B-Mask

Scaling the Scooby-verse

 Aaaaaaand here's another one.

 It's thanks to everyone here i've been able to get more videos to you each month- thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to finish a couple of halloween projects i've been wanting to do for years. I'm probably going to slow back down to a full video a month, but felt it was important to make this before halloween was over and while it was still Scooby's 50th year, no way I was going to pass that up!

 Next Beyond Pictures is going to be a project i've been working on for around a year now, something i've been wanting to do for even longer and meticulously planning the details of. The patreon specifically has helped fund it and I really hope I can deliver something that does you all justice. It's a really big project. Hope you like comics. 

 Will also try and get my twitter Q and A out soon. Been thinking about making future editions Patreon exclusive and getting more benefits to just you guys. Again, any thoughts or suggestions you may have are always welcome. 

 Will catch you all soon, gang!

The Great Staging of Luigi's Mansion!

 Managed to get in a spooky vid just in time for Halloween! As you can see, i'm trying to make up for the gaps Sly 3 put in my schedule and get you guys content every month, and it's seriously thank to your support that I've been able to do it. Let me know what you think and I'll catch you all later!

The Sound of Better Call Saul

And now for something quite different! A discussion on Better Call Saul (and to an extent Breaking Bad) and how sound is used within them. Let me know what you guys think!

CTRNF is not more of the same

 Whattya know, I really did have a video coming that soon! Hope you enjoy, gang.

Here's Sly 3- Channel and Patreon changes

  A quick update just to let everyone know what's gonna happen post Sly 3- including changes to this Patreon! Thought it was a good time to put an extra little message here for you guys too.

 Thanks again to everyone who's been supporting through that period, real whack that so many cool people are happy to fund me doing this and you've all had the patience of saints as I got Sly 3 off the ground. As I mentioned in the video, I'm going to strip back things like the milestones and tier promises like updates until I really know what I can offer you outside of the main content without stretching myself too thin. I really want to focus on my main content and to make sure I'm delivering stuff worth your time and money, get that as good as it can be. However I'm very open to feedback on what you guys would want to see on here and will take all suggestions! If I can give something back to you guys where possible then I definitely want to do that, just a matter of finding the appropriate form for it. 

 I'll be back real soon with a brand new video, and I mean REAL soon, so watch this space!

 -B

The Sly Trilogy Retrospective: Part 3

 Finally managed to put this together! Will update you guys with more info very soon. 

Sly 3 Update: 50% complete (or less)

Hi everyone!

It’s been a while since I’ve updated thanks to how far I’ve stuck myself into that one project everyone’s been asking for. The short version is it’s happening, and it’s still happening and looking okay- the long version, well, that’s below.

I figured you deserved an update on Sly 3’s progress- I think I can still hit my window of doing it within the next month, but there was a sneaky snag that I should be upfront about. I did stick to the draft i’d written- voiced it, edited the voice files, and plotted it out in the edit- and then realised it still wasn’t quite working for me. I shopped the script around a bit with some friends, got some feedback, did a full tune up of that draft, and revoiced it again. Kinda cheeky.

The good news is that this is still being edited as we speak. I’m about 50 percent done with the overall edit, which means that the whole thing is plotted out including excerpts from the game, developer/podcast inserts and most of the overlaid tricks are done. A lot of footage from the game is in place, and at least two of the four chunks i’ve split this into are mostly filled. There’s still a lot of work to do though- the video is running quite long, under two hours, and I’m trying hard to cut certain things down and try out different visual cues in certain places to see what bit of footage conveys an idea best. I’m still not convinced on the videos flow or that the writing in certain bits is airtight, and it’s possible they may be rewritten yet- but honestly, that would not be a long or difficult job, and a lot of the stuff in this video right now will absolutely stay. Sometimes you just need the full picture in front of you to really get a feel for what is and isn’t working, or how to better say something. It’s a big part of why I was able to produce the current draft. 

I still don’t think this is as good as the last video- I would like to go into those reasons once it’s done, but it’s possible I’ll feel differently once it’s all together. There are bits of this I think are way better than I planned, and others I think are a bit weak. I have mined the internet as hard as I can for information on how this game was developed, and I’ve exhausted all my research, which I just don’t think is as well covered as the philosophical points this video ends up going for. Still, my hope is that sly 3 is a very different game in its own right, so it’s only appropriate to have a video that reflects how it puts its ideas across. 

