Let's Play Angband video series

[Nile]

The first video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MthNfQL6Bs

Character dump:
http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=9245

I got the idea the other day to make a Let's Play Angband youtube series, and, well, I did it. Basically, I ramble, mumble, comment, and otherwise express my thoughts as I play Angband. It's my first serious attempt at uploading videos to youtube, so there are some issues with audio synching. Also, it took me a few videos to get into the groove of commenting and playing, so check out some of the later videos if the first couple are too boring.

The character is a half-orc rogue. I'm currently on the 27th video after about 4 hours of gameplay, clev 27, dlev 34, and it's going very good. It's taken me twice as long to get the videos compressed up and uploaded. =P

I make tons of errors in my commentary, which I realize, so feel free to correct them. Any advice/comments welcome!

Hope you enjoy!

(Also, there is another Let's Play Angband series on youtube - the guy beat me to it only by a couple days!)

Nile

[buzzkill]

I'll be the first to take a stab at this. I'm no expert, and all comments follow watching about 10 minutes total of several different "let's play" episodes.

I'd like to pay a special tribute to "Lets play Angband #17"... 9 minutes and 44 seconds of shopping. Seriously, what were you thinking? (the 1 view, that's me)

But seriously, you play fairly quickly, and while there is commentary, I don't quite know how to describe it other than it's vague and has little to do with the specifics of what is happening at the moment, such as fighting a particular monster or finding a particular item. I can follow it because I'm familiar with the game, but if the goal is to lure new players you may be missing the mark.

I'd suggest a larger font and/or graphic tiles as well as a slower pace, more focused commentary and editing for time. Cause, let's face it, even playing the game becomes monotonous at times.

[nobody]

i don't find it boring, i sorta "zen out" to playing it, usually pretty fast. i probably lose alotta characters zenning out, truthfully, but its cool

[Pete Mack]

I'm with buzzkill on this: I'd rather play than watch. In fact, watching is incredibly disconcerting, because we have very different strategies. In fact, this is a pretty old idea. ToME has "movies", which allow you to replay bits of your game (including messages). It's mostly used for interesting moments like Princess quests and vaults. Watching people shop or wander around the dungeon is pretty boring, by and large.

That said, I wouldn't mind watching a really serious dive (< 250K turn win). I have a very poor feel for strategy at that level; watching a single game might make a huge difference.

[Sirridan]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

I'm with buzzkill on this: I'd rather play than watch. In fact, watching is incredibly disconcerting, because we have very different strategies. In fact, this is a pretty old idea. ToME has "movies", which allow you to replay bits of your game (including messages). It's mostly used for interesting moments like Princess quests and vaults. Watching people shop or wander around the dungeon is pretty boring, by and large.

That said, I wouldn't mind watching a really serious dive (< 250K turn win). I have a very poor feel for strategy at that level; watching a single game might make a huge difference.

Agreed here *Winking and nudging PowerDiver*

But it's a bit late and I'll check out the movies you made tomorrow sometime since its my day off. In any case Kudos

[Nick]

Some things Need to be Done, and this is one of them. It's not that I particularly want to watch it; it's just nice to know it exists. Good work.

[Nile]

Originally Posted by buzzkill

I'd like to pay a special tribute to "Lets play Angband #17"... 9 minutes and 44 seconds of shopping. Seriously, what were you thinking? (the 1 view, that's me)

Hmmm, it looks like you must have jumped to the other series, as he shops for the time you stated in his #17.

But seriously, you play fairly quickly, and while there is commentary, I don't quite know how to describe it other than it's vague and has little to do with the specifics of what is happening at the moment, such as fighting a particular monster or finding a particular item. I can follow it because I'm familiar with the game, but if the goal is to lure new players you may be missing the mark.

Nah, I'm not trying to lure new players. I kind of assume those watching know something about Angband. In any event, I'm really just cataloging my journey for fun.

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

I'm with buzzkill on this: I'd rather play than watch.

Definitely, but, at least for me, it's fun to watch other people play sometimes too.

Originally Posted by Nick

Some things Need to be Done, and this is one of them. It's not that I particularly want to watch it; it's just nice to know it exists. Good work.

Exactly. The thought of having an entire successful game of Angband on video is...epic. Even if it is boring to watch at times.

[Nile]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

That said, I wouldn't mind watching a really serious dive (< 250K turn win). I have a very poor feel for strategy at that level; watching a single game might make a huge difference.

I would definitely watch that!

[PowerDiver]

Originally Posted by Sirridan

Agreed here *Winking and nudging PowerDiver*

I was thinking about logging keypresses, but that seems much harder than I first thought. If the size of the screen is off, there might be problems with the number of -more- prompts or looking about. I know that due to some wierd config problems my code acts differently when overwriting a saved Name.txt file.

[Pete Mack]

It may be easier than you think, at least for those platforms where Term_resize is honored--that's all the major platforms. (main-win, main-x11, main-osx, main-ros all have terminal resize commands.)


EDIT: it may be easier than I think, too. Looks like it will take about 50 lines of code. Classic Databases (101) homework project.