GAMING: Successful VR Stream!

They say that the third time’s a charm! That is the case with my third time attempting to stream VR game night with ZAW Studios. We got the ethernet cable, and it worked wonders–visuals weren’t lagging or pixelated, much smoother. I was beyond elated that it was working splendidly.

Primarily it was just myself and the studio owner, Adrian, testing it out, playing the games and commentating on stream–using my new BLUE YETI MICROPHONE at that! I wish I could make it work on my actual streams at my home PC, but nonetheless, it worked at this stream night. We had the stream set up with a camera on the player, the player’s point of view camera and the game footage, and behind the scenes we had my laptop watching the stream and chat live and ZAW Studios was broadcasting live on Facebook of our activities.

The two games we played were Arizona Sunshine and Serious Sam: The Last Hope–both first person shoot (FPS) zombie games. According to my viewers, it was “hilarious” to watch me freak out and die in Arizona Sunshine. Admittedly, I’m sure it was fun to see me turn around in the game and scream when there was a zombie behind me breathing down my neck, however, I could not, for the life of me, figure out the controls of reloading and dropping the bullet clip the first few playthroughs.

A handful of people came to the studio and watched on the outskirts of the VR cage. Then a couple of guys volunteered to try it out, and it was pretty funny to see them die within a few minutes without getting a single kill! I love getting these first-time players (of not just the game but VR in general) live on camera to see their genuine reactions.

Streaming aside, it’s been thoroughly enjoyable experiencing the VR gaming. I’ve played my fair share of FPS games–namely the Halo franchise–but these games are bringing it to a whole new level. Immersing yourself into a game like that feels amazing. Can you imagine if we ever get to the level of virtual gaming like in Sword Art Online? Putting on a helmet and your entire body and sense of self is in the game.

With the success of our first legit VR stream, new conversations have opened up between Adrian and myself. Won’t reveal anything just yet, but we’ve got things in motion for the year! Stay tuned, y’all!

xoxo

GAMING: Streaming VR at ZAW Studios

Productivity was the name of the game today.

First thing on the agenda was getting coffee with an old friend from high school. We went to my favorite cafe spot in North Hollywood called Republic of Pie and talked about our Twitch channels. He’s the producer of an open mic Comedy Night that happens every other Saturday called Dope Fades! Caught a bit of it the night before and it’s really cool to see different content being put out there on Twitch!

We also spent some time getting caught up and talked about how we got ourselves to LA, and honestly, it’s so awesome to reconnect with more friends and seeing how our journeys are going. Not only that but now we can also help each other out and grow and expand, etc. I think I may have convinced him to go to Twitch Con in Long Beach this year–hella stoked for that!

The rest of the afternoon and night was dedicated to testing out VR Gaming for my Twitch channel. ZAW Studios graciously let me use their space, their HTC Vive rig and had a “cage” set up for the VR gaming experience. We’ve gotten together before to bring this to fruition a couple of times before but we ran into major bumps–namely lack of webcam and then lack of Internet. So third time’s the charm!

And a charm it was! After spending a couple of hours setting everything up–camera, game, audio, two additional VR rigs–and testing the games and stream cameras, we went live! The game that we launched VR with was Arizona Sunshine. It’s one of the more interactive/advanced games I’ve seen so far mostly because your character is not stationary (like in Space Pirate or Serious Sam). You can actually move around, move forward, backward, eat things, open doors, etc.

To watch me playing Arizona Sunshine for the first time on FB live, click HERE!

It was a short 30-minute stream, but it was a test session nontheless to catch additional kinks/bugs/bumps that we need to address for next time! It’s all about progress and making each stream better than the next. Even in those 30 minutes I was really happy that it came together pretty smoothly. Seeing each frame on the screen was really awesome: a camera on the player moving in the space, a camera from the VR headset seeing what the player sees and footage of the actual game. And then I set up a little radio DJ table and sat behind the scenes with a microphone talking and commentating on what was happening.

The biggest kink we ran into was laggy, slow and pixelated upload speed, which we think can be easily remedied with a direct plugin with an ethernet cable. Other than that, everyone who stopped in said it looked really cool!

Streaming VR for the first time aside, I love hanging out at ZAW Studios with the owner, Adrian, and his crew and friends. It’s a great way to get people together to eat, talk, hang out, game and have a blast together. For me, streaming is a way for me to well, primarily get me playing video games again, but to also create a place for people to hang out and seek refuge. I’m all about that family mentality and love anyone who comes into my stream to hang out. That’s what the community is about and I think I’ve found that with a production team with ZAW Studios as well as any viewers and friends who come to my streams.

For anyone reading this, I want to send a big thank you to ZAW Studios, Adrian, my friends and my viewers for supporting me and my Twitch channel. I can’t wait to do more in the future!

xo

GAMING: Nintendo Switch Presentation

The biggest news of the day was watching the Nintendo Switch presentation in Japan. But first, look at this delicious steak and potatoes dinner made by my roommate:

We’re both trying to cook new recipes this year, and so far we’re off to a solid start! Funny story, she said it wasn’t flavorful enough–ha, ha!

