<< Incoming Call: Ceave. >>
Hello you wonderful Patreon People!
I hope that all of you are doing greater than the best you ever did, that your country is winning lots of medals during the Olympics (or you yourself in case any of you are starting!) and that your boss spontaneously decides to give all of you a significant raise!
The Mario Wonder challenge run video and the video about the Mario timeline are online and I’m quite happy with how both of them turned out!
Especially the timeline video seems to have sparked a lot of intelligent discussion and speculation by equally spirited people that understand the importance of the matter at hand!
As most of you attentive Patreon People probably already noticed, this post isn’t accompanied by a lovely video but instead by a cold hard poll.
Why is that?
Well, that is because I need your help!
I basically want to rob you of something invaluable that only you yourself own - your very opinion!
Have you ever gotten one of these terrible call center calls in which a charming person begs you for two minutes of your time to then go on and ask you how much (on a scale of 1-5) you think you’d enjoy pineapple flavored nougat bars?
For 23 minutes.
Well think about this update post like one of these calls!
But instead of doing vital nougat bar related market research we are going to investigate the fascinating field of potential YouTube video topics today!
The thing is the following - attentive as you Patreon people are, you probably already noticed that I’ve been mostly active on the gaming channel recently.
This is mainly for two reasons.
First, doing dozens of hours of longform videos just burned me out a bit and I’m currently just not vibing with projects that potentially take me north of a hundred hours to complete and second there currently is just more interest for videos over on the gaming channel - which is fine!
But being mainly active on the gaming channel doesn’t necessarily mean that we can’t do deep dives into games or have some fun little video essays!
Which brings us to today's robo-call!
You see, fortunately for us I actually have a ton of ideas for fun little video projects that are somewhere in between what we usually do on the gaming and on the perspective channel.
Unfortunately however, I find myself completely incapable of deciding which one of these video topics is actually an interesting idea that you wonderful people want to see!
And thus I thought I’d just quickly ask you for a moment of your time - don’t worry, this won’t take long, likely less than 12 seconds.
There is a poll glued to the bottom of this post in which you can vote for as many video topics as you find interesting!
I can’t promise that all of these videos will happen - sometimes an idea sounds fantastic only to turn out to be a dumpsterfire as soon as I start to work on it - but the topics that win the polling here will be among the next videos I’ll work on!
(Also, don’t worry, that’s not the only thing I’ll be working on in the next couple of months!
There will also be a bit of Mario Maker and some challenge runs that I have planned alongside other things!)
Hooray!
So allow me to pitch you a couple of ideas!
Is Paper Mario Sticker Star really the worst Mario game ever made?
That is something I’ve honestly wondered for ages.
Why am I wondering this?
Well, because I actually never played Sticker Star!
Everybody kept telling me that it is terrible and thus I decided that … well that the game is likely terrible and I ended up skipping it.
The idea would be to replay the game open minded - to contextualize a bit at what point in Nintendo’s history the game was released and to figure out if it is really as terrible as people keep saying.
Pretty much an: “I played Sticker Star so you don’t have to.” video!
Super Mario 64 - 30 Years Later
Mario 64 actually turns 30 this year (crazy I know - It feels like it’s been at least 31 years ago - time just seems to pass slower the more I age!).
The idea here would be to take a look back at Mario’s first ever 3D adventure but not to focus on the game and its design but instead on the community around Super Mario 64.
The game ended up becoming one of the most legendary speedruns in gaming, it is at the center of some of the most famous video game challenge runs ever committed, the community found more epic glitches and exploits in the game than Cyberpunk featured at launch and even today 30 years later there is no end in sight.
I think it would make for an interesting video to highlight all the fun crimes that the criminal community committed to the game over the past 30 decades while also reliving a bit of the magic of Mario’s first 3D adventure!
Does the original Luigi’s Mansion still hold up in 2026?
Luigi’s Mansion is a series that I personally find to be an interesting case study about Nintendo.
You see, with the original Luigi’s Mansion Nintendo took a gigantic risk and failed spectacularly.
It didn’t review well, it didn’t sell well, it didn’t move many original Game Cubes and it even is arguably part of the reason why the entire console generation failed.
Also: Turns out everyone loves the game nowadays!
Including myself, it’s great!
As a matter of fact Luigi’s Mansion is nowadays one of Nintendo’s biggest franchises.
The idea would be to investigate this contradiction and maybe to suck up a ghost or two while we are at it!
How fuzzies evolved over the course of the Super Mario series.
If you think I’d never do an enemy case study on how fuzzies and their design evolved over the past decades in the Super Mario series … then … well, then you haven’t been paying attention!
The idea would be to literally take a look at every game in which fuzzies appeared and to analyse how they changed to unravel the bigger picture of how … well, honestly I’m not sure what this will unravel!
Yet.
I’m sure there will be something and if not we all at least got something cute to look at!
Why did Mario succeed when so many gaming icons did not?
That one is quite an interesting one, because I feel this question really isn’t discussed enough.
