I introduced myself to Tehkan's (now Koei Tecmo's) Star Force today, as I spotted that it was available in the Arcade Archives series, and I'd mentioned it in the Atari ST A to Z video on Plutos a while back.

A few observations: firstly, Plutos was most definitely inspired by Star Force, not that it was attempting to hide that fact in any way. Secondly, Warhawk was also most definitely inspired by Star Force, and in retrospect that was not attempting to hide that fact in any way either.

I find the latter quite interesting, because I recall Warhawk specifically being praised for being a relatively fresh and original-feeling shoot 'em up on its original release for Atari 8-bit (and other platforms) — but it turns out that yes, it's absolutely a shameless ripoff of Star Force. In fact, I'd probably argue that Warhawk is more of a Star Force ripoff than Plutos is — and Plutos is much more commonly known as being an "homage" to Star Force.

Warhawk goes so far as to wholesale lift enemy designs and their respective attack patterns from Star Force. Remember the annoying "Pac-Man" type ships in Warhawk that float straight down the screen until you cross their path, at which point they float horizontally? They're in Star Force. The waves of enemies that simply scroll vertically down the screen at you? Star Force. Waves of enemies that go wibbly-wobbly from side to side? Star Force.

I suspect Star Force itself didn't invent a lot of these things, but it just amuses me how shameless people were back in the Good Old Days — and how these things can come to light much more easily today than they ever would have done way back when. Sitting in front of my TV right now, I can immediately call up Warhawk, Plutos and Star Force and play them all alongside one another if I really wanted to. I mean, I don't, but I could if I wanted to.

As for Star Force itself, I really like it. I'm developing a real soft spot for this sort of mid-'80s vertical scroller that occupies a space somewhere between limited 8-bit shoot 'em ups and the slightly later, more spectacular 16-bit affairs. If nothing else, Star Force is one of the most relentlessly chipper and cheerful shoot 'em ups I think you'll ever play, and that certainly has to count for something these days, right?

Developing a bit of an addiction to manga of late. I go through this every so often, but it feels like it's "sticking" somewhat this time — particularly with me having successfully made it through all of Gal Gohan and written about each and every volume.

Occasionally I find myself thinking that I should be reading "better" things than manga — which is at least partly why I started on some light novels, which I'm also enjoying — but then something draws me back in and reminds me that, as a medium, manga is not inherently "better" or "worse" than anything else; it simply has its own unique benefits that are distinct from other ways of presenting and telling stories.

A common refrain from people is "oh, I wish this manga was an anime" — but to be honest, I think I've reached a point where I'd rather see the two forms of media continue to distinguish themselves and do what they're good at.

Having read all ten volumes of Gal Gohan, for example, I'm not sure I want it to become an anime as some people do — at least, not as a means of enjoying that series. I can see the value for bringing new people in to the series — watch a series of anime, get frustrated that it cuts off at a critical moment and is unlikely to get a second season, buy all the volumes of manga instead — but I didn't come away from reading Gal Gohan thinking "yes, I really need to see this animated". The manga did what it needed to — it was fun, it was sexy, it had an entertaining story and it resolved nicely.

Likewise, the short four-volume series Our Teachers Are Dating! that I'm currently reading would also probably work as an anime, but part of its appeal is in how it makes use of the manga medium with little asides, subtle visual jokes and suchlike; again, an anime series may well bring more people to the series in general, but ultimately I feel like the manga simply does everything it needs to already.

And of course, there's hentai, too. I bought three FAKKU! hentai books recently and really enjoy them — and many of those really wouldn't work as anime. Not because they're hentai, mind — there's plenty of hentai anime out there already, of course — but, again, because they make excellent use of the manga medium and format to tell their stories, twist things in unexpected directions and crack jokes. Once again, hentai anime has its own distinct, unique appeal — as does hentai manga. And I'm not sure the two need to cross-pollinate for any reason other than as a promotional tool.

But then this is probably why I don't run an anime company. I am, however, buying and reading a lot of manga — and, more to the point, I'm finding doing so somehow more practical and enjoyable than sitting down and watching a lot of anime. Maybe that's just me — perhaps I'm hardwired to appreciate books a bit more. I was certainly an avid reader in my youth — though like most people these days, I haven't done nearly as much book-readin' in recent years as I feel like I probably "should" have.

