The video was a success.

My video from this week has been a huge success. At the time of writing it has 37.1K views and climbing. My personal goal for it was to hit 20k but I had told myself I'd be happy if it hit 10k. This is the biggest positive response to a video I have had in a long time. That brings the question. What is next? Realistically I am not totally sure but that is part of the fun in a way. Lets talk about the video itself first. The project used 51 hours worth of stream footage and had a total of 5 and a half hours worth of recorded audio that I edited into my voice lines. That is including false takes and coughing in between lines. On the last day of editing I actually lost my voice for a chunk of the day and needed to stop for a good hour to get it back. The process of making the video itself was exhausting. I worked my butt off to get the last chunks of it together. The software I am using to edit videos these days is Kdenlive. While its functional it has some bad stability issues. I lost a few hours of editing time due to a crash and load failure. Aside from this one case most of the the crashes had no ill effect and would load and restore progress from back-ups with little issue. With time I started to spot what would cause stability problems and what effects and tools to avoid using unless necessary. The audio blend tool to mesh two audio tracks together is a major culprit here. Adjusting the length of the effect would often hard lock and crash the software.

Issues with the software aside I did enjoy the process of editing the video. It has also made me rethink some things about my process of making content and this is going to work its way into the schedule going forward. My idea of how this is going to look is rather simple. I stream 3-4 days a week for a good few weeks and make and finish a large or small fort. with as much interesting narrative as possible. Working with the audience to create stories and build themes or challenges. I'm currently attempting to do this with GORETUSK a volcano cult fortress focused on the God of Death and Deformity Ugath the Larval. I have a interesting narrative building with it already. I've started taking brief notes on the fort at the end of streams to work towards another video in the same style. When the fortress is finished or nearing completion I'll take a week off streams. This time I will take to edit and put together the next video. While I love the way this one turned out I feel towards the end I had to cram and rush to get it out the door without having to wait another week. While this would heavily impact my stream schedule I think in the long run it would be a positive. As always these articles do have a comments section so if you have anything you'd like to add please do. Smaller projects can fit in nicely around the edges. I am currently looking at a completed recording of audio for my next Future of the fortress read. I'll get that edited and ready for tomorrow morning. Dwarf Fortress news will happen when it happens as well. Other games coverage is something I really enjoy doing. This format and style of video can also be used as smaller projects. The Norland video I released was a significantly smaller amount of work and contained a good amount of production work as well. It did not perform as intensely as this one but it was also a different game.

Something on this subject I'd like to talk about as well. Making my videos into an event. My whole career and my peers in this industry hinges on major releases and updates for games that we are known for playing. This is the same for me and the issue with being so focused on a small number of games means your chances to grow are few and far between. This leads to this style shift in videos. If I can make them an event that brings people together and helps people regain interest in the game and finds new people and helps them discover it that is a much better use of my time long term then simply reminding people I exist. That is all my content has done till now. Highlights and low effort videos can be good but they down have much draw outside of people who already know me. Videos like this have a wider draw and more pushing power for growth.

I say this, Lets work together. Building my ability to push large numbers of people into a game that needs it or deserves it. With power like that I can continue to do what I have always loved doing in this job. Supporting games that deserve it and videos like that can possibly give me that power. If I can improve the quality of the streams and have event like releases when I upload a video. This could lead to a really cool future for my work and channels.

Keeping the current Tuesday - Friday Schedule this week. Even though the Friday streams tend to have a lower turnout then the rest I find its a chance for different folks to tune in and that has a lot of value to me. There is a few non dwarf fortress games I want to try this week. I was given a key to the game Approaching Infinity. I'd loosely call it a star trek Traditional Rogue Like. That is something I'd really like to have a look at. Jupiter Hell is also getting an update on Tuesday. That is something I'd like to play a few runs of it for old times sake having streamed over 450 hours of at one point in time. Its always nice to return. Norland is still on the to do list as well. I'd say that I have my work cut out for me this week. Lots to play and not enough time to dorf.

I also got a laptop this weekend and messed around with the Cogmind UI updates. I have to say that I am impressed with the features added since I last played. It even has a tutorial, I'll have to get back to that one sooner rather then later.

Stats! YouTube is up by 16% since last week getting 91,788 views in the last 7 days. In addition the channel also grew by 389 subscribers that is 134% more compared to last week. Twitch stream stats are down from last week. 155 average viewers. While they are down it is consistent with the summer average. Nothing to be concerned about there.

I wrote about Paradox a few weeks back. Its astonishing how quickly things can turn from bad to worse. Now I'm writing about them again. This time its Prison Architect 2. Lets go back in time, Introversion Software is a developer that hit me at the right time when I was Young. The first game I played from them was Uplink. The goal of the game was to hack into systems and get away with it. The game play was menu driven but tense with an awesome atmosphere. The second game from Introversion that I crossed paths with was DEFCON. Simple, sleek and dark. DEFCON was a nuclear war simulator. It felt like the movie "War Games" It did a great job of mimicking the feeling of global war without being too dense to digest as a kid. After that I missed them for a while. They released Darwinia and Multiwinia on the Xbox but I never had that console. Even though I have played them since they were not games I have a strong nostalgic feeling for. Then came Prison Architect.

