Recorded all next week's videos (except for any Final Fantasy vids I can squeeze in for Rice) today. Highlight of the day was Blast Works for Wii, an adaptation of one of Kenta Cho's freeware shoot 'em ups — specifically, Tumiki Fighters.

Blast Works' main attraction is that in exchange for 127 blocks of your Wii's storage space (which is quite a bit, as it turns out) you can basically build your own game. You can construct your own ships, enemies, bullet patterns, levels, scenery objects and pretty much everything aside from sounds and music from scratch, then play your own custom game. Back when Wii online functionality was a thing, you could even upload and share them online.

Naturally, I did the only sensible thing when presented with such a comprehensive suite of editing tools.

That's right, I took one of the sample projects and replaced the player ship with a big, spunking cock. Because what better way to test the functionality of a game editor than with something needlessly offensive? Exactly.

I have some ideas for trolling my friends with this game, but it's a lot of effort for a bit of childish japery. I think it might be worth it though.

It's been thoroughly pleasant to have a nice quiet day today. Got up after a lie-in (though not too late as to obliterate the entire morning for once), played some Blue Reflection and just generally chilled out for the whole day.

Consequently, I don't have much to talk about other than the fact that I think I'm approaching the finale of Blue Reflection: Second Light and it's great. I don't want to say too much because spoilers, but I really like some of the angles they've gone with here — it keeps things tonally and thematically consistent with the first game (and the anime) but presents an interesting new twist on the context.

I still haven't got around to watching the whole anime — and I was bummed to discover it won't be getting a Blu-Ray release — but I do very much appreciate how Second Light incorporates some of the characters from the anime but does completely unexpected things with them. Likewise, the involvement of Hinako (protag of the first Blue Reflection) is no secret, but her role in the overall story is a very interesting one rather than just a bit of fanservice.

Tomorrow is recording day, so that will likely take up most of the day. I think Andie is planning on putting up Christmas decorations, too, so we should have a pleasingly festive house by the end of the day. For now, though, time to sit in bed and read some sort of Japanese popular fiction, I reckon. But what to pick? Gal Gohan? Komi Can't Communicate? Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki? I have a bunch to choose from right now, and they're all exciting me at the moment, so that's good.

Anyway. Hope your weekend is going well. Have a nice Sunday!

I'm back! Sorry for no post yesterday, but the hotel we were staying in for the Christmas party had absolutely terrible Wi-Fi and phone reception, and I didn't fancy wandering around the whole building trying to find the single square metre that actually had some sort of wireless reception. Also I was quite drunk and full of food.

It was a good party though. It was nice to meet people I've only met either through Teams video calls or, in some cases, just email messages. The food was good, the open bar was exceedingly dangerous (though I managed to restrain myself sufficiently to escape with neither a hangover this morning nor any vomiting last night) and the company was good. Also no-one minded when I snuck off about 10pm to go and rest in my room for a bit and ended up falling asleep. At least I wasn't the first person to flake out; someone didn't even make it to the meal's main course.

Discovery of the evening was the Espresso Martini, which this place had on tap. I didn't know you could have any sort of Martini on tap, but they had both Espresso Martini and Passion Fruit Martini on tap. I didn't try the latter, but I had several of the former, and they were very nice indeed. I'm not sure what was in them besides the coffee and the vodka — perhaps some sugar syrup, since I saw them squirting something or other into the glass before pouring the actual drink — but they were eminently drinkable, having neither the bitterness of pure espresso nor the acrid unpleasantness of vodka.

I'm no closer to any sort of answer as to why the company Christmas party was in Doncaster when the two main offices are in Bristol and Letchworth (for those unfamiliar with UK geography, Doncaster is pretty much the opposite end of England to those two places) — but it seems like it was something of a tradition, and I wasn't going to complain when travel, accommodation, food and booze were all laid on for us. Very nice.

Anyway, I'm back home now and very much in need of a nice quiet day to myself, so that's exactly what I'm going to do tomorrow. Andie is going to put the Christmas decorations up, but I generally find it's best to just stay out the way when she's doing that. The end result is always worth it!

Hope you all have a pleasant weekend!

I think I might have become one of those people who prefers to read the manga or light novel over watching the anime.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good anime, but for some reason my brain tells me it's somehow more "effort" to watch an anime than it is to read something — and consequently I've found myself investing in expanding my collections of several manga and light novel series recently.

Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki is my first experience reading Japanese light novels and I wasn't quite sure what to think at first, but before long I was very much enjoying myself. And once I got into the second volume, I was very much hooked.

