Tag: streaming

What I Learned from Doing an All Day Stream

~ Liz Harrison ~ Leave a comment

Lesson One: NEVER AGAIN.

Okay, I’m being sarcastic. I’ll do it again… at some point.

For those not in the know, last Friday I did a full Platinum playthrough of The Lego Movie Video Game on my Twitch stream. That’s 100% of the game. All levels completed, all items collected, all characters unlocked, and all miscellaneous trophies achieved. Considering the length of the game, I planned on the stream taking about nine hours. I knew this was a crazy idea, but it was something that I’d always wanted to do, to do a long stream with a game I actually knew.

I ended up taking almost twelve hours total, but there was a full two hours that the stream was offline, and other times that the timer was paused. Reason being I was having internet issues. Turns out if my mom and I are on the same wi-fi connection, I can’t get Twitch to remain stable for more than ten minutes.

I was actually pretty proud with my official time, which was 9 hours, 16 minutes, 55 seconds, just under sixteen minutes over my estimation. I was careful with using the timer, turning it off immediately when the stream started stuttering, and I waited until I was sure that everything was back up before I unpaused the timer. I also made sure that the timer was running before unpausing the game as well, so my time was probably lower.

I also took break every hour or so, for about five minutes. The reason was, I didn’t want to strain my eyes. It’s been over two years since I was diagnosed with iih, but I still overcompensate with keeping my eyes safe. I knew I didn’t need to take as many breaks as I ended up taking, but like I said, better to be safe than sorry. It worked out in my favor as well. My eyes didn’t bother me until the next day, which is normal for me now. (Yes, I need a new prescription, but I’m waiting until everyone in my household has had the vaccine, for safety.)

The biggest issue I had was I’d planned on taking no more than a thirty minute break around noon. We ordered Jersey Mike’s as a treat and everything. Unfortunately, what should have been a fifteen-twenty minute wait from order to delivery turned into over an hour (not the driver’s fault, just busy at the store). That threw off my plan by a lot. By the time our sandwiches arrived, I just sat on the couch and ate with mom, instead of eating at my desk.

But delays aside, it was a lot of fun. I’ve played The Lego Movie Game four times to completion before, so it was fun to go back and blast through it. I was remembering all the things I didn’t like as I played, and why I don’t really want to play it half the time. But at the same time, I was playing through history, as this game came out around the same time as Lego Marvel Superheroes. The different between the games is hilarious (one is amazing, the other… leaves a lot to be desired). My biggest thing I like was playing some of the tasks in the overworld, which are a definite plus. Of course, those tasks aren’t the greatest but still.

Something I did notice were some bugs that I’d never experienced before. I ended up caught in a wall a few times, and a required item spawned in above my character, rendering it inaccessible. Luckily for the latter, going to another hub world and returning reset the issue. I also kept on hitting invisible walls in places that they never had existed before, and I had several things not load properly. I’m not sure if this is because I was playing a digital copy of the game, but it was mildly inconveniencing.

On the streaming side, I did have people pop in! I had a wonderful conversation with several people, include someone who left and returned to see me finish, when I was doing my 15 required vehicle builds in the bonus room. It was nice to share the moment.

Was the stream successful? Unfortunately, not. I was hoping that by playing for a long time, I would get more viewers. I didn’t, due to my frequent pauses and internet issues. My average viewer count dropped, which is a problem (I need it to be 3, it was 1.4, now it is at 1.1).

But it’s ok. It was my first time. Nothing is perfect the first time.

I did decided I’m going to hate-play The Lego Movie 2 Game completely on stream, mostly so I can scream at it. It’s always fun to hate play something. I may end up play more Lego games on stream as well, including Lego City Undercover and Lego Dimensions.

So, my experiment failed. But I’m cool with it. Next time, things will be better.

Until next time!

Streaming Updates

~ Liz Harrison ~ Leave a comment

Hey all!

I was going over my streaming schedule for the next month or so, and of course things have to change due to releases and the like.

First, I’m still going to stream Monday-Thursday 8-10pm PST, weather/health permitting. I’m really trying to get better about it, so I’m doing my best to get ahead of everything, so that I’m not stressing by 7, which is usually the cause for me cancelling a stream.

