Q&A Time!

Thank you so much for all your wonderful questions!

I had a ton of fun answering them all.

Below is the entire script of the video posted in case someone prefers to read the answers instead of watching them!

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Hey, love your vids. Quick question, have you ever played “The Return of the Obra Dinn” or “Blue Prince”? (...)

Yes, I have played both and liked both games a lot.

I actually still play Blue Prince occasionally.

Blue prince is a really interesting game in my opinion because a lot of people seem to have been soured on it towards the end - yet my experience with the game is the opposite.

The more I play it, the more I seem to like it.

I think how much people ended up enjoying the game is highly dependent on whether they were drawn to the game mainly by the story mystery or mainly by the roguelike elements.

I mainly enjoy drafting in the game and if I happen to solve something in the background it’s a nice plus, but I can totally see how people that are mainly drawn to the game by the story could become frustrated with the game towards the end because of all the RNG and the fact that the central mystery isn’t solvable.

1. A few years back you made a grand total of two Minecraft videos, and never any other since and it has been an unsolved mystery on your channel. This has led me to wonder. "What do you think of Minecraft as a game?"

2. I have been quite involved in the development of mods and modpacks for Minecraft for the last 2 years (...), and since game mods are an important part of my gaming habits, I was wondering. "Do you often play games with mods? If yes, which ones? And if no, why?"

I absolutely love Minecraft and it’s one of my most played games of all time.

Minecraft is just the perfect sandbox game to play with friends and I just never get tired of it.

As for modded: funnily enough I am actually currently in the middle of a modded Minecraft playthrough through Stoneblock 4.

I probably spent more time in modded minecraft worlds at that point than I did playing the vanilla game and I absolutely love modded.

So the answer to the question whether I often play modded games is actually yes.

However, Minecraft is actually the only game I really play modded.

To everyone who never gave modded Minecraft a try I can wholeheartedly recommend it.

Many of my modded Minecraft playthroughs are actually among my fondest gaming memories ever.

Assuming you have a backlog of video games, how do you deal with cataloguing and playing through them? (...)

Also, have you played the Kingdom Hearts games and what are your opinions on them?

How I am cataloguing my gaming backlock is actually a really clever question and the answer is that I really should do that.
Currently I’m honestly just forgetting about all the games I meant to play at some point and whenever I am looking for something new I just try to remember what games I actually wanted to play for ages.

Which already answers the second question.

I haven’t played the Kingdom Hearts games yet, but I always meant to.

Ironically I just always forgot that these games are on top of my backlock I guess.

Love the videos. Speaking as an amateur cartographer, does the Holy Roman Empire make any more sense to Austrians, or is that sense of horror over the complexity universal?

Okay, let’s pull out a map of the holy Roman empire towards the end of the 18th century and let’s make sense of it together!
So this here, is the Habsbruger territory.

Simple as that up there we have.

Uhm …

Germany isn’t looking too great right there is it.

So I’m going to be honest here.

That map is a lovecraftian nightmare.
My father is actually a history teacher and I’m about 99% sure he doesn’t understand even half of this map.

Here are my questions:

- How is your Bratpfanne doing, and will we ever see her again?

- What did you have for lunch today?

- Do you like Spaghetti-Eis? And if so, do you prefer chocolate sauce or strawberry sauce?

- Why has nobody made an Asterix Warriors game yet? What is up with that?

- Why has nobody made a Detective Conan Ace Attorney game yet? What is up with that?

- Who would win in a cooking competition? Bowser, king of the Koopas, or Tingle the fairy?

- Which couple would take the win in Let's Dance? Mario & Luigi, Wario & Waluigi, Yoshi & Birdo or Bowser & Peach?

- Do you have any more Ceave Perspectives planned in the short term, or are you focussing on Ceave Gaming for the time being?

- Do you think the next mainline 3D Mario game will be more exploration/sandbox-based, like Odyssey, or more challenge/level-based, like 3D World? (...).

- Do you think there's even the tiniest chance future Zelda games (aside from remakes) will become more linear again or at least slightly move away from the sandbox concept?

Allright, so first my Bratpfanne is currently working on something exciting but it’s not ready yet - I guess we’ll have to let her cook for a bit longer.

As for lunch, I haven’t had lunch yet actually, but it’s probably going to be spaghetti with a simple red sauce, which neatly brings us to the cold topic of ice spaghetti.

I have no opinion on the freezing topic of ice spaghetti, but if I had chocolate sauce would be the way to go.

I actually have no idea why no one has made an Asterix warrior game yet - even stranger, I quickly looked it up and it looks as if there hasn’t been any sort of Asterix game being made in almost three decades which is actually really strange.

People should probably revive the Asterix IP in gaming, there is a lot of potential there.

