Been thinking a bit since I started the new Rice Digital gig (and some surrounding stuff that I can't talk about yet) and I think I need to scale the "hobby" projects back a little bit. Not a huge amount, but a little bit. So I'm going to do that — I wanted you all to be the first to know, but I'll put up a video announcing these changes shortly.

As the fact I'll be announcing this via video suggests, I'm going to scale back a little on the YouTube front. Based on the videos I do which get the most views, comments, likes and all that sort of thing, the Atari stuff is all staying. It seems to be what people like the most, and what makes me stand out the most. At some point I would like to swap one of the series for a Jaguar series (and perhaps a Lynx series?) but I think keeping it to three series a week will help keep me sane.

That means that, for the moment at least, I'm going to wind down short;Play and the Evercade videos. I enjoy doing both, but they're the ones that are probably the most time-consuming to put together — and also the ones that get the least attention, particularly in the case of short;Play.

Part of the reason for this is the fact that I've started doing some videos over on the Rice Digital YouTube channel, and some of the things I'll be able to do over there can effectively "replace" short;Play. The difference is that I'll be able to legitimately put them together during the working day rather than having to squeeze them into my weekends as I do at the moment.

Another part of the reason is that as part of my work with Rice, we'll be doing… something to do with retro gaming. We're still working out exactly what, which is why I can't talk about it as yet, but I can tell you it will be retro-related. And, as you might expect, whatever I end up doing there will be able to replace the Evercade stuff I'm doing on my own channel, among other things.

Here are the things that I intend to stay the same:

• Three Atari A to Z series a week: Atari A to Z, Atari ST A to Z, Atari A to Z Flashback. Either when I finish Flashback (which is still a way off) or when I feel like it, one of these series will be replaced with Atari Jaguar A to Z.

• The MoeGamer Podcast will continue as is, likely on a monthly-ish schedule. Chris and I have next weekend pencilled in for our next recording session.

• MoeGamer will continue as is, with something on there each day, plus posts to announce each new video. Having to spend a bit less time on videos means potentially more time to prepare MoeGamer stuff in advance, which will help me out a lot. Evercade coverage will continue on MoeGamer.

Hope that's all clear, and hope you all understand — I have to prioritise the things I'm being paid a salary to do, but I also don't want to abandon things I've worked hard on, so hopefully this strikes a good balance.

Thanks for your understanding!

I'm in the mood for some arcade-style games this evening, I think. The PlayStation Classic has been getting some good use for this, since there are some great arcade ports for PS1 — particularly puzzle games.

Most of you reading this probably know about my fondness for Puchi Carat and other Taito titles. There are a few others I'm fond of — Ballistic is one I rather like, primarily because its Japanese version, Puzz Loop, was in our university student union coffee shop — home of the best curly fries in the world — a good 20+ years ago. A friend and I used to enjoy playing on the machine while we waited for the aforementioned fries and triple-shot espressos that would get us through a morning of Dr William Drabkin's lectures on Baroque-era harmonic progressions and "horn chords".

Magical Drop III is another favourite, though one I discovered much more recently. The PS1 version of this is excellent and very true to the arcade original, plus it comes with a bunch of neat bonus stuff as well.

Puzznic is one I've not spent a lot of time with but I've always found it interesting. I might actually spend some time with that one this evening, now that I'm thinking about it.

I always used to get Puzznic and Plotting mixed up. I think they're actually both Taito games, and they both came out on the Atari ST. Puzznic got a PS1 port, though, while Plotting didn't. (I think it might be in one of the Taito Legends collections on PS2, though — I'll have to check.) Plotting was a weird one — I never quite got my head around it as a kid, but I always thought the art and animation was cute. Perhaps one to return to on Atari ST A to Z at some point.

Anyway, on that note, I think it's time to go play one or more of these games for a nice peaceful evening! It's been a long and tiring but satisfying week, and I'm very much looking forward to a pretty chilled out weekend. I hope you also have a good weekend!

I tried some KFC-flavoured crisps today. They did not taste like KFC, but they were pretty nice — sort of a spicy chicken flavour, as you might expect. I've seen a few people going nuts for these on social media, so I bought a multipack from the local Tesco earlier. They're all right; nothing amazing, but I certainly don't regret buying them or anything.

