Anxiety has been kind of through the roof recently; not really sure why, but it was enough to get me to want to get back in touch with the local counselling service a week or two back. In late January, I'm starting some sort of "course" that will hopefully be helpful; I'm skeptical and nervous about it, because it's a group session, but I guess we'll have to see. Sometimes you need to try new things.

In the meantime, something — which I can only assume to be said anxiety — has been causing very strange, vivid (in the moment), quite upsetting and often rather "angry"-feeling dreams. Like most dreams, they tend to fade once I'm up and about, but they leave something of a lingering impression and aren't the best way to start the day.

Last night's was particularly weird. The details are already hazy and fuzzy and what I do remember didn't make any sense. I remember being in a situation where I was getting along very well with someone — like, potential intimate relationship well — but, before things escalated into anything intense, I told them that I needed to admit something to them. That "something" was that I was already in a relationship, but I wasn't able to get that far; they quickly became irrational and unreasonable. And I forget how, but the situation rapidly escalated into me fleeing for my life while a significant number of people I knew from my past were chasing me with fury in their eyes; I didn't want to find out what would happen if they caught me.

Several peculiar things stick in my mind about this: firstly, the fact that I'm quite conscious that, despite people I know being involved in the situation, I wasn't myself in the dream; I was inhabiting someone else's body… consciousness… whatever. I can't tell who, but I know it wasn't myself; I didn't recognise myself, and I was conscious of the fact I wasn't "in the right place", as it were. I can't even tell if it was male or female, but I do know that the person who was the trigger for the whole situation was male, so I can only assume I was either a woman or a gay/bi man.

The other bizarre thing was how it was all resolved, because thankfully it was resolved before I woke up rather than leaving things hanging with fury and fear in the air.

I resolved the situation through time travel. Specifically, I travelled back in time to earlier in the day and prevented a mug from being broken, and for some inexplicable reason that ensured the whole situation didn't arise in the first place. What was perhaps even more odd was the fact that when I travelled back in time, I felt like I was back in my own body and consciousness again, almost as if the events weren't related at all. But something inside told me that they were.

Brains are weird, huh?

Been enjoying Saboteur! and its sequel on Switch recently — we talk more about this on The MoeGamer Podcast tomorrow, but I thought I'd treat you all to a bit of exclusive gameplay for this week's Patrons Only! video.

Hope you had a smashing Christmas and, as always, thank you so much for your ongoing support.

Video done! Looking forward to posting this one, I'm really pleased with how it came out. Next I need to record a bunch of Gun Gun Pixies and Bullet Girls Phantasia footage to go with the "readings" of the other articles, but hopefully that shouldn't take too long. I think I will leave that until another time though; it's now half-past midnight and I'm pretty tired. I probably shouldn't mess up my sleep schedule a couple of days before going back to work, huh?

Anyway. Putting this video together has me very excited for the coming year in creative things. I say this a lot, but I absolutely love writing and making videos; it's always been a big part of my life but I'd say in the last couple of years specifically, those things have become my main hobby and the things that I'm more passionate and enthusiastic about than anything else out there.

As we approach the New Year, I'd just like to say another heartfelt "thank you" to those who believe in what I do enough to want to support it here on Patreon. It really is massively appreciated, and believe me, your money is very well spent on a variety of things to write and make videos about, or equipment with which I can do those things.

New vlog coming tomorrow if I'm not too exhausted. Now I'm off to sleep, and hope that I don't have quite as weird dreams as I had last night!

I missed yesterday, didn't I? I got kind of distracted recording videos and found myself up until about 2.30am. Consequently I didn't get up until well after midday today, and then I was recording an episode of The MoeGamer Podcast with Chris earlier. That's getting edited tomorrow and should be with you on Monday to round out the decade nicely.

I'm currently working on some of those promised "scripted" videos. Right now I'm putting together some video versions of the recent Cover Game feature I did on the Shade games, Gun Gun Pixies and Bullet Girls Phantasia. As I type this, I'm putting together a video on the history of Shade (and, by extension, Quintet) which, naturally, necessitated capturing a bunch of ActRaiser, Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, Terranigma and The Granstream Saga footage. I now want to spend all night playing all of them at once. But needs must and all that! I'll definitely be returning to them, though; they're a fascinating bunch of games.

Not looking forward to going back to the day job on Monday. I might have to take a bit of holiday in January to properly unwind; I've not had a particularly huge Christmas break so it might be nice to have a few days I can enjoy without any other sort of commitments. We'll see. Certainly writing stuff and making videos is very much keeping me sane right now; they're both things I enjoy doing massively, so they will both continue to be a major part of my life in 2020!

Anyway. I'm gonna crack on with this video and if I remember before I go to bed I'll grace you with another post to "catch up" later this evening! Hope you're having a pleasant break… assuming you've had one. And if you happen to work retail over this hellish period… I can only doff my hat and say "I'm very, very sorry".

So here it is, that day after Christmas where everyone sits around full of food, refusing to do anything particularly useful (and why should they?) and — hopefully at least — enjoying their Christmas presents in good company with leftovers from the previous day.

That's pretty much what we've been doing today. Andie's been playing the Switch game I got her for Christmas, which is the new Layton puzzle adventure — it looks like a lot of fun, and Katrielle Layton is super-cute, so that's a pleasant bonus. Meanwhile, I've been playing a bit of LAMUNATION! along with more Saboteur! and its sequel; all told, a pretty pleasant day.

