Well, today is the last day of my "holiday" — Saturday and Sunday are just a normal weekend, then it's back to the grind of the day job on Monday. Boo, hiss, etc.

Anyway, I thought I'd take stock of what I've achieved this week just so I feel better about the things I've managed to get done. This week I have:

• Researched and recorded intros for 23 Atari A to Z videos
  – Recorded gameplay for 8 of those Atari A to Z videos (one published already)
  – Researched, recorded intros and recorded gameplay for 5 Atari ST A to Z videos
  – Recorded and edited five videos for Warriors Wednesday, taking us to the conclusion of Warriors Orochi
  – Recorded four episodes of Final Fantasy for the Final Fantasy Marathon series
  – Posted all my usual articles on MoeGamer

Tomorrow I'm going to try and record probably five Atari A to Z Flashback videos, then that will be all my personal goals for this week accomplished. Pretty pleasing, and a good indicator of how productive I could be if I was doing this thing full time.

On that subject, I saw an interesting job listing come up this week. It's for a job that would be absolutely ideal for me: it's a site editor and community manager job for a UK-based website that specialises in Japanese games and retro stuff. No, it isn't MoeGamer.

The job sounds absolutely fantastic in terms of what it's asking and I'm going to apply for it, but I have three main hesitations over it. Firstly, I predict that its salary will probably be well under what I'm on now and almost certainly lacking the corporate benefits I currently enjoy. Secondly, I don't know what working a job like this would mean for MoeGamer and my YouTube work. Thirdly, and probably most significantly, it's two and half hours away from where I live. And "just moving" isn't an option, since my wife works around here, we own our house rather than rent it and… well, we don't want to move!

Still, this is 2019, so it doesn't hurt to enquire as to whether or not the job can be performed remotely — particularly for an Internet-based job like this — so I'm still going to apply with this in mind. My current day job is absolutely fine but it's boring and occasionally frustrating, so it certainly doesn't hurt to idly pursue other opportunities while I'm in a position of stability. Nothing ventured and all that.

Anyway. It's 1:20am and I'm tired after a very late gym session, so I'll say good night for now. Look out for both Atari A to Z Flashback and your PATRONS ONLY! exclusive vlog tomorrow. Have a lovely evening!

Productive day today! Got writing done first, then set myself some reasonable expectations for what I wanted to achieve video-wise: five Atari ST A to Z videos. And I did it! Five videos are now recorded and ready for editing, featuring an interesting mix of games ranging from a dodgy Yogi Bear platformer to one of Brian Fargo's earliest projects with Interplay.

On the whole, I've been reasonably pleased with what I've managed to accomplish in this time off so far. The week has, as always, gone by much too quickly for my liking, but at least I don't feel like I've wasted it. Getting ahead of schedule on these various projects takes a bit of the (self-inflicted) pressure off me and allows me to focus on specific things, and that's something I felt like I needed to do.

In the meantime, I've spent some more time with Senran Kagura Burst Re:Newal and I'm loving it. Nowhere near far enough for a full writeup this week, but I'll put some solid time in over the weekend and see how far I get. In the meantime, I might have a play around with the Diorama feature for a light-hearted article tomorrow; the Diorama is a lot of fun, but I've never really played around with it that much. No time like the present!

Successfully hit the gym tonight, and I lost a bit of weight for Slimming World too. All in all, a pretty good Thursday, all things considered.

Didn't do too badly today, despite the distractions of an eye test in the morning (£130 for the test and new glasses, ugh… but after fifteen years or so, these glasses aren't quite doing the trick any more) and having to give Andie a lift to and from the dentist.

In total I managed to get seven Atari A to Z videos recorded and ready to edit. I haven't actually edited them yet because the research and recordings are the time-consuming bits, but I might try and get them all prepped and ready to go so I don't have to think about them.

