I've been working on another origami project (let's call it Project Initiative, just for fun), though it's more of a mix of a silly idea and some fun math than an ambitious undertaking. I'll cover a few topics outside of the usual creative process, and I hope people find that interesting, too. BACKGROUND: Although I have a long history with video game RPGs, I never messed around with Dungeons & Dragons until two years ago, where a friend of mine looped me into a beginner-friendly group. We've had the occasional sessions ever since (including one that took place in-person, and the most recent one just took place a few weeks ago), and with the guidance of some newfound friends, I have been having a lot of fun with the game. I'm still struggling with the actual role-playing part (I'm no actor, and I really have trouble getting into character), but I am enjoying immersing myself into a story, making in-universe decisions, and watching any sort of interaction be resolved meaningfully with simple dice rolls. Since I'm a total newbie, I naturally didn't have the standard set of D&D dice (I instead do my rolls through a browser-based app). I'm sure buying a set wouldn't be too hard (I know exactly who to ask for that), but I felt like I didn't play the game enough to justify doing so. I found my solution while watching some math videos on YouTube (yes, you may yell "nerd" at me now) and watched one all about polyhedra. That leads us into the next topic. THE PLATONIC SOLIDS: With the exception of the D10, all the standard dice in D&D are what are referred to as the Platonic solids. These are special 3D polyhedra where all the faces are congruent regular polygons, and each vertex is a vertex for a fixed number of faces. By these rules, there are five Platonic solids:
The Platonic solids have a lot of interesting geometric properties that we don't have time to get into, but what makes them ideal shapes for "fair" die is the fact that they're isohedral. In simple terms, there's no configuration where you can view the solid and you can immediately identify a vertex as unique. In short, they're pretty much symmetrical no matter how you mess with them. "FAIR" DICE: What you want for any fair die is that for any given roll, each face has an equal probability of landing. Since Platonic solids are symmetrical, you can reasonably believe that they'll land the exact same way every time you roll, and that nothing about its shape will cause it to favor landing a certain way more than others. In the physical realm, other factors also affect the fairness of dice, like the material used, the quality of how it's manufactured, and even the way you throw the die when rolling. A common standard for numbering fair die involves ensuring that the sum of the opposite faces is equal to the number of faces + 1. You can easily observe this in a regular D6, where the sum of opposite squares is 7. I found myself looking into whether this is enough to make a die mathematically balanced, which led to a rabbit hole of reading legitimate scientific papers on the subject, including this one. For this exercise, I decided to just focus on the standard numbering and not worry about other mathematical computations. Now, you've probably already figured out that my goal here is to make the five Platonic solids through origami, then modify the resulting paper models such that they can reasonably function like fair dice. The steps I laid out for myself as follows:
THE MODELS: In this section, I'll showcase each model for the five Platonic solids and get into the usual details (where I learned it, and their overall difficulty), but first, I want to highlight a name that you'll be seeing a lot here: Shuzo Fujimoto. Shuzo Fujimoto was an origami master whose specialty was geometric models. His contributions to the art are truly massive, from incredibly useful methods to divide paper into thirds and fifths (which I used to eyeball with varying degrees of success) and constructing various shapes and solids through meticulous crease patterns. I learned a lot just skimming the diagrams he has in his book, titled Invitation to Creative Playing with Origami (here's an archive.org link where you can download the PDF), and if I actually knew Japanese, I would probably have a deeper understanding of how he arrived at his methods. He's definitely a creator worth looking into if you have an interest in the craft. Now, onto the models: ![]() TETRAHEDRON (D4) Instruction Source: I picked this up straight from the source and learned it off Shuzo Fujimoto's diagram in Invitation to Creative Playing with Origami Difficulty: The only tricky part here is dividing the paper into thirds if you don't know the special method. If you don't, you can try the old method I used to use, which I call the S-fold method. This involves twisting the paper to form the S, aligning the points where it curves in the other direction, then sharpening the creases. This takes some trial and error to get right, but I found it largely reliable. Outside of that, assembling this model is easy. ![]() CUBE (D6) Instruction Source: While this is also in Fujimoto's book, I actually learned this model when I was a teenager, as it was featured in Classic Origami by Paul Jackson (the book I've had a photocopy of since I started making origami). Difficulty: It takes some time to set up the folds to construct this model, but they're all basic and don't really require any tricks. Making this cube is particularly satisfying, as the crucial step has you slide the paper until the cube magically forms its shape. I recommend starting with this one if you want to make any of these models. ![]() OCTAHEDRON (D8) Instruction Source: Again, I learned