I got the five videos I hoped I'd get done recorded today, so I'm on schedule to achieve everything I want to do this week. There's still editing to do — plus all my usual writing — but I should be good to get everything done. It's amazing how well-motivated it's possible to be when you're doing something you actually want to do — even if that thing you want to do is hard work in itself.

I'm proud of what I do, and I've said numerous times around the place that I genuinely wish I could make it my full-time occupation. I don't know if that will ever happen, but I do know my work — particularly on the written side of things — has been attracting more attention than ever before over the course of this last year, and even the average number of views on my videos has been up considerably over the course of the last few weeks. Those are steps in the right direction — as I frequently note, I don't do this "for the numbers", but if I do ever want to make a "career" out of this, if it's possible, then a decently sized audience is a good starting point if nothing else!

Anyway. Enough reflecting on things that may never happen; I'm enjoying what I'm doing right now, and as I've said before, continuing to do it as my main "hobby" — besides gaming itself — most certainly keeps me sane amid the crushing, soul-destroying tedium of modern adult life. I'm extremely grateful that people like you (yes, you) are coming along for the ride and enjoying my stuff — and delighted that more and more people seem to be stopping by every day. I'm sincerely looking forward to finally completing a big project like Atari A to Z Flashback or the Atelier MegaFeature and being able to go "look, this is what I've been working on, I hope you enjoy it from start to finish". The sense of satisfaction I anticipate feeling at that moment will be worth more than anything.

Anyway, the new Evercade carts are here, so I think I know what I'm doing before sleep tonight…

I got up pretty late today, so I was worried I wasn't going to be super-productive. Instead I've managed to record ten full videos today (five Atari A to Z, five Atari A to Z Flashback) so I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself.

I was delighted to discover that a game I was dreading covering on the series — RealSports Baseball for 2600 — is actually a hilarious experience due to some of the very worst AI I've ever seen. I mean, on the one hand, I can understand it because of the 2600's limitations, but the sheer idiocy of the computer opponent in that game should be the stuff of legends. You'll see in a few weeks when the video goes up!

My loose plan for the rest of the week is to try and get five more episodes of all the current series in the can. On top of what I've already done, that means five episodes of Atari ST A to Z, short;Play and Evercade A to Z left to go, which is very much doable. Ten in a day is definitely doable, as today showed, but to give me a bit more time to do other stuff I think I'm going to just record five at a time on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday; that will leave me free to write, play Atelier Lulua and do some other bits and bobs, too.

Tomorrow's non-writing, non-video job is to attempt to clear all the cat shit out of our little outsidey bit, which is not going to be a fun job. Hopefully that will decrease the number of irritating little midges that keep finding their way into the house, though — we'll see.

Anyway, satisfied with all that I've achieved today, now I am off to bed. Have a good evening!

This evening we actually managed to get a group of friends together to play a board game — something we haven't done for a good six weeks or so. With what looks like another full lockdown looming, we wanted to take the opportunity to actually socialise, so we did — at admirably short notice, which is very unusual for this group of friends.

Anyway. The game we played was called The Quacks of Quedlinburg. I'd not heard of it before, but I haven't really been keeping up on board game news for a while now as there's seemed little point; with how infrequently we were all able to meet up, my collection felt very much like it was going to waste and I actually got rid of a good few of them. I still have a fair number of what I consider to be "essentials" though. But I digress.

The Quacks of Quedlinburg is a push-your-luck game about drawing potion ingredients out of your bag and hoping you don't add too many "cherry bombs". If the value of your cherry bombs exceeds 7 in a round, your potion explodes and you're put at a bit of a disadvantage come the "evaluation" phase and are only able to claim income or victory points; conversely, if you wisely choose to hold off adding more ingredients, you're able to claim both victory points and income, the latter of which can be used to add more ingredients to your bag, thereby "diluting" it and making it a little less likely you draw a cherry bomb.

The specific ingredients each have their own functions, some of which play off other ones, and there are a variety of different "books" detailing ways the different colours work, meaning each playthrough of the game can be a little bit different from the last. Mechanically, it's pretty simple — there's a lot of luck involved — but there are some interesting decisions to be made, particularly with regard to which ingredients to buy between turns, and whether or not you should keep pushing your luck, bearing in mind the odds of drawing something that will cause an explosion.

