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Thing is, I don''t GET the facecam lps. For me, the Let's Plays are more about showcasing the game than anything else, not particularly about the reactions of the player himself. In horror games, keeping the ambiance is critical to that, unless the plan is to make a humorous one, but in that case, blind LPing a horror game would not be possible.

Then again I generally watch LPs originated in Something Awful, not youtube LPs, haha.
You sound fine. I think showing the video in the corner is fine. Part of the fun of watching someone play a horror game is watching facial expressions.

Your English is fine. Think of us Americans. You're lucky to find one of us that even speaks one other language.
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dkclemons1: You sound fine. I think showing the video in the corner is fine. Part of the fun of watching someone play a horror game is watching facial expressions.

Your English is fine. Think of us Americans. You're lucky to find one of us that even speaks one other language.
Thanks! I'm not sure are you just being nice or I'm just so not used to hear myself talk.

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Luisfius: Thing is, I don''t GET the facecam lps. For me, the Let's Plays are more about showcasing the game than anything else, not particularly about the reactions of the player himself. In horror games, keeping the ambiance is critical to that, unless the plan is to make a humorous one, but in that case, blind LPing a horror game would not be possible.

Then again I generally watch LPs originated in Something Awful, not youtube LPs, haha.
I've heard this a lot and I understand where you're coming, but the thing is, that it's not how I see the point of LP's and not how I like them. So I'm doing the one I understand and enjoy!

All comes down to them personal preferences, I guess. I ultimately just want to have fun, people at Something Awful are waaaay more professional, if what I've heard is correct (not saying that they don't wanna have fun. D:).

Anyway, you don't enjoy the LPs I understand are fun and I don't enjoy the LPs you understand are fun. I'd say all is well with the world.
My two or three cents based on what I saw. Due to time contraints (and being familiar with the beginning of the game) I watched some moments here and there, skipping several minutes at a time, watching for a minute or two, then skipping again:

- As many have said before, your English is good. You do have an accent - everyone does, for that matter - but it's not distracting. Your voice isn't annoying, which counts for a lot. As you said, fluent sentence contruction is something to work on, but I still didn't find the occasional hesitation annoying. It's not like no one else does it from time to time.
- The balance between microphone and game volume seemed pretty good, but I think you could up the game volume a bit. I prefer subtitles all the way, but those are no good if you want to practice pronunciation.
- The facecam seemed around 40% too big to me. Not that there's much to see on the corner, but still. I don't really care one way or the other when it comes to whether the face-cam should be there or not; keep it if you think that's the way you like to handle things.
- I suppose opinions vary on this, but I think the video could make use of editing. Bumbling about with the frozen hatch, for instance, could be handled with a few fast-forwards ("so I backtracked a bit and got this stone to break the ice with"). This will become more important later on when you'll be travelling a lot in maze-like corridors (empty once the danger has been dispatched with) to do fetch-quests of all things for yourself.

I got quite far in the game (I think), but to be honest it just bores the life out of me. I might watch a Let's Play to see how it ends, though.
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AlKim: My two or three cents based on what I saw. Due to time contraints (and being familiar with the beginning of the game) I watched some moments here and there, skipping several minutes at a time, watching for a minute or two, then skipping again:

- As many have said before, your English is good. You do have an accent - everyone does, for that matter - but it's not distracting. Your voice isn't annoying, which counts for a lot. As you said, fluent sentence contruction is something to work on, but I still didn't find the occasional hesitation annoying. It's not like no one else does it from time to time.
- The balance between microphone and game volume seemed pretty good, but I think you could up the game volume a bit. I prefer subtitles all the way, but those are no good if you want to practice pronunciation.
- The facecam seemed around 40% too big to me. Not that there's much to see on the corner, but still. I don't really care one way or the other when it comes to whether the face-cam should be there or not; keep it if you think that's the way you like to handle things.
- I suppose opinions vary on this, but I think the video could make use of editing. Bumbling about with the frozen hatch, for instance, could be handled with a few fast-forwards ("so I backtracked a bit and got this stone to break the ice with"). This will become more important later on when you'll be travelling a lot in maze-like corridors (empty once the danger has been dispatched with) to do fetch-quests of all things for yourself.

I got quite far in the game (I think), but to be honest it just bores the life out of me. I might watch a Let's Play to see how it ends, though.
Appreciate it very much that you took some time to throw all this feedback! I'll probably be making the facecam smaller by around that much, because it looked alright when it was rendering, but when I checked it out in normal size, it seemed to be huge. Made it smaller and made it fit i better with the second episode and puzzle agent, though, it still looks pretty big there, I'll try making it smaller again.

It's sometimes hard to understand when something is too loud or too quiet when everyone has different sound settings, so I try not take too many chances to not make everything too loud. But I'll try to amp up the volume a bit, see how it goes. Not too much, though, I wouldn't really wanna redo something, because first impressions are important to me. Plus, replaying the same part you've just played is plain boring.

And about the editing - it didn't actually seem like a huge deal in the Penumbra hatch bumbling part, but I've just finished filming the Puzzle Agent second one, and some puzzles take quite a bit of... bumbling, so I'll definitely be editing that thing to quicken things.

I've heard the game is quite short, because of it's episodic nature. Hope I don't get bored too, though.

So yeah, thanks, mate!
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Profanity: It's sometimes hard to understand when something is too loud or too quiet when everyone has different sound settings, so I try not take too many chances to not make everything too loud. But I'll try to amp up the volume a bit, see how it goes. Not too much, though, I wouldn't really wanna redo something, because first impressions are important to me. Plus, replaying the same part you've just played is plain boring.
True enough. Penumbra's got constant background noise that I'm hesitant to call actual music, and I guess the drone could easily drown out something you say. The problem is worsened by your low voice; a low sound interferes with another low sound much more easily than a high one. It's why Germans shout "achtung!" in a preposterously annoying nasal tone in war films - it was easier to hear the shriek over the background noise consisting of machine gun fire and the booms of shelling. But I digress.