this in Fujimoto's book. Difficulty: If you started with the tetrahedron (which you probably should, since it is easier), the construction for that and the tetrahedron is largely similar except for how you divide paper at the start. What makes this tricky is that locking the model requires a bit of fiddling to get the loose paper in the right configuration. The final model is also a bit loose, so glue isn't a bad idea here. ![]() DODECAHEDRON (D12) Instruction Source: While Fujimoto has a model for this in his book (and the construction of it is highly impressive), I found it extremely difficult to make especially considering I wanted to make relatively smaller final models. I decided to find an easier one, and I found this modular model credited to David Brill. Difficulty: Construction the pentagonal modules for this model is much, much simpler than all the setup I had to do to create the crease patterns for Fujimoto's dodecahedron. Assembling the final model is as simple as interlocking paper tabs into pockets, though you'll want to secure them with glue if you want a rigid model. ![]() ICOSAHEDRON (D20) Instruction Source: Like the dodecahedron, Fujimoto has a model for this, but it involves a ton of creases that are tough to do on small paper. My alternate is Jo Nakashima's modular version constructed with triangular modules (video instructions here). Difficulty: The modules are pretty easy to make, though the smaller you go, the harder it is to set up the final folds and to get into assembling the final model. I do not advise making a small version of this; preparing the triangles and folding the modules is tedious enough as it is, and you don't need to add fumbling with tiny pieces of paper to that. Other Things: You can use the triangular units Nakashima teaches you in the video to make the tetrahedron and octahedron, if that's more your style. You'll notice that I left out the D10, which is typically part of the standard D&D dice set. As of now, I still haven't found an origami diagram for it. All I've seen so far is those premade nets that you just have to glue together, and I want there to be a lot of involved folding for projects like this. I hope I find one at some point, because I'm not good enough at geometry to derive my own model Fujimoto-style. CREATING THE MODELS: As you can see above, I took the time to make some practice models so I know what I'm doing when I start using the paper I want. I got the hang of the models on the first go, so I focused more on experimenting with what size paper to work with. Afterwards, I prepared the origami paper my mom gifted me last Christmas (cutting them down to the desired size depending on the model) and got to work. While it would have been nice to have the dice be the same size, that would require me to calculate the ratio of the final model's size to the size of the starting paper. I decided to strike the balance between making the size for a particular model small enough that it'll roll (I observed that a larger surface area for something like a cube doesn't roll so much as slide when I throw) and having the paper not be too small that I can't make precise folds without a tool. I made sure to secure all the loose parts and modules of the final models with glue so that they don't fall apart when they're rolled. I took care to not overdo it, because too much or too little glue can cause weight imbalances that can affect the fairness of the dice. I then proceeded to follow the standard numbering conventions and labeled each face accordingly. Excuse my poor handwriting. Lastly, I decided to experiment with sealing the paper with material that will keep it from getting worn down too much. Realistically, I couldn't make the dice solid (i.e. they'll still crumple if I squeezed them in my hand) without putting something in the paper that can cause a weight imbalance, so making the exterior rigid with some sealing material is the next best thing I can do. I considered a few options for sealing based on advice from people who make origami jewelry (that's a future project for another time), and I ended up deciding between clear nail polish and epoxy resin. Considering how careless I can be, I decided against the latter (developing an epoxy sensitivity sounds like no joke) and instead bought some clear nail polish at the grocery store. Before I went forward with sealing the final models, I practiced with one of the practice cubes I made. Thanks to the built-in brush, applying the nail polish uniformly was very easy, but I was not prepared for the smell. Why do people put this on themselves? The odor is genuinely awful to me. THE MODELS AS DICE: Before I sealed the models, I played around with them as they were and spent a bit of time rolling them, seeing if they were obviously imbalanced in any way. I did not perform a rigorous testing process that can be described as statistically significant (I've done enough math just measuring out the paper, trust me), but as far as I can tell, the models roll properly and the numbers I get feel sufficiently random. I'm not going for perfectly random (that's probably impossible with my processes entirely done by my shaky hand), but I want the dice to be reasonably fair, and I'm hoping what I have here is good enough to be used in games. This was a fun project that not only featured some fun models to make, but also an interesting review of geometry, learning more about a bona fide origami master, and messing with sealing paper (which I may use again for a future project). I doubt I'll end up using this in D&D sessions since its fairness is dubious (unless I get an all-clear), but I'll have just as much fun rolling these just for the hell of it.
