Category: Updates

Guys, I have hit a video block. Remember when I had all of those ideas? Reviews.. Guides.. all of that? I have put substantial time into both of those things but I haven’t finished either, and what I have made.. well.. it’s just bad.

My style just doesn’t suit edited content. I can’t read a script. I mean, technically I can, but it sounds stiffer than my neck after a bad nights sleep. Something I tried to combat this was making notes and free styling. This definitely helps me to get my point across but the videos end up far longer than I would like, even once I have edited them down. I made the decision to stop making Let’s Plays so that I could focus on other things when truthfully, they are the only video content that I am good at. That doesn’t mean this was wasted, I have learned a lot. It also doesn’t mean I am jumping straight back into making them because I still have other things to try.

There are more things on my list that I have still yet to try, and given the results of my experiments so far, these might be much better suited to the way that I think and how I like to make content.

Podcasting | I like long form conversation and I generally have a lot to say about games. If I try to condense things too much like I have in the videos I’ve tried to make, I end up losing my point and my personality. What I love about podcasts is that they can be whatever you want them to be, and as long as you stay relatively on topic then there is plenty of unscripted time to say what you want to say. The only trouble with podcasting is that I really do think they are their best when they are a conversation. I can’t imagine anyone would like to listen to me talking to myself in that way. I thought about solving this by having guests, but I’m not even sure that would work. I have been listening to a bunch of Duckfeed TV and Gary and Kole have a great thing going. They listen to eachother, they support eachother, their subtle communication works so well and ultimately, they are both passionate about what they do. Having another person feels not only essential for the quality of the end result, but also for the support along the way, bouncing ideas back and forth and sharing the workload.

Writing | Writing doesn’t often come naturally to me. I usually need to be in a specific mood at a specific time. I have no idea how professionals manage to make magic with their words every day, on demand. But, the advantage of writing is that I can take all of the time that I need to shape my words into sentences that actually make sense, without the worry of having to do that on the spot or how I sound. I don’t have the most diverse vocabulary, I dont have the best spelling or understanding of punctuation, but I also don’t have the best speaking or reading skills and that didnt stop be from becoming a streamer. What I do think I have is my own unique tone that is easy to read and who knows, maybe with practice I will get better at those other parts too. The drawback is that there is probably even less of a demand for my writing than there is for anything else I could do. I’m not sure anyone will be interested in reading. Having said that, my videos aren’t popular either so it seems worth a try. At worst, I get the idea off my mind, discover I hate it or develop my skills. At best though, people enjoy it and something comes of it.

The reason I am writing this is becasue I need to let go of the video ideas. Despite everything I have written and the want to let it go, I clutch onto the hope that maybe I can make something good. The ideas constantly circle around my head, half formed, taking up space as a fog that never takes form, clouding the way for anything else. No matter how much I want it, I have to accept that I suck at scripts, I find editing a chore and the glimpses in my head of what could be are not translating into the actual content. Let’s Plays and Streaming suit me well because there is no script, minimal editing down, just pure thoughts. Perhaps the things above will too. So it is time for me to move on and try new things. I’m just sorry there is nothing to show to everyone that is supporting me.

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As you guys probably know, I find juggling everything I do hard, but I always want to do more. The update on Sunday talked about regular YouTube plans but I have a craving to make more content about games I love. I’m just not sure in what format or when I would do it, so consider this just me throwing my ideas out there without any plans of actually doing them yet. I guess I’ll chat about them in the order I have been thinking about them.

Idea 1 | The first – and the closest to almost having come to fruition – is a Podcast. I love talking about games, and I love listening to podcasts. I don’t really listen to variety podcasts or news or anything like that, I like game club Podcasts, where a group of people play the game and then talk about it together. Everytime I finish a game I do a search on the Podcasts I listen to (Left Behind Game Club, Watch out for Fireballs and Cane & Rinse currently) to see if they have an episode and listen straight away. I enjoy being taken through the game via another’s eyes and experiences in another medium. A problem that I run into, however, is that often the games I am looking for have not been covered. When I am not done with a game and I can’t find anything to listen – as daft as this sounds – I struggle to move on. I would love to be able to take my favourite elements from my favourite podcasts and reshape them into my own, so that I have a place to celebrate the games I love. I would like it to be long form with a heavy focus on the narrative of the game and the different elements of the game that help to create that. I would like a spoiler free section at the start to sell the game to anyone who is curious, then dive deep into the spoilers and what they mean. I would like to talk about a lot of the games that I maybe have a different perspective on that others, with guests who also love the games. I have put a lot of thought into this one and don’t know why I don’t take the plunge. The worst thing that can happen is that no-one listens but you know.. that is no reason not to try!