Tomorrow I already have an Atari ST A to Z video in the pipe ready to go, so I can do pretty much whatever — I might split my time between researching some Atari ST videos (there are so few games beginning with Y or Z!), recording some more Atari A to Z and getting a bit more Final Fantasy Marathon done. I actually have another Final Fantasy Marathon video ready to edit for Friday, so again there's no pressure there, but it'd be nice to get ahead of schedule on all my video series.

I also took some time to get started on Senran Kagura Burst Re:Newal today and I'm very much in love! I nearly didn't bother picking this one up because it's "just" a remake of the 3DS version, which I already liked very much. I was also initially a bit grumpy that it wasn't a remake that used the original's old-school brawler-style 2.5D gameplay, but having now played it a bit, I can confirm that this is probably the best refinement of the series' fighting formula to date. It's smooth and slick, and there are a bunch of mechanical refinements (most notable among which are visible telegraphs of enemy moves, Final Fantasy XIV-style) that make it a real pleasure to play.

It's odd going back to the beginning of this story now I know all these characters so well! I'm intrigued to see how much — if any — retconning is going on, since the theorycrafters out there believe that Burst Re:Newal tells the story of Burst from the series' second timeline's perspective rather than the original's first timeline. But my head hurts just thinking about how all that works, so I'm also just going to take it on its own terms.

And Ikaruga's theme still sounds like Phantom of the Opera, which is the most important thing.

Anyway. Tired out after a busy day, so I'm going to skip the gym and get an early night tonight, I think. Have a pleasant evening!

I was reasonably productive today! I'd originally intended to spend the day recording gameplay for Atari A to Z, but decided to rearrange things a bit and ended up recording six episodes of Warriors Orochi instead. That takes me to the end of that game, finally, so watch out for the grand finale in… well, in six weeks, I guess. Please also look forward to me being absolutely on top of my cringeworthy pun video naming game with tomorrow's episode.

Warriors Orochi weighs in at 59 episodes in total. That's a lot, but I'm glad I saw it through from start to finish. As I talk a bit about at the end of the final episode, the video series was as much an excuse for me to play a game I'd always been interested in as it was to (hopefully) entertain people. I've found since starting both MoeGamer and my video work that having a sense of "structure" to my hobbies really works for me; it allows me to focus on something and enjoy it to the fullest rather than jumping around from thing to thing without really engaging properly — something that I very much used to suffer from.

Okay, I still buy a lot more games than I'm playing at any one time, but I see them as investments for the future at this point: I have plenty of games to keep me in both videos and things to write about for the foreseeable future, all of which are pleasingly off the beaten track rather than the stuff everyone already knows about.

I have an eye test tomorrow so I'm up early, then I'm going to spend the day doing Atari A to Z stuff and probably cracking on a bit with Senran Kagura Burst Re;Newal, which I haven't started yet. I think I will set more realistic expectations for myself — while it would be lovely to get 23 episodes of Atari A to Z in the bag this week (and probably possible?) I think it's probably better to take aim for 5-10 at most, like I'm intending to do for the ST and Flashback series. So that's the plan for now.

And with that, once again, I have a cat hassling me to go to bed, so I'd better be off. Have a lovely evening!

I got a fair amount done today. Not quite as much as I wanted to as there were some unforeseen circumstances that I won't go into now, but still a fair amount. Specifically, I managed to get 23 Atari A to Z videos researched, planned and short intros recorded for each. I didn't get to the actual gameplay side of things — I'm going to get a bunch of that done tomorrow — but I'm pleased I got that much done.

My S-rank goal for this week is to get Atari A to Z done up to Z (it was so nice last time I did this, as I could just trickle out releases for a long time) or, at minimum, get 5-10 episodes done; get Warriors Wednesday recorded up to the end of Warriors Orochi (not that far now); get at least 5-10 each of Atari ST A to Z and Atari A to Z Flashback done; and make some significant progress on the Final Fantasy Marathon.

Alongside that, of course, I've got stuff to write for MoeGamer and this blog, so I should be keeping myself busy!

