My Top 10 (Own) YouTube Videos of 2018

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Anarchy Advent 2018!

It's September again, and you lot know what that means...

This is the third year I've done Anarchy Advent, so if you wish, feel free to acquaint yourselves with the previous years... 2016 and 2017...

What is Anarchy Advent?

Anarchy Advent is a 24-day countdown to my birthday, September 24th. So naturally it starts on August 31st and ends on September 23rd. During this time, I will post one UNIQUE piece of content every day to YouTube and where possible, related blog posts on here. By unique, I mean there would only be ONE review, ONE unboxing, ONE Charm Agony rant - in a sense, it's a way for me to challenge myself and try out new things.

While I'm posting this stuff, I also run a competition alongside it - in which the winners can win Steam games or vouchers towards Steam games (or other games on other formats, but thus far, nobody who has placed has asked!)

Competition Details

This year I've decided to narrow the brief somewhat. The last two years were general creativity competitions - and in a way, it still is - but you lot have a requirement set in stone this time.

MAKE MOG A BIRTHDAY CARD.

Whether you want to draw one, write a birthday poem, make a video e-card, write a birthday song or otherwise make a tribute to Mog Anarchy - that is your brief. Essentially, any form of creativity goes - art, music, writing, video, animation, sculpture, embroidery - whatever you're interested in!

The prizes will be games or credit to purchase games on a digital download service of your choice. Last year, the winners all opted for Steam games, but prizes can be arranged for Xbox Live, Playstation Network, Nintendo e-Shop, Amazon, Origin, iTunes etc.

Said prizes are...

• 1st place - a game or games from your chosen wishlist/format gifted up to the value of £15
• 2nd place - a game or games from your chosen wishlist/format gifted up to the value of £10
• 3rd place - a game or games from  your chosen wishlist/format gifted up to the value of £5

Competition runs from August 31st to September 22nd. The winner shall be announced on September 23rd - and I shall showcase all of the entries!

Terms & Conditions

• Entries must be submitted to me via DM on Twitter or via e-mail - please don't @ them to me, I'd like to keep them a secret from other entrants!
• Prizes are to be awarded in vouchers or download code only, no physical cash prize.
• Once you've submitted your entry, I can do with it what I wish, post it on my blog, Twitter, use it in videos or other content etc.
• If you need anything from me in order to complete your entry - like sheet music to my opening, the colour of my eyes, my shoe size, Jet's inside leg measurement - whatever - just let me know and I shall provide you with whatever you need.

Anarchy Advent 2017 - Awesome Competition Details!

It's September again, and you lot know what that means...

If you were here last year, you'll no doubt be aware of Anarchy Advent and all of its Mog-related goodness, but if you're new here; feel free to acquaint yourself with it.

Done? Good.

Like last year, I'm running the creative competition where you lot can win prizes! The prizes will be games or credit to purchase games on a digital download service of your choice. Last year, the winners all opted for Steam games, but prizes can be arranged for Xbox Live, Playstation Network, Nintendo e-Shop, Amazon, Origin, iTunes etc.

Said prizes are...

• 1st place - a game or games from your chosen wishlist/format gifted up to the value of £15
• 2nd place - a game or games from your chosen wishlist/format gifted up to the value of £10
• 3rd place - a game or games from  your chosen wishlist/format gifted up to the value of £5

So... what is this competition? What do you lot, my lovely greasy Anarchy Burgers have to do to be in with a chance of winning?

Simple! September 24th is my birthday - and I'd like you to make me a present. However, this is not specifically a "fan art" competition - don't feel restricted by what you can and can't do or make - this is a CREATIVITY competition. Last year's entrants included fan art, comics, tribute videos, music remixes, a bracelet, a Mario Maker course, a text adventure game and even a cake!

So essentially, any form of creativity goes! Art, music, writing, video, animation, sculpture, embroidery - whatever you're interested in!

The only rule is it has to be something to do with me - either feature my likeness, my logo, one of my tropes (i.e. gunge or unboxing videos) or one of my characters Cat Chaos or Charm Agony. And for those of you who choose to make me something physical, a photograph is enough for a competition entry, but if you want to mail it to me - that would be awesome. :)

Competition runs from September 1st to September 22nd. The winner shall be announced on September 23rd - and I shall showcase all of the entries in a special video.

Terms & Conditions

• Entries must be submitted to me via DM on Twitter - please don't @ them to me, I'd like to keep them a secret from other entrants!
• Prizes are to be awarded in vouchers or download code only, no physical cash prize.
• Once you've submitted your entry, I can do with it what I wish, post it on my blog, Twitter, use it in videos or other content etc.
• If you need anything from me in order to complete your entry - like sheet music to my opening, the colour of my eyes, my shoe size, Jet's inside leg measurement - whatever - just let me know and I shall provide you with whatever you need.

