The Youtube experiment is going. So far only friends have subscribed, but the hits suggest that others have started seeing the videos. I realize that posting game reviews of indie early access games is something that will only hit a small audience, but it is important that these games also get treated seriously as many have an innovative spirit to their design that bigger companies could learn from.
The next video, which I am already stressing over, will be a grand test of skill. I picked up KSP back when it came out in early access. I gave it a shot, killed many kerbins, lost a few to the blackness of space, put a few in orbit of the sun, and think I sent one beyond the reaches of the solarsystem. But that was many months ago and one thing I never accomplished was landing a kerbin on the mun then returning him safely to planet Kerbin.
As my first commenter has asked, I shall make it my goal, before this week is out, to review KSP, and to finish my video before the game leaves its Early Access Beta stage on this coming Tuesday. Beyond that, it is my goal to reach the mun and return.
Friday, April 24, 2015
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
A Face for Radio
After an entire day of mishaps, I am no closer to video 2. First I had a file error which required me to re-record all of my video captures. Then I had a conversion error when rendering the videos in HD. Then I found that my camera is just not going to cut it. All in all just bad. However as an early-subscriber bonus I'll post the upcoming video's script* below.
Cheers!
* script subject to change before video is completed.
Cheers!
* script subject to change before video is completed.
Friday, April 17, 2015
One down...
So video 1 was a success. I have more hits than just my friends, almost all feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and I think I could continue this on a weekly-ish pace and keep up. As a heads up I'll likely be reviewing "Delver" by Priority Interrupt next week. It's a retro-indie dungeon crawl adventure (seeing a pattern yet?). I'm also gearing up for my first vlog (generating questions to answer, deciding on introduction and format etc.).
Also, and I've tried to keep them as tame as possible, I've applied to connect advertising to this and the video page. I've opted that only adds that do not pop-up and are skip-able apply, so hopefully this wont get in the way of the purpose of the blog and videos.
Otherwise I'm gonna take a small break and watch the meaningless numbers slowly tick up. I am proud of it. I still hate the way my voice sounds, and there are still parts about the video I can figure out how to do better, but I think it was a good first attempt. I set out to do something, I tried hard, and I did it. And I can have pride in that.
Also, and I've tried to keep them as tame as possible, I've applied to connect advertising to this and the video page. I've opted that only adds that do not pop-up and are skip-able apply, so hopefully this wont get in the way of the purpose of the blog and videos.
Otherwise I'm gonna take a small break and watch the meaningless numbers slowly tick up. I am proud of it. I still hate the way my voice sounds, and there are still parts about the video I can figure out how to do better, but I think it was a good first attempt. I set out to do something, I tried hard, and I did it. And I can have pride in that.
Thursday, April 16, 2015
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
The sound of her voice
Welcome welcome, one and all.
To continue the series on my woes and troubles with producing even a single Youtube video I have a new complaint: the sound of my own voice.
Let me back up a bit.
My process:
1. play the games I plan to review, and record hours of gameplay, covering various locations, levels, characters, game mechanics, builds, etc. to give people a wide scope of the experience and to be an informed reviewer.
2. review the collected visuals and audio clips, identifying portions of what I do and do not want to use as to save myself time later. This also gives me a chance to QC my work.
3. write a script covering all the things I would want someone else to cover, as well as everything that is expected of a proper review.
4. record said script, editing it until it says what i want it to say, in an order that works, and in a way that is informative, entertaining, and efficient.
5. cut film sections to be relevant to pre-recorded script.
6. ???
7. profit.
Where I'm currently stuck is 4. The more I record and listen to myself, the more I hate the sound of my own voice. I'll record something and either sound stupid, or my speech will sound unnatural, or something will be wrong with the mic. How do people do this? Is there a point at which they just accept what they have? Do they ever like what they have done?
Regardless, I should have everything done in the next two days and will shoot you guys a link once its posted. Soon the now will be the past and no matter what I sound like it will not be something I can change. There is a certain inevitability surrounding the feeling of setting a goal and approaching a milestone. In this case its a milestone which will start a new attempt at using my creativity, talents, and interests to be useful.
Thanks for all the support and views, and as always please feel free to comment, question, or complain, just don't feel entitled to an answer from me.