Is it too ambitious? I don't know; I can get a lot done in a week if I really put my mind to it — plus this would give me a good idea of how much I can achieve if I can ever attain that perpetually out of reach dream of being able to do this stuff as my full-time job — but any progress is good progress, and this is stuff I really enjoy doing.

I'll keep you posted as the week progresses. Now, my cat Patti is suggesting I should go to bed — or at least pay attention to her — so I'd better sign off for now!

Hello! Housekeeping point first of all: apologies for any confusion, but I accidentally left this month's wallpaper post accessible to all Patrons rather than just for $5+ Patrons. I've made an edit to the post explaining the situation, but on the off-chance you see this first, I'm leaving the Senran Kagura wallpaper there for now rather than taking it away from people who might have already seen it, and I'll do something new exclusively for $5+ Patrons tomorrow so you still get an additional benefit.

Anyway, that aside I'm about ready to head to bed after a day of Peach Beach Splash and a late-night gym session. I have the next week off from the day job, so I'm going to make good use of it to get ahead of schedule on videos, write some articles, play some games and just generally chill out. It's been a busy few weeks with more than a few stresses (both inside work and out) so I'm happy to just have a bit of time to unwind.

I'm nearly done with Peach Beach Splash so you can expect a writeup on that tomorrow or Tuesday at the latest, then it'll be on to Burst Re;Newal after that. Knowing some of the things I know now having played Peach Beach Splash, I'm interested to see how this retconning of the series' beginning works in narrative terms. I guess we'll have to wait and see!

Hope you enjoyed the vlog  yesterday. I enjoyed making it! Like I say, I'll give that a shot for at least the next few weeks as I have a few bits and bobs I want to show you all and things I want to talk about, but it remains to be seen whether I still have things to talk about in the long term! I guess if I can write something nearly every day for five years I can probably find something to talk about to camera once a week, huh?

Anyway, my brain is melting so I'm going to bed. Have a lovely evening!

Hello everyone, I thought I'd try something a bit different for you all this week: a weekly "vlog" of sorts. I'm not going to make any sort of grand promises to do this regularly or over the long term as it will depend how practical it is to keep doing it… but sitting down in front of a camera and talking rubbish for a bit isn't that much of an effort, to be perfectly honest, so I can probably make this happen regularly if people enjoy it!

I just thought it might be an interesting experiment and a means of talking about a few bits and pieces that aren't worth an article, but which I want to spend more than a Tweet on — stuff like recent pickups and that sort of thing.

I also take you on a brief tour of my "retro room" where all the Atari computers live!

Hope you enjoy. Thanks for your support, as always.

$5 Patrons, I owe you a wallpaper — watch out for it in the next couple of days.

I was made aware of a wonderful new timewaster today — Talk to Transformer, which is a website that allows you to type in a "prompt" and then get it completed by an artificial intelligence routine. As a demonstration, the next few paragraphs of this post will be composed by it.

I would have to say that I feel particularly good about this timewaster. If it is even possible to be so pleased about something, that makes the whole effort worth.

A couple of years ago (the timewaster is a bit more new than that) I was on an airplane, listening to Radiohead's first album, "OK Computer." I've enjoyed that album immensely – I remember I was listening, and at one point, Thom Yorke said, "I don't want to sing, I want to just write music and just listen." And he kept singing for two hours; the flight from New York to Seattle was long, and we were waiting to cross the Atlantic.

Then again, his best lyrics are often the hardest ones to compose. In that moment, I listened, for several hours, to music written by Kanye West and had my life transformed. I felt my mind and life were being enriched. My music, in turn, changed my life. And my life, in turn, changed the world.

By writing poetry, we invite your imagination. It might, at times, be frightening. It might be liberating. Or, as I say, it might not even be possible. But that's the beauty of it. The best poetry is as a conduit. It allows your intellect to go through the ideas you want to explore on the page. We're all capable of doing this; it just takes a little more time. It's an act of imagination that takes so much mental power, but in fact can have many positive effects on our lives. After all, our experience of the world consists of our experience of what's written on a page.