Ramblings aside, keep an eye on Rice Digital, 'cause everything I'm reading, I'm writing about. My long-term intent is to build up a "library" of complete series reviews — it's another one of those long projects to do a bit at a time, but I think it'll be something fun to work on, particularly on slow news days!

For today, go read my 10-part Gal Gohan review, check out my look at the thoroughly adorable first volume of Our Teachers are Dating! — and if you're feeling frisky, take a look at Viewer Discretion Advised; the latter is an article about hentai manga, but features no explicit pictures, so click with confidence! 

I'm really impressed with new-Apogee's Secret Agent and Crystal Caves "HD" versions. I haven't yet tried Monster Bash but I'm anticipating something similarly excellent. And I sincerely hope that new-Apogee continues to trawl its back catalogue for titles that are ripe for this treatment: stuff like Bio Menace and Major Stryker (off the top of my head) could really benefit from the "HD as a means of making things move smoothly" treatment.

Mostly I think I'm impressed at how well both Secret Agent and Crystal Caves hold up as games. They're simple, but they're very, very playable and enjoyable — and the improved presentation makes them more enjoyable without compromising the fundamental things that made them good in the first place. They still feel very much like the original games, but they run much better than they ever would have done back in the day — I described Secret Agent HD over on Retrounite as being "the game it always wanted to be".

This is a really interesting approach to "HD remasters". While I'm sure it's tempting to do a remake of something that fundamentally changes what the original was all about — remaking rather than remastering, essentially — this approach is something I'd dearly like to see more of, and I can imagine a whole host of classic shareware games from the early to mid '90s that would really benefit from this treatment.

I mean, just take Jill of the Jungle (not Apogee, I know), which I've done some vids on recently, as an example. Imagine that with smoother scrolling and sprite movement, but the same fundamental gameplay — it'd be great. Commander Keen would benefit from this treatment, for sure. Even Apogee's really old stuff like Paganitzu would be interesting to see remade and modernised in the same way as Secret Agent and Crystal Caves.

It remains to be seen if we'll get any more of these; new-Apogee is also pushing some of its new original work at the moment. But if they have any sense they'll capitalise on the fondness people have for the classic Apogee brand and bring back even more '90s shareware classics. I will certainly buy each and every one of them!

Been having some oddly vivid and memorable dreams of late. Not 100% sure what's been causing them — if anything — but they've certainly been an interesting experience.

Last night was especially… I guess exhausting is probably the right word, as I woke up feeling pretty tired from the experience. Alas, I couldn't just sleep it off, as I had to get up and do work, but I did manage to sneak a nap in later in the day — a dreamless one, for a nice change.

Anyway, the gist of said dream was that, for some reason, a group of companions and I were bursting into Castlevania Dracula's dining room ready for our final confrontation. I can't remember who my companions were, but I have a vague memory of at least some of them being people I went to school with — people I haven't seen for a good twenty or thirty years in some cases. That's not important. The important thing is that we were there to fight Dracula, and we were absolutely not ready for it.

Dracula promptly set fire to his own dining room and essentially obliterated us almost immediately — but we weren't dead. Apparently this was a boss fight we were supposed to lose, despite seemingly being the grand finale, and after a moment's darkness we found ourselves high above Castlevania, which, of course, was floating in a black void by this point.

Ahead of us was a long, winding and branching Super Mario 64-style slide, and we knew what we had to do: one by one, we launched ourselves down it, in search of stacks of grimoire pages that we needed to collect in order to defeat Dracula once and for all. Each stack seemingly contained over a hundred pages, indicated by a helpful meter that appeared in the top corner of our vision — I remember this because the first one I grabbed contained exactly 164 pages.

As noted, the slide branched off in a number of different directions, and at one point I made the decision to take a left turn, which led down into what appeared to be a semi-ruined public toilet. The slide weaved around the open cubicles, rising and falling — somehow we were perfectly able to continue sliding uphill when required — before rising back into the sky.

I believe I woke up before we obtained the required number of grimoire pages, so I'm not sure if our second encounter with Dracula went any better. But if nothing else, we'd had a lovely ride around Castlevania in the void.

