#oneaday Day 615: No context cats

The above image has nothing to do with what I want to talk about today. Or maybe it does. I haven't decided yet, because I don't really know what I'm going to write about yet — despite having already started writing.

I have days like this, where I think "what should I blog about?" and nothing comes readily to mind. I've found the best approach when this happens, pretty consistently, is just to open a document, start typing and let random thoughts spill out onto the page. If they make sense, great. If they don't, you can look back on it as an entertaining stream of consciousness, perhaps providing a bit of insight into what might have been going through my mind at the time.

Today has been a funny old day. Not because of anything I've been directly involved with, really, but just people have been in a bit of a funny mood. Notably, a Discord server I'm part of, which primarily consists of middle-aged men who make YouTube videos about old tech and software (like me), had a big old tiff in its #general channel that was frankly kind of bewildering to see unfold. The main instigator has been "timed out" for a week, so I guess it remains to be seen whether or not he will be back — and if he is, if he will have changed his attitude at all.

Elsewhere, I was having a conversation with some friends in the Squadron of Shame Discord server, and it brought back to my mind the fact that I don't feel like I really remember my 30s all that much. There's a block of a good 10 years or so that is just sort of a dark spot in my memory. It hasn't gone completely, because if I think back over it I can remember bits and pieces — and if I look back at blog posts from that era, I get an even clearer reminder — so it's perhaps more accurate to say that period of time just sort of passed by in a blur without me really intending or wanting it to.

Some of that is down to a few mildly to moderately traumatic happenings I was dealing with in that period, all of which are now, thankfully, things of the past — though as anyone who has suffered trauma will know, just because the cause of said trauma is not present any more, it doesn't mean it stops affecting you. Part of my "lost decade" is almost certainly my brain telling me "don't go back there, there's nothing fun back there to remember" and I should probably listen to it.

But it wasn't all bad, and there are things I miss from back then. Seeing friends. Having friends. Going out and doing things. Not being the size and level of unfitness I am now. Not having a hernia. Having the passion and enthusiasm to write something on MoeGamer every day and make multiple videos a week.

A lot of things are better now, of course. I'm in a stable job that pays well, as is my wife Andie. We're getting our windows and doors done soon. I have a HeroQuest campaign on the go. I have a satisfyingly large game collection that will probably last me until the day I die. I am in control of, and proud of, the various websites that I have, at this point, held for many years. We have two wonderful cats (pictured).

And yet with the way the world is right now, it's hard to feel entirely happy, because there are so many things that are concerning about the short- to medium-term future. And it's difficult to escape from them. Impossible, in some cases. I fear for what the next few years hold, both in terms of things in my personal sphere, and more broadly about the world in general.

But right now, just this second, as I type this, things are All Right. So I should probably enjoy these moments of things being All Right while I can. So that's what I'm going to go and do now.

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 604: So many words

I've written two pieces over on MoeGamer today: one on Inkle's excellent TR-49, and another on Size Five Games' hilarious Earth Must Die. Please go read them, then buy both games, as they're both fabulous and I want to play more stuff from both developers.

It's now quarter to five in the afternoon (we got up late) and it's dark and miserable outside. I'm a bit hungry. One of the cats did a poo on the doormat this morning. We think it was a dirty protest informing us that it was time to empty the litter trays, so we did that.

Now I'm a bit tired. My plan for most of the rest of the evening is to have something nice for dinner (maybe a weekend "treat" of some description, since I have the calories for it and I've been good all week!) and then play Rosewater for the rest of the night. I am, if it were not already apparent, very much on an adventure game kick right now, and there are so many amazing ones that have come out recently that I have a veritable string of them to play.

I'm probably going to continue with my exploration of the Wolfenstein series after Rosewater though, then after that I'm going to try and cross both Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom off my list. Then there's just Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles and Death end re;Quest Code Z to finish off and I've successfully recovered from my "oops, I started too many games at once" situation from the end of last year.

Back to work tomorrow, of course. We're going through an extremely busy, quite stressful time at the moment, but with any luck all the hard work everyone is putting in is going to result in some truly spectacular releases later in the year. It's going to be an amazing year for our company, all being well, and I'm excited at the part I've played in all this.

For now, though, I think I've earned a bit of rest and relaxation, so it's off to Western Vespuccia I go for the continuing adventures of Rosewater!

