#oneaday Day 239: Two Quests in one day

I recorded some videos earlier. I really like doing adventure game playthroughs, so I decided to play through both King's Quest II (I've already done the first one) and Space Quest, the latter of which I've never played all the way through by myself, but which I've fallen asleep to Dan from Game Grumps playing on numerous occasions.

I was hoping to get The Dagger of Amon Ra done also, but it turns out playing and beating three adventure games in one day is just a little too ambitious, so I've settled for just the two mentioned. The Dagger of Amon Ra is still on the list, though; I found The Colonel's Bequest far too interesting to just leave Laura Bow hanging like that.

I mostly enjoyed the experience of these two games. King's Quest II is a game I have fond memories of playing as a kid, though I'm not sure I ever actually beat it when I was younger. Space Quest was mostly a pleasure, also, save for two truly awful and mandatory sequences you have to endure: a "skimmer" race where you have to dodge incoming rocks, and a slot machine sequence where you need to earn an obscene amount of money using a purely luck-based system. (If you're playing a later revision of the game, there is a cheat to bypass this sequence, but sadly, the ST version I was playing was not said later revision, so I had to do it "the hard way".)

I always find it fascinating to go back to adventure games, because when I was younger actually making it all the way through one seemed like a literal impossibility. Particularly if we're talking about Sierra games, which most certainly are not afraid to kill off the player regularly, or leave them in a situation where they forgot an item earlier in the game that is mandatory to progressing later. King's Quest is probably more notorious than Space Quest in this regard, but as it happens, of the two games I played today, King's Quest II was probably the gentler, fairer of the two, while Space Quest had several opportunities to miss important objects and completely screw your entire playthrough over.

But no. Those games that seemed impossibly huge and insurmountable as a child are almost laughable in their length today. Actually, no, I don't mean that; both King's Quest II and Space Quest (annoying bits aside) are just the right length to be satisfying, so far as I'm concerned, but I do feel like if a modern equivalent of both of these was released today, they would be quickly review-bombed by entitled Steam kiddies whinging about "lack of content" and "no updates, abandoned game".

For me, though, it's nice to be able to power through a game like this in the space of a couple of hours — possibly even quicker if you know exactly what to do and the best order to do it in. I certainly enjoyed recording these two videos today — and I'm looking forward to publishing them over on YouTube over the course of the next few days. Now, though, it's 1.15 in the morning and I should probably go to sleep. Adventure is calling, but an adventurer also needs his rest, to be sure!

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

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#oneaday Day 238: The Sims is still good

The rumours were true! Just ahead of the series' 25th anniversary, EA dropped rereleases of The Sims and The Sims 2 on their own storefront and Steam earlier today, for the eminently reasonable price of £34.99 for the both of them. Considering they both come with all the expansions (well, I think The Sims 2 might be missing the IKEA "stuff" pack, but that's about it), I'm perfectly happy to pay up for them both, particularly considering The Sims has never had a digital release, and The Sims 2 has been unavailable for a long time.

"But you can get them both for free!" the entitled corners of the Internet shout. "They're abandonware, and that means you can legally download them for free!" Well, firstly, one, no it doesn't, because abandonware isn't actually a thing, legally speaking, and two, it is important to support official rereleases of stuff like this, because it gives a thumbs up to companies making a commitment to actually preserving their history and making it available to everyone, even those who weren't there for it first time around. It's no good carrying on about "preservation" if you don't support actual attempts to do that. Piracy is all well and good if there is no other way, but official preservation efforts should be supported. Yes, even if they're by EA.

Both rereleases have been updated so that they work just peachy on Windows 10 and 11, and The Sims is able to run in much higher resolutions than it ever has before, and in widescreen. Okay, the game could arguably do with a UI scale option when playing at 1080p or higher, but it's not unplayable by any means, particularly if you're playing on a big TV as I have been.

I've spent a few hours revisiting The Sims this evening by making a rough recreation of my original "Hartley Family" save file, which featured me and the other members of my hall of residence flat at university struggling to survive. I am reminded that the original The Sims is actually surprisingly challenging compared to some of its follow-ups; thus far, keeping on top of six people's needs has been quite difficult, particularly with a lack of substantial income. Things will get easier once some of them start getting promoted and bring in a bit more money each day, but for the moment it's very much in "scraping by" territory.

Also one of them has died already after burning down the kitchen, but I managed to "Plead" with the Grim Reaper quickly enough for him to be able to return as a zombie. I have made a promise to myself that I'm not going to save scum at all, I'm just going to deal with the consequences of everything that goes on as it happens. Emergent narrative and all that.

I'm interested to spend a bit more time with the original The Sims, as back when it was current, I had a lot of the expansion packs, but not all of them. I don't think I had Superstar, Unleashed or Makin' Magic, and those are three that have some substantial additions to the gameplay — the pursuit of fame, pets and the ability to cast spells using appropriate components respectively.

