#oneaday Day 212: Engage!

I've been playing Fire Emblem Engage since I finished Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, and I've been having a lovely time. Fire Emblem is a series that has always passed me by despite it being, in theory kind of in my wheelhouse.

I say "kind of" rather than "completely", because while I absolutely love the high drama fantasy RPG side of the narrative, I've always had a bit of a rocky relationship with strategy games. I'm not good at them, see, and I've always had a hard time trying to determine how to get better at them. Because while there are plenty of guides out there for games like Fire Emblem, none of them simply sit you down and talk you through how to play them effectively. And that, for me, has always been a problem. It's why I bounced off Fire Emblem Awakening on 3DS, the last entry in the series that I tried, and why I have held off on playing the copy of Fire Emblem: Three Houses that's been on my shelf for several years at this point.

Why am I playing Fire Emblem Engage when Three Houses, a game almost universally considered to be superior in every way, is right there on my shelf? Well, because I had somehow got it in my head that Engage was a little more "straightforward" — and, perhaps more importantly, shorter. Three Houses is an absolute beast of a game, particularly if you do all the narrative routes (which I'm assured you should), whereas Engage is a once-and-done sort of affair, with replay value coming from the harder difficulty levels.

Mechanically, I don't think Engage is any more straightforward than what I know of Three Houses. There are elements where it's arguably more complicated, in fact — most notably with regard to the Emblem Bond and Skill Inheritance systems — but I wasn't to know that going in, and I'm about 25 hours in now, so, well, I guess I've dealt with it successfully.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm playing on Normal difficulty and Casual mode — i.e. the one without permadeath. I was having enough difficulty with the initial missions in the game that adding the opportunity to completely gimp my playthrough via poor performance seemed like an unwise choice. I am new to the series, I am still finding my feet in how it all works and how to play effectively, and thus I want minimal barriers to just enjoying myself. The options are there, so I'm using them.

With that "guardrail" in place, Fire Emblem Engage is still quite challenging. If you lose a unit during a mission, you still have to do the rest of the mission without that unit, and that can really fuck you over. It took me a few early-game missions to figure out what I was doing wrong, but then something interesting happened: I figured out what I was doing wrong.

This is not something that normally happens with strategy games. I normally end up being trounced by whoever I'm playing against, then never wanting to play it again as a result — or, in the case of tabletop affairs, not getting much opportunity to "practice". But with Fire Emblem Engage, I've ploughed on, and I've started to get a real feel for how the strategy works, and what is effective. I still make mistakes now and then — and the game's generous "Draconic Time Crystal" mechanic that allows you to undo stupid moves has been very helpful here — but I am definitely getting better at How To Play Fire Emblem. And that's a good feeling.

Because Being Able To Play Fire Emblem means that you can Enjoy Fire Emblem. And there is a lot to enjoy. The story of Engage, while relatively clichéd RPG fare — dark dragon long thought safely sealed away has come back, heroic band must gather a bunch of rings to summon enough power to drive the bastard back to the abyss — has been really compelling so far, and the character-centric nature of modern Fire Emblem is exactly what I like in this sort of game. I'm getting a real feeling that I'm getting to know the individual characters, both through the protagonist character's interactions with them and their interactions with one another.

For the unfamiliar, modern Fire Emblem features a relationship mechanic whereby units can "support" one another by fighting alongside each other in combat and doing activities together between battles, and your reward for reaching a new milestone in two characters' relationship with one another is a "support conversation", which depicts the two of them getting to know one another. There's not a Support mechanic in play for every pairing of characters in the game, but plenty that make logical sense, and it's lovely to see everyone getting to know one another, having comedic misunderstandings and deepening their feelings of friendship.

Anyway. I'm not sure how far through the game I am — I reckon probably about halfway maybe? — but I've been playing it all weekend and having a great time. I should almost certainly have it finished ahead of Xenoblade Chronicles X coming out on Switch in March — because you better believe I'm revisiting that game thoroughly having adored it on Wii U — but in the meantime I think I'm a convert to the series. I'm sure longstanding fans will scoff at me playing on non-permadeath mode, but I bet all of them reload a save the second anyone dies anyway. Also it doesn't matter how someone else enjoys a video game.

So yeah. Fire Emblem, pretty good. Who knew?

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 211: Things that don't exist any more

I was watching a Game Grumps episode where they were playing Supermarket Simulator earlier, and, as is often the case with that series, discussion got well and truly off the topic of the game and onto other matters.

One of the subjects they talked about was "secret tracks" on CDs. The existence of these used to be common knowledge, but with digital music having been A Thing for so long now, it was pretty much necessary for Dan to explain what one of these actually was.

I doubt anyone reading this is young enough to not know what a secret track on a CD is, but on the off-chance you are (or if you've just forgotten), it's where the last track on the CD would end, but the CD would keep playing, often for 10-15 minutes of complete silence, before cutting in with an unexpected new song that wasn't on its own individual track.

You could generally identify a CD with a secret track by if its last song was more than 10 minutes long, though there were, of course, some bands who really did close out their album with 10+ minute prog rock-style epics. There were also, apparently, some bands who found ways to hide secret songs in the "pregap" before track 1, allowing you to "rewind" from the beginning of the CD and find something new. This is one thing I actually never knew existed, as I never came across any in my time listening to CDs — but, like secret tracks in general, they are a thing of the past.

