Spent a bit of time playing Euro Truck Simulator 2 this evening — it's a nice game to chill out with and yes, it will be making an appearance on Simmin' and Chillin' at some point, because obviously.

I haven't played this game a lot over the years I've owned it, but I always have a good time when I do. You don't have to think too hard, you don't have to remember lots of complicated button presses… you just pick up your cargo and drive.

In some respects, I feel like it's probably the closest we're likely to get with a game concept I've had in my head for years — "what if Elite, but with lorries?" — but it doesn't really have the strategic depth of complexity of Elite. At least not in its early hours, anyway; I suspect it might get more interesting in that regard once you expand your trucking operation, hire more drivers and start making more money.

I'm also intrigued by the "World of Trucks" setup they have going on, though I haven't looked into it yet. The idea of a persistent online "world" of virtual trucking businesses is an interesting one — particularly with the "Convoy" multiplayer update the team is experimenting with right now. I wonder how much "fun" Euro Truck Simulator 2 multiplayer would be — it's not exactly either cooperative or competitive, but I suspect it might actually be rather enjoyable to go for a drive with a friend, chatting along the way.

Anyway, that's where my evening's gone — that and a nap that lasted a little longer than originally intended, but such is the way of life. I'm off to bed now. Sweet dreams of big trucks and forest fairies.

Had a chance to get together with local friends this evening for some tabletop gaming. We played two things: Flamme Rouge and Kingdomino, both of which I liked very much.

Flamme Rouge is a race game based around cycling. Each player has two cycling team members — one with an emphasis on sprinting, another with an emphasis on being something of an all-rounder — and has to reach the end first.

You achieve this by drawing cards for both your team members each turn. Draw four, pick one, put the rest back on the bottom of your deck face-up — when you reach the face-up cards, shuffle 'em up and continue.

The cards simply have movement values on them. Play a "5" and you move 5 spaces — so long as there's space for you in the destination space. Uphill and downhill segments of the course vary the movement rules slightly — you can never go further than 5 on an uphill, and you'll always go at least 5 on a downhill — and "slipstreaming" rules keep things dynamic and interesting between turns.

It's a very interesting game with pleasantly simple mechanics but an enjoyable amount of depth to it. Because the cards you use are permanently removed from the game, there's a certain amount of hand management involved — particularly because ending up at the front of the pack leaves you with "exhaustion" cards to add to your deck, which see you moving just two spaces.

It actually works quite well thematically, too; I almost won by my all-rounder being out front for most of the race and chewing up all the exhaustion cards, then overtaking him with my sprinter towards the end. Unfortunately, I didn't quite have the good cards I needed to take final victory, but I came a comfortable second. I peaked too early, I guess.

Kingdomino, meanwhile, is another simple game, but one that plays a lot more quickly than the 45-60 minute Flamme Rouge. As the name suggests, it's loosely based on Dominoes, but also has a slight whiff of Carcassonne about it.

In Kingdomino, four available "dominos" are laid out on the table in order of "value", and players take it in turns to pick one they want to take. Take the most valuable and you'll be last to pick next turn; take the least valuable and you'll go first next time.

The eventual aim is to produce a 5×5 map containing several different types of land depicted on the dominos: green livestock fields, dark green forests, yellow grain fields, brown swamps, black caves and blue lakes. At the end of the game you score points according to contiguous areas you managed to arrange in your kingdom — though in order to score any points for a land type at all there needs to be at least one "crown" tile in there. You get (number of crowns) x (number of tiles) points for each contiguous region you create — harder than it sounds!

It's a simple game and the puzzly element is fun — each new "domino" you take can only be laid so it touches either your starting tile or a matching terrain type. I really like games where you build a "map" like this, and this is an enjoyable small-scale take on the formula that is a nice quick filler game.

Definitely a good time had by all, even if I failed to win anything. But it's the taking part that counts, right?

I ended up putting together a "Simmin' and Chillin'" video earlier than I initially expected, but I'm glad I did; I'm pleased with how it came out and several people have commented on how much they liked the sort of structureless, "comfy" formula — so I'll definitely do more of these in the future.

There will doubtless be some more BeamNG drive because I'm absolutely in love with that game, but over the long term expect some varied fare including PowerWash Simulator, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Euro Truck Simulator 2 and more. Actually, I think those are all the "current" sims that I own — though of course there's nothing to say I can't delve back into the mists of time and play some older stuff. That might be more a Retro Select sort of thing though.

