Twitch is an amazing way to spend quarantine. No matter what time of day it is, you can find somebody live streaming engaging content and keeping you on your toes as a viewer. And Twitch has a great chat feature! Since our school shut down and the world went into chaos, Her Campus Stout has spent a lot of time watching and participating in Twitch streams. With each game we see streamed, we experience different levels of engagement as a chapter. In doing so, we’ve compiled a list of the most engaging content we’ve seen so far across Twitch!
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons
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This is the best thing that’s happened in 2020, no competition. It’s so popular that there’s a huge Nintendo Switch shortage. You don’t even need to understand the game to appreciate it over stream. It’s calming, it’s fun, and it has amazing puns. What’s not to love?
- Planet Zoo
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The best way to play with some giraffes! There are a few zoo-type games on the market, but Planet Zoo has the best world building and design abilities. Not to mention how top tier the graphics are!
- Anno 1800
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A very comprehensive world builder with a lot of immersive elements. There’s so much to build as well, zoos, schools, pubs. Unfortunately, this version has yet to come with giraffes. We’re hoping for an improvement on that front when the new Anno edition is released in September.
- Papa’s Burgeria
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Not a lot of streamers will break down and play flash games for their audience. If you do find one, take in the fun with the best of Cool Math Games!
- Minecraft
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What can’t you do in Minecraft? It’s one of the OG world building video games. One of our chapter’s favorite streamers describes Minecraft as, “it consumes your soul and comes back for more, but goshdangit it is so much fun”. It’s really easy to fall down the Minecraft rabbit-hole and commit over 2500 hours of game time. If watching a Minecraft stream, make sure you know what you’re commiting to!
- Frostpunk
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Great soundtrack, terrifying nightmare scenario. It’s kind of like the video game version of the 2013 movie Snowpiercer. Interesting stuff is always happening, but it’s usually terrifying with a lot of joking about death. Objective: Survive.
- Payday
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Have you ever watched someone play Call of Duty and wish it had a more gory background? Then this is everything you’re looking for, with lots of shrieking if you’re watching the right streamer.
- Call Of Duty
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Is there a difference between COD and Rainbow Six Siege? It might be the amount of yelling that streamers do while they’re playing. Call of Duty is a very action packed game with a lot of suspense. You don’t have to pay attention to a lot of the small details to understand what’s going on, though you might miss something important if you’re looking at your phone a lot.
- League of Legends
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The colors are very pretty, and the sound effects are very cool. Whether it’s League of Legends or the spin-off Teamfight Tactics, it’s mostly going to look like swirling colors unless you know what’s going on. You can however live out that SNL Esports sketch!
- Hearts of Iron (HOI)
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This game probably has the best soundtrack that’s ever been scored. Composer Andreas Waldtoft outdoes himself with each track. However, this game is very complex. Every few minutes people are talking about capitulating and the meyzamore, and you’ve really got to know your history to follow along. It can also be very stressful for the person playing, as it’s been desribed as “Risk on steroids”.
There’s a little bit of everything on Twitch. And you don’t even have to pay attention to the games being streamed to participate!