One thing I did manage in my downtime between edits was to write a draft for a shorter Crash Team Racing video i’d like to have out a little while after this lands. That may of course end up being out of date if I take too long on this one or feel not so confident about how it’s coming together two weeks from now, we’ll see. I think it’s a good draft though, and is more casual, so it wouldn’t be a huge issue to put together. My good buddy TGB (The Gaming Brit) helped me put together a PC that I’d like to use to make videos from now on- so Sly 3 will probably be the last project I put out on my MacBook’s final cut pro X software. F. 

Anyway, thanks again for your patience, hopefully this video will be with you eventually. I’ll give my next update on this project when I think I can see the end in sight. Then all will be revealed…

-B

Jem was Truly Outrageous

A new video on something I've wanted to talk about for ages- and it's for real, honest!

The Simple Complexity of Psychonauts

 Heya folks! Kicking off the year with a video on Psychonauts. I'll be revisiting this subject again in both the near and far future...

Spyro reignited trilogy is alright (sometimes)

 Latest video as of this month! 

December 2018 update- changes and new content

Hi everyone! Merry christmas, and, err, sorry.

Been a bit of a bumpy road this year. In some ways I think the content has definitely improved, but getting that to happen has taken way longer than it probably needed to. I had a lot of personal issues that didn’t help matters, but the truth is I just got too distracted by unfeasibly large projects- every video I’ve been working on has snowballed into a massive endeavour that I couldn’t handle in the time I wanted, on top of the time I spent looking into our new discord. Was very hard to manage it all and clearly I let the patreon fall by the wayside.

SO. I want to thank everyone who stayed on the patreon program for their patience. I have been writing nearly every day, so I like to think the support was justified there, but of course it’s frustrating to not see that funding produce more videos inside of a year and not see all these promises for updates fulfilled. I will therefore be making some changes to my plans, my patreon, and will become more upfront with you guys as possible about what’s going on. 

Patreon changes and future projects

For now I’m sticking to monthly payments if only because I feel the work towards videos has been ongoing, to the point where it’s still taking a major chunk of my time to create. I have plans to continue my big projects but have created, in the interim, some smaller scripts that will hopefully keep things more active. One of my goals for next year is to create more feasible content that still feels substantial, like my Cuphead video, and to try and release that more frequently. There are some great opportunities to plan ahead with things like Psychonauts 2 on the way, and I’ll be sure to release some beyond words to try and keep people generally updated on my progress. The Fargo video was something that came together incredibly quickly, way more than I thought it would, and was originally starving off a video that I’ll discuss later in the unmade video part of this post- it made me feel like, if I did more of those, I could really keep the channel going. It’s just a matter of remembering that it’s okay to write less.

One project that I can now confirm will address this is my musical series! Beyond Broadway has, ever since I hit funding, been in the writing phase for a while and I’m pleased to say I have quite a bit mapped out for that already. Originally it was going to be super long and comprehensive but I found that making it that big wasn’t necessary and actually detrimental to getting the basic concepts across, so the main focus now is in double checking it with musicians and ensuring that i’m delivering something substantial. I’m not going too in depth with composition however, and will mostly be approaching it from a dramatists perspective- there are many musical theatre talents who would classify themselves as dramatists and I feel that’s a good enough reason to talk about music dramatically as much as technically when presenting the content overall. I don’t know when it will be out specifically but I’ll be trying to give it some strong focus in the coming year. 

Unmade projects- including sly 3

I spent time writing a LOT of projects this year that snowballed into huge video scripts I didn’t really think worked. One of those was the script for Sly 3- I have a full first draft done and have tweaked it a lot, but I think there’s something fundamentally wrong with the structure and the way its written compared to the previous entries, so I’m still messing with it until it sounds right. Sly 3 is put together so differently to the previous two games, and my videos which attempt to both tell the story and dissect the overall content as we go doesn’t format well to how that story is told. I’m probably going to have to do a lot of non linear back and forthing to really get the effect I want. I got a lot of questions asking when it will be and if it will ever get done. Don’t worry folks- it is happening, I am 100 percent committed to making it happen. There’s a lot in the current draft I still plan on using, I just have to rearrange stuff until it all clicks. 

