The Live Video Game journal is a project that began as one of my goals for 2021: To keep a complete journal of all the games I play throughout the year. There is no specific format or template established for the content of all the pages other than including the game title and including a checkbox if the game has a definitive “end point” (completing a campaign, rolling credits, etc.) for when the game has been completed. I originally started a physical journal to achieve this goal, and I continue to maintain that for games I play both on and off stream. I often reference notes I am making in the physical journal throughout my streams. This inspired me to create a more interactive and “living” version of the journal to share with all of you 🙂
Inspiration
I originally wanted to begin keeping a journal of the video games I played after reflecting on my play through of The Last of Us II (TLoU II) in 2020. No spoilers of course, but I played through TLoU II twice almost back-to-back (I played TLoU II then The Last of Us then The Left Behind DLC then TLoU II again) due to the compelling story. Upon reflection of both playthroughs, I wished I had kept a journal throughout to capture my thoughts of the game and its story as they occurred so I could also record my predictions and note specific sequences in the game that were more prominent on first and subsequent playthroughs. As such, I created the goal to keep a journal for all games I play in 2021.
But wait, there’s more…?!
There is!! To add some additional interactive elements to web-based version of the journal and truly make it a “live” record of the games being played on stream, I am adding a channel point redemption to my Twitch streams where YOU (the viewers/chatters/members of the Neans_ Team) will be able to add stickers to the pages as we update the pages live on stream! This feature, of course, will be new and may take some time to implement smoothly so I expect that it will evolve over time. The sticker/potential other customization options may be more limited at first but I plan to expand them over time.
The Live Video Game Journal is built off of a WordPress Blog structure with each game having it’s own blog post. Unlike a traditional blog post written as text, the posts contain an embedded view of FigJam Boards (a new beta feature created by the team that developed the collaborative interface design tool, Figma) that is an online whiteboard that updates in real time. This structure allows for greater flexibility in the content of the journal pages (being able to add drawings, notes, stickers, etc.) to make it more robust and unique while also maintaining the more open structure of the blank pages I have in my physical journal.