A Detective Conan ace attorney game would actually be really cool.

I used to love the Conan manga when I was a bit younger, it’s probably my most read manga series!

Now to the serious questions.

Tingle would win a cooking competition against Bowser and it wouldn’t even be close.

Bowser would certainly burn whatever he’s cooking while Tingle can top the whole thing with magical fairy confetti - Tingles takes this win.

I do however think that Tingle would pass out way before bowser if they were binge drinking. 

As for the dancing competition.
Mario and Luigi certainly would lose, someone of the two would just inevitably hammer the other one into the ground at some point.

Neither would Bowser and Peach win - so don’t get me wrong, both of them are great dancers, especially bowser - but the two just lack the required chemistry together to really stand out.

Which leaves us with Birdo and Yoshi or Wario and Waluigi.

And that’s really difficult to tell.

My best guess is that this constellation would end with a draw, however I am certain that if we were to mix the teams Birdo and Waluigi would almost certainly be unstoppable together!

So do I have any plans for Perspective videos in the short term?

Well, yes and no.

I actually do have a couple of plans for videos on the perspective channel but none of them are short term.
Short term we’ll be over on the gaming channel.

I’ve just written so many long and honestly exhausting video essays over the past year that I currently really enjoy doing a bit smaller and less ambitious videos about silly Mario things for a bit while my batteries are recharging.

So there is nothing planned in the near term but mid to long term I very much plan to continue doing videos there.

Which already brings us to the question of what I think the next mainline Mario game will be like.
And I personally think it will be closer to Odyssey than to 3D world.

What I suspect is that Nintendo is going to attempt some variant of an open world 3D Mario next - some form of gigantic huge playground in which we get to explore the entire Mushroom kingdom on an open map.

I personally think that would be the next logical step for the franchise, but if we end up getting something closer to 3D world I wouldn’t be disappointed either.

Finally, do I think we will ever get a more linear Zelda going forward.

To which the answer is: I have honestly no idea!

The franchise is in a bit of a weird spot because the recent two games are the commercially most successful games in the franchise and yet they are so different to what came before that the games are almost spin offs.

There’s no way to tell what Nintendo is planning but I can answer what I personally would do in their situation.

I’d continue with the ideas that Breath of the wild introduced to the series and explore further into this direction with 3D Zelda games but at the same time develop a new top down Zelda similar to A Link Between Worlds that very closely follows the traditional Zelda formula.

Basically just do a split and have the 3D Zelda games be more Breath of the Wild like while keeping the top down games more traditional.

Have you played ULTRAKILL and would you consider doing a video on its game design? What is your favorite thing about the country you live in? 

Do you think there is hope for a formally nonbinary mario character? (Nabbit deserves it!! Look at them!!) 

Aaand hmm... will you do a video on games like Palworld and Hytale going directly after industry giants like Pokemon and Minecraft, and some observed effects of their existence / predictions of how it could impact those giants long term?

So first Ultrakill!
I actually have not played it.
It’s on my radar as an interesting game, but I’m just not very much into First Person Shooting games which is why I haven’t pulled the trigger on it yet. The pun is fully intended.

Which brings us to my favorite thing about Austria.

That’s actually surprisingly hard to answer because the answer is the Austrian mentality, which is really really difficult to explain to someone not familiar with the country.

You see, in a certain way Austrian culture is very close to German culture.

It’s … you know, we are geographical neighbors, we speak the same language … we share a lot of history.

We just are culturally very similar.

Except we really aren’t because there is just a difference in mentality that is really obvious to anyone who spends a lot of time in both countries.

People here tend to be almost like Germans but a lot more relaxed and less bothered by anything really.

We tend to approach things with a lot of pragmatism, black humor and calmness.

To give an example I recently stumbled over.

Back in the 70’s the RAF terrorist Waltraud Boock happened to be imprisoned in Vienna and decided to enter a hunger strike over her imprisonment.

And that was a really uncomfortable situation for the Austrian authorities for a couple of reasons that aren’t important.

What is important, is that it was massively in the interest of the Austrian state to somehow stop her hunger strike.

Which is where this story gets interesting because there was another person imprisoned in the very same prison at that time, a lady infamous in Austria for various reasons, named Wanda Kuchwalek.

And Wanda had an idea on how to solve this mess.

She pretty much approached the prison guards and asked them to put her into the cell with the hunger striking terrorist to solve the problem on her own.

The guards knew her and were like - why not and thus put her into the cell.
And within a couple of days the hunger strike had ended.

What did she do to cause this miracle.

Well, she just ordered herself delicious food into the cell day in and day out.

Eating, you know, Schnitzel and fried chicken besides the hunger striker day in and day out until the problem solved itself.