For those who don't remember Prison Architect was one of the first early access games. Not only was it that early in the existence of the program but it was and still is a prime example of how to do that type of development correctly. Frequent developer videos and large patch notes full of player feedback and community interaction. I picked it up for a whopping 29.99$ Cad and played a good deal of it in the early days of its development. I did eventually fall off and not really pick it back up. Even though I lost interest I still really enjoyed the time I put into it back then. Prison Architect would go on to sell incredibly well over the following years. It even saved the existence of Introversion Software, Thus the era of Early access and the continued existence of a beloved indie studio was set in motion.

After Prison Architect had released in a complete state. They would start working on additional content and partnered with Paradox to release the game on Mobile devices. This was in 2017, it seemed like a net positive. People generally liked Paradox at the time but some folks were concerned about the connection. However, in January 2019 Paradox announced that they had bought the Prison Architect and the connected IP from Introversion software and would be working on future content for the game and immediately teased a squeal. Double Eleven continued Prison Architects development under the stewardship of Paradox. The studio was most known for Pixel Junk and Frozen Synapse, Their efforts to make Prison Architect DLC was met with mixed responses.

Fast forward to January of 2024 Prison Architect 2 is formally announced and set to release on the 26th of March 2024. However this would soon get hit with a delay to the 7th of May to "Fix more bugs and further optimize the game for all platforms" a month later the game was delayed till September 3rd 2024 due to "New technical challenges" and now Just a few days ago on the 2nd of August the game was delayed indefinitely to "Improve the games performance and quality" Double Eleven is a Proven studio with a good number of games under their belt from years past. This is however still disturbing none the less. Recent Paradox releases from their studios have been severely lacking. While they do tend to get them into a better state with time. It is still a trend that leaves a lot of game players in a state of distrust. Cities: Skylines 2 was particularity noteworthy with its horrible performance and questionable design. To the credit of colossal order they have been putting good work into the game but it still leaves folks standing with the bag and feeling ripped off. Since Paradox shut down their studio Techtonic after canceling their set to release sims competitor "Life by you" questions about the stability of Paradox and their catalogue are common in discussion forums.

Prison Architect is beloved by many and was a pioneer made by a storied developer with a long history in indie games. From my perspective Prison Architect 2 is a make or break for Paradox. You can only betray your audience so many times before they just stop dealing with it. Cities: Skylines 2 burned me hard enough that I am unlikely to return to one of their titles in the future. While I am not the audience for Prison Architect 2, I still find it fascinating watching Paradox as a publisher. Their continued focus on unsustainable growth and the abuse of their own customer base to push out games that feel halfway completed for full price with years in advance of planned downloadable content. It often ends up feeling like you are paying for them to finish a game you paid full price for in the first place. Its not to say that they won't get better eventually but its rare to get a complete product on day one from Paradox. If Prison Architect releases poorly. The franchise is dead in the water. The fans still talking about the first game on their subreddit are getting more and more down on it. Disappoint them and they are not likely to give it a second chance.

The subreddit for Prison Architect is a depressing place. While they are polite about it their feelings are extremely clear they are not thrilled with Paradox as stewards of the game they love.

I guess this lands me here, in this odd place. What should Paradox do to remedy this? You can't fix past mistakes but you can learn from them and improve. They should delay the game by as long as it needs. Let Double Eleven do everything they need to put together a good experience for all players. Don't announce a downloadable content plan off the bat. while yes, it drives revenue but it automatically brings in the feeling of unfinished ick. Some folks reading this might remember when Street Fighter released with characters you could buy for real money on the disk itself ready to go on day one. While its been a long time since then if you release a product planning to sell more product and advertising the fact some people will always be uneasy about it.

Once the game is ready and released. Work on it for a year emulate what Introversion did, replicate what built the community around the game in the first place and go from there. After its been awhile and the game has succeeded you start releasing extra downloadable content. Planning to develop and sell content for a unproven product has always baffled me. While it makes sense for something like Helldivers 2 or any always online game where you have to pay for ongoing server hosting for the game to function. A single player management game should not have the same model. Focus on developing a fun game to play before you dissect it into the most profitable product possible.

I hope you enjoyed this mindless ramble about Paradox here is a final quote taken from the Game Developer Article by Chris Kerr

"At this stage, we can't commit to a new release date as we need to re-assess the scope of the work needed to be done before the game is release-ready. Over the next few months, we will focus on improving the game and building a more robust release timeline. This also means we will be limiting our communication with you all until we have a timeline we feel comfortable with, We are confident that delaying Prison Architect 2 is the best path forward for the game, allowing us more time to deliver a high-quality experience that honors the legacy of Prison Architect," – Paradox