LP Reflections

Hilariously, the list of LPs I've been in the drivers' seat for is short as heck, because I have in the past proven incredibly bad at actually doing all the legwork for these projects. A lot of this comes from being in college and not having anything in the way of set downtime because computer science majors are ridiculous, but maybe I'm just lazy as hell


As a preface, when I joined the forums in 2009 it was entirely for the sake of getting into LP so I could do Mario 64. I didn't know shit about making internet videos, I had never recorded myself for anything, but literally the week before I joined SA I had gotten all 120 stars in SM64 with my feet and I knew people would want to see that. In a way my entire LP career hinges on the coincidence that I happened to be really into watching LPs at the time. But I knew I was inexperienced and that my first LP would be a total disaster, especially trying something weird like picture in picture, since I didn't have any sort of decent video editing software (or even the knowledge of where to start). So I decided it'd be better to try some other stuff first and wait on Mario 64 until I felt that I was ready

In a stroke of luck, Slowbeef decided that he was going to do a blind LP of Metroid Prime a little after I decided to join. If you've seen that, you know that I'm kind of knowledgeable about it, and as a companion piece I decided to show off some sequence breaking tricks:

Metroid Prime, low-ish % run

This was the first time I ever recorded a video game, and my setup was hilariously janky, but it worked out okay. By the end I had a decent workflow, and having the set goal of just "do a run like you'd normally do when I replay the game" was really helpful in keeping the recordings short and simple. It helped a lot to have Slowbeef and sometimes Diabetus to carry the commentary because when I look back at basically all my old videos I cringe at myself. I'm really happy I eventually learned not to laugh at every single thing my co-commentators say (just most of them). All in all it was a really good way to get into things and I'm glad I had the chance (and could ask Slowbeef lots of stupid technical questions)

Star Wars: Bounty Hunter

This was my first LP proper, of one of the billion Star Wars spinoff games that got made while the prequel trilogy was being made, and in retrospect it was a decent choice for an LP because it's got hints of interesting but by the end I really needed to try hard to keep it interesting. That said, I find it hard to watch. This was technically my second LP with Dazz and Bro Ent (the first being DK64, which ran concurrently), and while we had known each other for about 4 years at that point we'd never actually spoken to each other with our voices, just via text (hooray for forum friends). As such all of us really had some trouble finding a groove and there's some shit in there I really wish I could go back and get rid of ("midget punching" was a horrible gimmick and weirdly ableist, at best that animation deserved a single look for "wow that's really silly"s sake). I think Addar is and also has always been way better at explaining what's going on (go watch her Dark Souls 2 LP, seriously) than I ever was, so it took me awhile to figure out how to present the game and it's really kind of a mess

Super Mario 64 (with my feet)

I really have no regrets with this one, except that avisynth is really fuckin bad at picture in picture, especially when your framerates are ever so slightly off and your webcam is apparently shooting your feet at some sort of variable framerate and it's really fucking hard to properly sync up the foot video with the gameplay video and lmao, this was just so annoying to do technically. These days I'd do the whole fuckin' thing in OBS and it'd be effortless, but it was a different time. I was still really busy with school but I was mostly able to keep a decent schedule with this, and Dazz, Bro Ent, and all my various other guests and I really had gotten so much better at talking and keeping things flowing and thank god this wasn't my first LP or I'd hate it now

I haven't gone back and watched it all in a while now but with the parts I have seen again I really don't have that instinctive cringe I get when watching Bounty Hunter or even a lot of episodes of Slowbeef's Metroid Prime. I should go see if it still holds up to me sometime

Yoshi's Island GBA (unfinished, never will be)

This was... a bit of a strange one. It's probably a good thing my Mario 64 LP managed to finish in the fall of 2011 because in January of 2012 I got ball cancer. Despite that I decided to start Yoshi's Island in February because I had just had the surgery and I was in remission and everything was fine. Except it wasn't, and when I got a CT on spring break in March it turned out it had metastasized and I needed chemotherapy. I pressed on but it was just too much of a drain on my energy, so eventually I just had to put it on hiatus. When I was finally better in the summer, I brought it back but was soon swamped with more schoolwork, both catching up and going into some of the hardest, most time intensive courses in the major. It made several comebacks but each time I just couldn't muster up as much energy to keep it going

I think part of it was that I realized that while I loved the game, I had a lot of trouble conveying exactly why that was, and everything sort of turned into "because it's awesome/cute/controls nicely" and other vague things like that. By this point I was able to keep up a conversation about just about anything so the videos themselves are watchable and even good but it sort of felt unfulfilling for all the work I was putting in, I guess. Plus my co-commentators and I were all going through a lot and it was getting harder and harder to find time to get us all together and it just didn't seem right, so eventually I kinda just quietly killed it off. I actually have the raw recordings of the final world including the final boss fight and bonus level, but I've never worked up the energy or desire to get people together and talk over them. It kinda feels like 3 years later is a bit too late at this point


Of course there's also all the shit I've guested (and am still guesting) in, and all in all that stuff's been a wonderful experience. I wanna give a special shoutout to Dark Souls, since I was the one who requested it in the first place. I was really happy when Geop PM'd me and said he had just gotten the game so he'd be willing to give it a try, and it kicked off something that's basically been my main connection with the community ever since. Of course I wasn't doing all the work, but Dark Souls was a fantastic experience and in the early parts it really helped me a lot during chemotherapy (fun fact, the first 15 or so episodes were all recorded while I was going through chemo). As a whole it really turned out to be everything I wanted it to be, capturing the magic of your first runthrough of a Souls game while still managing to be brisk enough to be watchable (if looooong)


All in all I'm really happy I got into LP and I'm really happy with how far I've come since I started. I've made a lot of cool friends and learned a lot of neat things and it's definitely done wonders for my conversation skills and overall confidence. These days I've got my eyes on something a bit more ambitious, so we'll see if that ever pans out

And that's my effortpost, feel free to skip