Noclip in 2024 (+ Documentary Ideas Request) (Patreon)

Hi Patrons,

I'll say it right off the bat, this is my annual post where I ask for your feedback on the docs you want to see, the work you want us to focus on, and what you'd like as a patron of Noclip.

But I also wanted an opportunity to talk about my dreams for 2024 and beyond.

To keep a long story short, Noclip is a fantastic position entering 2024. Our commercial work has given us a financial safety net that is going to allow us to do some really cool stuff next year. Jeremy is signed on to do almost twice as many days as last year and the rest of the crew are eager to do more work too. We are healthy, creatively hungry, and eager to make a big bang in 2024.

On top of that, thanks to all of your filling out that survey a few months back, we have way more insight into the ways we can improve this patreon, how we spend our time on the main documentary channel, and plenty of other things. All of this means that we'll be making some big swings in 2024.

But before we get into all of that - let's take a quick look back at 2023.

2023 Projects - How'd We Do?

How to sum up 2023. I think we tried our best to tackle a few big requests from 2022. Some of these were favorite games from that year, and others episodes of Greatest Hits that were constantly getting high votes.  That said we still had tight purse strings which restricted the scope of work we could do.

Given all of that, let's go through the docs we made in 2023. In order of appearance:

Gloomwood (one of many indie docs we did in 2023, a holdover from Developer Breakdown on Noclip Crew. It was fun to cover these types of games because we rarely do.)

Hyper Light Breaker Episode 2  (episode 3 was postponed twice, alongside the game's early access release. Expect Ep3 in early 2024. These series are slow burns but we like doing them this way - it's a fun creative challenge.)

Re-Making The Last of Us Part I (our first in-person doc outside of the Bay in quite a while. We filmed it in a day. One of many Jeremy edited)

Remaking Age of Empires (another Patreon request, one of our most watched docs of the year and a fun way to cover AoE without the OG developers)

Choo Choo Charles (I loved this project, the type of story only Noclip does.)

How Jirard Saved The Mix (should we delete this now? lol. great job by Frank filming a doc on the fly. Shame Jirard had such a torrid rest of the year with allegations of charity related shithousery.)

Vampire Survivors (puppets are hard work!)

The Making of Immortality (actors are fun work!)

The Making of The Burger King Games (Great collab from the whole team on this one. A nice mix of developer interview, human story, classic game, and weird fandom. Love this.)

NHL 94 - Greatest Hits (I had a blast working on this. Great edit from Jeremy and loads to sink your teeth into if you love the design of Genesis games.)

The Axis Unseen (Finsihed the year the way we started, with another indie doc of an unreleased game. It was great to talk about 76 too.)

Did you have any favorites? Let us know in the comments.

Aside from the docs we also continued out weekly podcast, uploaded a lot of video game video tape history and took a good creative swing at Noclip Crew. We learned some lessons on how much time and effort that stuff takes which we'll be bringing in to 2024.

2024 - The Big Picture

Next year we're making some big swings. Not just in the documentaries we do, but in all of our output both publicly and on Patreon. I've been working on a plan to make the most impactful and entertaining work we've ever taken on, while providing more than ever to members of our patreon.

This also includes fixing one major problem which is finding a way to properly speak to our documentary, podcast and crew audiences directly.

So let's talk about all three of them separately now:

2024 - Noclip Documentary Channel

Next year we want to focus on highly-produced, impactful work that makes the industry stop and take notice. And we have a few ways we're going to accomplish that.

The documentary channel will aim to create 3 high-impact documentary projects a year. Big stories on important games / studios / topics. These will be filmed in person, have larger budgets and be related to meaningful stories within our industry.

We'll supplement these big docs with punchier retrospective documentaries, indie docs and  featurettes (10-20 minutes). Similar to the current situation but with a clearer divide between the "big" and "small" sized productions.

PATREON: We are going to publish monthly behind-the-scenes videos. Some remote and others in our brand new studio spaces in my house. Jeremy is going to film a lot of these, along with the patron show and other content.

PATREON: We're also going to increase the number of extended interviews and bonus scenes we produce - both from new docs and our back catalog. You may have noticed an increase in these over the past few weeks.

2024 - Noclip Podcasts

We love doing the Noclip Podcast and it's continued to grow since becoming a weekly show during Covid. That said we also think there are opportunities for new types of podcasts that our current setup doesn't easily allow. So we're going to restructure this all a bit.