At present, I've got one of the six Hartley family members equipped with a magic wand and (thus far) the ability to turn someone into a toad, and another who keeps slipping off to the "Studio Town" area to go and sing karaoke badly (earning a whopping 5 Simoleons per performance at present) but so far, it's a struggle to keep their mood high enough to be able to truly take advantage of those features. Much as with real life, getting a solid and stable income stream is important if you want to start doing anything out of the ordinary.

So that's that. The Sims and The Sims 2 are both available on Steam and EA's own storefront right now, either separately or in a bundle together. You also get a "free" copy of The Sims 4 with them, but since that went free-to-play a while back anyway it's probably best ignored unless you want to get into DLC hell. The rereleases of both The Sims and The Sims 2 are complete, meanwhile (aside from the aforementioned Ikea pack for The Sims 2) and should keep you busy for a very long time indeed.

I'll probably write more about one or the other or both at some point, but for now, I'm happy. It's been a nice bit of nostalgia to revisit The Sims — and a reminder that as cynical as people got about the series over the years (not without good reason), it's still just a damned fine game at heart, too.

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#oneaday Day 237: The library is open

A number of things occurred today that I could potentially talk about: some positive, some not so positive. In the interests of… (gesticulates at all this) everything I'll focus on probably the most positive one, because it's something I'm really excited and happy to see.

Those of you interested in video games as a medium may be aware of the work of the Video Game History Foundation. They've been working as a charitable organisation chronicling the history of the medium for some time now, and they're responsible for the figure you may have seen bandied around that "87% of classic games are not available".

Something they've been working on for a while is providing a means of public access to their library of materials, which includes not only old computer and gaming magazines, but also development and marketing materials as well as some thoroughly fascinating bits of miscellanea, such as a gamer's hand-drawn maps of two early Zelda games that found themselves among a donation of other bits and pieces.

Today, the organisation launched the library for "early access", presumably meaning that there might be some kinks to work out and that it will expand over time, but already it's clear that it's going to be both a valuable resource and something that is just interesting to explore.

There are two main components to the library. First of all is the main catalogue at library.gamehistory.org, which is a catalogue of the materials that the organisation holds. This is interesting to browse through and see what's in their collection, but isn't of that much use when researching things. For most, the real attraction will be the digital archives at archive.gamehistory.org, which include digitally preserved material — scans and other digitised content, in other words.

At present the archives only contain a fraction of what is listed in the main catalogue, and the organisation notes that there is some material that may never be digitised for public access via the Internet for one reason or another. But what's there already is plenty to get stuck into. There's a library of magazines, for example, including 33 publications at the time of writing, including complete or near-complete runs of well-known mags such as Game Informer, Electronic Gaming Monthly and GamePro, plus early attempts at gaming media like Electronic Games, a spinoff of Video magazine's Arcade Alley column.

Right now there is, unsurprisingly, a bit of a US bias to things (and as I type this, the site has crashed under the weight of day-one demand so I can't check what non-American stuff they have, if any!) but there's a significant chunk of gaming media history to explore here; the aforementioned publications all played an important part in shaping video game fandom at one point or another, and the digitally available collection will only continue to expand over time. I'm particularly excited to see the archive of Electronic Games there, as this is an incredible resource to see how early consoles (like the Atari 2600, Intellivision and suchlike) and 8-bit home computers were covered by a fledgling enthusiast press.

But it's not just about magazines. There's also stuff like an archive of the CDs GamePro had that contained press materials, from the days before press assets being distributed via the Internet. There's production materials from games, some of which never made it to market, like SimPeople (what would subsequently become The Sims). There's development materials from a wide variety of sources. And tons more.

I'm really looking forward to exploring this library of stuff and seeing how it expands over time. It's going to be an absolute boon to anyone researching the history of video games and how they were covered by the media of the day, and I can't wait to make use of all this material when composing videos and articles.

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#oneaday Day 236: Ode to Yanagi

There's a chap on YouTube. I think he's Dutch, if I remember rightly. (Checked. He is.) Continental European, anyway. He goes by the name Yanagi19871. And I don't mind admitting that his videos have helped me through some dark times by bringing a smile to my face every time I see them.

What is Yanagi's specialism? He must be a brilliant analytical critic, exploring underappreciated games on obsolete and forgotten platforms and giving them the love and attention they deserve, surely? That's what Pete must be into.

No. Yanagi burps really loud.

I don't remember exactly how I stumbled across Yanagi in the first place. It's entirely possible that I was specifically searching for videos of people burping, and he was, for several years, the leading player in the "burping really loud on YouTube" space. He somehow manages to achieve this without being disgusting about it, because for the most part he doesn't combine his incredible emissions with things like, say, chugging gallons of a drink at a time or whatever — though he has satirised a couple of notorious "challenges" from a few years back, such as the 2 Litre Diet Coke No Burp Challenge, which went about as well as you might expect.

Yanagi's bio on YouTube reads "although burping is considered rude in many cultures, I find it amusing and noticed there are a lot of people out there that also can appreciate my talent", and I have to respect that. The man found a thing that he was good at, and he made the most of it. He even appeared on a couple of television programmes around the world at one point.

