Where Passion Meets Gaming

I have been making videos for about 2 weeks now, which in the long term isn’t a lot but is a great step forward. Before I even started doing this I was too nervous to even make a video, what would I say, what would I do, would people like me. These were the questions rolling through my head and honestly kept me from trying. Fear of failure was a big demotivator. 

But then, about a month ago, I said screw it, who cares what people think, who cares if people hate or don’t watch, at least I can say I tried. Who knows maybe something does happen, but in the end it’s all for fun. That was the key for getting over the hump. That fear hump of caring what people thought I had rolled over, made it nothing but a speed bump. I realized that if I was going to do this it had to be for fun not fame. 

Going into this with the mindset for fame and glory is the wrong approach. You need to do this for the joy of doing it. If you enjoy yourself people will enjoy watching you, everything in a video will come easy to you. My first step was to decide what to play. So I decided on a 4 day upload schedule that fit into my current life. It’s easy for me to meet and isn’t too stressful. I then chose 4 different games to play in that schedule, games that were easy to record and I could talk about while recording them. Now I did drop my Friday series and want to change it after 2 episodes but that’s because I found it unenjoyable and hard to talk about. Which is fine, again enjoy what you do.

My next step after that was to create my persona, how the internet perceives me. So I went with a few easy things, red and white colour combo which I really like and the name T15, a combo of my number for everything and first letter of last name. Now I did have a friend come up with the logo idea but I gave him what I felt I needed (I am not too creative). After getting my logo I used my background as a developer to create a basic website. Nothing too crazy just a bit about me, a contact form, links to everything social media related and my different series on YouTube. Making a clean and simple website just helps me to feel more official, like hey I am serious about this and committed.

Now that I have my persona built and my series lined up in theory, it was time to execute, making video time! Now I have no idea what I am doing at this point, I am out of my depth by being creative, but I know as long as I have fun it will show! So I recorded my first 2 weeks of videos and uploaded them on the scheduled days, this was very exciting to me, I did it i’m online and I’m out there for the world.

Now of course excitement took over.. I was thinking those are great I’ll be getting views in no time, here I come youtube front page! But of course the opposite happened, very few views came in, even shorter actual watch times were seen. Upsetting yes, but expected, I’m not popular on twitter, I don’t have a ton of friends on facebook, I am in no big circles anywhere so who could I really put myself out too? I have to hope that some tweets will attract people or that someone will stumble on my videos.

Now that I have gotten over that initial excitement I came back once again to realizing, I said I was doing this for fun not fame. But who can resist that urge to feel famous, you see all these big names everywhere and you want that to be you. So over the first actual 2 weeks of a live channel and few weeks prior to uploading, my main learning point is that my videos may not be amazing right now, but I AM having fun, and I do find this a joyful thing to do. To all the slightly over 100 people who viewed my videos I hope they brought some enjoyment. 

I am releasing my self made website at www.t15.ca. This is used as my hub for all things related to me, I want it to be a centralized spot for all my (hopefully) future viewers. I plan on releasing any updates or content notices on this site so everything is in one spot. 

I built this site using ruby on rails and it is hosted on heroku. I personally enjoy rails as a development framework for it’s easy to use MVC model. I prefer this over regular HTML because it can get quite full and chaotic. Rail has enough plugins (gems) that allow pretty free creation in a website with little coding. 

I plan on adding more to my website to grow it’s use but am unsure at this time what to add! 

Feel free to contact me for any feedback or if you just want to learn more!

Trying out a new video style in this one, shorter video but showing more highlight content. This way it’s all action opposed to standing around for awhile! Check it out and let me know what you think.

I want to rant about Idle mobile games… and how much I dislike them. I don’t get why people love them so much, they take no skill whatsoever and have no gaming purpose.

A game should have a thought process behind it, some element that makes the player think, how will this decision impact my world. This can be in the way of killing someone, talking to someone, stealing from someone, whatever! But in the end, these decisions flow the story or the gameplay. All there is to an idle miner, is do I have x money to get x upgrade, if yes buy it, if no wait a little longer. This takes no thought, or skill, all takes is checking if a number is big enough. On top of that, when you buy an upgrade all it does is change a look slightly, make a bar move slightly faster… that’s it… no reward whatsoever.

Then these games have the element of pay to go faster, for example, you buy this booster and you’ll gain money at 2x speed for only 100 gems (which costs $2). So you pay them… so your game, again, moves slightly faster… All these games are based around is moving slightly faster and seeing more things on screen, no story, no ending, no satisfaction other than my bar moves faster than yours.

I find the leaderboards of these games riddled with I would call hackers, who have amassed $ amounts that are either all the same (so max value allowed) or are some random combination of numbers that breaks the screen. I find it very hard to believe people got there legitimately. If they did, kudos for them on not seeing the world around them because they clearly have no social life. Or these people have a ton of money to burn, in which case… congrats again, you spent a ton of money on something worth nothing, that no one cares about.