I also had a Spectacular Spiderman video I was determined to get out this year because of the shows tenth anniversary. Unfortunately I’ve missed the boat completely as, while I pushed all of September and October to make it happen, I never quite hit my groove with the second half of the script and knew I needed to get Spyro done. I had a lot of input from some of my fans as well as my friends, and am highly considering putting script progress up on Patreon as a reward to see if that helps too. If you guys would be interested in that, please let me know. I probably won’t put up a lot if only because I am often very committed to maintaining secrecy so that the final result doesn’t underwhelm people. Either way, Spidey should be out in the new year. He’s had a lot of success recently and I think Spectacular will always be relevant to the ongoing conversation. 

The last project I’ve been hammering at was a very different kind of retrospective for a comic book. This project was actually supposed to be quite small but I got carried away and it became completely unmanageable. That isn’t on any set deadline but it does mean I have a good script I’m now looking to cut down and get out in the new year. I hope you guys will get to see that soon enough, it’s really different from my other stuff. I think, with Stan Lee’s passing, it’s become even more important that I put it together. 

Spyro

I’m really happy that people have taken to this video so strongly! Lots of comments liking the Dvorak intro- I wanted to create something that served as a sequel to the crash N sane introduction, so I figured another piece of classical music in a video game style was called for. I wanted to use brave new world as a much more classical piece, where it was 8 bit but still the same as the original, focusing on all the ways the new game looked lush and then start to slowly reveal the flaws as the music went sour. Then while searching different variations of the song I discovered the Paroparo dancing mix and the whole concept changed in my mind. 

I hope it’s clear how much more impressed I am with what the team created compared to Crash or at least the foundations they laid down to try and make the game not a disaster. It’s got a lot of issues thanks to the inconsistent processes that brought them there but they genuinely tried to put a floor down before they built the house artistically, and that is truly something worth commending. It was a very easy game to review because there were so many things they released about its production over the course of development, and it was really obvious what they were going for at almost every turn compared to Crash again. Still, I think it’s very important not to get complacent. I was worried I went on too long about all my issues, but honestly I feel like it’s always more important to bring those up than repeatedly wax lyrical about how good something is. If it’s good then I’d rather not have that changed and just have the team keep doing what they’re doing- if it’s bad it should be addressed as soon as possible. 

That’s just about everything. I would like to add some thanks so that it’s always around for posterity for some of my fans contributing to the videos- Bullsquid offered to add some effects for the thanos sequence, Lucid has put captions in the latest video with translations into french provided by Bubuche, and the thumbnail was created by my buddy Ferf. This is on top of the several people who looked over my incomplete scripts and offered feedback and advice that made things a lot more palatable. I cannot begin to express how brilliant all of that is and how great you guys are for getting involved. We have a Discord now with a VERY strong community of friends which also makes me feel like we can see the real results of the work, bringing people together to discuss, joke and become friends off the back of funny shrek edits disguised as analysis. In all seriousness, it’s been a strong year and I thank all of you for letting that be possible. What a cool bunch of bunnies. 

See ya next time, and maybe, hopefully, for Sly 3. 

Merry Christmas ya’ll.

-B

March-June update: Making the Sly Trilogy Retrospective- Part 2

The last couple months have been a hell of a ride.

So I actually wasn’t planning to make the Sly 2 video so soon. I had another couple of projects I was writing and nearly done with, stuff that still seems to be working out for the most part- but the demand for the next sly video was huge and, honestly, I realised that there was a lot of good information that had come my way that I wanted to act on while it was fresh in my memory. What I didn’t quite anticipate was just how long it would take to put it altogether- and that process began way back when I started putting the whole retrospective concept together.

The first video was about establishing Sly’s creation and wasn’t really intended to go through the games points in sequential order. I had very deliberately, however, decided to mimic, in some small way, the games structure. I would weight the early part of the video, for example, with clips from earlier on in the game when making a point, even though I was cutting back and forth occasionally. I would tentpole a beginning, middle and end too- Start with the prologue and talk about the kind of story it establishes, go into the very memorable Mz Ruby mid point to heighten the interest, and then close it all out with the Clockwerk section, which I knew was going to help lead into Sly 2’s way of storytelling.

That became even easier when I settled on the structure of discussing ideas from most basic to most complex- start with sly and his controls, then build outward to the rest of the world around him. That kind of reflects the feeling of a story, starting with the lead character and then using that to discuss the obstacles they face, which really helped to strengthen the storytelling theme of the retrospective and make sure it all came back to being a useful lesson rather than ‘hey, look what else they did btw lol’.