Most streaming versions of albums have the "secret tracks" as a separate, discrete track, thereby making them no longer secret. This also eliminates the "surprise" element, where the CD ends but you're in the middle of doing something (typically homework, essays and suchlike at the time I was listening to CDs rather than digital music) and, ten minutes later, you get suddenly shocked by the appearance of a piece of music you weren't expecting.

It's a little thing, but it's a bit sad to think that such a phenomenon no longer exists. And the episode went on to describe some other things that don't really happen all that much any more, either — like getting together with pals and playing a split-screen game of something like GoldenEye.

Local multiplayer games still exist, of course, but I'm willing to bet that a lot of you reading this haven't engaged in one for quite some time — and if you have, you certainly don't do so regularly.

While I was at university, we had a definite routine. Get up, go to lectures (probably), get some lunch at the student union, head back to my friend Tim's house, where we'd drink and play N64 games, typically Mario Kart 64, GoldenEye or, later, Perfect Dark.

It's funny to think back on this time as I type this across the from from my 55-inch widescreen wall-mounted 4K television, because we were almost certainly playing these games on a CRT that was no bigger than 20 inches, likely even smaller. I remember getting (if I remember rightly) a 26-inch TV from a local second-hand store and being blown away by how enormous it was. (It was also a nightmare to dispose of when it finally gave up the ghost; I ended up illegally leaving it in the bottom of a dumpster outside the block of flats where I lived at the time. No-one ever traced it back to me, so I got away with it.)

These things may seem like little nothings, but I'm saddened to lose them. Of course, one can still experience secret tracks on CDs that still exist — and I'm sure some artists still releasing stuff on CD are still sneaking in secret tracks — but it's no longer something that's just part of regular mainstream popular culture. And one can still get friends over to play split-screen games on the Switch in particular — although given my experiences in recent years, good luck getting anyone to ever commit to anything, even a simple evening of gaming, less than 8 months in advance.

Those of us prone to nostalgia are that way not just because we pine for our younger days, when life seemed simpler and our minds and bodies were perhaps in better shape, but because there were things that existed back then that pretty much… aren't a thing any more. And so, we do our best to remember those things, and why we liked them. And now and again, we get a reminder of something like secret tracks on CDs, and it prompts some fond memories. (And, in some cases, a sudden desire to start collecting CDs again, I'm sure. I have remained mostly immune to this to date… though I will admit to being tempted on occasion!)

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#oneaday Day 210: Making some video plans

I was hoping to make more videos over the course of December for "DOScember", but a nasty cold with a cough that's been lingering for a while (and still is a bit) put paid to those plans. I was really hoping to play through both The Dagger of Amon Ra and the spiritual successor to the Laura Bow series, The Crimson Diamond, but that hasn't happened. I did start trying to record a The Dagger of Amon Ra playthrough, but my throat gave out in less than ten minutes, so I abandoned that plan.

I mean, there's no reason they still can't happen, they just won't be "DOScember" features any more. And that's fine. So I think I may well still go ahead with those, 'cause doing adventure game playthroughs is always a lot of fun.

I've been pondering other things to do along the way, too. One thing I definitely want to do is spend some time exploring other microcomputer systems alongside the Atari stuff I've done a bunch of to date. There was some interesting discussion on Bluesky earlier today about how the overly "Americanised" canon of gaming history has a habit of erasing stuff like the European microcomputer scene, so I want to spend some time redressing the balance there a bit. I've obviously done a lot of Atari stuff already, and I intend to keep going that because it's a personal passion, but I also want to make some use of the C64 "Maxi", TheA500 Mini and The Spectrum that I have, because those are all thoroughly lovely machines.

As good a place as any to start with those would be to work through the built-in games on each, since that's actually not something I've done to date for anything other than The400 Mini. So a cautious plan I have is to spend a bit of time exploring each of those systems' built-in libraries, then onward into some other stuff on each of those platforms, just like I've done with the Atari 8-bit.

Assuming my voice holds out, then, I think that's what I'm going to try and make a start on this weekend, along with maybe a bit of The Dagger of Amon Ra.

I've also reached a conclusion I think I've known all along: I am absolutely not cut out for streaming. I just can't be arsed with it. It's a lot of setup and effort to get going, it's a pain to promote (particularly given my potential audience is all over the globe and thus there's no "good" timezone for it) and the number of viewers I get (both live and on the archived version on YouTube) is crap compared to my standard videos. I know that's something that improves with time, but this is supposed to be a hobby, not work, so I'm just going to stick with what I know and enjoy, and which works well — which is YouTube.

I'm not ruling out occasional "special" streams for events, charity drives and suchlike, or occasional chats with my buddy Chris in a quasi-podcast format. But I'm not going to make it a regular part of my routine. I know several people who want desperately to "make it" as a streamer, and they seem to spend a lot of their lives being miserable, and I have no desire to get into that situation. I do this for fun.

So, amid a bit of game room reorganisation that may be happening this weekend, I'm going to make a start on another year of retro computing fun. Broadening my remit will be an interesting journey for me to take, and it may well bring some new people to the channel, too. I know from previous times I've done this that there are a couple of people who get a bit sniffy when I cover non-Atari stuff, but y'know what? My channel, my rules. I am interested in gaming and microcomputer history, and while Atari stuff will always carry significant personal meaning for me, I want to know more about the other parts of this side of things, too.