+ Already did quite a chunk of planning

+ Closure for the games that I have a lot of thoughts about

+/- Quite a bit of work

– I’m not convinced that anyone at all will be interested in listening

– These are much better with more than one host, it should be a conversation, not a monologue

Idea 2 | The second thing that I have spent some time thinking about is a YouTube series called something like ‘A Noob Guide’ (except there is already Noob’s Guide on YT 🙃). A lot of my YouTube views come from some little walkthroughs of Overcooked that I made years ago. What I would love to do (but has probably already been done) is do a series of short videos helping people either new to a game or new to a genre or whatever. The game in mind being The Binding of Isaac, but then with other games being options in the future. Part of the whole point of my channel was because I was very new to games and exploring what type of things exist and experiencing them for the first time. To this day I am still finding new genres that I love. It is undeniable that I have noobish qualities, so it just feels like a nice fit to do a series for noobs, from a noob. Because I am such a noob, I may be able to explain things in a way that would help other noobs that may be overlooked by veteran gamers. This would be something heavily edited and informative rather than for entertainment.

+ Did a bit of planning

+/- No idea if there is a demand for it on the internet

– Isn’t necessarily for the current community

– A tonne of work

Idea 3 | The most recent thought I have had is some sort of review series. Not for new games though. I haven’t thought of a name because I have barely thought of a format yet but some sort of backlog review series, or a look back in time, something of that sort. Again, the purpose of this one would be to celebrate the games that I like and show off why I like them (while also being critical). At first I was thinking three minute reviews but someone already does that too. Then I was thinking maybe something a bit longer. Then I realised I have been watching a lot of Skill Up I just wish I could make content like him 🤣. So yeah, not a lot of thought has been put into this one except some sort of highly edited thought pieces on some games I have played. Way shorter than a podcast but probably the same amount of work when it comes to editing a video.

+ Doesn’t need to be on a specific schedule

+ Could use a +/- format that I enjoy

– No planning done

– Lots of work gathering footage and editing

– I suck at reading a script

So, there is a little look into my somehow both over and under productive brain! If anything comes of any of these is yet to be seen, if anyone has any opinions please do let me know. Putting things out there is scary because little interest = probably shouldn’t bother and interest = pressure. On the other hand though, neither of those things would just be ignorance and I think it is better for me to know what others think, if anyone does, and if not then I guess I can take that as freedom to try anything!

Ideally I would like to try all of these but I have to budget my time in accordance to where I make my money, so streaming has to come first. In that sense, Let’s Plays and Indie Showcase would go into the same category as the ideas above, which means I really have to be choosey about what I do. But while I am on a roll with streaming and recording I cant get these ideas out of my head!

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While I am still figuring out a schedule that works for me, I am going to be trying something out. Sometimes my three evening streams per week works fine, sometimes I can’t manage them all, and sometimes I would like to do more. I am going to trial some daytime streams.

I like my evening streams in general to be narrative focused, single player games that I can get immersed in and transfer to YouTube as Let’s Plays, so I like them to be somewhat coherent etc. I adore this structure but sometimes life doesn’t allow for me to be in the right frame of mind to do my best work. Having a daytime stream as an option will allow me to do my minimum of three streams per week, so if I have to cancel an evening for whatever reason I will still have plenty of opportunity to stream.

These daytime streams will be extras, their own separate thing. Instead of my evening games it will allow me to do shorter streams of other types of games. Ideas I have in mind are my endless games like Isaac, management games, life sims, puzzle games, other indies, one offs and game photography. Games to just chill with where I don’t feel like I have to be at 100% all of the time, as I am not doing a ‘proper’ playthrough. This may not be a permanent thing, but it is a nice for me to have a little flexibility if I need to skip an evening. We will see how it goes!

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I make a lot of content, some more consistent than others, so I though I would write a post specifically to explain show all the different things that I do and what any donations/membership money goes towards creating!

Twitch Streaming (CtrlAltNoob0)

My most successful and consistent content all comes from my Twitch channel. I have been streaming for a year and a half now, and tend to stream three times a week. I aim to start at 5pm UK time and go for around 4 hours, but the times are very flexible and if I get lost in a game, well.. time sometimes vanishes.

