Restarting My Gaming YouTube Channel with State of Decay 2

Welcome Back to My Channel

It has been many months since I last posted a full video on the Gaming channel's YT. For that I apologize. I made a post a little while back called "I was saving my state", which was me apologizing for being MIA for so long.

This particular year has been hard, interesting, and really just jumbled. That is what I knew going in, but some curveballs made it hard.

Before I dive in, here is the first video in the State of Decay series, so you can get an idea of what is to come (each video gets a bit better, as I get more experienced with this style).

First episode:

https://www.youtube.com/@polyinnovatorgaming

Why I Chose State of Decay 2

Out of all of the games I had planned for the channel, this wasn't even top 3. However I found myself addicted to this game, and even now it is really the ONLY game I've been playing. That is saying a lot.

The story goes for this first season: I had my first leader in SoD2 ever come back for basically a final hurrah. I had saved her from my first community in my legacy pool. I came into the game with a couple Red Talon Ops, some resource survivors, and Marian the leader.

I wanted to do a bit of roleplay, as she is the Sheriff leader type, and so we took over the police station. I did one campaign or so before this Lethal playthrough, just so I could get the builder leader boon. I really did not want to deal with power/water in this playthrough.

At this time I was still getting used to Lethal, and so many people died in all of my attempts. Even now as I play I have been losing a lot of people, but that is due to lack of proper preparation.

I have been enjoying the game a lot lately, and find that Lethal is actually not that hard for me anymore. Which is weird to say.

What to Expect from My Gameplay

In this first season, only about half of it is posted, and I've been procrastinating all year to get the rest out. I won't bore you with the details, as it pertains to the main PolyInnovator content/channel. However I have been wanting to at least get the rest of this season out ASAP.

In the first season I focused on Marian, and just getting that Sheriff playstyle. I thought it would give a fun approach to the Lethal playthrough. At the time too there wasn't as many SoD2 YouTubers out there. I feel like at least 4 have popped up since I started alone.

Now that I have played Lethal countless times since then, and even have all of the leader boons now. I am preparing my communities (I have too many, need to trim the fat), to do a final stand.

That was sort of what I was leading up to with Marian actually, while also trying to use up people in my filled legacy pool.

The first season is still going to be sent out, and the gameplay will be similar to what you have seen. The second season is going to focus on this new community (not sure if it is the same one or not at this point I've had too many to count). Where my leader Truitt (who has 5x successful campaigns), will lead my best legacy characters on lethal. I'm thinking of playing with no boons at all, as that handicap I think is making it too easy at this point. Not to mention the newly added curveballs.

Interacting with My Audience

I've always tried to respond to comments or anything like that, even if it is with my main channel (because I didn't switch accounts). Since I'm not streaming the gameplay, that makes a difference on how I interact. My setup just isn't quite ready for that yet, but I do want to stream more down the line.

Particularly pokemon-like games or straight up romhacks, etc.

I have been rather consistent all year ironically on YouTube Shorts/Instagram Reels, for the gaming content. That will continue. I've been saving more and more SoD2 clips, and hopefully that will spur interest once again!

Looking Forward: Future Plans for the Channel

I mentioned earlier that the reason for the gaming channel being put on the side burner is because of the main content I do. I want to delve into that real quick, as it has to do with the number of series/projects.

The main polymathy/knowledge management focus, how to swim newsletter, content repurposing newsletter, then the gaming content. That was the priority list, even though I was trying to do them all.

Then a couple curveballs hit like the Phasevos game I aim to develop popping up in January. Pushing back all of my plans. Then last month in all of September I got more sick than I ever have in my life due to legionella based pneumonia.

I'm doing better now, and I really want to take the gaming channel seriously. I have tons of content plans for blog posts. Not to mention all of the vast amounts of videos I can make for a variety of games. The Generalist Gamer lives!

After some great deal of time I had finally gotten back on track with the SoD series, and I made a post announcing it. I wanted to appended that post to the end of this one.

I started doing a series on the YouTube quite literally a year ago, but due to me focusing on so many other things last year. It took a backseat, and I couldn't stand editing the videos. It was just too much for me after editing so many podcasts as well.

However I got the series going again, as I wanted to make sure I finished what I started. Going forward after this series I may choose to do another game for a while, but I do have plans of returning to this one down the line.

I created a group called the "Last Law" community, based off of my first leader I had in the game. Who is a "Sheriff" leader type. I thought it let me be a bit creative with the "story" of it, since there isn't one in the game.

The series itself was fun to make, and a good experiment for how I'll go about it.

Here is the Playlist!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiUNVcdNvPgnqMvr4szFYVR0Akg3Wn1GA