The ShadyParadox Files #2 - RealMyst, Exile, and "The Character"
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- Опубликовано: 12 июл 2024
- This series starts off with a recap of some history of the channel, and an exploration into the theory behind my scripted content. These ideas have been rattling around in my brain for years, so organizing them here is bringing clarity that I can already tell will help me down the road. Although I'm anxious to get to new gaming content, I take this as my one chance to present the abstract ideas as plainly as possible. I hope you find it interesting.
BREAKDOWN
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0:00 - Pre-commentary history
1:34 - Early commentary history
2:18 - Summary of RealMyst & Exile LPs
4:32 - DVD projects
5:41 - RealMyst LP Remake
6:21 - Let's Plays vs. Scripted Videos
7:46 - I'm an actor!
11:03 - The Character
15:27 - RealMyst LP Evaluation
17:53 - Exile LP Evaluation
20:33 - Conclusion
MUSIC
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0;00 - Department of Corrections: jamiepidge.bandcamp.com/track...
2;21 - Planetarium: • Myst soundtrack - Plan...
3;36 - Atrus' Study: • Myst III: Exile [Music...
5;41 - Treegate: • Myst soundtrack - Tree...
6;21 - The Windmill: • Video
8;10 - The Fettucini Brothers: • Monkey Island SE OST -...
9;21 - Spirit: music.disasterpeace.com/track...
11;07 - Misleading Signs: • Video
15;25 - Forechamber Theme (The Last Message): • Myst soundtrack - The ...
17;53 - The Forest and the Swamp: • Myst III: Exile Ambien...
19;41 - Libra's Lever (transposed in video): • Myst III: Exile Ambien...
COMEDY OF ERRORS
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Part 1: • The Flying Karamazov B...
Part 2: • The Flying Karamazov B...
REALMYST DVD MENUS
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Main Menu: • Let's Play realMYST DV...
Myst Island: • Let's Play realMYST DV...
Mechanical Age: • Let's Play realMYST DV...
Selenitic Age: • Let's Play realMYST DV...
Stoneship Age: • Let's Play realMYST DV...
Channelwood Age: • Let's Play realMYST DV...
Rime, Endings, and Easter Eggs: • Let's Play realMYST DV...
ABOUT ME
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Twitch:
/ shadyparadox
Livestream Archive:
/ @shadylive
Discord:
/ discord
Shadyblog:
shadyparadox.wordpress.com/ 
Игры
The Shady-sona you present in your Let's Plays is the biggest reason I was drawn to your videos. I hope you maintain that style, regardless of what game you dedicate yourself to next.
I personally loved the character you played in both realMYST and Exile. The way you played dumb but also spoon fed us some extra information is what made me keep coming back for more.
I'm SO glad to hear that you're going to do Riven ʕ´ᵔ ᴥ ᵔ`ʔ
I love your persona-- it's really fun! It's obvious you put a lot of effort in what you do.
Oh, actually I said I was going to talk about Riven in a later video in this series. There are several competing ideas for what my next project should be and Riven is just one of them, so I want to lay the case for each out onto the table before committing to any of them.
So while I'm not saying I'm going to make a Riven series, I'm also not saying I'm _not_ going to either.
So we talked about this during your earlier stream today and it makes more sense now. Very interesting insight in your video making!
I agree about the untapped potential of a "character" play. It's fairly unique and, although some people may not like it, it's one of the reasons I continue to come to your channel. Eagerly awaiting your next video!
PS. Please do a "Shady" plays of Riven. Please?
It's quite honestly amazing how he's avoided Riven, Myst IV: Revelations, Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, Myst V: Exile, and Uru's DLC's at this point.
Notice how I put them in order... namely Uru's DLC's being... well, kind of the weak link in the entire series.
Seriously, Cyan? Waiting 15 minutes on a button in real time, AND with real-time timers for some events to happen? Really?
In any case, it'll definitely be awesome to see his character unwind Sirius' and Achenar's Prison Worlds, most certainly.
Your style of let's play, on top of the the types of games Myst and Exile are, also make them very nice as something to have playing to the side while working on something else. Ever since getting a second monitor I've occasionally come back to the Exile LP - the calm commentary, lovely visuals and reasonably relaxed music (apart from a few moments of course) make for a really nice ambience... watching this and hearing the Libra's Lever theme makes me want to go through it again!
