YOGSCAST Lewis & Simon is the main channel for the Yogscast and is run by Lewis Alan Brindley (born: October 22, 1983)[1] and Simon Charles Lane (born: March 14, 1978), both founders of the YouTube gaming group. They, along with other members in the Yogscast network, produce gaming-related videos, podcasts, video games, and livestreams for their multi-channel network of affiliated creators.
The English duo began on YouTube with World of Warcraft videos, originally starting off as a WoW How-to channel, before shooting to fame with their acclaimed Minecraft series Shadow of Israphel.
Though much of their success arises from their Minecraft gameplay, they focus content as a variety gaming commentary channel, featuring gameplay of Garry's Mod and commentary of recent funny news events.
They are also known for their annual Christmas live streaming charity drive, currently named the "Yogscast Jingle Jam", which raised more than $20,000,000 for various charities as of 2021
History[]
Origins[]
Lewis Brindley founded The Yogscast in 2008, with the goal of sharing Simon with the world. Since then, the channel has grown to become one of the largest in the UK and Lewis remains the de facto leader of the team - balancing Simon’s boldness with reason and caution. Two years later, Hannah Rutherford (born May 25th, 1988 [age 32]) joined the duo as a Public Relations Assistant and later as the Operations Manager for The Yogscast. On December 2, 2010, the Yogscast Simon & Lewis channel uploaded the first part of their Minecraft survival series titled "Minecraft - How to Survive the First Night" which has attained almost 18,000,000 views over 8 years. This series grew in popularity and, consequently, The Yogscast grew in popularity. The Yogscast continued to create more Minecraft content with a majority of their new uploads being Minecraft related by early 2011.
On February 8th, 2011, Lewis and Simon were invited by Mark Turpin (born September 7, 1987 [age 32]), better known online as Turps, to star on his podcast, The Incredible Podcast of Amazing Awesomeness he co-hosted alongside Mike Schramm. "I thought [Turps] was like this amazing guy," Simon said¹. "He was like our guy; he was like our in." Turps continued to invite the pair to various events which helped increase The Yogscast's exposure.
Lewis, Simon, and Hannah attended Blizzcon 2011 with Turps. Here, Turps convinced The Yogscast to hire as the company's CEO and move to Bristol, England to set up The Yogscast as a formal company. Thus, in 2012, The Yogscast began working in their new headquarters, dubbed "YogTowers," located in New Bond House in Bristol, England. It acted as a space to record, produce, and edit videos and livestreams.
Hannah, Lewis, and Simon stand outside Blizzcon 2011, excited to see updates on Blizzard Games.
In June 2012, the Yogscast's main channel became the first channel in the United Kingdom to reach one billion views, with many arguing these years being the most successful for the Yogscast network as it was the year things really started kicking up, as well as the year they gained many new members to the network.
The front page of Yogscast Lewis & Simon's YouTube page as of July 7th, 2020.
While they originally and primarily produce video gaming-related content, they have expanded to produce content for tabletop games and role-playing games as well, and have also published their first video game in 2017.
The Yogscast also began to hold regular public appearances in exhibitions and events throughout the United Kingdom where they would perform live shows and organize signings at events like the Insomnia Gaming Festival and the London Comic Con.
In July 2017, the Yogscast left their old headquarters on Bond Street and shifted to larger offices elsewhere in Bristol at the King William House on Queen Street.
The Yogscast Family[]
While the two individuals - Lewis and Simon – are at the head of the Yogscast and the ones who make and upload the videos to the YOGSCAST Lewis and Simon channel (Originally BlueXephos), there are many other members that also upload videos to their Yogscast-branded YouTube channels.
(You can click on the channel name to visit their channel or their real names to visit their pages on the Yogscast Wiki.)
Current members of the Yogscast Network include (but are not limited to):
- Lewis 'Xephos' Brindley and Simon 'Honeydew' Lane
–YOGSCAST Lewis & Simon on YouTube. - Duncan 'LividCoffee/Lalna' Jones
–Duncan on YouTube. - Chris 'Sips' Lovasz
–Sips on YouTube. - MacKay Liam 'Nilesy' McKay
–NilesyRocks on YouTube. - Joakim 'Rythian' Hellstrand
–Yogscast Rythian on YouTube. - Martyn 'InTheLittlewood' Littlewood
–InTheLittlewood on YouTube. - Kim 'Nanosounds' Richards
–YogscastKim on YouTube. - Zoey Proasheck
–Zoey Proasheck on YouTube. - Rick 'Zylus' van Laanen
–Zylus on YouTube. - Ross 'djh3max' Hornby, Alex 'Alsmiffy' Smith and Chris 'Trottimus' Trott
–HatFilms on YouTube. - Ted 'Pyrion Flax' Forsyth
–TedHimself on YouTube. - Sophie "Bouphe" Rogerson
Six Yogscast channels have passed a million subscribers which belong to Simon & Lewis, Duncan, Sips, and Martyn, with Lewis and Simon's channel peaking at over 7 millions currently.
There are also a large collection of staff who work exclusively behind-the-scenes, maintaining the website, editing videos, producing art – such as thumbnails and avatars – and music. This team includes:
- Tom 'Angor' Clark – Producer – Angory Tom
- Sam 'S.A.M' Gibbs – Audio Engineer
- Adam Davis – Editor
- Tom Bates – Editor, Cameraman
- Adrian Ruiz – Editor, Cameraman
- Alex Turner – Editor
- Ciaran 'Ceeraanoo' Askew – Animator – Ceeraanoo
- (Veteran)Harry Marshall – Artist – VeteranHarry
- Ferazhin – Artist
- Serena Nina 'Uni' Serena – Artist
- Ben 'Bedgarsan' Edgar – Administrator
- Mark Hulmes – Community Manager
Many members have also departed from the Yogscast network since the time of its creation, such as BebopVox, HybridPanda, Ridgedog, Strippin, and many others including artists and animators, usually for unspecific reasons, though most still seem to be in good relations with the network and its respective members.