We play a wide variety of games, most of the time they are story based. I mostly play games on the shorter side with a few longer games here and there. I like take things slowly, getting immersed and exploring everything I can. We have the occasional never ending game that we will always go back to and other little streaming projects on the side, but that is generally what you can expect from Noob streams. I do prioritise my Twitch channel over my other content purely because it is the only avenue that is monetised for me, the more sustainable I get then that will hopefully free up time to do more projects in the future!

YouTube (CtrlAltNoob)

I have been doing my YouTube channel for years. If you were to look at my old videos (don’t do it) you could see how far I have come. I used to make full Lets Plays on my PS4, from recording to editing using the on console features. It was not the best but I loved doing it very much so I didn’t let the technological limitations stop me. Since beginning streaming I have barely made any YouTube specific Lets Plays. It is something that I really want to get back to and will as soon as I have the time. I used to cover every single PS Plus game in ‘Let’s Try’ videos, but now instead I have moved that focus on to indies. I have a weekly Indie Showcase where I play either a free short game or a demo that looks interesting. I also like to cover the indie festivals on steam. I do have aspirations for YouTube and I do see glacial amounts of growth even without putting in all the effort that I would like to. But it makes it difficulty to justify spending the time that I want on YT projects when I am earning my money elsewhere. I’m going to work hard to try to get sustainable, continue my passion projects on the side and then one day, I will deliver all of the plans that I have begun in my head.

Blog (www.ctrlaltnoob.com)

I have a Blog that I use occasionally when I have updates or thoughts that I would like to write long form. My blog is like my YT channel in the sense that I have so many aspirations, but putting in the time is another matter. You should see my plans, I have so many post ideas raring to go. Sadly though, for now my blog is on my passion project list and I can only get to it when I have worked hard on making all of the stream improvements I would like to make. The plans include catching up on all of the posts that I neglected since I started it, game reviews, thought pieces about specific games – either about their narrative or their importance in the gaming world, other more obscure gaming related pieces and more. Currently I mostly use it as a place to share another hobby of mine, images from doing in-game photography which is another passion project that I would love to do more of.

Discord (CtrlAltNoob’s Server)

I do have a discord server for the community and we have a few fun things on the go. Sometimes it is multiplayer games, sometimes its tournaments and then sometimes it is things not even related to gaming like our monthly creative prompt. I like to try to make it a nice place for people to be to spend some time and hopefully find some inspiration to do whatever it is that you would like to do.

Other Socials (Twitter/Instagram)

I have other Social Medias like Twitter, Instagram etc. which are mostly used for keeping everyone up to date and sharing things that I have done, made, or anything else that might excite me. Twitter is more current thoughts and polls for future games, where as Instagram is more photography screenshots. I am thinking about dabbling in Tiktok and YouTube Shorts simply because I have so many fantastic clips. I have made a vertical video template so it seems worth a go, at best it is marketing, at worst nothing happens, so lets see how that goes!

Merch (Redbubble)

I have a Merch store if anyone would like any Noob merch! I would like to do more with this but that would be something way in the future when everything else on the above lists are already on the go. More of a hobby for funsies than anything else. A chance for me to practice art or graphic design and share them with others. I did buy the Do It Noob Hoodie in a large size (I’m a relatively small person) and it is an extremely cozy hoodie, so if anyone was interested in that I would recommend buying one or two sizes up!

Secret Projects

I do have two secret projects that I would really like to get going, but they would take a lot of time and effort that I would love to give but I just don’t have yet. When I do manage it then members will get the sneak peaks of the ideas hopefully coming to life 😊

Eventually I am going to catch up with all of the channel updates I would like to do on Twitch (emotes, fun things, channel trailer etc) and when that time comes, I will have more time to either stream more, work on my other projects, or a bit of both. So hopefully that is a good breakdown of the work I put into creating and how much I would love to do more, hence why memberships became a thing. Having somewhere to share the things that I am working on in advance has been super fun for me and I hope to keep it going for as long as possible!

If you are wondering how you can support me, there are many ways. Liking and commenting on my videos are a good way to give me engagement on YouTube. Sharing a video you like or my stream with a friend who might enjoy my content is fantastic. If you have Amazon Prime that means that you get a free subscription on Twitch. All you have to do is create a Twitch account and link it to your Amazon account. From there, you can subscribe to a streamer of your choice for no extra charge. So if you would like to give away your free money I will always be happy to receive it! Finally, if you would like to leave me a tip you can make a one off donation on Buy Me A Coffee. Alternatively, you can subscribe to my membership, which will get you some sneak peaks at what I am working on for £5 a month, or you can explore the other tiers through the link. Thank you so much for everyone’s patience while I work towards making this thing I love doing a think that I can continue long into the future, I appreciate you all.