Now as it turns out that actually did help me a lot with creating the second video. It might have seemed restraining, but it laid out a few rules that I felt the rest of the videos should follow to feel consistent, while also allowing each to stand enough alone to be entertaining and informative. Sly 2’s story is, however, much more elaborate and important, so I made sure to hit its key beats where I could in-between general points. I knew that the first half needed to gradually build to a rapid, excitable discussion of Jailbreak to reflect the intensity of that section, and then cool down in the same way the game did switching to Canada by discussing the gentler world building mechanics.

I employed a few tricks to keep the impact of those beats in place where possible- when discussing Sly patronising his enemies, I knew I had to use the clip where he criticises the Contessas education- but in that clip, she’s fully in frame, and I didn’t really want the audience to see her until Jailbreak was on the table, even if just to subconsciously recreate the feeling I had playing the game originally. To that end I swapped out the visual for another clip from the same scene (luckily it’s easy to lazily fake the lip syncing thanks to Sly 2’s animation style). This also showed that, even if it’s just in the background, I hadn’t forgotten totally about using clips of Prague until it was absolutely necessary, and for anyone who might have been paying attention, I then made sure to put both of those borrowed clips at the end of the Jailbreak section to show that I’d deliberately been messing with them. 

The problem with all that stuff is that, because it’s so story heavy, I was worried about losing the density of information I had on the original video. I didn’t just want to recap the story, I needed to show how it was created and why it worked, and unfortunately the interviews and information is either mostly useful to discussing the original or just way too technical to really apply to all the specifics being introduced from the story. Discovering anything to do with Nate Fox had been key number one on the first video and I made sure to do extensive research on him when discussing the sequel. I thought I had all the information together- and then the Sly Cooper wiki Discord got in contact.

I tell you, the work these people do is stunning. They have this archive in the discord, lovingly labelled ‘the Cooper Vault’ and it houses a treasure trove of info on the series history. From scraps of Magazines, to concept art, to ads, to beta footage from old E3 demos and more, they had a bundle of things for me to sift through and underline. One interview became my bedrock, discussing their approach to the game after the first was done and revealing that amazing fact about Neyla once being Rajan’s daughter. It gave me loads to work with, and of course plenty to rewrite. 

Rewrites were the biggest issue this video had and my overall issue when making videos. I did a full write up and early edit near the end of June, thinking it would be out really early after, but instead I found myself really unhappy with the way things had been worded and, to my shock, finding even more information when I went to double check a couple of things. It doesn’t matter how thorough I think I’m being, there always seems to be something that slips by me, and I knew I couldn’t release the video until that was all taken care of. Messaging Jordan kotzebue, for example, gave me the crucial info that Kathy Anderson was the background artist, a fact I had initially attributed to Augie Pagan, the artist who created backgrounds for the comics. I do think it allowed me to loosen up a bit and come up with a few more gags which I knew were crucial to both breaking up the pace of the video and putting out a few things I’ve carried with me for years. ‘Guess-what-you-fucked-up.’

I decided to be more ambitious by trying a few new things out- the hilariously ghetto dissection I put together of the 6th level was my attempt to be like a cut rate game makers toolkit, and I figured would visually make things a little more interesting and really express the technicalities being described. Then there was talking about the comic- having been made by the company and the specific artists who worked on the series, it was more than a bit of promotional work and I wanted to give it some focus that felt substantial. Getting in voice actors was the way to make sure you guys could get a better idea of how they even sounded like they were caught between the evolution of the two games. Also gave me an excuse to try a tiny bit of voice direction and editing the performances together, something I would like to maybe carry into other BP projects on a slightly larger scale in the future. 

There’s still some annoying mistakes going on though. I think I need glasses- Final Cut Pro X uses a black backing on a dark grey interface so it’s really hard to sometimes see exactly where clips cut off if I need to resize them. I think some of my cutouts are tatty and the audio doesn’t have any real gain control, plus the distant sound of a noisy fan in one or two parts. Patreon money will probably now go towards some audio engineering to see that improve, be it my own microphone or even getting someone else to edit it and make it sound much better than it does. Oh, and when I talk about the reviews calling the game too short- one of them is upside down. I checked the video six times, and I was still too snow-blind to catch that one. 

