December 2020 Update (year in review)

Hello everyone!

If you’re new - every month I do a little written update just outlining where the channel’s at by reviewing the month that was and teasing the upcoming month, however since it’s the new year this is a year in review. But only for the channel, because otherwise 2020 mostly sucked, and as arbitrary as it is I hope you’re also glad it’s over.

I re-watched the videos I made in 2020, and four stick out as the ones I’m most proud of:

The AFL video was a 53 minute history and retrospective on virtually every Aussie rules football game ever made, which was very much a passion project and though it didn’t perform amazingly view-wise, it amazingly performed well. I’m glad I could frame such a niche personal thing to actually reach an audience. Though this was such a big effort to put together, I never found myself really hitting any mental blocks like I typically do with other videos because I have such a fondness for this topic.

The Skittles game video was as much a review of the game as it was a story of its creation and development, as I tried to weave in developer insights and got in touch with the games writers. There was also an element of ‘bringing this game to light’ which I think is an aspect to most of my videos, but here it felt extra special because the game is genuinely quite special and unusual. I’d love to uncover more games like this, which are even more unheard of than my usual topics, and also have wonderful stories behind them.

The Fast and Furious PS2 game video, which wasn’t a big project video like some others, was fun to write because I enjoyed framing the review through my story with the game, sequentially going through which cars I bought and what experiences I had, to paint a picture of what the game was like. The video stands out to me as something a little more special because of this. I feel the same way about the Narcos video for the same reasons.

The 3D GBA games video was one I approached as more of a research piece than anything else, and I’m just happy I managed to put this all together. It was the single most effort I’ve ever put into a video, and like the AFL video I enjoyed it being a very niche history lesson.

Okay it feels very self-indulgent to talk about things I liked about things I made - but it’s not for no reason. Basically I want to make more videos like these videos, and I’m making a conscious effort to do so. I gotta keep evolving and experimenting, and videos like these serve as blueprints for the direction I want to take things.

Now that the channel has grown to a much more sustainable size, these more ambitious projects feel safer to do than ever, and in reflecting on the last year which had its emotional ups and downs for all of us, I realise just how much more these videos mean to me. They feel less like I’m just throwing my opinions out there and more like I’m uncovering some cool stuff for the world.

That said, regular, more straightforward minimme videos are here to stay too - just maybe not quite as frequently as I’ll be investing more time into project videos. I’m aiming to knock off most of the highly requested game reviews this year and still very much consider the single game review videos to be my bread and butter. I’ll always enjoy refining and experimenting with my writing through these, like with the Fast and Furious/Narcos videos, and if I feel I'm getting a little too abstract with my video concepts I'm glad I can always reign it in with these. It's a balance.

As always, thank you everyone for supporting this last year and these last few years of this cheesy video game thing I do. Latest video scripts are attached, reliving videos are still coming (sorry!) and I hope you’ve all had as nice a holiday season as possible.

Peter