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Hello everyone, I am officially launching memberships! This is a way for people to support me on a monthly basis if they would like, where I get 95% of the cut. This is especially here for people who aren’t too bothered about a Twitch sub and would just like to show their support, or people that enjoy my other content that is not monetised, like YouTube or my blog. I wrote a piece explaining my current situation and goals here, so I have made this an extra option just in case anyone would like that option. A super helpful way to enable this Noob.

So what is a membership? It is very much like Patreon if you are familiar with that. There are different tiers for different fees. You pay monthly and I provide content. There is not going to be tonnes of content but there will be bits to thank you for your support.

Level 1 – £5/Month – You will get weekly behind the scenes posts of bits and bobs that I have been up to. Whether that is emotes in progress, random clips from upcoming YT videos, sneak peeks at stream updates or just random thoughts or insights about what I am doing. You will also get credited at the end of my YouTube videos and Twitch streams. Finally, you will have access to an Enooblers Anonymous channel in my Discord!

Level 2 – £10/Month – You will get the above benefits plus a fortnightly update post, summarising everything that I have been up to in the last couple of weeks in one place.

Level 3 – £69/Month – You will get all of the above benefits, plus memes.

Alien Isolation – £999 – I will play Alien Isolation on stream through to the credits.

And that is all I’ve got so far! I am very much going to be learning as I go. If you do not want to sign up to a membership but would like to give a tip, there is the traditional ‘Buy me a Coffee’ way. You unfortunately wont get the membership benefits for that, but any donation at all is immensely appreciated by me. If any of this sounds appealing to you, you can check out my page here.

If you are only here because of one area of my work and are wondering what other things I am speaking of, you can check out my Bio Link here if you would like, where you can find everything that I do in one place! There is quite the backlog of content there and I hope to continue to work full time producing more 🙂

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Now that I have updated everyone about where I stand with regards to the future (if you missed it you can read it here but as a tl;dr, I’d like to try to earn enough financially to keep going), I can start to get my head into actually making it happen, with physical goals and practical changes for 2022!

First off, should we talk about the reason we are all really here?! Games! I am not setting goals for a certain amount of games to play or anything like that, but as everyone knows, I do love a game plan. This list is a none binding guide of games that I might play throughout the year. There are a mixture of gifted games, game pass games, requested games and backlog games on there. The real plan though is to keep it flexible. If a demo, open beta or free weekend pops up I will slot them in.

I love playing Indie Games. I love discovering them, I love getting to know what is coming out and I love sharing them with everyone. I have tried to share this passion in different formats in the past, particularly with the Steam Game Festivals and other variations. Sharing the full experience, making highlight videos, doing write ups etc are all things I have given a go. I still don’t have in mind exactly what I want to do yet, but it is one of my goals to find a good way to cover the indie game festivals. There are plenty of them throughout the year, I always have a really cool time with them, I just need to get better at sharing that. Following on from that, I would also like to make a special effort to ensure that I am consistent with my Indie Showcase. There is no reason that I can’t have covered 52 games by the end of the year. I have plenty on my waiting list that I am desperate to try out and this series was designed to be manageable.

I realise that the above is displaying some vague goals, so here is a tangible one. I would like to get to 250 followers on Twitch. I don’t usually focus too much on the numbers but there is a reason for this one. Keymailer is a service where you can request keys to upcoming games. I am on there and have gotten keys from there in the past, but you can’t actually get accredited until you have 250 followers. I am most certainly not going to get a lot of the keys that I might like even if I am accredited, but if I see a particularly interesting looking indie game I will request it. Being accredited really ups my chance of being accepted for a key and getting to cover a game, so this is why I would like to aim for the followers. I currently have 198. 52 within the year sounds do-able, and if I get there sooner then that should hopefully open up some content opportunities.

Another goal of mine is just to finish making my streams a really cool place to be. It does seem like it may be a never ending job, but if I can get on top of the basics then it will be a lot more manageable. Creating sound bits, more channel point rewards, using cam more often, potential community goals, using the fun tools that I can with the chatbot, more customised alerts. Basically, I want to try to use all of the tools that are available sooner rather than later. I also have 25 emote slots that I need to fill (or I will once I finally get my animated ones) and I am redrawing the majority of them. I cannot wait to share all the new ideas, for now I can share a sneak peek at the new style.

