Been thinking of putting together some LP videos...

[Syt]

I may or may not start an LP of Shadowrun Returns and may or may not continue with others of my literally (literally literally, not figuratively) hundreds of games I bought and never or only barely played (Last Federation and Shadowrun: Dragonfall are also high on that list).

[Syt]

Well, the first 4 episodes of me playing Shadowrun Returns are up:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLG-_riSmIPlrBBU_Kab9nFvZZrZOaTaWC

Feel free to mock my voice/accent/mumbling/tripping over words/sound quality/boringness.

[Ancient Demon]

I hate that so much stuff these days is communicated with videos. I would much rather enjoy reading a guide to tanking, for example, than seeing a youtube film.

OK grandpa. 

[Habbaku]

Feel free to mock my voice/accent/mumbling/tripping over words/sound quality/boringness.

How long have you been speaking English, Syt?  You basically hit my usual stereotype of "Germans speak better English than most Americans."

[Syt]

Started in school in '86, I think, but I kept seeking it out (movies, books, games ...). And working for US/Canada based companies for the past 10 years surely helped, too.

[Syt]

But recording these has been fun, and I would have done more, but I'm still recovering from a cold a little bit, so by the forth video I had to mute the mic a few times because I had to cough so bad.

Funny thing is once I'd overcome the shyness of talking to myself while playing it seemed pretty natural. When playing, my mind is doing commentary, anyways, so it's just a matter of saying it out loud. Actually, it might help keep me focused and make me finish some games, because when just playing in silence my mind tends to wander off, and I end up doing something different.

Looking at the videos it doesn't feel as weird as I expected - my voice sounds different enough to what it sounds like in my head, so it feels like it's not really me talking there.

Observations: I need a better microphone (I see the Blue Snowball gets good reviews and seems like a good cheap newbie mic that's able to get rid of some of the ambient noise). I need to talk slower, especially when reading text. I need to talk more to the viewer instead of to myself. And I need to sound a bit livelier (then again Gopher does just fine with his calm British voice).

[Ancient Demon]

You have a sexy voice Syt. Also, now I kind of want to buy Shadowrun Returns.

[Syt]

Why, thank you.

[Syt]

New mic has arrived and I tested it a bit this morning (the delivery guy came at 7:15am WTF?). It sounds better than my headset mic, and it's directional, so will pick up a bit less background noise.

It has an option to reduce background noise, but it means I have to get really close to the mic to still be heard, which I can't do at my desk unless I get an arm to attach it to (there's one for under 50 bucks that looks good, but I'm not sure how crowded it will make my desk), or get a slightly higher stand (4 inches or so).

I'm also looking at starting a "5 Buck Indie" series for indie games that cost 5 EUR or less. I'm aiming at releasing two videos per day, one "Syt happens to play" for bigger titles and one "5 Buck Indie" one, with most of them to be recorded on the weekends.

[DontSayBanana]

New mic has arrived and I tested it a bit this morning (the delivery guy came at 7:15am WTF?). It sounds better than my headset mic, and it's directional, so will pick up a bit less background noise.

It has an option to reduce background noise, but it means I have to get really close to the mic to still be heard, which I can't do at my desk unless I get an arm to attach it to (there's one for under 50 bucks that looks good, but I'm not sure how crowded it will make my desk), or get a slightly higher stand (4 inches or so).

I'm also looking at starting a "5 Buck Indie" series for indie games that cost 5 EUR or less. I'm aiming at releasing two videos per day, one "Syt happens to play" for bigger titles and one "5 Buck Indie" one, with most of them to be recorded on the weekends.

10-14 videos a week seems like a pretty hectic release schedule.  I understand you're probably recording the "Syt Happens to Play..." as single long sessions and cutting them down for time, but you're going to either run out of steam (please excuse the pun) or run out of source material for the "5 Buck Indie" if you go at it that aggressively.

Incidentally, sorry for not having checked back in this thread until today.  Just started watching from the beginning and seems like you've got a pretty good commentary flow going.

