I guess I'll go first then, eh?
You have me to blame for Critical Moves being birthed. If I take you back to the summer of 2024 - the late August. I contacted Nuno because I liked his blog and I was starting up my own (now stalled) RTS blog. I figured, here's a like-minded soul. Maybe we can work on something together. Nuno mentioned that he had always wanted to do a podcast and I had been an avid listener of podcasts over the last couple of years. So why not?
Also, I'm looking to start some sort of podcast, but haven't been able to find people with whom to discuss strategy games. Maybe you and your team would be ideal!
I stayed up late one night and created Critical Moves, securing a domain and the most obvious social media channels I could think of. I'd never podcasting before. I didn't know how to podcast and, thankfully, neither did Nuno. We stumbled through those early days not know what we were doing but loving the idea of talking about strategy games and making the best possible podcast we could.
How did it work? How was it hosted? How did you get your show onto Spotify or Apple? What was a Buzzsprout? How on earth would this work? We didn't know what we were doing, but we had heart. Four days after positing the idea of a podcast I had a 2 minute YouTube concept video. It wasn't much to go on, but it set the tone for what I (we) wanted to achieve with Critical Moves:
We decided early on that we wanted to have a larger team involved in Critical Moves. More voices means more opinions, different perspectives, and makes for more interesting conversations. I advertised on Reddit for additional hosts and Timothy, Joe and Shane joined the team.
We planned and schemed our way to our first few episodes. One thing we never considered at the start of this was editing. Who would take our rambling conversations and turn them into something that people would want to listen to? Early in the process, before we had launched a single episode, and as I was researching the costs for hiring an editor on Fiverr, Brian approached us. A strategy gaming fan, he didn't want to be on the podcast, but he wanted to be involved in Critical Moves. Brian is an audio engineer and offered to edit our episodes. Because he loved the idea behind Critical Moves? Or just because he is an awesome guy? Either way, without him we would have struggled. Without him, and I do not say this lightly, Critical Moves may have never got off the ground. Brian coached us on recording best practices. How to use Audacity. The best kind of equipment to use (or rather there was no point in spending hundreds of dollars on equipment). The content was king. Brian is ace.
We launched our first episode on November 1st 2024, but it wasn't the first episode we recorded. The first one was Episode 6: The Strategy Games That Made Us, and with that, we were officially podcasters!
It's not all been sunshine and roses. We made a commitment early on to publish weekly, and the recording-editing-publishing schedule has been punishing on occasion. But, we're into 2025 and we are approaching our six month(!) anniversary, and we're still going strong. Critical Moves goes from strength to strength. The team has expanded with Adam joining recently and we have just recorded our first game developer interview. Very excited to get that episode out. All one hour and forty minutes of it!
Critical Moves in gaining traction. We're not yet in the big leagues but we are consistent and improving every week. We hope you have enjoyed listening to our podcast and we hope you continue to enjoy for may years to come.
Thank you if you made it this far and didn't click away from the wall-of-text! I did start this thread to tell you a little about me, but I got side-tracked going down memory lane. I could just direct you to the Meet the Team page, but that would be lazy.
So, as I said, Hello, I'm Al. I'm 47 (eek!) and I hail from the wilds of North East England. I have three kids, three brilliant boys. They take up a lot of my time and I (try to) enjoy every minute I get to spend with them. I also work full-time and I have a portfolio of websites which are typically in varying states of disrepair. Did I mention I host a podcast too? In the few spare minutes I get in between parenting, working, and writing, I like to play games. I started way back when floppy discs and tapes were the height of technology, moved to the Sega Megadrive, SNES, and then PC. It was PC gaming which hooked me and it was Red Alert which hooked me onto RTS games. It was Civ II which opened my eyes to the wider realm of strategy gaming, and Medieval: Total War which cemented my demented association with the games that bring me to this point. I don't just play strategy games, but they are my favourite.
Outside of gaming, my boys and I love getting outside in nature. They're outdoor kids through and through, and are happiest when soaking wet and muddy. Between work and their school, those opportunities are not as plentiful as I would like, but summer is coming and the nights are getting lighter. We should get more quality time in the future.
I'm going through a transitional phase right now in life. Maybe its the thought of getting old; but I do need to start considering stepping away from my desk and doing other things besides gaming, websites and podcasting. Yeah, I'm getting old and fat. Maybe time for a change of focus? Maybe I should take a leaf out of Nuno's book and start spending hours at the gym... Nah.
I have marked this thread an AMA - Ask Me Anything. If you have questions about me, or about Critical Moves, or about anything else - Life, The Universe and Everything - feel free to stick a question below. Thanks, I guess, for reading!
