It's done! I am now sitting in sunny/rainy-in-rapid-alternation wales! What does this mean for the Offy D Corporation? Well it means I now have an office! Yes, the corporation has expanded from a corner to a full blown room.
Here is the corner:
Yes, that's the best picture I have. My phone was send forwards in time from 2004. You think that's gonna improve in the next one? You're in trouble. At least it's a picture OF something better.
Now that's more like it. After like 4 years of "working from home", I finally have enough room to dancercise. More importantly I have enough desk space for all my piles of misc documents, notes and objects, plus that second screen comes in real useful. When you're editing stuff, you are almost always looking at two things at once e.g. script and audioform, video output and video timeline, and that means having two screens makes life easier and faster. The second screen is 10 years old and can't do 1080p, which messes a few things up, but really the second screen just needs to be basically functional to provide handy insights.
(Also semi-visible is an even older 640x480 monitor in the bottom right, for REAL emergencies. Somehow it is still flat(ish)screen.)
HEY GUYS NOW I CAN LIVESTREAM OR SOMETHING. But I probably won't, because the only thing worse than video game videos on youtube is video game streams. Although the fact people somehow make money off it is always appealing, because my youtube channel makes less and less money every year it seems. I estimate that without patreon or working for Kings and Generals, my channel alone would generate just about enough money to pay for the internet and its own electricity consumption. Can I, like, get some views or something soon? Well, I've come pretty far without getting views thus far, seems like the cooler option.
So, thanks patrons! I have no idea why you are giving me money, and I'm too afraid to ask, but you're probably doing the right thing. But yes, having this room makes me think I should do livestreams just because it's what people who have rooms do. Now that sounds almost as stupid as it actually is, but maybe you can somehow discern my meaning there. However, the idea of recording everything live with no chance to edit stuff out is truly terrifying - even my This is Content videos, which were recorded live, had countless mistakes, flubs and "why did I say that?" moments edited out.
Well then, what I am doing with this fancy new setup? The same stuff as before, horray! Only with quieter surroundings, so recording is a little easier. Also with less rent, so not making any money is a little easier. I can use the space to place VR games without hitting my hands against the ceiling and walls so much (old house had very low ceilings). Yes there is a connection between me owning VR equipment and a powerful PC and me complaining about lack of money, but it would be terribly distasteful of you to point that out. I don't have a car, so I'm still ahead of the game when it comes to luxury poverty.
With the cycle of writing, recording and editing for Honour Among Kings and Fire Margin continuing on without alteration, it's hard to imagine what I might end up doing next. There are various other games I'd like to try writing about, but as for what would actually be a good idea for the channel, I am clueless. It's probably something in an ancient setting, like a story based on a Rome 2 campaign, that's my gut feeling, and I'm not entirely against doing it either, so that's nice.
The more successful abridged commentary videos continue also, with the increasing chance that I will eventually become more known for those than the narrative videos, and get dragged off into the undergrowth there. Wouldn't be a bad thing as they are easy to make and easy to watch, comfy stuff, and can be applied to any game really.
I'm also still working on my own vidya game, which just today reached 'Alpha 5' state, aka, the 5th time I've thought "this is basically done" before reworking a bunch of stuff. Latest updated featured a change that stops the game crashing when you make certain misclicks, but MIGHT crash the game randomly at other times, so yeah... still testing stuff... Also, more cutscenes are gradually appearing!
Cool, now allow me rant about some video games in...
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WHAT I PLAYED THIS MONTH
I played a load of No Man's Sky VR, after the free update. Funnily enough, the day before I heard about the update I was ranting that I thought NMS would be much better in VR, and suddenly there it was. H O W E V E R... The old things that sucked about it, STILL suck. Here's the thing: I wanted to explore, and see things, and name creatures and planets, and look about under the seas, and all that. But the game STILL punishes exploration so heavily, it's really more of a mining and crafting game. To be specific, most planets gradually kill you as you walk around, and you are extremely limited in how many times you can take off in your spaceship, so you can't just whizz around looking for cool stuff like that. It just seems so counterproductive to me; madness.
The amount of work it takes to just reduce how much work it takes to move around is such a barrier to entry. I mean, I played a good ten hours at least, but mining for stuff you need to make hyperfuel is just too boring to keep me looking for interesting stuff. Plus, in VR you actually can't rename things, which was part of the fun for me. No Space Darwin adventures. Sad face. All the old complaints people leveled at release about inventories being too small and too hard to use for the constant crafting requirements holds things back too.
I remember at release watching some video saying that no matter what they did, NMS couldn't be a good game because its design is flawed in the moment to moment gameplay. After all the stuff they've added and all the improvements since then, I think I agree - the basics of the game are still obviously worse than they could have been, and need only minor changes to vastly improve. "TakeOffFuelCost = 0" - this line of code just made the game playable. Should have got me to make it, huh?!
Also in VR I've been playing Blade and Sorcery. Not really a game, just a thing where you kill people with a sword until you decide you've killed enough, then that's that. It's like a tech demo for a VR melee combat game's mechanics, just needs a game built around it. It's quite good, although the AI is absolutely useless, so literally just holding a sword out in front of you in enough to make them die by running into it. I strained my back using a spear and shield like a hoplite to cut down waves of goons, which was very fun! Other games need to copy their ideas, preferably with a full dev to to make some of it (I think B&S is like 1 or 2 guys).
I've been playing a bit of Pokemon GO, but since I don't have a data plan on my phone, I've just been catching stuff that walks by the WiFi router! I've caught 85 things by doing this for the last 2 weeks. So yeah, this is real rebellious stuff, since I'm becoming a pokemon master despite not GO-ing anywhere. No, I am not at all pleased with myself.
Finally, I'm still playing Valkyria Chronicles 4 from last month, where I am now in the 'post-game' section, in which the game just keeps going as if you didn't just finish it, similar to Pokemon LeafGreen that I did for ThisIsContent. Nothing else to say here, other than it's still better than XCOM, fight me.
AND THAT'S WHAT I PLAYED THIS MONTH
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That'll do then. Time settle in to my new life in my glorious undecorated cream office with eye-watering mustard curtains, and feel like a big shot. TWO SCREENS. I think Lionheart has like 4 screens. Tryhard. I can unleash the 480p beast in the corner whenever I want, so don't push me. Actually I don't have the monitor outputs for it. So... Err...
I'M STILL WINNING, SEE YOU LOSERS LATER.
