Draft:Squid Island (Minecraft)

Squid Island
Also known as	Squid Islands Squid Isles
Genre	Sitcom Drama comedy Black comedy Adventure fiction
Created by	Robust Jelle van Vucht Joshua Robert Temple Benjamin Dreyer Vestergård
Developed by	Robust Jelle van Vucht Joshua Robert Temple Benjamin Dreyer Vestergård
Showrunners	Robust Jelle van Vucht Joshua Robert Temple Benjamin Dreyer Vestergård
Screenplay by	Robust Jelle van Vucht Joshua Robert Temple Benjamin Dreyer Vestergård
Directed by	Robust Jelle van Vucht Joshua Robert Temple Benjamin Dreyer Vestergård
Creative directors	Robust Jelle van Vucht Joshua Robert Temple Benjamin Dreyer Vestergård
Presented by	Robust Jelle van Vucht Joshua Robert Temple Benjamin Dreyer Vestergård
Starring	Jelle van Vucht Joshua Robert Temple Benjamin Dreyer Vestergård
Country of origin	United Kingdom Monaco Denmark
Original language	English
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	259
Production
Producers	Robust Jelle van Vucht Joshua Robert Temple Benjamin Dreyer Vestergård
Cinematography	Robust Jelle van Vucht Joshua Robert Temple Benjamin Dreyer Vestergård
Camera setup	Multi-camera (episodes with more than one character, otherwise single-camera)
Running time	8 - 20 minutes
Original release
Network	YouTube
Release	November 8 2023 - August 8 2024

Squid Island is a multinational English-language sitcom adventure black comedy series created, written, produced and starring the YouTubers Jelly, Slogo and Crainer which aired on YouTube set on a multiplayer Minecraft server. The series was conceived following the readmission of Crainer (Benjamin Dreyer Vestergård) into Jelly (Jelle van Vucht) and Slogo (Joshua Robert Temple)’s group after Vestergård left in mid-2022 due to divorce, alcoholism, his father dying and him wanting to pursue a solo career on YouTube. The plot revolves around Vucht, Robert and Vestergård exploring, building, interacting and pranking - generally known as trolling by the group and audience - on the purportedly strictly survival titular Minecraft multiplayer server which alternates between the two seasons. Most episodes are when only one or two person(s) are online and present in an episode, though weekly an episode releases featuring all three online, typically achieving a goal varying in importance.

Squid Island premiered on YouTube on November 8 2023 and enjoyed generally positive reviews - with some episodes with mixed or negative reviews and others with critical acclaim - throughout its two seasons before abruptly concluding due to the server the series was set on being leaked and destroyed on August 8 2024, with the 259 episodes being aired totalling near 100 million views. Squid Island has garnered a moderately sized but dedicated following during its airing due to its appeal to younger and older audiences, and have added references to Squid Island on Google Maps, added pages to the series on several prominent websites, such as IMDb and TV Tropes, as well as a Fandom encyclopaedia for it, and have carved out a niche on YouTube talking about the series, its predecessors and successors - namely Doodle Town, a singleplayer series made by Vucht after leaving Robert and Vestergård’s group, and Cherry Island, the general successor to Squid Island - as well as the group in general. The series also formerly had a subreddit which ran from May 30 2024 to August 21 2024, which highlighted a negative subset of the audience that were one-sided and hated a member of or all of the group.

Development

Kwebbelkop, Aquib and Kodi - three gaming YouTubers - formed the YouTube gaming group Robust in early 2014, solely playing Grand Theft Auto V and additionally appearing in Kwebbelkop (Jordi Maxim van den Bussche)’s series Stunting for Dummies. Vucht started recording with the group early on, followed by Aquib leaving the group for unknown reasons - he is currently a Twitch streamer playing horror games - and little is known about Aquib. After several months of Bussche, Vucht and Kodi (Kodi Brown) playing Grand Theft Auto Online races together achieving moderate success, Temple - presumably after meeting Vucht at GamesCon in 2014 - began recording videos with the trio in late August, and after several videos recording as a quartet, Brown left in October, leaving the group a trio again. Bussche, Vucht and Temple began receiving rapid success as a trio, and began diversifying their content to include vlogs more frequently as well as play more games outside of Grand Theft Auto V, such as Who’s Your Daddy? and Garry’s Mod. Using their rising success, they leveraged their established channels to collaborate occasionally with other YouTubers, which varied to even PewDiePie. The trio also became members of PewDiePie’s network Revelmode as they further built off of their established name and diversified to other video games even more, such as Fortnite and less especially so, Golf With Your Friends. However, during this time the Adpocalypse occurred, demonetising YouTubers not deemed appropriate for child-friendly audiences. This would severely hurt the trio, as they frequently used profanity and black comedy jokes - in order to keep monetisation and to grow their audience, they pivoted to family-friendly content, with mild backlash from the older audiences. Over the next two years, the trio mainly played Fortnite and Grand Theft Auto V as well as other less commonly played games, such as Gang Beasts and other casual games. In mid-2019, Vucht began a lets-play series on Minecraft, which was recently growing popular again, which quickly became one of his most viewed series ever, with one live stream of it gaining over 36 million views. Initially being a singleplayer series, Temple was invited onto the server, but his phoney treasure hunt of Vucht’s tools was not expected nor intended. This kickstarted Robust Town, the first Minecraft series the trio ever made. Although remaining as Vucht and Temple as well as some lucky viewers, this changed following the troll ware, where Bussche, who was going through depression, decided to play as a main character and move the trio into the aptly named Robust Town.