Last night in RoseTintedSpectrum's Discord we were chatting about various classic British TV shows from a couple of decades ago — Spaced, Black Books, Big Train, all that sort of thing. One which came up that I hadn't seen before was Jam, an experimental work by Chris Morris of The Day Today/Brass Eye fame.

I remember seeing DVDs for Jam around the place back when I still bought DVDs, but for one reason or another I never jumped on board with it. From what I recall, the DVD packaging really didn't make what it was clear at all — and I'd never caught it on television, so had no real point of reference. I also vaguely recall at least one friend of mine saying that it was "weird", and that they weren't sure whether or not they liked it as much as Morris' other stuff.

Last night, I watched an episode of Jam for the first time. And I can confirm that it is indeed weird, and that a significant number of people may not get along with it, for a whole variety of reasons. But I really liked it.

For the unfamiliar, Jam is ostensibly something of a sketch comedy show, but the whole thing is drenched in such a genuinely disturbing, horrific sense of dread that calling it that doesn't really feel like it's doing it justice. It's a series of unrelated vignettes — some of which feature recurring characters — that present a series of situation best described as somewhat uncanny. People's reactions to situations are all "wrong", and a lot of the humour comes from some truly wonderful (and horrible) reveals as to what the truth of each scene really is.

For example, one classic scene often brought up by people is one in which a pair of disinterested parents realise that their son has gone missing. They talk about the situation as if they are discussing what to have for dinner that evening, or what they should plant in the garden if the weather is nice — and when their son's body is eventually found, they don't even bother to go and identify it, on the grounds that the description the police give them over the phone is "good enough for them".

This is the sort of thing that doesn't sound funny if you just describe it like this… but the presentation of the whole scene and the sheer absurdity of it all — coupled with the intense darkness — is what makes it really work. This is truly black, black as night comedy, showing that there's an inherent sense of humour and ridiculousness in even the most horrific things that happen — and consequently I can completely understand why people wouldn't be on board with it. I'm not even going to try sharing it with my wife Andie, for example, because I know she just won't be able to deal with it; it's like a hundred steps beyond the line of "cringe comedy" (The Office and suchlike) that she already can't handle.

Me though, I love it. It's creative, it's daring, it's hilarious, it's thought-provoking and it's beautifully, artistically presented. I can't wait to see more — and not be able to talk about it with anyone because the subject matter is just too out there. But if you think you might be on board with its particular brand of comedy-horror, some kind soul has uploaded all the episodes and the DVD extras into a playlist on YouTube right here.

Just don't say I didn't warn you!

As I was making myself a bacon sandwich this morning, I decided to forego my usual accompaniment of HP Sauce and instead garnish it with a generous dollop of Heinz Tomato Ketchup. And, in doing so, I came to the realisation that our minds make curious associations between things that are seemingly not directly related, but which have one single point of reference tying them together.

The use of tomato ketchup on sandwiches, for example. It is not my default approach, because I grew up in a household where bottles of HP Sauce were devoured on a regular basis. HP Sauce went in stews, casseroles and cottage pies; it accompanied any sort of fried breakfast; it was the standard addition to most sandwiches regardless of whether they contained ham, cheese, bacon, sausages or pretty much anything else. It was, in short, our family sauce. So to speak. Actually, I retract that statement because it sounds all kinds of wrong.

Anyway, I have nothing against tomato ketchup. I actually rather like it on a sandwich — sometimes I'm just in the mood for it. But it always feels like I'm doing something "different" when I reach for the ketchup instead of the HP Sauce. And this all comes down to one of these tenuous associations.

When I was a kid, I had a friend called Matthew. In Matthew's household, the default accompaniment to sandwiches was, you guessed it, tomato ketchup. Day in, day out at primary school, I'd see him pull out his sandwiches that were inevitably ham and ketchup. I came to associate the phenomenon of ketchup-on-sandwiches with him — emphasised by the fact that any time I went to visit his house at a time of day when the consumption of sandwiches would have been appropriate, they inevitably contained ketchup.

