I've had a dodgy stomach all day; think I ate Something Bad last night and it's had me feeling by turns sick, farty and stomachachey all day today, so that's nice. As I type this, I'm still not feeling amazing, so I'm off to bed in a moment in the hope that this passes by tomorrow.

I played through an excellent horror game earlier — well, a horror game prologue, I should say. It's called Project Kat: Paper Lily Prologue, and it's available for free right now on Steam. It's a teaser for an upcoming full project (which it looks like might be released episodically) but it left a very strong impression on me over the course of the 45 minutes or so it took to play through. The kind of impression where it finishes and you immediately want to play it again, you know?

I'll do a full writeup on it over on Rice tomorrow, but suffice to say for now that it's a very good time if you enjoy Corpse Party-style top-down horror games with a bit more puzzling than usual. It's definitely got an intriguing premise, some great characters, fantastic music and lovely visuals, so I'll absolutely be supporting it when it eventually arrives in its completed form.

Aside from that, I've been playing a lot of shoot 'em ups for the past few days. Waifu Discovered 2, rRootage, Raiden IV x MIKADO Remix, Cotton… damn, we really are spoiled right now, which is impressive when you consider how "dead" the genre was considered to be not that long ago!

For now, though, I think it's time to fart myself to sleep in the hope that I'll feel better on the morrow. Hope your day has been more pleasant than mine!

I've been feeling for a while now like we're legitimately living in a cyberpunk dystopia, only without all the cool-looking neon-lit rainy streets and robotic prostitutes. (Although those are very much on the way.)

Right now, I feel like we're living through that chapter in the book where a mysterious and strange quasi-religious cult rises up as if from nowhere, singing praises to their all-powerful lord and master as they attempt to convert everyone to their bizarre way of life with what some of them earnestly believe to be love and tolerance.

In fact, of course, the "all-powerful lord and master" is not a deity at all, but rather someone who has mastered the art of manipulating stupid and/or gullible people into doing things that are bad for themselves, but good for the manipulator.

In this case, the cult — which is seemingly divided into multiple sects — is the NFT movement, who appear so utterly convinced that paying thousands of dollars for imaginary money with which to purchase imaginary pieces of paper to prove that they own an imaginary piece of artwork generated by an algorithm rather than an actual person is a sensible way to spend one's time and money in 2021.

The cult-like behaviour arises any time they are criticised. They pull together and talk about their "amazing community" while displaying no real evidence of actual meaningful human interaction. They offer up the name of their lord and master Ethereum as the one true solution to all life's ills. And they unironically believe that one day we are all going to live in a Metaverse of man's own creation, where the woes of the world will somehow simply cease to exist.

The latter part may well be true to a certain extent one day — I'm sure within the next century or two we will figure out something along the lines of "digital consciousness" — but even if it were to happen now, it's not going to magically solve the world's problems. Imagine if everyone hooked themselves into a "Metaverse" right this second — where's all the energy to power said Metaverse going to come from?

We're already having problems with energy and the impact that the generation thereof is having on the planet — something which NFTs aren't helping with, it should be added — so how is making humanity completely reliant on technology going to help? And who manages said technology? You saw The Matrix, right? It wasn't an aspirational movie.

The amusing and/or scary thing about everything I've outlined above is that none of it is an exaggeration. There are legitimately people out there who feel like investing thousands of dollars in a terrible pixel art picture is a good way to spend their time. Ethereum — which is, I believe, the name of an NFT or cryptocurrency trading platform or something — is genuinely invoked as the solution to all manner of problems by these people. And they do not see that they're being really weird.

Their usual argument is that this is "technological progress", but their suggestions are falling on deaf ears for the most part. And so, frankly, they just come across as batshit crazy and a little disturbing right now.

Still, at least it's nice to have a group of people that the entire rationally-minded part of the Internet can agree that it's okay to bully. Just as long as they don't end up with SHODAN on their side or something.

I finished The 7th Guest earlier; been a long time since I played that all the way through. And I really enjoyed it! It's one of those games that, oddly, I think is better experienced today than it was back in the day; its oddly stylised elements work particularly well in the context of today's gaming landscape, while I recall it coming in for a fair amount of criticism back when it was originally released for being all style and no substance.

I mean, to a certain extent that is true — it was always designed to be a showcase of CD-ROM technology — but the idea of a "game where you're not constantly actively doing things" is much more palatable to today's audience than it was in the '90s. The 7th Guest's surreal nature is intriguing and enjoyable to engage with — one might argue the narrative doesn't really make a ton of sense if you stop to analyse it, but that's all part of the charm.

