So… as you may have noticed, I’ve been busy and haven’t posted on this blog in a long time. I don’t work in marketing anymore, so it’s not a priority to practice digital SEO practices and such. But hey! I still enjoy writing generally.
I was thinking how to revive this blog and make use of it or if I even should… well, how about I update you on something new I started?
About a year ago, split up with an ex and wanted to clear my head of it by trying different activities. I settled on starting a YouTube channel. I thought I would give a tour of it and offer some of thoughts on the experience. I only have 12 videos at the time of writing this post, so I won’t have a ton of wisdom to share, but if you do find something helpful let me know.
My YouTube is called Crab Tribe, named after a Discord group I’ve managed for some time.
Feel free to check it out and subscribe.
1) YouTube Let’s Play Minecraft – Crab Tribe Edition!
At first, I thought I’d attempt to give a playthrough series in a world of Minecraft. I called the world “The Crab Tribe”. I narrated different projects I set out to do and explained how to build some contraptions and structures. I did this for seven videos and got side tracked with work. Sadly I never picked up the series again and it’s probably too late (the game has updated quite a bit now a year later). I had fun regardless and I would do it again sometime.
I took inspiration from some YouTube “Let’s Play” series. These content creators record a session of them gaming in a world and completing some tasks, like building something or exploring a cave. Ibxtoycat is one such YouTuber who does these kind of videos I enjoy watching. He’s a very helpful if you’re learning the game.
I would say this period of my videos was me just expressing myself through the game mostly and moving on from the past. I achieved that purpose, so in that I am happy.
What is Minecraft?
Minecraft is different than most games. It’s a massive sandbox game with almost endless possibilities of things you can build and do. The game does include a few bosses and has scattered hints of lore, but that isn’t the focus. Instead, you’re not given instructions at the beginning of any world. You, as the player, decide the objectives. And, the game gives no time limit and hardly any space constraints to achieve whatever goals you set out to accomplish.
The game is built of blocks with hundreds of variety to represent different biomes and materials. For example, a forest would have a grass block floor and trees consisting of oak log blocks and leave blocks. The player can break apart each of those and combine them with other blocks to made new materials. Caves underground, deserts, rainforests, oceans, and mountains each have their unique set of building blocks and items for crafting.
If you want to build a nice looking house and some farms within Minecraft, you’re free to do so whenever. However, if you wanted to construct a goofy looking statue of a walrus or an ancient and mysterious temple, you’re also free to do so at your leisure. The world is your oyster, as someone once said.
So, there’s no winning or losing in Minecraft. Although, you can die and might lose resources.
The game teaches some valuable lessons that children and young adults could benefit from learning. Including:
- Effective Communication
- Directional Skills
- Resource Management
- Logic Gates
- Landscape / Interior Design Theory
- Long Term Planning
Hey, wait a minute! These sounds like resume items. Maybe that’s just how useful the game can be for young people?
I wouldn’t call myself a huge gamer. Mostly, I play casual games to pass time. Cannot say I am too into stressful competitive games. I played League of Legends all through college and that was enough for me. Games like that really suck the energy out of me and it’s frustrating losing while trying to reaching a certain rank.
However, with Minecraft you can chill and play at your own pace whether solo or with friends.
2) YouTube Rimworld Playthrough – Super Tough Dudes!
Four months after I started The Crab Tribe Minecraft series, I switched over to a different game – Rimworld. In the beginning, I only created a tutorial of how to set up a base and survive the first few days in the game. Then, more recently, I decided to make it another playthrough series. I followed my group of little villagers as they survived the winter, quite a few raids, and managed to expand the fortress. I called the faction, the “Super Tough Dudes” with an ideology based around slavery and raiding.
I have three episodes as of writing this blog. This series I have a soft spot for and hope to continue. I simply enjoy the game enough and it’s not as exhausting as editing a large recording session of Minecraft.
What is Rimworld?
Rimworld is another sandbox type game like Minecraft, but it has a bigger emphasis on survival simulation and random events. It’s also a top down view, unlike the first person view of Minecraft.
You start out any game of Rimworld with a few customization options. Pick where you want to start (desert, tundra, forest, etc…), then select your story scenario. These preset scenarios are either:
- Crash Landed = you select a group of 3 people who have landed in escape pods on the planet
- Lost Tribe = you select a group of 5 people who have fled some kind of machine angry machine. This scenario you start with less technology, making it more difficult in the beginning phase of the game.
- Rich Explorer = you select 1 person as your only colonist, but he/she begins the game with an abundance of resources, including turret technology. This wealthy aristocrat was bored of life and wanted escape to this unknown planet.
- Naked Brutality = you select 1 person as your only colonist and he/she begins the game completely nude with no initial resources. This is the most difficult Rimworld scenario.
That last scenario is the one I enjoy playing the most because of the extreme challenge. I’ve lasted well over 200 days on the harder difficulties in that beginning scenario, but also have lost on day 1 from a wild animal attacking me (death by squirrel or rat is no joke).