It's interesting that you mention listening to it in the background while working, because that reminds me of a small segment I had to remove from this video because it was messing with visibility due to copyright.
But back in the day I got a message from Rebecca Sugar, one of the writers for the cartoon Adventure Time, and she told me she was listening to my realMYST series while she was drawing for an episode. Specifically, if you look in the background of this segment, you'll see crystals floating around that were inspired by the Rime Age: ruclips.net/video/QLNzzU08B-Y/видео.html
@@shadyparadox I can see it! It seems very plausible in general that various ideas people begin to develop spawn from something as simple as passively listening to the descriptions of objects and ideas, much like how seeing things can - a case in point would be how many elements of Myst and Riven were inspired by what Robyn saw around Spokane :)
@@shadyparadox Rebecca Sugar watching your realMYST series and including a semi easter egg in Adventure Time beyond insane to me.
NuclearCraft, you hit all the right notes with your description of what makes the Exile series great, and I too have watched it on the side while sewing.
This video is really fascinating. Although I'd appreciated the care you put into these let's plays, I'd never thought about it in the ways you discuss here. Out of curiosity, have you run out of those nice, shiny blu-rays?
This was fun! Your original RealMyst walkthrough was my first introduction to "Let's Play" videos. I loved it!
Personally, I enjoy commentary because I appreciate hearing the gamer's thoughts & reactions while they play. The commentary can sometimes be more entertaining than the game itself! 😉
Funny thing is, this was true for me too.
With regard to the 'breaking character moments' you talk about around the 16th minute mark; I never experienced that as a disturbance, because I always interpreted your character as a teacher, or better yet, as a museum guard. Like how one experience the Hermitage in St. Petersburg in the movie Russian Ark.
Sorry for being 2 or 3 years late to this. I think I agree with everything you've said and I will gladly encourage you to continue making let's plays (or whatever we are calling them) if that's what you want to do. I might choose not to watch a series if I haven't already played the game myself, but I had played Myst and Exile, and really enjoyed watching those, along with Dilandau3000's. You aren't required to make videos, but you have my support even if don't end up watching them.
I love your comparison to the music of Myst
This was a nice video to accompany my saturday morning coffee. Interesting to hear you analyze the creative process behind these old series. Always looking forward to what you decide to work on next.
You know, as you were talking about immersion and consistency of character, I was reminded of another youtube series. Freeman's Mind, by Ross Scott. It's very different from your work, but it's similar in that it's a complete semi-scripted playthrough where the presenter is playing a character. Only in his case he's literally trying to portray the game's in-universe player character, going so far as to invent lore and character traits that don't exist in the game's canon. He even does some interesting tricks to support the idea of immersion that you're talking about here. Like, he'll make use of noclip to climb ledges which a real human being in the space would be able to, when the game's actual controls wouldn't allow it, and it's all pretty seamless in the edit, so you can't really tell he's doing it. In recent videos, he's gone even further than that, actually modding the game's maps to add new mechanics and animations to support that idea of immersion and consistency.
Anyway, I'd be interested to know if you've seen any of Freeman's Mind, and what you think of how Ross solves problems similar to the ones you're talking about here. And if you haven't, check it out! It's well worth a watch.
I'm a big fan of Ross! I've watched Freeman's Mind multiple times despite never playing Half Life. I guess that means I can sometimes be more interested in gamer content creation than even the game itself. So I've heard about how he'll mod the game for his character like you said, but I can't tell the difference lol.
I think my weakness is that when it comes to the tradeoff between character vs. completeness, I'll hedge on the side of completeness, because I really want to show as much of the game as I can, even if there's no real motivation for a character to do what I do. Meanwhile, Ross is fully committed to character consistency, which probably does result in a better product, even though I myself can't tell how thorough his exposition of the game is. But even simple things like in the beginning when he hits the alarm button and comments on the basic physics formulas on the whiteboard show me he's committed to that element too.
One advantage he has is that his worlds are inherently chaotic, so his character can just "randomly" run in the direction he needs him to go. In an adventure game, a character usually can make a deliberate choice every step of the way, so motivation has to be readily explainable in more cases.
