The 'Shroom:Issue 161/Staff Notes
Hello, all of you readers of The 'Shroom, and welcome to the August edition of our paper! This isn't a special issue - on the contrary, it's a bit of a small one, actually - but this issue does come at a very special time. Yesterday, we held our annual Awards Ceremony! If you missed it or just haven't had a chance to read it, please go and check out the festivities. All three ceremonies were packed with presentations overflowing with creativity and the spirit of this community, so take a look at the Community Awards XIII, Fail Awards XII, and the Mario Awards XIV.
I want to personally thank all of you, on behalf of The 'Shroom and all of its writers, for all of the support you expressed, through your votes and presentations, for our little project here and all the writers, artists, and staff members who contribute to it. It means a great deal that you care enough to give some attention to The 'Shroom at the Awards, and we'll continue to deliver on that level of quality that you've come to expect. Thanks for your continued support, and, to echo Anton, I want to remind you all to reach out to our writers. If you like what they do, tell them! Ask them about their sections!
Now, given that everyone gave their all to make the Awards as spectacular as possible, you might not be surprised to find out that this is a bit of a smaller issue. Don't get discouraged, though, because we still have plenty of content for you this month, and it's all worth a read. For the rest of the year, we have a few final big projects we'll be undertaking, so please do look forward to what we have lined up next as we bring 2020 to a close in the next few months. On that note, this is normally where I'd turn things over to Roserade to allow him to cover announcements of a few of our upcoming plans, but...
Well, my wonderful partner and Sub-Director went on vacation this month (despite leaving us with some stunning presentations). Don't worry, though! I've found someone more than capable of filling his chair this month. With that said, allow me to turn it over to Ninja Squid!
(Also your humble Anagrams writer, BBQ Turtle (talk) drew fantastic art of me and a whole host of other community members visiting the different Kingdoms of Super Mario Odyssey and I want to highlight it and thank her so much for this wonderful drawing. Please go check out the full piece!)
—Hooded Pitohui, Director
Roserade was ninja'd!
Hello, 'Shroom readers! You didn't expect to see me here, did you? Well, as Pitohui mentioned above, Roserade, your wonderful Sub-Director, is on vacation, so I was tasked to keep his chair as fresh as possible for the time being. I must tell you that Rose was right. The scenery from the Sub-Director's office is amazing, and there's also so many buttons on this desktop that are tempting to touch, but I'll refrain from doing so, this time.
Enough nonsense for now. Instead, let me talk to you about the most relevant information. The Awards Ceremony held yesterday was incredible. Great job from our dear community members on their presentations regarding the results of the Mario, Fail, and Community Awards, so I hope you take a look at it. You know, thinking about it, it's amazing what we could have done in that short amount of time, isn't it? Just look at me, I was able to produce a game, participate in the Super 'Shroom Scuffle, where I got hit by some strange magical shapes thrown at me by a certain someone from the sky, and to visit Shiveria in the Snow Kingdom. The creativity and imagination of the members of this community is really fun to see at work, and it certainly shows, thanks to the Award presentations.
Now, regarding news from future events. The 'Shroom Staff is pleased to announce that 'Shroomfest will be held on a quarterly basis from now on, and our next one will be held in September! Our trial run was a success, and we are now hard at work to ensure the quality of this event and we will continually refine the concept so that it continues to be a fun event for our participants. So, get ready to take part in future debates that we are preparing! If you got any ideas for future themes, you can let us know, by sending a message to Hooded Pitohui (talk), Roserade (talk) or myself.
Also, next month, there will be the usual Awards Analysis done by our wonderful Poll Committee, which as its name suggests, analyzes the results from the Mario, Fail, and Community Awards. This is a big project for the Poll Committee, so we hope you are as excited as we are to see the end result of this project.
That's pretty much all I had to cover here. Now, expect Rose to return next month in his rightful position. In the meantime, enjoy another issue packed with sections from our wonderful writers. See you around! :)
—Ninja Squid, Statistics Manager
Staff Section of the Month for July 2020
| STAFF-VOTED SECTION OF THE MONTH | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Place | Section | Writer | Reasoning | |
| 1st | Agency in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild | Lakituthequick (talk) | Just because it's shorter, doesn't mean that it's not a good review. That's something LTQ affirms with his section here. You can read in plenty of places people commenting on the design principles of this iconic Switch game, discussing things like how the landscape was made so there's always something to draw the player's attention to the distance and make them want to explore. It's a worthwhile read, to be sure. | |
| 1st | Anton's Half-Baked Reviews | Hypnotoad (talk) | This isn't the first time that Anton has recounted his experiences visiting a large city through this section, and this review of Paris is just as well-written as his NYC review. It'd be easy to list off everything done well in this section, but, then it's easy every month. So, instead, we want to highlight not just the small scale organization of the section into easy-to-digest bits about the individual stores, but the overall organization of the section. Oftentimes, the hardest choice when covering a broad topic is what to focus in on, but it's immediately clear what Anton wants to talk about this month, and he never strays from the topic of Parisian food shopping. He keeps it tightly focused, and, at the end, he offers a quick bullet point summary of the most salient points for readers to use as a quick reference. | |
| 3rd | Drawn and Pressed | winstein (talk) | It's obvious a lot of hard work and thought go into these, but what makes it stand out is the passion for it. We like to see what goes into these comics and winstein did a great job covering it. | |
| 4th | Interview | Ninja Squid (talk) | Ninja Squid did a good job with Interviews, even if it's just back for one section. The discussion between him and Superchao was a very interesting read. Also, good on NS to interview Perch after all the interviews the latter did before quitting. | |
| 5th | Picross | Goombuigi (talk) | There's not much we can say other than to note that this are well-crafted Picross puzzles, fun to play, and with a neat theme. The addition of color puzzles was a very fun touch! It fit the theme, too, considering the original Dr. Mario had both the color variant on the NES and the black-and-white variant on the Game Boy. It's good to recognise Goombuigi's effort into making nice colourful Picross puzzles. | |
| The 'Shroom: Issue 161 | |
|---|---|
| Staff sections | Staff Notes • The 'Shroom Spotlight |
| Features | Fake News • Fun Stuff • Palette Swap • Pipe Plaza • Critic Corner • Strategy Wing |
