Sunshine Blogger Award (& Site Update)

Something I really like about WordPress is the community of people it brings together – it’s so easy to follow others and see what other people have to say about topics you’re interested in, which is pretty important when it comes to gaming, which is such a wide topic.

An example of this community in action is the Sunshine Blogger Award, where blogs nominate each other to promote good content elsewhere. I was recently nominated by AmbiGaming, which was a nice surprise as I haven’t won any of these before and it definitely brought a bit of sunshine into my life, so thank you AmbiGaming.

Before I get to the details of the award, I just also want to take a paragraph here to thank my readers also. I’ve had this blog for almost four years now, but I basically ignored it for two years and now I’m trying to get back into blogging. It means a lot to see people reading my thoughts, and I’d like to continue the level of content I’ve been putting out recently. Posts like the Diversity post I did a while back aren’t something I generally do, but I really liked writing that post and I’d like to do similar posts in the future. I was looking through some of my old news posts and I miss doing those weekly updates, even though I don’t think I have the time for it any more. I’ll find something to get my groove back though – I really missed blogging and it’s good to be back.

And now, the Rules of the Award:

1. Thank the person who nominated you
2. Answer the questions given to you
3. Nominate at least (fill in number here) bloggers!
4. Write questions for your nominees to answer

Question 1: Surprise! You’re in an RPG. What is your character build?

Usually when I play RPGs where I can create my character’s build, I like attack-focused characters and put a lot of points into health so I can go around destroying things. If I woke up in an RPG, I would definitely not be able to do the “warrior” class and I think I would actually be better suited to a magic class (with a ranged attack weapon like a bow if necessary). The main reason I don’t like playing those characters in games is because I find the mechanics a little clunky and the need to replenish “mana” cumbersome, but if it was me, I’d definitely be up for a little spell-casting. I’d probably then put points into health, and maybe a stealth option if there was one (I don’t play many RPGs so most of what I know is choosing classes).

Question 2: What video game soundtrack rocks your world?

Tough question, but one I’ll enjoy answering. Generally, I find most video game soundtracks pretty unremarkable, they’re alright during gameplay but I can’t hum them back to myself after I turn the machine off. With that being said, I find Nintendo manages to consistently put out amazing soundtracks. My runner-up would have to be the Pokémart theme, just for it’s jazz goodness:

My winner though is the orchestra version of Professor Layton’s theme from Professor Layton Vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney:

Everything about this piece just comes together: the perfect mix of class and swagger for the professor. I love it, the entire game just had a really good soundtrack.

Bonus: The Super Mario Bros. theme has a special place in my heart, and this arrangement of a compilation of tunes by the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra is just beautiful:

Their version of the underwater waltz at 3:10 is well worth listening too, it wouldn’t sound out of place in a classical ballet.

Question 3: If you had to summarize your blog with one snappy quote, what would it be?

It’s tough answering this when I already have a tagline, but I’ll attempt to do it anyway (that’s not my answer by the way).

“Bringing people together through their love of games since 2013”.

When I started this site, my goal was just to create someplace where everyone was welcome to discuss anything about games and gaming general. I still have that goal in mind, all these years later.

Question 4: If you were a tree, what type of tree would you be? Bonus: Why?

Here in Australia we have Jacaranda trees, which are super pretty in bloom:

They also tend to bloom right around exam season in November, so if you wait until the Jacarandas start blooming it’s probably too late for you.

That’s part of my reason why I’d be one: they’re nice trees with and I have a bit of an emotional connection with them since I associate them with most of the knowledge I’ve learnt thus far in my life.

Question 5: If you had one day during which everything you did would be successful, what would you do?

The problem with this question is that it doesn’t define “successful”. For example, I could say publish a book, but that might mean the book publication itself was successful (i.e. it uploaded to Amazon) but the book itself could flop completely. Or if you say the cynical answer and rob a bank, you could rob the bank successfully and then be caught by the police the day after.

With that in mind I think the best thing to do would just be to have a massive party. If it’s successful, all my friends living in other cities could fly over, the party would go off without a hitch, and everyone would have a good time.

Nominations

That concludes my answers to the great questions, and now I’d like to nominate some other people for this award (in no particular order):

• MoffBadgerPlays: A pretty new blogger, but she’s putting out some great gaming-related content. I remember my early days of blogging, unsure of whether anyone really liked the content I was putting out, so I hope this nomination encourages her to continue, because her content is already strong and it’ll be sure to get stronger.
• Ever Gamer Review: A blog which has enjoyable content about games. All of the content just feels real, and the posts are a good mix of funny and helpful.
• I Play All The Games: This is a blog I really like – someone’s attempting to play through every single game ever made. They’re up to the “C’s” of the Atari 2600, and it’s really interesting to see what some of these old games were like. I hope that one day in the future, when he reaches the NES stage, we’ll be able to compare notes with my NES collection.

And of course, the questions:

1. If you could go back in time to any situation for 24 hours (just watching, no interrupting), what would you go see?
2. What advancement in technology are you most (or least) looking forward to in the near future?
3. If you could merge any two consoles together to create a Frankenstein’s Console, which consoles would you merge?
4. What’s your favourite mobile (iOS/Android) game?
5. If you could be any type of breakfast cereal, what sort of cereal would you be and why?

Once again, a big thank you to AmbiGaming for the nomination.