I really enjoyed it; there was enough mechanical interest to keep everyone engaged and occupied, it played quickly and no-one ever felt they were running away with the victory at any point. There are obviously plenty of different strategies and approaches depending on the ingredients you have available, and it is immensely satisfying when your combinations of ingredients work well together.

All in all, I'm looking forward to playing it again; hopefully we'll get another opportunity soon!

Spent some time recording some two-player gameplay for some upcoming Atari A to Z Flashback episodes today. Given the general uselessness of my friends even before the whole pandemic started, I've taken to recruiting my wife Andie to help with this.

Andie is very helpful and supportive with this, but I always feel a bit bad when I ask her to play something she obviously doesn't enjoy. Thankfully, both games we recorded today were a ton of fun, and we were pretty evenly matched. It's always nice when this happens — and it always makes me look on the game in question more fondly as a result.

The games in question today were Outlaw and Pong Sports, aka Video Olympics. I've never really played Outlaw all that much in the past, but it's super-fun in two player. The single-player target shooting variations are a bit dry and boring, but in two player it's a blast, with a variety of different ways to play.

I really like Pong Sports, too. While it's essentially little more than what you'd get on one of those standalone Pong consoles from the '70s, the fact all these games are together in one place and support up to four players makes it really fun. I also really like the variants that unfold from a "side" view and have gravity — the "Basketball" game may not really resemble actual basketball but it sure is fun!

It's always nice to (re)discover old games like this that really do hold up today. I've talked a bit before about "The Davison Cup" I liked to hold around my birthday (before the current nonsense happened), where I'd invite some friends over and we'd play a tournament of many and varied multiplayer games — including a bunch of Atari 2600 stuff. Next time we manage to do this — assuming that ever happens — these two are definitely going to be part of it.

Been spending most of today playing Atelier Lulua, and I'm a big fan. As I mentioned briefly the other day, the game has something of a feel of Atelier Iris about it, and that feeling is only getting stronger the further I go and the more the game opens up.

Specifically, I'm getting the feeling I got from the first Atelier Iris where there was a main plot that I should probably go and do at some point, but a lot of the appeal came from dropping in on my favourite shopkeepers and seeing what was going on with them, or doing some sidequests that were ultimately of little importance to the main narrative, but which still had some nice interactions between the characters to enjoy as a reward.

Thus far I've been enjoying seeing Lulua getting to know Totori and Mimi, and Totori having grown very gracefully into full adulthood. There's none of the sense of "exhaustion" she has in Atelier Meruru, and she manages to radiate a sense of responsibility and trustworthiness without sacrificing her natural gentleness — and indeed it seems that over the years her confidence in showing her playful side has grown somewhat, too. This is especially apparent any time we see her interacting with Mimi, who is, as always, a delight.

An interesting aspect of Atelier Lulua is that a significant proportion of it involves figuring things out for yourself from clues rather than being told explicitly what to do next. I really like this, as it fits well with the way the narrative has been going so far, and adds something of a "puzzle" feeling to the game as a whole. There are also lots of optional objectives with very worthwhile rewards, so the game has been keeping me busy and very happy for the 12 hours or so I've been playing so far.

Looking forward to writing about it, but there's a little while to go before that happens yet!

Calories: 2025/2040

Now it's Friday. Today wasn't too bad, actually. Had to endure the usual Friday morning conference call — which included us trying to convince our superior across the Channel that the thing she was asking us to do was impractical bullshit and a complete waste of time, which is always fun, since she's 1) stubborn and 2) French (which are essentially the same thing in my experience). After that, there were a few lightweight projects to finish off and then I was pretty much done by early afternoon.

Which left me plenty of time to write today's piece on MoeGamer. I was sort of dreading writing about Atelier Totori's plot, since its kind of freeform, event-based nature makes it a bit trickier to analyse than some other narrative games, but I ended up bashing out 4,000 words on the subject, so evidently I found my groove somewhere along the way. It took several hours — meaning by the time I'd finished there wasn't a lot of time to just settle down and relax for some games, unless I stay up unnecessarily late… which is always an option — but I was satisfied with the end result.

This weekend, since I have the coming week off, I actually am going to take it reasonably easy, since I have a whole week ahead of me to get some videos done. I'm probably going to fill most of my time with Atelier Lulua, but I've had the good fortune to get a beta version of the upcoming Evercade firmware update, so I'll spend some time fiddling around with that, too.