Good luck you lot!

And if you're looking for inspiration, why not check out the showcase of last year's entrants and winners?

My Top 10 (Own) YouTube Videos of 2016

Apparently, I uploaded 204 videos in 2016. That's around 0.55 videos per day.

Naturally, I'm rather proud of the majority of my work; in general, a fair amount of work goes into each of them - whether it be the set-up, filming, concept, writing scripts - or the bane of every content creator's life; EDITING - I spend a lot of time on my stuff, and I put a lot of myself into making it.

Why? Well, many reasons - it's something I enjoy doing, it's a hobby that pays for itself (somewhat) and having my lovely depression/anxiety combo meal, I need something to keep my mind occupied on a daily basis.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to compile a list of my personal favourite YouTube videos that I released in 2016. It's a lovely top 10 list - and you may be surprised by the inclusion of some videos and the exclusion of others...

-----------------------------------

#10 - Unboxing: Fan Mail Mystery Box #1

I jokingly posted on my Twitter one day that somebody ought to send me some fan mail. Someone did. That someone was @rockest_lobster - and to this day remains both the first and only "fan" to have sent me some "fan mail." It was just so much fun opening up this box of randomness - which included some naff PS3 games, a display smartphone and a MASSIVE DEAD HORNET in a fag packet. I look forward to the day I recieve more fan mail, whenever that may be... Hint. It was also thanks to filming this video that I discovered my phone has a better camera than the camera I was using at the time, and that my kitchen has amazing lighting.

#9 - Fake Chinese Pokémon & Mario "Lego"

In general, my unboxing videos are the easiest ones to make. They require little set-up beyond faffing with the camera's auto focus and arranging the proper light conditions - and the editing tends to be minimal. The problem with unboxings is covering the cost of the products themselves I look at. The knock-off sellers on eBay had me well covered this time, however - as the fake "Lego" included in this video cost me a grand total of £4.99 - and turned out bloody hilarious - especially that BULBASAUR!

#8 - Escape From Sally's Room

If you've watched this video, you'll most likely know the story of "Escape From Sally's Room" - but the shorthand version is, it's a little browser game I made in my 1st year of university on Adobe Dreamweaver, and it got me a 1st. I was proud of the game at the time, and still am - hence why I included a playthrough of it for my Anarchy Advent countdown. The game itself is still available to download and play for yourselves too. I shan't give away too much here - but it's an escape-the-room style puzzle - and everything is purposely drawn crudely on MS Paint.

#7 - "I Am The Highwind" - Final Fantasy VII Song

Let me make one thing quite clear before I begin. I'm not Brentalfloss. I am however a big fan of Brentalfloss - and was somewhat inspired by his "Final Fantasy VII with Lyrics" video. "I Am The Highwind" was genuinely a song I made up whilst playing Final Fantasy VII. When you're grinding levels, breeding golden Chocobo and hunting out rare materia in disc 2 and disc 3, you fly around in the Highwind A LOT. Thus, you hear the Highwind music A LOT. And in order to numb the boredom somewhat, I made up my own lyrics. I'm well aware of the fact that I can't sing, but try going the rest of the day without singing this.

#6 - Let's Play: Crash Bandicoot 2 - #10: The Eel Deal (Perfect Run)

In general, I feel that my Let's Play of Crash Bandicoot 2 went rather well - and it was something I managed to stick with until the very end - I completed the challenge I set myself and went on to post a video for all 26 of the levels. In many of them, I found myself waffling on about weird topics - not limited to species of dinosaurs and what they ate, 1990s cheat code books and medieval torture methods. One of my personal favourite rambling rants however came during my playthrough of level #10: The Eel Deal. When explaining that players are encouraged to follow the trails of Wumpa Fruit - I share my wisdom that sometimes fruit tells blatant lies - I would rather listen to advice from foods such as a cheeseburger - and that I "did not get where I am today listening to the advice of FRUIT!"

#5 - Android App Review: Ditty

As part of Anarchy Advent, I'd set myself the challenge of posting a unique video every day for 24 days. Naturally one of those had to include a review of some description - and at the time I was obsessed with the funny little app known as Ditty. So I slapped together a pseudo-review, book-ended on all sides by silly Ditty songs - including ones about greasy cabbage, Jet's moustache and Queenie drinking milkshake. This video also serves as a permanent memorial of sorts to the late Queenie. R.I.P.