And the acting. Oh the acting! We can be quick to mock early FMV games for their acting, but in The 7th Guest, there's a strong feeling that everyone involved in the production had a background in acting on stage. The whole thing is very theatrical, meaning lots of deliberately overblown acting — but it works. My wife, overhearing the game from the other room, thought it sounded like "musical theatre" — particularly with the awesome closing number Skeletons in my Closet.

Part of this side of things would have been out of necessity; none of the actors in The 7th Guest were doing things on a "real" set, and thus what they were doing would doubtless have been very much like the abstract nature of performing on stage. But as I say, it works; it makes The 7th Guest into less an interactive movie and more an interactive play. And that's not only super-interesting, it's something I'd genuinely like to see a lot more of.

Anyway. Play The 7th Guest. It's very old. But I think I love it more now than I did back when I originally played it!

Today has been one of those days when I really love our hobby. I've written about and played so many different things today that I can't help but be slightly taken aback by how incredible this medium really is.

The main trigger for this feeling today was writing this feature over on Retrounite, which really highlighted just how broad even the horror genre is, but I've also spent two hours playing A Robot Named Fight this evening, which is just a magnificent game that I'm going to be writing about tomorrow. Then I educated myself on Sentimental Shooting, the reason that Deep Space Waifu exists… and yeah, it's been a fun day.

Only trouble is, there are so many wonderful things to play and not nearly enough time with which to enjoy them all! Still, if nothing else today has caused me to push a few things up the priority pile for things like making videos and suchlike. Expect something on Waxworks for PC very soon, for example; I had a blast capturing screenshots for it earlier and I'm hungry to play some more!

Atelier still going apace, I hasten to add. Should have an introductory piece on Lydie & Suelle going up this weekend — though as I noted a little while back, I'm not necessarily going to pin myself down to writing something on it every week, just because there's no point putting unnecessary pressure on myself for something I'm doing in my free time! Instead, I shall write as the muse takes me… or, more accurately, as I find myself in a suitable position to be able to write about the various aspects of the game with confidence!

For now, though, bed. Nearly the end of another weekend — and as much as I've enjoyed today, I'm very tired and ready for that weekend to come!

I've apparently been rewarded with the Community tab for my YouTube channel, which I thought only happened when you had a thousand subscribers. To be fair, I'm getting fairly close to that now, but it was a pleasant surprise to see it show up anyway.

I'm actually going to make some use of it, because it seems like a good way to share some stuff that people who watch the channel might be interested in — notably some photos and perhaps some additional info about the things I've covered that didn't fit into a video. So please keep an eye out for that!

I'm looking forward to experimenting with it in the coming weeks — comments on the videos in general have been a lot more lively and frequent in the last couple of months or so and the channel's been growing nicely, so this should be a good means of building a nice little community. Please be sure to come along and take part if you feel like it!

Anyway, that's about it for now. Atari ST A to Z coming tomorrow with a look at the ST version of After Burner — it may be far, far from arcade-perfect, but dammit, it's what we had back in the day, particularly 'cuz my nearest arcade was about a hundred miles away!

Been having some weird-ass dreams for the last few weeks, and I'm not 100% sure what's brought them about, because I haven't changed any bedtime habits in a particularly major way. Nor am I eating or drinking anything particularly weird before going to sleep. All I know is that my subconscious apparently has a lot to say.

Sadly, I can't remember many details of said dreams, which is a shame as I'm sure they'd be interesting to talk about and try and interpret. But I do know that they are both weird and vivid at the time they're happening. I'm not sure I'd necessarily call them "nightmares" because they're not really… scary as such, but they are somewhat unsettling at times, and the kind of thing where you wake up in the morning feeling like something just isn't quite right.

I do know that last night I woke up at some ungodly hour in the morning thinking there was someone banging on our front door, and it kind of freaked me out a bit. Quite a lot, actually; I wasn't sure whether or not I should go and check downstairs for a good while beforehand, but eventually curiosity got the better of me and I went to have a look. Nothing was out of the ordinary downstairs and there weren't even any cat shenanigans going on — the one cat was sleeping on our bed at the time (in a fairly inconvenient position, yes, but that is nothing unusual for her) while the other was asleep on "her" bed in the spare room.

On the one hand, I do enjoy interesting and strange dreams; there are times when I even deliberately want to go back to sleep just to explore them some more. That's not especially productive, however, particularly when there's work to be done, so I should probably wish for a peaceful night's sleep or something. Either way, I'm going to get an early night tonight; we'll see if that makes any difference!