In late November, the series ended unexpectedly, likely due to Bussche’s departure from the group and Vestergård being his successor, who joined right as he ended recording with SSundee (Ian Marcus Stapleton) due to being unhappy recording with him caused by imbalance. In need of replacement for the cancelled series, they started Pig Town, which was short but incredibly popular, which influenced the following Cow Town, New Cow Town (later Bee Town), Survival Island, Skyblock Survival, snd Hardcore Survival series. However, the popularity of these series waned overtime, often struggling to surpass 20 episodes by the conclusion of the series. At this time, Vestergård struggled with personal problems, such as the death of his father, divorce with his wife Thea and alcoholism, sometimes recording with Vucht and Temple under the influence. Despite their best attempts to support Vestergård, they couldn’t do it any longer, and Vestergård left in May 2022 to pursue a solo career with Roblox as his primary focus. Vucht was blocked for nine months straight on almost every social media presence, while Temple was blocked on very few outlets. In September, he posted a now-deleted community post, shining some light into why he left, but not giving the bigger picture. However, in April 2023, Vestergård joined Vucht and Temple’s podcast two/thirds (stylised two/thirds) as a guest for an episode. two/thirds was a podcast for finding a third member of Robust, and Vestergård would be a good fit due to his previous membership in Robust; he answered several looming questions asked by the viewership and the hosts Vucht and Temple, and outlined aspects of him wanting to rejoin indirectly, which later happened in October, where Vestergård launched the #wewantcrainerback campaign to get him back into Robust, which successfully happened on November 1st. During the grace period after the announcement of his return but before he officially returned to recordings, the trio began planning the first video with him in, and ultimately began Squid Island, as homage to their iconic past series.

Trolls

Replacement of Gift

On 10th November 2023, Crainer decided to give Jelly and Slogo a gift for letting him join back to the group. So, Crainer gave Jelly: 2 pieces of wheat, 1 piece of gunpowder, 2 pieces of rotten flesh, 2 stacks of oak planks, 56 cobblestone, and 12 iron ingots. Crainer gave Slogo: 2 arrows, 27 oak logs, 3 gold ingots, 12 iron ingots, 2 pieces of bread, and 18 lapis lazuli. The reason Crainer gave Slogo a better gift is because Crainer wanted to convince Slogo even more than Jelly that it is the right choice to join back to the group. On 11 November 2023, Jelly logged on to Squid Island, and noticed the gift Crainer gave him. Then, Jelly went to see if Slogo got a gift, and realised that Slogo got a way better gift then himself. So, Jelly stole the gift Crainer gave Slogo, and replaced it with rotten flesh.

Jelly's Sand House

On 17th November 2023, Crainer decided to prank Jelly by placing a huge amount of sand on top of his house. This was Crainer's payback, as Jelly stole Slogo's gift, that Crainer worked hard on collecting. So, Crainer gathered a bunch of sand, and placed it all on the roof of Jelly's house. On 19th November 2023, Jelly logged on to Squid Island, and noticed the sand on his house. Jelly removed the sand off his house.

Jelly's 'Explosive' Storage

On 18th November 2023, Slogo decided to prank Jelly by placing TNT underneath his chests. This was Slogo's payback, as Jelly stole his gift from Crainer. So, Slogo replaced Jelly's chests with trapped chest, and placed TNT underneath.

This’ll probably get rejected

References

https://www.reddit.com/r/SquidIsland/comments/1dagvsx/list_of_all_the_trolls_on_squid_island_so_far/

https://www.youtube.com/@Jelly

https://www.youtube.com/@slogo

https://www.youtube.com/@MisterCrainer