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This is an interesting blog entry. It was meant to just be a breakdown of this little art project I got going on here, but the materials I used led to plenty of introspection that I felt like writing about. It'll all make sense, I promise. Additionally, the project itself took nearly two years to complete due to various reasons, and this blog entry is kind of like the punctuation mark of all that effort. I hope this is interesting in any way to... anybody? BACKGROUND: What I've made here is called a senbazuru, which is a thousand origami cranes strung together. It's a popular project for many origami enthusiasts, but it also has some significance in Japanese culture. According to legend, a person who manages to fold a thousand paper cranes will be granted a wish (or be rewarded with good luck and eternal happiness). It's also become a way to symbolize peace, sparked by the story of Sadako Sasaki, a Japanese girl who was irradiated during the atomic bombings of 1945 and died of leukemia at age 12. While she was stuck in the hospital, she was inspired by the old legend and set to fold a thousand cranes. Despite having spent close to 15 years making origami stuff (and knowing how to make the traditional origami crane model by heart), I've never actually done this before (not up to a thousand, at least). A thousand cranes is a lot, and while time wasn't really an issue, I had no idea where I'd even display it all when I was done. I realized this problem rather quickly at age 12, when I first learned origami in art class (shoutout to Ms. Maila for kickstarting that passion). The model we were taught in that class (the traditional duck/swan) really captured my imagination for some reason, and I ended up folding literally hundreds of them obsessively both at home and in school for at least a month or so. My parents, while supportive of my new hobby, were not as receptive to me just leaving all these paper birds around the house, so I ended up just keeping them all in a Ziploc bag as to not make a mess. That bag has since been lost to time, but I still have the original swan I folded for the art class. I gotta frame this thing... Anyway, making all those swans made me realize a) it would be lame to make a thousand cranes just to keep them in a bag, and b) wait, I don't actually have that much paper to make that many cranes (the swans I were folding at the time were mostly made from scratch paper I would scavenge from random places). Thus, I ended up not bothering, and continued to fold swans just for the hell of it. My origami horizons would expand shortly after, as my dad (who, despite not talking to me about it at all, was highly observant of my interests, a trait I both appreciated and was impressed by) had a coworker of his photocopy an origami book full of new models for me to make. This is how I learned to read origami diagrams, as well as how to make Akira Yoshizawa's most iconic origami butterfly design, and how I discovered my favorite subject matter in all of origami. If you want to get into my origami butterfly obsession, my blog category Project Monarch is all about me exploring that obsession, starting with the very butterfly model that kickstarted it. The first chronological blog entry of that series will provide all the context should that be of interest to you. Simply look for Project Monarch on the blog categories list on the sidebar on the right of this page (or at the very bottom if you're on mobile). Also, that origami book photocopy my dad got for me? I still have it. It's in this clear book (which I have had for much longer). Not only is it a handy reference (I keep forgetting how to do the origami cube sometimes, for instance), it's just a nice reminder of how my dad was more than willing to encourage my silly little hobbies. This is just one of a seemingly endless list of things my dad did for me that I am eternally grateful for. After finishing Project Monarch a few years back and completing the section of my bedroom wall, I still had the itch to fold some more origami. My mind gravitated back to the senbazuru, and having managed the logistics of folding close to 60 distinct origami butterfly models, working out how to display them neatly, and even documenting the process (I have a whole folder on my computer with files on this project), I thought, I could probably do this now. I wouldn't actually begin my prep work until early of last year, however. PREPARATIONS: While I still had a good amount of paper left over from Project Monarch (plus a fuckton of scratch paper obtained from several sources over the years), I still had to figure out how to effectively use my supply. I can't just make squares out of everything I have and go from there; I highly doubt all this paper I had amounts to a thousand, as many as it may seem. So, my next thought was to make the cranes out of smaller squares. Not only is it more efficient use of the paper (I could get, say, four cranes from a single sheet), it immediately solves another issue I thought of: what if these 1000 cranes are too bloody massive to display? I debated for quite a long time on what paper to select for the project? Do I do what I did for Project Monarch and go all in on the pretty colors? Do I just pull from my pile of scratch