I somewhat lost contact with Matthew after he became a bit of a penis in secondary school, and fell in with a new group of friends. And yet here I am, many, many years later, and putting ketchup on a bacon sandwich still makes me think of fond memories from when I was, like, seven or something. Ham and ketchup sandwiches, Revs on the BBC Micro, being slightly scared of his dog Poppy.

My brain is full of this absolute garbage. But can I remember to put the bins out every Wednesday night? Can I bollocks.

Hello everyone! After feeling a bit uneasy and anxious for a lot of today, I think I've come to the conclusion that it would probably be a good idea for me to take a break for the coming week — aside from day job responsibilities, of course. With that in mind, there won't be any videos on my YouTube until the week beginning February 28 — there may be one or two on Rice, depending on how much time I have to put them together, but I'm taking a week off from my own personal projects for the sake of my own wellbeing.

I think something I need to fix in my own head — and this is by no means unique to me — is the feeling of "guilt" that comes with doing exactly what I'm describing above. The fast pace of the Internet is set up to reward those who post "content" (ugh) regularly and frequently, and honestly it's kind of unsustainable, both for creators and for audiences. There is no way everyone can do everything they want to do in a week, and attempting to do so is a sure-fire route to burnout.

So I'm going to sidestep that and avoid being properly burnt out by taking this pre-emptive, preventative measure. Of course, I'll still be writing stuff on Rice Digital, Retrounite and behind the scenes on Evercade stuff in the meantime — it just means I'm taking the pressure off myself for the things I don't "have" to do. Hope you don't mind — I mean, I do have over a thousand videos on my channel now, so hopefully you really don't mind me taking the odd break now and then 🙂

Stop apologising, Pete. You need a break, you take one. That's what you always say to other people when they say they need a break, so just take your own sodding advice, you complete arsetrumpet.

Sorry. You didn't need to see that. But anyway. I'm going to go play something that I just want to play for fun now. And hang the consequences! Bahahahahaha!

I'd been thinking for quite some time that I got along quite well with people who are a bit younger than me. And I think to a certain extent I do; the fact I'm reasonably well-versed in Internet culture, slang and suchlike means that I can generally hold my own in a conversation online with people who are a bit my junior.

But I think I've been underestimating the appeal of hanging out with people who are more my age. Just recently, I signed up for RoseTintedSpectrum's Patreon — I said I would, and I did — and joined his Discord. And it's been a thoroughly pleasant, chill experience ever since arriving; no drama, no endlessly scrolling barrage of memes, no bullshit — just people who want to have a chat occasionally, have a bit of peace and quiet at other times.

This is nice. I think the reason I habitually find myself getting overwhelmed by Discord is when there are servers that are just constant flurries of activity — but said activity isn't really "saying" or "achieving" anything. I grew tired of memes-as-conversation-substitute long ago, for example, and even NSFW channels aren't all that fun any more — if I want to look at lewd images, I'll do it in private, no real need to share it, no real need to make perverted "degenerate" jokes.

RTS' Discord, though, it's just a sort of nice virtual old man pub. And I mean that as a compliment; my friends and I used to absolutely relish going to an "old man pub" even when we were in our late teens, because it's just nice to have somewhere peaceful and welcoming to hang out with no pressure from societal expectations. Now I'm an actual old man (relatively speaking), the appeal is definitely there, for sure.

Anyway. This ol' man is going to bed now. His bones are achin'.

Every so often, I like to go back and look at my old blog (now dormant, but still live) and click the Random button a few times. That old blog was where the whole "#oneaday" thing came from in the first place — and the daily discipline of writing something each and every day, no matter whether or not I could think of something, has always been a valuable writing exercise. Which is one of several reasons I resurrected the format for here on Patreon.

Anyway, those of you who "met" me in more recent years may not have stumbled across my old blog before, so I thought I'd share with you a random selection of posts from over there that made me smile or at least go "heh, that was actually quite a while ago now". I hope you enjoy them!

Preview a Game Like Polygon (2015) – Remember when Polygon did a really, really awful preview of Rock Band 4 that was mostly a self-pitying whine from its writer about how he didn't really like going to preview events? I parodied that, and I think I did quite a good job too.

Real-World Spam (2010) – I was going through a bit of a rough patch in 2010, to say the least, and this bollocks wasn't helping matters. Never, ever, ever attempt to advertise your services with Yell, Thomson and the like.