This Friday was supposed to be my second book stream of the month. I’d already planned on pushing it a week due to Owlcrate’s shipping being delayed. However, Owlcrate announced that the box isn’t shipping until February 24-26, which would be right around the date for the next stream. So, instead, this Friday I’ll be doing another gaming stream, and we will be delaying the book stream until the box arrives. I’ll announce it when I have an idea of when the box is coming. It’s totally possible that I may have to shift the book streams a week across the board. But right now it’s up in the air.

As for upcoming games, we should be finishing up with Kingdom Hearts II by Thursday the 18th. Next up with be What Remains of Edith Finch, which will be next Monday. It’s a short game, but I have plans for Friday night (Wandavision!), so I only have the normal bonus time to do the Friday stream. If you haven’t heard anything about this game, all I will say that it’s one of the best and well written games I’ve played in a while. I just played it on Xbox One and loved every second of it.

After that, I’m hoping to replay The Avengers. Now, I know I said that Kingdom Hearts III was next. However, I really want to play the new DLC when it drops on March 18th, so I figured that replaying Avengers would be fun. Plus everyone gets to see me suck at playing certain characters (re: THOR).

I don’t honestly think it will take a month to play through The Avengers and the DLC. If we have extra time before the DLC drops, there’s a puzzle game called The Gardens Between that we might give a play at. Another short puzzle game that also has a beautiful story, told in silence.

As for this Friday’s bonus stream, I’ll be playing this wonderful puzzle game called Glass Masquerade. It’s your standard puzzle game, with all the pieces being stain glass and weirdly shaped. I’ve already beaten the game before, so this is just going to be a casual play.

So, this week’s stream schedule looks like this: (2/16-2/19)

  • Tuesday (8pm): Kingdom Hearts II
  • Wednesday (8pm): Kingdom Hearts II
  • Thursday (8pm): Kingdom Hearts II – hopefully finale
  • Friday (4pm): Glass Masquerade [casual]

Next week’s schedule is shaping up as well: (2/22-2/26)

  • Monday (8pm): What Remains of Edith Finch
  • Tuesday (8pm): The Avengers
  • Wednesday (8pm): The Avengers
  • Thursday (8pm): The Avengers

Should Owlcrate arrive on February 26th, we will go ahead and do the book stream. Otherwise, we will have a bonus unplanned stream as soon as it arrives.

As for Kingdom Hearts III, as soo as the Avengers DLC is taken care of, I’ll be jumping into it. I’m only holding off because of Avengers, and I was talking it up because I totally forgot that the second DLC was announced. That’s my mistake and on me.

So yeah, here’s the quick update. If there are some cool games that drop before March 18th, than things might get a little messy. We shall see what comes next.

(And just in case anyone is wondering, I’m going to watch the Nintendo direct a bit late today so that I can attempt to record my reactions. If the video doesn’t completely suck, I’ll throw the reaction video up on YouTube. We shall see.)

Until next time!

Two Weeks of Streaming: How Goes It?

~ Liz Harrison ~ Leave a comment

How goes it? Well, not perfectly.

Let me be honest, this isn’t how I wanted to start off in 2021 streaming. But that’s how it goes.

I knew jumping in to streaming, and not being a fan of the big Triple-A titles (Fortnight, Among Us, COD, and so many others) meant that breaking in would be difficult. But I’m having fun and that’s what matters, right?

But let’s go back to the Tuesday before last, my first planned stream.

I started streaming a few minutes late, but that was because I was having some connection issues with my sound not coming through my headphones. It’s something that I’ve had problems in the past with, and I wasn’t about to not play any sort of game without dealing with it. I’d say the stream went well, though I didn’t get anyone into chat. The only problem was that in the final half hour, I kept on having connection issues, and I disconnected twice.

I was playing an indie game that I fell in love with a few years ago called Lili: Child of Geos. It’s a fun little game that deals with a young teen girl going to an island to collect flowers for research, and becoming involved with saving the creatures of the island from an evil dictator of a Mayor. I will say that there are some issues with some of the text, as there are some hilarious grammatical issues. But it’s a quick little game that I completed on stream in four hours total.

