Greetings! Those of you following my antics, thanks for being here, and those of you new to the weird world of Murph Strange, welcome.

So, October was a big deal for me. I got my Twitch channel started, and even hit 200 views (not live views, but still, not bad for no promotion work or anything, just churning out the content and hoping someone thinks its interesting.

I’ve managed to consistently play games for the internet and every week, show another public domain horror movie for most of the month, and while I love making that kind of content, it wasn’t ever intended as the be all, end all of what I wanted to share with people. It was the start; the easy, low hanging fruit that I could use as my topics of interest as I sorted out the behind the scenes methodology of producing a regular Twitch stream. I have a massive library of games, and a deep passion for classic horror. I have learned much. My channel has become quite polished and is a far cry better now than it was at the beginning of October.

There’s room for growth here as well though. I still need to develop a regular broadcast schedule, so those viewers looking for consistency will find it when they happen across my page, and it won’t be a haphazard “play when I have time” atmosphere, but more of a “play at these times” feel. My son is back to school full time for the remainder of the year, which will help with that scheduling. I won’t be streaming every single day, but most days, probably two sessions, and with the variety of content I hope to bring in the future, there will be a lot of interesting developments with that schedule.

For instance, this month, I want to start a multi-part stream, teaching those viewers interested, how to write their own python applications. The intent isn’t to teach anyone to be a full-fledged certified enterprise level python developer, but help people learn a skill that they may find beneficial in their every day life that wasn’t covered by their normal education. Schools don’t teach programming casually, and its a lack of casual programming skills that make what developers do seem like witchcraft, when it should be the sort of thing anyone can do, as everyone these days has the technology for that level of wizardry readily at hand, all the time.

This sort of content will require some off-stream work to prepare for each session, and I also hope to engage the community as it grows, answering questions as they come up. This means a lot of off-stream developments are taking place, parallel to the normal pre-stream prep work I do. I’ve got a discord server for active community engagement, and I’ll be sharing the link so those interested can find me, and ask me questions directly. The sessions will also be uploaded to YouTube, and comments will be enabled, so questions can be asked there as well. I may also type up lecture notes and post those here, with links on the YouTube videos, in the discord chats, and the Twitch VOD.

This type of content is similar to a project I attempted previously, a Facebook Study Group I attempted at the beginning of the pandemic called Murph’s School of Wizardry: Hacking. That project was a failure though. I started with a limited class size, and of the initial 12 participants, only one was actively engaged, but annoyingly so. He was a cab driver in a foreign country and when he asked questions, would load those questions with guilt to hurry me into producing content on his time table, instead of my own, like I was personally responsible for his inability to get a better job because I wasn’t teaching fast enough, though I was also juggling homeschooling my son and working on several other projects as well. So after a few warnings about his behavior I had to kick him out.

I do expect some of that with this attempt at a similar project as well, but since I am keeping the enrollment free form and open to everyone any time, I’m hoping to get some better participants as well; the active without harassment kind. Then when I have to block any individuals that do get too pushy, I won’t be left with no class at all. And as there is no promise of a particular level of education with this program, just a basic understanding, nobody should expect this will ensure a six figure annual income. The hacker study group never made any such promise either, but tell that to a cabby in Pakistan.

I will still continue to bring Murph Plays videos, and Murph’s Midnight Movie Presentations, and both of these will have scheduled times slots soon, so fans can always find me live at a regular time (the midnight movie presentation already does, but so far, Murph Plays has just been when I feel like playing something). I hope to stream three games at a time, and changing out the titles as we “complete” them (“completion” may not be 100% of the game content in some cases, but rather the end of a predetermined time frame or other deciding factor). I want to stream two games during the week, alternating days, perhaps, or two days with one, early in the week, two days with the other later in the week, and a different–probably more casual–game on the weekends. I may try one way out, and change my mind later and try things a different way.

Added into this scheduled rotation of game play, the new segment Murph Codes, hopefully twice a week, will bring the live lecture portion of the Python learning experience. When we’ve completed the planned curriculum, I may move on to another language, or another topic of interest where the coding skills taught previously can be used, but this is intended to be an ongoing segment, and the first new addition to my channel. Maybe I’ll create a game, and allow viewers to participate in it’s development directly with the repository made available for contributions. The possibilities with this new content are truly limitless.

So continue to tune in to twitch.tv/drunkfurball for these exciting changes. The discord channel invite link will start to appear in the credits and video descriptions this month. And as always, have a pleasant evening!