It's been a completely unremarkable Halloween for me, aside from the one wacky zany funster at work who dressed as a ghoul and hid in the lift first thing in the morning. He was lucky to not get clobbered.

I'm fending off a cold right now. Andie has it in earnest and I felt it coming on somewhat last night, but I've been mostly okay today… until I got back to the apparent plague-pit my home is at present. I really don't want to get ill again… not only is it uncomfortable and annoying, but it's also a massive pain in the arse when it comes to work, too, because, being Corporate, you have to do the whole "Return to Work" interview thing every frigging time you're off. Yes, that includes when you have one day off for a cold or whatever.

This seems counter-productive. I know the intention is to "manage absence" and whatnot, but I can't help but feel I'd rather people who were coughing their guts up just stayed at home rather than feeling obliged to come in and spread their germs around the office. What we do isn't the slightest bit "important" in the grand scheme of things, so one person taking the time to get themselves better isn't going to mess anything up. But blah blah needs of the business, whatever.

I'm really not cut out for corporate life, but it pays the bills.

Been re-reading some more of my old fiction today and I'm going to try and put some more books together. It's also having the effect I hoped it would, which is that it's stirring the desire to do some creative writing in my head somewhat. Conveniently, it's November tomorrow, which is the traditional month for people to try and write a novel for NaNoWriMo, so I might give it another shot this year.

I normally don't formally participate in NaNoWriMo when I do this; I just use November as a suitable timeframe in which to try and write something, and challenge myself to write at least a thousand words a day. It usually ends up being more, because I have a bit of a habit of getting into a "flow" when I'm doing creative writing. Plus a thousand words is, like, nothing to me these days!

Well, if nothing else it'll be a way to fill those quiet, boring periods at work. Now for the hard bit… thinking of a concept!

I finally beat all of Gun Gun Pixies' endings this evening. This is not at all necessary in order to enjoy the game, as it literally means playing through the whole game six times (albeit ensuring you meet the conditions for a different ending each time, which is pretty simple to do) but I'm glad I did it: the "Confidential" ending that unlocks after you've seen all the individual endings is a delightfully charming way to close off the whole thing. So that is now done and dusted!

(It took about 45 hours in total, if you were curious; my first playthrough was the majority of that, as I was extremely thorough tracking down coins and information pickups; all other playthroughs were done with dialogue skip on and just focusing on mission objectives.)

On a completely unrelated note, I've been going back over some of my old stuff that I used to post on my personal blog which this Patreon blog has replaced. Specifically, I was having a look over some creative writing I did for a few sort-of-but-not-really NaNoWriMo attempts; I posted a bit more of a story each day for about a month. Ultimately the whole thing came out to roughly "light novel" length.

I read through the entirety of one of these stories earlier and actually rather enjoyed it, so I'm putting it together into a book. I've been arranging it all and making it look nice today and I've ordered a proofing copy to evaluate, so hopefully that will be here soon. If all looks good with that, I'll put it up for sale for those who might be interested in reading some of my fiction, and I'll work on getting other similar projects self-published in this manner too.

I'm putting the book together using Blurb, the same company who do The MoeGamer Compendium, but since this is a smaller, novel-format paperback it will be a lot cheaper.

I'll keep you posted on how it looks and when I'll have it up for sale. I'm quite excited about this! Again, I'm doing it mostly for my own amusement and satisfaction — and to have a hardcopy of a project I was ultimately quite pleased with — but if anyone wants their own copy they will be available for you to (hopefully) enjoy!

Good morning! Apologies for the lack of post yesterday, I was exhausted and by the time I got into bed and realised I'd forgotten to write anything, I was in no position to get back up again. Then I slept right through my alarm this morning. Fun.

I did manage to get some time to spend with Bullet Girls Phantasia last night, though, and I'm enjoying it a lot. I get the impression it might have quite a bit more depth to it than I initially anticipated, too, which is awesome. That does mean it may take me a little longer than I thought to cover, but that's all good — I want to make sure I do a proper job, as always.

So far, Bullet Girls Phantasia appears to be a third-person arena-based shooter with considerable amounts of loot, a variety of very satisfying (and very different-feeling) weaponry and the enjoyable juxtaposition of modern-day schoolgirls with heavy weaponry fighting off orcs. I've only beaten the first chapter so far so I'll be interested to see how things develop, but I've enjoyed what I've played so far — and it's been a nice challenge, too.

I'm particularly impressed with the depth of the progression and equipment systems. Characters have an experience level, with experience being awarded after each mission, but they also have "material slots" where they can equip various gems to provide passive bonuses in various areas; a skill tree for permanent upgrades (albeit with the ability to reset your assigned points at any time between missions if you want to respec) and a huge amount of equippable lingerie with various passive benefits. Then you can also purchase and upgrade weapons, and equip each girl with three of them.

The weapons are a highlight, as they range from slow-firing powerful projectiles such as rocket launchers to various bullet-based implements of death. The fantasy aspect also frees up the game to have fantastic weaponry, too, such as the "Magicite" one character wields, which effectively act as magical grenades where you need to use splash rather than direct damage to defeat enemies.

Loving it so far, then, and from the perspective of my in-depth look at Shade it's an interesting inversion of Gun Gun Pixies' formula. While that game emphasised the narrative and focused less on its mechanical aspects, Bullet Girls Phantasia feels like it's the other way around. It's not that the narrative isn't there, I hasten to add, but there seems to be a much stronger emphasis on replaying missions for loot, experience and other rewards rather than simply romping through a linear story.

More to come!

I've been watching a bunch of Game Grumps episodes recently where Danny goes solo and plays old Sierra adventure games. They've been great to fall asleep to because Danny is a chill dude at the best of times, and when he doesn't have the bundle of chaotic energy that is Arin next to him, he's especially comfy to listen to. (I don't have a problem with Arin, I hasten to add; I just find the contrast kind of fascinating!)

Danny's playthroughs of various …Quest games remind me of the fond regard in which I hold the point-and-click adventure game genre — and indeed its immediate predecessor, Sierra's "3D Animated Adventure Game" subgenre, which combined a text adventure's parser with the animated graphics of what would become point-and-click adventures.

I also find these games quite fascinating from a modern perspective, since they highlight how differently we handle games as players these days. I remember having games like King's Quest and The Black Cauldron for literally years and never finishing them, yet if you know exactly what you're doing in each of them they're maybe 1-2 hours, tops. These days, I suspect that pretty much everyone who plays a game like this will almost immediately refer to a walkthrough if they find themselves getting stuck, which means these games won't last very long at all for modern audiences.

Is that a bad thing, though? I don't know. It's certainly a different way of enjoying games to how we used to, and I have to say I kind of miss the feeling of really having no clue whatsoever as to what to do next, and having no other option but to make a save game with the name "stuck" and come back to it later. Or perhaps talk to a friend about it and discover that yes, literally the only thing you were missing was closing one specific door so you could find the bunch of keys stuck in the lock on the back of it. Damn you, Day of the Tentacle.

It might be interesting to revisit some of these games sometime and deliberately resist using a walkthrough at all. It might make for an interesting video series. Some of these games I'll be able to get through partially from memory; others that I've never played before (notable examples being the Leisure Suit Larry and Police Quest games, along with the later Space Quests) I'll have the challenge of attempting to drag myself through them for the first time.

Hmm. The more I think about this, the more I like the idea of it. I might have to try and find some time to experiment with this idea!

Hello! Sorry this is a day late, but here it is anyway! Featuring some recent arrivals and a bit of discussion of some of my favourite horror titles from over the years.

Hello folks! Just a quickie to say that due to various circumstances (being tired, getting up late, recording a podcast today) both Atari A to Z Flashback and the weekly PATRONS ONLY! episode will be delayed until tomorrow. I figure I'd rather be able to put the proper amount of time and attention into them than rush them out today because of my own arbitrarily set schedule. Hope you don't mind!

The other reason is that I've had the rare opportunity to have some "real life" friends over for the first time in ages. You may recall me complaining about never being able to get anyone to do anything any more, so I thought I would jump at this opportunity while someone who doesn't normally suggest this sort of thing suggested it! We'll be playing some board games in all likelihood, perhaps punctuated with some video games if I can convince the attendees in question. It shouldn't be too hard.

Anyway, just wanted to update you in case any of you were wondering where the usual "Saturday" things were. Watch out for them tomorrow, and for a brand new episode of The MoeGamer Podcast on Monday.

Hope you're having a lovely weekend. We're not; our washing machine just broke. FFFFUUUUU

I'm absolutely knackered for some reason. It hasn't been a hugely stressful week or anything, but I'm just feeling completely drained, so I'm going to get a relatively early night, I think.

I'm super-pleased with the positive response to today's Gun Gun Pixies piece so far. I wasn't sure quite how to start, but once I did get into a flow, the things I wanted to say just kept coming. That's always a nice feeling — and I've already had one person reach out privately and say I'd sold them on it. That's super-cool.

Tomorrow Chris and I are recording a new episode of The MoeGamer Podcast. It should be a really fun one! I think this is probably going to be one where I'm the one who learns a lot, so I'm excited for our discussion… though I need to make a bit of time for some research and refresher courses before we record I think!

I realised earlier today that I apparently miscalculated with my scheduling and don't appear to have an Atari A to Z Flashback video ready for tomorrow. Depending on what time I manage to haul myself out of my tomb tomorrow morning, I may have time to get one done before we record, but if there isn't one… that's why! No particular excuse, I just planned badly. Oops. Please understand.

Anyway, on that note, I can feel my eyes getting heavy — it's only 10pm, what is this — so I'm going to try and get some sleep so I can wake up vaguely refreshed tomorrow. Hope you have a good Friday night and that your weekend is suitably relaxing and/or pleasant.

Isn't it odd how, despite the fact that the Internet is bigger than it's ever been, and continues to grow each and every day… it somehow feels a lot smaller than it did back when it was shiny and new?

This is how I feel, anyway, even if you don't agree. But I often find myself very conscious of the fact that I, like many other people, tend to just default to "the rotation" of a few sites over and over rather than exploring the many weird, wonderful and dark places the Internet has to offer.

I remember back in the late '90s when we were all just starting to get up and running with dial-up Internet via service providers like AOL and CompuServe, and computer and gaming magazines would have specific features each month on what websites were worth visiting. I remember PC Zone highlighting a variety of interesting early modding sites and community forums… and Escape providing a comprehensive listing of where to find free pornography. (Out of curiosity, I checked to see if Persian Kitty still exists the other day… and it does! It even looks pretty much the same as it did back in 1997, albeit with a few more ads and some sort of cam site attached to it now.)

At that time, the Internet was exciting; you'd hear from someone that it was possible to, say, read a full classic book for free, so you'd go and check that out. You'd be lured in with ambitious promises of "virtual tours" of various locations, only to discover it was little more than a gallery of grainy JPEGs. And occasionally, you'd catch a glimpse of the earliest days of people using the Internet to express themselves freely through creative writing; something we all take for granted today.

It's a bit sad to me that a lot of that wonder is gone, and trawling around the grand loop of those same few sites you check every day without really caring what's on any of them has become the default for a lot of people.

That said, the one time I do feel like I break out of this cycle somewhat is when I have the WordPress Reader open in front of me, and I have the opportunity to check out all the amazing things my talented friends and acquaintances have been doing lately. And finding a cool new blog to follow gives me just a hint of that old wonder that used to be a regular occurrence.

Perhaps we should all make a bit more of an effort to explore the Internet as a whole a bit more. There are many strange and wonderful things out there, after all!

After my initial playthrough of Gun Gun Pixies took approximately 25 hours, I wasn't sure that I was going to go through it again to get the other five endings. You have to play through the whole story mode again and fulfil a specific requirement to unlock each ending, after all, so I wasn't sure I had 1) the time or 2) the inclination to do that, particularly as there aren't any major changes to the story aside from a few optional scenes.

Well, uh, as of this evening I've got three out of the six endings done, including the "trickiest" one with the most exacting requirements, and I'm already about a third of the way through a fourth playthrough. In other words, I think this is probably happening. I'm invested. I like these characters. I want to see each of their short scenes at the end of the game. You don't "get" anything for this aside from a CG unlocked in the gallery — being a Switch game, there are no trophies or achievements, of course — but I'm enjoying the simple purity of just trying to see everything the game has to offer.

I'm also tantalised by the fact that there's a mystery "???" event at the bottom of the event library list, underneath where all the endings are. This suggests to me that there is some sort of "final" or "true" ending for seeing everything else, so I'm curious to see exactly what form that takes.

Thankfully, as you can probably surmise from the fact I'm already a third of the way through a fourth playthrough, each playthrough does not take 25 hours. On my first runthrough I was extremely thorough. On subsequent plays, you do not have to do this. In fact, you do not have to do this on your initial runthrough if you don't want to but… you know what, I'll talk more about this in the actual feature on the game, but it's interesting to me; let's leave it at that for now.

One of the things I respect about Compile Heart (and Shade, in this instance) is that they're not afraid to experiment and do things unconventionally. Gun Gun Pixies certainly falls into that category, making for a game that some people will almost certainly bounce off hard, but which I'm having a lot of fun with.

More to come!

Forgive me for thinking out loud a bit in this post, but I'd also welcome any thoughts you might have on this!

I want to cover Falcom's The Legend of Heroes: Trails of [[x]] series on MoeGamer. However, at the time of writing, this covers six games, each of which are 100+ hours each. Were I do to a "Trails" Cover Game feature, it would likely take several months if not the whole year to complete.

I'm not necessarily opposed to this, but I also like having a bit of variety from feature to feature, so what I'm considering is tackling the series one game at a time over the long term, perhaps alternating with other games.

So what the schedule might look like is something like Trails in the Sky -> something else -> Trails in the Sky: SC -> something else -> Trails in the Sky the 3rd -> something else -> Trails of Cold Steel -> something else -> Trails of Cold Steel II -> something else -> Trails of Cold Steel III.

I don't want to leave too long between installments because I understand one of the core appeal elements of the series is its interconnected nature. At the same time I don't want either me or my readers to get "burnt out" on Trails. It's an important series to a lot of people, so I want to do it justice — plus I feel like taking each game one at a time will be an opportunity to take it on its own merits rather than everything blurring into one continuous lump. I don't know how different the various games within each series are from one another — I know Trails in the Sky and Trails of Cold Steel are significantly different due to being a hardware generation apart on their original release — but I feel like this will probably be the best approach.

If you have any thoughts on the best way to do this — or on what you'd like to see from some in-depth Trails coverage — I'll happily hear them! I'm not promising doing this any time soon, but I do want to acknowledge the fact that multiple people have asked me if/when I will take on this series, and the fact that I absolutely want to!