I hope that gives you guys a better idea of some of what this went through. I have tried so hard to get more videos out on a monthly basis, and even though I don’t think it’s backbreaking work per se, I am exhausted. I never realised that keeping a monthly schedule would feel like such an impossibility, and I’m considering making BP bi monthly, or at least making sure at least one video appears bi monthly. I have projects that just seem to be too big for my own good, no matter how much I try to keep them short, and that means rewrites and real life heavily affect a lot of forward momentum. Even so, I work on writing these videos every day, and I will try my best to get as many out this year as I can manage. I’m also considering some better rewards still, potentially a podcast, so keep your eyes open for what else might show up.

Thanks for the understanding, and for continuing to support this channel. I really didn’t think this would grow, we’re five dollars away from hitting that Musical goal which I will attempt to start drafting now we’re so close, as well as alert the people who could help me out. I still, as I’ve said before, got loads of other videos planned, and getting Sly 2 out of the way is a huge relief. I’m officially halfway through those videos, though I don’t plan to give 3 any less attention than I gave 2, and then, eventually, I will talk about how much, no, really, how MUCH Sly 4 makes me want to drink chlorine. 

Catch you all soon, gang!

- B

The Sly Trilogy Retrospective: Part 2

 Thanks for your patience everyone- Sly 2 has been out and doing pretty great over the last two days. Notes for my Usher and ASM backers are to follow very shortly!

Late Notice: Notes are on the way!

 Due to unforseen circumstances, the next video and my monthly notes have been delayed. The video in question has now stretched to way over an hour after a month of rewrites and re-configurations, and is still badly in need of some fine tuning now all the footage and images have been laid down. It'll be a while until you guys can see exactly what that's all been about- pinning down the next Sly video has been a huge undertaking, much bigger than I expected, and I'm just trying to make sure you're getting something worthy of the original video. I should however be done within the month- just hold tight!

April Update: Creating the Hercules critique

Hey gang!

Birthday Hangover’s over, so let’s get to business. 

This month I was reasonably proud of- after getting the sly video done, I was determined to ensure you guys continued to get enough content to match the quota of at least one video for every month, with Sly being much more of a March project. It also felt really fulfilling to at least touch on the subject of Spyro, in a way that allowed me to talk about it without taking too much time away from other videos, and I think that's set a new precedent for making Beyond Words. I feel really confident about getting that kind of content out to you faster, allowing me to keep the channel alive relatively easily while also providing enough time for the bigger edited videos. I'm debating what could come next between now and the next vid, we'll see what grabs my fancy as we go. 

After a few bumps in the road involving copyright blocks, I was happy to see the Hercules video finally made it out to you guys. It’s something i’ve actually been sitting on conceptually since I started the channel in its current form- and was just never sure if there was a right time to take such a big risk. With the sub count having grown I figured that was a big enough sample of people to test the waters and, so far, it seems to have done fine!

Originally it was just going to be a short video, where I talked about the films creative decisions, and was actually much more focused on talking through the frankly bizarre criticisms levelled in the Disneycember video created by Doug Walker. Their decision to use Gospel music was the key point, and the entire first section was devoted to that concept and why it absolutely fit a lot of the final creative decisions that brought the movie together. I also wanted to just discuss the film generally, why it was worth defending, but it always came across as an attack rather than a genuinely insightful piece of work. I kept a draft in the background for about 2 years.

I had also been really keen on discussing musicals after leaving the subject up in the air at the end of my Frozen critique. I wanted to talk about so many things, so many topics within that medium, and had no idea how to approach it all without feeling overwhelmed. Every year I would look into the idea and feel like I wasn’t ready to get involved yet. As time went on I thought about developing some concepts for videos that would tackle it, but it seemed to all be a long road to being heard or gaining interest- if I made a sondheim video, would anyone care, and would be too much of a steep road conceptually for people to get into compared to my other stuff? Hell, can I really talk about musicals when I’m not very good at defining music theory? I felt pretty discouraged from taking on that kind of duty, and again, let that run in the background of my mind as I made other videos. 

During that time, I never stopped researching and being interested in the history of the Disney company. Re-visiting a documentary I liked very much, Waking Sleeping Beauty, eventually lead to me going down a couple rabbit holes where I learnt more and more about the wonderful Howard Ashman. I had always been a fan of his without knowing it, finally becoming aware of him in secondary school and then becoming fully engrossed in his history just before college. His ideas matched a lot of world-views I was already in alignment with, and they began to shape the way I articulated some of my points in ways other people could understand- especially concerning theatre. 