Hyperbole Squared (2010) – The "haha, funny relatable blogger with badly drawn cartoons" trend has kind of been and gone several times — but back in 2010, it was new and exciting, and it was Allie Brosh's Hyperbole and a Half that made me realise the potential in that format. To a certain extent, I started to model my own posts after her highly entertaining ramblings, though I was also keen to do my own thing. Brosh seems to have last posted on her blog in 2020; I wonder what she's up to now.

Games Called "Simulator" That Aren't Simulators: A Joke That's Run Its Course (2016) – I wrote this in 2016. It's still true. Though I will add we do seem to be living in a time where we're starting to get more actual simulators again. So that's good.

The Changing Times, As Seen Through the Lens of Challenge TV (2014) – This one's worth it just for the closing paragraphs, which I'm still not 100% sure how I got onto. Having completely forgotten about this post and rediscovered it this evening, though, it made me laugh.

Three Wishes (2016) – This is a question I ponder quite often. But the conclusion I came to in this post is what I always come back to.

Anyway, that's quite enough of that for now, I think. Have a pleasant evening, and I hope you enjoy at least one of the above!

Hello! Bit of "admin" to talk about today. It doesn't affect any of you, but you might be interested to know regardless, as it determines what I'm working on and when, and thus if you're following the various things I'm doing… oh look, you just might want to know, all right?

As most of you reading probably know, I've been running Rice Digital since January of last year, Retrounite since the middle of last year, and alongside that I've also been helping out the Evercade team with writing manuals, digital content and suchlike. The range of things I've been doing is because the various companies who do these things are all part of the same group, which also includes a video game publisher and localiser many of you are doubtless familiar with, plus an online retailer that, again, many of you are probably familiar with given our mutual interests!

Despite all these companies technically being part of the same group, they all maintain their own independence and autonomy; it simply means they answer to the same CEO ultimately. Said CEO doesn't interfere with things that much; he simply steers the overall "business" in various directions, but the various actual companies under his umbrella all operate pretty much as entirely their own thing.

Take Rice Digital, for example; although we're under the same umbrella as a publisher who puts out stuff that will be of direct interest to Rice's audience, Rice is still an independent entity and thus we can cover pretty much whatever we want, within reason. Doubtless you've seen plenty of examples of that over the course of the last year!

The original intention behind Retrounite was for it to operate in a similar manner to Rice: to be an independent editorial entity that nonetheless maintained loose connections to the other companies under the same umbrella, perhaps nudging people in the direction of some interesting products and services that they might enjoy. Rice has been doing great in that regard; it's absolutely not an "advertorial" site — I'm making sure of that! — but it's also helping out other parts of the business simply by raising awareness of things.

The retro market is a bit different from the "current" market, however — largely because it's so dependent on second-hand stuff and private sales, plus the fact it's such an incredibly broad field. As such, Retrounite has been quite slow to grow; it has been growing, make no mistake, but not at such a rate that makes it something the company as a whole can necessarily afford to have me spending too much time on during my working day. Not when there are other things I could be turning my attention to that would be of more direct and immediate benefit to the business, anyway.

With that in mind, Retrounite is not closing. No! Instead, what has essentially happened is that I've been handed the keys to it to do with as I please for the foreseeable future — then if it does happen to generate a significant audience in the long term, we can look at it again and see if there is a way that it can benefit the broader business. But short-term, I'm free to make use of it as a hobby project however I see fit — and indeed if I see fit.

Note that this isn't an attempt from my employer to get me to do "unpaid" work. I'm under no obligation to keep updating Retrounite, and indeed I was told outright that I'm free to just let it go if I want to. But, the thing is, I enjoy it — and so I'm going to be keeping it going on a casual basis for the immediate future. And, given the fact that I'm free of pretty much all restrictions — not that I was particularly restricted when it was an official part of my job description — I can do all manner of things with it from hereon.

In the short term, expect my videos to be posted on there more regularly, along with their publication on YouTube. The various features I have going will also continue, because I'm finding it useful and educational to continue researching them. But with this now being a "hobby" site rather than a commercial interest, that frees me up for potentially doing collaborations with anyone who might be interested.