paper and make the cranes out of those (which would result in mostly white cranes)? My mind was torn between making another colorful project and getting rid of scratch paper I had stockpiled since high school without being wasteful. This was probably a stupid thing to be conflicted about, and yet it made me put off starting the damn project. One day, I was looking through my drawers, and that's where a bizarre sense of inspiration struck. For some weird reason, I had kept every filler notebook I used for every subject I took in college instead of immediately throwing them out. Maybe a younger version of me meant to burn it all in some symbolic ritual after graduation? Hard to say. Regardless, here was the metal box, and look, it's a lot of paper! I went and counted 29 filler notebooks, each with 18 leaves (including the covers; I wanted to use those as well since they'd add splashes of color to a predominantly white color scheme). I intended to make squares out of each of those leaves, which I'd then divide into four smaller squares to make the actual cranes with. Some quick math showed that I had way more than enough to make a thousand cranes if I did this (more than double, in fact). I then took the time to carefully dismantle the bindings of each filler so I can cleanly tear the paper (tearing a page straight out results in an unusable disaster). Some were stapled in, while others were bound with string, but both were removed easily with one of dad's old darts (he would be quite annoyed at how frequently I use his old stuff as improvised tools). I then prepared one of the blank pages and made a crane out of the resulting small square to see how it would size up. I was satisfied with the scale of the test crane, so I proceeded with the rest of the preparations. I didn't start making the cranes just yet; that'll be described in its own part later. In addition to my notes, I also dug through my comically large envelope of scratch paper for stuff that was also from college. I felt that since I was going through a whole nostalgia run anyway, I thought it'd be fun to add more variety and include these to the stack of paper I was planning to use. This was quite a productive (and messy) search, as I found all sorts of paper from across the years. It's quite the assortment, so here's a list of stuff that eventually became paper cranes (this is not exhaustive):
Next, I needed a needle and some string to connect the cranes. Thankfully, my mom's got a sewing kit. No problem there. The bigger problem is making sure the cranes don't slide out of the thread once I've strung them together. I looked up pictures of senbazuru other people have made and saw that they'd put beads at the bottom of the thread so that the bottom crane will sit there and not fall off. I probably could have just gone to the store to buy beads somewhere, but I felt adamant to only use materials in the house. I did some digging around the house and found a rather sacrilegious solution. Somewhere in my chest of random garbage was a broken rosary. Rosaries are made of beads. You understand where I'm going with this. All that's left is a place to tie all the finished strings of cranes to. I paced my room a lot trying to come up with a solution here. My first idea was to use some leftover bamboo from a high school project (might have been from the big English Week play in 4th year; why the fuck did I take extra bamboo home?!), but this idea immediately fell apart because we apparently have the worst fucking hacksaw in the observable universe, and that made what would be the most basic of woodworking an absolute goddamn nightmare. I started scavenging the back of the house (which is filled with assorted bullshit) for possible things to use. Stuff like old curtain rods and random metal brackets were too long, and since they were metal, I couldn't cut them down to size. I also considered using hangers, but I decided against it after visualizing how stupid it would look on my wall. Ultimately, I took too long trying to figure out what I wanted to do here, so I decided to just worry about the display solution later. FOLDING THE CRANES: I had all the materials and I knew what to do, so it was time to start making cranes. The folding itself isn't anything special; I've been folding cranes on autopilot since I was 12, so it's nothing really worth elaborating on. I guess the only thing worth saying here is that if you're going to learn origami, start by learning the crane. It's actually not the easiest model you can learn, but it teaches you a lot of important folding techniques. Here are some instructions if you want to try. What made folding the cranes interesting was the paper I was using to make them. It's all notes from my college years. Before I removed the bindings from the fillers, I'd look at each cover and see the subject names, and before I prepared the individual sheets into squares, I'd skim the notes I had written. So many memories came flooding back, and I felt compelled to write about some of it here. For organization's sake, all that waxing nostalgic will be in the back half of this blog entry; if you only care about the creation aspect of the senbazuru, don't worry, I'll resolve that here so you don't have to read through any of my reminiscing if you don't want to. Here are some steps I took as I went about making the cranes, plus some amusing observations as I skimmed through my notes and other assorted papers:
A thousand cranes is a lot. Just saying a number doesn't really help anybody comprehend the scale something, so prior to assembly, I took a picture of all 1000 finished cranes in boxes. Like I said earlier, I can fold cranes with zero issue, so if I did the math, it probably wouldn't have taken more than a few hours for me to make all this if I did it all in one go. Of course, I elected not to do that and just made what I could on a given day. When I started this project nearly two years ago, I tried to make a habit of folding a bunch every morning before I got around to whatever I had to do. However, a combination of various responsibilities and a desire to pursue my other hobbies (which includes maintaining this blog) would affect my output, so there would be times when I'd only make the bare minimum. There were also significant stretches of time when I was in serious emotional distress, which left me with zero motivation to work on anything. This led to entire months when I wouldn't make cranes at all, though the fact that my work was sitting unfinished across from my bed eventually compelled me to get back to it, only for the cycle to repeat itself. I don't think this would have taken this long if I had just worked on it with regularity, but in any case, I'm glad that I actually finished it in the end. ASSEMBLY: After lots and lots of folding, it was time to string the cranes together. I spent an unreasonable time thinking about how I wanted to go about this. Do I want 20 strings holding 50 cranes each? Or would 25 strings with 40 cranes be better? I settled for the former, as I thought that struck a reasonable balance of length (I didn't want the cranes to go so far that they touch the floor) and width (I wanted to give each string enough space so they don't get tangled). Also, this exercise inadvertently led to an exploration of the many factors of the number 1000. I made what can be described as an absurd effort in selecting which individual cranes get grouped together on a single string. First, I wanted to make sure that the colored cranes (folded from the filler covers) are somewhat equally distributed, such that there wouldn't be a weird imbalance of colors when looking at the entire thing. This was a little tricky, since the colored cranes were only a mere fraction of the total, and the overall palette was not that varied. As for the actual configuration of the cranes on each string, I just played it by eye and tried to make sure different strings didn't have a pattern of colors that was too similar to each other. I considered organizing the cranes on each string per category (like the subjects I took in each semester), but with a literal thousand to keep track of, I decided against giving myself a headache over a detail that not even I could appreciate just by looking at the thing. I think the very fact that it's all made from paper I used in college held enough meaning, and it's something that can be noticed by any observer looking close enough. The actual threading is nothing much to write about. Prepare the correct length of string (this took an embarrassing amount of tries to approximate), run it through the needle, tie a knot at the end, and put a bead on the knot. Then you just jab the needle through the cranes' bodies until you've got the right amount. Once that's done, cut the needle free, tie a loop at the free end, and repeat several more times until all 1000 cranes are strung together. I'm pretty terrible at sewing, but thankfully the only skill I really needed for this project was tying a proper knot on the thread (which is probably the one thing in sewing I can consistently do right). Once everything was assembled, it was time to find a place to put it on. I thought about putting it as a decoration for my bedroom door, but then I wouldn't be able to see it. I really wanted to place it on the same wall where the origami butterflies were, but the space available was quite limited given there's also a huge window on that wall. I went back to stressing out about how to display each string of cranes while also not getting in the way of my curtains, and I went through a whole gamut of stupid ideas that involved using all sorts of shit from around the house. Eventually, I settled on using a length of rope I had lying around, which I could tie to the mounts that connect my curtains to the wall. Overall, this was a rewarding albeit involved project. The actual folding of the 1000 cranes will sound like a chore, but since I didn't really do all the folding in one go, making the cranes ended up more of a fun break between important tasks or a nice way to kill time in the evening. The real tedium was in the initial setup, as the whole preparation of the paper was a mindless sequence of unbinding fillers and cutting squares out of the pages. I also made it needlessly complicated by selecting which pages I wanted, but looking through those notes and recalling memories was part of what made my spin on the senbazuru a personal experience. The entire thing itself is symbolic because of all the paper I used; it's like a whole chapter of my life in origami form, though it doesn't really tell the complete story.