You'll notice that I'm using the past tense when describing him, though, and that's because a few years back, he just… stopped. I don't think he's dead — at least I hope he isn't — but from looking at a few scattered comments here and there, it seems like he felt unable to continue going about his usual business, much of which involved belching thunderously in public places, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and the subsequent mess that made of the world, and he's just never picked things up again since.

Ultimately, I guess one could argue that this doesn't really matter, that a guy who gained a small amount of notoriety by being able to burp really loud almost entirely at will probably only really deserves fifteen minutes of fame at most. But I have to admit that I came to genuinely like Yanagi. He always came across as a thoroughly affable individual, despite his occasionally antisocial belching behaviour, and one gets the impression that he would be a lot of fun to hang around with.

But I guess the age of Yanagi is over, and he's gone on to do something else with his life. I wish him luck, good health and good fortune with whatever he is up to now, because even though he's stopped making new burp videos on YouTube, his existing ones still always make me laugh to the point of crying on a fairly regular basis. And in this fucked up world we live in, anything that can do that is something which should be treasured.

I don't mind admitting at all that, at the age of 43 and a bit, I still find burping and farting absolutely hilarious — always have done. Flatulence and related expulsions were part of my familial culture growing up, and so I guess a hearty belch or a deep, sonorous fart is one of those things that reminds me of simpler times that feel increasingly distant with every passing day.

I salute you, Yanagi. You were a master of your craft, and I'll be in the front row if you ever decide to make a comeBURRRRRRRRRRRRP.

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#oneaday Day 235: Being conscious of game design might make games less enjoyable

There are a few terms that are bandied around the gaming enthusiast sphere that I've really come to loathe: "gameplay loop" and "quality of life". The reason for this is that any time discussion involving these terms comes up, I find myself pulled right out of any sense of immersion I might have had in something, and start thinking of something purely in terms of its mechanical and structural features.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, of course, because the artistry of video game design isn't just about making pretty graphics, composing stirring music and writing a compelling story. Indeed, there are many games that completely lack a narrative element, making their mechanical and structural elements the important bit you should be looking at if attempting to analyse a title as a creative work in any level of detail.

But there are also times where it just sort of sucks to be aware of the man behind the curtain; of all the things that are going on that make something look interesting and compelling. By being aware of all the digital ropes and pulleys behind the scenes, it becomes harder to suspend your disbelief and treat something as a coherent, creative, artistic work.

I became particularly conscious of this in Final Fantasy XIV over the last couple of years. This is by no means the only example where I've felt this, but it's one where I have felt it particularly keenly, so I'm going to use it as a specific example.

When I started playing Final Fantasy XIV, I absolutely adored it, and it will always be special to me, not least because it's the medium through which I proposed to my wife. But over time, it's started to feel less like an immersive world in which to exist and live another life, and more like a series of buttons to push in order to make the next thing happen.

Part of this is down to predictability. Final Fantasy XIV's main scenario has a predictability problem — not in the narrative itself, but in the way that narrative is delivered. Essentially, it goes like this:

Arrive at new major location, unlock new fast-travel point
Do couple of story quests to introduce location
Map suddenly explodes with sidequest icons, all confined to the location you're in
Do sidequests (because if you're anything like me, unfinished sidequest icons are complete anathema)
Do next few story quests
Map suddenly explodes in sidequest icons again (it always does it twice)
Do sidequests (see above)
Do next few story quests
Do dungeon/trial
Move on to next major location
Repeat

I hate that I'm aware of this, and I can't "unsee" it. Because over the course of the last few expansions, I found myself reaching a new location and not thinking "cool, a new place to explore and get to know!" but instead just thinking "those sidequests are going to pop up any minute now, and I'm going to have to do them before I move the story on, even though I've already outlevelled the story by a considerable factor". The whole thing started to feel a bit like it was just doing things by rote precisely because it was so predictable; you never stumbled across someone in the wild who had a cool "secret" quest for you to do, for example.

Part of the reason for this ties in with those terms I used above: "gameplay loop" and "quality of life". The relevance of "gameplay loop" should already be self-evident: it's the predictable sequence of events you go through when you play the game. "Quality of life", though, bears a bit more discussion — and not just because when I hear that term I always think "making your beloved pet/family member comfortable before their imminent death" rather than "making the menus a bit nicer to navigate".

Modern gamers are obsessed with "quality of life improvements" in games. In short, ways to make playing the game more efficient and, supposedly, comfortable. "Quality of life" is why Final Fantasy XIV only ever gives you sidequests in populated areas in big, predictable chunks like this; it's so those who want to power through the story and get to the endgame — where "the real game" starts for many MMO players — can do that, while everyone else can, in theory, take their time over enjoying the story.

Except, as I've outlined above, it doesn't really work like that, because this structural element is so flagrantly transparent that it actively detracts from my feeling of immersion in the game world and whether or not I care about the various communities of non-player characters that I encounter over the course of the story. And it's really hampered my overall enjoyment of the game in recent years.

