Watch Me Stream My Mental Breakdown

[quote][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32732116-IndieGems/]Follow our curator page: [b]IndieGems[/b] if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.[/url][/quote] [i]Watch Me Stream My Mental Breakdown (WMSMMB)[/i] is a rather funny resource-management game centered around Pochi, a panda who wants to make it to partner in the video-game streaming industry. With a very supportive mother and a strict father, Pochi needs make it in the industry in order to carry on with a career that he would like. The story is set in a visual-novel format as Pochi is attending college but has no interest in opening up his books to study. Inside the week-by-week video streams, Pochi takes on the audience, who has a hunger for content that he will need to satisfy, while battling toxicity in the stream. The streams are played out in a deckbuilding card battler that is rather difficult overall and can be rather disheartening to Pochi, thus wearing thin his mental fortitude as well as physical health. [i]WMSMMB[/i] boils down Pochi's journey into a string of 40+ weeks, each week he has to make a choice about what he will do for the week. He can either stream (while paying for the respective games of choice), work (to earn money), rest, or go about another story-related action. All in all, these choices are very realistic and shows how difficult it can be to make it in this industry. Moreover, the actual path to success is very elusive as well. After taking on the game and reading through all of the VN parts carefully for the first run or so, subsequent runs I have been skipping almost all of the dialogue (thankfully there is a shortcut key) and just trying to obtain the different objectives/endings. The better endings I have not come anywhere near. All in all, success in the game is bound to be easier than making it to partner in reality, but it still simulates that extra tough journey with a lot of good luck needed. After reaching the respective endings available, you will have additional legacy cards added to your starting deck for future runs. This starting deck can be modified to suit your needs. The cards are split into three categories, Ego, Shrewdness, and Knowledge, giving you different advantages when you have more cards of each type in your deck. So in other words, as you play more runs and continue to expand your starting deck, your chances of success also progressively increase. [h1]It's Unlike Other Deckbuilders[/h1] This deck-building card game is a part of the game, and it's the part of the game you need to master to reach the good endings, it's not your standard card game. You choose cards to satisfy hunger of the audience, to alter toxicity levels, to obtain shields, or to have some other different actions, the goal of the card game is not terribly clear. As far as I have determined so far, is that you want to keep the stream on for long enough to draw a good audience, while keeping the toxicity levels down. But the longer you keep the stream going, toxicity will naturally increase turn by turn, and if you have a high toxicity level, people are going to be very displeased with the quality of the stream. Rapidly concluding a stream by satisfying all of the hungry does not help you in the same way that you want to end card battles in other games. You won't have a high enough number of captivated audience to then follow and even sub to Pochi's channel. Anyway, I need to still figure this one out. [h1]Objectives[/h1] Making it to partner and have the audience shell out enough money to cover all expenses is the ultimate goal. But going against the grain of traditional societal expectations, you have to deal with the money problems, maintain good mental and physical health, gain good number of followers and subscribers in order to tell your father that you really can make a serious career from this. Amid all of this, you have to handle money-grabbing outsiders who just want a share of your check. Of course, how can you forget to pay the taxes? [h1]Controls[/h1] Mouse is enough to play the game in its entirety, there are preset keyboard shortcuts also. [h1]Graphics[/h1] Adorable characters and artwork. The very bright and cheerful colors do not mask the dreadful poor endings that become of people who try and not make it in the industry. [h1]Music & Sounds[/h1] The music is really pleasant, and the sound effects work well for the most part. The button-mashing work minigame is a bit loud and annoying. [h1]Audience[/h1] It's good fun for a casual audience and the humor and the card game will keep people entertained for a while. There is a heavy emphasis on the legacy cards boosting your starting deck to make it progressively easier, so you really have to want to replay to see everything. First run took me 2+ hours to look at all of the puns and laugh/cringe at the dialogue, after that, runs typically took me about an hour each. [h1]Pricing[/h1] A bit high, base price is $19.99. I think half of that would probably draw more than double the players. I think on a sale, this is a game that's worth your attention and will keep you entertained for several hours. [h1]Personal Wishlist[/h1] 1. That job-oriented mini game where you do nothing but mash on your mouse or spacebar is really awful. While the button mashing is not required, a more rapid mash rate yields more money for the job done. So of course, I am sure I have dramatically decreased the life expectancy of these two buttons. This does not need to be a part of the game at all. 2. Better explanation about how to achieve the ultimate good endings would be nice. Maybe after a few failures, the game gives a few more hints, but so far, that's not the case. 3. The game is $19.99, and it's a bit pricey for a relatively simple and straight forward game. I recognize that the thought and process of putting this together is not easy, especially in this non-traditional formula, but that price tag will get a lot of people hesitating to buy. Half of the price is more appropriate for this game I think. 4. I would love to see more of a variety in the card battles. The card-battle system is rather simple overall and gets kind of old after a while. [h1]Conclusion[/h1] [i]WMSMMB[/i] does not paint a rosy picture for all of the aspiring pandas who want to make it in the streaming business. Though if I were a talking panda who liked to play video games, I am sure I could do a pretty good job drawing an audience. Fun overall, the game's imaginative process is worth people looking into for the expansion and a move away from your traditional deckbuilding card game. For people looking to have to replay a game a bunch to succeed, it may be an option, caveat being that the card battles all have basically the same feel from week to week and get kind of stale after a while. Overall score: 6/10, cautiously recommended. [quote]I received the product for free. I did not receive any compensation to write this review. The opinions represented here are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way.[/quote]

