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From The Desk of Nerd³ - November 2024 Edition
🕑 Added 2024-11-01 17:00:11 +0000 UTCDearest Patreons,
As the protective barrier of spooky season finally gives way, allowing the deluge of Christmas songs in ASDA to smother us all, it’s time to enter 2024’s equivalent of Friday afternoon. November is here, and with it a worldwide feeling of… “eh.” That project can wait on the backburner a little longer, that unused gym membership can help your bank account shed a few more pounds, and that window has looked like it was going to fall out in June. It’ll be fine another few months. Yes, November is here, and the world enters productivity hibernation.
However, in a small shed at the bottom of a garden, a company of two is hatching a plan. Joining myself in the shed is Rebecca, who’s stepping up to co-run the company with me. However, our discussion isn’t currently about how to run our business. Roz, the only one of our chickens that knows she’s built on dinosaur DNA, has cornered us between the feed bins. I’m panicking about the oxygen running out, despite our shed not being particularly airtight, while Rebecca withdraws a final slice of butternut squash to use as a distraction. With a quick throw it’s away. With three or four more quick throws it's away and has been thrown accurately enough to make it out of the fully open door. Roz turns. We bolt. Freedom!
Back inside, and after we’ve triple checked all the locks to protect us from our feathery raptor, it’s time to talk shop. Nerd³, the company, needs an overhaul.
Now, don’t expect reboots or a new logo, (although the Twitch intro screens are getting an overhaul), I’m talking more about the company itself. Google tells me that the average age of a small business is just under nine years, so we’re practically ancient. No wonder we’ve got such a saggy backside, full of subscriptions to unused software, unnecessary yet eye-watering expenses, and a Dropbox with so many folders within folders that you could film Inception in there. So, it’s time to get out the pruning sheers and start cutting back!
SLASH! There goes the website. As beautiful as it was, Christ it was expensive to run. It’ll be replaced eventually, most likely with something much, much simpler.
HACK! There goes our internal organisation systems. Useful, but far too granular, to the point where it took longer to fill in them than to do the actual work. Now, simple to-do lists. Check!
SLICE! RIP in piece to the Nerd³ Video Archive. A monstrous, many-terabyte chunk of cloud storage with every video I’ve ever made in it. While it was nice to have, it was far too expensive for something we’ve never opened. Also, if I ever need footage from an old video, I just nick it off YouTube…
So that’s what we’re up to right now. Well, that and the three weeks of an entirely different job that I also had to squeeze in this past month, as well as finishing the final-final-final version of The Paradox Paradox ahead of next months (!) e-book launch. Oh, and I need to call a weird man about some advent calendars…
Actually, that’s a point. This month I’ll be curating my top games of 2024 list, which will be in its usual form of daily videos in December. So, if there’s any hidden gems I’ve missed, let me know down in the old comments or forever hold your tongue. Just be aware, if your suggestion is bad, I will personally judge you for it. You have been warned.
Little bit of Patreon housekeeping to do before we go. Last month, due to control of this sort of thing moving over to me, a bunch of people were missed out of the credits tier. While I’m genuinely sorry about that and am going to try and fix it this month, Patreon itself is changing how it deals with subscriptions on the 4th November. I don’t think this means anything for you, but backend wise, it could cause a few more issues. Bear with us, and just note that I’ll be sending especially horrid nightmares to the enemies of those affected as compensation.
And finally, remember the TikTok we started a while back? Well, I want to bring it back, but I’d like some feedback first. As a platform, it lacks the longevity of a YouTube video, so I’m thinking of swapping the shortform reviews for more disposable guff. The current plan is for me to be playing guessing games on there like Whodle, maybe interspersed with YouTube highlights, but if you’ve got any other thoughts, let me know. TikTok to me is the multiverse to Doctor Strange. It’s a concept of which I know frighteningly little.
Until next time,
Daniel
xx
PS. Oh, also I formatted my PC by accident this week. I am a jenius.
Comments
Jay350
Love the new start and end screens as well
Roy Fox (the author)
You’re not gonna play it. But the silent hill 2 remake was phenomenal! If anyone was sceptical about it, I’d definitely recommend giving it a go. Also, I loved whodle so that sounds like a great idea. I’m not sure if there’s any more plans for irl videos, but a chicken update would be cool aswell as some behind the scenes stuff if that was ever a thought. Can’t wait for the nerdcubed awards, I usually get a lot of new games from them so it’s like christmas comes early 😁
Tocavian
ALSO for the wordle style guessing games, I'd love to see you play PekeDoku! It's a 3x3 grid where you have to fill in pokemon matching the row and column criteria. I think you know enough from the card game to do a decent job at it! (Also Hi Rebecca too!)
Tocavian
Hey Dan! I dont think it would make a "best games of 2024" list, but Widget Inc just launched, and I think it would be something you'd love. Would also love to see you and Rebecca play WEBFISHING for a stream, thing it's a nice comfy thing for a Friday afternoon in the years Friday afternoon.
