Game Guides & Articles
This one comes from long-time watcher @requiesticat#9230 on Discord! You’re always welcome in my streams and discord, thanks so much for the art!
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.
This one 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.
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].
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.
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 would personally recommend Mastodon.Social, but sadly registrations are closed as of the time of publishing, only due to over-use thanks to Twitter’s plunge into Cringetopia.
This started as an article for my experience on Mastodon and turned into a tutorial instead. But goodness, both the biggest thing to remember and my sincerest accolade about Mastodon is that it’s full of people.
Twitter is mean. Perhaps a titanic understatement, but somehow the site for sharing your bowel movements became one of the most toxic places to be online. People on Mastodon are perhaps best united in also being tired of Twitter. Tired of algorithms, bots, trends, promoted tweets, Brands™ and people they don’t follow popping up.
Always remember the Human, and reach for the Block button instead of the Reply button if someone’s pissing you off. We don’t need Reply Guys.
The best way to find new people is to search hobbies and hashtags, as well as checking out the Local and Federated timelines if you like. Follow often if you want more people to talk with and more posts in your timeline. Unfollow just as freely, it’s your timeline—you can even hide who you’re following in the privacy settings to remove that dreadful “unfollow anxiety” from Hellsite.
First impressions count. Perhaps you’ve been on twitter log enough to remember “egg accounts”. On mastodon, they’re elephants—er, mastodons. Take a few moments to set up a bio, display name, avatar and maybe a pretty header for your profile so you look like a person.
Try to be descriptive but minimalist, just a few hobbies or interests will do. If you don’t know what to use for an avatar I’d honestly recommend almost anything, the aversion to blank avatars is very strong to many.
You can set up 4 Profile Metadata items and some Featured Hashtags on your profile. The Hashtags should show what interests you watch or tweet about, and the metadata can be whatever you want, but most people just put links to other social profiles, official websites, etc.
Metadata is also Mastodon’s “Verification”, if you have write access to a website, you can include a specially formatted link to prove you officially control a website you’re linking. A personal website or Patreon is a good example to show you’re the real McCoy, if you care.
It’s probably fair to say Mastodon is primarily ex-Twitter users. The design is based on Twitter, there’s even a Tweetdeck clone (advanced web interface) in the settings. Tweets are Toots, Likes are Favorites, most things work just like Twitter.
But most Mastodon users are on Mastodon because Twitter is hell. There are certain ways Mastodon is explicitly and intentionally NOT like twitter. One of the big ones is no Quote Tweets. If you’ve been on Twitter a long time, you know they’re primarily used for “Ratios” and generally screaming your head off. They also feed the Algorithm and probably do more help to the person you’re trying to “dunk” if they’re a big account. Rage follows are big business now!
Mastodon does not do Algorithms. Mastodon does not yet have the large body of trolls that thrive on Twitter by posting bad takes so people rage-Quote Tweet them, only causing the troll’s numbers to grow. If you’re a Twitter native, please keep the lessons of Hellsite in mind, and try your best to leave bad habits on Twitter.
Block trolls. Mute stuff you don’t like. Resist the Ratio. Don’t reply to literally every toot. Keep your followers in mind when rooting and retooting. Mastodon has features like Content Warnings to help you spoiler stuff, and generally the community is much better about helping people find what they want to see and avoid what they don’t.
The biggest problem you’re likely to have with Mastodon is it’s currently in a growth surge and many servers are one step below “on fire”. Not one as big as you might think considering the Twitter migration, but these things are slow and we are helplessly addicted to our favorite sites. Be patient, it’s nothing inherent to Mastodon and things worked quite smoothly pre-Twitter crash and surely will again soon.
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.
The first in a video game series will often be either the best or the worst in the series. Jackbox 1 is by no means bad but ends up last on the list simply because the best games here are done later and better (Fibbage 2 & 3, Drawful 2). If you’re streaming, this is the only game with NO streaming features in mind. Half of the pack is simply unplayable with almost any stream delay at all.
You Don’t Know Jack is classic trivia, though the format isn’t my favorite compared to Trivia Murder Party or Fibbage. Word Spud is just a mess. Lie Swatter is notable for its insane player cap, but otherwise, it’s like a simpler, less good Fibbage. Fibbage XL and Drawful as mentioned are great but out-shined by later packs.
It’s a bit of a shame to put the OG at the bottom of the ranking like this, but especially if you’re streaming, or if you own any other Jackbox packs at all, the original Jackbox Party Pack is unfortunately forgettable. But you can’t deny Drawful and Fibbage are great.
Similar to Pack 1, Pack 3 has plenty of great games that are just outshined elsewhere, as well as some half-baked ideas.