#4 - Easiest To Hardest Sonic Games

Countdowns are great fun to make - but they also take bloody forever - hence why I haven't made all that many so far. Not only do you have to decide on your order and inclusions, you need to write a script, capture the footage and spend years editing the damn thing. This countdown was fun to make however, as it was something Shelly and I discussed and worked on together - her favourite series being Sonic - and she is the one playing the game during some of the sequences.

#3 - Challenge Mog: Episode 2 - Sonic The Hedgehog Blindfolded Challenge

Challenge Mog is a series that I started way back in early 2016 and unfortunately haven't done a lot with. It has a lot of potential, however - and I'm planning on bringing it back as soon as I can. The videos are a lot of fun to make - but also fall into the trap of taking bloody ages to make, hence why I can't produce them as fast as I can other stuff. Anyway - this was the first challenge I won - and was also my first foray into using Adobe Premiere to create picture-in-picture footage of blindfolded me playing Sonic 2. I still don't know how I managed to do it so bloody quick - let alone do it at all...

#2 - Gungey Gameshow - Episode #1

Are you surprised to have only found one gunge video on this list so far? Well, it's the only one on this list. Of course, making gunge videos is a lot of fun - and I'm well aware that they're my most popular videos too - but Gungey Gameshow: Episode #1 is my personal favourite as it's the one gunge video I made this year that I feel best combined my love of gaming and gunge. Complete with 3 gaming-themed messy challenges, I got covered in paint, shaving foam and 4 colours of gunge - and it was a lot of fun. A bit of a pain in the arse to edit, as always, but I'm really pleased with the finished result. And yes, there IS an Episode #2 on the way - it's in post-production - and I even have an Episode #3 planned for this summer!

#1 - Charm Agony: I'm a Girl Gamer!

Of course; my personal favourite video I made in 2016 was my 1st ever Charm Agony "girl gamer" rant. Some people may be confused or simply curious of the origin of the character of Charm Agony... well - I find "fake gamer girls" utterly hilarious. They're one of the funniest things present within the online gaming community - to me, they're harmless and are simply there to be ridiculed. So, I decided to portray one. Somehow, the costume and make-up I ended up choosing was a cross between Barbie and Daisy Dares You from the 90s kids' show Zzzap. I bought myself a pair of oversized bright pink "8-bit glasses," a pink t-shirt, tied up my hair in bunches and had Shelly cover me in make-up. To complete the fakeness - and I have no idea why I did this, but it stuck and now I'm bound by it - I attempted a Californian "valley girl" accent. Like OMG. In Charm's first appearance I had to include nods to "girl gamers" and online shooters - purposely muddling up their names, mocking the Twitch "boob streamers" and of course - I sucked on a Wii remote.

"I Am The Highwind" - Song Lyrics, Background & Soundcloud

As part of my Anarchy Advent countdown, I decided to record a song. As you know, in Final Fantasy VII, you spend a lot of time flying around in the airship known as the Highwind - especially if you're breeding gold Chocobo. Listening to the music over and over, I ended up making up my own words to it.

The first verse I wrote was actually the 2nd one, about where the Highwind can't land - because I was getting annoyed with having to find grass to land on and walk across other terrain.

Here's the song: 



Lyrics:

I am the Highwind
I am an aeroplane you fly
Through the sky
Get me part-way through disc 2
Yes you do
Part-way through disc 2

Can't land on deserts
Can't land on snow or in the sea
Or on mountains
On forests or on the beach

Look at my features
I have a stable for your Chocobos over here
I have a place to save your game over here
Heal your party members and PHS

You can all fit inside me
Cait Sith and Red XII
You can all fit inside me
Cloud, Cid and Yuffie
You can all fit inside me
Vincent, Barret and Tifa
You can all fit inside me
Bring all your friends along
You can all fit inside me
All of the crew on board
You can all fit inside me
Even space for Cloud’s sword

You can all fit inside me
You can all fit inside me

(Repeat)

Want to download this song? Go ahead - here's a link to download it through SoundCloud. Bear in mind, I didn't compose the music and I don't own Final Fantasy VII or anything - it's just a silly novelty song I made to make you lot laugh.

Unboxing: Arcade Block August 2016

It's time for my tenth monthly Arcade Block!

As I've previously explained; for a fee of $20 CANADIAN per month, Arcade Block will send you a lovely box of gaming merchandise, including a T-shirt. Shipping costs vary, depending on where you live, and larger T-shirt sizes cost a few $ extra - overall, my boxes including shipping, work out at about £24.