Obviously with it not being a commercial interest any more, it's not something I can pay people to do anything with — if I'm not getting paid for it, you sure ain't! — but if, say, you're someone who is a retro enthusiast and you want a place to write but can't be arsed to set up your own blog, I'll happily accept some guest posts, promote your work in the retro sphere and all manner of other things. There's a great deal of potential for building a nice little community around that site, and that's something I'd like to explore.

So, given that Retrounite will be becoming a "free time" thing, I can't, at this time, say how often I'll be updating it — but it will be as regularly as possible without burning myself out!

You may well also be wondering what I'll be doing with my time if Retrounite will no longer be part of my paid working day. Well, the answer to that is basically "more of what I'm already doing". Rice is ticking along very nicely and has been showing some very pleasing growth over the last year, so nothing really needs to change there, but the Evercade folks have been figuring out the best way to organise themselves for quite some time, and they want me to be part of it all.

So with that in mind, we haven't banged out the details yet, but the long-term plan is for the Evercade site to start hosting relevant articles that relate to both retro gaming and the Evercade in particular. It'll essentially cover similar sorts of things to what I've been doing on Retrounite, but specifically and explicitly focusing on Evercade-related matters.

It'll help add a ton of value to the Evercade website not just as a commercial site that is advertising products, but for those who want to take their appreciation of the platform a little deeper. What I'm envisioning right now is for articles on the Evercade site to provide insights and historical information about the various games available for the platform — and which are coming soon — in a level of depth that isn't possible in the printed manual or digital on-console text formats I've been working with up until now.

In that way, a particularly dedicated Evercade fan will be able to buy a new cartridge, play all the games on it and then enhance their immersion in the whole retro thing by actually learning some stuff about those games on the Evercade site itself.

I think that has the potential to be really cool — and be something that really distinguishes Evercade from other retro gaming offerings out there, which typically go "here's the games, here's PDFs of the original manuals (if you're lucky), off you go". I'm really looking forward to it — and we'll be taking a look at exactly what we want to do for the first time from next week.

So anyway! That's the long and the short of what we decided today. Like I say, very little is really going to "change" from your perspective — but as mentioned above, if you do want to be part of Retrounite in some way, it's now practical and possible for me to make that happen, so let me know if you want a place to post some retro ramblings, or if you just want me to pimp out your YouTube or whatever.

Oh, and as for MoeGamer, I know that's been at a standstill for a while. A lot of what I would have previously done daily on MoeGamer is now what I do on Rice, and honestly I don't see a ton of point in doubling up on my workload if I don't have to. As such, if you enjoyed what I've done on MoeGamer to date, I encourage you to stop by Rice every day — we post loads of great stuff that will definitely appeal to you!

I do, however, want to keep MoeGamer up and running as what is hopefully a valuable and interesting resource for people to read and find out more about a wide variety of games — and that's why despite it being relatively "dormant" right now, I still very much consider it a part of this Patreon. Your contributions help keep the hosting and WordPress Premium features online; without them… well, I'm not 100% sure what would happen, but I'm certainly well over capacity for image hosting on WordPress' free tier.

I also am intending to get back to the Atelier MegaFeature, because I am determined to get that done — I just need to be in a position to devote some time to it properly, and that means having less "on the go" elsewhere. Right now I'm still covering Full Metal Daemon Muramasa over at Rice Digital, for example, and that's a meaty ol' visual novel that is demanding a lot of my attention — as is Final Fantasy XIV, if I'm being perfectly honest. But I am at least writing about that, too!

What I'm thinking I might do is take on Atelier Sophie 2 for Rice Digital (and make copious notes along the way so I can also write about it on MoeGamer) and provide that with some suitable, detailed coverage — and then that will (hopefully) get me right back in the mood for more Atelier, so I can then crack back on with Atelier Lydie & Suelle, which I was enjoying before I managed to disrupt my own schedule so significantly!

So the short version is: it will be back, I'm just not 100% sure when as yet. And there's likely to be at least one article on Atelier Sophie 2 over on Rice before it starts back up again!

Right, I've rambled on long enough. Hope that's all clear. If you have any questions, feel free to ask — otherwise please keep enjoying what I do!