Some of this is, perhaps, a me problem. But I also think it's symptomatic of a broader problem with gaming in general. Both players and designers are seemingly obsessed with creating an experience that is as "frictionless" as possible, where everything you might want to do in a game is always within arm's reach, and while you might have to put in a bit of time to see everything, you probably won't have to work too hard for it.

In Final Fantasy XIV, this is visible not only through the game design itself, but in the way the western player base seemingly likes to play the game: all third-party externally hosted spreadsheets and timers designed to get each session being as "efficient" as possible rather than just enjoying the ride. I don't like it, and it's not as if I can just ignore it, either, because there are elements of the game — notably The Hunt and FATEs, which both involve things spawning semi-randomly around maps, and which are inevitably dominated by those with a spreadsheet on a second screen to tell them where to go next — that I simply can't engage with due to the way other people play; all because of their obsession with "efficiency" and "quality of life".

As I noted the other day, I'm replaying Xenoblade Chronicles right now. And while this is, to an extent, prone to the exact same problem I describe with Final Fantasy XIV above, it also isn't afraid to throw unexpected elements in your path such as questgivers hiding in an obscure corner of the map or who only appear under certain conditions, nor is it afraid to present you with an objective that you can't just quickly grind out in five minutes. I've had a quest in my log since near the beginning of the game challenging me to demonstrate friendship between two female party members, for example; you don't even get a second female party member to be potential friends with the first one until a good 25+ hours into the game.

Rather than that being annoying, I appreciate that. It's something I keep at the back of my mind while I'm playing and, while it does inform the way I play to a certain extent, I'm not just thinking "I need to do this for a mechanical benefit or to progress the story". It ultimately doesn't matter if I complete that quest or not, though the rewards are nice. But I want to, because Xenoblade Chronicles gets you in a mindset where it's enjoyable to help the virtual people, particularly if it requires some effort on your part. This is, of course, taken to an extreme by the "rebuild Colony 6" sidequest that pretty much lasts the duration of the game, whereby you'll need to find collectible items, enemy drops and recruitable NPCs to rebuild a ruined colony that suffered an attack from the game's main antagonists, the Mechon.

Again, though, because that objective is there as a long-term thing to engage with rather than a throwaway sidequest to power through just so I can see the next main scenario event, I actually give a shit about it. It's not trying to be part of a "gameplay loop" and it certainly doesn't care about your "quality of life" if the drop rate on some of these materials is anything to go by… but y'know what? I like it. I appreciate it. It doesn't feel like the game is pandering to my laziness.

Being aware of a game's structure can hurt the narrative in other ways, too. For example, it's extremely rare that playable characters in an RPG are put into any real peril, meaning that if you see a cutscene where they're suffering, they're probably going to be all right in the end. One could argue that this is a problem shared with serialised television, in which the contracted regular cast members will always be all right regardless of whatever scrapes they get into in each episode (unless their contract's up at the end of the season… RIP Jadzia Dax), but it somehow feels more pronounced in gaming.

There are, of course, rare exceptions to the rule — anyone who played Final Fantasy VII back in 1997 will be well aware of probably the textbook exception — but they don't come up often, particularly in games that go for a somewhat lighter tone. In short, game designers don't want to take away a playable character that people might have invested time and effort into customising and levelling up, because they'll see that as "poor quality of life". It's why you don't often see the "party member becomes the final boss" trope, either; people would be upset, and not because of the way the story went.

In talking about this, I'm reminded of the fuss there was over the ending of Fallout 3, which originally ended with your character selflessly doing… something or other (I forget what) in a heavily irradiated room, meaning the last thing you did in the game was die. I absolutely loved this when I first encountered it, because I thought it was an incredibly symbolic and ballsy thing for the developers to do — even if, when you stopped to think about it, it didn't make a ton of sense, because you were with a radiation-proof mutant at the time who could have quite happily done what you did with absolutely no risk to himself whatsoever.

But to me, that plot hole didn't matter. The ending was dramatic and symbolic. "This is my last act in this horrible world," that ending made you say. "I hope it makes life better for someone." But no. Because people wanted to keep playing after the ending, it got patched out, making the actual end of the story much more of a wet fart in comparison. I lost a lot of respect for Bethesda that day, and it was frustrating to see mechanical and structural elements win out over narrative, making the latter significantly weaker and less impactful than it was before.

Your mileage may vary with all this, and I'm sure it's possible to train your brain out of seeing all the metaphorical Oompa Loompas going about their business. But for me, I kind of long for the days when I was innocent and full of wonder; back then, I never found myself thinking "how did they do that within the constraints of the game engine and overall structure?", because I was too busy thinking "wow, that's cool". And, as I get older, I can't help but feel like that sense of starry-eyed wonderment was much more fun.

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#oneaday Day 234: The return of The Sims?