All I see polluting app stores now is idle games with slightly different themes that all do the exact same thing, I don’t know why people still bother with these, I personally want them gone, bring to light the games that take thought to make, have effort put into stories and characters. There are tons of indie companies out there who I’m sure would kill to be on the front page of app stores, but they are never given a chance simply because they are different. These people are the real gamers who want to bring enjoyment to people, not make a quick profit on someone who falls for another idle miner.

New Tournament in clash royale, 12 wins to unlock the mega knight! watch to find out how he plays and if he gets unlocked!

Golf with friends is a wonderful mini golf game. Simple as that. It is very easy to pick up and play, it is cheap and can be played for hours.

This game does an excellent job of delivering mini golf, it has immersive themes (for golf) that make you feel like you are in the desert, in a forest, or any other place the course happens to be.

It has straight forward controls that anyone can use, simply left click, and move the mouse forward for power, and left or right to aim. While getting used to the power at first can be interesting, once picked up you will be hitting perfect shots in no time.

The courses themselves start from fairly easy flat courses to complex courses with water, jumps and other obstacles. This provides a good difficulty set for all skill level players and in combination with custom rules can be made easier, harder or hilarious.

This game IS best played with friends, while you can play alone, you don’t feel that sense of competition that friends can provide. With you all trying to be the best, get to the hole first, or with collision on, simply trolling your friends by hitting them off the map. Friends make this game 10x better and more fun.

Now this game does have some downside, right now there are only 6 courses and no level editor like it’s competitors, but with the game being early access, this feature is planned to be released. It also is missing it’s customization components, planned is different floats for when ball is in water, ball skins/trails, currently implemented are hats and RGB sliders for ball colour.

In the end this game is early access and has room to improve, but solidly delivers a great mini golf based game. The level editor will be most exciting as the community I’m sure will create some awesome courses. At the time of this review the game is $6.99 CAD and worth the pick up if you have some competitive friends and want to kill a few hours in a night by yelling at each other over mini golf.

Overall 8/10

Pros:

easy controls, cheap, active devs, more features coming (specifically level editor)

Cons:

Simpsons Hit & Run - I do a full playthrough of this classic game that I played throughout my childhood. I will offer commentary as I play, bad jokes, some laughs, and just overall good gameplay. I will provide in depth commentary to the game and make you feel like you’re playing too! 

Playlist - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfxwwHwALoU6LH63k1Krw0G1R-MLVZAAk

Airs - Mondays

Big T in the Bigs - Live the life of a kid trying to make it into the big leagues, this series features Big T, an aspiring young shortstop trying to make it into the show. Follow his path as his life commentator (me) fills you in every step of the way! Will Big T accomplish his deams and goals? Find out watching this MLB The Show 17 series.

Playlist - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfxwwHwALoU5dKynX-w5Mx0s7LpDB8cJv

Airs - Tuesdays

Let’s Play - Join me every week in playing a game that could be old, new, bad or good. This series is all about playing and testing! Every week will feature a new game, and me playing it while providing my feedback and thoughts on the game. This is a great way to see games you may want to get or games you’ve never heard of! 

Playlist - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfxwwHwALoU6LH63k1Krw0G1R-MLVZAAk

Airs - Thursdays

Mobile Madness - With phones getting more powerful and common, developers are trying to capture that audience in gaming. I will be playing different mobile games, showcasing what is out there for you to take with you on a phone so that you can not pay attention to the world around you at all times.

Playlist - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfxwwHwALoU4IeZZea-awt4ygzz3JDtxg

Game - MLB The Show 17

Title – Big T in the Bigs – Draft Day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc0kteageRI

Game - MLB The Show 17

Title – Big T in the Bigs – Big T Is Born

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyoMTSiE3gw

Game – Rocket League

Title – Let’s Play – Rocket League

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fJPxnOuisc

Game – Clash Royale

Title – Mobile Madness – Clash Royale

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okMZB-jGBpc

Game – Simpsons Hit & Run

Title – Simpsons Hit & Run – Homer Begins

Who Am I?

I am a 23 year old gamer from Canada. I enjoy playing a wide variety of games from sports, to shooters, and RPG’s as well as arcade games. I will gladly play anything you throw in front of me! My love for video games has me playing everything to the end and exploring the world for all it’s worth. I pride myself on completing games and at the same time providing a joyus experience for myself and you, the viewer!

I went to school to become a game developer and that career kind of played out. I now work full time as a developer at a startup company, coding websites and apps. I was driven to this environment because I loved the idea of how a team no matter how small or large, could produce something so amazing and make so many people happy.

My number one goal as a creator is to provide entertainment playing games as well as inform anyone who wants to learn what goes into these amazing games.

I hope to use this tumblr to interact with other game enthusiasts and those who may be new to gaming who are looking for tips and tricks.I will share my videos, post some unbiased game reviews and [potentially] share submissions (game related only, please!)