Last year, in planning a critique for another Disney musical, I had hunted down a copy of the waking sleeping beauty DVD, featuring the full first fifteen minutes or so of Howards Lecture (earlier that year I had seen the second half, on the Little Mermaid blu-ray). That was a real revelation- I had only seen snippets of this lecture before and had only through hearsay sort of imagined how the rest might sound. The most validating thing was to watch it, and see many things I had believed in spelled out clearly and loudly, some of which you saw in the video. It emboldened my to go further and make that a vocal part of my ethos in approaching the subject. 

It also, finally, got me thinking about theatre in connection with animation properly. Well, my original argument had involved how Gospel was rooted in the art of greek theatre. What I hadn’t really considered was the obvious path right under my nose- from the greeks, to theatre generally, to animation. I realised that I could talk about all these things I’d wanted to- animation, theatre, musicals- in a streamlined way because Hercules dealt with them all, right back to the beginning of theatre, in a way the others don’t. It only made sense to bring up Howard, it only made sense to talk about the history of musicals, and everything I liked about the medium seemed to fit within the movies conceit without seeming like an excuse to talk about them just cause it happened to be a musical. Hercules being about greek theatre changed the entire structure, and allowed me to split it into A and B parts- history of the musical and then style of the musical. Finding that one clip at D23 where the directors discussed Howards influence on the piece- something i’d long felt might have been oddly possible- sealed the deal.

I’m very pleased with the shape of the video, even if I think there’s a lot I didn’t get to justify as well as I would have liked. The music part of the video, which friends who write music have told me is fine, I’d love to improve on greatly in the future. There’s stuff going on in there that with a musical terminology I’d like to pin down better, but I knew I needed to persevere and just use my own brain to see from the audience reaction if I was inherently barking up the wrong tree. I also believed that, because it was really a discussion on the drama of Hercules and its heritage, that I could make the music about that, and could use it as a springboard. I don’t think the Disney musicals, by design, are overly complex or difficult to translate into analytical discussion, they’re known by everyone the world over. Hercules, serving as a great introduction to, as I put it, the distillation of western theatrical culture to that point, clicked for me as a chance to put that whole approach I had to the medium in on place. 

also i hope the joke are funneee 

Anyway, I do plan to visit musicals again- in a series I’ve had as a patreon goal for a while now, and seeing the patron count increase after this to make that happen is nothing short of humbling. Thank you so much, patrons new and recent (My patreons not quite old enough to call you all old patrons yet!) for making this step that much more possible. I’m going back to work on the second Sly video, and once that’s done I have another boy I plan to shake things up with, in an attempt to fulfil my plans partially hinted at in my 10k special. Then i’m onto Sly 3. It could all change, and I’ll let you know here if it does. 

I also would like to mention a small change to my goals- I removed my original 300 dollar goal for a crash analysis because I feel like I threw that out there without much thought. There’s a lot of video projects I have planned already and the musical series is the only one I want to focus on between normal videos if I get the funding, I don’t want to put too much else on my plate or i’ll probably stress myself out and get nothing done. We seem to be on a good path so far, and I hope the new video makes up for the lack of videos in February and March. Let me know if you have any feedback or questions pertinent to any of this and I’ll be sure to address them ASAP. 

Take care all, and I’ll be back with you in the not so distant future!

-B-Mask

Hercules is a pretty good musical tbh

 At last, the block is lifted- my video on Hercules is viewable at last!

 Will follow up with extra thoughts for my ASM and Usher tier patrons some time after. Want to ensure this happens at the end of every month now, after getting things in order. Thank you all again so much for making this possible!

March Update: Making the Sly trilogy retrospective

Hey gang!

First off, a huge thank you for your patience concerning the newest video. I nearly didn’t think I would have it done at all, but I was determined to get it as close to the deadline as possible so as to keep up the habit. I hope it was worth it in the end- as you can see, this was something of a big undertaking.