I can confirm that the nitro no longer gets stuck on Top Racer, if nothing else — that and Mega Drive games no longer get cut off behind the screen bezel. Those two updates alone are wonderful. Not sure when the new update will be live, but it sounds like it will be pretty soon, so if you're an Evercade person, keep an eye out for it.

Anyway. Time to sit in bed and… well, maybe play some Top Racer, actually, since I've kind of had a bit of an itch for it lately. And definitely looking forward to Top Racer 2 on the new Piko cart… even if that's a fair way off yet.

Have a pleasant Friday evening!

Calories: Takeaway. 'Nuff said

I've spent a significant proportion of today thinking it was Friday… or perhaps just hoping it was Friday. It is not, however, Friday, which means I have Friday to endure before the weekend comes… but then I do have a full week off from the day job, which I am looking forward to very much.

I think I've been feeling like it's Friday because I finished a project at work today and was very glad to see the back of it. Without going into too much detail, it was one of those annoying "cross-corporate" things where our company (the smaller one) had to bend over backwards and do everything the big company we were collaborating with demanded, lest they slam down their Corporate Fist of Bullshit on us. I hate that shit. I hate corporate life in general, but I especially hate this sort of shit.

Anyway, it's all taken care of now, so hopefully nothing more to worry about in that regard. If there is, well, for the next week it ain't my problem so I don't care.

Loose plans for the week off are to get a bunch of videos done and put together a "pilot" site for the Intellivision-related project I was talking about the other day. Still undecided on whether it's something that it will be practical to pursue, but nothing wrong with putting together something preliminary and seeing what happens! I'll share it with you fine folks when there's something to look at.

Have a pleasant Fr-… err, Thursday evening.

Calories: 1978/2040
Ring Fit? No
Water consumption: OK

I've played a few hours of Atelier Lulua: The Scion of Arland over the last couple of evenings and I'm very impressed so far. You can tell it's a game from nearly a decade after its previous installments, but it also feels nicely true to the previous Arland games in a lot of ways… although Keina's new voice actress is taking a bit of getting used to.

I'm actually feeling a surprising amount of Atelier Iris vibes in this one. I mean, hell, there's even a character called Mana who is obviously a lot more than she seems, and there's a lot more "mysticism" going on. Plus I get the impression there's going to be a greater sense of going on a "journey" than some of the others — though both Totori and Meruru have this to a certain extent.

Lulua herself is a charming character. Judging purely by the artwork of her I'd seen, I was expecting someone rather meek and shy, but she's actually charmingly tomboyish at times, overexcitable, reckless and obsessed with curry. A perfect Atelier protagonist in that she combines all these personality traits with being one of the most beautiful fictional women on the planet. They did well with this one.

I haven't delved far enough into things to really get to grips with the mechanics as yet, but the alchemy system appears to have an interesting "elemental balance" system going on rather than the "effect" bars from the previous three games, and the battle system brings back stun and knockback mechanics from the Atelier Iris games, which I'm delighted about. There's also a super-fun "Interrupt" mechanic which isn't quite the same as the support attack system from previous games, but instead allows alchemist characters to jump in and fling bombs around outside of their normal turn order. It's a lot of fun, and I sense the battles will get quite hectic as the game progresses.

So far I'm well and truly charmed, then. It's a bit of a shame this game got overshadowed by Ryza, but I also understand; people would have found it much easier to latch on to a new subseries than the fourth installment in a decade-old trilogy. If you're curious, though, don't sleep on Atelier Lulua; it doesn't really require knowledge of the previous Arland games, but there is plenty of series fanservice to enjoy if you have played them. I'm finding it particularly pleasing going straight from the old Arland games into this one — the reappearance of somewhat more minor characters such as Piana from Atelier Totori and them having a much more important role is a delight.

Haven't met Rorona, Meruru or Totori as yet, but I'm looking forward to it. And I still don't know who Lulua's dad is. If indeed she has one and is not some sort of magical creation. I'm ruling nothing out at this point.

Calories: 2032/2040
Ring Fit? No
Water intake: Below average

Finished off my replay of Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland this evening, which means I'm back into unexplored territory for the Atelier series next. I'm taking on Atelier Lulua next, despite it not technically being the "next" in the overall series; I thought it would make more sense to do the Arland games as a coherent unit, even if one of them was added much later. (I was quite interested and impressed to see that they patched a very brief Atelier Lulua teaser into the end of Atelier Meruru though — that's commitment to continuity.)

