In this episode of Creative Engineering, Swag demonstrates how to set up a steam engine with perpetual lava and water sources. However, the build won’t be fully completed until next week, when Swag will explain how to craft blaze burners in peaceful mode for the boiler. Come watch—you might just pick up a new trick or two!In this episode of Creative Engineering, Swag demonstrates how to set up a steam engine with perpetual lava and water sources. However, the build won’t be fully completed until next week, when Swag will explain how to craft blaze burners in peaceful mode for the boiler. Come watch—you might just pick up a new trick or two!
Download The Land of Peace Modpack for Minecraft 1.20.1 Today!
Exciting news, everyone—The Land of Peace is now officially available to the public! After months of dedication, fine-tuning, and passionate creativity, I’m thrilled to share this experience with all of you.
But there’s one change I want to highlight: Instead of hosting this project on CurseForge, I’ve decided to offer The Land of Peace through Google Drive. This decision comes after reevaluating CurseForge’s policies, which no longer align with my approach to modpack distribution and community engagement. As a result, I’m also considering moving my other packs from CurseForge to my new Public Modpacks folder on Google Drive.
This transition is meant to offer a smoother, more flexible experience for everyone interested in my projects, ensuring accessibility without restrictions I no longer agree with. Just download the pack and import the zip file to the launcher of your choice and you’ll be able to start your adventure after that!
Download this pack now for Minecraft 1.20.1 (with NeoForge) and get started today on your own town-building adventure!
Thank you for your continued support, and I can’t wait for you all to explore The Land of Peace! Let me know your thoughts, and stay tuned for updates on my other packs.
Swag Plays Factorio S2 E34: Pushing Productivity to the Max!
In this episode of Swag Plays Factorio, Swag fine-tunes belt automation to maximize production efficiency. Whether it’s upgrades, rerouting belts, or adding new tunnels, everything is optimized to speed up science pack production! Come watch the mayhem unfold and see how it all turns out!
Important Update About My Video Music Choices
Aside
Suno has recently changed its policy, requiring a paid subscription to use its generated music commercially. Unfortunately, this new rule doesn’t apply retroactively—meaning any music I created before subscribing isn’t covered. Since I want to avoid any risk of demonetization, I’ll be switching to other music that I can use freely and without worry. It’s frustrating, but I’m committed to keeping my content accessible and safe!
Thanks for your support as I make this transition. If this policy shift frustrates you too, consider reaching out to Suno and sharing your thoughts!
Swag Plays Banished S2 E27 | Two New Homes and a School to Celebrate!
In this gripping episode of Swag Plays Banished, Otterview expands the settlement by building two new homes and laying the foundation for the town’s first school. But as winter’s chill sets in, some citizens stray too far from home. Will they make it back in time to escape the deadly cold? Tune in next time to find out!
Episode 39: Easter
Easter is the heart of Christianity—the victory over sin, the fulfillment of prophecy, and the foundation of our faith. In this episode, we explore why Easter is central to our belief, reflect on the significance of Christ’s resurrection, and consider how we can better listen and respond to His call in our daily lives. Join me as we celebrate the joy and redemption of Easter Sunday!
An Open Letter to Everyone
Dear reader,
To those who have supported me, and to those who may soon do the same, welcome to my blog and future community website. In the previous two posts here, I showed off the possibilities of what I can do with support from all of you. In this letter, I’d like to explain the challenges I face without support and how you can prevent that from happening.
In the first of those two posts, I showed how I would transform this simple blog into a full community website which would be a one-stop for all your family-friendly content needs. In the other post, I explained how with your support, I would add jobs to my community by hiring the right people to ensure that I could sustain that growth in the long-run. The vision in both posts depends entirely on the backing of a committed community.
Let me now explain the challenges I am facing without support. The biggest challenge I face is my rent. This alone costs me nine hundred dollars every month, and without a steady income, it’s not easy keeping a roof over my head. Without a steady place to call home, I won’t be able to produce any more of my family-friendly content that you enjoy. I also have other bills that need paying each month, and in total without groceries, I need around twelve hundred fifty dollars each month. This is why community backing is so important—it can help keep my work alive and ensure I can continue creating the content you love.
I know that not everyone can support me financially, and that’s completely okay. But there are other ways you can make a meaningful impact. Even small gestures—like sharing my work with others or engaging with my content—help more than you might realize. The YouTube algorithm isn’t easy, but with your likes, subscribes, shares, and comments, you can help ensure my content reaches the people who want to view it! Sharing these posts on my blog also will help get the word out to those who are interested in reading about topics I write on from my perspective. Sharing my podcast will help my fellow Catholics and other Christians learn about it and consider listening to an episode, and maybe even subscribing to me on Spotify. None of these actions cost a dime—just a moment of your time, and they can make a huge difference.
For those who are able and willing to support financially, here’s how you can help. For one-time support, you can send a tip through PayPal or LiberaPay using these links. You can also choose to buy my merch at my Fourthwall store, or purchase a service you are interested in from my Ko-fi page. For recurring support, both Fourthwall and Ko-fi have memberships that you can choose, with Ko-fi having two tiers to choose from. Every contribution, big or small, makes a difference, and I’m grateful for your support in whatever way feels right for you.
