I’ve recently started experimenting with streaming.
People have streamed for years, why now?
Streaming is still kind of a strange (and scary) new world for me. For the longest time I have generally been disinterested in streaming, choosing instead to view pre-recorded videos of my favourite game developers and interesting people doing their thing. I always felt streaming was kind of disingenuous and relied on cheap psychological tricks, sensationalism and controversy to get peoples attention. Much like modern advertising and sensationalist news headlines. However, I have slowly been discovering a more wholesome side of streaming on my personal side-quest to learn of wholesome things.
Wholesome streaming…
Have you ever watched the Joy of Painting with Bob Ross on twitch? I have, and I absolutely adore it. Ross delivers a tutorial, but he does so with an effortless skill, creating a calm and safe space simply bustling with creativity.
Clearly Bob Ross was very professional about the whole set up and he managed to create a wonderful atmosphere, where he put his viewers – who he would address as his students – at ease, and encourage them to make the best of their mistakes while they followed along at home.
One day, watching the stream, it sort of occurred to me that I wanted to do something like that, and that I could do that. I was already planning to get a computer for making games – now I wanted one to also stream!
Computer – check! Mic – not yet… (please wait, researching!)
Now I that I have my computer and I am working away at gamedev, I have finally put some time aside to learn more about streaming and find channels and streamers of people who are doing things I find interesting.
You can come across some lovely gems out there. There are quite a few streamers that have a great connection with their viewers and have a great time sharing what they love with everyone. Streamers such as the talented Johnathan Ong – who even inspired me to make art one day with his creative expression of a composition that I love.
It makes me think about the passion that is shown by the streamers I like. I wonder is that a key element? I guess we will find out!
I am interested in streaming to for a few reasons. Let’s be a little reductive and write them into a list:
- I stream to share what I love doing.
- I stream to reach more people with my projects who might actually want to support either me or the project.
- I stream for the fun of it, because why not?
Building a community is probably the most difficult thing there. It takes time, and there needs to be a project to gather around. Currently there is not even much project to share, so my work is cut out for me!
Stream experiments and plans for future streams.
I am currently focusing on creating things and playing indie video games that I enjoy.
So far I have streamed:
- experiments in game development with PICO-8
- digital painting (fan art)
- playing Risk of Rain2
- playing Heat Signature
.This weekend I will be streaming my desktop for Game Jam +, because I love gamejams – and why not?
If you have any suggestions or feedback please let me know! You can scroll down on the twitch channel and fill out the suggestion box. I suppose I should probably link you to the stream after all of this!
Now I can finally add to the chorus of the internet: please follow and subscribe!
You can check out my experimental stream here: https://twitch.tv/mindcauldrongames