The current Noclip Podcast will be rebranded the Noclip Crewcast. It will retain the same format but we'll invite guests on and perhaps expand the panel from it's current three.

Jesse and myself and workshopping a brand new podcast which will focus on 1-on-1 interviews between myself and people across the games industry. The aim is to create nothing short of the game industry's foremost interview podcast. This will have Noclip Branding somewhere on it but given it's own strong brand identity.

We are aiming to keep both of these ad-free as usual.

We will be doing patron exclusive podcast episodes (*see Noclip Crew below)

2024 - Noclip Crew

Ever since I was making videos about video games I wanted to run my own little GameSpot, or in later years Giant Bomb. Next year we're gonna push Crew further in that direction.

We love doing Crew videos and think there is plenty more cool stuff we can do with it. That said I've always been worried in investing in it with Noclip Patreon funding as it is totally different work to our documentary / preservations work. So next year we'll be spinning Crew off from this Patreon, and giving it more of it's own identity.

With that freedom I want to build a best-in-class games video channel which allows us to flex our creative muscles outside of the documentary work. I loved growing up watching GameSpot and Giant Bomb, and I currently feel like there is no channel around that produced the type of VOD-focused stuff I fell in love with. I think there is a big hunger for thoughtfully produced videos and our team of editors are more than up to the task. That is the mission of Noclip Crew in 2024.

Weekly produced VOD videos and Podcast (The Noclip Crewcast - still on it's own channel)

Returning Shows: Quick-Look Style Game Recommendations, Jayne Dev, Danny Opinion Videos, Stunt Derby Dev Updates

New Shows: Danny FPS Reviewing Show, Video Game Movie Reviews, Long-Plays, Watching the Game Tapes, Collaborations with Industry friends, On-Location videos, Indie Game Showcases, Game Jams.

We are going to separate Crew from the Core Noclip Patreon funding. We're going to set up a seperate Patreon for Crew that will likely be initially free just to test the interest. If we feel like there is organic interest if the type of stuff we're doing over there, we will add low cost tiers (free/$3/$5) for extra videos / podcasts.

I have been resistant to having a second Noclip Patreon forever, but the audience metrics and the survey feedback all points towards this. Also it solves my long-running issue with using Noclip funding on stuff that isn't core to our mission here. We'll let Crew sink or swim on it's own - but I think we're gonna see it blow up this year.

Aside from these three pillars we will be getting back into the swing of uploading the game tapes. We had to stop for the last few months as work got too crazy and then the office move happened. With the team's increased workload this shouldn't be a problem again. All the tapes are now in a special climate controlled lockup - we'll be showing that off soon too.

Possible Documentaries for 2024

Like I said we have some big projects we want to take on in 2024. But we already have a couple of projects currently in production that you'll see in early 2024.

Return to Monkey Island

The Story of Dwarf Fortress

Hyper Light Development Episode 3

Aside from that I have projects that I'd love to tackle next year. 2024 is the 20th Anniversary of 2004, one of the biggest years in gaming ever. Alongside the 25th Anniversary of 1999 which had some absolute classics in it. It could be a good opportunity to do some well produced retrospective docs.

So here are some possible projects I'd love to tackle next year.

Unreal Tournament - 25th Anniversary

Quake 3 - 25th Anniversary

Half Life 2 - 20th Anniversary

Dreamcast - 25th Anniversary

World of Warcraft - 20th Anniversary

GTA San Andreas - 20th Anniversary

Silent Hill - 25th Anniversary

Crunch

AI

Baldur's Gate 3

Remedy

Cyberpunk

Stalker

No Man's Sky

Mini-Series on Games Journalism

Mega64

Wipeout 2097

Over to you...

Okay, it turns out I ramble in text as well as video. Above contains a bunch of big ideas and plans, but it's not the totality of what we have planned. The main dream is to create a Noclip that makes it's best documentaries yet, a series of fun and informative podcasts, and an editorial channel which echoes the best days of video game coverage.

But what would you like to see, as a viewer and a patron.

What docs should we work on?What patron exclusive stuff would you like?What do you think of our plans for Noclip Crew and the Podcasts?

Thank you all for your incredible support over the years. Noclip continues to be the best job I've ever had and I hope you have enjoyed being part of our success. Next year we're going to repay your belief in us three times over. Nothing short will make me satisfied. I feel like everything has lined up over the past few months, and it's time for us to pull the trigger.

Until then I hope you had a nice break over the holidays and played some of those video games.

Happy New Year! See you in the comments.

Danny