Twitch Update – CtrlAltNoob

2022 Reflections and 2023 Goals

I wasn’t going to make a New Year post this year, but upon reflection it almost feels necessary. Instead of publicly reflecting on what has been a particularly difficult year for me, I think it will be a lot more useful and enjoyable to think of what comes next.

A constant in my life is my resistance to consistency. Give me 6 months of anything and I need change, it is just the way of the Noob. With that in mind, these are the latest thoughts in the everchanging realm that is my brain.

Twitch

I am really enjoying my current schedule on Twitch. Two consecutive days and a seperate third is pleasing for me, allowing me to get into a zone and then let it go to work on other things. I recognise that a day stream can be inconvenient for many and I wish that I could change that, but it is the only way this structure fits together with my other commitments for the time being.

When it comes to game choice, I am going to continue to alternate longer games with shorter ones. This year we played a few games that were the start of a series. For now, I am going to continue to prioritise new games over sequels. This is because there are still so many games that I have no experience in. I’d rather spread the limited time I have around to new experiences wherever I can. That doesn’t mean we won’t be playing sequels, but do expect the potential of years between them.

I am going to continue to balance older and newer games in the same way, but all of this is really dictated by whatever I have access to at the time. Anything with limited access is probably going to take priority.

YouTube

Something that I have learned this year is that I need recording time to balance out stream time. Both are great but they are entirely different experiences that I love for their own reasons. A YouTube playthrough is entirely about the game. For this reason, I am really looking forward to bringing Let’s Plays back. I am unsure about the distant future but I have a list of games that may end up lasting the entire year without any further planning, so that is one possibility.

The current plan is Let’s Plays 3x a week, Indie Showcase Saturdays forever, and I have some other ideas. Depending on my workload, a potential I have been considering is Repentance Sundays. I haven’t played any of the Repentance DLC for The Binding of Isaac yet. It could be fun to put out a run or two a week as I get to know the new content. I will see how my schedule is in a few weeks.

YouTube is such a strange thing for me. I have been doing it for much longer than Twitch but can’t say I have ever found what anyone would call success. It is wonderful to hear when people enjoy my videos, or the rare occasion I see my series is being binged. But when you look at my overall time, I can’t help but think there is a problem. The trouble is, it is hard to figure out what the problem is. Is it just oversaturation, or is it my content? Occasionally an Indie Showcase video will get more viewers than normal because it gets in the algorithm, but it rarely ever translates into more subscribers. I have tried to make my intros as short as I can while including all of the information. I kind of like my thumbnails how they are. My channel is clearly organised. I have tried calls to action but I just can’t do it. I can’t help question whether I am just not entertaining enough. My philosophy is that I make the content that I would want to watch. The thing is, I can have weird and different tastes that potentially others don’t. All of this is to say – I would LOVE for my YouTube to become something. I am not a fool and know it wont, which even makes it difficult to admit my aspiration. But man, I love what I do and just wish it had more appeal. I think the only actionable thing that I can do towards that at the moment is to keep creating.

Just to be clear, I didn’t used to care about numbers, but since trying to make my content a sustainable career it makes it especially sad to think about. Unless something drastic happens, it is not going to work out long term, which sucks but I do need to start coming to terms with.

Blog

I go through phases with my writing. Blog time has been wonderful in a year when I haven’t always felt up to speaking or being around folks. Having said that, if I am not in ‘the mood’ then what I write can be just terrible. When I started using my Blog more regularly this year I hoped that I would do some more thought pieces, a hope that I will bring forward into 2023. The amount of half written pieces and pages of notes that I have that just need a little more time in the oven is excessive. I want to write things worth reading, but I also have to work on finishing them.

I have really enjoyed writing reviews this year and I hope to continue. I have found a format that clicks very well with my thought process that I also believe is good and reader friendly. It has been a great outlet, particularly for games that I didn’t play on stream. What I would like to do going forward is take this to the next level. I would like my reviews and my blog in general to be visually friendly and interesting too. While I don’t have specific ideas yet, I am taking inspiration from the magazine I made.

I’m making it a goal this year to try out a monthly game service recap post, as well as finally figuring out my own way of covering the Indie Festivals. These things are the type that need to develop over time, but I hope to make a start on them relatively soon.

