MOON GAMING: CYRIL CYBERPUNK

[Ross Scott]

This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here »

EDIT:
The reception to this video has been rockier than I was hoping and it definitely affects future plans. I want to get a better bearing on what people think of this. Please give some feedback below:

[poll id=11]

New series! Welcome to Moon Gaming, the only gaming show that takes place on the moon (I think)! I've been wanting to make this for a while now and while we ran into a lot of technical issues, I'm more or less pleased with how it came out. This series is going to be composed of "Let's Play" sessions. Normally I'm not very interested in "Let's Plays" myself, because it tends to be a lot of dead air or talking about nothing particularly interesting. Moon Gaming hopes to solve those problems by editing it down to just the stuff worth talking about. So even though this is technically a Let's Play, I guarantee every shot in here is one that I thought belonged. If anything, I may have been a little overzealous about this first episode and cut a little too much, but the playthrough ran on a lot longer than we intended. We originally planned for only one episode, but we had so much to talk about it ballooned into three. I think future episodes will go much more smoothly. I'm very optimistic about this series as the turnaround time is definitely faster than Game Dungeon, so it can hopefully buy myself some more time to work on the movie.

In this inaugural episode, I'm joined by Tom White of the show Weird Video Games. I met him from being on TGWTG network and I generally recommend his videos; some of my favorites being https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB8fWRD-p5c and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjsGXnTBvB8. Tom will be returning for future episodes and I have another guest lined up also. As for other videos, my next focus is going to be setting up a Patreon campaign, along with an accompanying video. If I'm lucky, I'll have another Moon Gaming episode for this month, but if not, expect several for October as this show format allows me to squeeze in more videos than I normally would be able to and I'd love to have more Halloween-themed ones. I'll try my best to have a Game Dungeon for October too. Busy!

COMMENTS

[Heisanevilgenius]

This guy is a total goober. Get quality guests next time.

[Mr Nutt]

Since you don't like Let's Plays with a ton of dead air, you probably might like Nerd³ as his videos (well, mostly the Nerd³ Plays ones) tend to be edited to avoid this. If you like him, his dad also has a channel with a similar editing style (Dad³).

 

Edit: For some reason when Ross mentioned something about some other person having him in space playing games, I was sort of reminded of that show, the Tommy Wi-Show. Yes, I am indeed sorry I just indirectly compared something Ross did to that.

[Forgot_My_Account]

I actually remembered this game vaguely from my childhood, and once every few years I'd google "teddy bears skateboard DOS" but only found an entry on DOS Games Archive a month back. I've only played a few levels from the shareware version when I was a kid and it looked like a pretty good Jazz Jackrabbit clone, which I played to death when I was younger - so I was planning to play this the moment I have some free time on my hands. This Let's Play pretty much destroyed this - but at least I didn't waste my time getting frustrated and disappointed. Maybe I'll play Jazz Jackrabbit again instead, I wonder how they aged.

 

Oh, and while I don't find this format bad - at least you edit your Let's Play so they're more enjoyable, I like concise overviews and reviews even more. I don't feel like this game had enough content in it to hold 70 minutes of talking. If you're trying to piece together a game's story and/or intentions while playing it, maybe a more obtuse game be a better fit - maybe something along the lines of Dark Souls or murder mystery adventure games.

[Icebox]

This series is going to be composed of “Let’s Play” sessions. Normally I’m not very interested in “Let’s Plays” myself, because it tends to be a lot of dead air or talking about nothing particularly interesting. Moon Gaming hopes to solve those problems by editing it down to just the stuff worth talking about. So even though this is technically a Let’s Play.

 

Good idea there is too many video LPs that have a few good moments but the rest of it is dull.

[Starhammer4Billion]

Its 90 Minutes of 2 Guys getting the fun sucked out of them.

Created an Account to say this.

 

Constructive Criticism / Suggestions:

-Check the Game first: Boring Games are the lamest for Lets Plays, its either exceptional or so bad its good. Sure its not a "first look" with "first impressions" but No-one says it should be.

-Choose an interesting Game that you know a few things to say about: In case you have a list of Games for your reviews, maybe take a game from that list and either combine the "Lets Play" with "getting footage for the review" or maybe do "Lets Plays" on Games you like. Dont take a game you wouldnt take for a review, as you dont have enough to say about it for a review... its the same Problem in a Lets Play.

-You looked tired: Try to create these videos with more sleep or Caffeine or something. The Energy you emit will be reflected by your Partner and feed the audience. In you Reviews and Freemans Mind you have an aggressive alertness to your voice that I feel was missing on the Moon. Then again, maybe its a gravity thing.

-Get a few lights or something for your Partner: One can clearly see the effort you put into your Videofeed of your face, even if it seems minimal to you. Your Partner should put a similar amount of effort into it.