To continue the series on my woes and troubles with producing even a single Youtube video I have a new complaint: the sound of my own voice.
Let me back up a bit.
My process:
1. play the games I plan to review, and record hours of gameplay, covering various locations, levels, characters, game mechanics, builds, etc. to give people a wide scope of the experience and to be an informed reviewer.
2. review the collected visuals and audio clips, identifying portions of what I do and do not want to use as to save myself time later. This also gives me a chance to QC my work.
3. write a script covering all the things I would want someone else to cover, as well as everything that is expected of a proper review.
4. record said script, editing it until it says what i want it to say, in an order that works, and in a way that is informative, entertaining, and efficient.
5. cut film sections to be relevant to pre-recorded script.
6. ???
7. profit.
Where I'm currently stuck is 4. The more I record and listen to myself, the more I hate the sound of my own voice. I'll record something and either sound stupid, or my speech will sound unnatural, or something will be wrong with the mic. How do people do this? Is there a point at which they just accept what they have? Do they ever like what they have done?
Regardless, I should have everything done in the next two days and will shoot you guys a link once its posted. Soon the now will be the past and no matter what I sound like it will not be something I can change. There is a certain inevitability surrounding the feeling of setting a goal and approaching a milestone. In this case its a milestone which will start a new attempt at using my creativity, talents, and interests to be useful.
Thanks for all the support and views, and as always please feel free to comment, question, or complain, just don't feel entitled to an answer from me.
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Before you Sell the Drama...
...You must build it first.
Hello there!
Sorry for the posting delay. I've been video editing. The process has been going well except that I ran into a snag which required me to re-shoot all my sample footage, putting me behind by a few days. I expect to have a first review up within the next week.
In the meantime I've also been setting up the appropriate peripherals. I now have the RedMage google+ page and associated Youtube channel so everything can work together as a well greased pig (well-oiled wrestler? world-dominating machine? something like that anyways). The past week has been spent capturing video, and still images, creating .gif files, mixing music, video splicing, and sequential animation composing. All in all a whole new world of cool stuff to learn.
I've also been putting together intro and outro portions of the video to make myself stand out as a proper brand. In the end I hope to provide reviews, vlogs, and even podcasts related to mostly game and game-industry topics. This is an ambitious set of goals for an utter n00b at videocasting but I'll give it a shot.
Originally I had spliced images and sounds from about 8 different games into just the intro sequence, but this ended up being exceptionally complicated to mess with every time I had to make a small adjustment to it. Also at first I planned to rip the NES Megaman robot master intro sequences in order per-season of broadcast. But sadly the first Megaman was quite boring to look at so I made the creative choice to skip ahead to using Megaman 2 as the starter background.
For your viewing pleasure, below is a sample of the intro sequence for the upcoming review. Enjoy:
Please feel free to subscribe as there is much content in the works that will soon be out. Also feel free to comment or visit the "Ask RedMage" tab. I look forward to hearing from you!
...And never stop playing the game.
Hello there!
Sorry for the posting delay. I've been video editing. The process has been going well except that I ran into a snag which required me to re-shoot all my sample footage, putting me behind by a few days. I expect to have a first review up within the next week.
In the meantime I've also been setting up the appropriate peripherals. I now have the RedMage google+ page and associated Youtube channel so everything can work together as a well greased pig (well-oiled wrestler? world-dominating machine? something like that anyways). The past week has been spent capturing video, and still images, creating .gif files, mixing music, video splicing, and sequential animation composing. All in all a whole new world of cool stuff to learn.
I've also been putting together intro and outro portions of the video to make myself stand out as a proper brand. In the end I hope to provide reviews, vlogs, and even podcasts related to mostly game and game-industry topics. This is an ambitious set of goals for an utter n00b at videocasting but I'll give it a shot.
Originally I had spliced images and sounds from about 8 different games into just the intro sequence, but this ended up being exceptionally complicated to mess with every time I had to make a small adjustment to it. Also at first I planned to rip the NES Megaman robot master intro sequences in order per-season of broadcast. But sadly the first Megaman was quite boring to look at so I made the creative choice to skip ahead to using Megaman 2 as the starter background.