[b]Is it bad that I kinda still want to try out streaming?[/b] Man, how many of us haven’t thought about making videos or streaming ourselves playing video games, and even dreaming on beating all the odds (or being really lucky) of becoming popular. Or, well, at least having a dedicated fanbase that comes back to your videos. Well, Watch Me Stream My Mental Breakdown aims to put you through a gamified version on how streaming will most likely go for you in reality. Here, you take the role of Pochi who happens to literally be a talking panda (though, considering Pochi’s viewer count, this doesn’t seem to be as surprising in this universe). Like a lot of people dreaming about or first starting, Pochi is optimistic that pursuing the life of being a streamer with a focus on games as something that can give him a prosperous future. And the fact that Pochi isn’t exactly a school person, not really putting in the time to study or get enough rest for tomorrow’s class, pushes him forward to start his own channel. After all, Pochi is only in college because his family wants him to. Not even Pochi’s friend, Arisa, believes in you as she makes fun at your decision (and your channel name, wow rude) and your father not being supportive turned Pochi away. Will you get Pochi partnered and show everyone, especially your dad, wrong? Or will it just simply not take off? There is a light story going on as you’re trying to make a streaming career. This mostly serves as a cap to how long you can go, but there are a lot of real aspects that Pochi will run into. The lows of chat being toxic (though, I never joined a chat that was this constantly toxic); how MCNs take advantage of people by telling them they’d help them get partnered and everything, while in reality, they do nothing but take part of your earnings; how unhealthy it is to overwork yourself when viewing it as a grind; don’t put all of your eggs into the streaming basket as you won’t immediately make enough money to pay bills; the devastating feeling that someone else can start later than you did and be more successful than you; and maybe you just don’t have the personality that draws people in. These are all hard realities and luckily, we’re experiencing them through a game. Anyway, most of the game takes place in Pochi’s small apartment where he can easily go from sleeping to streaming. While this is a game about starting a streaming career, this does have resource management put in. Pretty much every one of your resources are important to keep your eye on as this can cause an easy game over. You have to keep an eye on your money as it’ll chip away as you pay rent, buy food, and buy games to stream. To keep your head above water, you’ll need to work some jobs (which all of them is a buttons masher minigame) where you’ll get paid, but you’ll also take a hit in your mental health or HP. But then, you need enough mental health to get through streaming so you can build up your audience and not have a mental breakdown while streaming (which loses you HP). You can even die if you neglect your HP. The only way to improve your mental health or HP is to take a break or at the end of the month where you’ll choose what to eat and your weekly activity. Basically, everything is connected and flows into one another. Considering your choice between streaming, resting, or working takes up a whole week, it does well at making you choose as you juggle everything. Now onto the meat of the game, streaming. Streaming was turned into a simple, but complicated, card game. Each one of your cards is either under the Ego (red), Shewdness (green), or Knowledge (blue) type which loosely determines the card’s effect and even boost something depending on how many are in your deck (which I didn’t notice at first) like Ego will give you a starting shield. Before you do start streaming, and edited your deck, you get to choose what you’ll be playing and