So that means C64, Spectrum and Amiga stuff! There's a huge library of things for me to explore on all of those platforms, and still plenty of Atari material I haven't covered, either. So I certainly don't think I'm going to be short of things to play and talk about this year. Now I just need to make the dang videos!

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#oneaday Day 209: Memories of Me: Primary School

Sometimes I wonder what pieces of actually helpful information go in one ear and out the other in favour of the long-term storage of memories I don't really need to (or in some cases want to) hold on to.

Chief among these are some memories of primary school that I just can't get rid of. Most people I know can't remember a lot about their primary school days, and for sure, there are doubtless many, many days at primary school that I cannot remember. But these particular instances — or perhaps just general vibes rather than specific memories — have stuck in my head over the long term, and they're not going anywhere.

"Lazy work. Very poor."

I learned quite early on that despite not being particularly terrible at it, I absolutely hated maths lessons. And so it was that in either Class 1 or Class 2 — definitely the Infants half of the school, either way, so I would have been no older than maybe 6 or 7 — that I had two, to me, utterly shameful pages in my maths exercise book.

On the left of the spread, a maths lesson where I had completed one (1) sum in the entire lesson. This has been marked as "Lazy work." On the right, a separate lesson where I had completed three (3) sums in the entire lesson, two of which I had got wrong. This, in turn, was marked "Very poor."

I was upset by this spread of pages, even though I knew both comments were completely and utterly deserved. I don't remember why I had such outstandingly bad performance in these two lessons in particular — as I say, I wasn't particularly bad at maths, overall, and was always in the "top group" for it — but that negative feedback shamed me into trying a bit harder in subsequent sessions. I don't recall having any work in my exercise books ever being so shameful ever again. So… I guess it sort of worked, despite making me feel like shit?

Lunchtime fury

I don't know why (or rather, I've forgotten why) but in my later years at the primary school I went to, I spent a lot of my lunchtimes being furious and taking out my aggression on one of the "dinner ladies", actually a volunteer who would keep an eye on the kids in the playground at lunchtime.

I vividly recall deliberately getting furious about something in front of her and trying to provoke her, on multiple occasions, but not why. I would kick over the bin, I would yell at her, I would, inevitably, get in trouble. I feel like I was trying to achieve something or make a point, but that point is long lost, leaving me with just memories of ill-focused fury.

Perhaps it was a defence mechanism of sorts. I got bullied a lot at primary school, particularly by the older kids when I was still in the Infants classes, so perhaps I thought if I was extra annoying to the dinner lady, I would be taken into a sort of "protection", despite being "in trouble" myself. Retrospectively, that seems like the most logical conclusion, but I can't be sure that was ever the reason at this point.

Pissing myself in P.E.

For some reason, having to go to the toilet during lesson time at school has always been the ultimate taboo. In secondary school, it's discouraged because it's often assumed that those who "escape" lessons, ostensibly to go to the toilet, will take the opportunity to skive off, go for a smoke or otherwise do something they shouldn't be doing. In primary school, it is perhaps a little less justifiable.

And so it was that I commenced a school P.E. lesson in my '80s shorts, urgently needing the toilet and being told I couldn't go. This was an inaccurate assessment of the situation, because I could, in fact, "go", and did so right there on the playground. Oddly enough, I don't remember being mocked or anything for it; I just remember being curiously fascinated by how pissing with clothes on could still result in piss going everywhere, not just "wetting your pants", as the vernacular had it.

The Log

At primary school one day, we were inexplicably provided with a large log, ostensibly as something to play on and around. And The Log was, for quite a long time, a really cool place to play.

The more daring kids would climb atop it and run along it, but for many, the greatest appeal was "making piggy dust", which involved getting a twig and scraping away at the wood to create sawdust. Over time, we carved the shit out of that damn log, making it so it had natural platforms and footholds along the way; the poor thing lost all its external bark as part of this process — and, I recall, the teachers and dinner ladies often made half-hearted attempts to discourage us from "making piggy dust".

I don't know what ultimately happened to The Log. I'm pretty sure it remained in its place at the edge of the playground for the entire time I was at primary school, but it, unsurprisingly, was no longer there the last time I happened to pay a visit to the school in question.

It

Most of you reading doubtless have variations on Tag (or "It", as we called it) that you played in the playground. The ones I can recall are thus:

It: One person is "It". They have to tag someone else, who then becomes "It". Sometimes the semicircular areas at the ends of the netball court on the playground were considered "homey", where you couldn't be tagged, sometimes they were not.
Bulldog: One person starts as "It". When they tag someone, that person also becomes "It". The game continues until everyone is "It". "Homey" was more commonly in use in Bulldog than in It.
Chains: As Bulldog, but all the Its had to hold hands, making an increasingly long human chain the longer the game went on. This game inevitably turned dangerous, leading to it being discouraged by most teachers and dinner ladies who were on duty.
Top Gun: The rules for this one were ill-defined, but it was mostly It, but instead of tagging you had to repeatedly punch someone in the arm. (That was you "hitting them with your machine guns").