That’s a very Austrian solution to a problem.

And it’s this calm whatever as long as it works pragmatism that I really like about my country.

Which brings us to the question of whether there is hope for a formally non binary character in a nintendo game.

So generally I don’t think that Nintendo will soon take a formal stance on this, because they generally try to avoid anything that comes close to being a political statement in a game because, well, because they are a company.

But that doesn’t mean that we can’t just take their characters and use them as symbols ourselves.

You know, Birdo is a trans icon, completely independent of whether Nintendo says so or not.

We don’t need Nintendo’s approval on this matter, so in my opinion: Nabbit, you do you!

Have you ever played the game “Slay the Princess” and if so, have you considered making a video about it?!

I sadly have not!

I am aware of the game and it is on my list but I just haven’t gotten around to playing it yet.

I probably will play it soon though.

Who in your opinion has the stronger claim to being Nintendo's first transgender character: Birdo/Birdetta or Vivian?

And if I may have another question: I don't recall you ever talking about any roguelikes/roguelites - do you have anything against that genre/concept?

So first the roguelike question.

No, I absolutely have nothing against the genre!

I actually really like roguelikes.

I have an insane amount of hours in the first slay the spire game and really like the second one, I love just starting a random draft in blue prince and see where it takes me, I really loved Into The Breach and actually beat the game on hard with every squad, I regularly boot up Hades 2 for a quick run … I actually really like roguelikes.

No idea why this never has popped up before!

As for who is the first trans character in a Nintendo game.

Well, that’s actually a good question because I think it’s possible to make a good case for both of them.

So let’s answer that this way, in my opinion both characters are certainly icon’s but Birdo is more a legend while Vivian is the moment.

What is your stance on whether Austria should (or should not) join NATO as it already has a mutual defence clause with the EU which seems less effective and trained than a proper NATO membership? Also what are your thoughts on whether Austria should have a high-seas military navy?

Okay, so ding-ding-ding!

Time for an Austrian history lesson so that everyone has the necessary context to understand the question.

So historically Austria has been part of a lot of armed conflicts.

It was the murder of the Austrian throne successor that set in motion the events that led to the first world war, Hitler himself was Austrian and Austria at the front and center of the second world war.

We fought against Napoleon and against the Germans and against the Turks and probably against the English and … yeah historically Austria has been a country that believes in solving conflicts via violence, to put it generously.

And then we fortunately lost the second world war and there was the question of what to do with this warmongering Austria going forward.

You see, after the second world war Austria was occupied.

The western part of the country was under control of the British, French and American military, the eastern part however was under control of the Russians.

And for roughly a decade it was completely unclear how this situation would get resolved, the big fear was that we would end up in a situation similar to Germany.

Germany famously got divided into two, with the eastern part of germany being under the control of the soviet union.

So Austria obviously wanted to prevent a situation like this at all cost, yet Russia didn’t want to end it’s occupation and if we then were to immediately turn around and become a Nato state and because of that it was negotiated that all forces will leave Austria and allow us to become independent but we had to agree to what is called “Immerwährende Neutralität” which translates to everlasting neutrality.

We basically put it front and center of our constitution that we are a neutral country and will never ever take part in any war in the future.

And that solution has actually been incredibly beneficial for us for a simple reason.
As it turns out after the fall of the iron curtain Austria just happened to be completely surrounded by befriended NATO countries.

Which, uhm, is a nice place to be in.

It pretty much guarantees our security without having to actually do anything of our own.

And that’s what the question is aiming at.
You see, in the current situation NATO pretty much guarantees our safety and yet we do not take part in it.

The question is if it wouldn’t be better for us to actively be part of the organization that is already guaranteeing our safety or whether we should try to become a truly neutral country like for example our beloved neighbors in Switzerland.

So what is my take on the matter?
Well, that I really don’t know to be honest.

I understand arguments for both sides and usually I’d lean more towards actually joining NATO especially with Russia's recent landgrabs, though currently doesn’t really strike me as a good moment in time to join NATO as the whole thing, uhm … seems to be in a bit of a self finding phase currently and we may want to see how all of that plays out.

I am however in favor that the European Union strengthens its defensive capabilities.

As for whether we should have a high seas navi.

Uhm, we do not have access to the sea currently.

I think we probably want to wait with the high seas navi until climate change gets rid of Italy or something.

If you had to conquer Yoshi's Island how many Fuzzies would you need and what would be the appropriate strategy? 

Are Fuzzies angelic creatures that have been able to wittnes everything? -

If you had the opportunity to give all the worlds governmental power into the hands of a single Fuzzy, would you do it? -

Would you rather fight 100 Fuzzy-sized chickens or 10 chicken-sized fuzzys

So first I would absolutely prefer to fight 100- fuzzy sized chickens simply because I would never harm a chicken sized fuzzy.