paying. Other than the free retro game option, the game genre for that week’s indie, stale big title, and hype of the week changes. Of course, you can go with not spending anything on games, but there are modifiers where the game can be undeserved or crowded, which I’m guessing determines how many viewers will show up. So it may be worth paying for a game that’s undeserved. Though, there is another layer as the genre will boost and decrease the effect of certain card types. You also have your audience that have expectations and will favor certain types than others, but as far as I can tell, you don’t have much influence on this (which yah, fair). Once you start streaming, you’ll be going against your viewers as both of you will put out cards. They hunger for content (so true) and your goal is to satisfy it by reducing it to zero. However, you’ll also have to deal with your chat’s toxicity level which increases each round. Toxicity is good in a sense that it lets you play more powerful cards in your hand, but at the same time, chat will be able to play powerful cards too and a high toxicity is not good for being advertised. To fight against that, your cards will either satisfy hunger, give you shield to block chat’s attacks, and cards that will lower toxicity. There are even cards that will have a continuous effect (under certain criteria) or will have an effect after a certain amount of turns. So you’ll have to play a delicate balance of both keeping your stream up so you can get more viewers (and thus more followers and hopefully subscribers), satisfying the chat, and keeping your mental health above zero so you don’t have a mental breakdown. This may seem easy, but it’s not. Chat gets brutal. After you close down your stream, which will normally be when you satisfy your chat’s hunger, you’ll see what you earned as well as being scored out of five stars which represents your advertisability (which your toxicity at the time of ending does determine). Your score will then pile up and every time you get five stars, no matter if it was that stream or over a couple, you’ll be able to choose a new card to add to your deck. Also, I like the touch of having a chat screen that will be active between rounds and that there’s a chance at getting raided. Not to mention the chat’s cards are just what they typed (and how Pochi will notice nice comments once in a while) and Pochi’s cards encompassing what he’s doing or saying (like having a pizza break or just making puns). There are various different endings you can achieve, with the prospect of getting partnered being the hardest one of all. At the end of most endings, you’ll receive a Legacy Card which is added into your starting deck (with the most common ending having a lot of Legacy Cards for you to get). These can give you help in your future runs and may even be needed to reach the Partnered Ending. [h1]Verdict[/h1] Despite thinking that Watch Me Stream My Mental Breakdown could be a bit cheaper, this is a challenging resource management-card game that is equally fun and frustrating. Plus, for those that don’t normally play deckbuilders or are bad at them, this game doesn’t put as much importance at your success being dependent on your deck being tight and trimmed. It still helps here, and there are cards that synergize, but you do get boosts for how many cards in a type you have in your deck. I may not have any personal experience from streaming, but I do think it captures what those chasing the dream of making a living off of dreaming pretty well. This does encourage you to have multiple runs, which generally takes around 1-3 hours. You can even check out your best runs and see if you can do better. [code]💜 Check out my other reviews at [url=http://saveorquit.com/author/ripwitch/]SaveorQuit[/url] or visit my Curator[url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/28714255/] The Witch’s Corner![/url] 💜 [/code]