Fakin’ It is unfortunately literally impossible to play over Stream, making it an instant zero for me. Guesspionage is an okay ‘polling’ based game but not too memorable. The best games in the pack are Trivia Murder Party and Quiplash 2, which later iterations outperform. Especially due to Quiplash 2’s awful final round.
And then there’s Tee KO, which you’ll either love or hate. Personally, I’m in between, it’s one of those games that is extremely frustrating unless everyone is putting in equal amounts of effort, and that is very rare as it’s a drawing game. If everyone tries to make a drawing that isn’t squiggles and puts good slogans, it’s a blast. In my experience, I always do my best to draw something good, get an awful squiggle, then someone else wins the game using my shirt design and slogan after I get 0 votes.
Important to point out—being one of the worst Jackbox games doesn’t mean it’s a bad game! 3 is just easily out-done by more refined, later editions. Even its best game, Tee-KO, has a remaster in the Party Starter.
The Jackbox Party Starter is an odd one. It’s not quite a Pack, having 3 games from OTHER packs, so I won’t give a number to it. The problem with the Party Starter is while it has 3 of the best games, despite the Steam description it does not improve the originals very much.
Actually, after playing it for over an hour, I couldn’t find ANY difference at all to the original games other than it has the Jackbox 8 settings menu. I assume Quiplash and Trivia have more prompts but I haven’t worn out the original sets yet.
But if you’ve NEVER played Jackbox…well, I’d still say buy Jackbox 4 over Party Starter. A rare miss from Jackbox games.
Make no mistake, Pack 2 is great and it’d rank much higher on this list if Quiplash and Fibbage didn’t have better versions available in high-quality packs. Like Pack 1, its greatest flaws are being old, and being so good its best ideas were iterated on.
Bomb Corp is very meh and has the lowest player cap in the series (Mr. Jackbox, if you’re reading this—streamers need 16-32 players if possible!!). Bidiots is an underrated drawing game with an exciting deduction aspect to it, but it’s also pretty confusing for new players. Earwax is hilarious though audience participation is extremely limited. Fibbage 2 and Quiplash are legendary, though both have later, better versions in future packs.
Much like its game Split The Room, Pack 5 is an extremely mixed bag to me. Nothing here is extremely bad, but they’re very dependent on how you’re playing and who you’re playing with. And really, it’s mostly down to whether you consider Mad Verse City the best or most frustrating game in the series.
Zeeple Dome only works with local multiplayer, and while it’s an interesting action combat game, it is a very bizarre addition to a Jackbox Pack. Split The Room is fun, and You Don’t Know Jack Full Stream is for better or worse what you’d expect from trivia but nothing special. Patently Stupid is the drawing game this time and something like Talking Points. You need bold people willing to present their fake product, making this another one that falls victim to people who don’t care/are too shy to play the game right.
Mad Verse City, like Tee KO before it, is a game I should love and one which many people DO love, but oh my god. It is such a unique pain to try and rhyme and maintain some semblance of meter and then more than half of people just put uneven, non-rhyming word salads as their answer (even after being specifically told not to play if they’re not going to rhyme). You’re going to need to be extremely strict or have friends who care about the game to have anything but a frustrating time. Consistently about 3-4 players even try to play this game out of 8 on my streams, which is why I don’t stream it anymore.
It’s hard to rank Pack 8 because while JobJob is one of my absolute favorites, most of the rest of the pack is…uneven. Every game has a noticeable bit of missed potential.
Weapons Drawn is a really neat social deduction game with drawing and elements. It’s also extremely complicated compared to your average Jackbox game (basically 3 of them in one), and the final rounds are so extremely short that even a couple of seconds of stream delay can render them unplayable for remote players. Wheel of Enormous Proportions is a bizarre mix of random chance and Trivia that feels uniquely unfair. Drawful Animate is perfectly fine yet at the same time probably the smallest possible iteration on Drawful they could have done. Poll Mine is hit or miss, I enjoyed it a lot and I LOVE the audience-vs-streamer mode, but not everyone will be able to enjoy that and about half the people I played it with didn’t seem to like it.
But JobJob is so good. Sure, it depends on how well people fill in their initial prompts, but when everyone’s going it’s a blast, very much in the style of Survive The Internet in a mess of absurd laughs based entirely on your group’s sense of humor. Tip for players: use EVERY character allowed in your writing prompt. Do not stop typing until it stops you. Just write stuff you wish you had to use in earlier rounds.
But the biggest flaw in Jackbox 8: dear god why can’t I boot idle players, link directly to the room code, or maintain groups between games?! 8.5 party packs, and what should be the most basic of QOL features for streams are still not here. Please. My son is very sick. (OF IDLERS IN JACKBOX.)
