I couldnt imagine a better way to end my first year of streaming. I'm so grateful and happy that I met you all and found such a supportive community. And I can't believe we raised over 500€

linksta.cc/@kayborowski

oh and im also a very low spec streamer. i stream from a thinkpad that i bought from the company who fired half their staff this spring, since they had twice as many laptops as they needed. Later in the year I got an external GPU second hand. It's very old but it still works

But if I'm totally honest, what I've loved about streaming so much this year has been Firebot. I am obsessed with building little games and projects in Firebot and showing them to my community. It's an open-source Twitch bot that makes my streams more interactive.
firebot.app

Another big topic for me this year was playing detective games as part of the Slow Game Club. This is a Book Club for Games set up as a fundraiser for a UK-based charity that helps low-income young people to get their career started in game development

www.slowgame.club

Half way through the year though, my company laid off half its staff and I ended up unemployed. After this, my weekly coworking session gave me a sense of consistency and motivation in a world with a very uncertain future.

During the year I've gotten into a consistent rhythm of hosting co-working spaces for body doubling and getting some things done for a few hours every week. As someone who worked from home, I found these spaces were really useful for me to stay focussed but also feel socially engaged while I worked.

As time went on I realised I was really enjoying what I was doing. It feels like hosting an event or just holding space for a community to gather. A year on, I feel my goal is to to create a digital space to exist in and look at some games maybe you wouldnt play yourself - see if they spark anything

I wasnt really sure of my motivation when I started. Some of my friends joke that streaming is a pyramid scheme where you start watching streams and eventually the streamers you like convince you to start streaming too and it felt a little like that at first honestly.