So, I’m currently no closer to getting a job or some paying work (actually that’s not quite true; I did apply for two jobs today, both of which can potentially be done from home, so there’s that) but I actually feel like I’ve had a reasonably pleasant day. If only every day could be like today and still furnish me with a steady income, that would be just lovely.
So what did I do today? Well, I played my new piano a bit — I dug out a Mozart sonata I haven’t played for literally years and took the first movement for a spin; it wasn’t perfect, but I was surprised how much of it I remembered in detail — then applied for the aforementioned jobs and made a couple more videos. Again, said videos are experimental, somewhat rough-and-ready affairs, but I’m starting to get a feel for how it all works, and actually finding myself rather enthusiastic about producing them.
First up was a quick look at Mode 7’s future sports game Frozen Cortex (formerly Frozen Endzone), which came out today on Steam after a period in Early Access.
Mic level ended up a bit high on this one, so the sound was a bit distorted, but at least you can hear me. (This is partly due to the fact that due to Frozen Cortex not using a “true” fullscreen mode and instead using a borderless window, I had to record using OBS rather than ShadowPlay, and haven’t quite found the optimum levels for the former yet.) It’s also marginally embarrassing to have video evidence of quite how incompetent I am at strategy games (that first conceded point where he just runs all the way down the side of the field because I was too dumb to notice there were no obstacles there… man) but I suppose messing things up makes for slightly more entertaining watching… perhaps? I don’t know. Either way, it was nice to be able to get something immediately relevant out of the door.
Next up was a different type of experiment, this time with “pre-scripting” a video rather than delivering it off-the-cuff as I have been doing with the previous ones. Taking one of my articles on MoeGamer as a basis, I decided to record a video about the visual novel Kana: Little Sister, which is shortly getting an enhanced rerelease.
This took a bit longer to assemble as there wasn’t any “game footage” per se — visual novels are tricky to make videos about as a result — and consequently I had to use the in-game artwork to put together a slideshow to accompany my narration. I then put some of the game’s soundtrack in the background, and the result is what you see above. I’m quite pleased with the result; while just pretty much reading an article isn’t necessarily the ideal format for Web video — particularly with shorter pieces — with a long-form piece like this it happened to work reasonably well. That and visual novels — particularly those with complex or challenging stories like Kana: Little Sister — are eminently suitable for in-depth exploration, commentary and criticism.
These videos may not go anywhere — and I haven’t turned on ads/monetisation for them yet, as they don’t have anywhere near enough views to warrant that — but if nothing else, producing these (and being able to do so quickly) is another string to my bow, and my YouTube channel will gradually become something of a portfolio that I can show off to people, perhaps even demonstrating the improvements I’ve made over time.
If you enjoy the videos, do please feel free to share them around a bit. I’ve only had a handful of views on each so far and it would be nice to know a few more people have seen them. Viewing figures aren’t hugely important to me at the moment, but it’d be nice to see a bit of growth over time to see if there’s any potential worth exploring here.
Now I’m off to bed; Criminal Girls awaits, but I’ll save discussion of that for another day!
(Aside: just realised this is probably the only post on the Internet today that mentions Frozen Cortex and Kana: Little Sister within a couple of paragraphs of each other. Never say I don’t push a few boundaries!)
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It’s so nice to finally hear your voice Pete. You sound confident, assured, in control of yourself, your media, and your informative views. In fact, you speak as you write, and of course that means you write as you speak – like I do.
It was great to finally see and understand what ‘Streaming’ is. I watched that first game as you played it, making suggestions that you ignored because you couldn’t hear me, and generally getting the feel for the game. Such a great way to be introduced to a genre not seen before. Well done, and so clever.
The visual novel sounded interesting, but unfortunately I am still left not knowing how it ‘plays’. The story definitely sounds complex covering strong issues as you said, but with what sounds like sensitivity and subtlety.
I wonder if I could try this streaming thing, and whether it would work for the genre I tackle, or even for creative writing. It certainly brings your reader closer to you.
The trouble with taking straight video of a visual novel is twofold: 1) it potentially spoils part of the story and 2) it’s not that interesting to watch! There’s very little “gameplay” as such; essentially, how Kana Little Sister and other works like it operate is that you see images such as those seen in the slideshow on the video, and text is overlaid on top of them. There’s usually music and there’s sometimes voice acting (usually in Japanese), but that’s about it. The only real “input” you get is making an occasional choice; the rest of the time, you are just reading, nothing more.
To clarify, there’s a slight difference between streaming and recording videos: streaming is something you do and broadcast live, so people tune in like a live TV show. With what I’ve done here, meanwhile, I record what I’ve done, perhaps edit it if necessary, add any additional elements (like the background music for the Kana piece), then put the whole thing together and upload to YouTube for people to watch at their leisure. There are pros and cons to both approaches, the main consideration in streaming’s case being that you need to already have an audience before you start, really, otherwise no-one will show up for your broadcasts!
And yes, this sort of thing will absolutely work for the sort of thing you cover. It’s sometimes helpful for an audience to be able to actually see how a game plays rather than you trying to explain it in text. It also allows for reactions as things happen, and gives the audience a feel for what it might be like to play it. It doesn’t replace pure writing by any means, but it can provide a nice counterpoint to it.
Can’t say I’ve tried it for creative writing, but there’s no reason you couldn’t read something you’ve written and accompany it with visuals and music to make a video. That’s all an audiobook is (err, minus the visuals), after all!