Supposedly The Sims and The Sims 2 are getting the rerelease/remaster treatment at some time around the end of the month. It is the 25th anniversary of the series this year, and it appears that EA is actually listening to people for once and (supposedly) bringing back two of the most fondly regarded entries in the series, neither of which have been available for a very long time — and I don't believe the original The Sims has ever been available digitally, since it came from that dark and mysterious time where you had to go to a shop to buy PC games. (Yes, I miss it. I would be much more of a PC gamer if it was possible to have a physical PC game collection.)

I used to really enjoy The Sims. The original game came out at an absolutely perfect time for me: while I was at university. As someone who had previously enjoyed the SNES version of SimCity (aka the best version… apart from the bugs) and Sim City 2000, I was intrigued to see creator Will Wright doing something a little bit different. The idea of a "life simulator" was something that had captured my imagination from around the 16-bit age; Activision's Little Computer People existed, but I wondered what something with a bit more "game" to it might look like.

Something really enjoyable, as it happened. The Sims, just in its base form, was an absolute revelation. Not only did I have fun with it, but everyone in my flat at university enjoyed getting involved, too. I'd made virtual versions of all of us, and everyone liked to check in every so often to see how we were all getting along. Because I rather overdid the size of our house when I started playing, we all had to sleep in recliners in the large communal living area for a while, but as everyone got jobs and started bringing in the Simoleons, we were able to live a rather luxurious life.

The Sims is interesting to think back on, because it's from a time where you could release a "sandbox" game and it wasn't anything unusual. Moreover, these games didn't need anything like achievements, daily quests or other engagement-bait to get people to enjoy playing them. They were enjoyable just because… well, because they were good. I'm actually rather interested to revisit the original The Sims just to see how well it holds up today. Obviously the graphics will look a tad dated, but I bet the gameplay still has it where it counts.

The Sims 2 I remember owning, playing and enjoying, but I don't recall playing it quite as much as the original for one reason or another. It certainly wasn't because I didn't like it or anything — I recall picking up several of the expansions for it — but for some reason it doesn't stick in my mind quite as much as the original. I know it's an especially fondly regarded entry in the series, though, so it might be fun to have another look at.

I really enjoyed The Sims 3, even though that was really the point that EA started truly taking the piss with the number of expansions and "Stuff" packs — something which has been taken to a frankly obscene degree with The Sims 4, which I've never played. I had a lot of fun with the World Adventures expansion in particular; I really liked the "dungeon crawling" subgame that added to the mix, as it made you make use of the game's mechanics in a rather different way.

I'm normally loathe to give EA money, particularly as they seem all-in on the AI fad right now, but I might make an exception if they don't fuck up the ports of these games — which is, of course, a distinct possibility. But we'll see; sources seem to reckon we'll see them by the end of the month, and there ain't much left of the month. Further reports as events warrant!

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#oneaday Day 233: Rearranging

This weekend has mostly been about Rearranging Things. I was getting to a point where I was out of room for new games in the living room, see, so something had to give at some point. And, this weekend, that something has well and truly given. I haven't quite finished the entire process, but the net result is that I will have a lot more room both in my study upstairs and in the living room, giving the game collection a bit of room to continue to grow in the near future. Assuming Switch 2 continues to be as good for physical releases as the current Switch, that will most certainly continue to happen.

Here's a rundown of what I've done, if you care:

Packed away the vintage computers (Atari ST, Atari 130XE). As much as I love them, whenever I'm "doing something" with either Atari 8-bit or ST, I'm doing it via emulation of some description, primarily so I can record the process. Recording the real ST and/or 8-bits isn't out of the question, but with stuff like The400 Mini and Hatari so readily available, there's really little reason to keep the old stuff out for the moment.
Packed away a significant chunk of Atari ST software. I've kept the games out because even if I'm emulating them for a video, it's nice to have the packaging and manuals available to use — plus those shelves make a nice backdrop for videos. The stuff I've packed away is all either educational, productivity or music/audio software — stuff that I really have very little reason to make use of.
Packed away all my big box PC games. Realistically, if I'm going to play one of these games, it's going to be via GOG.com/DOSBox or eXoDOS. It would be nice to have the boxes and manuals available on hand, but there are plenty of solutions available for doing that "virtually" if required.
Moved all the stuff that was just taking up space in the cupboard in my study into a "to go into the loft" pile. Most of that was vintage computer stuff, and if I'm packing the main vintage computers away there's little reason to have, say, an Atari ST monochrome monitor knocking around.
Moved a chunk of PlayStation 2 games from the living room to the cupboard in my study. There's a Billy bookcase in there that I can now reach now all the crap's been moved out of there, and I've put PS2 games that I don't want to get rid of or which won't be worth very much in there, keeping the PS2 shelves downstairs for stuff I might still want to play on the big TV. This has freed up a bunch of extra shelves for the collection down here to expand into.
Moved all the Evercade stuff into my study. Since I work up there, it makes sense to have it all up there — plus if I want to make videos on Evercade stuff, it's much more convenient to have them on a shelf next to me rather than downstairs, as much as I enjoyed displaying the collection with pride in the living room.