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Profanity: And about the editing - it didn't actually seem like a huge deal in the Penumbra hatch bumbling part, but I've just finished filming the Puzzle Agent second one, and some puzzles take quite a bit of... bumbling, so I'll definitely be editing that thing to quicken things.
The hatch wasn't too bad, really. I was just trying to pick up something that might become a problem in the future if you didn't become aware of it early on.

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Profanity: So yeah, thanks, mate!
You're welcome. Keep it up and have fun!
Your English is good but the game volume is too high. :)
Just got the third batch uploaded and I'm thinking this is the last batch I'll post in the GOG forums, because I don't wanna bug you guys too much. This seems like the best one of mine so far, at least the Penumbra Ep 3. So if you've got any words of wisdom left, drop 'em in here or on youtube, whatever.

Penumbra Ep 3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HixL4DsWNa4&feature=plcp

Puzzle Agent Ep 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDSNmZ6fcQ8&feature=plcp

Thank you for all the feedback so far, fellas. Cheers!

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langurmonkey: Your English is good but the game volume is too high. :)
Thanks, the volume was fixed in the... well all of the other episodes.

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AlKim: You're welcome. Keep it up and have fun!
Would be super useful if you could look over any of the newer stuff, if you've got time, of course. Your feedbacks are heavy with usefulness.
Post edited November 18, 2012 by Profanity
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Profanity: Would be super useful if you could look over any of the newer stuff, if you've got time, of course. Your feedbacks are heavy with usefulness.
Well, I've cracked open a few beers so that's gaming out of the window for me. Plus I feel like being nice for a change. Might as well give a shot at this.

Regarding Ep.2 and 3:
- The camera still seems exceessively big because it's widescreen and your face only fills about half of it. A 4:3 aspect ratio might work better here, leaving you some room for fidgeting and rolling about on your chair or whatever it is you people do while I'm looking at what's going on in the game.
- I like the occasional joke ("we went down here because we're fucking idiots", "society is a network of safety nets... like my barrel."). It sounds very natural and, since you don't do it very often, it won't spoil the atmosphere of the game.
- Your keyboard and/or mouse are/is quite loud. Not a lot you can do about this, though. I know from experience that my old mouse (a Razer Diamondback) was so loud it could literally shorten my life by six years by waking me up from an alcohol-induced sleep followed by a massive hangover.
- Plenty of text there; you might want to compress it. Read the text by yourself, then briefly tell the camera what the text was all about ("so basically, we need string, gunpowder and baxtrin - whatever the hell that is - to make a match fuse to set off explosives"), then edit the first part out. I think episodes 2 and 3 could probably fit in the same 20-minute-or-so time period if you compressed the excess out.
- You might want to check the spelling of some words (arachnid spring to mind). Not a lot you can do about it when you're reading a note on the spot, of course, but for future reference or whatever you want to call it.
Post edited November 19, 2012 by AlKim
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Profanity: Would be super useful if you could look over any of the newer stuff, if you've got time, of course. Your feedbacks are heavy with usefulness.
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AlKim: Well, I've cracked open a few beers so that's gaming out of the window for me. Plus I feel like being nice for a change. Might as well give a shot at this.

Regarding Ep.2 and 3:
- The camera still seems exceessively big because it's widescreen and your face only fills about half of it. A 4:3 aspect ratio might work better here, leaving you some room for fidgeting and rolling about on your chair or whatever it is you people do while I'm looking at what's going on in the game.
- I like the occasional joke ("we went down here because we're fucking idiots", "society is a network of safety nets... like my barrel."). It sounds very natural and, since you don't do it very often, it won't spoil the atmosphere of the game.
- Your keyboard and/or mouse are/is quite loud. Not a lot you can do about this, though. I know from experience that my old mouse (a Razer Diamondback) was so loud it could literally shorten my life by six years by waking me up from an alcohol-induced sleep followed by a massive hangover.
- Plenty of text there; you might want to compress it. Read the text by yourself, then briefly tell the camera what the text was all about ("so basically, we need string, gunpowder and baxtrin - whatever the hell that is - to make a match fuse to set off explosives"), then edit the first part out. I think episodes 2 and 3 could probably fit in the same 20-minute-or-so time period if you compressed the excess out.
- You might want to check the spelling of some words (arachnid spring to mind). Not a lot you can do about it when you're reading a note on the spot, of course, but for future reference or whatever you want to call it.
- I'm fucking around with the camera in every ep ever so slightly, looking at what works better. I'll get it eventually!
- Those just pop out, I guess. Can't really control the frequency because of that, though, so far I see the amount is all right, according to ye!
- Yeah, I've noticed this before and not really sure what to do. My keyboard is really frikkin loud. The mouse too, really, but the keyboard is worse. Is it annoying? It doesn't tick me off, because I'm used to it. I guess I could get a new one, but these two are pretty new themselves and I don't really have much of the cash muney muney at the moment. D:
- Well, the further I get into the game, the less text there is. But that's besides the point, in an adventure game, I believe all text deserves to be read! Though if it does reach a limit and get out of hand at some point, I'll definitely take this suggestion of yours.
- Funny thing is, I know the spelling and pronunciation of the most words I fuck up, but that kind of thing just happens on the spot, as you say, and the some of them frik up.

So yeah, thanks once again. Much appreciated!