Others

Game Dev – I am in a place in my life where I need to seriously consider my future. I have worked so hard since I lost my job, trying out different things and seeing if I can find a place. Unfortunately, I am still struggling with that. I want to work in games, but I am not skilled enough to write or design anything professionally. Once my schedule has settled down, I would really like to look into Game Development. It is a little difficult because I don’t know what areas I could be good at, so I would like to dip into a bit of everything and see what calls to me. I find self learning incredibly difficult but in my current situation, I have to use all of the time that I can right now to develop a skill that can help me be self sufficient in the future. The great thing about this is that I am surrounded by talented, creative and motivated people. I would like to join that group too!

Podcast – Finally, I have been wanting this for so long that I am writing it here for my own benefit if nothing else. I have so much on my plate currently, no matter how much I wish I could make a Podcast, the circumstances just aren’t right. I still have hope for the future but for now, I have to eliminate this from my current goals. The strange part about doing that is that Podcasts are probably my favourite form of entertainment. I really enjoy and respect them, but as a result of that, I don’t want to do it until I can do it right and that unfortunately just isn’t now.

While this has been a little back and forth on past reflection vs the future plans, I believe they go hand in hand and I do like to let everyone know where I stand every once in a while. It is an unfortunate fact that I don’t know what the state of my content will be in a few months time, let alone a year. Realistically, at the current rate, I will have to be seeking other employment before then. The thing is, I desperately need that to be something that I enjoy. So this year is really going to be a juggling act between trying to grow my current content while also learning new skills. There was a time in my past that I found the unknown exciting more than scary, that is how I would like to be again. I am going to do everything in my power to make 2023 a great year.

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Channel Update – December 2022

Hey guys, it is that time again for a channel update!

Some personal issues that I am having are seriously impacting my ability to provide the content that I have promised and I hate it so much. I think my schedule needs to be a fluid thing untill I figure out something that works for both me and everyone who supports me.

Streams

I am going to try going back to 3 set streams a week. I feel like I am currently cancelling more than I am doing. Through the nature of the current flexible schedule they were always going to change, but I can’t get my head around feeling like every time slot that I don’t stream is a failure (even though I know it is not) so obviously the system isn’t working for me.

So the new schedule trial is going to be –

Monday – 1pm GMT
Thursday – 4pm GMT
Sunday – 5pm GMT

These are the days that fit the best around my other commitments. It does mean that there will only be 2 evening streams, I apologise for that.

When it comes to my Evening/Day stream games, I haven’t quite figured that out yet. I would like a name for my day stream concept, then we can just do them whenever. The biggest concern is that if I play an evening game on a day stream then people may miss chunks of the game. I will open this up to discussion in Discord.

YouTube

There will be no change with Indie Showcase, they will continue to release weekly.

I would like to bring back Let’s Plays. I miss making them. Regardless of how well they do, I think having a balance of solo recording time and live streaming time brings out the best of both – quality wise. I haven’t decided on any games yet but I am going to take a look in the coming days.

So the new YT schedule should be –

Monday – Let’s Play
Tuesday – VOD
Wednesday – Let’s Play
Thursday – VOD
Friday – Let’s Play
Saturday – Indie Showcase
Sunday – VOD

Blog

I would really like to make this into something. I spent some time last week intending to upgrade it but deciding I like it the way it is. It is a fun outlet for me and I have some ideas to make the individual posts a lot cooler if I can figure it out. Sort of like taking elements from the design of my Magazine and incorporating them into the posts here. These are only in the early idea phase so I have a lot of playing to do.

I plan to continue with reviews, eventually finish some of the thought pieces I started and most importantly to me, cover the Indie Game Festivals. I would love to do some sort of monthly round up of the game services and some other stuff but these are eventualities.

I would also love to get back to weekly Tuesday posts but I have no guarantees, I need to see how the above scheduling goes first.

I designed my (previous) new schedule to make sure I had 2 days off while maximising conent. What ended up happening is that I only saw my fixed Saturday as my day off. I would then burn out during the week and have accidental days off, which lead to the spiral of working on my scheduled days off to make up for it. With this new more fixed schedule I have 2 days off, as well as time to focus on Streams, YouTube and the Blog respectively. I am going to try this out for the rest of the year. I still have other projects that I would love to work on but first, I need to go back to basics.

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Streaming Schedule

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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What I do [2022 Edition]

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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