I'll probably make another one of these, but it won't be in the near future. There's definitely room for improvement with my final product here, as I kind of just let the cranes do their own thing as opposed to making everything neat (like adding spacers between cranes, aligning everything to face the same direction, etc.). I also want to be more lenient (and colorful) with my paper choice, as well as experiment with other display methods (like a ceiling fixture, or something more unorthodox like placing everything in a fancy shadowbox). If you've been following this blog for the past three months, you've likely noticed that I've inundated the feed with dozens upon dozens of blog posts on games. I was able to play that many games thanks to a free subscription for Xbox Game Pass for PC. For those who are unfamiliar, Game Pass is a service provided by Xbox that allows you to play its wide catalog of games on-demand, all for a monthly fee. It's basically Netflix for games, if you think about it. The service has a console version available on Xbox One and Xbox Series X, as well as a service specifically for PC (which uses the Windows Xbox App). As someone who has never owned an Xbox console but was intrigued by the concept of Game Pass, I found the free sub to be a quite enlightening experience. Now, I want to evaluate what I thought of the service as a whole across a number of different aspects. Game Selection Game Pass on Xbox and PC have different offerings for their individual catalogs, but my evaluation here will apply in general. At first, I was overwhelmed by the amount of games on Game Pass, as there's literally over a hundred games you can play as much as you want, all for a modest fee of $10 per month (but in my case, I played for completely free since I redeemed a code). The selection is pretty diverse, from big AAA games like Resident Evil 7 and Doom Eternal, high-profile indies like Celeste and The Messenger, Microsoft exclusives like Halo's Master Chief Collection, and even a few niche or obscure games peppered in. The genres are pretty diverse, too, offering everything from shooters, RPGs, platformers, and more, and the games vary from recent releases to much older games. It may not be a catalog everyone will find appealing, but as someone who is always game to play pretty much anything, I was quite excited by the smorgasbord of offerings. The only thing I found more mind-blowing than being able to play multiple $60 games for a substantially reduced price was the fact that the catalog is constantly being updated. New games get added pretty frequently, giving players new games to try out. Occasionally, newly-released games get added to the service Day 1, which was how I was able to play games like Cyber Shadow and The Medium, which were both just released in January. The only drawback here is that some games eventually leave the service (with no guarantee that they'll return), but overall, Microsoft does a decent job keeping the catalog fresh while also maintaining some of the more popular offerings. My grand total after three months is a whopping 54 games played! Needless to say, I made the most out of this service, and even then, I still have games I want to check out that I didn't get a chance to. If you want the complete list of everything I've played, I've created a brand new blog category on the sidebar where you can check out all the posts I made for each game I played on Game Pass. The Xbox App For the most part, using the Windows Xbox App was a smooth experience, but one glaring issue I found was how save files were handled. I discovered that if your connection to Xbox Live is ever interrupted, the cloud sync is thrown completely off and the game can no longer read the save on your local machine. This thankfully happened to me only twice, but the fact that I had to consciously back up saves because of this weirdness was a bit frustrating. Most of the games themselves run fine, but there were a few that had annoying errors preventing me from playing it. On my first install, Battletoads was frozen on the "creating save" screen, and I had to uninstall/reinstall to get it to work. In another case, Tales of Vesperia had resolution issues, and I literally couldn't play the Windows 10 version because I tried to adjust it, which triggered a brand new bug that forcibly Alt-Tabs me out of the game every time I attempt to switch to it. I do hope whoever is in charge of vetting these Windows 10 versions address seemingly platform-exclusive issues like these. Region Locking I had to set my PC's region to US just to avail of this service. Region locking in 2021 is not fun, and there is no reason this service should be unavailable for international players. Xbox Live Just like in the console, many of the games on the Xbox App have Xbox Live integration, which means you can play multiplayer on supported games and earn achievements. Apart from a few games that strangely only have achievements on console and not PC (my gamerscore for Donut County is still 0 because of this), I liked that you can earn achievements through PC versions, too. For reference, here's my final gamerscore after three months of Game Pass PC. Subtract 1475 points (that was my gamerscore prior to starting the service). Final Thoughts