When I first started making videos, I was concerned I wouldn't be able to "fill the gaps" with talking, and you can probably see that in some of my earlier stuff. A lot of this stems from my own social anxiety and the difficulty I have in holding down a conversation that involves "small talk" in the real world. But I've been pleased that over time I've developed the ability to keep things rolling and flowing on a video — and I think the recent BeamNG drive video is a good example of how far I've come.

By not constraining myself to just talking about the game and instead just using it as a backdrop for conversation and anecdotes, I feel quite free to ramble on about whatever I want to. Sometimes the things I talk about might be interesting, other times they might not be — but either way, this format feels like it empowers me to talk about things that I might not otherwise have a chance to chat about in a reasonably informal manner.

I still think it would work well in a stream format, so I'll give some serious consideration to timings. A couple of you have already indicated what might work well for you, and since I suspect if you're reading this you're one of the most likely people to show up to any livestreams I might do, keep your suggestions and preferences rolling in, as of course you lovely people will have "priority"!

Anyway. As tempting as it is to drive a crap car around the streets of BeamNG drive for a few hours… hmm. I think I might actually drive a crap car around for at least a little bit before going to bed, but probably not hours. But then bed, definitely totally positively absolutely…!

One whole day without comment section jackass causing any trouble — it seems the evil has truly been defeated! I won't say for sure until we're into next week, though; it may just be he needed to have a good cry and a watch or two of Joker before he is able to gather himself enough to hammer away at the keyboard again. Plus all the tears he spilled on his Usborne Big Book of Logical Fallacies smudged the ink, so now he has to buy another one.

As for me, I've had a nice quiet day. Slept until noon (I didn't intend to, but I apparently needed to), did prep work for video recording I'll be doing tomorrow, had a bath, had an ice cream, pet the cats, played some BeamNG.drive, played some Final Fantasy XIV, wrote an Atelier MegaFeature article… not a bad day all round, really.

I'm having idle creative ideas again, too, that I don't know quite what I'll do with yet. Playing BeamNG.drive and PowerWash Simulator recently has made me quite like the idea of something themed around "Simming and Chilling", where I play a pointless game like either of those two and just ramble away about whatever — not necessarily the game. It could be a good opportunity to talk about some recent happenings for those who don't follow this blog, or just a chance to explore some ideas.

I feel like the idea would probably work better as a stream as I'd be able to talk to people watching rather than just rambling on to myself, but I hit my usual hesitance with this: exactly when should I do a stream if I wanted to do it live? Perhaps if and when I find the time to fiddle with this I'll do it in video form first and raise the possibility of streaming as one of the things I talk about, then people can directly indicate what they'd be up for.

Dunno if I'll get started on that this weekend as I already have a bunch of stuff pencilled in to sort out tomorrow, but we'll see. Oh, and S-Rank Patrons, I'll make time to put a wallpaper together tomorrow or in the next couple of days (depending on timings) too. For now, though, if I want to try and get up before noon tomorrow, I should probably head to bed now.

Hope you're all having a pleasant weekend!

In celebration of successfully resolving our community management situation — eventually through use of the banhammer after it became extremely apparent the arrogant little sod in question wasn't listening to anything we were saying and was too busy whining about "censorship" — I bought myself a copy of PowerWash Simulator on Steam this evening.

Andie and I have been enjoying watching Nyanners play this for the last couple of evenings, but I looked a little further into it today and discovered that it's actually the work of FuturLab, the guys who brought the world the excellent Velocity games — some fine-ass puzzle shoot 'em up/platformers if you've never come across them before.

The folks at FuturLab are lovely people so I was more than happy to fling them fifteen quid for their latest project, which is their first to release through Steam's Early Access programme — an ideal way of a title like this being figured out and refined over time.

I already had a good feel for it from watching Nyanners play, but I can confirm, after spending the last hour and a half glued to it, it is indeed an exceedingly relaxing and satisfying game to play. I suspect it's a game that will particularly appeal to people with a certain type of brain — I feel like it tickles the satisfaction centres of my Aspie brain, for example, while Nyanners says it's good relief from ADHD — but there's definitely something just simply, primally satisfying about it.

You know when you see videos and memes that are "strangely satisfying"? PowerWash Simulator is basically that turned into game form. And I suspect it's going to be a nice thing to have on hand for stress relief from hereon!

I've had a frustrating day getting Rice Digital's comment section back in order. It obviously hasn't had a lot done with it for some time, so some drastic measures were necessary — effectively we had to nuke the existing comment section and replace it with a new one, but this also provided the opportunity to put some much-needed moderation and rules in place.