To determine who was "It" to begin with in any of these games, some variant of "Foot In" was used. For the unfamiliar, this involved someone yelling "FOOT IN FOR BULLDOG!" or whatever we were playing, and everyone who wanted to play standing in a circle with one foot in the middle. Then, whoever started shouting "FOOT IN FOR [whatever]" would perform one of the following rhymes, pointing to each foot in turn according to an accepted rhythm that wasn't necessarily matched to the syllables or words:

"Ibble obble black bobble, ibble obble out." (Whoever was declared "Out" would not be it and would remove their foot from the circle. The process would then repeat until everyone except one person was "Out", and that person would become "It".)
"Ip dip dog dip, you are not it." (Officially this was supposed to be "ip dip dog shit" to better rhyme with "It", but we knew better than to swear in earshot of teachers and dinner ladies. As with "ibble obble black bobble", this resulted in a gradual elimination of people until you were left with one "It".)
"Ip dip dog dip, you are it." (A surprise variation that usually occurred when the caller calculated the least popular member of the group would end up as "It" if they said the rhyme this way. Almost always resulted in arguments.)

Learning the word "Shit"

One time in Class 2, we were doing some… form of class work. I forget what. I was in Blue Group, which was a group of the most "able" kids, and we were being taught by Mrs Powell, who wasn't our regular teacher but who would often cover things when Mrs Robson, our usual teacher, was not present. This was one of those days.

I think we were doing some sort of English exercise. Like I say, I don't remember exactly what. What I do remember is Natalie Forster, the only girl in Blue Group, spelling out "S – H – I – T" to herself while writing something down. Having never heard the word before (I was like 6 and my exposure to even PG movies had been somewhat limited) I promptly said the unfamiliar word out loud.

"Shit?" I enquired, confused. I thought she was trying to spell "ship" but had gotten it wrong somehow. I genuinely didn't know it was a swear word at the time. But the rest of Blue Group did. "Ummmmm!" came the inevitable cry of kids around you about to tell tales on you. One of Blue Group — it may even have been Natalie Forster herself — reported my inadvertent transgression to Mrs Powell, who yelled at me.

"I certainly hope you did not say that, Peter Davison," she bellowed, loud enough for the whole class to be looking at me. "Or I shall have to wash your mouth out with soap and water!"

Ah, public shaming and threats of physical abuse. They don't make 'em like they used to.

Bundle

One kid would shout "BUNDLE!" and jump on another kid. Then everyone else would jump on him. (It was always a "him", as girls never got involved in Bundles.) The result was a large and painful pile of boys. There was no game here, it was just something we did. This is one of those things that I understand was quite common, but I have no idea how the concept is transmitted from one schoolyard to another. I don't remember being explicitly "taught" it, it was just something that one day we knew we had to do whenever someone shouted "BUNDLE!"

Dizzyland

This was a game of sorts that involved putting both arms out to your sides, shouting "DIZZYLAND!" while giggling, then spinning around as much as you could for as long as you could without falling over. Bumping into each other was encouraged. Theoretically whoever stayed standing the longest was the "winner", but I don't recall it ever really getting to that point, as we were usually gently discouraged from doing this by teachers and dinner ladies on duty.

Bumper Cars

Fold your arms. Then run as hard as possible at another person. Ideally they will have folded their arms also, so you "bounce" off each other, but there was often a certain amount of catching people by surprise involved. There was no real "game" here, again, it was just something we did for a while. Eventually, someone would get bored, and Bumper Cars would cease.

Mr. Edwards

Teacher of Class 3 (years 3 and 4) at my primary school when I was there was Mr. Edwards, a rather hippie-like individual with a mullet and a moustache. I remember him being a good teacher who was always pretty calm about things, and we used to have a nice regular "Circle Time", where he'd get out his guitar and we'd sing stuff like Worried Man Blues together.

I don't remember a lot about lessons under Mr. Edwards, but I remember his class having a thoroughly nice vibe to it all.

Mrs. Barratt

Mrs. Barratt was in charge of Class 4 (years 5 and 6) at my primary school, and everyone who was not in those classes was terrified of her. She was a severe older lady who drove a Mercedes and spoke posh, like. She had a reputation for cracking down on troublemakers with an iron fist, so most people were afraid of ever crossing her. In fact, I remember coming to the close of my time with Mr. Edwards and being genuinely scared of joining Class 4 the following school year; I desperately wanted there to be a shift round of which teachers did which classes (as there had been a couple of times while I went through the years) and Mrs. Barratt to avoid our cohort altogether, but it was not to be.

Happily, Mrs. Barratt turned out to be one of the absolute best teachers. She was clever, she was funny, she encouraged everyone to do their best. She absolutely didn't take any shit from anyone, but it was rare anyone in her class gave her shit, because they respected rather than feared her.

I attribute at least some of my love of learning and writing to Mrs. Barratt, because she would set us interesting research tasks for a bit of light homework to bring in the next day, and in carrying out those assignments I learned a lot about topics I otherwise wouldn't have known anything about. I also vividly remember somehow incorporating "antidisestablishmentarianism" and "floccinaucinihilipilification" into the Daily Spellings lessons (and spelling them correctly), which got me some credit.

Mrs. Barratt's class is also the first time I remember doing a lot of things, with two of the chief ones being making cakes and science experiments. We wouldn't actually bake the cakes ourselves, but we'd do all the prep work, mixing and putting into tins and suchlike in class, then they'd be baked in the school's oven in the staff room for us to take home at the end of the day.