The nudity might alarm you, but there’s nothing revealing in these pixel characters. But this game is not young children or the faint of heart. You can do almost anything to survive, including resort to cannibalism and slavery. And, if you play on harder difficulties, don’t get you too attached to your cute little colonist. They will die quite often and you’ll need to replace them quickly to keep pace with your resource gathering and defending your territory.
What’s the goal of the game? Well… again, it’s up to you! You could work towards one of the official endings, leaving the mysterious planet. After researching enough technologies, you can construct a spaceship and blast off to safety. You can also achieve this goal by making the long journey from the starting region to a crashed spaceship and repairing it. Finally, if you had the Rimworld: Royalty DLC installed, you can level in the Empire faction and buddy up with the High Stellarch leader and he will give you passage off world.
But, why “win” the game? If you wanted, you play endlessly as a drug dealing slave colony and live out your fantasy. Enjoy managing a faction of free loving hippies or savage women warriors.
The last expansion, Rimworld: Ideology gives greater flexibility to players to create their own society by beginning the game with an additional customization menu for religion and/or philosophy. You can select traits that define each starting character’s beliefs about nature, gender roles, acceptable food, how tolerant they are, and so on! I wasn’t too excited about Empire, but I highly recommend the Ideology expansion to give you the best experience with the game.
Mods are also a huge part of the Rimworld community and they offer you even more options to customize your faction, starting region, builds, and scenarios.
3) Magic: The Gathering YouTube Tutorials
I love both Minecraft and Rimworld in their own ways. They offer unique experiences to play each time, so there’s never a dull moment. Unfortunately, I didn’t get too many views on either series. I would guess very long videos are more suited for streaming platforms like Twitch. The algorithm doesn’t like them and I found them quite exhausting to plan.
Instead of a gameplay series, I wanted to switch gears and make the channel more focused on explaining Magic: The Gathering, including topics like how to play, showing off some of my decks, and overviewing some interesting cards and their interactions with others.
So far, this direction is proving more successful for engagement and much more enjoyable for me personally than a long continuous series I had to keep up with over time.
I’ve posted two YouTube videos about Magic at this time. I feel really proud of my work and the positive feedback I’ve received from comments and friends.
What is Magic: The Gathering?
Magic (MTG) is a fantasy collectable card game, similar to Pokémon or Yu-Gi-Oh! Though it’s about around longer than either, starting in 1993.
It’s played with creatures that attack or defend the other player(s) and these creatures can be buffed up with other cards. The countless different ways to modify the creatures and your battlefield in the game is quite amazing. You can win by playing multiple smalls creatures that can attack right way (“agro” decks) or a small amount of creatures but with other enchantment or artifact spell cards that inhibit the options of other players (“control” decks). Most decks fall within a spectrum between those two styles.
To grasp the game fully, It’s helpful for you to understand there are 5 color identifies of cards. Each requires their own specific mana to cast. Some cards have a combination of these colors and a mix of the game style behind them.
The 5 mana colors in MTG and themes are the following:
- Blue = control & manipulating the game (steal, counter, extra turn, draw effects)
- White = protection & healing (saving creatures, life gain, counters)
- Red = aggressive & direct damaging spells (noncombat damage, haste and cheap creatures)
- Black = destroy & recursion magic (returning permanents from the graveyard, Murder like spells, sacrifice triggers)
- Green = increasing mana production & big creatures (“ramp” spells, trample and expensive creatures, fighting)
As you can see, Magic gives players a lot of options for how to win the game. Normally, you win by reducing your opponent’s life totals to 0. But you could also choose to a construct a deck around any of the “alt win con” cards, like Approach of the Second Sun or Biovisionary. Additionally, you can choose to win by forcing your opponent to put all their cards in their deck in their graveyard. This is known as a “mill” strategy. Finally, players can lose the game by having 10 poison counters. Creatures with the keyword “infect” deal damage to creatures in the form of -1/-1 counters and to players in the form of poison counters.
Some of these terms will sound confusing because I am not stopping to explain every detail. But I hope to eventually summarize the game and all my decks through my YouTube channel!
Reflection on YouTubing
My overall experience with YouTube is enjoyable and a great learning experience.
I’ve learned some editing tricks and how to format videos. More importantly, I’ve learned to accept myself and feel confident again, especially with my voice. I used to think I sound terrible. I think all I needed was practice! I helps to take your time and sound out phrases so you can enunciate clearly to the audience.
My advise to anyone is to take your time and don’t expect results right away. Think more of the value presenting gives to yourself first before you think about the audience. If you’re not confidence and don’t stick with it, you won’t get anywhere.
Hope this all was helpful in explaining a little bit about my YouTube and why I do it! Give it a try and post you own videos. It’s something to do and worth your while to practice expressing yourself with confidence.
See you guys next time!