This one was shipped on the 25th of July and arrived on the 5th of September - neither Shelly or I was in, so I had it redelivered on the 10th. Ugh.



And let's take a closer look at the contents:

Tetris colour-changing mug (cold design)

Tetris colour-changing mug (hot design)

Five Nights At Freddy's vinyl figure

Super Mario Bros K'nex

USB SNES controller

Eye of Truth T-shirt

The 5 Worst Final Fantasy VII Enemy Skills

Now I love using enemy skills - some of them are invaluable earlier on in the game before you learn higher level spells or summons - and I thoroughly enjoy the scavenger-hunt of collecting all 24 of them. HOWEVER; not all enemy skills are created equally. Some are awesome yes, but the following 5 in this list are the worst ones - they’re either useless, learnt too late in the game to be of any use, or require some roundabout route to even get them to work. Let’s begin the countdown!

5 - ????

This enemy skill, which you can learn in the Shinra Mansion at first may seem useful - but bear in mind, the amount of damage you can do is based solely on the amount of damage you’ve taken. It essentially only has the potential to do 9998 damage, providing you can maintain having only 1HP, or even get hit with the correct amount of attacks to absorb 9998 HP of damage in the first place. If you have full health, regardless of your total number of HP, whether you have 900 or 9000, you will do 0 damage. In order for this enemy skill to even work, you have to let yourself sit with damage, potentially increasing the risk you’ll be killed.

4 - L4 Suicide

Although you learn this enemy skill very early in the game - it can be potentially your first, or one of the first ones you learn - its usefulness is incredibly limited. L4 Suicide inflicts critical damage and small status on all enemies whose levels are multiples of 4 - such as 12, 16, 20, 24 etc. So already there’s only a handful of enemies this will even effect. Now out of the enemies whose levels ARE a multiple of 4, many of them are immune to the small status effect - which again reduces the usefulness of this attack. Yes, it will do critical damage - but it will never kill anything - it will always leave enemies with at least some health.

3 - L5 Death

L5 Death is likely going to be one of the last enemy skills you learn - it’s in the collection of rare enemy skills that you can only find in the Northern Cave - right at the end of the game when there’s little to no opportunity left to use it. As the name suggests, only enemies whose levels are multiples of 5 will be affected by the enemy skill - level 50, 55, 60, 65 etc - which is even less of a range of enemies that are potentially affected by L4 Suicide - and far more creatures are immune to instant death than the small status. I don’t think I’ve ever used L5 Death in any of my playthroughs - to me, it just seemed like a massive waste of time that had the potential to rarely ever succeed, either by enemies not being the right level, or being immune to instant death in the first place.

2 - Chocobuckle

Considering how much of a puzzle it is to even learn the Chocobuckle enemy skill, you’d think it would be more useful than it is. In order to learn Chocobuckle, you have to find a Chocobo whose level is a multiple of 4, feed it some Memitt Greens and then cast L4 Suicide on it - this in itself can be a pain in the arse if you’re not sure what you’re looking for - and if it wasn’t for the strategy guide, I’d have never thought of doing this in the late 90s when I didn’t have the means to just Google these things. Anyway, Chocobuckle’s damage is based on how many times you’ve escaped from battle. That’s right - escaped once? 1 damage. Escaped 9999 times? 9999 damage. If you wanted to build Chocobuckle up, you’d have to run from battle 9999 times. It would be quicker to fight the 9999 battles and level up your characters so they did 9999 damage with their normal weapon!

1 - Roulette

And finally we have Roulette, the worst and most useless enemy skill in the whole game. First off, let’s talk about WHEN you acquire this skill. You can only learn it from one enemy in one place, the Death Dealer in the Northern Cave - A.K.A. THE END OF THE GAME - so even if you wanted to use this enemy skill in battle, you have very little opportunity to do so. Now let’s talk about what it does. Roulette, as the name suggests is a luck-based attack which makes your cursor flick rapidly between all three of your party members and all enemies you’re facing. The person or enemy the cursor stops on will be hit with instant death. Firstly, you’re potentially risking the lives of your party members, unless they’re wearing an accessory that protects against death, such as the Safety Bit - or you’ve already gone ahead and cast a protective spell like the Death Force enemy skill. And what if it does land on an enemy and that enemy is immune to death spells? Lots of enemies are, and certainly the majority of bosses and sub-boss creatures are. Learn the skill to complete your collection, then never touch it again. It’s ultimately useless and risks the lives of your party members to MAYBE cast instant death on an enemy - just use x4 cut or a powerful spell and get it over with!

