Update #18 - Cultist Simulator, Pathologic, and New Year Schedule (Patreon)

This will be one of the longer posts. After dying in several playthroughs, this week I finally managed to figure out Cultist Simulator to the point I know how to win a few cult victories. I also grabbed the DLC and beat that story line as well. I can safely say that it's one of the most unique games I've played (for better and worse) and I've gotten started on the video which should be out at the usual time this coming Friday. It's also the first time since the Fire Warrior video where I'll be briefly working with someone else for a small segment (probably no one you know) and I'm currently awaiting their side of the work as well. I can get antsy about deadlines and that sort of thing in group work, but everything is going on schedule on their end as well. With that, the giveaway post for the game and DLC will also be going up the same day as the video so more details will be available then.

UPDATE: I forgot Thanksgiving was this Thursday, since I'm used to it being the last Thursday in November and the 1st landed on the 1st Thursday this month. The video will likely be up over the weekend instead of Friday. 

As for Pathologic, a single playthrough of a character can be anywhere from 15-20 hours if you're unfamiliar of the game, and similar to EYE Divine Cybermancy the game must be completed three times (though with different characters) in order to get the true understanding of the story. The sheer length of it is why I held off on it so long despite the volume of requests, and figured it'd be a good way to wrap up the year since it will likely end up being one of the longer videos. I'm really conflicted with doing longer videos for a few reasons, chief among them is the fact the actual creation process is obviously longer than the regular videos that run from 15-20 minutes. I'm also never sure how people will respond to them, since while I got a lot of messages from people saying they really enjoyed the Dead Space 3 and Limbo of the Lost videos, I also got a solid number of people saying that they were way too long and I should try to keep it shorter. I've always tried to keep things "in the middle" when it comes to putting together videos, and length is no exception. If I make a video more of a romp than educational, the people who prefer the more informative side will dislike it. Alternatively if I play it really straight faced, the people looking for fun can get irritated too. It's a balancing act that I come to realize I'll probably never nail down perfectly, and some videos will just end up being more inclined to a different camp depending on the game. I'm not gonna try forcing humor into things, it has to come to me. Even though the Pathologic video will end up running longer, I'll try to keep it from becoming too miserable. It may be a very bleak game but Christmas is coming up after all.

I was hoping to have done a few other games this year, namely Space Marine and Eternal Crusade, but those will need to wait until early-mid next year. Right now I'm operating under the idea that Pathologic will be done right before Christmas with its length combined with my schedule (December is really busy for me like I mentioned in the holiday video) so right now I'm stamping out a rough outline of how the January/early next year videos will look.

I'm not sure which will release first since the process is going to be really weird but I'll be recording parts of the creation of the first January video. I have a few candidates for what game that'll be, but for now that's yet another "mystery game" while I get it hammered down. It's not going to be something abstract since it's also going to be serving as some examples of process in the "how to make YouTube reviews" video. I'm not sure which should come out first, since on one hand the guide coming out first is a tease for the first video which might give away a lot of stuff early, but it could also feel like a breakdown/rehash if it comes out after. I'll get it figured out.

After these, it's back to space. Space Rangers 2 is something I got requests for all year, but that will also be one of the first videos of 2019. I'll then finally get the Elite Dangerous video worked on, and I'm not even going to glance at their roadmap of updates while I do it since that's what kept throwing me off. I had been recording it on and off since April 2017, and I could never find the right time to work on it since players would tell me "the update that fixes everything is coming" every time I started. I'm not listening to that anymore.

While I'm not sure how long the video will be at this point, I know recording will be longer, so I'll likely have a video of a shorter game before. Possibly Dujanah since I was hoping I could squeeze in time to work on that before the move but it didn't end up happening due to scheduling. After that will be broken up by a mod video or two, then it'll be a look at Space Marine and Eternal Crusade. If Eternal Crusade gets a shutdown announced, I'll obviously move that up. It's a very real possibility with these kinds of games so I want to be ready to shift to that if the time comes. Subsequent videos are up in the air, and I'm still trawling through mail and messages to figure out where would be a good direction to go after that. I'm trying not to think too far ahead!

Thanks for all your help! Video soon.