Game Pass PC isn't a perfect service, but the entire concept of it plus its actual catalog of games is more than enough to get me to consider paying for the service in the coming months. It's a service that feels tailor-made for a person like me, who likes to check out all sorts of games, and I was certainly able to check out games I never would have been able to play otherwise. I was able to play brand new releases I probably wouldn't have been able to buy until many months later, check out recent games that I missed out on because I couldn't afford them, and even finally explore games and series that I've been meaning to play for years or franchises that I was curious about but never really cared for. Whether or not such a service is worth it for you depends on how you value the Game Pass catalog as a whole (it's more than likely that you'll only be interested in playing a small percentage of the games being offered), but if you ask me specifically, this is definitely worth paying $10 a month for. A diverse selection of games that I can play on-demand, all for a fixed monthly fee? That has a lot of value to me. Of course, owning games outright is still the most ideal scenario, but in terms of my personal quest to play as many different kinds of games as I can, Game Pass is a valuable supplement to my gaming needs. Hell, this has singlehandedly given me a compelling reason to buy an Xbox Series X. - end - After some half-assed attempts and many instances of being on the fence about the whole thing, I decided to do a full-on, hour-long Twitch stream of me live building some Lego sets. Unfortunately, the VOD didn't save, so if you missed it, I apologize. Regardless, I wanted to share my thoughts on the experience. Before we proceed, though, here I am on Twitch: twitch.tv/16N1K4 Firstly, I'm no stranger to live streaming. I've done Periscopes before where I build Lego sets or create my own Lego shit live, but the main thing is: I don't speak. I found it strange to talk to myself at home (especially when my family can probably hear my bullshit), so I resigned myself to silence for these early streams. This naturally made watching a replay utterly boring, so for my latest attempt, I decided to try my hand at some commentary. It certainly felt awkward to initiate a conversation with nobody, but after a while, commenting on the build started coming a little more naturally. I stumbled on my words an embarrassing amount of times, but I'm sure I'll get the hang of it with more practice. If I can manage to write somewhat coherent blog entries, I'm sure I can figure out commentary, right? With that said, it would really help to have someone in the chat to talk with, because there's only so much I can say. In terms of my stream setup, it straight up sucks. I'm using the Twitch app's "Go Live" feature, so I'm stuck filming with my phone camera. I had to jury-rig a phone cradle (out of Lego, no less) to hold it in place, and I had to place it on top of a stack of objects to get the right view of my workspace. Not elegant at all, and definitely at risk of me knocking it over. It was also positioned in such a way that I had to lean over to the right, so not only can I not see the chat, I won't know if what I'm building is even in the shot. My workspace also left a lot to be desired. I did all my work on the bed, with me sitting on the floor, which was not the most comfortable position to be in. I'll make sure to work on a proper table next time, and have a more organized layout that isn't just me scattering pieces all over the place. As for the content of my stream, I'm satisfied with building Lego sets/custom creations as my niche. Sure, it's not the most popular thing in the world, but I love doing it. I'm definitely not against streaming me playing games, but unfortunately, you need a capture card to record gameplay of the Switch, and that shit costs like $200. Overall, that first stream wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible, either. There were missteps, sure, but it's nothing I can't find a solution for. Hopefully you, dear reader, will see me off in a future stream. If not, well, you can always watch the replays, which I'll upload on my YouTube channel (pls subscribe).
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June 2024
Derryck
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