Author: Link-NM

Link-NM is the administrator of N Masters, Makendo Central, and aspiring indie game developer at NovaFan Games. His favorite game franchises include Mega Man X, The Legend of Zelda, and Mario Kart.

Update on the work that has been done

Yeah, it’s been a while since I post another project log in here. But if you’ve been following me outside of the blog, like at the N Masters social channels or Makendo Central, you must have noticed lots of activity that has been going on recently. So here’s a quick summary of all of that.

On N Masters, the YouTube channel has been quite active overall. There’s been new videos, posts, and shorts. I finally got around covering the whole Booster Course Pass DLC for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, since I had been delaying that since last year, I admit. Of course, there’s still more content being prepared such as resuming Story Mode in Splatoon 3, some more PSO2 stuff, and more from other games. (And yes, that Noroshi video was more of a joke video that I wanted to make since that’s really all the scenes where Noroshi appears at the moment and it’s been a joke in the community)

What’s been lacking and what I really want to start focusing more on N Masters is written articles. The site’s actual content hasn’t been updated in a while and I do really want to fix that. Like I said in the last post, the plan at the moment would be doing more PSO2 guides since people frequently look for those.

On Makendo Central, it took me a while but I finally published the old videos that were available in the YouTube channel. If you’re wondering why it took a bit of time to just simply make them public, it’s because I was struggling finding a design for the thumbnails, one that satisfied me and looked different than N Masters style. At the end, what you see there is what I came up with. It’s different enough but still shares the same ideas. Additionally, I did get a bit more ready for the anniversaries of Makeruna! Makendo 2 and Makeruna! Makendo Z and published completely new videos related to each on the specific dates.

Next to do for Makendo Central would be resuming the work on the site and hopefully make it go live. But that’s currently on hold as I want to focus on finishing material for N Masters first.

Besides this, there’s NovaFan Games still under work. This is the game development side and it’ll be part of what I do at the same time as working with both N Masters and Makendo Central. Not much to say about the main project at the moment but 1 or 2 small projects may show up before.

A quick reminder, I would really super appreciate it if you could support me as I’m still working on paying my computer. My Ko-fi page is linked on the sidebar or by clicking here. And again, super thanks. It would really help me a lot to be able to keep focusing on this work without worrying on money issues.

PS. One of these days I’ll do the About section of this blog, I promise. 😅

Let’s talk about 2023

Let’s talk about plans for 2023… Also, happy 30th Anniversay, Makeruna Makendo!

First of all, happy anniversary, Makeruna Makendo! Yep, today is the 30th anniversary of Makeruna! Makendo. I admit, I didn’t check this data until yesterday. So a big apology to anyone who was hoping I would do something special for the franchise’s birthday. But hopefully I’ll get Makendo Central up and running soon. Since I’m already touching the topic of Makendo Central, though, let’s focus on that first.

Obviously, like previously stated, one of my plans for this year will be finally getting Makendo Central up. As you saw in the previous update log, a lot of work has been done for this. All the social network stuff is pretty much ready and only a few final touches are left to do. So hopefully the site is ready soon, at least within the next 2 weeks.

On N Masters, the plan is to have more written content more frequently. This definitely includes reviews and guides. Guides may be grouped together with videos. Also, considering PSO2 guides have been frequently sought for, that’s something I may focus on for the next weeks.

As you may have noticed, the N Masters Twitch streams have moved to its own channel. They will no longer be hosted on my personal channel. Instead, they are now on NMasters_ch. I did this move so viewers aren’t forced to watch ads anymore. It also lets me do multistreams on Twitch and YouTube, or just immediately publish videos from Twitch on other services since this new channel is not an affiliate.

Finally, let’s talk about the other big project. The part about game development. NovaFan Games’s website will a lot of updating first of all. It’s pretty old and I’ve just done basic maintenance on it in the whole last year. But I really want to start doing more art and game development in the next days. I want to start talking more about Project Never Stop Dreaming, actually reveal its proper title, present characters and basic story, and more. Share art about it too, for example. So yeah, now that I have a proper computer, it is something that I really want to start working on more. It is something I am really looking forward to share with everyone.

As for this blog, the plans for it remain the same. Maybe also finishing up some sections, like that About area that I’ve never touched since launch. 😅

By the way, I still need help to finish paying the new computer I’m using before I can comfortably use donations to further improve any of the sites or projects. My Ko-fi page is still available by clicking on this link or clicking on the button on the side bar if you would like to support me.

PSO2 Screenshot from New Year 2023
Towards a year full of new adventures!

Makendo Central community server now open!