Second, I’d hand over all of global power to a fuzzy in a heartbeat, at that point in time I’m inclined to hand it over to a random spike-top to be honest - it can hardly get any worse, can it.

As to whether fuzzies are angelic creatures.

I do not know.

The nature of fuzzies is beyond my mere mortal comprehension.

Finally, how do we conquer Yoshi’s Island?

Well, I think we can do that with roughly 3 dozen fuzzies.

So first we have half a dozen fuzzies jump off over the island using one of these Mario Maker parachutes.

This immediately disarms the entire military force of Yoshi’s Island as all the Yoshi’s gather in awe in the center of the Island to witness the wonderful fuzzies in the air.

With this we can safely land on the beach with the rest of our troops and at that point we pretty much already conquered the island.

All that is left to do is to disable all communications, to take over the local television, to occupy the parliament and to execute all remaining Yoshi resistance by using one of these jumps that we can only pull off if we drop Yoshi into an abyss.

Hooray!

(...) Did you consider that your audience during your initial years was likely made up of many younger people who will now be older and more mature? Or was it simply a correlation with your own life experiences, with your interests expanding to include more mature and thought provoking conversations about video games? 

And (...) Which Mario game has the objectively best fuzzies?

Alright, so the objectively best fuzzies are easy to answer, that is certainly … 

Honestly no other fuzzy even comes close to the perfection that fuzzies in … have reached!
Such wonderful fuzzies.

As for whether I think about my audience growing up alongside my videos.

Well, as for the gaming channel - I don’t really think that my videos have become more mature to be honest.

I think tonally they are pretty much the same goof they have been from the beginning, I think something else is happening.

You know, I always tried to have my videos be very approachable in such a way that a kid and their parents could potentially watch them together and both get something out of them. 

I think what might be happening is that people just start to pick up on more of the small jokes or hinted at thoughts as they grow older that probably have been there from the beginning but that they might not have picked up when they were younger. 

That’s on the gaming channel, the things over on the perspective channel are different.

Those are a lot more “mature” under parentheses because I don’t really write anything over there with children in mind.

Over there I just pretty much write unfiltered what I personally think would be an interesting topic for anyone who bothers watching which means these videos are probably a lot less approachable for kids to begin with - but that’s not necessarily by planning that is by coincidence.

What are your thoughts on The Duskbloods? Are you for or against it being focused on competitive multiplayer?

So Duskbloods is the upcoming Switch exclusive game that is pretty much set in the Bloodborne universe.

And it’s actually surprisingly complicated to answer this question for me, because I am super not interested in the game because it is multiplayer but I am also really glad that it exists as well.

The thing is, I just don’t play souls games for their competitive gameplay, I play it for the challenge and for the unique feeling that they generate with their worlds but not for their great multiplayer.

So I skipped nightreign and I will probably also skip Duskbloods.

So why am I still happy that these games exist?
Well, because From Software had an insane win with Elden Ring, and hitting it so big with a single project has the potential to completely transform a studio.

They just got an insane amount of resources, resources that have to be spent on something and I don’t think it would be a good idea to pour all these new resources into creating ever increasing mega projects.

I think that’s actually a big part of the puzzle of what went wrong with Cyberpunk.

Project CD Red just became too ambitious and changed the team that was able to produce the Witcher 3 up too much, losing a bit of the essence of the team in the process.

But luckily this doesn’t seem to be the way From Software seems to go.

From Software instead seems to be focusing on trying out many new crazy ideas while keeping the core team working on the next main project which might mean that I’m not that excited for a project or two, but also that they probably keep the talent in place so that I’ll eventually be very much looking forward to their next major release.

What's your ranking of how much you personally like each of nintendo's handheld consoles - up to you whether or not the switch(2) count as handhelds for this purpose.

Okay, so let’s start at the bottom.

My least favorite one is the original Game Boy.

Not that it did anything wrong, but back then the hardware was just so limited that you could really feel it in the game design.

Next would be the original DS.

That take is probably going to cost me half my patreons but I just never fell in love with the original DS.

The one after is the 3DS for a completely different reason.
So many of my all time favorite Nintendo games were actually released on that console but I just really dislike it nonetheless just because its joystick is placed so terrible that my hand starts to hurt like hell after an hour of playing.

The next one would be the Game Boy Advance.

It’s one of the handhelds I played a ton on as a kid and I just love the library of games on the console.

Shoutout to golden sun.

The next one would be the original Switch.

The Switch is hard to place in a list of handhelds because it is only half a handheld, but I really had a lot of fun playing indie games undocked with it.