Riley Beachgrave Music
my girlfriend has been getting me to play UFO50 with it and i absolutely recomment. its a collection of 50 games made for a ficticious company calld UFOsoft and theyre all quite odd
Daddy Driffill
could i nominate microsoft flight simulator 2024 for the best 'please wait, download at 100%' screen
Daddy Driffill
im pretty sure you played it but reminding you portal revolution released this year
COUNTERPOINT
That PS you added, induced a 'wait.....what?' response! xD
Devin Albertson
Factorio launched an expansion recently that is absolutely massive. Feels like a whole nother Factorio put on top of the base one. Mentioning it since I felt like it was hardly advertised until shortly before it came out.
Nichola Deas
I'm happy you need to talk to a weird man about advent calenders. I'm a fan of you both.
Cy6erWolf
Good luck with everything! A note on the tiktok videos, I have kept myself banned from tiktok (and YouTube shorts, and anything that my brain can't keep itself away from). If we could get compilations or something of the videos you upload on there, I'd love to be able to see them!
Mike Jones
And so the year of Nerdcubed efficiency begins. My only feedback here, I currently don't and will likely never use TikTok, partly because a constantly scrolling format seems predatory, and partly because of the security risk implications. I do use Instagram. But I am only one person.
JammerGaming
How do you format your pc “on accident”?
Marc Bauer
You do! Google A.MAZE Sheffield
George “Good Luck Mattophobia” Spence
I’ve never heard of this Berlin game festival! It’s a shame we don’t have one in Britain smh
George “Good Luck Mattophobia” Spence
Damn, so I guess what you’re saying is that there will never be a playlist of unlisted videos? :(
Ties van Asseldonk
As someone who loved the whodle video but isn't on TikTok, please consider uploading those to YouTube or here on Patreon too!
Owen Tourlamain
Probably not your thing, but space marine 2 has been really good fun. Managed to make Warhammer fans and average gamers happy so that's quite an achievement. Also they are giving gameplay updates for free, the paid DLC is all cosmetic so that's a positive for me! My other choice for GotY is Helldivers 2 which was incredible
Texta 217
Guessing games like Whodle would go really well on TikTok, short enough to enjoy and easy to mass produce for the communities doomscrolling needs
Harry Franklin
As someone who doesn’t use TikTok and refuses to download it, a weekly/monthly/yearly?! collection of all the TikTok videos posted to Patreon/YouTube would be really nice. I suppose if the TikToks were uploaded as Shorts too, that could work. Much love to you both xx
Pig
Tactical Breach Wizards is a great suggestion for a game on the List this year. It is an incredible game (also incredible possibility for challenge videos)
Marc Bauer
I have a very biased list of games that should be looked at. I am the exhibition coordinator for an indie game festival in Berlin called AMAZE (there is one in Sheffield now too), and we showed off these amazing titles. They are often made by solo devs or small diverse studios as try to curate games that are not mainstream and made by studios who care about more than the bottom financial line and that hire diverse people. These games are so worth checking out. And you do love indie games Dan :) No Case Should Remain Unsolved We Are OFK 1001 Nights Phoenix Springs Grunn Building Relationships [ECHOSTASIS] Dissecting Love
Xendex
Short form reviews are great, I feel that stream highlights are the best type of content on Tiktok.
Jay350
When making the TikTok content maybe consider putting it on another platform as well (maybe just YouTube Shorts). As I have personally put off downloading TikTok as I don't need another social media platform to endlessly scroll
BreadThatIsBread
I think Concord should be on your game of the year list.
Will ''The Button King'' Harding
Tiktok would work well for everything you've said here, but I also enjoy the short form reviews. Hell, it made me buy Dome Keeper :P
Laurence Kinsella
I’d be curious to hear your opinions on the new(ish) alone in the dark or animal well. Also, I think because TikTok is such a personality based platform, it would really lend itself to any short “here is a cool thing I can’t justify putting in a big video, so look at it.” Kind of clips. Almost like the mystery videos, but rather than a link to one thing; a general indication to cool stuff. Also I think I speak for many people when I say you could record yourself doing only connect puzzles/the New York Times connection game, and we’d all watch for ages.
Jude Noss
I would say to go ahead with the daily Whodles and other quick puzzles, but also if you can do quick clips from YouTube that could help fluff out the content and bring people from TikTok over to YouTube and Patreon more!
Stan Gaskell
TikTok wise, the lowest maintenance option is highlights - clips from YouTube vids with subtitles, you can do quite well on there. Instagram too. I would deep dive into the archive you've just fucking deleted and pull up all the classic moments too (and flap etc). Quantity over quality is tiktok's MO. Instagram needs bit more finesse.
Karl Blythe
would love to know if there is anything I could do to reduce the cost of the website to get it back up and running sooner, at least a coming soon page. I've mentioned it in the discord recently as well, but I'd be willing to put something up on my web server with out any charge or anything in return. Could even host the full site when you get something planned out for it. Would be something I would definitely be willing to support.
Frosted564
I think for the TikTok, you should look at martincitopants. He already has fast paced videos but his short form stuff is perfect for TikTok. Short, sometimes loud, and easy to understand. I’m not saying a 1:1 ratio is necessary, but inspiration from him could help
Keiran McQueen
You should definitely do some of those guess the game things on the tiktok
bo0tzz
"that window has looked like it was going to fall out in June. It’ll be fine another few months." I actually have a window that's been looking since June like it'll fall out soon. Thanks for the reminder :')
Captain_Cone
This reads like a Russel T Davies magazine column and I mean that in the most complimentary way