I have not yet rearranged the existing Switch games to fit the newly available space, but I basically have about four full shelves available to use that I didn't have before, which is nice. I'm glad I was able to do this without having to throw away or get rid of anything; while I know putting stuff in the loft can seem like a death sentence for some stuff, at least I know it is there if I do want to get it back for whatever reason — or if we eventually decide we want to move to a bigger place. (I'm still holding out for that lottery win… it hasn't happened yet.)

Anyway, all that's really left to do today is to get a binbag and clear all the crap away from my actual working desk in the study so I can use it for, y'know, working tomorrow. That can wait until after dinner, though. I need a sit down now!

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#oneaday Day 232: Memories of Me: Lost love

Since I deliberately cut myself off early yesterday for fear of going on for ten thousand words, I thought I'd pick up where we left off.

I previously introduced you to my Halls of Residence, Hartley Grove, and my erstwhile flatmates: the perpetually absent Chloe, my neighbour-for-a-brief-period Beki, my longer-term neighbour Katie, psychology student Steph, Geography-student-who-didn't-really-care-about-Geography Sam, and scientist Chris. We talked a bit about how we'd often go down to Chamberlain Bar and remain encased in our own little bubble, too afraid to approach anyone that we hadn't been thrown together with — and absolutely, definitely not someone as intimidating as Breast Girl.

For those who have never been to university, your first week as a student is typically set aside for "Freshers' Week", which is an opportunity to get to know the campus and perhaps choose a club or two to join. We had a busy week; off the top of my head, we tried Karate-do Shotokai, ninjutsu and rifle shooting, and several of us decided to join the former for the longer term. (The rifle shooting was terrifying, but I enjoyed it. The ninjutsu trial session primarily consisted of people doing forward rolls for about an hour non-stop, which I found inexplicably amusing.)

Throughout Freshers' Week, it is sort of expected that you will spend a significant portion of your time inebriated and getting laid. I did one of those things. I had never been particularly into the idea of a one-night stand, so it is not something I did — not that I really had the confidence to pursue that sort of encounter, anyway, and as it happened, at the time I was already Quite Into someone specific who I've previously mentioned, but I will refrain from mentioning by name in this context to spare their (and my) blushes. I shall, instead, refer to them as Special Someone.

Being a socially awkward autistic person (albeit not being aware of the "autistic" bit at this point in my life) I was, of course, having great difficulty in actually declaring my feelings to this Special Someone in question, but I resolved to myself that I would tell her how I felt and ask her to the "Freshers' Ball" on the last day of Freshers' Week. Although described as a "ball", it was actually just another pissup where people tended to dress slightly nicer than the other pissups throughout the week, but it was still considered to be something of a special occasion, so I figured confessing in time for that would have some sort of special symbolism.

However, my plan did not go according to… err, plan. Special Someone ended up getting together with someone else, hereafter referred to as Other Bloke, and thus I recall embarrassingly vividly spending a fair bit of time sitting in the big window of our flat's kitchen, all dressed up nice, with the lights off, doing what can only be described as "brooding". Ostensibly I was being alone with my thoughts to process what had just happened and attempt to pick myself up a bit, but I was also secretly hoping that someone would come in and I could unload all my emotional baggage on them.

Someone did — Steph, as I recall — and I explained the situation. It transpired that everyone thought I was already together with Special Someone, as we had been spending a lot of time together, but no, it was not the case; now she was with Other Bloke, someone we knew from the flat downstairs from us, who had sort of "attached" himself to our group because he was one of the people who had ended up lumbered with a flat full of foreign students he didn't really know how to talk to. (Other Bloke ended up becoming a good friend and remains as such to this day, so again, I will refrain from naming him explicitly here, but he probably knows who he is, and anyone reading this who was There At The Time also knows who it is.)

Steph encouraged me to just sort of suck it up, these things happen, and I should probably just go and get pissed and shag a rando. She said it in a more empathetic, understanding way than that, but I got the idea. I agreed that I shouldn't let something I sort of did to myself stand in the way of enjoying what was, one week into our official time as students, the biggest social event in our calendar. So I tidied myself up a bit, downed a shot or two of vodka and set out for the Student Union. I don't remember anything else that happened that night, so it must have been all right. (I did not, to my knowledge, shag a rando.)

Within a day or two, news of my lost love had spread around the flat, and I was surprised to discover everyone rallying to my cause. Not to such a degree that they were going to split up Special Someone and Other Bloke, of course, because we were all much too nice people for that, but they helped me keep my mind off things, and we had a lot of fun expressing my frustration in a not exactly malicious way, but which was somewhat at the expense of the person everyone had decided had done me a great injustice.

Usually this involved us getting pretty drunk in the kitchen, then doing something that involved the window to his flat's kitchen, which was directly below us. The most memorable of these was when we attempted to write "DIE" in tomato ketchup on the window, discovering shortly afterwards that ketchup is not an ideal medium through which to express half-hearted death threats, particularly vertically and while battling against gravity. The attempt to pour jelly onto the gentle slope of the open window beneath us was, likewise, unsuccessful, but it did make an absolutely magnificent noise when it hit the pavement below; we were on the third floor, and that gives jelly a good amount of time to pick up speed and explode with an incredibly satisfying "splatter" noise when it impacts an immovable surface.

