StreamTeam Spotlight: Parlock
Welcome back to the StreamTeam Spotlight, a weekly series where we feature one of our Indie GamePlay streamers. Every week, we’ll profile and interview a different member of the team to give our audience a chance to get to know some of their favorite streamers off-camera/mic. This week we’ll meet and learn a little bit about Parlock. Please enjoy!
Name/Online Alias: Parlock
Region: UK – England
PC Rig:
– 4.0GHz 8-core
– 8GB RAM
– Radeon HD 7970 3GB.
Favorite Game Genres: RPGs, Fighting Games, Immersive Sims
Favorite Games: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Super Street Fighter 4, Mirror’s Edge, Left 4 Dead, Sonic the Hedgehog
Other Hobbies: I’m too busy between being a student and running the channels to really get up to much else, but I do have a pet Gecko and have an unhealthy addiction to Twitter.
Indie Game Magazine: What was your first exposure to video games?
Parlock: Sonic the Hedgehog on the Megadrive/Genesis. My parents bought me it to keep me from eating something or jumping out of a window or something, and I loved it. I still regularly play Sonic 1 and 2!
IGM: What were some of your favorite games growing up?
Parlock: Sonic 1 and 2, Tekken 2, Soul Calibur 2, Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2, and Hype: The Time Quest.
IGM: When you say you enjoy “Immersive Sims”, do you have a particular favorite style? Are you a dating sim fan?
Parlock: Immersive Sims are games like Thief, BioShock, Dishonored, and Deus Ex; where they give you a large amount of tools and lots of loosely related systems, but let you experiment with them in basically whatever way you want. For example, Dishonored has the powers from “the Outsider” (the tools), and the systems are stuff like the Weepers and the Guards fighting, having NPCs offering to deal with enemies non-lethally for you, that sort of thing. It’s a dumb name for what is a really great genre, and unfortunately it seems indie gaming hasn’t quite been able to make those sorts of games yet. The only two I can really think of are Eldritch (which is fantastic) and E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy (which… well… isn’t).
But I do love dating sims as well! Me and a friend (Solon / RainyDayLetsPlay, he’s also on the StreamTeam) streamed Hatoful Boyfriend and managed to spread it out across like 3 different streams; we gave it full voice-acting, the works. It was absolutely magical.
IGM: When did you first start streaming?
Parlock: On Twitch, in 2013. I was drawn in to streaming in a big way because of the streams I have done with friends like Sharky and the Bear, and then Solon from RainyDayLetsPlay really dragged me kicking and screaming into the streaming community. I’ve done plenty of much more casual streaming on Livestream.com for years, but now I’ve moved to Twitch and Hitbox, and haven’t been back on Livestream for ages now.
IGM: Why do you enjoy streaming?
Parlock: My YouTube work is my primary focus, and part of that is waiting a long time between recording and getting any feedback – sometimes weeks. Streaming is much more about instant gratification and quick communication with your viewers, which I like. I also like that because nothing is saved if you don’t want it to be, you can let loose and have a totally casual stream if you want, or if you want to put the effort in to a professional, organized stream, that is also possible. It is just much more versatile than YouTube.
IGM: What types of streams do you host (Let’s Plays, Previews/Reviews/First Looks, Giveaways, Developer Q&As, etc)?
Parlock: Mainly casual LP streams where I just play games for fun. I’ve also done more serious streams, such as podcasts and discussions, and I have done a 24 hour stream for charity; I’m planning to do another one later on in the month.
IGM: What are you going to school for? Anything video game related?
Parlock: Unfortunately not, I’m a Psych student. There are ways that could be related to games, but I didn’t really want to work in games until I started Youtube and Streaming. I’ll find a way to mix the two though. Riot (League of Legends) did a really interesting talk about using a Psychological thing called Priming to sort of program their players in to being less abusive and toxic by changing font colors and sizes on the loading screen, so there definitely is a way to combine both of them.
IGM: What is your pet Gecko’s name? Any chance he’ll grow to be a giant dragon someday?
Parlock: Drogo! Named after Khal Drogo from A Song of Ice and Fire. He’s grown so much since in the 9 months I’ve had him, and they live about as long as a cat does, so hopefully I’ll have a dragon in a couple of years!
IGM: What made you decide to join the Indie GamePlay StreamTeam?
Parlock: Friends of mine are also part of it, and I love how it is decentralizing streams, taking them away from relying on Twitch. We need a lot more decentralization in the community, as right now we are totally at the mercy of Youtube or Twitch.
That’s it for this week’s StreamTeam Spotlight! If you’d like to watch some of Parlock’s streams, you can check out his Content Hub on Indie GamePlay. To keep track of his stream schedule so you never miss a live stream, you can follow him on Twitter @joeparlock.
StreamTeam Spotlight is a weekly segment created to showcase members of the Indie GamePlay StreamTeam. Participants are chosen at random, and interviewed upon accepting an invitation. If you’d like to be considered for the feature, please send an email to [email protected] with the subject line “Streamer Spotlight”. Spotlight participants are not required to disclose their full name, and all information is published only after participants approve a pre-screening of the completed Spotlight. If you’d like to join to StreamTeam community, you can register here. Tune in next week to see which streamer enters the spotlight. Until then, come play some games!