Drawful 2, for some reason, is sold exclusively as a separate game and not in any pack. It’s like Drawful 1 but slightly improved and more critically, it’s designed for streaming. I can’t rank it as a pack, but it’s good, and a Jackbox collection isn’t quite complete without it.
Note that unlike Drawful 2, the stand-alone Fibbage and Quiplash packs are not unique, and there’s no real reason to own them if you have them in a Pack already, except the extra language translations in Quiplash InterLashIonal.
A very eclectic pack, notably the only one without a drawing-focused game (though Push The Button has a drawing minigame).
Trivia Murder Party 2 is probably the best trivia-themed game there is in Jackbox. Non-trivia minigames keep trivia-adverse players (like me) marginally interested even when other people force them to play them. Role Models is a fun oddball game that isn’t very stream-friendly, as it requires you to know each other well. But with the right group, it’s quite fun. Dictionarium is simple, fast, and good silly fun. A formalization of the classic Make Up A Word For it mentality.
Push The Button is a social deduction game somewhat like Among Us, with lots of minigames and opportunities for delightfully misleading circumstances. As a streamer, it’s a bit of a rough one though, even 1 idle player and the Humans can’t win. Please, give us a kick button.
Joke Boat is just terrible and uniquely frustrating to me as someone who likes comedy-based games. It somehow just does not work. The stand-up format and prompts somehow lack the funny-on-cue quality that Quiplash consistently delivers. The format is oddly stifling in ways Quiplash and JobJob just aren’t.
A perfect mix of good games and more modern features, it’s hard not to love Jackbox 7. It’s the rare pack with no bad games with only a couple of caveats to the fun, depending entirely on your players, not the games.
Quiplash 3 is the perfect iteration of Quiplash, having a third round that isn’t awful and just generally being a great way to make jokes like a more creative Cards against Humanity. Blather Round is a fun trivia game even for my trivia-disliking self as it’s got a guessing mechanic to it that makes it very dynamic between players.
Talking Points is stellar, but it does have the drawback of absolutely REQUIRING you to talk—it’s in the name! Streamers with shy/cowardly players might find it a bit frustrating to play, but with a group of 4+ people willing to embarrass themselves and give a TED talk about why we should all drive cars with (bodily fluid here) for fuel, you’ll have an incredible time. Champ’d Up is that glorious Drawing game that is both humor-based instead of accuracy-based, and has good drawing tools! It’s hard to go back to Drawful after this one.
As a streamer, the only game that slightly disappointed me is Devil and the Details. It’s a very fun party game, but one of those that just doesn’t work if you’re not either in the same room or ALL using voice chat and cooperating. But it’s still fun, and if you’re in the same room, great. And Demon Mom is a MILF. And you can have TWO (hot) Demon Moms.
Oops, All Bangers. This is the only Jackbox Party Pack where I do not dislike a SINGLE game even a bit. The options aren’t quite as advanced as later games for streaming, but there’s nothing too major missing.
Bracketeering is simple but funny and works well with a big audience for streaming. The format quickly brushes aside unfunny jokes to be forgotten. This lets large, heterogeneous groups of people play without much mess.
Civic Doodle isn’t the best drawing game, but it is unique and “collaborative” in the best/worst way. The weakest game in the best pack, it’s average for a drawing game. Fibbage 3 is just a great Fibbage game as we’ve gone through before. The visual design is quite striking too, making it hard to go back, and the Enough About You mode is a great one for tighter-knit groups of friends to play.
Monster Seeking Monster is just damn fun and very unique. Finally Survive The Internet is arguably the best Jackbox game there is, and easily the best comedy-themed one up there with JobJob. Everyone plays STI wrong their first playthrough, but once you understand how the humor is structured it’s fantastic. (It’s easy—person 2 makes person 1 look like an idiot/monster).
There’s just nothing that can come close to Jackbox 4. If you’re new to Jackbox or haven’t picked it up yet, I can’t recommend it enough. The only flaws it has are due to it being a semi-old Jackbox game with less-than-perfect settings menus for moderation/streaming. That and not having a higher player limit for Survive The Internet.
Finally, a free idea for Jackbox—The Jackbox Party Launcher. Let me go directly from one launcher directly into any game from any pack I own.
Also as a streamer, adding kicking, sharable room code URLs, and keeping groups between games would have made the Party Starter worth buying. Also more players! 8 is so few. Basically please steal every feature possible from the similar Gartic Phone I’ve played before.
Disagree? Outraged? In mild agreement? Are you the one guy who thinks Word Spud is actually brilliant? Feel free to hash it out in the comments below!
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!