The idea of a series of books all based around the same characters in the same setting isn't a new one of course — I grew up reading stuff like the Secret Seven and the Famous Five, after all, and these days there's stuff like Harry Potter and its ilk in the YA sector.

But there's something… I don't know, "different" about the way light novels handle things. Each volume clearly stands by itself, but it's part of something bigger — even if that "something bigger" is something that doesn't really matter or which isn't especially dramatic compared to wizards battling or whatever. Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki is about a shy nerd who gradually learns how to talk to people, for example, and that's it. He's not a great hero or a chosen one, he's not a harem master, he doesn't have some great destiny ahead of him — he's just a shy nerd. And getting to know him — and the people he gets to know — is a real pleasure.

As for manga, I think I've been quite fortunate in that the manga I've explored to date tend to work a bit better in that format than in anime. Komi Can't Communicate, for example, is full of visual gags that only really work with text — and where some of those have been recreated note for note in the anime they look very out of place. (That said, the Nagatoro anime was very good — but I do still think I might prefer the manga).

Anyway, that's my idle pondering for the evening taken care of. Now it's time to start volume 3 of Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki before sleep. Christmas party tomorrow! Yay…?

Progressed from "in mild pain" to "full-on ill" overnight. Had an excruciating headache from the moment I lay down to the moment I got up and was very sick. And a little bit afterwards, too. That took me up to about 4am, so I did not have a very restful night and I've been feeling kind of dogshit today as a result.

With that in mind, I don't have a lot in me for a super-interesting and/or insightful post today, I'm afraid, not that I'm sure you particularly expect anything along those lines from these deranged (almost) daily ramblings anyway. But I at least wanted to say hello before I retire to bed with a warm drink and some chocolate and go read manga.

Supposed to be taking my trip tomorrow evening, so hopefully I'll be feeling a bit better in the morning. I do not really fancy being sociable while feeling like absolute dog-arse, so a reasonable night's sleep is most definitely in order, then hopefully a day of work that isn't too stressful tomorrow. I got the stress out of the way today. Oh hey, Gal*Gun Double Peace is coming to Switch — check it.

Anyway. I'm off to bed for the aforementioned warm drink, chocolate and manga. Now, do I continue with Bottom Tier Character Tomozaki, try out Gal Gohan or work on catching up on Komi Can't Communicate…? Maybe a bit of all three.

I think I've buggered my coccyx. It hurts to sit down and it hurts to stand up, which is obviously not an ideal situation. Well, no, let me clarify — the act of standing up from being seated hurts, but standing up itself is not necessarily an issue aside from fatigue.

I had just been writing this off as general symptoms of being fat and old (which it probably is anyway), but apparently having pain in one's tailbone is something that can happen, and it usually goes away after a couple of weeks. It seems you can also relieve it somewhat with a special cushion, so I'm doing that before spending £100+ on a new chair, which I'm also considering doing.

Basically I'm just pretty decrepit. The last couple of years haven't helped my general physical condition at all, and it wasn't especially good in the first place. Plus right now I'm feeling a little uneasy about going out to the gym and/or swimming pool because of the new COVID restrictions in place — though I guess said restrictions aren't harsh enough to have actually closed places, so I guess it might be all right… perhaps? I don't know. Either way, with my bum hurting like this, I haven't really felt like exercise, either.

It's all go, isn't it?!

Got a work Christmas party this week coming. It's the first work Christmas party for quite some time I haven't felt every possible urge to wriggle out of, because I actually like and am quite comfortable with the people I work with, so it should be a pleasant evening. It also doesn't particularly sound like it's going to be an evening of "enforced fun" or anything, either, just a nice meal and a stay in a hotel, so it should be pleasant enough.

I am reminded of the worst work residential I ever went on, and the reason why, since then, I have tended to avoid anything that involves giving up my free time to the places that I work. It was back when I worked at energy company SSE, which is by all accounts a hellish place to work anyway, but we had a residential "conference" to attend on one day, which was absolute tedium to the max — aside from the part where we had to go off in "breakout groups" and… colour in posters. Yes, really.

SSE was amazing at belittling its employees and treating them like primary school students and I knew this full well by the time this conference rolled around, but it didn't make it any less excruciating to sit through. Thus when the opportunity presented itself to retire to my room in the evening, I took said opportunity as soon as possible and just sat in the dark pondering the life choices and seemingly unavoidable events that had conspired to put me in that ridiculous situation.

Anyway, I'm hoping for no such nonsense this week — the food sounds good, the company should be good and since the meal is at the same place we're staying overnight, I'm sure there should be no problem in slinking off to hide the moment I start feeling overwhelmed. (I estimate about 10-11pm or so.) I will take various gaming implements with me.