Which already brings us to my favorite handheld of all time the original Game Boy colour.

There is just nothing that can beat the console that gave us pokemon gold and silver or the two adventure Zelda games.

As for the Switch 2.

Well, it’s a bit early to rank it already, but it is the best handheld I’ve ever owned so far.

There is just almost no difference between playing games in handheld-mode anymore - I really enjoy the generation so far.

I've seen a theory where each of the timelines created in OoT represent a manifestation of one of the Triforce powers. Courage from Link's victory timeline, Power from Ganon's victory, and Wisdom from when child Zelda and Link warn the King of Hyrule. It would be neat to explore that, either exploring why the later games fit into the worlds where each respective piece is dominant, or rewriting the timeline so that the games downstream make sense given the imbalance toward a certain Triforce piece.

Or... is SMB2 really a dream? Is SMB3 just a play? Is TTYD a play? Is anything real?!

So first, I can confirm that Mario Odyssey is real and that Mario 64 really took place as well.

But I can’t tell you my sources, you have to trust me on these.

As to the theory about the Zelda timelines.

I’m going to be honest here, I just have a hard time to take the Zelda timeline seriously.

Heck, even Nintendo seems to struggle to take it seriously, as they already contradicted it several times, so the Zelda timeline isn’t something I am planning to dive into soon.

How and ever, there is something that I absolutely want to explore at some point and that is loosely related and that is the actual themes of the Tri Force.

You know, in the Zelda universe the entire universe is based upon the powers of courage, strength and wisdom which is just a really interesting set of values to begin with.

I have a strong suspicion that all of this somehow originates out of some philosophic ideas and always wanted to dig further into it but never got around to it.

You know, there is a bit of the serenity prayer in it, it reminds me of a couple of thoughts of pre-socratese thinkers and there is probably something about these values in the eastern tradition as well.

You know, why wisdom, courage and power?

It’s something I want to dig into at some point in the future.

I have to ask you: Have you already taken a train through the new Koralmtunnel? As someone from Carinthia, I've been to Graz twice since December. If you have nothing to say about that, then I'd like to know for how long you think physical video games will still exist. And if you're in the mood for more question-reading-binge-watching-milk-drinking: Do you prefer watching a movie or watching a series? If you like series, I'd like to know your favorite movie, or vice versa if you like movies.

Okay, so the Koralmtunnel.

So for people who aren’t up to date with Austrian infrastructure developments.

This here is Graz.

This here is Klagenfurt.

And this here is the Koralm.

The thing is the following: Graz and Klagenfurt are the two capital cities of their regional provinces.

And even though the cities are incredibly close to each other, we never managed to establish a good train route between them because … well, because of the dumb Koralm.
There is just this terrible mountain in between the two cities that is a nightmare to build rails on.

Because of this, people that wanted to travel between the two cities by train had to actually first travel north to the wonderful city of Bruck an der Mur and then painfully travel back again.

Which took roughly 3 hours.

Until December of last year because then the Koralmtunnel was finally finished.

So the Koralmtunnel is actually the sixth longest train tunnel in the world, we started building the whole thing back in 2009, digging through the dumb Koralm cost us roughly 6 billion dollars and after over a decade of digging the tunnel is finally finished, cutting down the travel time between the two cities to only 41 minutes.

And I love the tunnel.

The thing is, my wife is from east-tirol which is here, meaning that the travel time to visit my wife’s parents has been cut down from over five hours to two hours and a half since december which, yeah … that’s really a significant improvement to my life.

Good tunnel.

Second, how long do I think physical games media will exist?

Huh, that’s actually a really good question, and the answer is I don’t really know.

The thing is that there are two forces pulling into opposite directions at the same time.

On the one hand publishers really want to get rid of physical media because they just make more money off of digital game sales while at the same time publishers really want to sell fancy physical 200$ exclusive editions of games but can’t if consoles no longer feature hard drives.

My best guess is that physical games media will probably survive the next console generation but it’s impossible to say what will happen after.

As to whether I enjoy watching shows or movies more.

I’m a show person.

But to be honest I’m mainly a games person.

I watch so few shows a year and even less movies that I honestly struggle to name my favorite film if only for the fact that I don’t even know when I last saw one.

So let’s go with the first Lord of the Rings movie, because I can recall I really enjoyed that one when it came out.

So first: Austria is hosting the ESC this year. Who do you think will win this year? Which artist is your personal favourite this year? What is your favourite ESC song ever?

Second question: did you have the chance to play claire obscure yet? And if yes, what are your thoughts on the game and its themes?

Third: I personally love survival games. What is your take on the genre? If you like them, what are your most liked survival games?

So first survival games.

I actually love survival games - I play a ton of them.