Andie's doing the parental duty and going to visit her mother tomorrow, so I have a day and a bit to myself to record some videos and write some articles. I have nothing against Andie's mother and she has nothing against me, but we needed someone to stay home and look after the cats, so that is my official role. I'd only have ended up sitting in the corner playing Switch games if I'd gone along anyway, because, as we all know by now, I am Bad at Small Talk for Legitimate Psychological/Medical Reasons.

It's been a pretty low-key Christmas, but that's always the nicest kind, to be honest; no stress, no obligations, no panicking over 300-part meals not being timed to the absolutely perfect second. Just a few nice days to relax and enjoy oneself without having to think about all the boring, annoying and/or upsetting things in the world.

Once again, I hope you've had an equally pleasant holiday period!

Okay, technically speaking it's not Christmas Day any more because it's 1AM, but I've been sitting up playing Saboteur! and its sequel for the last few hours, so I'm sure you'll forgive me.

It's been a good day. I didn't have a ton of presents because I'm 38 and thus tend to get money from people, but I had a few cool things — most notably on the gaming front I had Bubble Bobble 4 Friends from Andie and Fire Emblem: Three Houses from my brother and his family. I've been playing the former a fair bit today and, outside of one absolutely rage-inducing boss, it's been a lot of fun. Fire Emblem I'm saving until I have time to give it the attention it deserves; I'll probably do a feature on it at some point in the near future.

It's been nice and peaceful. Andie and I decided to have Christmas on our own this year, so we just had a nice (keto friendly) roast for our lunch and… well, I didn't need to eat anything else for the rest of the day, to be frank! For most of the rest of the time we've just been chilling out; I recorded and edited a few bits and pieces for videos to publish in the new year and, as previously mentioned, played a bunch of Saboteur! and its sequel — look forward to some writeups and videos on that very soon, as they're fascinating games I'd love to talk about.

Anyway, it's pretty late, so I should probably sleep. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and that you have a bit of a chance to relax before getting back to the daily grind of work, school or whatever it is you do. I'm certainly going to make the most of my break!

It's Christmas Eve! Well, it's not far off Christmas Day as I type this. I am in bed, and I have a bit of a stomachache that I've been suffering all evening, but I probably won't die.

I had to work today. I'd forgotten what a miserable experience it is to work over the festive period, so I'm going to book Christmas off for next year as soon as my holiday allowance renews, I think. Thankfully I don't have to go back until next Monday now, and we also have New Year's Day off, so there's at least a bit of time off to enjoy.

We're having a nice quiet Christmas at home this year, likely with some visits to the respective parental units in the near future. It will be nice to just be able to relax and not have to worry about anything; we've even got a pleasant keto-friendly Christmas dinner prepped and ready to go for tomorrow.

Anyway, I need to sleep and shake off this stomachache so I'll call that there for now. May your days be merry and bright or whatever, and I hope you all have a wonderful day tomorrow!

I happened to stumble across something interesting on the Switch eShop recently — and I really do mean stumble, because I hadn't read anything about it anywhere online.

It's a game called Saboteur!, and it's apparently an official remake of a supposedly classic ZX Spectrum game — so official, in fact, that the original creator Clive Townsend was responsible for it.

This is no straight remake, mind; while the opening section of the game is pretty much a note-for-note remake of the ZX Spectrum original, once you beat this part — which would have ended the game in its original incarnation — a whole other section opens up, complete with dialogue, puzzles, object manipulation and all sorts of new mechanics. But still presented like it's a Spectrum game.

This is a fascinating game. I'm about a third of the way through the new section on the lowest difficulty right now; there are nine difficulty levels, each of which make a fairly significant difference to the overall structure of things by adding a lot more locked doors and switches to manipulate as well as making the enemies stronger and time limits tighter. I'm definitely going to continue exploring it, as I'm having a lot of fun with it — and when I'm done, there's a sequel, too.

I'll save detailed thoughts for when I've played the game in more detail, but suffice to say if you're at all interested in one of the earliest examples of a Western-developed stealth game with elements of open-structure 2D platforming, you'll want to give Saboteur! a look.

Hello! I already shared this over on MoeGamer as part of the weekly Around the Network update, but thought I'd mention it here too: I'm trying to get back into the habit of doing more "scripted" videos as well as the weekly Let's Plays.

I really enjoy doing the Let's Plays and they provide me with a whole new way to appreciate the games that I'm playing, even if no-one is watching (which thankfully, they are!) but I've been meaning to do some more "readings" of articles from MoeGamer for a long time now. So with a bit of time to spare this weekend, I recorded a bunch of recent one-shot articles as audio, and I'm going to spend some time putting them together into videos to trickle out in the coming weeks. And from there, make it more of a regular thing, all being well.

I enjoy putting these together because it's a different kind of creative challenge. Let's Plays are a challenge in a sort of "improvisatory" nature, as you need to think of things to say while you're playing; they're very reactive. Meanwhile, doing something scripted means that you need to look at things from a whole new perspective. Instead of saying things to match what's happening on screen, you instead need to find material to put on the screen to match what's being said. Or at the very least to complement it.

This is something I've had a lot of fun with in the past and haven't made enough time for recently. So expect more "MoeGamerTV Features" videos such as the one above going forward, likely on Sundays or Mondays depending on how I can schedule things; I hope you enjoy them!

Something a little different for this week's patrons-only video: I thought I'd dig into my PS2 library and have a little fiddle around with something I've never tried before! Here's Bombastic, the follow-up to Devil Dice.