Perhaps I should clarify: Ratchet and Clank is the one video game I am good at.
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Yea I’ve saw this happen a few times in streams and it’s pretty annoying as it’s awkward a lot of the time for hosts to call it out particularly when the host has a small number of viewers and maybe doesn’t want to alienate people. It’s very cathartic when someone does call this sort of behaviour out with Scottish comedian Limmy being very comfortable with shouting at his chat on occasion albeit he’s obviously able to given his big following and offline success. I still have a fond laugh at one of the Chapo FYM people calling out a cheater on his chill morning Geoguesser stream as well.
Lol this has so much potential to it. Even treating the viewers as a boss. “Hey thanks for the 100 bits! (asshole)”
Yeah I’ve got a list of a few things I’d never have heard of thanks to Save Point. I’ve spent today selling my Warzone buddies on Hunt: Showdown. Even if it’s not a game, something like the Umurangi Generation soundtrack which I’d never have come across otherwise has been a great discovery.
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I’d either do Shadow the Hedgehog by comittee, choosing the path via the chat, or I’d play some old Bionicle game while explaining as much of the Bionicle timeline as possible before my allocated time ran out.
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My answer is an extremely roundabout one.
So, I really, really adore the writings of Umberto Eco. He’s mostly known for his novels (The Name of the Rose, Foucault’s Pendulum, etc.), but what I find really interesting are his short essays. One of my formative reading experiences was devouring his essay collection, How to Travel with a Salmon, a book full of nonsensical glimpses into his mind covering topics like the merit to scalding yourself with a defective pot of hot coffee, the Marxian implications of eating two ice cream cones at one time, and – yes – how to fly home with an entire smoked salmon while on a book tour. These essays are humorous in their own right, but I think the real merit to them is how they recontextualize critical theory and the implementation of semiotics away from dry, academic ruminations, and instead uses these ideas to better examine the mundane or seemingly inconsequential. So, naturally, I’ve always wanted to do a similar thing with video games.
Not, like, “good” video games either. I mean, I could do a playthrough of Kentucky Route Zero as I examine its incorporation of queer theory into its narrative mechanics, sure. But I’ve always wanted to take another aspect of Eco’s worldview into video games: an adoration of pulpy, b-grade fiction. I’ve always felt a stronger attraction toward B-Games or games with grand ideas that utterly fail to deliver on them in some way. Games like the Trails series (and how it views entities like the State), Anthem (with its portrayal of bodies as objects to be enhanced and exploited), Final Fantasy XV (with how it imagines a healthier form of masculinity by way of mechanically integrating companionship and intra-support among its primary cast).
I think there’s a wealth of untapped understanding to be found in games such as these, and I’ve been toying with this concept for a while: be it in the form of streaming, essay writing, or trying to become yet another video essayist on YouTube. If I were to stream, I’d obviously focus heavily on commentary, so I’d first have to get over my crippling anxiety, but I think I’m okay enough (or rather, academia broke my brain enough) to read deep into games through some sort of post-structural lens out loud while doing my best not to die in-game every few minutes. I don’t know; maybe I’ll give it a shot some day.
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I have immediately ordered a copy of this collection thank you for recommending it
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So what I have come to learn is my cat knows how to purposely screw with me. She has figured out her tail has enough force to press my cherry blue keys. Cherry blues take a decent amount of force to press so I can only assume this is purposeful. She also likes to lay next to my keyboard and every so often stretch and press a bunch of keys on my numpad with either her head or paws. She also likes laying directly across my right hand while I’m using my mouse.
With that I would like to run an XCOM 2 ironman campaign with a cam at desk level so when my cat eventually shows up to screw with me the audience can watch. Maybe put additional keypads out for her to press so she can mess with me even more. So yes the chaos of XCOM plus the chaos of a cat and me trying to control the two chaoses simultaneously.
Also maybe a CTF stream? That might be fun, I’m sure chat would roast me when I forget something basic.
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I absolutely think there are ways to make a text-based game entertaining to stream.
Alas, until I am able to stream myself, they’ll remain theories.
Yo, I’d absolutely watch a stream like this.
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My experience with streaming is just a little bit of dabbling here and there and showing off a game for friends a couple times before. For something like a Save Point, my streaming game of choice would likely be a horror game of some sort. Oftentimes they don’t require much if any any background knowledge to watch and enjoy them making them pretty accessible in that regard. Also they don’t require too much focus allowing me to still interact with the audience, and the audience gets to watch me get scared a whole bunch (which for strange some reason I get a kick out of).
