I was beginning to feel like this video was cursed. I first suffered a herniated disc that took over a month of non-Switch gaming out of the free timing equation. Holidays and other factors slowed the recording and editing process. The first day I began editing the video I ran into numerous crashes and even a blue screen of death. However, nothing was as great a struggle as simply writing the script.

My first hurdle was simply realizing I didn’t have to discuss gameplay. It has sort of become my template to discuss mechanics before narrative, and one of the reasons I love playing these Tomb Raider games is because of the appeal of exploration involved. The problem is nearly every element of Tomb Raider’s gameplay is done better elsewhere. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say is more preferably designed elsewhere? I was tearing my hair out trying to figure out how to illustrate my love of the game’s design while recognizing its various flaws, but every draft was not only a chore to type, but a chore to reread. There was nothing informative or entertaining. Just pure rationalization.

So I took a brief break and decided to return to one of my first sources of inspiration on YouTube: MrBtongue.

This would also be the first step in realizing I haven’t been doing what I want to do with this channel over the past year. At the time, though, I could only stand amazed at how little technical prowess was required in order to be a success at the YouTube platform. The likes of MrBtongue and Noah Caldwell-Gervais never had fancy microphones or video editing skills, and they managed to climb into the tens of thousands of subscribers. That I never succeeded in such a climb of viewership was simultaneously demoralizing and eye opening, because I realized I never had a video that truly spoke on a timely manner with a hungry audience for a specific kind of content. Even then, looking back at some of my older videos, there was always a lack of even the most basic polish.

I was left feeling as if I had missed my boat. No matter how hard I work on a video, as long as I am incapable of the professional-level quality that YouTube now seems to demand I will dwell in obscurity.

Nevertheless, I still want to make videos, and so I pushed onward with a new perspective. Rather than cover the game in its entirety I decided to simply skip right to the narrative. I rewrote the introduction with MrBtongue’s voice in my mind rather than my own. An odd decision, but one that got the gears in motion. Discussing the basic question of “Who is Lara Croft?” was comparatively easy. I thought the rest of the script would be a cakewalk from then on.

Then came time to discuss legacy and religion. I reviewed my notes and saw a myriad number of ways to connect these ideas, but I worried that covering every one of them might be boring. I was also feeling the pressure of time crushing against my back. Where I should have gone back and reviewed every cut-scene and piece of noted documentation that could lend to these core ideas and themes, I instead grabbed what I thought would most clearly illustrate my ideas without boring the viewer. The end result feels like I watched an episode or two of Every Frame a Painting and called myself a film expert.

What is perhaps most disappointing to me is my concern over confessing my faith. For a while I pondered deleting that whole segment, but in so many ways it was the theological angle of the game’s themes that bolstered the concepts of mortality, immortality, and legacy.

The problem, as I reviewed the finished project, is that I never properly connected the ideas in a manner that reflects the game or its narrative. I was so concerned not only about boring the viewer but offending them with my Christianity that I wanted to get out as swiftly as I jumped in. As a result I did Rise of the Tomb Raider no favors in portraying how carefully it presents its themes. I never discussed the documents of the serial killer among Trinity’s troops and how Konstantine redirected his sick desires to serve “a greater purpose”. I dared not compare the Prophet’s recorded sermons to those of Jesus Christ, acknowledging what must have been real Biblical knowledge on the part of the writer. Yet these are all ways in which the themes are explored and are all reasons why I loved this game so much.

I know a lot of people would have scrapped what they had at this point and went back, delaying the video even further. If I were to do such a thing then I know it never would have released in December. Perhaps it is a silly thing, but I wanted to make sure I made those four videos within 2018.

The cost, sadly, is me sitting back, looking at each of those videos and asking myself if this is not only the best I can manage, but what I truly want to be creating.

I do not hate this video. On the contrary, I’m glad I made it. There are parts of it that I’m glad I got to say and write. Despite the weaknesses I think I did alright discussing this interpretation of Lara and what aspects of theology I touched on. Most of all, it has given me inspiration to discuss general gameplay topics in a fashion similar to my old Silent Tutorials video, though perhaps with a bit of inspiration from Game Maker’s Toolkit this time.

We can only see. I have a whole slew of games I’d like to cover, and to tackle some of those topics I’d need to record new footage. Nevertheless, nothing is stopping me from writing the scripts ahead of time due to their broad nature.

All I can hope is that, for those that have been waiting, this video provides something enjoyable and is, in some fashion, worth all that time it took to release. Also, if nothing else, I managed to keep working on RamblePak in some fashion throughout 2018 without giving in to depression or self-doubt. Even if I’m not entirely happy with the output, I can be glad in some degree of consistency to my followers.