-Your partner seemed boring/bored: It may be because of the game, the lack of overall energy or the missing effort in his Videostream, but he didnt make a good impression. Not everyone is made for interesting Lets Plays, but maybe fixing the other stuff helps.

 

Love everything else you do, so I am sure you will figure the right way to do this stuff out.

Looking forward to the next Review/pre-written Stuff.

[Presence]

I liked that you put in ambient sound whenever it cut to you. Maybe it's just me, but I'd prefer you cut any instances of you being frustrated to the point of skipping stuff. The video as a whole might have been improved if you developed your character more and your guest(s?) also had some oddball backstory that you'd make up during the slow parts.

 

"I wonder what aliens might think of our old TV shows."

"You ever see that Twilight Zone episode 'To Serve Man'?"

"Stuff like that could only give aliens bad ideas."

"I always kinda wondered what recipes might be in that book."

"Hey, what kind of default access codes do they use on moon capsules like yours?"

"Do you have any marjoram?"

"Sorry, I was just looking up the service manual for lunar access hatches."

[Slimy]

Moon Gaming is admittedly the worst thing you've done so far, but as long as you improve it, I don't think it has to be scrapped.

 

I get that you were trying to be subtlety weird, but I think it was too subtle to come across well. Good let's plays tend to have energy to them, but I think you could subvert that as long as you played up the "weird" aspects. Perhaps you could try going for 3rd Rock from the Sun humor, aka: someone who is completely out of touch with reality and culture?

 

You really are amazing on a script. This kinda proves that. So if you are going to do more of these, I think you should script them more. Perhaps after recording the game with your original commentary, you could record over your footage a second time, saying things and making jokes that you didn't think to make the first time, and perhaps replacing your original take with a funnier one. For example - you missed the opportunity to obsessively analyze what function all the garbage stuck on the robots could serve.

 

You should also avoid saying or cut out the "uuh"s, and the "- like -"s. It sort of grinds the dialogue to a halt, and isn't very fun to listen to.

 

And perhaps you could have a vague story relating to your character going on in between gameplay segments to break it up. Make your character intriguing! For example, right in the middle of playing you could say something like "Sorry, it sounds like they're trying to get in again, I should check on this. It wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't so allergic to the moon's atmosphere. It causes me to break out in death." and walk off screen. And just leave it in dead silence for awhile before cutting.

 

I saw a YouTube comment say that this format was similar to MST3K. And I love those types of Let's Plays, but I disagree that this was MST3K style. IMO a MST3K style Let's Play would be like Spoony's Let's Plays back when he was still good - with a constant stream of scripted jokes. (Like Freeman's Mind actually, but without the fourth wall.)

 

So to answer the poll - E: You should only stop if you can't improve it or find more inherently funny/entertaining games to play.

Edited September 23, 2015 by Guest (see edit history)

[skeropo]

This guy looks like Timmy from WKUK

 

http://www.geek.com/gearlog/images/timmy-williams.jpg

[danielsangeo]

"Should I continue Moon Gaming?"

 

D. "I have no strong feelings one way or another." -Neutral President, Futurama

[Presence]

I admire you for trying new things, and I was sorry to find myself voting "no". I tried to allow for it being a very different vibe from your usual videos, but I kept coming back to my not really having gotten anything from it. No history, laughs, or story for me to get into. That's never happened before. I mean, you made a textureless racing game fascinating to me. I hate to be discouraging, so I'll say that if you went script heavy with around 1/5 of the video being devoted to some backstory about your character I'd definitely give it an enthusiastic second chance.

[boatmurdered]

As long as you can improve it then I say do what you like. Part of the reason I loved GD, and still do, is that you take a game, and play it, and you air grievances, and back them up. That's pretty standard, but you also put your own spin on it, and a lot of the time you bring up interesting backstory that makes it more interesting, and that enhances your points.

 

Part of the problem with this is that your guest, I'm sorry to say was very boring. Generally some of my favorite LP'ers that do let's plays with multiple people have been doing stuff together for a while so the jokes, and pick ups are all there, and snatched up even in blind runs. This guy was....not funny. Or interesting. At all. To me at any rate. Perhaps to someone else he might be incredible. Not sure, but I can only go by my gut feelings on this one.

 

There's also the massive difference in quality between your side, and his. Yours is a freaking moon base, and his is just hanging on his couch. It just seems really sloppy on his part. I could also simply be not smart enough to get it if it was supposed to be that way to reinforce the "weirdness" of you being on the moon.

 

Some minor story bits, or even just throwaway lines would really help sell it as well.

 

As is it mostly feels like a game dungeon where you've been saddled with a useless, or at least non interesting 2ndary person, and it drags the entire thing down. I also can't remember anything really about it. Nothing super funny, or that made me stop, and think. I mean on the snowcross game I still remember the time traveling madness, but with this game I just kind of was meh.

