Been thinking a bit of late, and this is doubtless something anyone who enjoys writing, making videos or simply talking about their hobbies has run into: it's good to make time for yourself occasionally.

I say this as someone who, both when writing about games as a hobby and doing it professionally as I do now, often finds himself thinking about what he "should" be doing in terms of simply enjoying gaming, rather than what he feels like at any given moment. For example, I often wonder if I "should" spend my weekends working through some substantial visual novels and RPGs so that I can write about them or make videos on them.

The thing is, I actually want to engage with these works at some point, but it's the feeling of "obligation" that sometimes holds me back. Or perhaps more accurately, the feeling that I "should" spend my time doing something that is more immediately "useful". The silly thing is that with the way my brain works, I end up completely overthinking the whole situation and wasting a whole lot of time, when I could simply be enjoying a video game that I feel like playing at any given moment.

I'm going to try and break that habit a bit. While yes, I do still want to play things so that I can write about them over on Rice Digital and make videos about them, I'm going to try and let go of the feelings of "guilt" I sometimes feel if I decide I'm simply in the mood for something else. Today, for example, I just felt like playing some more nail'd, even though that's not in any way "useful" for either Rice Digital or YouTube — I just wanted to play it. So I did. And I enjoyed it.

These feelings don't come out of resentment or anything like that; quite the contrary, in fact. Those who have been following me for a while — which is most of you reading this — will know that one thing I love doing more than anything with both my written and video work is highlighting things that don't get nearly enough attention from the mainstream. Trouble is, by the very nature of these things, there are so many of them that it's hard to pick and choose what to cover when!

I have games in my collection that I want to play through from start to finish that extend right back to the 8-bit era. And "analysis paralysis" quite often prevents me from diving into things that I know I'll enjoy — plus the desire not to have too many things on the go at once, because leaving things unfinished is a personal bugbear of mine. That's probably a slightly different matter though!

Anyway, I guess the main point of all this is that it's important to give yourself permission to simply enjoy yourself — for no other reason than rest, relaxation and the enjoyment of your hobby. Not everything needs to end up as an article, an essay, a video or a podcast; sometimes it's okay to just have fun with something and that be that.

I need to keep reminding myself of this!

Hello everyone! Sorry I haven't been around here much of late — I've been extremely busy at work with a variety of projects both public-facing and behind the scenes, and as such when the evening comes I've pretty much just wanted to switch off completely! I thought I'd make the effort to write this evening, though, what with it being the end of the week and a nice nap earlier meaning that I'm now wide awake at 11.30pm.

I'm enjoying working on the new video schedule for the moment. Two videos per week appears to be a nice sweet spot for me that doesn't overwhelm me, but also doesn't make me feel like I'm leaving the channel "barren" for long periods. I know no-one except me really cares about that with the size of my audience overall, but still. It's important to be satisfied with your own work, even if that means putting a bit more effort in.

I'm working on "cycles" at the moment where I plan out the next four weeks' worth of videos in advance, then record all of the intros in one go. I then record the actual game footage two vids at a time to go with what I'm planning to release: C64 and Atari 8-bit one week, Amiga and ST the next, two lots of Retro Select (which can be pretty much anything) the next and two lots of Evercade the next.

We've just passed the first week of a new "cycle" with Buggy Boy on C64 and Escape from Doomworld on Atari 8-bit, so over the course of the next three weeks, here's what you have to look forward to:

• World Games for Atari ST, a divisive multi-sports title from Epyx that eschews conventional Olympic-style competition in favour of a variety of events specific to particular regions in the world. Some are considerably more odd than others!

• Battle Squadron for Amiga, a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up which is very good, and which I have limited experience with so far outside of my friend Sam being obsessed with it in our first year at university.

• nail'd for Xbox 360, a favourite arcade racer that deserves some love. Also I had some requests for some more Xbox 360 stuff in Retro Select, so both episodes of that will be 360-themed this week.

• Ninja Blade for Xbox 360, which is an interesting one because it's by FromSoftware, but also from that weird period where Japanese devs tried to make games that appealed to the west. Seen very mixed opinions of this online so fascinated to give it a shot.

• Romeow and Julicat for Evercade, which is a thoroughly charming puzzle game that the actual developers have left precisely zero information about online, so the gameplay will mostly have to speak for itself!

• Night Stalker for Evercade, which is one of my all-time favourite Intellivision games. I only really learned about the Intellivision in more recent years, but if I'd had one back in the day this one would have been a fixture in my cartridge slot!

Next "cycle" I'm thinking about doing a Wii week for Retro Select; I've picked up an armful of 50p nonsense from CEX, so I thought it might be interesting to take a look at some of those. I've also got copies of DJ Hero and its sequel on the way, but attempting to play those on YouTube may well be asking for copyright-related trouble, so that might just be a "me" thing!

Also with Retrounite not having found the audience we hoped it would, that frees up more time to do retro-related stuff elsewhere. To that end, you'll see some blog posts from me over on the official Evercade site in the coming weeks — you may have already seen a few about the Game of the Month releases on the VS! — and I'll be folding some regular retro coverage into Rice Digital, too, likely in the form of "here are some weird retro games no-one ever talks about but which are actually well worth exploring because they're cheap".

Times are good! I'm feeling creatively fulfilled both in my own personal projects and at work, and I'm really proud of the things I can say I've been involved with (I played an important role in a modern rerelease of frickin' Rod Land!!) — plus the things I can't yet say that I've been involved with. More on that in the coming weeks when they're actually announced. Tease, tease.

Anyway, thanks as always for your continued support. It really means a lot that you folks are willing to stick by me as I pootle around doing my various passion projects, and as those projects evolve over time.