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#oneaday Day 360: Lacking in inspiration

After rather longer browsing through the "Random Post" option than I would like, I am no closer to determining what I might want to write about today. So, as ever in scenarios like this, I am just going to start typing and see what comes out. It might be coherent, it might be nonsense; it might be meaningful, it might just be a summary of what happened today. I don't know yet because I haven't written it yet; the only rule is that I'm not going to stop typing to think. No, think, always type.

I published my video on Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer yesterday. It's done… all right, but this further cements my complete lack of understanding of what "works" on YouTube. Sometimes I'll post something that I feel is completely throwaway and it'll do very good numbers (obscenely good in the case of something like my Super Woden GP 2 video from a while back), then at other times I'll post something that actually had some meaning to me, and it'll struggle to break a hundred views. I think the most galling instance of this happening was back when I covered The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories, a thoroughly interesting game by SWERY65 that really got me thinking and learning some things. It was, in many ways, a very personal video, and it did absolute bobbins performance-wise. But I'm still glad I did it.

My Kathy Rain 2 video isn't exactly "personal" in the same way, but I did enjoy the game enough to want to share it with others, because it was a very good point-and-click adventure, and I hope it does well. But at the time of typing this, it hasn't broken a hundred views yet, and I feel like it's been tough to get people to pay attention to it on socials also.

There are times when this happens where I find myself wondering if I should bother keeping on with things like MoeGamer and my YouTube channel. They're both "work" in a sense, and I could probably have a lot more time to myself to enjoy things if I ditched both of them and just lived my life to enjoy myself.

But the trouble is, I really enjoy doing both of them, and neither of them have ever been about viewing figures. Sure, the occasional payout I get from YouTube is a nice little bit of pocket money (and nothing more) but I don't really do either videos or articles for the sake of making Number Go Up. I do them primarily as means of expressing myself about things that I am enthusiastic about, and to share that enthusiasm with others — particularly people I consider to be close friends.

Now, I've found out to my cost and frustration that there are some people I considered to be close friends who don't give a shit, and have never even tried to give a shit when I shared things with them. So I've just stopped trying with them, and instead I just concentrate on doing these things for my own enjoyment, and perhaps to share with people that I know will appreciate them.

Sure, it might be nice to be able to do YouTube as a living, but would it really? Would it really be nice to have one's income completely beholden to the fickle fates of The Algorithm and the massive variation one can see in viewing figures from one video to the next? Probably not. So that is not — and never has been, really — an angle that I'm pursuing.

Best thing is just to keep these things as hobbies, and if certain people happen to stumble across them and enjoy them, great. If not, at least I have something I can look at myself and be satisfied with — and be content in the knowledge that generative AI hasn't come anywhere near those things I've created, either.

Anyway, I have spent enough time randomly pondering absolute nonsense this evening, so I think it's time to go and unwind with some video games. I think some Castlevania: Lords of Shadow might be in order; I've been playing that a bit for the last week and really enjoying it. Patrick Stewart!

So that's what I'm off to do now. And all my self-imposed commitments are already taken care of well before midnight, too. Look at me, I'm growing.

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1901: Good Friday? All Right, I Guess

Today is technically a "holiday", though when you don't have a regular job normal days and holidays tend to all blend together somewhat. Still, at least it being a holiday means that I can technically not work and not feel guilty about it, so there's that.

It's been one of those days that has just sort of passed by without any particular incident or noteworthiness, and as such there's not a whole lot for me to talk about today, really. Andie and I both got up late — we were both really tired, so a lie-in until midday was thoroughly needed — and then we've both spent most of the day playing Final Fantasy XIV. I'm almost at level 48 on Bard, which will be my fifth battle class levelled to 50 when it's done — I should hopefully get that finished tomorrow. After that, I have Arcanist and Pugilist to get out of the mid-teens, and Lancer and Rogue to level from scratch. And then all the bloody crafters, though to be honest those aren't very difficult to level, just a bit time-consuming.

I've also been playing some more Hyperdevotion Noire over the last few days, and I'm thoroughly smitten with it. I was initially a little put off by the chibi characters — I prefer more coventionally proportioned characters for the most part — but they actually work well in the battle scenes, making it clear who is where, which way they are facing and so on. Outside of battle, you still get the full-size portraits in story sequences — plus the beautifully drawn event scenes, too — so I'm happy with that. (Also, Chibi Female Solid Snake is adorable. As is the personification of Dragon Quest. As indeed are most of the characters.)