Time heals all wounds, as they say, and, as I have hopefully implied already, all of the above passed me by surprisingly quickly. I remained friends with both Special Someone and Other Bloke, and they remained in a relationship for a good few years after university, so there was clearly something good there for quite some time. They're no longer together and each have their own lives with their own special people now — as do I — so all's well that ends well, I guess.

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#oneaday Day 231: Memories of Me: First Days at University

A while back, I talked about how when I think back on what the happiest times of my life might have been, I am inexorably drawn to two specific and closely related periods: my time at sixth form, and my time at university. Having previously talked about the former, I'd like to talk a bit about the latter today.

As always, I have almost certainly written about this before, but I don't care. Let's face it, you're almost certainly not going back through the archives to read nearly three thousand posts just to see if I've previously said these things before, and I wouldn't expect you to. So just, y'know, indulge me, even if any of this sounds familiar.

As my time in sixth form came to a close, I was excited but also terrified to go to university. I was going to a university far away from everyone I had ever known, and I didn't know how or if I was going to be able to cope with that. My mind filled with all manner of irrational anxieties, often emphasising things that I really didn't need to think about — like if I should take the opportunity to rebrand myself with a cool nickname when introducing myself to people — but as the big day ticked ever closer, I started to feel a little more at ease about things.

I spent my first year at university, as do many people, in a Halls of Residence. For those who have never been to university, this is basically like an old people's home, but for students. You have your own room plus some communal areas; the exact facilities and how much you are "waited on" (if at all) varies quite a bit from halls to halls, even within the same university. The halls I was going into, known as Hartley Grove, were self-catered, because both my parents and I agreed that it would probably be a good idea to learn how to be self-sufficient in a reasonably safe environment, and they were a new build, meaning (I think) our year was the first to stay in them.

And they were nice! Our rooms were a decent size, and they were en-suite, meaning we each had our own shower and toilet, which was nice. There was enough room for what little stuff I had to my name at that point in my life, a nice desk with space for my computer and hi-fi, room to put a small television to play games consoles on and a relatively cavernous wardrobe to store clothes in. It didn't take long for my room to feel like "home".

I started university in a slightly strange way compared to some of my peers in that I went there a week early to attend a "pre-term" orchestral course with the university symphony orchestra. Over the course of a week, we learned how to play movements from two symphonies — the first movement of Beethoven's 7th and the last movement of Shostakovich's 5th, as I recall — with the intention of performing them both for an audience of our tearful parents at the end of said week.

Because this course was prior to the regular term starting, those of us in halls (which was most of us) weren't able to immediately move all our stuff in to our new homes for the next year, so we had to travel light and take up residence in what was probably the grottiest halls in all of Southampton: a crusty old tower block known as Stoneham which, although shit, we all came to regard with some fondness by the end of the week. (It has since been knocked down; I'm not entirely sure when, but I was a bit sad to learn it's no longer there.)

Basically what we'd do was spend the day in Stoneham's large dining hall area rehearsing, then clear out, have dinner and then be free to do whatever in the evening. Sometimes we'd hang out, sometimes we'd investigate the local nightlife that was easily accessible within walking distance (not much) or a bus ride away — though of course, very few of us knew Southampton well enough at this point to know where was worth going, and where would get you stabbed.

Initially, I found my worst fears coming true as I wasn't sure how to approach new people and make friends with them. But, to my credit, one of my proudest moments as a human being came when I finally plucked up the courage to talk to someone in the lift that was taking us up to our rooms. Her name was Cat, and she was kind enough to give me the time of day. I don't know if she recognised I was struggling, but she became a close friend surprisingly quickly, and I was extremely glad that I at least had someone I could "rely on" during that initial week.

Through Cat, I met several other people — she was a lot more affable than me, but most folks were happy to include me in conversations if I sort of tagged along — and they all became good friends, too. It helped that most of us were going to go on to study music at Southampton for the next three years — though I was doing a split English and Music degree — so we had something in common. But it was still interesting to note how different we all were from one another.

The pre-term course came and went; our performance of both symphony movements went really well, and I ended up having a great time. By the time the course was over, we were able to move into our "forever homes" (for the next year, anyway) — it was still a few days earlier than most, but it gave us a chance to get properly settled, and to minimise the number of trips our parents had to make with cars full of crap.

My flat in Hartley Grove had six rooms. I was the first to arrive by several days, as expected, so by the time my flatmates started arriving, I was already quite comfortable and settled — to such a degree that when one particular flatmate named Chloe came in for the first time, she was greeted by me cooking a bacon sandwich in my dressing gown. She confided to me later that she thought I was a mature student and not, in fact, an idiotic 18 year old whose entire cooking repertoire consisted of bacon sandwiches and toast.