It’s really easy for me to get caught up in setting goals. I would like to do a lot of work on my YouTube as well as my streams, but I also have to try to be realistic. I have to prioritise Twitch because that is where I make my money. My YouTube isnt even close to being monetizable. But it is niggling away at me that I would love to do well in that too, and I have some ideas in the back burner that I would like to make a start on if I can get a handle on everything else first. I do understand though that I cannot expect that to be doing well when I am not putting all of my effort into it.

I have so many more content ideas slowly cooking away in the background and I haven’t even mentioned this blog, or my aspirations for this website. I would love to set aside some time weekly to do some writing. I want to write some thought pieces that I am passionate about. Maybe that can do some good in the world, or maybe it can help my content get seen. I can aim for the former, and if it even opens up one opportunity then it is worth it. I do think I am slightly better at written words than I am out loud, so hopefully people can take something new away from my writing.

So, since one of my goals is to put myself out there, maybe I should start here. If anyone enjoys my content I would love it if you could recommend it to a friend. If you watch my YouTube videos please give them a like. I’m not going to pretend to understand the algorithm but I hear that is helpful. If I do something you particularly like please reach out and let me know, feedback is very important. If you have a favourite series of mine please give it a share on the socials.

Finally, I’d love to hear any thoughts from anyone about a few things. What do you look for in a streamer? What kind of things do you like to get back in return for your support? Are there anything you like, like community goals that you would like to see on my streams? Is there any type of content that you would either like to see me dabble in or think would help me with my goals?  

I once again want to close this out with a HUGE thank you for everyone’s support. So many great things happened in 2021 and that is down to you guys.

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I just finished up my 2021 Reflections thread on Twitter and started working on my 2022 Goals thread. It quickly became apparent that limited characters weren’t going to work for everything I want to share, so here we are! I’m going to treat this as a bit of a channel update post.

We did a LOT of stuff in 2021. You can see a bunch of it in the Twitter thread. The majority of it was on Twitch but there was a lot of extra stuff too. Something I should mention about this though is that I have been doing this pretty much full time for the entire year. It is not my full time job, but I have sort of been treating it that way just because that is what made me happy. Obviously, this isn’t totally sustainable so it makes the future a little unclear. But I will share my current thoughts and plans as best as I can.

I don’t earn much from Twitch, but I do earn enough that it is significant in my life. Between my low hour job and Twitch I just about manage to pay my bills. I don’t have any disposable income, which isn’t an easy way to live but I would take that over doing a job I hate 1 million times over. I do have savings but they are limited, so I am at a point where I am giving myself the rest of the year to see if I can make this sustainable. This is one reason that I don’t buy new games, everything that I buy comes straight out of the money that is supposed to be sustaining me for the next year, and I would really like to be doing this as long as possible.

Earning money doing this thing that I love never sat right with me. I couldn’t understand how I deserved it. People continued to be generous and helped me to understand that they like to support me because of the entertainment I have provided. Mid-year I was earning enough that I managed to come off my benefits (which is something I am entirely grateful for in itself). When that happened I started to slowly try to change my mindset, treating streaming as a job as well as a hobby. I still can’t say that I am fully understanding of the financial support people give me but I do trust that they wouldn’t do it for no reason, and although I do not feel as though I deserve more, I started to feel a little confidence in pursuing growth.

Don’t get me wrong, I do not want to be a huge streamer. My only goal is to be able to continue doing this as a job beyond the year with the understanding that not many people get to do this as a job. I am keeping my future work options on my mind the entire time. It feels kind of unbelievable that I had found the confidence to even try to pursue this. Whether I can grow a little or not, anything that I do contributes to putting me out there and finding new opportunities in the future, so that is win-win really.

Before New Year my head was buzzing with ideas. I was thinking of using sound bits so that at least people get more out of their cheers. I was thinking of using cam more because I know some people like that and we could do some fun stuff with channel points. I even got a ring light for Christmas for it. I was thinking that I should stop feeling so self conscious about putting myself out there. Try advertising myself a bit more, try tiktok etc.

Unfortunately, over the New Year I have lost almost all of that confidence that I had gained. I have literally been thinking about throwing it all away and quitting completely so I’ve been giving myself some time. But I had already set some plans in place, I know that deep down it is what I want, so I am going to try my best to continue working towards it, despite the intrusive thoughts.

So basically, what I am trying to say is that I am going to try to keep putting my all into this, it may not be forever but I am going to try my best to see if I could make it that way. There is going to be a separate post of practical 2022 goals, but writing this felt really important to me. I just wanted to make sure everyone knows where I stand with where I am now and any changes I make going forward. I want to make sure everyone knows that any support, whether financial, making a recommendation or even watching my streams is extremely appreciated by me.

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