Mario is the biggest icon in all of gaming.
He is actually one of the most recognizable figures in human history - the Mario brand is just beyond normal levels of success.
But … he is an unathletic middle aged man with a mustache and a construction hammer.
Why in all of Bowser’s castles did the Mario brand become the biggest brand in gaming?
What is his unique appeal?
I think I know at least part of the answer - an answer that actually reveals a lot about the medium of video games itself.
Not to spoil the video, but this one is the mysterious Mario and Bollywood video that I teased a while ago.
What went wrong with the original Mario movie?
The original Super Mario movie of the 80’s is universally considered to be one of the worst movies ever made.
And it’s hard to argue with that sentiment given that the entire production was such a catastrophe that even the actors ended up showing up drunk on set.
The idea would be to approach this fun little tale as if it were a perspective retrospective.
We would follow the movie throughout its entire plot and stop at various interesting points along the journey to have a chat about what the actual fuzzy happened that we ended up getting the commercial product that we got.
If you have never heard this tale before, it is beyond wild!
With only 13 Million consoles sold the Wii U ended up being Nintendo’s biggest failure. - “Why?”
That one is pretty self explanatory as well.
A straight look back at the entire Wii U era (actually my favorite console Nintendo ever made) and an analysis of what went so terribly wrong.
Children aren’t as dumb as Nintendo thinks they are.
That’s one I wanted to get out of my system for a while. It’s a pamphlet against the most terrible design crimes that certain Nintendo studios keep committing over and over again.
It’s mainly aimed at the recent Mario and Luigi games and Nintendo’s tendency to make these games so approachable that they unfortunately end up becoming unplayable but we might as well pull out poor Pikachu and whack the unfortunate little guy black and blue.
Pretty much an exploration about what actual approachability for games means and why it’s not unskippable cutscenes and dialogue that gets repeated three times in a row in case I didn’t get it the second time around.
The Evolution of Mario’s Design since the 80’s.
That one is a fun one that I actually wanted to do for ages.
The idea is quite simply to take a look at every official Mario design since his very inception and to take a look at how it eventually evolved into the Mario that we all know, love and bonk into brick blocks today. Pretty much an analysis of Mario’s character design and what these historic Mario designs reveal about Nintendo at that specific point in time.
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Awesome!
So those are the essay-videos that I have been toying around with - I’d love to hear your opinions on it!
Also if there is a similar video topic that you personally always wished that I would tackle then I’d love to hear about it!
Finally, a huge thank you to all you awesome people for your generous support!
You are all amazing and I hope you know it!
The next video is likely going to be once again about Mario Maker encryption - turns out they actually managed to break even our recent lock (but doing so at least caused them so much headache that Waluigi ended up burning down parts of his computer [literally - it’s a long story!]) and after that it’s either one of the video topics above or a small challenge run!
Expect the next update after that!
Thank you so much for you support and till next time, lot’s of hugs!
Comments (20)
I know I'm extremely late to comment (Patreon website wasn't loading for weeks, for some reason) but I just want to say that I really, really like Sticker Star. Granted, it came out when I was 12, and at that point in my youth I was deeply in love with Mario RPGs. It may not be one of the best-designed or most charming Mario RPGs, but I replayed Sticker Star in October 2023 and even then quite enjoyed it. Colour Splash is even better.
I will definitely watch: -fuzzys -children aren’t dumb I think others will watch: -super mario 64 -mario’s design I think these will get watched more near Mario Galaxy Movie’s release: -iconic mario -mario movie ‘93 -mario’s design one of my favorite videos of yours is “Everything wrong with Nintendo’s design…”. That thumbnail is iconic. A sequel to that video in “nintendo thinks children are dumb” or even “how nintendo made the worst mario game” would be very exciting. i do think a exploration of mario’s design that includes the galaxy movie might get bloated views with the movies release in a month. and it can be a pretty evergreen topic (reminds me of how i enjoy @TriNintendo ‘s videos on UI design) at the end of the day, i dont enjoy a ceave video just for deep dive research. its the connections you make between familiar things that make me see it in new light. another commenter brought up the celeste video, thats an extraordinary example of beautiful story telling and inquiry about a game im alrdy intrigued by and can understand even deeper now. similarly, the paper mario ttyd critique was such whimsical and delightful storytelling, i was enamored. so if you want to keep making encryption videos, its not my favorite all time but i keep watching them and i get to learn about a topic i otherwise would never engage with in a fun way. its corny but, the next video i most want to see is the video you most want to make.
You know, I actually really -would- like a retrospective on the design of sm64? This may not be what you want to hear. But actually going into detail on the level design as well as on the aesthetics is something I don't feel anybody has really done. Is is a very quirky game with a lot of very quirky details in it! Or going over what it's like to progress through the game, level by level, and how those various levels hit a first time player.