I know absolutely nothing about Atelier Lulua, so I'm looking forward to giving it a try. Somehow I have managed to remain unspoiled on a lot of things about it — including who Lulua's father is, if Rorona is her mother. I suspect the answer won't be the obvious one, but I guess we'll have to wait and see!

I was satisfied with the ending I got in Atelier Meruru — for those in the know, I got the "Finally, As Planned" ending. I was pretty close to getting "Witch's Tea Party," which builds off that one, but I just ran out of time to fulfil the final conditions. I did remember to sell everything in Meruru's inventory before the final day this time, though, so next time I play (and I probably will — the nice thing about the Arland games is that they're short enough to make replays practical) I'll have nearly half a million Cole to start with.

Anyway. That's how I spent my evening. That and fighting the WordPress Block Editor, but that's a tale for another day. For now, I think I need to sleep!

Calories: 2124 – 136 (exercise) = 1988/2040
Ring Fit? Yep
Water consumption: Not great, but working on it

The wife has been watching a fair few "commentary channels" on YouTube of late. I enjoyed one of them, Joinen, for a while, but over time it's become increasingly clear that the vast majority of these channels are just churning out the same thing over and over again. And, in the process, they're actually ending up doing pretty much something they spend the majority of their time criticising: creating mindless "content" rather than anything particularly original.

If you're unfamiliar with the "commentary channel" concept, it's pretty simple. The YouTuber in question watches a YouTube video, stopping every so often to describe their thoughts on it. It's like trying to watch a movie with that one insufferable friend who is always asking questions while you're trying to enjoy yourself, but instead of a movie with a worthwhile story, spectacular cinematography and a stirring musical score, it's a YouTube video full of jumpcuts, screeching voiceovers and time-lapse shots of hands doing things that aren't particularly interesting.

Beloved of the commentary channel host are YouTube channels such as "5 Minute Crafts" and "Troom Troom", all of which are transparently clickbaiting content farms pushing out a bunch of pointless crap multiple times a day purely to harvest advertising revenue rather than provide anything of actual value to society. These channels often have millions of subscribers and obscene numbers of daily views — and the sad thing is, I can't help but think a significant proportion of them probably come from commentary channel hosts and their audiences.

Joinen is by no means the only offender in this regard, but he's the one I'm most familiar with, so he's the one I can talk about. When I first started watching his videos, I thought he did some interesting stuff from around the Internet as a whole — he looked at trends on social media, on Reddit, in memes and all that sort of thing. But since he has very obviously switched over to being a "Twitch-first" sort of entertainer, he appears to be beholden to the whims of his audience — and what his audience apparently wants to see is three things on constant, never-ending rotation. Those things are 1) Troom Troom is shit, 2) Girls' games online are weird and gross, and 3) This thing is weirdly sexist.

I don't really get it. One video highlighting the absurdity of these content farm channels was enough to give me the idea of what they're up to and how shit they are. But Joinen and others like him seem to just constantly do the same thing — watch a Troom Troom/5 Minute Crafts/whatever video and complain about it every few seconds. It just gets old very quickly. I don't know, perhaps there's a sort of "comfortable familiarity" thing going on, but as soon as I noticed this pattern in Joinen's work, I drifted away from watching him and haven't really been back since.

For me, I think this highlights the main reason why I refuse to classify the things that I do online as "content". As soon as you starting considering anything you create to be "content" rather than a series of individual creative works with worth on their own merits, you devalue them and relegate them to be yet more things you do that no-one looks at. People need to value what they do more and take more pride in it, rather than churning out endless "content" just because they feel like they have to — even if they're not making a living from what they do, or even monetised at all!

A blogger friend of mine makes solid videos on anime series, but every time he puts something out he feels the need to apologise for not making enough "content". I tell him off for it every time and he understands what I'm saying, but he still does it.

Ah well. I'm sure someone out there could complain that I'm "just doing gaming videos and articles" or whatever, and that is, of course, true; ultimately nothing any of us does really matters in the grand scheme of things. But at least I'm having a good time and constantly learning new things rather than feeling obliged to bitch about the same YouTube channel week after week after week after week…

Or perhaps I'm just a grumpy old man. That's probably the more likely explanation.