 

You said it in another video, and it applies to this too. It's better to have people upset at your game(or video) than to have them feeling apathetic, which is what this video made me feel.

 

I hate saying this, but I just didn't get into it. That being said I'd rather you do things you want to do instead of just doing GD all the time if you don't want to. And I can tell that at least on your end you put a lot of effort into your presentation, and moon base.

 

I also just didn't care overmuch for the game that was covered. I mean you made me care about games I've never played before that I had no interest in (except Carnevil because that game was awesome), but I just couldn't get drawn into it this time.

 

I also have no idea what to vote. I mean I am on Earth, but at the same time I don't want to commit to a yes/no based on the first episode pilot of something. There are plenty of things I liked that had terrible pilots, or first seasons, and only came into their own later.

 

 

And now I feel like a tool. I'm sorry Ross.

[Qwerty3781122]

I voted "no"... But if you do a let's play with George Weidmann of Super Bunnyhop, I would totally see it.

[29314]

The episode was unwatchable but I won't vote no, because I don't hate the idea of you doing Let's Plays, and I don't think this proves you can't do Let's Plays.

 

The game you chose was just boring. It was boring to watch, you looked bored playing it, and you struggled to say anything really interesting about it.

 

Also, is a guest really necessary? It's not like you needed a running conversation to fill dead air, the editing takes care of that. You might be more entertaining on your own.

[lavaheart]

:CC

 

man ross the second my headphones break you post something that sounds like it's amazing

 

I am praying that they come in a day or two now.

[Jeb_CC]

I thought this was really amusing to watch! But then again, I'm used to watching this kind of stuff, since this is the kind of content that I enjoy watching the most. By the game you've picked, it's one of those videos that I'd put on in the background and listen to. I wouldn't mind more of this at all!

[qdr]

Ok, this is only Ross video that I dropped in like 5 minutes.

I can't say the game was horrible, no, it might have insufficient material, but I think Ross could've made it another Nyet III (which was a good episode).

I think the biggest issue is your guest. I can't say anything about the man, as I'm not acquainted with him, but in my humble opinion - he is not Video material. Ross has charisma and good writing skills, thus he is enjoyable on the screen, whereas Tom seemed bland, uninterested, and boring.

I think this video should be "re-cut". As hard and cruel as it might sound, we need to replace Tom with Ross, but in a slightly different outfit. Like he's hinting that he's either mad, or there are more than one character in the Moon Pod. Think of Gollum from LOTR, or Sam Rockwell's character from The Moon (2009).

 

I'd definitely want to watch another Moon Gaming episode. Ross, it is clear that you put a lot of effort in your videos, and the response to this video might be underwhelming, but I encourage you to keep going.

 

Maybe you should check some obscure European or even Russian games for inspiration. I remember that Polish GROM was a decent game, and Russian Silent Storm was incredible in it's time.

Or, you can try some recent games from Ukraine, like Cryostasis - which will JUST BLOW YOU F*CKING MIND WITH IT'S PLOT! Or I hope so, as I haven't checked the translation, but the original Russian version was awesome.

[Zaraki]

There were some good moments here and there,but it was somewhat tasteless.If you can improve it in some way,i'd still watch it.

[Ross Scott]

Well the overall feedback on this looks pretty clear. In honesty, I was pretty happy with how this came out, but it could be because I had someone else to comment also so I wasn't in a vacuum just spouting out my own thoughts. Apparently me spouting my own thoughts is enough however! For everyone talking about it improving, I can see it improving somewhat, but not a LOT. So in light of that, I think I'm going to discontinue the series. My new plans now are to get a Game Dungeon out ASAP (I have a short but good one in mind) to sort of make amends for everyone disappointed by this one, then I'll be working on Patreon. I'm still figuring out what I want to do for October, but in all likelihood it will be as many Game Dungeons as I can manage.

[Tarrega]

Looks like Ross is going to discontinue it but I figured I'd throw in my thoughts:

 

I think Ross has set the bar so high with his previous videos that this just felt lackluster.

 

I am always entertained by Ross's content because it's genuinely interesting and funny; Game Dungeon provides unique historical information, and occasionally hilarious off-the-wall theories about dead band members involved in time-traveling murder plots. In other words I feel like we're treated to interesting games (whether they're good or bad) that are made even more interesting by Ross's research into them. All of this is tied together by his dry and deceptively silly personality.

 

In this video there was no interesting historical information or craziness going on- it was just two guys playing a very boring video game. I was half-expecting the video to go off the rails as a way to trick the audience; I figured maybe Ross would be attacked by an alien in his moon base and we'd see something strange and unique. (Plinkett anyone?)

 

Still, I like it when new things are attempted! I hope he doesn't let this dissuade him from trying new stuff.