It's not exactly the same as what you're saying, but Ceave did go over every level in this video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SLyuXqcEtkw
I'm so sorry to hear the Perspective videos burned you out. It's disappointing for me because those are the videos of yours I really liked. I've been really disappointed that in the past year you've only done things that were Mario or Mario-adjacent, because what I really like in your work is the big, wide-ranging ideas and Mario is not inherently a franchise that lends itself to that. I've watched many of your Perspective videos twice and a few three times because I find them so fascinating. The Gaming channel has been fun, but I confess every time in the past few months another one came out I wondered whether I should cancel my Patreon membership, but I figured it was worth continuing to support you because you were probably working on something in the background that would come out eventually. I feel a little bad saying what I liked about your work was what was burning you out, but there it is.
The topic of dumbing down really gets me going. It's such a prevalent issue across the industry, indies notwithstanding, and I think it's a combination of lack of faith and an obsession with player retention. Yeah, if you're targeting the widest possible demographic, there's going to be lots of casual players who complain about challenge and tension and they just want to turn off their brains and press buttons. a.k.a. my coworkers. There's that old quote about Pokemon's design changing because kids will fall back to their phones if they get tired of a game. I don't know how much playtesting they do (TOTK's UX makes me think none), but I know from experience it's very easy to follow the temptation of reducing friction because it makes some players uncomfortable. So I can see why mainstream games shifted towards this sort of design. Even so, just because there's a business reason doesn't mean the implementation is above criticism. TOTK has a pretty egregious example in "Misko's Cave of Chests", where an NPC presents you a puzzle, then tells you a hint to the puzzle, and then the solution to the puzzle all in the same conversation. They designed content around a mechanic but didn't have faith the player could figure it out, so they just tell them what to do and remove their agency. And if that sounds like a tutorial, know that right next to it is a stable with ANOTHER quest that tutorializes the same mechanic.
I really enjoy when you talk about the context of where Nintendo was and why they made certain decisions, like in your Biggest Mistakes video when you talk about the understated reasons why the Wii U failed and in the Wind Waker retrospective when you talk about the game being rushed because Nintendo needed to sell more GameCubes, so I'd be very interested to see more topics like this
My favorite parts about your videos are the psychological aspect you provide. It's insightful. Fact based, and like in the case of the celeste video where you brought up Frankel leading me to his book and thus changing my life... some of these topics like kids not being as dumb is a perspective not based in fact. Kids now are indeed experiencing learning difficiencies at unprecedented rates...a video about how Mario succeeded where others that were so similar failed i feel captures that aspect and perspective ive come to know your channel for. For whats its worth atleast, thats my 2 cents.
Thank you Ceave (and all the wonderful supporters) While I understand the appeal of looking at Sticker Star, I do feel like that’s a topic that has been discussed and analyzed. The brief issues being: - All/most NPCs being toad is dull compared to the wide range of characters/locations in other entries - The new gameplay encourages players to avoid battles since all they do is waste time and resources - The “bosses” rely on using a specific type of special stickers with no real way to know ahead of time. So a typical gameplay loop involves playing a level searching for special stickers while avoiding battles. Make it the boss and lose. Go back to the level that has the sticker you need. Go to the boss again and maybe win All the topics are interesting but I lean towards topics that feel a bit more unique - especially with your insight!
Torn between wanting to be able to pick multiple choices and thankful you made me just pick one. 🤣 Excited to see your new vids!
you can pick as many a you want
These are all such great topics, I would honestly like a video on each. All sound interesting. Even if I am not sure if none of these are rabbit holes that would result in way more hours put into them for a shorter video then originally planned. xD
Honestly I really hope you eventually cover most of those, but I have to say I am pretty pleased by the current poll results. Current winner seems to be Nintendo's obsession with dumbing down their games, which looks like a very promising topic. The one underrated topic I am the most interested in is the wiiu retrospective. I have recently been playing wii games on emulator (Mario Galaxy modders are great) using my old wii remotes and the controller is unlike any other, I love it. I am very curious about the way they broke your encryption honestly. Guess we'll find out soon ^^
sm64 retrospective would go hard
The fuzzy idea could be fun (and trendy!) as a ranking video, like "Ranking Every Mario Game by Their Use of Fuzzies"
Rating them each from 1 to 5 fuzzies on how fuzzy-full the fuzzies are
I think there's SO much to be said about "Children aren’t as dumb as Nintendo thinks they are," their games have definitely gotten much easier over the years in all the wrong ways. I'd positively love to watch any of these though! I'm really looking forward to the 5th part of the 2-part Mario Maker cryptography series as well!
man, a video on modern nintendo’s approach of making games so kid friendly that it makes the games unfun would be a really cool analysis. Their whole ethos seems to have changed with their approach to accessibility and it’s really kinda a shame
I’d love to see a Ceave Video about Sticker Star, I think it would be a really interesting and unique perspective
I think also an analysis of color splash would be super cool, the two games get lumped together a lot and beneath some of the more questionable design decisions there’s a really good game lurking underneath. It’d be cool to work backwards and try to figure out why they made some of these decisions that feel so unfair for the player (though I think this has sort of already been covered in the origami king video)