My flat eventually filled to capacity. I was in room number A333. To one side of me at the end of the corridor was the aforementioned Chloe; my other neighbour was the frankly gorgeous Beki, who sadly dropped out partway through her first year. Our mutual friend Katie replaced her in short order; previously, she had lived in another flat with foreign students that weren't particularly sociable, so she was glad to be among friends at last.

Further down the corridor on my side was Chris, a science student who we initially assumed to be one of the most stereotypical science nerds imaginable, but who came to be a close friend and confidant to all of us. On the opposite side was Sam, who had, for some reason, been the subject of a newspaper article about him "not studying Geography due to any burning love for the subject", and who became one of my best friends during my time at university and beyond, and Steph, a psychology student who, again, formed an important part of our overall "group".

The majority of the time, it was me, Chris, Sam and Steph in the flat. Beki left after not very long, as previously noted, and Chloe was an absolute socialite, to such a degree that she barely slept in her own room and often brought strange and interesting men back to our flat. Our collective favourite of these was probably "Raf", a charming and pretty chilled out gent who, it occurs to me now, I really don't know anything else about.

We enjoyed socialising as a flat, particularly if said socialisation involved going to Chamberlain Bar, our nearest drinking establishment. Hartley Grove didn't have its own bar, but Chamberlain was attached to one of the other nearby halls, so it was open for all of us to make use of, and we did. Several of us even spent a few nights working there; we didn't get paid in anything other than beer tokens, but it was a good experience.

Chamberlain Bar was pretty shit, but it was ours. All of us from the flat had a certain degree of awkwardness to us, so we didn't really interact with people from outside our group much, and took to referring to other people by nicknames based on their most prominent characteristics. The one that sticks in my mind was a young lady known only to us as Breast Girl; a conventionally attractive and moderately well-endowed first year who seemed to hang out at Chamberlain Bar almost as much as us. We never exchanged a single word, though I believe Steph, at one point, learned what her actual name was.

Chamberlain Bar occasionally held special events. Two of these stick in my mind: firstly, a '70s night, where we all went around the local charity shops and party stores to find the most hideous clothing and wigs we could; and secondly, a "Hawaiian" night, where all they did was turn the heating up full, and where our flat were the only people who came in fancy dress.

Chamberlain Bar's specialism was shit cocktails. The two we spent the most time drinking were the Juicy Lucy (pint glass containing a shot of vodka, a shot of blue curacao, a double shot of Taboo, then topped up with equal parts lemonade and orange juice) and the Passion Wagon (a shot of Passoa topped up with a bottle of Reef, possibly the laziest cocktail ever invented). I don't know exactly where Juicy Lucy originated, but we got the impression it was a "Southampton" thing; notoriously shit but popular watering hole Clowns and its companion nightclub Jesters would serve them by the 4-pint jug for less than a tenner, making them a great way to get absolutely off your fucking face for not very much money.

So yeah. You can hopefully see how all this was a good time. I will hold that there for now, since I've rambled on for nearly 2,000 words and I haven't even started talking about my actual time at university yet, let alone some of the funnier happenings that transpired during just that first year.

I really miss those magical first few weeks, though, and would give anything to feel that way again. But with each passing day, they feel further and further away to an exponential degree. At least I'll always have the good memories of them.

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#oneaday Day 230: Grumpy Frog

I was reading a post from the redoubtable Mr. Wapojif the other day on the subject of curious frog drawings, and I was reminded of one of the many things I'd doodle as a teenager — including, yes, in the Rough Book. I present to you in the accompanying image: a character who never really got a name, he was just known as "Grumpy Frog".

Grumpy Frog, as you may be able to tell from his colour scheme, began life as an attempt to draw Yoshi from Super Mario World. As I recall, it was one of those situations where I started doodling Yoshi, realised that things were going badly as my friends were watching, and thus quickly repurposed him into something else, as I intended to do all along. I don't think I fooled them, but Grumpy Frog became something of a fixture in places where I'd doodle things anyway.

I don't really know anything about Grumpy Frog other than the fact he is perpetually annoyed about something. I never incorporated him into a comic strip or drew him doing anything other than the pose you see above, largely because, as you can probably tell from the drawing, I can't really draw frogs either. But he is still one of those oddly specific fond memories I have from Back In The Day that, for some reason, will never leave me.

I sometimes find myself wondering if the amount of useless garbage I still carry around in my head from my school days is normal. There have been multiple occasions where I've made a reference to something from 30+ years ago to a friend I haven't seen for a while and I get a response somewhere along the lines of "I can't believe you remember that". But, to be fair, people always seem to be pleased to be reminded of these things for the most part — I do at least have enough social awareness not to bring up memories that are likely painful or awkward for the people in question — so, regardless of whether or not it's something that everyone has with their memory, I don't think it's a particular problem as such.

Anyway, that is Grumpy Frog. I wanted to acknowledge and celebrate him for a moment, because I hadn't really thought about him for a good few years, but Mr. Wapojif's post reminded me that yes, Grumpy Frog will always be a part of me, for better or worse, and he deserved a bit of time to shine. So there he is.

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