They are my go to genre for playing with other people and having a good valheim server going or playing a great modded minecraft pack with some friends is just a gaming experience that no other genre can provide.

My favorites are Valheim, Minecraft and occasionally Conan Exiles.

As for Claire Obscure.

I finally played it and I really loved it.

It fell a bit apart for me close to the ending but overall the game is astonishing and one of the best things I’ve played in a while.

As for the games themes, may the fuzzies be with us, answering that in detail is beyond the scope of this little video.

What I can say however, is that I really appreciated the game's cohesion when it comes to its original idea and every element of it.

So clare obscure literally means light and shadow and it is the french word for the artstyle better known as Chiaroscuro.

Which is all about strong contrast.

And the game just takes this idea of light and shadow and contrasts and runs with it.

It’s in the art design, it’s in the music, it’s in the setting, it’s in the story - heck even the two endings are either shadow and light or light and shadow.

It’s unbelievably cohesive, something that I really enjoyed about the game's themes.

Which finally brings us to the Eurovision Song Contest.

So first, I am actually a huge Eurovision fan.

The entire thing is just so silly, and so all over the place and so ridiculous in a really wonderful and positive way - I just love it.

Eurovision actually tends to roughly fall around my birthday and I’ve actually celebrated my birthday as a big eurovision party with friends for over a decade now.

So who will win? Well, I’m with the bookmakers, Finland will win this year and I already very much look forward to them hosting next year.

As to my favorite entry this year, well … I can’t really tell you my personal favorite song of this year, because my favorite failed to qualify in the first place.

Rest in peace Wavyboy, the German public did you dirty, but I also very much enjoy the UK’s song.

As for my favorite Eurovision song of all time.

Well, there is a correct answer to this question and a true one.

The correct answer is obviously Conchita Wurst with rise like a phoenix but the true answer is Romania 2022 with Llámame.

How did you first discover the majesty and joy of Fuzzies? I first discovered the beauty and wonder of Yoshis while I was watching my brother play Super Mario World on the Wii Virtual Console; my recognition of the most amazing creature I have ever seen was immediate the first time I saw Mario riding one. Did you have a similar experience, or did you come to admire Fuzzies more gradually?

I am also interested to hear any onions you are willing to share regarding AI and its use in games, art, writing, etc. Some people seem to feel very strongly about this; do you have strong onions, not-as-strong ones, or have you not decided yet?

So, first how I discovered Fuzzies.

I don’t think there is an answer to this question because I really don’t think that it was me who discovered fuzzies.

It was the Fuzzies who discovered me.

But what I can say is that from a young age onward I always felt that something was missing in Mario 64, but it was only after the fuzzies found me that I was able to name what I had felt was missing in Mario 64 my whole life.

As to AI in art.

That’s a difficult question.

So the recent developments in AI in general have me excited, they have me worried and they make me angry at the same time.

Okay, so why has AI me excited?

Well, because the tech is obviously very powerful for certain use cases, and while AI might currently often be used for tasks it is not suited for, I think it is already becoming clear that it will vastly improve a lot of our tools and will probably make things possible in games that were unimaginable before.

And I don’t mean having it generate terrible fetch quests.

I mean that it will probably make genres possible that we haven’t even seen before, so at least in my opinion there’s reason to be excited for what will be possible soon.

How and ever, it also has me worried, because as most people probably know by now there are also real dangers to society because of AI.

There is the fact that AI is trained by stealing pretty much all the content in the web, there is the threat of a dead internet in which AI starts to build upon AI, there is the very real danger that many people are going to lose their jobs, there is a ton of AI use currently for use cases it is just not made for, it’s flooding everything with soulless slop everywhere, there is the question of who defines the underlying values of AI - you know, engineers in Silicon Valley may have a very different views on ethics than a democratic public has, there is gigantic danger of mass surveillance which is especially worrying because there is a rise of authoritarian tendencies all over the world and I can honestly go on for a while.

There is just a lot to worry about AI which brings us to the question why AI makes me angry.

Well, because our governments seem to completely fail to guide the emerging technology into paths that ensure we gain the maximal benefit of the technology with minimal risk.

There is a danger and an opportunity here and at least in my opinion it would be the job of our governments to minimise the further and maximize the latter but I don’t see that happening anywhere.

It looks like we first have to suffer through a lot of pain and only then will regulate the thing that we already can see will cause us a lot of pain if we don’t regulate it.

Which, you know, makes me angry.

What music do you like to listen to and who is your favourite artist or band? Secondly have you ever played Fire Emblem and if yes did you like it and what is your opinion on strategy games in general.

Love your videos, greetings from Vienna!

So first Fire Emblem.

I actually never played a Fire Emblem game, which, now that I think about it, is a bit weird because I usually love strategy games.