As for the science experiments, the one that sticks in my mind is one where we'd put an empty tin on a little electric camping stove and put cling film over the top, and we'd see the cling film "bulge" out as a visible demonstration of how hot air rises. I don't think we actually performed this one ourselves, as I suspect we wouldn't have been trusted with camping stoves at the age of like 10, but I do remember being so struck by the stern warnings that "if you don't take this off soon enough, it will explode" that I incorporated "exploding can-stove-cling-film" traps into some of the first ever custom HeroQuest quests I created for myself, not realising that "explode" meant "the cling film will pop" rather than "action movie-style explosion with fire and smoke".

So it's fair to say my time at primary school was… mixed at best. I have some good memories and some awful ones. Certain aspects of the experience helped shape who I am today, for better and worse. But regardless of all that, it seems these memories are there to stay, for one reason or another.

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#oneaday Day 208: Yet another new beginning

Yes, it's 2025! Hooray and all that. I'm sure all of you are winding down after the holiday period, and I suspect many of you are not relishing the idea of returning to work tomorrow. I know I'm certainly not — and I like my job. Still, at least it's only two days before another weekend, then we have to get properly back to the grindstone as normal.

Doubtless many of you are contemplating new year's resolutions, too. I certainly have been, even though I know they generally don't lead anywhere particularly productive. I am determined, though, to make this the year that I have a positive impact on my physical and mental wellbeing. I have been in a sorry state since the COVID lockdown years, and I want to get back to a state where I'm feeling vaguely human again.

To that end, tomorrow is a fresh start on Being Sensible With Food. I'm not jumping into anything like Slimming World or WeightWatchers or anything — just doing what the wife and I were doing before the holiday period, which is counting calories and being sensible about what we put in our mouths each day. I'd also like to make an effort to drink much more water each day, too; it is commonly cited that when you think you feel hungry, you're actually thirsty, and drinking plenty of water throughout the day helps deal with that very well indeed.

Only trouble is that the water which comes out of our taps is rank. It's always been kind of minging thanks to us living in a hard water area, but just recently it's really started reeking of chemicals, too. Actually, just recently it hasn't been so bad, but back in November or so it was barely drinkable. (Then we completely lost water for about a day and a half in mid-December, so that was nice.)

So yeah. My plan for action is to get up early, kick off this process by weighing myself before breakfast, and taking care to record everything, ensuring I don't go over the calorie limit each day. I was actually doing pretty well with this before the holiday season hit, so I think it will be fine to get back to this. I just need to stick to it over the long term, which is where the NHS app that helps you track calories comes in. That aims to get you following the programme non-stop for 12 weeks to see what an effect it has, so my first and only resolution this year is to do that 12-week programme.

That is, as they say, a Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-based goal. SMART, if you will. From there, we'll see how it goes. I'm feeling vaguely positive right now, so time to knuckle down and get on with it.

If you're in a similar situation, where you want (or need) to achieve something to better yourself, best of luck with it. I suspect the year ahead is going to be challenging for many, but if you take care of yourself, that's one fewer thing to worry about, ain't it?

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#oneaday Day 207: Happy new 2025!

I'm writing on mobile and you hopefully know by now how much I hate doing that, so I'll keep this brief.

A very happy new year to each and every one of you.

We all know that, practically speaking, the turn of a new year is not particularly "meaningful" or important. But we, collectively, have ascribed a symbolic importance to January 1st and the beginning of a new year.

It's a time for fresh starts, new beginnings and, yes, resolutions. I'll get into those tomorrow, but for now let's just say that if you've been putting off some sort of Big Project, be it a creative work, home improvement or self-betterment in some way… now is as good a time as any to get stuck into it and start making some progress.

You may not necessarily be able to maintain momentum for the whole year, and that's fine. The important thing is to make that start, and the symbolic time of "rebirth" that is a new year is the perfect time to make that start.

I know we're all facing our own challenges, and folks in the States in particular are facing down a particularly miserable period in their history. On top of that, we have the scourge of AI devastating the planet and ruining the economy. It is, I'm sure, easy to feel hopeless.

But do what you can — just for yourself if for no-one else. You may not be able to make a difference to all the shit going on in the greater world right now, but you can make a difference for both yourself and those close to you.

Best of luck for another year of this shit. We're going to need it — but we've also survived this long, so what's another year?

#oneaday Day 206: Impending reorganisation

The living room, which is wall-to-wall video games of all descriptions, is fast approaching a point where it needs a Big Reorganise. I'm conscious of this because 1) my wife keeps bugging me about it (which, to be fair, she's entirely justified in doing), 2) because my Switch shelves, by far the most "active" in my collection, are approaching capacity, and 3) because at some point in the not-too-distant future, there's going to be a Switch successor and, assuming all the reports about it being backwards compatible are true — that better include having a cartridge slot and not just be a digital affair — that part of the collection is only going to continue expanding.

I dislike having to think about this because it involves making some tough choices. I'm disinclined to get rid of much stuff completely, largely because a lot of the stuff I own I either want to have on hand to be able to play, or wouldn't be worth that much were I to drag it all down the local CEX and trade it in. (The stuff that would be worth trading in from a financial perspective is all stuff I want to keep readily accessible.)

