viable to live on”. So I’ll be reinvesting where I can to keep my articles and videos up, and I even did some depressing Will writing to make sure my videos and articles are preserved in perpetuity. Hopefully.

As for ownership, 2023 saw the rise of the Fediverse which is honestly the first time I’ve been significantly positive about online spaces since web 2.0 siloed us up and sold us off for parts. The whole Twitter explosion made me rethink how much I depend on callous-to-evil corporate empires I have no control over or recourse from, so I’d like to host as much of my content on my own website that I can. It’s not easy doing that with 3000+ videos of relatively high bitrate and length…but I’m exploring my options and at least my short videos will be available on SirTapTap.com as well as YouTube.

More symbolically, I’m trying to call my videos “my videos” rather than “my youtube” and such. I make videos, I just happen to use YouTube. I’ve pulled back on many sites, but I’m still on Social Media on YouTube, Mastodon.Social, and Discord. I’m already looking for ways to self-host my mastodon presence and maybe set up a Matrix server that talks to my Discord so I have more ownership there.

The Website

Important for both quality and ownership is the physical specs of my site. I’ve already upgraded some critical infrastructure for SirTapTap.com around the end of last year, for the interest of completeness I’ll list the prices on my upgrades:

  • Domain Name ($10/year)
  • Cloudflare Pro Plan ($240/year)
  • Linode VPS Hosting, $24 a Month plan ($288/year)
  • Linode Backups $(60/year)

Mostly boring technical stuff, but the better Hosting and Cloudflare plans mean I can absorb a lot more traffic and have much less downtime. I also started a status page at status.sirtaptap.com with some nice uptime monitoring from Betterstack. I can already see that some minor, brief outages disappeared after the hosting upgrade!

Continue reading “SirTapTap.com In The Year 2024”

Seven Streams A-Streaming: A Holiday Week Of Streams

It’s the end of the year, and we’ve got one last week of streaming to make it count! For the holidays I’m taking a few days off, and as a result I’ll be free to do more streaming than usual. So I gave it a cute little name and I’m announcing Seven Streams A-Streaming, 7 mostly holiday or winter related streams! I’ll have a New Year’s announcement on this site too, so stay tuned.

All streams start 7PM Central and on my YouTube channel, unless otherwise noted.

Dec 24th: Christmas Games

Starting with the obvious, there’s several Christmas games I’ve meant to do for ages and never did. We’re fixing that on December 24th at 7 PM! It will be a random selection of mostly Flash Christmas games with some others thrown in there, and maybe a Mario Rom Hack or two.

Continue reading “Seven Streams A-Streaming: A Holiday Week Of Streams”

SirTapTap’s Spooktober Streams 2023

It’s that most special time of the year; October! And that means a Spooktober Streamathon is here. Jumpscare Horror games aren’t everyone’s thing, so my Halloween streams focus on more dream-like, surreal, and chilling games. Don’t expect too many jump scares or survival horror games, but more silly or strange games in the vein of Yume Nikki with more pumpkins and bats injected in there.

At 6 PM Central every Thursday and Friday of the month, we’ll be streaming! I’ve already planned out the first half of the month below with links straight to where you can find the stream. Come chat with us and get spooked!

Join our Discord, watch for updates on Mastodon, or follow me on YouTube to stay up-to-date. Can’t wait to get spooked? Check out the existing VODs from my 2021 and 2018 Spooktober stream-a-thons or my Lo-Fi Horror Game Playlist!

10/5: Halloween Flash Games

My favorite zombie, Flash, was never as dead as anyone says. We’ll be playing a collection of games straight from Archive.org that, indeed, you can play in your browser without Adobe Flash! Emulation, people, it’s a thing. A good one!

I haven’t spoiled myself on the games yet, but the Deep Sleep series is a fantastic set of unnerving point and click Flash games.

Continue reading “SirTapTap’s Spooktober Streams 2023”

Fan Art: Pixelart SirTapTaps By @RaysofRed

These Pixely Bois come from watcher and YTPer @RaysOfRed on Discord and YouTube! Neko and Goose TapTap are my favorites. Surprisingly you’re not the first to draw Leggy TapTap. Cum Hat was made at my request, as I felt the Piss Hat, while funny, was a bit out of character.

And a non-pixel art one in the finest of art mediums (MS Paint)

An MS paint drawing of sirtaptap with wide eyes and crows feet under his eyes, with the text "LOSING IT"

Edit 2: And another one!

A cat-eared sirtaptap winking, by rays of red. It is in a painterly style.

See more fan art in the Fan Art Gallery and don’t be shy to send your submissions to my email ([email protected]) or share them in our Discord! I try to post all fan art I receive here as long as the artist is okay with it.

Fan Art: Happy Birthday SirTapTap by Requesticat!

This Fan Art comes from long-time watcher @requiesticat#9230 on Discord! You’re always welcome in my streams and discord, thanks so much for the art! You can see their DeviantArt here.

See more fan art in the Fan Art Gallery and don’t be shy to send your submissions to my email ([email protected]) or share them in our Discord! I try to post all fan art I receive here as long as the artist is okay with it.