So that's what's going on this week, aside from the usual grind. Hopefully shouldn't get in the way of anything too much, and I'll be back in my own bed by Friday evening. I hope any of the rest of you about to have Christmas parties inflicted on you have at the very least a tolerable experience and/or a convenient opportunity to escape.

Was hoping I'd be able to play a bit of Final Fantasy XIV this weekend, but I should have known better than to even consider playing on an Early Access weekend for a new expansion. Kind of fascinating how a weekend when theoretically fewer people should be playing (i.e. primarily those who preordered the new expansion) ends up being busier than the game ever is even at peak hours. But oh well.

I might try again tomorrow, but I've spent most of the day playing Blue Reflection: Second Light and that's most certainly time well spent. I'm not sure how much I have left to go, but things are certainly building towards some sort of climax now. There are still a few threads left to resolve along the way, so I estimate maybe three or four more chapters… but it's certainly Getting Real.

Tomorrow will mostly be spent recording stuff. Hard to believe there's just three Atari Flashback Classics games left to go — when that's over and done with, that'll be the most significant, large-scale creative project that I've ever brought to "completion". The Atelier MegaFeature will be of a similar if not greater scale when it's finally finished, but of course that's taking a short break at the moment.

Speaking of the Atelier MegaFeature, I'd like to reassure everyone that it most certainly hasn't been abandoned, but while I'm still finishing off Blue Reflection it's on hold. I'd like to finish Blue Reflection as soon as possible so I can write some more about it for the obligatory year-end roundups over on Rice, so that's taking priority at the moment. Once that's finished, I'll turn my own "personal gaming" time back to Lydie & Suelle primarily, so things will continue from there.

At this rate I can't promise that will happen before the new year, but it definitely will happen, and that is a promise. It'd be a shame to have come this far and fall off it in the last few games, after all — but any longstanding Gust fans will doubtless understand how Blue Reflection would have derailed things, I'm sure.

Anyway, I'm rambling on now and I need to sleep — so it's time to go do that. Have a pleasant Saturday evening, and if you've been trying to get on FFXIV… get up early tomorrow! Worked for my wife today!

No better today. Well, maybe a bit, but highly localised pain has been replaced by "aching all over" which isn't really an improvement, so I think I'm going to call it an early night tonight. I was hoping to log in and play some Final Fantasy XIV this evening, but the queues certainly put paid to that possibility — I'll try again over the weekend, otherwise it'll likely be a Blue Reflection kind of weekend, I reckon!

I'm tired. This year has been tiring — perhaps even more so than last year. I feel like I was mostly coping with the whole "pandemic" thing just fine for most of last year, but the situation feels like it's stressing me out a lot more, particularly as we close in on the end of our second year in the midst of it. It's probably not worth worrying about — not as if I can do much about it myself, anyway — but as a naturally anxious sort of person, I can't help but worry somewhat. It's the way I'm built.

So I think what I'm going to do tonight is try and get some nice rest nice and early, wake up reasonably fresh tomorrow, have a pleasant, quiet day and try to relax a bit. From thereon we can take everything else as it comes, or something!

Hope you all have a good weekend.

Apologies for no post yesterday, I've been having some fairly excruciating pain from my hernia for the past couple of days so I pretty much went to bed straight after finishing work yesterday. I'm slightly better today but not quite "fixed" yet, but hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

I'm annoyed with myself, I wanted to get some stuff done like a Let's Play for Clockwork Aquario for Rice, but I guess I can do that tomorrow. Trouble is, like most people I feel like I've been conditioned to feel intense guilt any time I'm not feeling my best either physically or mentally, and thus I end up getting myself into a bit of a tizz worrying about whether I've done "enough". I've totally done "enough", I've done about the same as I'd do on a "normal" day, but it's just hard to remember that sometimes.

On an unrelated, happier note, a big package containing five volumes of the Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki light novel arrived today. Unfortunately, Volume 2 wasn't among them — that one proved oddly hard to find, so I had to order it from the States, and as such I can't dive into them yet, but I'm looking forward to it. The first volume was an interesting read, and I'm intrigued to see how it develops over the long term. This is my first time immersing myself in a light novel series, so it's an enjoyable learning experience.

Sorry for the disjointed thoughts but as you can probably tell I'm not feeling my best right now. We're going to have some (very late) dinner and then I'm going to go to bed and play a bit of either Ridge Racer Type 4 or Lufia II. That sounds like a good idea, no?