- Al
You have me to blame for Critical Moves being birthed. If I take you back to the summer of 2024 - the late August. I contacted Nuno because I liked his blog and I was starting up my own (now stalled) RTS blog. I figured, here's a like-minded soul. Maybe we can work on something together. Nuno mentioned that he had always wanted to do a podcast and I had been an avid listener of podcasts over the last couple of years. So why not?
Also, I'm looking to start some sort of podcast, but haven't been able to find people with whom to discuss strategy games. Maybe you and your team would be ideal!
---- Sir Nuno, 30th August 2024
I stayed up late one night and created Critical Moves, securing a domain and the most obvious social media channels I could think of. I'd never podcasting before. I didn't know how to podcast and, thankfully, neither did Nuno. We stumbled through those early days not know what we were doing but loving the idea of talking about strategy games and making the best possible podcast we could.
How did it work? How was it hosted? How did you get your show onto Spotify or Apple? What was a Buzzsprout? How on earth would this work? We didn't know what we were doing, but we had heart. Four days after positing the idea of a podcast I had a 2 minute YouTube concept video. It wasn't much to go on, but it set the tone for what I (we) wanted to achieve with Critical Moves:
We decided early on that we wanted to have a larger team involved in Critical Moves. More voices means more opinions, different perspectives, and makes for more interesting conversations. I advertised on Reddit for additional hosts and Timothy, Joe and Shane joined the team.
We planned and schemed our way to our first few episodes. One thing we never considered at the start of this was editing. Who would take our rambling conversations and turn them into something that people would want to listen to? Early in the process, before we had launched a single episode, and as I was researching the costs for hiring an editor on Fiverr, Brian approached us. A strategy gaming fan, he didn't want to be on the podcast, but he wanted to be involved in Critical Moves. Brian is an audio engineer and offered to edit our episodes. Because he loved the idea behind Critical Moves? Or just because he is an awesome guy? Either way, without him we would have struggled. Without him, and I do not say this lightly, Critical Moves may have never got off the ground. Brian coached us on recording best practices. How to use Audacity. The best kind of equipment to use (or rather there was no point in spending hundreds of dollars on equipment). The content was king. Brian is ace.
We launched our first episode on November 1st 2024, but it wasn't the first episode we recorded. The first one was Episode 6: The Strategy Games That Made Us, and with that, we were officially podcasters!
It's not all been sunshine and roses. We made a commitment early on to publish weekly, and the recording-editing-publishing schedule has been punishing on occasion. But, we're into 2025 and we are approaching our six month(!) anniversary, and we're still going strong. Critical Moves goes from strength to strength. The team has expanded with Adam joining recently and we have just recorded our first game developer interview. Very excited to get that episode out. All one hour and forty minutes of it!
Critical Moves in gaining traction. We're not yet in the big leagues but we are consistent and improving every week. We hope you have enjoyed listening to our podcast and we hope you continue to enjoy for may years to come.
Thank you if you made it this far and didn't click away from the wall-of-text! I did start this thread to tell you a little about me, but I got side-tracked going down memory lane. I could just direct you to the Meet the Team page, but that would be lazy.
So, as I said, Hello, I'm Al. I'm 47 (eek!) and I hail from the wilds of North East England. I have three kids, three brilliant boys. They take up a lot of my time and I (try to) enjoy every minute I get to spend with them. I also work full-time and I have a portfolio of websites which are typically in varying states of disrepair. Did I mention I host a podcast too? In the few spare minutes I get in between parenting, working, and writing, I like to play games. I started way back when floppy discs and tapes were the height of technology, moved to the Sega Megadrive, SNES, and then PC. It was PC gaming which hooked me and it was Red Alert which hooked me onto RTS games. It was Civ II which opened my eyes to the wider realm of strategy gaming, and Medieval: Total War which cemented my demented association with the games that bring me to this point. I don't just play strategy games, but they are my favourite.
Outside of gaming, my boys and I love getting outside in nature. They're outdoor kids through and through, and are happiest when soaking wet and muddy. Between work and their school, those opportunities are not as plentiful as I would like, but summer is coming and the nights are getting lighter. We should get more quality time in the future.
I'm going through a transitional phase right now in life. Maybe its the thought of getting old; but I do need to start considering stepping away from my desk and doing other things besides gaming, websites and podcasting. Yeah, I'm getting old and fat. Maybe time for a change of focus? Maybe I should take a leaf out of Nuno's book and start spending hours at the gym... Nah.
I have marked this thread an AMA - Ask Me Anything. If you have questions about me, or about Critical Moves, or about anything else - Life, The Universe and Everything - feel free to stick a question below. Thanks, I guess, for reading!
- Al