Tired. Not really sure why, other than the fact it's half past midnight here. Today has just sort of… happened without any real fanfare, and before I knew it, it was the end of the evening and my cat is harassing me to go to bed.

I guess days like this are important to have now and again, because Things Happening all the time is exhausting. Sometimes it's nice to just have a day where you do your work, do the food shopping, then settle down for a porn visual novel that you can finish in an evening (with the intention of writing about it tomorrow… so I guess technically I was still "working").

Evercade posted a look at the Evercade VS' user interface today if you haven't seen that yet — you can find the video over at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyC-wHs6VP4. People seem impressed with it all, and well they should be — it's nice and slick, and full of cool features without bloat. This is a games machine, pure and simple, just like the old days — only with cartridges that have lots more games on them than back in the day!

I believe there's a new cartridge being announced soon. I know what it is, but I'm not telling just yet. And there's plenty more in the works for next year, too; I don't know what those are, so don't ask — though I do know a few of the things the folks over there have been "looking at".

Now we're getting a little closer to the launch, I don't mind telling you all that I have been the proud owner of a pre-release Evercade VS for a little while now so that I could help out with testing, manuals and the like — and I absolutely love the thing. This little beast is going to be an absolutely wonderful addition to any retro gaming enthusiast's lineup of consoles, so I hope anyone with interests in such directions considers picking one up if they haven't already.

Unfortunately they're going to be a little late due to the worldwide shipping nonsense, but all being well, people who ordered from Funstock (which includes those who went for the nice "Founders Edition") should still get theirs before Christmas. That goes for the upcoming arcade cartridges, too — there's some great games on those, so be sure to check them out when they finally arrive.

Anyway. That really is all I have to talk about today. Think it's probably time to grab a hot chocolate and get some sleep. Hope your respective Mondays have been similarly uneventful!

Remember a while back when I was contemplating investigating the Intellivision Amico, the modern-day reboot of the Intellivision brand with its fancypants touchscreen controllers and its aim to bring back couch-based multiplayer as a default?

Yeah, forget all that; I've defended Tommy Tallarico in the past because I thought people were being unnecessarily harsh on him and his plans for the system — but the email I received today gave me an extremely sour taste in my mouth.

You see, for a while they've been teasing the fact that there will be physical releases for the all-digital system that doesn't have a cartridge slot or disc drive — and today they revealed exactly what form those physical releases are going to take. They're going to be boxed copies, limited in number, that contain a lenticular card, a collector's coin… and an RFID card with a code to download the game once it's available. Oh, and the games themselves will be NFTs.

So basically, these "physical releases" are nothing of the sort. Not only that, they're contributing to what is commonly agreed to be one of the most harmful and/or stupid things in the digital sphere right now. Tommy and co are touting these boxed copies as being "fully transferable" due to them being NFTs — as if that was something revolutionary. Except it's not, is it; we've been able to loan or give games to other people since the very dawn of the industry.

I guess the fact that it's a digital copy which can be given to someone else is noteworthy — at present there's no means of transferring ownership of an individual title on any other digital gaming platform — but the fact that this is implemented using the controversial NFT technology is likely to put a lot of people off. NFTs have a dedicated and alarmingly zealous online community behind them — but a considerably larger proportion of the population staunchly against them, since they're 1) stupid and 2) massive energy hogs.

I think the most galling thing for me, though, is that these are advertised as "physical releases" when they're nothing of the sort. They're boxes of tat, with a code to download a game from a digital platform. And once that platform's gone, the game is gone, too. It's not like all the boxed copies I have on my shelves behind me as I type this; each and every one of them can be put into its respective console and enjoyed until their physical components decay. Yes, some of the more modern releases require patches to be "optimal", but for the most part I can just put in a game and play it.

That's simply not the case with these ridiculous physical releases for Amico, and this absolute stupidity has been enough to discourage me from wanting anything to do with the platform. I still like the idea of what the Amico stands for and what they were hoping to achieve with it — but this silly bandwagoneering does nothing to endear a system that is already something of a laughingstock in certain quarters of the gaming community to the people they should be courting. No gaming collector worth their salt is going to be fooled by this crap.

At least I hope not.

Do yourself a favour and grab an Evercade VS; those folks know how physical releases work.

Yesterday was a bit negative, I know, so I thought I'd share some happier news today: our first week following the Weight Watchers plan has been a successful one, as I weighed myself this morning and am a whopping eleven lb down from where I was last weekend. That's… a good start, to say the least.

I'm aware from my previous experience with Slimming World that an enormous loss in the first week is pretty normal — it's something to do with water retention — and that things tend to settle down to the tune of about a lb a week or so from thereon. But still, that first week loss is good motivation — particularly when I consider that I don't feel like I've been having to deprive myself of too many things.