Wednesday was about the same. Finished off Lili and talked about my other streaming plans. I didn’t have any connection issues, which was good. And I was hopeful for the future.

On Thursday, I started a different game, one that I think is a lot of fun. Well, mostly because I could make social distencing comments and complain about all the people going to Disney World. I began Disneyland Adventures. The game is basically collectathon in Disneyland as seen in 2011, minus any Star Wars, Marvel, or Indiana Jones references. Which makes a lot of sense, because licensing. I didn’t get too far into the game, only because it is a surprisingly long game for being a kids game. But I’m okay with that.

I didn’t stream that Friday, but I did start my planned stream on Saturday. I began playing through Lego Batman: The Video Game, which was my first time touching the game. I got through the first chapter of the Hero story (five chapters) before signing off because of a major headache. I also cancelled my planned Sunday stream because of the same reason.

Last Tuesday and Wednesday’s streams were cancelled as well. Tuesday was because of high winds in my city, which makes having power kind of a gamble (California please bury your powerlines you cowards). I didn’t want to stream only to have it die ten minutes in. And yeah, my power did flicker a few times, so I think it was the right move. Wednesday, my family was watching the Inauguration and all the festivities surrounding it.

Last Thursday, I jumped back into Disneyland Adventures and made some decisions regarding how far into the game I was planning on going (hint, pretty far actually). I had a few funny moments, basically back to back, and I made my first clips from a stream because of them.

On Friday, I did a bonus stream to make up for missing the beginning of the week. On stream, I unboxed January 2021’s Owlcrate, which was a lot of fun to do, as well discussed my top books of 2020 and what books are on my 2021 reading list. Basically a stripped down version of the posts I wrote up for Friday and Monday. And honestly, it was a lot of fun. I got to have way too much fun making changes to what I put on Goodreads, which is something I’d wanted to go into on my 2020 Reading Wrap-up post, but I ran out of time. Unfortunately, the stream ended abruptly, as a certain someone in this house that isn’t my mother decided that downloading a bunch of stuff and crashed the internet.

And then…

I gave up on weekend streaming. There’s just too much that my family does on weekends, that taking the afternoon to stream is just not feasable. But I’m not sure if I’ll stream during the evenings, so I’m not offically changing the schedule yet.

And finally, to round out two weeks, I streamed last night. I continued with my playthrough of Disneyland Adventures. I think I’m two weekday streams away from finishing, maybe three. I keep forgetting just how long the “story mode” of the game is, and I added the additional collectables that half the character have at the end of their adventures. I am, at least, getting most of the collectables off stream. I’m just not completing the quests until I’m on camera.

So, what have I discovered?

Well, my decision to play some not so popular games wasn’t my best idea. There’s just not enough people looking for those games to tune in. Which is kind of an issue, because I’m just not really into most of the “big games”. No offense to anyone who likes them, it’s just not my thing. I may go ahead and play through some games I’ve already played through again, such as Marvel’s Spider-man and Bugsnax. I’m also planning on playing Kingdom Hearts on Game Pass, because why not right?

I did decide that I wouldn’t play any new Lego games on stream (barring Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, because I really want to go ahead and do the first playthrough live. I also am toying with playing through some of the Lego Dimensions Adventure Worlds on stream, just no the actual story. I’m not saying I’m going to do it, just thinking about it.

I also, as I mentioned above, am very much debating not doing afternoon streams on weekends, or limiting it to one day instead of both. I’m not making any promises just yet, but I’ll update the schedule as I decide.

One thing I want to continue to do is having a monthly book stream, unboxing Owlcrate and whatnot. It had a lot of fun with tat. And I guess I’ll have to discuss the new Shadow and Bone show once that starts in April. Which also means I need to read those damn books… Yikes.

I am having fun, even if I’m just talking to the void. Which is something really important to me. I don’t really want to do something that I don’t enjoy.

There’s still a lot for me to do, including making a “stream starting soon” graphic, and a different layout for my book streams. But I have time for that.

For now, I’m getting ready for tonight’s stream, and tomorrow’s, and what the future holds.

Until next time!