Feeling Burnt out, But work continues.

To put it simply, summer is exhausting. It’s the season of rebuilding. Last summer, I launched the "Extras" channel and attended both PAX and TwitchCon. This summer, I started this blog, attended PAX, and completely changed my YouTube workflow. The reason it’s a rebuilding season is that traffic slows. It happens every single year. That makes summer a prime chance to evaluate how I work and how to improve things. However, this almost always leads to me being beat, tired, and in need of a week-long nap by the end of it. Summer is also the season when I spend the most time in the garden, biking back and forth more or less daily for the majority of the summer months. This cuts down on time and leads to me being less able to get work done, as I can easily spend 3-5 hours out of the house on "off" days when I'm not live. I really need to be working on behind-the-scenes tasks.

This year, more than most, I’m exhausted. The big shift in the YouTube channel has been a really positive change so far, but the issue with it is that now I stream for a month and then don’t take my normal off days, working from Friday till midweek non-stop editing the project. As soon as that project is done, I have to start working on the next one. Regardless of what my work looks like from the outside, I’m not a mainstream content creator. I often do rather well, so money is not too much of a cause of stress. Yet, at the same time, these big changes always end with me overworking myself. Another drawback from the style shift is that I feel even less able to play games outside of Dwarf Fortress. Now, I’m not just playing a cool game; I’m taking possible footage recording time away from the next big project, which could have a large payoff like Godlytombs did.

I talked in depth about the success and failures of GoreTusk in my recent members only post here. I'll also share a few tidbits from that post here.

Simply put, I’ve learned that mechanics are key in my videos. Gimmicks and mechanical explanations seem to perform better than just telling a story. Godly Tombs also fared much better with new viewer interest and retention. Gore Tusk has had a few bumps from the algorithm, but they don’t last very long, leading to a significantly faster drop-off compared to Godly Tombs.

This whole content shift has been a fascinating dive into actually attempting to "game" the YouTube algorithm a bit. Due to the unpredictable nature of how the videos are received by both the audience and YouTube, I can't justify taking much time off after releasing a video. The week leading up to PAX, I streamed for 35 hours, edited for 60 hours, and then streamed for another 20 before leaving for PAX. Then the video achieved 1/5th of the traffic of the one before, which reversed all the momentum I had. To be clear, both videos succeeded in different ways. "Cursed Map, Godlytombs" gained the channel a huge influx of new audience members, while "Cult Video, Goretusk" brought them back for round two. However, the financial and statistical payoff was significantly lower for the hours I put in. I'm both scared and excited as I start working on the next big project. It should take a few weeks, but it will be interesting to see a third result.

Thankfully, I was able to get some rest this weekend.

First off Lands of Achra by Ulfsire has a steam page. Go Wish-list it!

Lands of Achra on Steam

Lands of Achra is a dark fantasy strategy game of a lost age. Build a customized force as a hero, monster or nation, fight your enemies in brutal autobattles and strive to vanquish the procedurally generated world. Seek glory, against all who struggle upon the distorted earth…

STEAM

Stats! YouTube is still doing well but down a bit from last week. The channel got 114,950 views in the last 7 days. Twitch is up a bit sitting at 188 Average viewers this week. Schedule is going to be a consistent stream of Dwarf Fortress and Odd Realm. I have also herd that Eye of the Commando will be out soonish so we should play that. I'd like to play more Odd Realm and Eye before tackling Ostranauts.

I'll likely be live Tuesday - Friday this week. Energy depending. Friday is a maybe again this week.

Eye of the Commando on Steam

Classic turn based dungeon crawling with an 80’s action movie twist! Raid, explore, and fight through the grid-based island hq of a group of non-specific international terrorists and deliver hot lead freedom turn after turn. Secrets, puzzles, discovery, oversized weapons and the Commando Spirit!

STEAM

Ostranauts on Steam

Ostranauts is a hardcore noir space-sim. Manage life aboard your ship, and beware the cost of every decision you make. Scavenge and explore the boneyard. Create, build, and customise your ship. Hire a crew to help but remember, nothing is more certain than death and taxes.

STEAM

Odd Realm on Steam

Dive into Odd Realm, a mystical colony sim set in a land of fantasy! Lead your settlers to construct a thriving haven, navigating unpredictable seasons, elusive bandits, unseen horrors, and fabled gods. Every choice etches your colony’s destiny, igniting a saga of adventure, peril, and triumph.

STEAM

I'd also like to recommend a video from People Make Games. It really hit me hard and has been lingering in my mind since I watched it.

I would also like to suggest you watch the new video from Eddy Burback. It is a bloody cathartic video and left me feeling a bit better about the next few years of tech.