The week of change.

Change is healthy but exhausting.

Okay, so before I really begin this post, I have to say: it's 33°C (91.4°F). I have my hallway door open and the glass door open, with my fan pointed at me. It's not that bad because I have a pleasant breeze where I'm currently seated. Tuesday is supposed to be hotter, but thankfully it cools down after that.

YouTube has been quite interesting this past week. The planned content changes slowly coming into effect are quite exciting. The main thing I need to keep in check as I change my workflows is making sure I leave time to rest. So far, the biggest change is in my video preparation. 'Future of the Fortress' videos have been the first main series to receive updates.

Instead of just using screenshots, I have taken all the posts and copied them into GIMP. Using the Dwarf Fortress-style font, they will now be overlaid on a backdrop drawn by Cooler. As I did this, I corrected some grammar errors to make them easier to read and record. This will also help improve the recording quality. I think this should increase visibility for anyone reading along and make listening easier! Hopefully, people will appreciate the mostly aesthetic changes to this series and the production improvements. Hopefully, the first new-style episode will release on Tuesday.

I've also been working on other things. I have a plugin for OBS that lets me record multiple scenes at a time. This means I'll have the normal VOD as well as a recording of just the game play without my face or chat on it. Because of this, I should be able to drastically increase the quality of the game play footage in videos. I did a small amount of testing yesterday by recording my face-cam on one feed and a YouTube video in the background. It's a little debunking/watch-along video about a Dwarf Fortress iceberg. There are some really out-there things that need to be clarified and some mechanical issues. Mostly, I want to try to create some more "mainstream" types of content while also possibly encouraging people who covered Dwarf Fortress in the past to cover it again. I mean, heck, maybe I should watch hoodie hair videos on stream or something. Please leave feedback in the comments on this post; I'm also looking for ideas on things I can fix and improve, including spelling and grammar errors in these posts. Feedback is good, and a huge thank you to those who have been assisting.

The next thing I should talk about briefly is shorts. Even though it's not a format I'm super fond of, it does get views when they hit. I'm getting better at making them hit more often. Since the whole reason I started working on the YouTube channel was to bring in traffic, this direction is making more and more sense. Folks often say they just don't have time to watch things I put out. If I can elevate my thumbnails and video quality a few notches while keeping the YouTube channel healthy with shorts and streams, I think this direction will work quite well in the long run.

Now that summer is officially here as I write this, I also have a partial draft of gardening photos and some information about what I'm growing. I'll post that on Tuesday. I won't be sending it out via email, so check back or set up an RSS feed using blindirl.com/rss.

Caves of Qud is truly one of my favorite games of all time. I absolutely adore this little game. But it has changed a lot over the years. While the feel and style of the game are still the same, the UI has steadily increased in usability. I've had gripes with the changes in spots, but as time has gone on, they have worked and tuned the keyboard controls to where they feel decent. The problem with keyboard-driven games that support other control methods is it limits readability. While the old UI was worse in a lot of ways, it had a major benefit: clarity. It was big, bold, and bright with everything in a neat list. I will always be sad when nice bold listed text gets replaced with a pixel art default. However, they were kind enough to allow me to hit Tab to change the paper doll screen to one that is simply a list. While this new style does make it much clearer when you have six arms and two heads, it's just easier for me to navigate a list.

Caves of Qud is in a fantastic spot right now. I look forward to its full release, and I hope it takes off to new, bigger, and better heights. Qud is a joy to follow and watch as it develops, and I look forward to doing so as long as they are willing to update it.

My work is in a state of flux right now. With me focusing on increasing my production quality, I can't fully guarantee I will be able to release an accurate list of videos I'll be posting. Instead, I'll list the games I want to stream and what I'm working on.

Future of the Fortress will be up the day after I post this blog. I just need to tune and trim the recording now that I have the new art. The debunk video I mentioned above is in the works, but it's a two-hour recording so that might take a while to edit... lol I have an interview with Path of Achra developer Ulfsire and Dylan White, who made Rift Wizard and its sequel. I need to start some work on that again. While the project was in full swing, it was moved to the back burner after I switched to Linux and had to relearn editing software. Content is likely going to be thin this week outside of shorts as I work on this transition in my production pipeline.

Streams are as normal! I'm currently working on a fortress called Spirithome. I'll likely retire sometime soon; I'm going to try and produce some stories with that fort and my new recording format. I have some fun ideas I'd like to test out that will make it easier to focus on the small stories in the fort. Stay tuned!

Songs of Syx is also on the list of stuff I have to keep playing. I built a decent-sized city, and we'll plug away at that this week as well.

Caves of Qud is still there as well. I have a character where I'm avoiding main quests and just trying to level. Perhaps we'll get a tale of the Warden and the Knoll at some point!

No schedule changes this week; we are streaming Tuesday through Friday. Stats on YouTube: 85,998 views, a bit better than last week mostly due to the shorts performing well. Twitch stream averages are down again: 150 average viewers, whereas last week it was 164. It is what it is, hot out and summer.