I mentioned before how much I love Into the Breach for example so Fire Emblem should actually be right around my alley.

I probably should give the games a shot, I guess I always was a bit intimidated that they seem to be so story heavy!

As for music.

I actually listen to a ton of music.

So much that it is honestly hard to name a favorite so let’s name a few.

I actually got socialized a lot with Austrian music, so there is usually always a song by Nino or Voodoo Jürgens in my playlist.

I love Clara Luzia or Soap and Skin to name a couple of other Austrian artists that I usually have running on repeat and I certainly won’t forget the first time I randomly heard Wanda’s Bolognia randomly on the local radio while driving home groceries.

Don’t look up the lyrics for that song.

I’ve also listened to a ton of older songs recently.

I really discovered Simon and Garfunkel as well as Bowie for me the past year and both have been running on repeat.

But if I had to settle for an all time favorite band I’d probably go with a contemporary Canadian one and say it’s Arcade Fire.

Train F leaves Fuzzy station chugging at 75km/hr southeast. At Hammer Bro station, train H leaves at exactly the same time chugging at 95km/hr, heading northwest. Both trains are headed for the other one's station. Fuzzy station is at coordinates 37 52, and Hammer Bro station at 65 12. This obviously means that they are 215km apart, but I'm sure you already knew that.

Anyways, train F is taking a straight shot to Hammer Bro station, but it'll need to stop for its 30-minute union-regulated lunch break before it gets there. Train H already ate, but it can't also take a straight shot to Fuzzy station, can it? That would put both trains hurdling towards each other on the same track, resulting in an awful explosion! So it needs to take the long way around, adding an extra 45km.

Which train reaches its destination first? Bonus points if you figure out what train F ate for lunch.

Excellent question!

So let’s see.

Train H has to cover a total of 250km at a pace of 95km/h.

Train F only has to cover 215km at a speed of 75km/h, which means that before considering the lunch break train H would reach the station after roughly 2.6 hours while it would take train F roughly 2.8 hours to reach the station.

Which means that even if train F would not stop for half an hour train H would still reach Fuzzy station before train F reaches Hammers Bros station.

So it doesn’t even matter that the brave coal shovelling toads in train F had ice spaghetti for lunch.

Have you considered some other form of long-term preservation for your own videos that circumvents the explosive Youtube ecosystem, such as selling dvd volumes of your mario maker videos or, avoiding the headaches of manufacturing, uploading your magnificent videos to some other site which could allow the downloading of an mp4 file for a small fee? And if you haven't, are you willing to consider such a plan? 

Uhm, yeah that’s something I’ve been thinking about but it’s sadly a bit more complicated than it first appears.

The big problem is that I just can’t sell DVD’s or VHS tapes with my videos on it because I don’t fully own the rights to everything in my videos.

You know, I just can’t sell a video about Majora’s Mask or an Odyssey challenge run as physical media because I just don’t own the rights to Majora’s Mask or Mario Odyssey.

So chances are no one cares and I’ll be fine, but at least for me that is slowly crossing the territory into an area in which I stop sleeping well at night.

So selling my videos physically is something I’d love to do but something I’m currently not considering because I’m a bit worried it will awaken one of the sleeping dragon lawyers in Nintendo’s basement.

However I’ve been thinking about making all my videos accessible to download here on Patreon actually.

Something I wanted to look into for ages but never got around to.

It is something I certainly have planned but I don’t have a straight timeline on when it will happen.

I recently became a dual-national Austrian citizen, so I wondered if you could answer some questions about the country

- What are your thoughts on national service in Austria. Do you like it or think it's archaic?

- What's your favorite Austrian food, and especially desert. Do you like the sachertorte or think it's something that only tourists eat?

- What's the general consensus on different political parties in Austria? As in, which ones are especially corrupt and incompetent? Are there any other nuances you'd want to share with someone who knows basically nothing apart from their general position on the political spectrum?

First congratulations on becoming an Austrian citizen!

Second: Austrians national or compulsory military service.

So the way Austria's military works is that every boy at the age of 18 has to serve six months in the military during which time you get basic military training at first and then help with simple military tasks afterwards.

If you do not want to do that, there is the option to do civil service instead, which means that you have to work for 9 months in a social institution of your choice.

If you also do not want to do that they put you in jail.

The reason this system exists is because we only have a very small standing army.

If there were a war, the military would be recruited by all men that previously got the military training when they were 18.

This system probably sounds insane to people living in a country with a private army so it might surprise you to hear that we actually took a vote on whether we want to abolish this system back in 2013 and the public voted to keep it.

So back in 2013 I actually voted in favor of abolishing it, but since then I actually changed my view because of a simple but very crucial benefit that such a system has.