For your viewing pleasure, below is a sample of the intro sequence for the upcoming review. Enjoy:
Please feel free to subscribe as there is much content in the works that will soon be out. Also feel free to comment or visit the "Ask RedMage" tab. I look forward to hearing from you!
...And never stop playing the game.
Friday, April 10, 2015
Project: Broadcast
The past few weeks I've been working on a secondary project which may soon come to fruition. I am preparing to take my game reviews and hints and move them largely to Youtube. I will still be writing here (though the page URL also may change) so don't you worry about me changing too much all at once.
 |
| Its all cats, cats from the bottom to the top. |
At present I'm not sure how I'll compete with the standard fare, but that's what this is all about, forging a name for myself out in the wild blue yonder. I'm currently working with Camtasia, which I have found to be a solid platform, to teach myself about video editing.
My exact plan is to break videos down into: reviews, top pics, hints/tricks, and suggestions.
To continue with my theme I think I'll do the reviews from the magetower and call the reviews RMR's (red mage reviews) and the hints/tricks TBF's (trial by fireball). I don't yet have clever names for others (considering something about level 9 spells, or white/black magic rundowns for best/worst), but please feel free to add suggestions should any come up.
In the mean time I'll be cutting and dubbing video, so you guys stay classy!
Tuesday, April 7, 2015
Saturday, April 4, 2015
Elite Dangerous Review
Elite Dangerous, or ED is a game which seems to share many characteristics with it's acronym's original namesake. Both are embarrassing, affect males, eventually when word gets out about it you are subjected to pity and bullying, and can be quite frustrating at times. But luckily one of them you can choose to stop subjecting yourself to... with a little blue pill. (Hey, they chose the title. And come on, two adjectives, I am offended as a teacher of this fine and apparently terminally ill language.)
Click below to see the full review.
Thursday, April 2, 2015
The pitfalls of vacuuming and game design
Today I was productive. Today I broke out the vacuum and went to town. Now I have discovered that when your lazy like I am, simple tasks end up becoming more difficult and dangerous than they should be.
Since I am exceptionally lazy and just felt like vacuuming because I hadn't in a while, I didn't really pick anything up off the floor first. Now I'm lazy, but not that messy. The only things I had on the floor were a pair of shoes and the leg of some pajama pants that were hanging off the bed (yes I wear pajama pants... they're warm).
I started out, everything was going fine, and then the vacuum became a ravenous creature and ate up the pajama pants leg. Before I could stop it, the beast had swallowed half the leg and was starting to choke (serves it right). But in my panic I hurled myself at the on/off button. Normally I have excellent memory and accuracy, but this vacuum is not mine and in my haste I was only guessing at where this button was. All I managed to do was knock the darn thing over and push it further from me.
The pants were almost gone at this point and so I saw only one option left. I started a tug-of-war with the evil beast, and it was surprisingly strong. After several long seconds of pulling back and forth I freed my pantleg... or most of it.
The evil creature had melted a large hole in the nylon. Fed up with myself (and this round being won by my new nemesis Senior Sucko) I decided I was done with that for the day... And those were my best pajama pants...
Since I am exceptionally lazy and just felt like vacuuming because I hadn't in a while, I didn't really pick anything up off the floor first. Now I'm lazy, but not that messy. The only things I had on the floor were a pair of shoes and the leg of some pajama pants that were hanging off the bed (yes I wear pajama pants... they're warm).
I started out, everything was going fine, and then the vacuum became a ravenous creature and ate up the pajama pants leg. Before I could stop it, the beast had swallowed half the leg and was starting to choke (serves it right). But in my panic I hurled myself at the on/off button. Normally I have excellent memory and accuracy, but this vacuum is not mine and in my haste I was only guessing at where this button was. All I managed to do was knock the darn thing over and push it further from me.
The pants were almost gone at this point and so I saw only one option left. I started a tug-of-war with the evil beast, and it was surprisingly strong. After several long seconds of pulling back and forth I freed my pantleg... or most of it.
The evil creature had melted a large hole in the nylon. Fed up with myself (and this round being won by my new nemesis Senior Sucko) I decided I was done with that for the day... And those were my best pajama pants...
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