Shadow of Israphel[]
The Minecraft saga started from their Minecraft Let's Play titled, "Shadow of Israphel", based as a Survival Island series, where Simon and Lewis were left stranded on a remote island. The bulk of this series is composed of a semi-improvised comedy action drama, where Lewis and Simon play the parts of Xephos, a spaceman, and Honeydew, a dwarf. In the last episode of Survival Island, the duo were rescued by their allies and set off home, however their airship crashed and found themselves in the middle of an epic quest to save the world.
It originally began as Minecraft tutorials, which led into a partially scripted cinematic series. At first, the videos were simple Let's plays but the series soon became The Yogscast's more popular and demanded series.
They found a hollowed out area and established their home there. They named it; the Yogcave. They set up a mining outpost and found dungeons, ore and monsters. They went back to their routine of building their base but on episode 22, they came across a queer, old man called 'Old_Peculier', who required heroes to help him rescue the blacksmith 'Daisy Duke' from an evil force only known as 'Israphel', here is where Season One ceases and Season Two: Survival Island begins.
A fan made Shadow of Israphel poster
With no explanation (other than real-life issues with the game) the heroes found themselves stranded on a desert island and were forced to forage and mine to survive once more. On the last episode, they re-encountered Peculiar and a new character; Skylord Lysander and boarded Lysander's Airship. And so, the four fearsome fighters embarked on Season Three: Shadow of Israphel.
Lysander's Airship crashed into Xephos and Honeydew's Yogcave. Peculiar blamed Israphel for that and they quickly set off to stop Israphel's evil plots and rescue Daisy. A lot has happened since, though I will not spoil it, go and watch yourself.
Shadow of Israphel ended rather abruptly with little explanation from the Yogscast, although many believe it is due to their save files being corrupted. On the Yogscast website they claim it will continue, they have stated in interviews and QnA sessions that they likely won't do any more Shadow of Israphel content like it was before.
Tekkit[]
Simon and Lewis later started a Minecraft series using the popular mod-pack called Tekkit. The series began with Simon, Lewis and Duncan with the ambitious task of building a Jaffa Cake factory. The boys ran into trouble as they encountered rival company; Sipsco (consisting of Sips and Sjin) who strived to provide high-quality – and by no means affordable – dirt to the world. With the success of Tekkit, many of the other members got involved, with Rythian and Zoey vowing revenge on Sjin and Duncan for the prior destruction of their homes, Nilesy; a pioneer in the field of 'best and greatest pools and pool accessories, Martyn and his friend Toby whose adventures in the woods were short-lived, Strippin and Benji (The Rail Bros), self-proclaimed 'masters of the minecart', Hannah and her owl sanctuary and later Panda; who simply wished to create a bamboo distribution business.
The majority of The Yogscast were involved in the Tekkit server, each producing separate series on their respective channels, however; with an explosive finale to Season Two of Rythian's epic Tekkit Saga, the server encountered some large changes.
After exhausting content in the Tekkit modpack, Lewis and co. acquired a new, personalised modpack as part of the FeedTheBeast launcher called "YogCraft". Honeydew Inc.'s Tekkit series (now rebranded as "Jaffa Factory" finally build the ambitious build and moved onto a focused on bee-breeding, which proved not too popular. Rythian and Zoey's "Blackrock Saga" continued with the presence of 'new magic' and Sjin departed from Sips to found a farm in order to "Feed The World". Kim arrived on the scene and trained as apprentice to various members of the team, as she had had no prior knowledge of how to play Minecraft.
Minecraft Custom Maps and Mod Reviews[]
The Yogscast has uploaded many playthroughs of various Custom Adventure maps for Minecraft. Some include Survival Island, Planetoids, Deep Space Turtle Chase, Super Hostile Canopy Carnage, Professor Griswold, Rise of the Rebellion, Gloria, Paladin's Quest, The Lost Potato and the Herobrine Saga.
And they also have done many mod spotlights for Minecraft, covering mods such as 2D Minecraft, Ugocraft, Little blocks, the TV mod, More' explosives, Helicopters, Industrialcraft, Buildcraft, Equivalent Exchange, Tornadoes, Aether, Millenaire, Planes, Mo'creatures, and More. They even have made their own Modpack called the Yogbox and a FTB modpack called YogCraft.
Yoglabs[]
Another series of mod reviews was started on October 19, 2012, in which Simon and Lewis started a secret organization, the Yoglabs, where they experiment with various Minecraft mods in a high-tech underground bunker lab, while plotting to take over the world.
This series contains many small details that help bridge the gap left by the end of Jaffa Factory and Shadow of Israphel on the main channel, and contains many subplots, such as the potential takeover by the government. Most of the videos are small adventures set to focus on the mod, with much of the remainder of each episodes additions to the plot being done during the recording.
Other Games[]
Besides Minecraft, The Yogscast play though many other varieties of games, such as: World of Warcraft, Fallout, Magicka, Rift, Final Fantasy XIV. Portal 2, Dead Island, Saints Row the Third, Left 4 Dead 2, Guild Wars, Hearthstone, and Diablo as well as many lesser known Simulators and Indie/Dev Games such as Farming Simulator, Surgeon Simulator and Another Perspective.
References[]