At the end of the day, every bit of support—whether it’s sharing my work, engaging with my content, or contributing financially—helps bring my vision to life. Your encouragement, kindness, and belief in what I’m building mean the world to me. No matter how you choose to help, know that I deeply appreciate it. With your support, we can create something truly special together.
Your family-friendly content creator,
Swagnilla Ice (Nathan Pinno)
Swag Plays Factorio S2 E33: Mastering Factory Tweaks for Yellow Science!
In this episode of Swag Plays Factorio, Swag works to refine his factory’s efficiency while grinding out production circuits for yellow science. By optimizing miners and output belts, and making key tweaks to factory belts, he ramps up the production of vital basic circuits. Tune in to see the highs, the lows, and the missteps in this action-packed episode!
Building the Future: A Strategic Plan for My Community-Focused Business
After thinking about the future of my business, I realized that I had made a major mistake in how I was going to hire people when I wrote that post about it earlier this year. In this post, I will explain the correct first few hires that I will make and why each one is vital in the order I will be hiring them as my income from online content allows me to do.
I will be the first person that will be hired by my company, and I will be setting it up as a Limited Liability Corporation or LLC for short. I do not know what name I will use, but I will have to check and see if it is available, and I will be using a lawyer to ensure that this goes smoothly, even though I have incorporated a company in Alberta before. I will be the company’s Chief Executive Officer as well as the Chief Content Officer, thus ensuring that all content produced by the company meets my standards.
I would like to point out that my vision for the company is to create family-friendly content and spaces to give parents a place to be able to send them online and not have to worry about exposure to content that is not appropriate for them. This blog will be transformed into a community website where that vision can be fulfilled. This will include moderated forums, safe games in the arcades, fun videos for them to watch and comment on, my weekly podcast, and of course, weekly blog posts about interesting topics from yours truly.
The second person the company will hire is a Chief Financial Officer when it can afford to do so. By hiring such a person early, the company’s financial future will be secured, preventing spending money that it doesn’t have. This person will also help to determine when it is safe to expand the team and hire the others I will be mentioning in this post. Ideally, they will have experience doing this, but willing to help a young company grow into a profitable one.
The next person I’ll be hiring will be working closely with the CFO and that is the person who will be in charge of human resources. Their job will be to hire everyone after them, following a priority list that I will be giving them, when the CFO says that they can hire someone. They will also be handing everything to do with employees – from pay to benefits and everything in between.
A Chief Graphics Officer will be the fourth person I’ll be hiring instead of the second one. This person’s job will be ensuring all graphics meet my vision’s standard as well as coming up with new graphics as needed for products and Minecraft mods and modpacks that future hires will need for their projects. They will also work with me to ensure my videos have the best thumbnails for whatever video platform the community website is using.
The next role to be filled will be the company’s Chief Programmer. They will work closely with me to not only improve the website but also modpacks that I am developing. This person will also co-head the future Creative department with the Chief Graphics Officer, ensuring that all coding meets the company’s expectations – from HTML and CSS to Java and PHP.
Reporting to the Chief Programmer and the Chief Graphics Officer will be the next hire, the Lead Developer. This person will be in charge of a development team for new mods for games and plugins for WordPress, as well as maintenance to existing ones. The ideal candidate will have a good sense of time management and team leadership, two critical things that I feel cannot be learned but are a part of a person from a young age.
After the above roles are hired, I’ll pivot and get the HR lead to focus on the community by hiring a Community Leader, a Public Relations team, and a moderation team for the forums. Existing staff members will also be required to act as mods, especially for topics that they have excellent knowledge in. I’ll also ask to hire an expert in Catholic religious teachings to help me with my podcast writing and maybe even hosting it alongside me. This will ensure that my community will get the best possible staff that will be focused on keeping all members happy and content.
After all these people are hired, I will ask the HR lead to look for experts in various fields that the forums are covering and that I’m interested in writing blog posts on. These will not be full-time employees but contractors who will help ensure that posts in their fields are high-quality yet family-friendly. They will be offered the chance to write guest posts on the site about their topic of expertise and will be asked to do a AMA in the forum corresponding with their field.
Hiring the right people at the right time is essential to ensuring my company grows into a stable and thriving organization. With a foundation rooted in family-friendly content, structured engagement, and community-building, every role I’ve outlined plays a crucial part in making this vision a reality.
By starting with financial stability and strategic hiring, I’ll be able to build a team that shares my passion for creating safe, engaging spaces online. As the company scales, these hires will help develop innovative content, powerful tools, and a vibrant community that members can trust and enjoy.
This journey is about more than just running a business—it’s about shaping an ecosystem that fosters creativity, learning, and meaningful connections. With careful planning and the right people by my side, I’m ready to turn this dream into a lasting success.
Swag Plays Banished S2 E26 | Building Futures: Three New Homes, New Families
In this episode of Swag Plays Banished, the citizens of Otterview work hard to expand their village, building three new houses to shelter their growing community. Yet, the cycle of life continues as one elder passes away from old age. But hope is renewed as the population begins to flourish once more. Witness the challenges and triumphs of survival—don’t miss this compelling chapter in Otterview’s story!