That leaves the main alternatives being seeking somewhere larger to live, which neither my wife nor I really want to do, or going through, being a bit "selective" about the stuff that is kept readily accessible, and squirrelling away the less "important" stuff up in the loft. This latter approach is looking like being the most practical and/or desirable thing to do right now.

So the big question is: what stays down here and readily accessible, and what goes in the loft?

Right now I'm thinking the following, from all the stuff that is currently on my shelves both in the living room and in my study upstairs:

Big box PC games, presently in the study, can go in the loft. I have nothing with which to read that original media, and any of those games I do want to play I almost certainly have on GOG.com, Steam or the eXoDOS archive.
Atari ST games, also presently in the study, I am a bit torn on. While putting them up in the loft would free up a lot of shelves for other uses, I like having them on display, because they're my childhood. Also, while I'm still making videos about Atari home computers, it's nice to have them on hand to be able to look at the documentation and packaging. So they're a "possibly stash away if I really need the space".
Atari hardware, currently filling up the closet in my study, can realistically go in the loft. As much as I adore the original machines, I do the majority of my Atari-related stuff on The400 Mini for Atari 8-bit, and Hatari running on my mini PC for ST. Freeing up some space in that cupboard would be a huge benefit.
Nintendo DS and 3DS games, presently on one shelf in the living room, can probably be organised and stacked a little differently to take up less space. This consideration is of increasing concern as the Evercade library, which is presently on the shelf above, expands, as it's nearly at the limit of the one shelf it's on.
PS1 games can stay down here. I don't have a lot of these and they don't take up much room.
PS2 games I think I can go through and strip out a big chunk of the collection I'm unlikely to spend a lot of time with any time soon. I have a lot of "interesting curiosities" in the PS2 library that I'm loathe to get rid of (and which, as outlined above, probably won't net much in a trade/sale) but which I'm unlikely to spend a lot of time playing in the immediate future. Once I've gone through and picked all these out, I can probably trim the fat of the PS2 library quite considerably and pack the rest away to get back out if we ever move, or if we figure out some form of alternative storage solution.
PS3 games can stay where they are. I don't have a lot of these.
Likewise PS4 and PS5. Of the three, I have the most PS4, and there are also a lot of games among the PS4 library that are on my "to-play" list for the near future.
Wii games can probably undergo a "trimming the fat" session like PS2. I don't have nearly as many Wii games as PS2, but still a good couple of shelves worth, some of which likewise falls into the "interesting curiosities I want to keep but am in no hurry to play" pile.
Wii U can definitely have the fat trimmed to those games that haven't been ported to Switch, and those games which have been ported to Switch that I haven't (yet) bought the Switch port of.
Original Xbox is slim pickings so can stay as-is.
Xbox 360 can undergo a PS2-style fat-trimming process, for exactly the same reasons.
Switch can stay as-is.
The Limited Editions I have on display, taking up quite a few shelves, can probably be organised a little differently or more tightly, freeing up a bit more room.

That sounds like a plan to me! I'm sure that was of very little interest to any of you reading, but I feel better having got a rough plan down on "paper". I'll be tackling this once the Christmas decorations come down, so not for a little while yet, but I'll be sure to share the results once the process is complete!

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#oneaday Day 205: Last weekend of 2024

The last hours are ticking away on the last weekend of 2024 as I type this. I have two days of "work" (and I use that term loosely during this ever-curious interstitial period between Christmas and the new year) and then a day off for New Year's Day, and then it's back to normal existence.

I have enjoyed the Christmas break, overall. I haven't done very much with it — the fact I have nearly beaten The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom will attest to that — but the period of just straight-up rest and relaxation has been good for me. It's easy to just sort of "tune out" the stresses of everyday working life until you take a step back from them for a little while, and it's most definitely been nice to be away from work social media and the never-ending moaning that goes on there.

We've got an exciting year coming up at work. We've got some great licenses in the pipe for Evercade, one of which (SNK) we've already teased, but there are several more lined up and ready to go, too. I'm looking forward to revealing these at the appropriate times (you won't get any clues here, sorry!) but not looking forward to, once again, revealing something cool and being immediately hit with a torrent of "you should get [x]" comments. I swear, a significant number of people involved in this hobby don't actually care about the thing itself, they only want to know "what's next".

I was actually thinking about this quite a bit towards the end of the working year. Evercade cartridges are super-cool and good value because they collect together a bunch of interesting games in one place, but this unfortunately means that reviews of them tend to suffer. When you get maybe 150 words in a publication like Retro Gamer to cover a cartridge with multiple games on it, there's not really any time for the reviewer to talk about anything in great depth. And online review sites aren't much better, either; inevitably, when we get a cart reviewed, it'll be a general overview of the whole thing without really going into much detail about any of the individual games.

This is a real shame, I think. If I wasn't working for Blaze directly, I'd be wanting to do comprehensive reviews of each cartridge, covering each game in detail. In fact, as it happens, I may be doing something along those lines for both the Evercade blog and YouTube channel in the new year — we want to celebrate some of our back catalogue as well as the most up-to-date stuff, and there's a lot to talk about at this point.

I know "company that makes the thing writing about the thing" isn't quite the same as a professional review, but honestly, a lot of the reviews out there aren't really providing much in the way of helpful information. What I strive to do in my articles and videos for Evercade is provide some decent quality research, some historical and social context for the games — and just an outline of why they're cool, y'know?

