This is how I did the guides back during the blog's original GameTrailers.com rendition...and stuff has changed considerably as I got my hands on more supplies, such as my own computer as well as access to newer operating systems. Also, YouTube has changed its look considerably since that time.
Well, it's been nearly 50 blog series since I started carrying out the creation of blog entries on a regular basis, and while it may feel like a long time since I've started doing this, it really isn't. For instance, while you're sitting down reading this blog while doing something else in the great year of 2012, I am about to enjoy some leftover turkey and stuffing back in Thanksgiving 2011.
Yes, I am in fact a time-traveler bearing gifts of turkey. Deal with it.
Anyway, on with the blog.
Picking a Game
The first step to creating a blog series (a term I'll freely swap in and out with "game guide") is, of course, picking a game to cover.
Whenever I go about doing this, I usually draw from experience and cover a game I played as a kid. Growing up in the "bit wars" and maturing into the PS2/XBox/GameCube era, there are quite a lot of games to choose from. Other times, I look for a game on YouTube. Sometimes I come across it through other people, sometimes I come across it through the Related Vids section next to a video, sometimes I come across it by chance. It's always a game that I find interesting, though, so keep that in mind.
Also, whenever I choose a game, I try to vary the genres as much as I can to make the order in which the guides come out interesting. One guide might be a beat-em-up, then the next might be an RPG, then the one after that might be a sci-fi platformer. You'll never know.
Who's The Best?
Now that I have a game to work with, I need a video. I usually type "Let's Play" along with the name of the game in order to "filter" what I get out of the search results. And by "filter," I am using a loose and generous definition of the word, since it's still hard at time to find exactly what you want on YouTube.
From there, I look through the search results and look for somebody with a decent voice. I consider one's voice to be 90% of the presentation. If they sound like they're interested in showing the game off and the way they're showing stuff off makes the game look fun, I will take the video into consideration.
The playthrough doesn't have to be some epitome of human perfection, either. Besides, if I was looking for that, I wouldn't be getting anything done, now, would I? Sometimes I find an LP where the player dominates and makes the game look easy, and I kinda like that. Other times, the player goes through a bit of a struggle, and they either overcome it or lose a life. Eexecute's fight with the T-Rex in the first Turok game is a fine example of what I'm talking about.
I usually don't consider the amount of videos it takes for somebody to get through the entire game to be an issue. If you can keep it interesting throughout the entire series, it's alright with me.
Writing It Down
Once I find a suitable LP of a game, it goes down on an official list that culminates all of the ideas I can work with. From there I can save it for later or use it right now. Regardless of what I do with it, the same process starts up every time.
If it's a short blog series, it gets an official order number. I post all my projects in the order I finish them all off, and in case something interesting comes up (like the release of a great movie on a new media format, or the death of a popular actor) that has a movie-to-game adaptation tied to it, I'll put everything aside, make a blog series for it and push the release to as immediately as I can do it. As a result, I've done blog series where I've posted the opening entry before I'm finished composing the game guide!
If the LP for the game I want to show off has a lot of videos in it, it becomes a "long form project." In the long form project process, or LFP process, as I like to call it, the game guide only get a released order number when it's done. In the meantime, I work on other LPs that I want to show off, which explains why there's usually a lot of smaller guides before I do one big one.
After deciding on the guide's order number, it's time to act on the idea and set up a new document. I use Notepad for all my work, as turning Word Wrap off makes it easier to copy everything into the text field when it comes publishing time. I also use a 4 GB USB drive, and space is at a premium even when you have something that big and that portable.
You know what happens next...the magic begins. I start on the first video and copy down details and strategies that I notice in the video. Sometimes the player will say something that ends up being useful, and I end up using it, too. If it's something I've played a million times, I'll put in what I know before watching the rest of the video. There's a lot of pausing involved in this, and one video usually takes a little bit of time.
Sometimes, when I cover a first-person shooter or a game with rather large, complex areas (or if I don't know how best to cover a game), I switch to a format in which I post shortcuts to parts of the video that show off either important stuff or hilarious moments. Once again, I refer to the guide for the first Turok game on N64 as an example.
The amount of the game I cover in a blog entry is directly proportional to how much stuff is in the video. The blog entry starts wherever the video starts, and stops wherever the video stops. From there, it's on to the next video and the next individual blog entry in the series.
Every blog entry is basically the same. There's the link to the video that is usually either witty or not witty, but always sums up what's going on in the video; there's the strategies for what's covered in that video; there's the Awful Thread of the Moment and anything else I want to say at the end. That last bit involving the awful threads and any necessary announcements doesn't get added until blog publication time, which is usually months off.
Intermissions and Epilogues
Scattered equally through the blog series are intermissions and epilogues. The amount of these you'll see in an game guide is directly proportional to how big that game guide is. Most usually have just one intermission and the epilogue, a few will have as many as somewhere between two and four intermissions, and in case of a huge one (which hasn't happened...yet) there can be as many as seven or eight intermissions...or more!
Intermissions usually break up the monotony of the playthrough, and are usually related to the game at hand. Not surprisingly, they get more views faster than the guide entries themselves, usually getting triple-digit views in two-and-a-half weeks...or less. Epilogues usually work the same way.
Sometimes, if I can't think of something good that's related to what I'm currently covering, I'll do something completely differently. Hell, the only reason I'm doing this one now is because A) I've been wanting to explain this for quite some time, and B) it's really hard to make a good diabetes-related intermission without boring someone to death (in my opinion, anyway).
Putting It All Together
Once I've covered all the videos in an LP (short ones usually take a few days, long ones a couple of weeks) I take a snapshot of the game's ending, save it as a PNG file and crop the picture into standard definition as close as I can (thank you, YouTube, for making this harder than it should be). This picture is saved to my Photobucket account, and will be posted on the final entry of the blog series when it gets published. The day that happens, the ending pic will be uploaded to TinyPic prior to blog publication.
I also create a 531x100 image for the game that not only appears on my GamePad, but also appears on my signature in case anyone sees my posts. To cut down on bandwidth, the sig image is also uploaded to TinyPic (in addition to Photobucket) before being placed in the signature. My signature images are prety simple; they're made in Paint, not Photoshop. That doesn't mean I haven't made some good sigs, though. I'm actually pleased with the way the sig pic for Streets of Rage turned out. I've made a few with their game's respective in-game font as of late.
After that, the guide is complete, and stays in the hopper until it is time to finally publish it, and the process begins anew.
No comments:
Post a Comment