A military that is almost exclusively recruited directly from its citizens has the huge benefit that the military can’t become a separate center of power in society.

Which doesn’t matter most of the time but if it ever happens to matter it is incredibly critical. 

I think it makes sense for a democratic society to somewhat democratize military power.

That being said, I personally tend to clash with authorities and therefore came to the conclusion the military might not be the best place for me.

Because of this I did 9 months of civil service - I was working with drug addicts - and honestly learned a lot during that time.

It wasn’t always easy but it’s an experience I wouldn’t want to miss.

As for Sachertorte.

It’s a real thing and it’s delicious - it’s actually my favorite cake.

Which brings us to the question of my opinion on Austrians political parties.

Huh, how do I answer this without setting myself on fire.

Let’s put it this way.

The FPÖ is probably the party that Elon Musk would vote for and the former ÖVP chancellor Sebastian Kurz is now working for Peter Thiel.

So assuming you are a transhumanistic billionaire you probably want to look into these parties first!

Which playable Mario characters do you genuinely think you could beat at checkers?

I certainly could handle Rosalina, Mario, Luigi and Peach.

Toad is a tough little mushroom but I probably could pull it off.

However, no way I ever beat Nabbit or Yoshi … these guys are just invincible.

What is the most cleverest thing you could write a video about that has nothing to do with Mario?

I could, and as a matter of fact I probably should, write an six hour long essay about the influence of the Eurovision song contest on world politics.

Do you have any favourite films?

You briefly mention Austrian films in your new video, and as a film university student, I'm curious: What are some the best Austrian films in your humble onion?

You've made me curious so: what is your honest take on The sound of music?

Have you ever played No Man's Sky? 

What is your opinion of pokopia?

And most importantly, because it was asked last time: What colour is your toothbrush now?

Alright.

So my toothbrush is dental-gray.

I bought Pokopia at launch and played it for twelve hours or so and I think it’s pretty good.

I’m usually not that much into life sim games and because of that I stopped playing it pretty soon, but the game is undeniably well done!

Which brings us to No Man’s Sky.

Yes!

I actually played the game.

On release day and I hated it!

It was actually the first time I ever returned a game because the game was in such a terrible state at launch.

So the internet tells me that since then the game actually made a surprising U turn and is totally worth it now, but I haven’t bought it again so far.

What’s your take on it lovely Patreons, is the game worth it nowadays?

Which brings us to the sound of music.

So the sound of music is kinda funny because barely anyone in Austria ever saw the movie.

I certainly never saw it - I couldn’t tell you the plot if I had to.

The sound of music is pretty much a reverse sachatorte.

It’s a thing only tourists know about.

As for Austrian movies … we actually have a pretty long tradition of really dark comedy movies that I personally really enjoy.

A good place to start would be any of the Wolf Haas movies starring Josef Hader, like Komm Süßer Tod.

If you really want a culture shock you could also just watch 1993’s Indien by Hader in original voice with captions - I have no idea if this movie is enjoyable for a foreigner but I can assure you it is pretty good.

Honestly, anything related to my favourite puffball Kirby. Be it about the games, how the gameplay has changed between generations of games, a deep dive into the lore and if Dedede is really a villain or not, why Sakurai decided to create Kirby Air Riders as his magnum opus instead of another 3d forgotten land game. And, of course, why is Kirby lore-accurate the strongest character in the whole smash roster.

Something else I wondered: how often have you been to Asia? Any plans in the near future? 

Oh dear, the dreaded Kirby question.

Guys, I have to confess something and you have to promise me you aren’t mad.

Promise.

I’m waiting.

Excellent.

I haven’t played a Kirby game in a decade.

I haven't even played Kirby and the Forgotten Land even though everyone including my mom keeps telling me that it’s fantastic.

I, I just am not sure if I am competent to answer any questions about Kirby.

Even worse I’ve never been to Asia either.

I actually really would like to visit japan one day but this hasn’t happened so far.

Even worser, this is the final q&a question.

We can’t end this q&a with a question that I barely answer can we?

That would be depressing.

And we aren’t in the business of depressing Patreons.

We are in the business of keeping Patreon people happy.

Luckily for us there is one final saving straw.

The question of why Kirby is lore-accurately the strongest smash character.

This one I can answer.

Are you ready?

It is because he eats all the other fighters for breakfast.

<pacebreak>

Thank you so much for all your wonderful questions everyone I honestly had a ton of fun answering all of these!

I hope I didn’t miss anything!

Finally, as always a huge thank you for your wonderful support!
You wonderful people are wonderful and I can’t thank you enough!

See you next time, lot’s of hugs!

Patreon Q&A. (YouTube)