Nothing special planned for tomorrow, it's looking like a lazy Easter weekend. Andie and her mother are going out to town tomorrow, but I will probably stay in. With money a bit tight at the moment, it's probably best I stay away from places that sell things I might want to buy. Like, say, PlayStation 4s. That ain't going to happen until I have some more money coming in, but I'm working on that.

And after that, Sunday is raid night, of course. We will probably be taking our first serious look at the Final Coil of Bahamut, though one of our number still wants to get their own clear of Turn 9, since his unlocking of Final Coil was actually achieved by someone else playing his character. I'm all for that; Turn 9 is a fun, if intense, fight, and the last time we tackled it we cleared it within 3 attempts, making the weeks of practice look somewhat trivial!

Anyway. I've spun this post out for long enough without really saying anything, so it's time to head to bed and maybe play with my beloved Noire a bit. Here's to boring but peaceful days.

1563: Sullen and Ill-Tempered

I'll level with you, dear reader, I'm not entirely sure what to write today. The Black Dog has been creeping in somewhat over the course of the day, leaving me somewhat morose and not particularly in the mood for a great deal of communication. This feeling sucks, but I am taking some small solace from the fact that there are a few irons in the fire right now. Whether or not any of them will come to anything remains to be seen, but at least they're there.

In the meantime, it's largely been business as usual. I rediscovered the fun of Japanese doujin title Croixleur earlier through its new Sigma edition and would encourage anyone who enjoys a bit of hack-and-slash goodness to check it out. Then I spent some time moving towards cleaning up the rest of The Witch and the Hundred Knight. I'm torn on which ending to try for, since both the Normal and True endings are very straightforward to get, while the "Bad" ending actually takes significantly more effort to attain.

This isn't the first time a Japanese game has locked its worst ending behind a particularly complicated series of hoops to jump through, and it probably won't be the last. The last time I encountered such a practice was with Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2, where the "Conquest" ending — an incredibly dark affair that, despite featuring a huge tonal shift from the rest of the game managed to fit in quite well with the overall narrative — required a huge amount of faffing around to accomplish. And your reward? Feeling awful at what you had done to the characters. I am, frankly, glad I did it first, and it's for this reason I'm contemplating getting The Witch and the Hundred Knight's "bad" ending out of the way first.

Meanwhile, I continue to be enraptured by Demon Gaze. I adore the characters whom you get to hang out with while back at the inn between expeditions into the game's sprawling dungeons, but I was surprised to discover that it's the dungeon-crawling aspect I've been having the most fun with. Demon Gaze's dungeons are relatively simple in terms of tech, being designed on a flat 2D grid, but their design is superb. The current dungeon I'm running through — Endless Road, a dungeon towards the end of the game — is a multi-floor monstrosity that demands you pay careful attention to the relationship between the different levels and areas, and search carefully for secret doors.

Secret doors! When was the last time you searched for a secret door in a video game? Demon Gaze is full of them. Granted, much of the old-school frustration of hunting for secret doors is mitigated by two things — the demon Comet, who, if equipped, marks them with a big flashing mark, and the fact that players tend to leave helpful Gazer Memos in front of them — but it's still enjoyable to kick down a wall and discover a door behind it.

At the other end of the spectrum, I've been enjoying the aforementioned Gazer Memo feature a great deal, too. Somewhat similar to the messaging system in Dark Souls (in that you can't type freely but instead pick from predefined words and phrases) but with a few more suggestive terms included along the way, the Gazer Memo system allows you to scrawl messages on the dungeon floor which are subsequently uploaded to the Internet and downloaded into the game of anyone else who happens to be playing. During the time I was reviewing the game, the messages were fairly sparse and mostly helpful; now, they're still fairly helpful, but there's been a clear explosion in players: the sheer number of messages making rather suggestive implications about spears and butts is testament to that, I feel.

It's fun to leave these messages, too. At several points during the game, after overcoming a particularly challenging maze of one-way doors, I found myself deliberately going back and leaving memos to future adventurers helping them out. (I also left them a few sarcastic "Nope"s if they went the wrong way.) I also couldn't resist a "Caution! