She has a "version 2" as well! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLFbZlYWaKc

Not just this, it's AH. Not... terrible, but super hype-y from what I've seen.

Knowing what I know about the costs of streaming video, I really want to know what the alternative is for a platform that can't just throw money down the drain. To my mind, there are only two options here - people watch ads (within reason, but 2 hour ads aren't resonable), or people pay YouTube (a la Premium).

If you want things for free, the only way to make that happen sustainably is ads right now. Donations simply will not work, especially for something with the costs that video incurs - to say nothing about being able to compensate creators for their time and effort.

Because that dip isn't due to the blackout. Reddit was pretty hard down for about an hour.

Yeah, I've tried those out before. It tends to make the game feel weird, if that makes sense? Like, everything is still expecting time to progress.

Really, I want a game like Stardew, but without the hard timeline baked in from the start.

Yep. I love planting things, harvesting them... I want Stardew Valley without the time management stuff.