Naturally, putting those rules in place has upset a few people, who seem to think that the comments section belongs to them and not the site. Thankfully, I think we've made it pretty clear that we don't have any patience for their bullshit, and with any luck they will turn tail and leave before long. I don't care if they get angry at being "censored", I want Rice Digital to be a pleasant place for people to hang out, and while people like that are shitting up the comments, no-one else is going to want to participate.

I really don't understand this attitude; it absolutely reeks of entitlement. A website's comment section is not a free-for-all ground for people to post whatever they want; it is part of the website itself. That means if the comment section runs the risk of undoing the good work that the actual website's content does, steps need to be taken. And we were getting to that stage; I was getting numerous direct complaints about the behaviour of several prolific commenters, so they need shutting down decisively before they do any real damage.

So I think we've done that. I suspect our poor social media manager will have some fun messages to deal with tomorrow, but she's used to it, bless her, and she takes it all in her stride. Hopefully from here we can move on in a positive direction. I'm super proud of how Rice Digital is going and of the team of writers working with me, so I absolutely will not have random jerks who think they own the place stanking up every page with their hateful garbage.

I suspect these silly little boys haven't had people tell them "no" often enough in their lives. Well, they better get used to it!

Have had three completely separate frustrating "community management" situations in various places around the Internet today, and it's just exhausting to deal with. And frustrating! I'm someone who still remembers the Internet being this great new hope for communicating with other people, and everyone feeling excited about being able to talk to people from all over the world.

But today? We have people whining and complaining about every little thing, being rude to people who are interested in things that they don't like and becoming outright abusive towards people who write things that they don't agree with.

It really freakin' sucks, it does, so I'm grateful for the few places where things remain quietly respectful and friendly — like around here, or among my smaller groups of online friends in more "private" (for want of a better word, since nothing is really "private" online) situations. Doing anything in "public", though, seems to attract the very worst sort of people — even if the thing you were doing in public wasn't the slightest bit provocative or controversial.

I do want to say I'm especially grateful for those of you (and others) who show up in my YouTube comments; across a couple of years of doing things on YouTube at this point, things have never gotten out of hand in any way in my comments section — and in fact, there have been some wonderful discussions there.

Of course, the fact my YouTube videos attract double-digit views and are fairly niche-interest most of the time is probably something to do with this, but I guess that just sort of backs up what I said above — keeping things on a small scale and surrounding yourself with friends and acquaintances who love what you love is always the best way.

Anyway. Time for bed and to not think about the Internet. Have a pleasant evening!

Made it back to the gym this evening after last week being mostly procrastination. I felt a noticeably better attitude within myself this evening, too; it felt more like I "wanted" to be there, and that made the whole experience less demoralising.

One thing I also think I solidified in my mind is the importance of not comparing yourself with others. You are there at the gym for yourself, not to compete against anyone else, so there's no need to feel bad or frustrated if other people around you seem to be doing "better" than you are.

And, to put it more bluntly, a fat disgusting lump like me is very obviously never going to match up to the ripped dude in the vest or the girl with the nice arse and the tight trousers, so there's no point being upset about it. The reason I'm at the gym is not to one day be the ripped dude in the vest (or the girl with the nice arse, for that matter) but rather simply to feel better about myself; to ache less; to once again be able to do things I used to be able to do without thinking twice about them.

Everyone's goal at the gym is different. And that means there's no real way you can — or should — feel like you're in direct competition with each other. It's easy to slip into that mindset — notice the person on the bike next to you ramping up the difficulty and pace and it's easy to want to do that too just so you don't "lose face", for example — but in reality the other people in the gym don't give a shit about you either; they're there for themselves, too.

I think keeping that attitude in mind on future visits will help. So long as I feel satisfied in what I accomplished on any given visit, that's the important thing. And from there, successful habits form and — hopefully, anyway — improvement follows.

Been playing some BeamNG.drive since watching a Nyanners stream of it (where she refers to it as "funny car game", which makes me laugh because it's exactly the sort of thing my wife Andie would call it) and I find it an interesting experience.

You may recall back in my Midtown Madness 3 video I commented on how I felt we don't really get games like that any more — games where the pure joy of playing around, often without structure, is the main point of their existence. Well, BeamNG.drive is pretty much exactly that — with even less in the way of formal structure than Midtown Madness 3 has.

For the unfamiliar, BeamNG.drive was developed as an Early Access title on Steam, initially primarily as a demonstration of a soft-body physics model that allowed for some spectacular crashes and damage modelling. I didn't follow the game in its early days, so I don't know if the detailed sim element that exists in the game now was there right from the beginning, but certainly now, it's an extremely detailed simulation of how road vehicles work.