The progress with Makendo Central continues. After a few days of working behind the scenes, you can now see part of the results in two areas.

First of all, Makendo Central now has a new logo. You can see it in the shiny new banner that all social network accounts for Makendo Central received.

Screenshot of Makendo Central's YouTube channel with the new logo and banner.
YouTube channel with the new banner and logo.

And now for the big announcement of this post: Makendo Central community server for discussions is now open! Hosted on the Guilded platform, the Makendo Central lets Makeruna! Makendo fans from around the world join together in chat conversations, focused discussions, streams, voice chat, and even submit your own fan art.

Some people will be wondering: “Why Guilded instead of the old Discord?” Well, I pretty much said some of the advantages Guilded offers over Discord and all for free. But my detailed answer about it will be shared in a later blog post. For now, I will just say that I highly recommend it over Discord and you won’t regret it.

Anyway, as you can see there’s been quite a lot of work behind the scenes with Makendo Central. And of course it’s not over yet as the main website is still being worked on. But right now, feel free and I welcome you to join the community server by clicking on the button below.

WIP on Makendo Central

During the last few days, updates to N Masters or my streams on Twitch have slowed down a bit. That’s because I’ve been working on Makendo Central stuff and want to get it launched soon.

First of all, the YouTube channel and Facebook page have been updated. Most people didn’t know about the YouTube channel but you can find it here. Facebook page was the only one that was really public so if you were following it, you may have noticed it’s been touched up a bit including a new avatar.

Additionally, new Twitter and Twitch accounts have been made. The Twitter will be used to share updates similar to the Facebook page. I don’t know when or how the Twitch channel may be used but it’s also available and you can follow it.

There’s other things that I am working on that I can’t share yet since they are more tied directly with the site’s relaunch. For now, you can still visit the current Makendo Central by clicking here which still includes all the previous content and now also includes a link to all the places where you can keep up to date on updates and that I just shared in this post.

Update: Someone got me a new computer

And I’m back online now. Well, with an actual computer to work with, I mean.

What happened was that someone offered to use his credit card to get me a new computer as soon as possible. At the same time, it means I agreed to make the monthly payments to pay for it. So this means I’m now back on a computer and able to work even better than before. But it also means I really would appreciate and need any kind of tips or donation to be able to pay off the computer as soon as possible. The overall final goal is the same one stated on my Ko-fi page. At least, I need around 125 USD per month. If it’s more, I would also be very helpful as I also need help with other kind of things like bills or food.

To sum it up, N Masters, Makendo Central, and game development stuff are coming back and even better than before. More info available on N Master’s Guilded server.

Quick update: Computer is dead

Posting this from my phone. Just a quick update related to what’s been going on. Unfortunately, my laptop does not work anymore. Fan and monitor have stopped working now, fan being the problem that didn’t even let me use it for more than 5 minutes. Much less record or stream something.

What this means is that there’ll be no updates to N Masters, Makendo Central, and game development updates for now. At most I may stream from Xbox.

I made a Ko-fi page

Like the title says, I decided to make a Ko-fi page so anyone can support my projects. I felt it was the better option than depending on something like Streamlabs donation page like before or Streamelements which never got any donation. Those two were really stream related and connected to my Twitch channel only. And that’s not the only thing I do.

So on my Ko-fi page, you’ll see it linked under my name because it covers all the stuff I work on. Things like N Masters, Makendo Central, and game development stuff. Maybe even about things I write only for my personal blog, such as software reviews or guides. I already added a button on this site on the right sidebar and it’s linked on my Twitch and YouTube account. It’ll soon be added on the other sites as well.

If you would like to follow it and support me, you can check it out at the following link:

https://ko-fi.com/linknm

A reminder and an update

First of all, just a quick reminder that most if not all of my gaming related articles will now be published over at N Masters. Here’s the link to the latest one where I go in depth over the differences between GBA Sky Garden in the original game and the new versions in Mario Kart Tour and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass DLC.

And second, I think I’m pretty sure now of what I talked about earlier. I’ll be moving Makendo Central to a WordPress instance when I get back working on it. Also, I disabled its gallery since the gallery software was all broken after all the updates we had on our server. It will all be back once the new Makendo Central is up. I don’t think I can even update the current homepage to remove the link but I’ll see what I can do.

Maybe WordPress for Makendo Central after all?

After the successful relaunch of N Masters website and how easy it has been to manage it, I’m considering to simply change Makendo Central to a WordPress instance too. There’s also the benefit that it’s able to update automatically by itself and I’m already getting used to managing WordPress sites. Also, saves time by not having to code everything from scratch.

Anyway, just a thought I had and am considering.