[Syt]

Thanks, DSB, I hear you on the release schedule. I do reserve the right to change it.

The 5 Buck Indie thing will also be full Let's Plays, so I do one session Game A, another session Game B. Depending on the length of the Indie titles it might be 5 to 6 per month; and with the rate they're releasing at on Steam I'm not worried). So far it's not cutting into my free time (it's not like a lead a rich and hectic social life ). E.g. this week I've spent about an hour per evening recording and then another half hour or so uploading while doing other things on the side.

I have to say that Shadowrun is a bit of a slog. The linearity of the game or the loads of written dialogue don't put me off. There's an extreme lack of player agency, though; it almost feels like a visual novel where you click yourself through long dialogues and then move on to more dialogue, with the occasional option to do either a or b, which only has cosmetic effects.

Combat is rare (this coming from someone who found there was too much of it in Dragon Age Oranges Origins), and interactions with the environment are very rare.

It makes for a pretty lame let's play. However, one of the reasons I've started doing these videos is to get through a backlog of games I have in my libraries (over 400 in Steam and GoG) that I barely touched or never finished, so I want to stick this out.

I have, however, no intention to go to lengths like ManVsGame who occasionally does 44h live streams of one game, and bashes his head against the same boss for ten hours.

[DontSayBanana]

Thanks, DSB, I hear you on the release schedule. I do reserve the right to change it.

The 5 Buck Indie thing will also be full Let's Plays, so I do one session Game A, another session Game B. Depending on the length of the Indie titles it might be 5 to 6 per month; and with the rate they're releasing at on Steam I'm not worried). So far it's not cutting into my free time (it's not like a lead a rich and hectic social life ). E.g. this week I've spent about an hour per evening recording and then another half hour or so uploading while doing other things on the side.

I have to say that Shadowrun is a bit of a slog. The linearity of the game or the loads of written dialogue don't put me off. There's an extreme lack of player agency, though; it almost feels like a visual novel where you click yourself through long dialogues and then move on to more dialogue, with the occasional option to do either a or b, which only has cosmetic effects.

Combat is rare (this coming from someone who found there was too much of it in Dragon Age Oranges Origins), and interactions with the environment are very rare.

It makes for a pretty lame let's play. However, one of the reasons I've started doing these videos is to get through a backlog of games I have in my libraries (over 400 in Steam and GoG) that I barely touched or never finished, so I want to stick this out.

I have, however, no intention to go to lengths like ManVsGame who occasionally does 44h live streams of one game, and bashes his head against the same boss for ten hours.

Sounds like you've got a pretty big design decision to make: are you focusing more on

• compiling a complete playthrough (possibly in multiple sessions to avoid the aforemention 44-hour slogfest)
  
• highlighted gameplay
  
• whichever cut is more beneficial to your commentary, which is really what's leading?
  
  Now that the semester's winding down and I'm healing up from my medical issues, I'm starting to look again into restarting work on my own project, which is going to be a hybrid of points 2 and 3.

[Syt]

Yes, I'm going for complete playthroughs, because they're easier to record, and I have to think about editing too much or writing up a post game commentary (which I know I would very likely be too lazy to do).

If I were to pick an existing YouTube channel to model myself after it would probably be GedDaved who is pretty laid back and mellow (i.e. opposite end of the excitability spectrum compared to PewDiePie or Jesse Cox), which is more in line with my character (or maybe Ross from Accursed Farms, though he heavily edits his gameplay videos).

At the moment my main issue is not talking over the game I'm playing while playing, but that I'm stumbling over my words more often than not and mumble too much; something that I don't notice in normal conversation. I'm figuring that it'll get easier the more videos I do. I don't think I'm as bad as GOG's Twitch host GeordyJones, though.

Good luck with your project; I look forward to seeing it.

[Syt]

Also, I've started playing Out There Somewhere (a puzzle platformer) as first entry into the 5 Buck Indie series:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhWhg6XwFi0

I've only noticed after recording 2 episodes that the game seems to run in borderless window when maxed, and that I hadn't switched off the recording HUD display for that case.