The announcement of the Elden Ring expansion Shadow of the Erdtree was widely praised, but for JPNB, a teacher who had vowed to fight Elden Ring's giant boss Malenia, Blade of Miquella, over and over again until such an announcement had a special meaning.

"I was listening to an audiobook on my way to work and a friend called me on Discord." I felt a huge sigh of relief wash over me, but it was also bittersweet because I had been doing this for so long."

Fans of FromSoft are enthusiastic devotees (open in new tab). The game's mechanics-rich, challenging battles and enigmatic, open-ended storyline are enough to evoke a certain obsession and drive one to endless lore depths, data mining, and unreasonable boss challenges. The Elden Ring Daily Update (opens in new tab) was one of the fan rituals that foreshadowed JPNB's output: a YouTube series with a new video uploaded daily during the long silence following Elden Ring's E3 2019 initial release." No news about Elden Ring today," was the stream of most videos, which turned into a steady stream of actual updates as the game's release approached, with a surge of runtimes responding to breaking news.

One of JPNB's own ideas for the Elden Ring trials was to play "the student who always cuts corners and puts in minimal effort, but somehow always scores high," JPNB speculated, "probably a Rivers of Blood user." This is a reference to the game's edgier, blood-themed katana, which was once quite powerful. Indeed, JPNB's first build in May 2022, an "Ultra Instinct Melina" themed build, speaks to the former glory of the unsanitary samurai sword.

What made JPNB's success stand out was the diversity of its builds. Each fight against Marenia introduced an entirely new character style. This was thanks to the fact that the save file from before the fight was saved, making it easy to respec to the defeated boss, Lennara. I'm a fan of his Day 61 build, which features an early character wielding Rivers of Blood and wearing a set ensemble of snazzy Iron Kasa, Fingerprint Armor, and Twinned, but this pure caster from Day 59 (in a new tab opens in a new tab), as well as cosplaying lore characters such as St. Trina (opens in a new tab), the blind swordsman of Malenia (opens in a new tab) teacher, and Morgott (opens in a new tab).

"I have a spreadsheet full of builds that were planned but never finished," JPNB told me about plans for future videos he never had to draw.

"I was going to do a build of Sister Friede from Dark Souls 3 and a summoner build where the summoner just hides in the corner while the summoner beat the crap out of Marenia."

Due to JPNB's commitment to variety and many more pressing real-life priorities, the initially daily challenge morphed into weekly. JPNB wrote: "I am slowly losing my personal time to my daughter." 'It takes at least an hour or two of gaming sessions to take on Marenia and other tough bosses with no damage. Besides, his day job is training and tutoring the next generation.

Still, JPNB is grateful for the experience: "Doing this series was actually therapeutic because I kept asking myself if I could be a good father.

While JPNB will miss the weekly creative confrontations with the difficult bosses of the "Souls" series, it is good to see things come to an end after they have served their purpose, for JPNB has children to teach and children to raise.

But there's another person hammering away at similar bits/rituals (it's always hard to tell which is which), YouTuber lellollo (opens in new tab), who is hammering away at the end boss of "Dark Souls 3," Slave Knight Toad, on a daily basis. As long as From Software's announcements and releases are on hold, it looks like someone is going to do something a little quirky to mark the passage of time.