Fan Art: Beach SirTapTap by Sam

This Fan Art comes from @Strawbearry#5540 on Discord, AKA Sam on YouTube! If you’re in our Discord Server you might know them better as “2”.

Looking fresh out there on the beach, same it’s so cold here in boring “real life”!

See more fan art in the Fan Art Gallery and don’t be shy to send your submissions to my email ([email protected]) or share them in our Discord! I try to post all fan art I receive here as long as the artist is okay with it.

Mastodon to Twitter Migration Guide – Tips & Tools

After what feels like a year of “will they won’t they”, Twitter is finally in the hands of America’s Least Mature Man—quite a competitive category. I set up my Mastodon ages ago just to see how it was, but now that I’m finally using it I’m really enjoying it.

This started as a Quick Start guide but ended up much more in depth than I thought. I sorted the headings from most to least important. Mastodon is “complicated”, but mostly in ways you don’t honestly need to worry about. Take your time and learn by doing and asking!

Feel free to share your tips and experiences with Mastodon in the comments below! Or say hi to @[email protected].

What The Hell Is Mastodon?

Mastodon is a decentralized Twitter alternative with individual servers operated by individuals or communities rather than a single corporation. The code is open-source and anyone can create an instance. As a result there is a consistent code base but not a “corporate mission” and the functionality is largely based on “pre-algorithm” Twitter.

The tl;dr is Mastodon is Twitter without a corporation or a glass-skinned manchild CEO. It costs nothing to try, so pop on a server and see if it’s for you. I’m writing a whole-ass article about it, but the best way is to learn by doing.

Most features Twitter has are on Mastodon, some slightly renamed. Lists, Direct Messages, Retweets (Boosts), Likes (Favorites), Hashtags, Notifications. Poke around and you’ll likely find more things familiar than foreign.

Pick a General Use Instance

Mastodon isn’t one site, it has Instances, sort of like Discord Servers. I’ll get into what that truly means in the later, more technical parts of the article. If you’re getting started, just load up the server list and find either a nice general server, or something specific to your interests. “Instance” and “Server” are interchangeable in Mastodon’s context.

Which instance you pick really doesn’t matter almost at all. I really recommend just making an account and poking around before you worry much about which server, as you can move servers later anyway. I personally recommend Mastodon.Social.

Continue reading “Mastodon to Twitter Migration Guide – Tips & Tools”

Best and Worst Jackbox Party Packs RANKED!

I don’t usually do Top X lists, but well, I’m something of a Jackbox player myself. With almost 50 streamed games of the series and counting, I thought I’d share some Opinions™. Deciding which game to pick up first can be a bit tricky, especially since they’re all priced about the same. Ready those Comment-Phasers below and let me know your hot takes!

I am rating these from a Streamer’s perspective so unstreamable games will not be treated gently. Note the (few) non-streamable games can be quite fun in local multiplayer. Each Pack has 5 different games, but I’m rating on the overall quality of the full set.

Now on to the rankings.

Continue reading “Best and Worst Jackbox Party Packs RANKED!”

Super Zangyura Trophy & Unlocks Guide

Super Zangyura is out on PS4/Vita/PS5 in English now! I couldn’t find a good trophy guide so…I made one! Here are all the trophy descriptions, unlocks, and tricks you should need to get that platinum trophy!

Super Zangyura Controls

Most of the controls work as simply as described, though I highly recommend changing the default Attack and Jump commands to be on Square and X instead of the default. I like X to jump and Square to attack.

Secret techniques:

Jump while charging an attack to fall slower. Essential to reach certain items, especially in Hard.

Jump after being hit to do a mid-air hop, is essential to escape some constant-hit traps or save yourself from a bad fall.

Sometimes the Charge Attack will be required to break walls for secrets or even to proceed. If stuck, hit everything. Sometimes a normal attack and charged attack have different results.

Attack while moving forward to attack just a bit farther.

Attacking while crouching can help hit certain objects, usually through small gaps.

Charging an attack also blocks projectiles from above, even the “laser” from Rooks, essential in some areas.

The Dash can seem useless to a casual player, but it’s essential at some points to cross gaps. In higher difficulties, you’ll need to be very familiar with exactly how far you will dash. Also, it’s faster than walking so good for speed runs.

Super Zangyura Trophies (Epics)

Each Trophy is listed in the Epics menu, giving a vauge hint before being unlocked and the actual description after unlocking. The PSN Trophy lists the hint, not the real solution. Most will be obtained simply by beating Super Zangyura once and completing the Mythics in Time Trials.

Continue reading “Super Zangyura Trophy & Unlocks Guide”

🔞Commission: Reverse Bunny Suit Nath by @ari_kaggs!

It’s Easter, so have a bunny Nath for the bunny season! This one is from @ari_kaggs on Twitter. Posting it a bit late but it’s never too late for Bunny! Ari’s stuff is great, soft and round just like I like, enjoyed how this one came out. This might be the first reverse bunny meme outfit image of Nath there is too.

If you have a 100% Orange Juice addiction too, make sure to join our Discord Server to coordinate games with us!

Continue reading “🔞Commission: Reverse Bunny Suit Nath by @ari_kaggs!”