My copy of Sengoku Rance arrived from MangaGamer today. I'm impressed! Not only does it have a lovely old-school "hinged" big box (I don't know if "hinged" is the right word, but the lid is attached to the bottom and it opens like a book) but it also has a 78-page full colour manual in slightly-bigger-than-A5 size. It's quite the thing of beauty, and I'm delighted to have it on my shelf. I would have been happy with another DVD case like Rance 5D and VI came in, but they really went the extra mile for this one. Here's hoping Rance Quest Magnum gets the same treatment.

And finally in not-particularly-interesting things that happened today, volume 5 of Don't Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro finally arrived. I believe that brings me up to date with the series; volume 6 looks like it's out in March and features Nagatoro with cat ears on the front cover, so I will most certainly be picking that up.

Aside from getting a bunch of cool stuff done over on Rice Digital today (check out my History of Lewd piece on Casual Romance Club and my look at the Steam Game Festival highlights!) it's been a relatively uneventful day. Contemplating going to sit in bed to play some PlayStation games, but I also need to play some Atelier Escha & Logy. Oh, the decisions!

Anyway. Hope you've had a pleasant day. Take care of yourselves, as always!

Busy day today! I got a lot done and did some Good Things at work which seem to have gone down well, so that's all very exciting. There are more interesting things in the pipeline too that I'm looking forward to talking about — sorry to keep teasing on this but I don't know 100% when they're going to happen so I just occasionally have to let a bit of the ol' excitement out without spoiling anything.

I'm sure the "honeymoon period" will pass at some point but right now I'm having a blast. I'm getting paid a good wage to do what I love, and being given the freedom and trust to approach it the way I feel I should be approaching it. This is not a situation I should probably be surprised about experiencing when pushing 40 years of age, but it's something of a first for me, I have to confess. I hope I keep feeling that way.

Andie attempted to repair our broken TV yesterday and mostly succeeded… mostly. She successfully swapped out the faulty LED strip and got the screen lighting up properly again, but something we knocked while taking the thing apart has caused a few pixels of lines at the extreme left of the display. They're barely noticeable — particularly if you're not looking for them, or if you're doing something in 4:3, such as, say, playing PS1 games — but it's a bit of a shame we weren't able to get the thing back in 100% working order.

It was — is — a nice TV, so we've replaced my 40" TV that was probably pushing 15 years old at this point (and still doing just fine) with the 55" almost-working-perfectly TV in the bedroom. That means we now have a 55" TV in both the living room and bedroom. Extravagant? Perhaps, but if we've got 'em we might as well use them. Now we just need to figure out where to put the 40" model. I have joked about mounting it vertically in the toilet so one could play Tate-mode arcade games while having a poo, but that really would be extravagant now, wouldn't it?

I find it quite interesting that my Q&A videos always do relatively well on YouTube — I mean, in terms of viewing figures we're still talking double figures rather than anything grander, but you all know I'm perfectly content with that. But those double-figure figures are noticeably higher than a lot of the other things I do, and I find that intriguing.

What exactly could be causing that? Do people naturally gravitate towards Q&A videos? Is it the fact they're the only videos with my actual face in? As someone who has never had a ton of self-confidence in their own appearance, I honestly find it quite difficult to believe it's that, but I've also seen the advice that you should put "yourself" in your thumbnails, so perhaps there is something to it — particularly given how many other YouTube creators out there do it.

Trouble is, I have a format for my thumbnails right now and I rather like the consistency of them. I've made some minor tweaks to the short;Play and Podcast format ones, but I've always rather liked the simple and to-the-point nature of the various A to Z video thumbnails. "This is a video about Atari," they say, "and specifically this game". Would my gurning fizzog overlaid atop that nice simple layout really make more people come and watch those videos?

I do wonder sometimes, but I also don't want to experiment and disrupt what I've come to think of as the "sanctity" (for want of a better word) of the series that I'm most proud of and how I present them.

Ultimately, as I say, I don't mind too much. I look at YouTube like this: if I was giving a talk on old Atari games in the local village hall and twenty people turned up to listen, I'd be ecstatic. I'm not in this to be "famous"; I do it 'cause I enjoy it.

But that doesn't stop me wondering how doing things a little differently might affect things! 🙂

I'm feeling a bit under the weather this evening — something has disagreed with my stomach a bit so I'm in a bit of pain. So I'll just share this with you for now, even though it went up on YouTube earlier — it's this month's Q&A video!

Thank you to everyone who sent some questions in, you provided some fun things to talk about! Let's do it again next month!