I got the idea to finally cover the games in January- I had plans, always, to talk about them eventually, but the place I was moved out to in February gave me the perfect opportunity to sit and study exactly what was happening in all 4 titles. I made a lot of notes, cross referenced with a few friends, and then went in hard on the research. The last part took an extremely long time to cover- there is no single place for comprehensive information on Sly’s creation, hundreds of articles and notes are scattered on the web explaining the processes and a lot of them exist on now defunct websites. Even the games credits are slightly unhelpful- there are very few roles assigned to names, the company often listed as one big blob of people, so it took me a while to comb through the list and get a feel for who was really doing what. There are still some revelations to come that I want to fill in on in the next video.

I also had, at that point, wanted to simply talk about the games for a single video, and just discuss the story. I figured there’d be less to say about 1, and loads to say about 2. It turned out it would have been impossible for me to do so and to do it justice this way- 1 lays so much of the groundwork of what’s to come and is so radically different to 2 and 3 that it needed a more precise set of breakdowns to adequately emphasise just how good the sequels were. Once I had that down, the video production and increased research began to speed up.

I have some regrets. There are certain details I wanted to expand on and properly talk about, like how China was originally the first level of the game, the ability to tiptoe behind guards, the hubs vs the levels, but it all just didn’t come to me until I had the existing recording done. There were so many additions and addendums I ended up making- I rewrote a lot of the second half of the video as new research showed up and when I realised how I wanted to critique the issues with Murray. I’m glad it was so hectic though- I think it will focus me for the next video now that so much research has been done and so many memorable mistakes have been made. (turns out I CAN’T actually verify Carmelita being inspired by Salma Hayek. In a frantic bit of searching, I found her picture and thought oh, striking resemblance, I guess that thing I read must be true. I had forgotten that what I read a week ago and forgotten to come back to had come from TV tropes!) 

Anyway, thank you again for your support and your kindness. It has been such a wonderful feeling seeing people’s reaction to the video, and I feel that Patreon has offered me the chance to work harder rather than coast. For as good as you may think this is, I want to give you even better content come the sequels. Part of the reason I’m doing some other videos is because I want to train up a bit and keep diversifying my ways of making content and avoid fatigue on a single topic. Hoping that leads to a much better video when I eventually come back to Sly- but don’t fret about that being long away. I’ve already been writing and planning how that video will go down, and have a lot of research out of the way.

The next few videos are also looking good- two are in their final draft stage, the other two are being written as we speak. I’ll try not to leave you all hanging, especially as the next one is, honestly, not a particularly long one. You’ll see what I mean soon. It’s a err…bit of a curveball.

Take care everyone, and see you again soon!

-B

The Sly Trilogy Retrospective: Part 1

 Apologies for the wait, but it's finally here! The start of my Sly trilogy retrospective. This will be followed up with some extra thoughts for my Usher and ASM backers. Enjoy!

The First Step

 Looks like Patreon has kicked in, just as I've finished work on the new video script!

 I want to start by thanking you guys for your generosity. The plan is to have a video out every month, and now that I'm back to normal that should be very possible. Definitely don't be afraid to offer feedback on here or on my discord if you have any pressing concerns about how things are going, and I'll address them as soon as possible. 

 The next video is going to be the start of a small retrospective series about something I really love. It's taken a while to do the requisite research and really make sure I'm crediting the right individuals, not to mention having to piece together the art departments history and how they evolved the style of the franchise. After I release the first video, I'll probably focus on other projects that are closer to being done as I get the second video together, so there should still be a lot of variety over the next few months. (If I play my cards right, we could even get two videos this month to make up for February.)

 Two scripts are actually nearly done for two other projects- one is a massive retrospective like Hill Street (though on a subject I think way more people are familiar with) and the other is another video game i've been meaning to get going for ages. I can't tell you which of those you'll see first, but there's a part of me that wants to get away from video games for a bit in order to keep a proper balance of content on the channel. Either way they'll be next in the pipeline once this has warpped.

 After this post I'll be giving thoughts out to my 3 dollar+ patrons every month along with any behind the scenes thoughts on how these above videos came together. Also want to make sure that I have your name as you'd like to see it in the credits of the video if you're a 5 dollar patron- hit me up on this thread if there's a name you would prefer. 

 I'm really excited about all the stuff I want to show you this year- a lot of videos have been in the planning stages for a while and they're now starting to look very promising! Fingers crossed they go as smoothly as I can make them. 

 Thanks again everyone, and hopefully I'll have something more substantial for you all very soon!

 -B