So more of that in the new year. In fact, that's what I might just fill my days with on Monday and Tuesday this coming week. While there's not much in the way of "production" stuff going on, I may as well get ahead of the game with writing some bits and pieces, no?

I didn't intend this post to be so work-centric when I started, but, well, that's happened now, and it's not as if I had much else of note to write about, really. I mean, I could write about Echoes of Wisdom, but like most gaming-related things, I'm going to save my conclusive thoughts about that for MoeGamer once I've actually beaten it — which will be in the next couple of days, I reckon, possibly even tonight, depending on how hard I can resist looking at a guide to find the last few Heart Pieces and Might Stones.

Anyway. If you, like me, are back to work for a couple of days tomorrow, I hope you've had a nicely restful holiday season and that those two straggling days aren't too stressful. 2025 is yet another opportunity for a "fresh start" for all of us, and while many people around the world are staring down some significant challenges (I'm glad I never made it to America at this point, frankly) we can all just take each day as it comes and see how things go.

For now, more Zelda.

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#oneaday Day 204: What it means to be "on the spectrum"

I saw one of those "online autism spectrum disorder" tests going around on Bluesky earlier, so I decided to take it. I already know that I'm autistic, but the interesting thing about this test is that it promised a certain degree of granularity about the different contributing aspects of autistic spectrum conditions, and I thought it might be interesting to discuss a bit.

First of all, here's my result. I will add a disclaimer to this that online tests like this are not a substitute for getting actually diagnosed by a professional, but the questions used in tests like this are much like the ones you'll be asked if and when you are professionally diagnosed. Basically, use things like this as a guide to determine whether or not you might want to seek additional information, not as a diagnosis in themselves.

Fixations and Restricted Interests

These are both areas that I scored highly on, and this will not be surprising to anyone who knows me. My interests are relatively limited in scope — writing, video games and music — but I enjoy each of them deeply. When I involve myself in them, they are the things I focus on, and there are times when I'm not able to indulge at least one of those interests that I start feeling restless.

The obvious benefit of fixations and a limited spectrum of interests is that they are comforting and familiar — a good place to "retreat" to when things get difficult. But they can also make one prone to being inflexible and not open to new experiences.

I don't think I'm particularly closed to new experiences per se, but particularly in more recent years, I have found my existing interests to be of increasing comfort — and frustrating when others that I care about don't seem to share my passion and enthusiasm for them.

Flat Speech

This is one I didn't score particularly highly on as I believe it's something that I've actually worked on and improved in more recent years — my work on YouTube in particular has been a key part of that.

But I recognise that there are situations where I don't feel comfortable "letting loose" or showing exaggerated emotions, even if I'm actually feeling those things. I guess that falls into this category, too, and it's something I've always found a bit difficult.

I think part of it is a self-perception thing; I see the potential me reacting in various ways and thinking that people will mock me for it — or, at the very least, tell other people how I reacted, and I don't like it when people talk about me like that. It's hard to pin down why I feel that way — surely it's nice for someone to hear when someone they know was happy? — but I've always felt that way. And thus it's just sort of easier to… not react in a particularly strong way.

Noise Sensitivity

This is something that has definitely gotten worse in more recent years. I talked recently about how the venues for my work Christmas party were much too loud for me to cope with, and my extreme-feeling reactions to that are definitely a recent issue, as I used to go out to noisy clubs and bars with friends all the time when I was a bit younger.

For me, I don't think it's so much the noise itself that bothers me, more that the noise makes doing other things — such as having a conversation with someone — difficult. There are few social situations I enjoy less than having a yelled conversation with someone sitting right next to me and having to ask them to repeat themselves multiple times. It makes me feel inordinately self-conscious and want to nope out of that conversation as quickly as possible.

Elsewhere in the world of noise sensitivity, I feel like I've always been able to hear some things that others couldn't. I could always hear CRT whine when other people around me couldn't, for example, and I often pick out sounds that Andie can't hear. Part of this is doubtless down to my musical training — I can easily pick out individual lines in an ensemble piece, for example — but it's also partly the condition talking.

Social Difficulty

Probably my biggest bugbear. I do not remember how to make friends, and I have had tremendous trouble holding on to friends as time has gone by. Self-confidence issues relating to my body image have exacerbated this problem considerably in the last 5 years or so, too, though they have always been present to an extent.

There's not a lot more I can say about this, really. I don't dislike socialising with people, but I like it to be in a situation where I feel in control of my part in the situation — and free to leave, if need be — and can actually hear what's going on.

Anxiety

Yep. Perpetual worrying has only gotten worse as time has gone on. In retrospect, I have suffered this for many years of my life, probably from childhood onwards, but it's been a particular problem in my adult life. I had a nervous breakdown during my teaching career, I have traumatic flashbacks to various events in my life I'd rather not recall and sometimes my brain just panics for no real reason.

Motor Issues

I wouldn't say this is a major problem for me, but I am quite clumsy and always have been, and during childhood I was believed to be dyspraxic. I even had one of those funny rubber pen holder things that would supposedly make me hold it properly.

I don't particularly struggle with day-to-day getting around and stuff, and there are elements of precision — like playing a musical instrument, say — where I'm absolutely fine, but it doesn't surprise me that this is a consideration when talking about autistic spectrum disorders.