The Weight Watchers "SmartPoints" system encourages you to track what you eat and stay within a daily limit, with a balance of weekly points available for when you want or need to go a little over. So far I haven't tapped into any of those weekly points, meaning Andie and I can treat ourselves to something nice this weekend without any guilt whatsoever. I think we're going to have a Nando's or a Wagamama.

Best thing, though, is that there's a bunch of "ZeroPoint" foods you can have, and they're not just boring flavourless vegetables. Nope, you can have chicken, fish, eggs and a few other tasty things as much as you want (within reason) — and honestly, that sort of thing is enough to keep me sane alongside "diet food".

That and we've found a variety of excellent snacks that are low in SmartPoints value (Hula Hoops Puft are both delicious and only 2 points per bag, for example) — this means that my tendency to boredom/stress/depression eat can be catered to with things that won't make the problem worse. Being able to have a bag of crisps or popcorn or something means that I can feel like I'm having a "treat" when in fact I'm not doing anything particularly bad for my overall goals — so long as I'm staying within those overall limits.

So on the whole, feeling pretty positive right now. Hopefully we'll be able to keep this up. We'd better keep this up, since we made a commitment to doing this for 9 months so we'd get three of them for free!

I've got a very long way to go before I'm anywhere even approaching where I want to be. But if I can stick with this, I hope it will help me feel a lot better about myself, both physically and mentally. So wish me luck!

I've had a few days… possibly weeks, even months… where I've been feeling frustrated at all manner of things about the world in general. It's not one specific thing, it's just a general sense of annoyance at life in general in 2021. And I'm sure it's something that everyone goes through, particularly when they reach the point in life that I'm at — but I've just been feeling it in a particularly pronounced manner of late.

I'm frustrated with the way people communicate online. While once I remember online being a wonderful place where people really felt like they could be themselves and let their true personalities shine — even if they were shy and awkward in real life, like I am — these days it doesn't feel like that's the case any more. Everyone is "performing"; everyone is trying to make sure they say the right things, look the most beautiful, get the most viral posts. Very little feels like actual, honest, genuine conversation any more.

I saw someone — I can't find the original tweet, unfortunately — describe Twitter as a place where there are no real friendships, only combatants. I'm not sure I'd quite go that far — though I have seen plenty of situations where people who were supposedly friends with one another end up at each other's throats over the most stupid things. Hell, I've experienced it myself in more than one instance — quite recently even. I won't bother you with details, but needless to say I was extremely disappointed that someone I'd previously had a lot of respect for (supported on Patreon, even) had apparently drunk too deeply of minor social media victories and become an insufferable git in the process.

There's definitely endless attempts for one-upmanship going on. Everyone is streaming, so everyone has a schedule and no-one is actually watching one another. Everyone has a humorous take on the latest news, except it's actually the same joke several thousand other people have made in the last five minutes. Everyone has a library of predictable gifs and reaction images to post in lieu of actual conversation. Disagreements are marked by nothing more than the word "ratio" rather than actual discussion. And the worst thing is, the world seems to be latching on to its own increasing insufferability and catering directly to the most annoying elements of itself.

I read a post earlier about how Netflix makes its thumbnails, and the whole thing frustrated me. Not because it was a boring post — it was actually quite interesting — but because the whole algorithmic bullshit that is actually going on in pretty much everything you do online these days feels like it's insulting my intelligence. Except apparently it's not insulting anyone's intelligence, because supposedly people really do make a decision on whether or not to, say, watch a TV show or movie in the space of about 3.8 seconds or whatever it was — and thus a specific, tailor-made, robotically produced, algorithm-friendly thumbnail is needed. One that is colourful, one that has an individual person (preferably a villain) on it looking at the camera with a distinctive facial expression. Because that's what we're conditioned to respond to.

Like I say, I can't really pin down why all this stuff bothers me when it's just the reality of life in 2021. I guess the way I'd sum it up is by saying that it feels increasingly like we're living in a real-life cyberpunk dystopia despite the myriad warnings we've had against such things from fiction over the course of the last half-century or more… and when you can sort of see things for what they are, you can't help but wonder why more people can't… or won't.

I guess the thing to do is just grit your teeth and try to remove as many sources of frustration as possible. But it seems like every time you do that, something else becomes massively irritating or gets "redesigned" into something infinitely worse, too. Such is the endless cycle of things, I guess.

Anyway. I'm off to go and play Pretty Girls Mahjong Solitaire, eat a sandwich and cry myself to sleep or something. Hope you all have a pleasant weekend!