Community Let's Play Corner - Share Your Content, Discuss Improvements/Feedback, Find A Co-Commentator!

[Oheao]

Hello everyone! This is your not-so-well-known pal, Oheao. I have been doing let's plays on and off for years, and considering that there was not yet a thread on this topic here I decided to take the plunge! This is where we can discuss our favourite let's plays, talk about our own LPs for feedback, and maybe even find someone to sucker into doing an LP collab! I will update the OP as I get more ideas on how to make it look better.

 

[fsdood]

Used to watch a lot of Best Friends LPs. I still think some of the best LPs came from them but also the worst at times, lol. Maybe add some videos in the OP as examples of good ones and bad ones?

 

[PossiblyPudding]

Hello everyone! This is your not-so-well-known pal, Oheao. I have been doing let's plays on and off for years, and considering that there was not yet a thread on this topic here I decided to take the plunge! This is where we can discuss our favourite let's plays, talk about our own LPs for feedback, and maybe even find someone to sucker into doing an LP collab! I will update the OP as I get more ideas on how to make it look better.

Yay! So happy to see you got the thread going!

I've dabbled in doing let's plays in the past, but only for friends and family. I never released them to the internet at large. Didn't have the confidence to do it nor the equipment to make them anything more than decent. I'm also pretty monotone, so perhaps I'm better suited for ASMR.. hmm.. Or maybe not.

 

[EdwardTivrusky]

I have watched A LOT of Let's Play's and read the Dwarf Fortress SA Threads many times so i can post a couple of my favorites here in a bit.
I'd recommend checking out: The Let's Play Archive
It's pretty damned handy!

Some links to LPs i like. Hidden so to not mess up the thread!

Accounting Nightmare's Devil May Cry/DMC Let's Play Series:

AccountingNightmare

My PC specs: i7-3770k CPU 3.5GHz GeForce GTX 1080 16GB RAM Windows 10 64-bit DualShock 4 controller (using this software to get it to work on my PC: https://...

www.youtube.com

Hi! I'mDan & Lithuanian Dad's Mercenaries Let's Play:


TwitGamer's Atelier/Sakura/Trillion/Danganronpa... hell most of his Let's Play Series' - AteliTent!, lol!

TheTwitGamer

So! You find yourself here do you. Whatever made you look here!? Anyway... This channel is all about games and stuff... Tea mainly if I'm honest.

www.youtube.com

My favourite and the greatest, my most watched LP ever is: Research Indicates' Jurassic Park Trespasser LP

I look forward to seeing what MetaCouncil can come up with too!

PS. Please Tag any LP's that could be classed as ASMR so i can avoid them like the plague! ASMR makes my skin crawl.

 

[Crayon]

I had to look up asmr. I dont think i want to listen to that either. Theres a million videos tho and ive never heard of it.

Short version: its pleasant sound or imagery, or watching something tactile happen (like someone squeezing beanie babies or something). Supposedly extra-stimulating to some people.

Much of this seems to take the form of simply whispering.

 

[Nahkapukki]

Used to do vids for a podcast. Dunno I should get back to it at some point so I'd take pointers on what to improve and so on.


Coop partner shenanigans.

 

[Nahkapukki]

Oh man those could use some heavy editing.

 

[Oheao]

I had to look up asmr. I dont think i want to listen to that either. Theres a million videos tho and ive never heard of it.

Short version: its pleasant sound or imagery, or watching something tactile happen (like someone squeezing beanie babies or something). Supposedly extra-stimulating to some people.

Much of this seems to take the form of simply whispering.

My favourite ASMRs are the ones with no talking/speaking.

Oh man those could use some heavy editing.

Let;s plays can vary quite a bit in style and substance, especially considering just how much content is out there.

 

[Nahkapukki]

My favourite ASMRs are the ones with no talking/speaking.


Let;s plays can vary quite a bit in style and substance, especially considering just how much content is out there.

Meant those vids we did. They uploaded the vids but they could use some cutting 'cause lots of the time there's way too much fluff and they are YT vids after all not streams.

 

[Oheao]

Meant those vids we did. They uploaded the vids but they could use some cutting 'cause lots of the time there's way too much fluff and they are YT vids after all not streams.

My biggest problem with LPing is seeing it through to the end, I often start one and then have trouble actually finishing.

 

[Oheao]

By the way, if anyone is hesitant on starting up because you're worried about being bad, don't be so worried! If you do end up getting an audience, it's not usually instantly, so you have valuable time to yourself to try to sort out some kinks.

 

[Luminaire]

I've watched a lot of Best Friends as well as a lot of Giant Bomb content. I've also a few friends who do LPs (or did) and have dropped it after putting out hundreds of videos with maybe 200 subscribers and criminally low views. It can be tough for people to crack into for myriad reasons.

Regardless, Let's Plays are great and if I was going to recommend anyone, I'd probably suggest Materwelonz. She's a pretty great LPer with 42kish subs. She plays a lot of games that I'm fairly interested in but don't really feel like purchasing (such as Firewatch, Inside, Draugen, and a lot of 'walking sims' or adventure games that I'd likely never bother with.)


She's also apparently done a Witcher 3 playthrough is at 180 episodes already. I might end up watching that since I really don't like how TW3 plays at all. She's consistent and friendly, so check her out.

For my own anecdotes, I'll spoiler it since it's a lot of text.

Storytime: Starting up my own LP/Stream/Network

In late 2016 / early 2017, a friend and I were getting into a lot of media projects. A network, a site, podcasts, letsplays, livestreams, you name it. We bought equipment (microphones, headsets, capture cards, editing software, larger hard drives, upped download/upload speeds), did so many practice runs and have a ton of unfinished LPs, and... then it just died.

Interest waned for both of us, especially as we started to realize we like completely different types of games and doing co-commentary on some longer games that we're not interested in proved difficult. I like stuff like jrpgs, action games, and fighting games while he likes RTS, FPS, and survival games. I noticed on a few recordings he would be dead silent for 5 minutes because he was browsing reddit instead of commentating. Meanwhile I practically fell asleep doing his Crusader Kings 2 runs.

Fortunately, I've been able to re-purpose all of my equipment and software to personal projects, but I did learn a number of lessons for future ventures. Perhaps it might help some people here looking to get into LPing/streaming.

Some advice, lessons learned, and general musings.

If you're doing co-op LPs, having a chemistry and genuine interest is key. It's good to talk to your partner and decide on games together. Games that you just want to show the other person could be one-off quick looks (e.g. how Giant Bomb does it) rather than full on streams/LPs. It can evolve from there if you both want to see/do more/talk about it more.

You don't need to be in the same room anymore for co-op LPs. There are lots of ways you can both engage across the country and even the world with little latency if one person is playing and the other is watching. Mixer is great for low-latency, but Discord Go Live is also an option to have a private stream so you can record the video and audio as if you were both on the couch.

Just starting and being consistent is the most important part. We took forever to start and simply weren't consistent with our recording dates or editing dates. Deadlines fell apart and before we knew it, we hadn't even played the game in weeks.

Do it for yourself first. Once you get an audience, you can start to mix it up. Woolie from Super Best Friends has a good piece of advice that sticks with me now. "One for me. One for you. One for US." in reference to playing games you want to play, playing games the audience wants you to play, and then something that is for both you and the audience. Eventually you'll have something that sets you apart from other LPers/streamers.

 

[Crayon]

My biggest problem with LPing is seeing it through to the end, I often start one and then have trouble actually finishing.

With me you'd be getting a short play, no doubt. That's my specialty. "Yo, fuck this game. Thanks for watching."