I want to enjoy this game, I really do, and I understand a lot of the references and tropes in it are geared towards jaded streamers who agree with the fact that there really isn't a guide to go about streaming successfully. That being said however, I want something of a guide, a meter, something more than viewers to tell me I'm successfully streaming. I've tinkered with the length of streams, I've tried to be conservative, tried to be nice and run the nontoxic suite, I've tried to be combative and run the ego trip end the stream as quick as possible, I've tried to go full immunity and keep my chat from hitting me, I've let chat beat up on me to rest up next week, doesn't seem to matter, I don't see any difference in my stream results. Maybe it picks up when you get your viewership set, either way I don't know if I have time to keep playing to try to find it, I don't even know if this is something I will revisit down the line. If you play the demo for this know that you're just going to get more of the same, it never seems to pick up, never gets fully explained mechanically. Dunno if there's more to do with this, if the devs are going to keep making changes, but I'm not happy with it at this point.

I definitely like the idea for the game, but when it comes down to it, there's very little game to it. The card game side of it is very simplistic, no real strategy involved, the only challenge is working out what does what with no instructions given anywhere, and any game that uses "click a button as quickly as possible" for anything that isn't a clicker game, automatically annoys me. The story is fun for a little bit, but it tries too hard to be on the nose with streamer and streaming stereotypes, and the art style can best be described as pretty basic. The characters are cute, but all the gameplay stuff look like placeholder images, and there's a general lack of polish to the look of the game. If I'd got it for free, like a lot of the reviewers, I'd probably be a bit more forgiving, and say there's a couple of hours of fun in here to be had. The game isn't particularly bad, just not much to it, and not in any way worth the price tag.

[b] Watch Me Stream My Mental Breakdown was featured on my youtube channel[/b] https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2369089361 and now onto the short review [h1]TL;DR Review[/h1] //intro// Watch Me Stream My Mental Breakdown is a deck building card, visual novel hybrid that makes you take on the role of Pochi, a frustrated college student on the verge of dropping out to pursue their dream of being a streamer. Help Pochi balance his life, work, streaming and mental health while becoming the internet's next big thing in a quirky story. But is all the mental strain worth it? Let's find out. //Graphics, Sound & Artstyle// First & foremost, the artstyle is cute & charming- mind you this is coming from someone who isn't into anime. The sound is just fine. Nothing memorable, & a huge opportunity missed on bringing Pochi to life by giving him a voice. //Gameplay// You'll face off in battles on your streams, satisfying your audience's hunger (to win you must bring it to 0 or below), mixing a combination of genre of game plus your audience will reflect the rating of your stream plus the potential viewers/subscribers. Your deck will consist of 4 type of cards Ego which are Red, Knowledge which are Blue, Shrewdness which are Green & Gray consumable cards- all having different effects like giving you shields, attacking the hunger, adding shields to Pochi, subtracting toxicity or gaining viewers. Toxicity is what diffirentiate this card battler from others. The more turns you play, the more toxic your stream will get & when the toxicity levels get high, you can play stronger cards but also can be attacked by stronger attacks. Findind a balance of everything in every stream will determine how good of a streamer you are as some audiences might like more toxicity and less shrewdness or more shrewdness and less knowledge. Learning what to stream to whom and how to go about it is a challenge in it's own. //Price// 19.99 USD //How many hours estimated// I am 4.5 hours into my gameplay- finished one of a few storylines with little success. I say this game can get a good 10-15 hours to those who want to go through every single finale. //Final Thoughts// I have mixed emotions on Watch Me Stream My Mental Breakdown, is it a good game? Yes. Did I enjoy the story? Yes. I'm gonna go back and try to be as successful as possible, but going back after my first fail, the second playthrough had me go through the same story again & was pressing CTRL or Z as much as possible. I wish this had an endless mode or something of the like that didn't have me go through the story- just paying my rent, working, and resting to refill my mental health. By stripping away parts of the story in future playthroughs, or mix a couple of different scenarios on each playthrough could give the game much more depth. Dont' get me wrong, I loved playing this game, but in my opinion 19.99 USD is asking 5$ or 10$ too much, I would have no problem paying 19.99 USD if we could get an endless mode or something of the sort but until then as of day of release- I rate the game "Wait for Sale" [h1]Wait for Sale[/h1]

[b]The story writing is so damn accurate it feels like I'm the protagonist [/b] I'm a small streamer who giving up anything to be able to pursue my dream; to become a successful streamer and content creator in general. I also the guy that featured on the trailer of the game, you can [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF_Rpy24S8I] watch my video playing this game [/url] and check out my Twitch [url=https://www.twitch.tv/ryomedokk] RyoMedok [/url]. "Watch Me Stream My Mental Breakdown" successfully able to capture the main struggles of pursuing your dream as a streamer with its comedy but stay truthful and completely honest. Just look at the title of the game; it's already captured the image and emotion of pursuing your dream well, even though it sounds... self-deprecating [i] winks [/i] [b] Gameplay and replayability [/b] Talking about the gameplay, it's a combination of Card Game and Visual Novel. I'm not really into both genres, but this game able to keep me interested. It's casual and easy to follow, but your deck aka your actions will be expanded as the game goes, giving so many options to tackle the toxicity of your chat. This game also provides replayability because your action affects the ending. There are some endings in the game that you can get, and so far (after discovered 2 endings) I feel like it's acceptable and not that kind of bull endings that don't even make any sense. To be honest this game deserved to be more known because of its humor and ironically accurate story writing about living as a wannabe streamer. I wish the developer luck with their games in the future! ========================================== Check out [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF_Rpy24S8I]my video playing this game here[/url] And check out my Twitch [url=https://www.twitch.tv/ryomedokk]if you're looking for a small streamer to watch![/url]