Eye Contact Issues

Ties in with the social stuff. I'm not always at ease even when having a conversation with someone I like and am close to, and I will often avoid eye contact. I can feel myself doing it, and I am also very conscious of other people using eye contact in ways that are different to me, such as maintaining eye contact or continuing to look at someone even when not actively addressing them.

Tics, Fidgets and Repetitive Behaviours

These came out surprisingly high. I'm not someone who rocks back and forth or makes repetitive noises or anything like that, but there are little things I do when I'm anxious (or bored), such as fiddling with my beard. I can't say that they're conscious coping mechanisms that I deliberately do, but I occasionally notice myself falling into these habits.

Aggression

I'm generally not a super-angry person, or I try not to be anyway, but when things go unexpectedly wrong I sometimes react with what would probably be considered a disproportionate amount of upset or frustration. I am especially susceptible to demonstrating aggressive tendencies if my routines or fixations are disturbed somehow, but it's more common that I'll feel anxiety or depression rather than anger.

Depression

"Individuals with ASD may experience feelings of isolation, sadness and hopelessness."

Tick, tick and tick.

So that's that. If you want to take the test yourself, you can find it here. If you do take it, please bear in mind my disclaimer above!

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#oneaday Day 203: A distressing dichotomy

I am, as you'll know if you've been reading this here blog for a while, suffering from a fair old bit of loneliness. As the years have gone by, groups of friends have gradually drifted away, and it feels like one of the longest holdouts in that regard is heading in that direction of late. I haven't heard from anyone in this group for probably several months at this point, and to be honest, I'm burnt out.

Here's my problem, see: I'm lonely, but I'm also absolutely exhausted feeling like the only one trying to make an effort to keep friendships going or to try and "fit in" places. I'm a member of several online communities (well, let's be real, Discord servers at this point, since self-contained online communities barely seem to be a thing any more) but the prospect of trying to raise my head, say hello and generally get "noticed" in some way is just… deflating. It almost doesn't feel worth the effort. It feels like fighting my way out of quicksand.

Take this group I'm referring to, for example. I have been feeling for quite some time that if I don't say something and attempt to start a conversation, no-one says anything. And indeed, I must confess, over the past few months I simply haven't said anything, just to see if that was actually the case. I had gotten tired, you see, of every time I attempted to start a conversation resulting in the things I said getting either shut down or ignored. In particular, I have tried to express enthusiasm for the things I've worked on professionally — which I'm very proud of — and my own creative projects — which likewise I want to share with people who are important to me — and have found myself rebuffed. And it seems no-one wants to talk about anything that is important to them, either, so silence it is.

This is not a healthy way to be, I know, but I feel frustrated and resentful any time I feel like I'm the only one who has been making an effort with a friendship. And so, day by day, I feel myself retreating further into my own private world, and feeling less inclined to want to come out and show myself.

Well, no. It's not that. It's that I find doing so to be immensely draining, particularly when it's in an environment or situation I find uncomfortable. Take our work Christmas outing recently for example; while we were out there were several people who clearly wanted to make an effort to get to know me a bit better, and I had those conversations where I could — but because we were in an inordinately noisy environment where it was very difficult (and uncomfortable) to have a conversation, I didn't feel like I could really carry things on. It was too tiring. I felt bad, because it was people showing an honest interest in me, but I just couldn't keep trying to have a conversation while I couldn't hear anything.

I ended up bowing out of the evening relatively early because my senses had just been completely overwhelmed by the noise. I had a good time overall; I just knew I couldn't take any more.

It sort of feels like a variation on that at other times. I don't want to be a lonely recluse who never talks to anyone, but when I never get anything back when I do attempt to initiate something — and when no-one else seemingly wants to initiate things with me without me prompting them — I get to a point where it just doesn't feel worth trying any more, which I fear will eventually build into actively pushing people away if and when they do ever reach out.

Perhaps the thing to do is just to accept that this is the way things are, and to try and structure my life accordingly. If people aren't going to make the effort themselves but they are still, for one reason or another, actually important to me, then I make some time to ensure that I get heard. It doesn't have to be much; perhaps just set aside a time each week to drop a quick message to the group in an attempt to start a conversation. That feels very formal, I know, and that's one of the reasons I haven't done something like this sooner — but right now it feels like doing something overtly "artificial-feeling" might be the only way I get my almost completely drained "Social" meter back up into the green.

I should probably mention at this point that I am inordinately grateful to my good pal Chris, who has stuck by me through exceedingly thick and enormously thin, and always has a kind word and receptive ear any time I drop him a message. The only trouble is he's on the other side of the world to me, so not someone I can just drop in on for some beers and video games.

My wife Andie is and always has been a rock, too, and any time I start feeling lonely I am grateful that I am not completely alone, thanks to her, our two cats (who both know to come and look after me when I'm feeling low — they're both sat with me on the sofa as I type this) and, of course, my family, who just accept me as I am, with all my myriad flaws.

Is that enough, though? It doesn't feel like enough. Something in my mind remains intensely dissatisfied in my socialisation, and I need to do something about it. So, as tempting as it is to just wallow in despair at things gradually getting worse on their own without my input… I guess it's time to acknowledge that I need to provide that input if I ever want things to get better again.

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