YouTube Critiques

Programs :
Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After Effects, Audacity, Reaper, OBS

I have been an avid user and consumer of social media like YouTube for over a decade. I have always admired video-essayists channels for providing insightful and interesting conversations on their opinions of games and Game Design, so I figured I would give it a try.

In these videos, I speak about all the aspects of Game Design using the theories and academic definitions I learned through my Honours Bachelor of Game Design program at Sheridan College. This format for expressing my thoughts has allowed me to learn more about how games impact people and, through my limited knowledge of the design field, what could have realistically been done to improve a game. I feel that my position as someone who develops games gives me a fairly unique perspective on these topics.

Through this process, I had to practice and refine an entirely new skill set. Utilizing programs like Premiere Pro, Photoshop, Audacity, and Reaper. So far, I have managed to produce three videos covering my thoughts on titles such as Dishonored 2, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, The Witcher 3, Genshin Impact, and most recently NieR: Automata. Beyond the programs I used, I also learned to effectively coalesce all my ideas and thoughts into a cohesive and comprehensible video, something that I use in all aspects of my life to this day.

I feel that even though these are not traditional projects for a Game Designer to work on, they have tremendously improved my ability as a designer and I hope you find something interesting within them!

What I learned

I have gained a massive amount of respect for the content creators with who I engage daily. Creating videos, especially large and highly edited ones, is not a simple process and there is an entire profession dedicated to pumping videos like these out consistently. Audio and Video editing is a large and complicated field with much to learn, but in such a short amount of time, I managed to develop my skills to what I would deem a passable state.

I learned about the way people think about games by diving into my own thoughts and seeking other opinions. These projects have given me insight into what I like in a game, and thus what I may be biased toward when developing my own. Game Designers NEED an open and consumer-focused mind when creating, and these projects have helped me realize that.

I have learned much about growth in social media as well. I don’t boast many subscribers nor many views comparatively to the titans of the platform, but largely due to my desire to seek new information, I have indulged myself in the world of content creation which has only broadened my catalog of topics that I can claim I am familiar with.

I, lastly, have learned that there is still much to learn, and I am excited to continue producing these types of videos whenever I can.

Authenticity over Analytics

I always want my work to make a statement unique to my own perspective. This isn’t a justification for being blatantly contrarian, rather, a focus on an authentic retrospective of my personal experiences. My video on Genshin Impact is a prime example of my sticking to these ideals. The video is a 50-minute retrospective analysis exploring the personal ramifications a perpetual content engine like Genshin Impact has on a player who retained a daily commitment for almost 2 years. I challenged myself to saliently and astutely describe my personal experiences in a digestible manner. The implied subjectivity present with many critiques and reviews lends itself well to what, in essence, are, in-depth analytical diary entries. If you have almost an hour to kill and are interested in the obsessive ramblings of someone who definitely isn’t addicted to the game, I’d appreciate taking the time to watch!

Though I prefer more personalized opinion pieces that lean towards subjective reviews on important games, I have found the most success in emulating popular video essayists who focus primarily on a more cohesive review and critique of overall game systems & mechanics. My Dishonored 2 | Analysis and Critique, thus far, has received over 4 500 views with an extremely positive reception. Despite the aforementioned analytical success of the video, I found this project to be my weakest, or rather, my least congruent with my own interests in creating videos. This isn’t to say that I will never make another video similar to this one, but it would likely not be this gargantuan length (1.5 hours). Nevertheless, I still proudly display this video on my channel as a marked starting point to only progress and improve from!

Takeaways: Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is a fantastic narrative experience. Ninja Theory knocked the immersive experience out of the park with their depictions of psychosis and schizophrenia. My only gripe with the game is just that, it’s a game. The mechanics don’t fully encapsulate the pain and torment Senua is going through, which led to me disconnecting with the experience because I had agency which didn’t mesh with the tone Senua was eliciting. I determined that when creating an emotional narrative, the mechanics needs to compliment that tone as to not develop ludo-narrative dissonance.

Takeaways: NieR: Automata is an incredibly complicated game to dissect. The themes and philosophies found within are so vague and arbitrary that they can be mapped onto almost every design choice found within. I believe this concept to be reflective of the ideas within. Weaving tone, themes, and emotion into mechanics and presentation can lead to resonant experiences that outshine any established narrative or gameplay system. NieR uses its medium to create moments only possible within a game. I learned to incorporate the unique aspects games, as a medium, have over any other.

Takeaways: Genshin Impact is a really addictive game. The gacha game core Genshin’s monetization is based off of leads players to adopt a habitual engagement to the game. Many players find this “FOMO” design to be predatory, frustrating, or any number of other negative attributes. In most cases, given the free-to-play model, I would agree, however, I always felt as if Genshin itself was unique with the breadth of high-quality content available to the player without having to engage with these so-called “Predatory” functions. My relationship with Genshin became habitual, and I had to realize eventually that games should be fun on their own, and you don’t have to feel obliged to play something you’re not having fun with.

Takeaways: The Witcher 3 is a game that is almost ubiquitously praised. However, I found the game to be immensely boring, slow, and wholeheartedly unremarkable. I was so surprised to hear the consistent adoration of a game I felt to be so mediocre. This obviously means that something didn’t click with me, and despite my dislike of the game, it still connected with others in an important way. I reflected upon my own biases, allowing me to curate an informed rationale for what systems didn’t resonate with me, and why.

Takeaways: The Dishonored Franchise is another tremendously important game to me. The level design, mechanics, and overarching systems are the foundation for a fantastic gaming experience. My issues with the game, are minor, however, I found the game’s “intended” experience to be poorly developed. Stealth and pacifism are rewarded in the narrative, but make for a slower, and, in my opinion, less engaging experience. Despite the amount of unique and dynamic murderous abilities the characters have access to, when you are trying NOT to kill people, you have to forego a majority of the game’s abilities. I found that when creating an intended experience, the complimentary systems should work in tandem with that intention, as opposed to fuelling a variant of play.