This is game is a visual novel slice of life game about a panda who wants to make it big and become a successful streamer. There are multiple endings, actually becoming a streamer being the sought after ending obviously. The streams that the player does in the game is a card game and the card game itself is really fun although does start to grow *a little* stale towards the end of the game but its ending when it starts to wear on you so the length of the game is good. What I love about this game is the heart. The characters are very simple but effective. The story hits on a few good themes, overwork, self-doubt, family, and simply struggling. Everything is a struggle for the main character as you have to maneuver rent, paying for food, streaming, social situations, random events that can throw a wrench into everything, your mental health as well as physical, college debt, paying taxes, its hectic but the gameplay serves the story. My only real problem with the game was the decision to make this into a roguelite. Remember what I said about the card game wearing on you? This is a perfect game to playthrough once and love the characters and theme of struggle, a great second playthrough to see how things play out differently by choosing different dialogue and different choices, but don't do what I did and 100% the game. 6.5/10 First playthrough took me four hours (mostly for reading dialogue), the second was around two hours skipping dialogue I already read Good fun for a playthrough or two, don't try to complete but definitely beat it, I paid $20 and that felt a good price although I did play more than most people will by going for 100% completion. Buy at $15 or lower and you won't regret it. Shout out to Ultaan Games for making this, this game was fun and I'm curious what will be their next endeavor.

i dont usually write reviews but this game is seriously underrated this game is super cute, funny, but most of all super relatable, especially if youre a streamer or just someone who plays too many games while struggling through college. it balances out the cute style with depressing moments as well, which honestly adds to the charm and made the game memorable for me. it combines deck building and visual novel elements, which are two of my favourite genres, but i wasnt sure how well they would mix. turns out it works very well and makes for an awesome and unique game. the game can be kinda tricky, especially when going for all the endings. no direction is given for how to gain subs, but i dont mind that because its more like real life, and also leads to more of those depressing moments :) i really hope more people find and play this game, cause its definitely become one of my favourites

It's rare that games are honest about streaming. Mostly it's in parody or as a power fantasy. But what WMSMMB does is tell the story about Pochi, who wishes to make it in the world of streaming. But the reality is that it's tough work and sometimes I can take a toll on your mental health. In this cross between visual novel and deckbuilding game, you must find a balance between keeping your audience entertained while trying to keep your own mental health from reaching 0 and having a mental breakdown on stream. Each turn the toxicity of the chat rises meaning the trolls and yourself can play more powerful cards. The more AD friendly your channel, the more cards you can get. Where this game shines the most is the writing and the care to detail. It's very evident that the team understands the struggles of streaming. Often you'd find yourself after a stream near mentally drained from trolls, and only 4.95 in sub revenue to show for it. As someone who has been on Twitch streaming for about 4 years, this is a game that hit pretty hard. Streaming is something that comes with both highs and very many lows. There have been many times I've ended stream drained. The hope always lingers that some day you will be up their as a top tier streamer. Being up there and making a living playing video games. But truth be told, it will take a lot out of you. WMSMMB is one of those games that captures that feeling of chasing a dream that feels impossible but also opening up an honest talk about streaming. And that's why I love this game. Because some times you need to be honest about the passions you pursue.

Played through it a few times. The card game is fun and pretty straight forward, though a bit deceptive. You'd think that defeating the chat is immediately the best option, but the viewer/follower conversion, plus the combination of infinite deck cycling, it seems like its actually better to prolong and survive as long as you can while minimizing the damage you receive rather than just shooting it down immediately. This nuance isn't really explained, and it's fair that it isn't, but I can see why someone might look at this and go "That's all?" if they weren't quick enough to catch on to that. As for the story, it's pretty straight forward. Some of it went over my head as I don't have a lot of knowledge of streamers, but the jabs at multi-channel networks, the moderator gags, and the parents I enjoyed.