It's no secret that I am a huge fan of poetry. I started writing poetry in second grade, with the hope of writing my own work of poetry.

—

Gloriously bizarre, isn't it? It sort of makes sense if you just casually read it, but is obviously complete and utter nonsense if you try and figure out what it's trying to say. It's interesting that it seems to draw from a wide variety of sources, though; refresh the same "prompt" several times and you can get very different results inspired by everything from business emails to explicit erotic fiction.

It kind of reminds me of a writing exercise I've done on a number of occasions in the past. I was first introduced to it as part of my degree-level English studies in the Creative Writing module. It's called "Freewriting".

The essence of Freewriting is that you just sit down with a bit of paper (or a blank document — though I always felt it worked better if you were actually hand-writing it), set a stopwatch or countdown timer for ten minutes, and then just write, non-stop, without looking and what is spewing forth from your mind into your pen, until that time expires.

The results can be very interesting, as they vary very much according to your mental state at the time. Sometimes pure creativity will flow out; sometimes incoherent nonsense; sometimes observations of the environment around you. It can be a good means of getting stuff off your chest, and because you're doing it just for yourself, you have no obligation for it to be "good" or even "readable" — but sometimes it can form the basis of something you can flesh out a little bit more.

Creativity is interesting, and seeing a machine try to understand this mysterious process is pretty fascinating! Why not confuse your friends and family by composing all your emails via Talk to Transformer today?

I enjoy taking surveys that analyse things like the way your mind works and your motivations. As such, I was interested to see this post by Angie from Backlog Crusader, who provided both a link to a survey about "Gamer Motivation" as well as some prompt questions to analyse the results a bit more.

That sounds like fun! Let's do it! I'll be back in a moment after I've done the survey.

(Time passes.)

1. What were your results? Share the link, headline, and the two motivation model graphs you received.

Here are my results. 

I'm apparently "spontaneous, independent, deeply immersed and creative".

The first chart doesn't want to show for some reason, but here's my "secondary motivation" chart:

2. How do you feel about your survey results?

Pretty accurate. Fantasy, story and discovery are top of the heap, as you might expect from my work, with things like challenge, strategy and playing with others a low priority for me. I'm happy with that.

3. Which category is the most accurate and least accurate?

I think the "Destruction" score is a bit high, particularly as the survey's definitions say that means I'd gravitate towards stuff like Call of Duty and Battlefield! Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy blowing things up — particularly in shoot 'em ups and more old-school first-person shooters — but it's by no means a high priority. It's just something I do if it's there.

Meanwhile, my "Creative" score at 90%… well, I think we all know that's pretty accurate. Whether it's exploring the game world and what interactive possibilities it offers, or spending ages customising a character I will then spend 50+ hours staring at the back of… yeah, I like this side of things.

4. Are there any major exceptions to your typical gaming motivations?

I'm not normally super-big on challenging games, but sometimes I get the urge to take on something a bit more difficult than my normal fare. Usually this is when I'm already super-invested in an RPG and decide I'd like to take on its superboss(es); in most cases that comes as a natural part of ongoing progression rather than necessarily wanting to jump into something that is immediately hard, though.

5. Do any of these motivations carry over to your non-gaming life? If so, how?

Creativity is absolutely a driving force in my day-to-day life, as is hopefully obvious by this point. I get quite frustrated if I don't manage to meet my own expectations, and I enjoy experimenting with different styles of article and video — or covering subject matter I haven't explored before.

 6. Which games in your experience best satisfy your gaming motivations and how do they compare to the “suggested games” list from the questionnaire’s follow up page?

Hmm. Not great. Especially considering I ticked the "Niche" option for the game recommendations, because as we all know, I prefer lesser-known, underappreciated stuff.

I did enjoy Dragon Age II when I played it — a lot more than many other people did, in fact — but it's by no means an all-time favourite, and I've seriously soured on BioWare over the years. There also isn't a single Japanese game in this list, despite the survey asking me for (and recognising) several favourite games and games I'd enjoyed playing recently.