Other than that, I’d love to stream some rhythm games, particularly some DDR or the DJ Hero series. It could function mainly as a nice chill stream where you just listen to an extremely underrated video game soundtrack. But because I also like explaining how stuff works, there’d be a little bit of teaching how to play the game and I’d throw in some useful tips and tricks too.
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I’d run a tournament bracket of Half-Life 2 NPCs fighting. 10 antlions vs 10 combine troopers, that sort of thing. Whoever wins the bracket has to fight 10 striders.
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Wound dressing changes.
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I really, really like sharing the things I love with people to the point where I sometimes feel like im being annoying about it. I also love the knowledge that speedrunners drop while just absolutely breaking games so: I would probably run streams of a lot of older games that dont get much play in the discourse but that I’m really into or think are interesting and try and talk about them in as much detail as possible while not going full speedrun mode, trying to give people more of an impression of what the game is actually like to play while getting a little bit of the commentary you get from GDQ.
It would probably be the worst of both worlds for a while but I bet I’d get the hang of it.
Edit: Also driving games. I’d play driving games lol
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Playing Metal Gear Solid 3?
Nah, changing real wound dressings. It’s one of my favourite parts of my job - cleaning the wound out, repacking it, and putting exactly the right dressing back on top is quite meditative in an otherwise fast-paced environment.
It wouldn’t be a conventional stream, that’s for sure!
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This would be really cool and practical but I could never watch it for I am extremely squeamish when it involves blood, needles, etc. I took my cat to the vet last month and she needed blood work and I made the mistake of staying in the room while they drew it. I ended up having to spend 30 minutes in the lobby pale as a ghost feeling ill and sweating bullets before I felt well enough to drive 3 blocks back to my apartment.
Thank you medical professionals for doing things I could never do!
I would probably play Beowulf: The Poem: The Movie: The Game, Ubisoft’s bad adaptation of Zemeckis and Gaiman’s bad adaptation of the poem. Because I’m a Beowulf nerd and could spend the entire 10 hours talking about different translations of the poem and my headcanons.
If I wanted to make something enjoyable or entertaining, either Daggerfall or a few runs of 80 Days.
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I’d play the old Tomb Raiders back to back and talk about growing up in the 90s and how alot of those values I grew up in were wrong or have become increasingly challenged as time has moved on.
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I can’t believe I forgot, but I would absolutely dedicate several nights to streaming the entirety of EXTREME MEATPUNKS FOREVER, doing voices and everything.
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Good question! I’ve never streamed beyond for a few friends but I do enjoy some streams, especially anything with Austin, Patrick, or Rob. I have thought a bit about what I would stream too. And what I came up with was probably something in VR.
This is because nobody is doing VR streaming on these streams so I thought it would be cool to get some of that represented. There are some great VR games out there that I think could be good on a stream. I think Half Life: Alyx for one, since not many will actually play thru this without watching on a stream and it’s a great game.
Or maybe checking out Dreams VR… that could be really fun.
As something different: doing Keep Taking and Nobody Explodes in VR is really fun with a group.
My other idea would be doing No Mans Sky with VR as a multiplayer stream. That would open up some interesting possibilities around some people being in VR and some not. Would be interesting at the least.
Maybe people aren’t that interested in watching VR but I feel like there’s probably some fun to be had with VR streaming in the right way.
I’d probably stream a turn-based tactical game – Battletech, XCOM 2, maybe Battle Brothers – or a pausable isometric RPG like Baldur’s Gate I or II. I doubt I could compete with Tactical Tuesdays for showmanship and fun (or tactical assessments honestly), but watching Austin and Rob on those streams has definitely made me want to give something similar a try. Turn-based tactics seems to offer a good mix of explicit game narrative and fruitful voids for bringing one’s own narrative, and I know BG1 and 2 well enough that I could try to do a similar sort of thing with those.
(Hmm. Maybe a BG2 run with modded NPCs for the most part, minimal canon party members so I can be surprised a bit…?)
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As it is Hallowe’en, if I had the equipment to do so, I would stream Gahan Wilson’s Ultimate Haunted House.
It was a point-and-click adventure for Windows 3.1, back when Microsoft was publishing games meant for younger audiences and before they had a console division. It was mostly lighthearted but had a hidden menace, with random events that could kill the player (but not end their game) and a large cast of characters. It’s hard to find even illegitimately, as few folks have made an effort to preserve anything from the Windows 3.1 days. I’ve tried getting it running in DOSBox on a Windows 3.1 install with limited success. I’d love to show it to more people.