How To Download & Play Escape From Sally’s Room

As part of the awesome Anarchy Advent festivities; I made a video talking about a point-and-click browser game I made in my 1st year of university, Escape From Sally's Room.



Do you want to play it yourself? Well you can!

Firstly, click the link below to download the zip folder - you'll need a program to unzip it, of course.

[Dropbox Download Link]

Once it's downloaded, unzip the folder:

Open the folder:

Click on the file marked [Title Page]:

And you're ready to help Sally escape from her room!

Bandicoots Don't Exist?

Allow me to tell you a story from my childhood...

Now I'm a big fan of the original Crash Bandicoot trilogy on the PS1. I even enjoyed the spin off titles: Crash Team Racing and Crash Bash. However, I do feel after the series migrated to the PS2 and Naughty Dog handed over development to Traveller’s Tales, the series began to go downhill. Crash 4: The Wrath of Cortex was OK, but the rest of them? Ugh.

Anyway, I was 5 years old when the original was released in 1996 and 7 years old when Crash Bandicoot 2 was released. I was in year 2 of primary school, and quite frankly obsessed with all sorts of video games, not just Crash. My teacher hated this; as nearly every creative project we were given, everything I did had an air of video games about it - I started writing fan fiction from a very young age, as soon as I got my own computer, I was unstoppable!

Anyway, one day at school, we had to write a story about what we would do if we were an animal for a day. Naturally, I chose a bandicoot. I was quickly shot down however, when the teacher humiliated me in front of the whole class, berating me for what felt like hours about “how bandicoots didn't exist.”

I ended up writing about a bear instead, but I was upset for the rest of the day. When I got home that night, I told my mam what happened. She was furious - and took me upstairs to her room where she dug out an encyclopedia of animals. After flipping through a few pages, she found a double - page spread on bandicoots. 

Bandicoots are small creatures that live on a mixture of insects, spiders and fungus. They’re native to Australia and Papua New Guinea - indeed, they are real. but of course, I already knew this. After playing Crash Bandicoot initially, I asked my parents if they were a real animal, and they assured me they were. My parents were always big into zoos, safari parks and animal conservation, and still are to this day - and like any parent, refuse to stand by when they know their child has been wrongfully punished.

The encyclopedia was essentially a big ringbinder folder, thus the pages could be removed. Mam sent me to school the next day, armed with the evidence that bandicoots DID actually exist. I got an apology from the teacher - and elevated my status amongst the other mini video game nerds in my class.

Awesome ANARCHY ADVENT Competition Details

Oi, you lot!
Do you like Steam games?
Do you want to make Mog Anarchy something awesome for her birthday next month?

Read on…

As  part of next month's ANARCHY ADVENT, I'm running a competition for all of my awesome followers. You can win a great Steam prize!

The prizes?

1st place - a game or games from your Steam wishlist gifted up to the value of £15
2nd place - a game or games from your Steam wishlist gifted up to the value of £10
3rd place - a game or games from your Steam wishlist gifted up to the value of £5

And if you don't have Steam - we can arrange something else - Origin or Amazon wishlist or something - I'm flexible!

What do you have to do?
Well, on September 24th, it's my 25th birthday. I'd like you guys to make me something. It can be anything you like, here's some ideas:

You can draw me some fan art or a comic. You can write me fan fiction or a poem. You  can record me a tribute song or sample my voice in a dubstep remix. You could make me a model or some embroidery. You could put on a Northen accent and some black glasses and make a parody video - be creative! I'm more likely to award prizes based on creativity!

The only rule is it has to be something to do with me - either feature my likeness, my logo, one of my tropes (i.e. gunge or unboxing videos) or one of my characters, (i.e. Cat Chaos.)

And for those of you who choose to make me something physical, a photograph is enough for a competition entry, but if you want to mail it to me - that would be awesome. :)

Competition runs from August 22nd to September 22nd. The winner shall be announced on September 23rd - and I shall showcase all of the entries in a special video.

Terms & Conditions

• Entries must be submitted to me via DM on Twitter - please don't @ them to me, I'd like to keep them a secret from other entrants!
• Prizes are to be awarded in vouchers or download code only, no physical cash prize
• Once you've submitted your entry, it becomes my property and I can do with it what I wish, post it on my blog, Twitter, use it in videos or other content etc.
• All entries must be safe-for-work; swearing is permitted but nothing I couldn't show in a YouTube video

If you need anything from me in order to complete your entry - like sheet music to my opening, the colour of my eyes, my shoe size, Jet's inside leg measurement - whatever - just let me know and I shall provide you with whatever you need.

Good luck you lot!