Trivia / StephenPlays

• Author's Saving Throw: During Stephen & Mal's playthrough of Pikmin 2, many people were a bit critical of how the system of switching players (one person plays for an entire episode and then switches to the other for the next one) seemed very unfair to Mal, as Stephen would often jump into caves, end the episode, and force Mal to go through said cave and fight the boss. Later Let's Plays starting with Super Mario 64 would fix this by having Stephen and Mal switch off after a death or completing a mission, thus allowing both of them to tackle something fairly. This is also doubly fixed in Pikmin 3 Deluxe since there's a co-op mode.
• Creator Backlash:
  • While he still likes the game overall, Stephen has frequently mentioned of how tired he is of Skyrim due to the game's length, on top of the fanbase asking him to do another playthrough of the game in spite of how pointless it would be to do so after doing 100% Completion. At the beginning of the First20 for the Special Edition of the game, Stephen made it clear that the video was not the start of a new LP. He does return to it during Mal's recovery from surgery once a new edition came out with new missions
    Stephen: Before we get started on this First20, let me take a moment to address the number 1 question that will appear in the comments if I don't: Am I doing another Let's Play of Skyrim? The answer to that...is no. No I am not.
  • invoked Ever since its completion, Stephen and Mal have made it adamant that they really don't look back fondly on their Pikmin 2 Let's Play, and refuse to give the game a good recommendation. While it started off alright at first, the insane Sequel Difficulty Spike on top of the overwhelming, contradictory, and downright hostile YouTube comments that attempted to guide Stephen and Mal through the game only made their playthrough incredibly stressful and emotionally draining for both of them. Their experience with the game was so awful that Stephen admits that both he and Mal have a form of PTSD that affected their LP of the third game in the Pikmin series.
• He Also Did:
  • Due to a shared background in art, Stephen and Mal also made several logos for Chuggaaconroy's and The Runaway Guys, though they retired from this in 2022.
  • Though Dan has served as Stephen and Mal's editor since 2016, he recently became Chuggaaconroy's additional editor and graphic designer as well, starting with the latter's LP of The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. He also eventually became a full-time editor for Tom Fawkes and The Runaway Guys.
• In Memoriam: The finale of Fallout 4 is dedicated in memory of Sagan, Stephen's cat that had passed away earlier in 2020.