That all ties in with the damage model in that if you knacker your car in certain places, things will happen. Nadger your front right side and your car might start pulling to the right all the time. Knock your radiator too hard and it might start leaking. Take a jump and, contrary to what the movies might tell you, your suspension will probably end up somewhere around your shoulders upon landing.

But even if you don't crash, it's a simulation. Different cars and other road-going vehicles all handle very differently from one another, and it's possible to swap various parts out in real time to see what effect they have on the vehicle's performance. And yes, you can do some ridiculous things — my favourite so far has been fitting nitrous oxide to a bendy bus, which temporarily gives it the acceleration of a mid-priced family saloon rather than, well, a bus.

In BeamNG.drive there are a number of ways to play. "Campaigns" offer a series of levels in succession where you have to complete objectives in order to score points. "Scenarios" are one-shot situations that usually, again, involve completing an objective. A free roam mode allows you to explore any of the maps in the game, or created by the community. A Time Trial feature allows you to race the clock on a variety of courses on the existing maps in whatever vehicles you please. And there's even a weird futuristic racing mode where you drive on suspended platforms high above a neon-lit city.

There's no "right" way to play BeamNG.drive. There's no progression, no persistence, no Daily Objectives, no Login Bonus, no experience level. It's just "here's a toybox that involves motor vehicles", and then you have fun as you see fit.

It's easy to come to a game like that and think "well, uh, what do I do?" — because these days we're so used to games telling us what we should be doing right from the outset. But BeamNG.drive does no such thing. It simply provides you with the tools to have fun and then leaves the actual "having fun" part up to you.

Of all things, it reminds me of the time my school friend Andrew and I got hold of the playable demo for Carmageddon and spent hours at a time playing it, doing our best to get on top of a particular rooftop and repeatedly fling our cars off it in order to make them as unrecognisable as possible. You can do exactly that in BeamNG.drive if you so desire — only now the damage model is far more amazing than we ever would have imagined back in the late '90s.

But you can also just drive for fun and take in the scenery, experiment with the performance of different cars, explore some lovingly crafted (albeit fictional) maps, take on some structured challenges or even set up your own scenarios to play around with.

It takes time to get used to having that much freedom to just play. The first time I booted up BeamNG.drive, my play session was about five minutes and largely consisted of "haha, crashy car go crunch". The next time, I played a little longer, trying out a few of the campaign levels. Then I tried some scenarios. Today, I drove around in Free Roam for like two hours. It was an absolute delight.

This, for me, is the value that PC gaming specifically holds today. I'm not generally a big one for mods in a lot of games, but BeamNG.drive is exactly the sort of game where I do enjoy exploring mods — because the whole thing is one big box of toys anyway, so why not throw a few more in there? And, as you might expect, there are many, many mods to fiddle around with at this point, whether it's new maps, new scenarios, new cars or all manner of other things.

It's a completely pointless experience at heart, but I think that's why I like it. It's Microsoft Flight Simulator for fictional cars in fictional locales, and it's fast becoming my go-to "chill-out" game when I don't want to think.

And it's 20% off on Steam right now if this sounds like fun!

Spent a significant proportion of today playing TimeSplitters 2, primarily to unlock a bunch of stuff ahead of people coming over to play games in a couple of weeks, but also just because I fancied it. And because it appears that when I start playing TimeSplitters 2, it is suddenly 2.30am before I have noticed what has happened.

I was concentrating on the "Arcade League" and "Challenge" modes today, since that's where a lot of stuff gets unlocked — most notably game modes. These are also the quickest and most addictive parts of the game — they always push you just that little bit further in order to try and get the gold rankings, or indeed just finish the damn missions at all.

I'd forgotten how brutal Challenge mode was, but I did remember some of the Arcade League matches that gave me trouble last time around. Anything involving Duckman Drake is always infuriating but inevitably a matter of pride to beat in a satisfactory manner, while my attempts to clear the "Handyman" one up until a few moments ago brought back some fond memories of swearing at the TV back in university. There was also plenty of swearing at the TV this evening.

I think I'm satisfied with what I've managed to unlock today; I did want to unlock Handyman as a playable character, because I remember him being quite popular with my friends, but I don't know if I'm up to clearing that particular Arcade League mission — it's super hard.

Anyway, I had a thoroughly fabulous time with it, and despite the fact that it has previously appeared on the short;Play series, I suspect TimeSplitters 2 will be putting in an appearance on Retro Select at some point — perhaps sooner rather than later, since I haven't yet decided what I'm going to be recording tomorrow!

Anyway, what with it being 2.30am and all I should probably get some sleep. Hope you're all having a pleasant weekend!