ANYWAY.

Since the teasers and news about Nintendo coming out with a new console, I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled and my mind set on getting it. Yesterday they announced it will be released on March 3 with launch title Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wind.

I got to the stream a little late but from the looks of it, they really focused on the aspect of versatility and mobility–the console can be modified and taken apart and put back together depending on where you are playing the game. This aspect drew me in cause in the promo video you see various people take the games with them–across the street, on a plane, to the park, etc.

The controllers (called Joy-Cons) look a little small–though said to be comfortable–and they presented how hi-tech they’ll be. They showcased the rumble/vibration factor along with sound and feeling as well. For me, I’d be most interested in playing the console whenever I fly back and forth between LA and Texas.

Out of all the games promoted in the presentation these three/four stood out to me:

Splatoon 2

I absolutely loved the first installment of this game. It was easy to play, had a clear story line and it was super colorful. Though the story campaign was relatively short, they also have the online multiplayer, which was pretty fun. I prefer the stories and campaigns of games, while others, at the time my ex Mr. Man, prefer the online play. Needless to say I’m pretty stoked to see what they come up with for the second game.

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wind

It’s been a hot minute since I’ve played a Zelda game. Regretfully I never got the chance to play my Wii games: Twilight Princess or Skyward Sword. Barely even got to play them cause I got them when I was in college and didn’t have the Wii with me–it stayed home with my family, so I’d hella wanna try this one out. The gameplay seems to look similar to Skyrim.

Super Mario Odyssey

Mario games are the staple of Nintendo games, so I’d be shocked if they didn’t show this one at the presentation. They have Mario set in non-Mario worlds from games’ past–it looks like New York City. Interesting twist, somewhat enticing, but I’m curious as to the inspiration to set Mario there. It definitely provides for more free roam play of the terrain, more possibilities and experimentation of how to maneuver it. In addition, they introduce a new character to help Mario on his journey–his hat. Quite intrigued to try this one out too and see what it’s about.

(Persona 5)
When Nintendo showed the games under development from their partners and such, they showed a short trailer of Persona 5. I didn’t quite catch what they said about it cause I was excited and screaming at my computer, but I’ve been reading online that it’s not coming to the Switch? In addition, they didn’t spend any time talking about the game, period–other games shown were delved into for at least few minutes. The past few Persona games were on the Playstation, so I guess it makes sense that it wouldn’t be on Nintendo?

I’ll stop rambling now! Before I could even get a chance to post this, I just read that Bomberman is going to come back for the Switch, holy moly!

xoxo

Streaming on Twitch TV

Twitch.tv is a live-streaming platform that’s been around for awhile, and the second annual Twitch Con is coming in October. What I’ve seen it used the most for is live gaming–people playing video games and talking with their viewers in the chat.

After stumbling upon this I’ve been watching and keeping up with a few streamers. It’s a fun environment and yeah, it happens over the Internet but it’s a community. Not only is it enjoyable watching and interacting with the streamer, it’s enjoyable chatting and carrying fun, hilarious conversations with people around the world.

Why is this relevant to me? Last 4th of July, Robert had a friend over and they were online gaming, so I entertained myself with playing Splatoon on the Wii U. (Super fun game by the way) After awhile, Robert’s friend asked me if I had ever thought about streaming–said it would be fun, people would love me so I should consider it. Robert jumped on board and offered to be my manager and help me out.

Image from Nintendo.co.uk

I made it a goal to start streaming in 2016, so over the next few months, I bought a PC, mouse, keyboard, the works (thanks Black Friday!). 2016 came around and I never got around to actually streaming that is until…this one weekend in May.

Robert had built me a new computer to trade out the one I bought so it would run better and faster. He was staying with me for the weekend, and he sprung on me that I was going to start streaming. Uh. Whut. I wasn’t prepared for that!

Image from services.runescape.com

The first stream I ever did was of Runescape. It’s an older game but recently got popular again. Robert created an account for me and I streamed myself going through the “Tutorial Island,” which is a beginners course to the game. First time playing the game while first time streaming, and surprisingly, it was fun! A few people came into my stream and were talking with me and enjoying watching me fail at this game so hard.

Before deciding to start streaming, I was struggling with myself internally. I’ve been playing games since I was little, but I don’t claim to be a pro gamer. The people I watch are really good at games and I’d feel like a fraud or a poser to start doing my own thing. But to my surprise, streaming was a lot more chill and fun plus I get to play games again. So I streamed a few more times that weekend and even days afterwards when I had my room to myself.

It took awhile to get there to take the first step, but I most definitely am going to try and do it more often when I can! My channel is: www.twitch.tv/sirisvay but right now I’m not active. You can follow my channel and an email will be sent to you when I log on!