Most content creator groups pick up off-the-shelf tools and call it a day, but not us. Every tool with use is either built by us or we've taken a deep dive to configure for our very specific needs. From the website you're on right now to the Discord bot that announces when we go live, the game servers we run for our community, and the bespoke streaming pipeline behind our weekly Informal Friday streams. If there's any way for us to utilize our existing skillsets and equipment to achieve our goals, we'll make it happen. This page is a peek behind the curtain at how we bring it all to life.
Currently, all of our tools are proprietarily built or configured for our own use, but we are extremely interested in making tools for content creators in general and would love to eventually open source some of our projects or even build new ones for public use.
Join the conversation in Discord
This website is built entirely from scratch as a server-side rendered React app. The frontend uses Vite and Express, with React Router for navigation. The backend is a custom ASP.NET Core (C#) REST API handling authentication, live stream tracking, profiles, and event management for all of our members, all stored using a PostgreSQL database. It's built using Docker and deployed using a mix of AWS and Azure.
Rather than using one of the many pre-built website services or any social media management tools online, we wanted to have full control over the design and features of our site. This also allows us to avoid costly subscriptions to those services so we can focus on creating fun content without worrying about the money.
When any member of Informal Lounge goes live on Twitch or publishes a new YouTube video, our custom Discord bot automatically sends a notification into the #📢auto-announcements channel without using any third-party services. The service polls Twitch and YouTube every 60 seconds and includes smart debouncing to skip false positives (like a stream that drops immediately).
Events created through our website calendar can also be automatically pushed to Discord Events, keeping everything in sync without any extra manual steps.
You also may have seen the LegacySMP Bot in our Discord before, however that bot is actually running using existing Minecraft server plugins. More information can be found on that here.
Anyone who's ever paid to host their own Minecraft server with any major hosting service knows they can get expensive quick. To avoid those costs, we host our Minecraft servers, LegacySMP and InformalSMP, and our Hytale server between Oracle Cloud and our own local servers hosted from our core group's homes. Because of this, we've been able to keep our servers running 24/7 for years without any significant downtime and without even thinking twice about hosting costs. Rest assured, we won't be shutting anything down due to costs.
More server-specific information can you found on the respective pages for each server, linked above.
Group streams like Informal Fridays are powered by VDO.Ninja - a peer-to-peer video routing tool. Using the Electron Capture app, each member's camera, gameplay, and audio (with the additional help of Voicemeeter) are routed into a single broadcast with minimal latency to produce a stream where we can all feel like we're sitting on the couch right next to each other.
If you've been to any of the Informal Friday streams, there's obviously some work to do, but given the complexity of working with different gaming/streaming setups some roadbumps (looking at you, audio issues) are to be expected. However, given that VDO.Ninja and all of its related tools are free and actively maintained we are sure to give as much feedback to the VDO.Ninja developer as possible.
Got ideas for new tools we could build to support our community, or want to help maintain and improve the ones we already have?
Apply to join us