I want to highlight Life is Strange in that list; while this is something that I, in theory, should have enjoyed a great deal, what with it being a story-heavy game with emotional themes and cool fantasy powers… the more I think about it, the more I feel like I kind of disliked it. I found Chloe to be one of the most loathsome characters I've had the misfortune of being stuck with for five episodes of an adventure game, I found the game's transparent and hamfisted attempts to highlight modern social issues kind of insulting, and the ending of the whole thing was exceedingly unsatisfying. I obviously don't begrudge anyone their enjoyment of this game; I just came away rather unimpressed!

Also, Mass Effect: Andromeda? N-no. Just no.

As for stuff that does satisfy my particular urges? Well, most of the stuff I've given Cover Game features to on MoeGamer! Xenoblade Chronicles. Senran Kagura. Hyperdimension Neptunia. Blue Reflection. Atelier. And many more. You hopefully know me by now 🙂

So that's that! If you want to take the survey yourself, hit up this link. And be sure to add your favourite games to the recommendation engine at the end; that way, it should, in theory, get better over time!

I watched most of tonight's Nintendo Direct at the gym this evening. Unfortunately the gym's Wi-Fi is pretty shit so I had to reload the stream literally every two minutes, so I'm sure I missed a few little snippets here and there, but I caught most of it.

It was a pretty strong presentation all round, and if there's one thing I could take away from it, it is that Nintendo is serious about acknowledging not just its own past, but gaming's past in general.

This is obviously most apparent in the long-expected Super Nintendo app for Nintendo Switch Online, which I'm happy to finally see become a reality, but also in the fact that we're getting rereleases of Deadly Premonition, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE and Xenoblade Chronicles. I'm not sure I'll bite on these when they come out unless they have some sort of significant extra content as I already own them all on their original platforms, but it's great that a new generation will be able to enjoy these titles, as they're all fantastic.

Biggest surprise of the event for me had to be Deadly Premonition 2; as much of a cult hit as the original was, I didn't expect it to ever get a sequel. Mind you, the stuff SWERY has been working on since then has been well-received — particularly The Missing, which I still need to try at some point — and so it's probably given publishers a bit more confidence in him and made him seem like less of a risky prospect. He's also become quite well-known on social media in both Japanese- and English-speaking parts of the Internet, whereas when Deadly Premonition originally came out it was still early days for interacting with each other online in general, so he wasn't as much of a "household name", if that's the right term for him.

It was cool to see some more Pokémon, too; Pokémon Masters is getting me nicely in the mood for Sword and/or Shield, and the features shown off tonight looked cool. I love that there's a Currydex now — if you needed any further proof that the Galar region is heavily Britain-inspired, there it is!

Even Animal Crossing looked vaguely interesting this time around. The addition of a crafting component immediately adds more of a "game" element to it, whereas in past installments I've always struggled to see the point of anything. Being able to actually collect materials and craft things from them adds a feeling of "progression" to the game that previous installments have always felt like they were lacking to me personally; I know I'm in a minority on this, however! Still doubt I'll pick it up as I've been burned twice on buying into Animal Crossing hype at this point, but we'll see what people have to say when it eventually releases. My wife will almost certainly grab it, so I might grab a glimpse over her shoulder while she plays.

One thing that did strike me during the presentation is what a massive waste of time the chat function for any sort of large-scale livestream is. I don't know why YouTube has it turned on by default, because it's just a wall of constantly moving text that you never have time to read, and most of it is people spamming emotes or going "DON'T CARE" anyway. Hardly meaningful discussion!

Anyway, that aside, it was a strong showing from Nintendo, and it looks like the rest of the year is going to be good for them — and onward into 2020. The Switch really is going from strength to strength; it's like a repeat of the good old Wii days, with Nintendo having the least powerful hardware but some of the most interesting and exciting games out there!

Enough excitement for today. Time to sleep! Have a pleasant evening!