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.
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”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!”So you want to draw a SirTapTap, or maybe I’m commissioning you and just sent you this page. I tend to like to see how people draw TapTap on their own, but here’s a good set of info for consistency’s sake on how I tend to like my spikeballs.
These could be considered the most authoritative examples as they’re images I’ve commissioned myself, though generally I haven’t asked for too many edits to be “on-brand” either. I wanted art, not a factory-pressed widget.
Yep, it’s a Tap-Tap from Yoshi’s Island (I pull the hyphen for simplicity’s sake). Here’s the official art from Nintendo for TapTaps:
Tap-Taps were nearly invincible (and in a few cases, literally invincible) enemies in Yoshi’s Island. They’re usually found just roaming around or hopping up and down, completely ignoring Yoshi. It’s often best to maneuver around them or gently push them aside rather than try to beat them.
It’s preferred that you email me at [email protected], if you must reach out over social, my Discord Server is acceptable but notifications can be messy on the rest so I really encourage a direct email.
When sending art please include the image/work in the least compressed method possible (PNG is great), your name/how to credit you, any social/art site links to include, and any notes you’d like me to include in the fan art post! You can see how these posts look in the Fan Art Section.
It’s Valentines, so have a very pink Nath for today! This one is from @9HF__ on Twitter. Posting it quite late since I had to figure out an Age Gate plugin to use.
If you have a 100% Orange Juice addiction too, make sure to join our Discord Server to coordinate games with us!
Continue reading “🔞Commission: Pink Bunnysuit Nath by @9HF__!”Cryptobros. Hexagons. NFT Chuds. Buttcoiners. Call them what you will, everyone hates them. What if there were a way to hide them all from Twitter in an instant? Well you can with Better TweetDeck’s mute feature!
Thanks to Better TweetDeck which has already added an option to auto-mute NFT Avatars (those people with Hexagon avatars that spam your notifs if you dare mention NFTs). Note that unfortunately since this is a Browser Extension (and for Tweetdeck) it more or less only works on Desktop. If you find a simple solution to auto-mute cryptobros on Twitter, please let me know in the comments!
After installing the Browser Extension (their site has links for Opera, Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari), all you need to do is get to the Better Tweetdeck settings and turn on the feature. Find this button at the bottom of your BTD modified tweetdeck.com:
And find the Misc section of the General tab, the first tab that opens in settings and check this lovely little button and you’ll mute all NFT avatars (and their users) from the whole UI! Better TweetDeck also has a number of cool features that can improve your Twitter experience, but I won’t go into that here.
Note that this will only hide NFT Avatar users, not users faking a hexagon crop (lol because yes of course you can do that), or Crypto users not using the NFT integration. Also note this is just a BTD mute, the users are not blocked and can still read your tweets; they just won’t show up in your UI. But out of site, out of mind.
Author’s note: I don’t make Better TweetDeck, this is just a little HowTo! Direct any cryptobro rage to [email protected], and any BTD support questions to Better TweetDeck’s support.
Got any other Anti-NFT tools? Share ’em in the comments!
If you want more broad Anti-NFT action, check out No F*cking Thanks on Github by Sam Hocevar.
Pokemon Cafe ReMix is out now for Nintendo Switch and Android/iOS mobile platforms! This is a remade version of the puzzle game that launched last year, and it’s much improved. This guide is a Work In Progress as Pokemon Cafe ReMix just came out, but feel free to ask questions and add tips in the Comments! I will expand on the guide as I play and have time.
See my other Pokemon Guides if you need more games to play! We also have a Discord Server, come say hi in the Mobile Games channel.
Generally you’ll almost always want to use the suggested Pokemon on the Order menu. It will suggest 2 Pokemon will Gimmicks/skills that are helpful, and usually the left one is best to use.
You can still press Set Leader to pick a different Pokemon, make sure their Specialty matches. Generally, you only need to do this if a difficult Gimmick is involved but isn’t covered by the suggestions.
Early on, Eevee will be your workhorse (fox), easily handling most beginner levels. It’s Gimmicks are extremely common and it will save you many turns, so level up Eevee early (this helps you get Mew early anyway).
You get a measly 10 XP for clearing a normal order, and Experience Tarts that give direct XP are rare rewards. This means that for the most part to level up your Pokemon, you’ll need to use the Training from the Pokemon menu.
Fortunately, training gets you to level 10 very fast and your top priority should be getting all your pokemon to level 5 (then 10) as soon as possible. This will only take a few training sessions. After order 100 and 200, you’ll be able to spend 2 and then 3 stamina at once to speed up training.
Continue reading “Pokemon Cafe ReMix Guide – Quickstart & Strategy”