I always liked your style a lot and found it to be a rare middle ground between the extremes of a blind run and a full on expert run. Both of which have their inherent weaknesses.
I described your style as an "immersive Let's Play" to others but i guess you could also call it an "expert blind run".
I find it interesting that you think your performance in the first couple of episodes of your realMyst series to be uneven and somewhat subpar. I actually enjoy those episodes more than some of the later ones and keep going back to them because your character in them seems more natural and "real", which is after all what he is pretending to be. I also very much like the wacky stuff you did during the stoneship age episodes. Breaking with the formula like that every now and again kept things from feeling too clean and predictable. It spices things up. At least for me.
Anyways, looking forward to more stuff from you and hopefully a full on playthrough in the future. One piece of advice perhaps is that it could be wise to not go with a main event like Riven for the first comeback series. This channel has been pretty close to dead for a looong time and although some fans (like me ;-) ) have stuck around, most others have naturally moved on. I think i wrote something to the same effect under your Fly Around Part 3 video last year... Maybe a warm-up series would be a good thing to bring the channel "back" before blowing your load completely so to speak with games like Riven or Obduction. I think consistency in uploads is paramount for subs and viewing numbers more so than uniqueness of style and even overall quality. No news there. But I hope you can find a compromise and keep up the motivation. I think this channel has potential to coma back. But it's probably going to be a rocky road. And knowing you a little from your streams i think you need your first series back to draw some solid numbers in the thousands to satisfy your ambition and not frustrate you. I definitely wish you all the best! And i 'll keep watching. Cheers!
It's funny. As "natural" as early realMYST Shady may sound, I think it would be a tall task to bring him back if I tried. When I started that series, I didn't have many subscribers, and the few I did have were used to silent videos. So part of my awkwardness was that I didn't even know who I was talking to, figuring in the end I was just talking to the wall.
So that has interesting implications relating to your point. Back in the day, I didn't expect to have an audience, and I did nothing to try to grow one. Yet, it happened organically just over the course of making one series. You may still be right that I shouldn't aim for lightning to strike twice, especially with the way RUclips has changed its algorithm over the years. Figuring out a simpler series that's easier to make is a good idea and I'll be thinking about it.
But that's not where my head is right now. You're correct in acknowledging my view counts have gone down as time has gone on. But considering how much time has passed, I'm more amazed and grateful to the people who have stuck around after all this time, rather than lamenting the people who have moved on. Focusing on them would be like when college kids skip class and the teacher lectures the students who went to class about it.
So my only focus is on the people who are still here. Maybe you can see the logic for my road map:
1) Remake the realMYST LP with all the improvements I've always wanted to put in. This is a full blown blast from the past, and this part is done.
2) Finish the Flymode series. I made a promise in Part 2 that I would go through the Ages, so making good on this promise is new material that acknowledges the past. I'm one episode away from completing this.
3) Explain and explore all the other ideas and projects I've grappled with over the years. The prevailing narrative among my audience is that after Exile I basically just disappeared. The truth is that way more has gone on in the background than it appears, and it's important to me that my viewers know what really went on. You'll understand why as this series develops.
So you can see how everything I've been working on is tailored for my current audience, in such a way that transitions from looking at the past to looking at the future. It seems proper to get on the same page with you guys first before starting a completely new series that potentially captures new audiences. But that is where I will go after this series.
I do very much enjoy the way you do things. Having a character who is ostensibly experiencing the game for the first time is not all that different from a Let's Player that hasn't played the game before, but with the added advantage of knowing about the things that could otherwise be easily missed. That's the best of both worlds in my book.
I'm enjoying this series on the workings behind the scenes, giving a better understanding of the process involved. I await the next videos of this series, especially the one on the secret and mysterious red pants project. Anyway, have a good day/night.
It's going to be awhile before I get to that one, but I will say the ideas in this video are essential for setting it up.
I would call them "Gameplay commentary" or "commentated playthrough" videos, at least that's what I tried searching for to find more content in this style. It doesn't really hone in on the fact that you're playing a scripted character, but it does get the point across that this is *not* an unscripted let's play.
What is the Laser puzzle?
The game at the beginning? ReThink. All sources are posted at the end of each video.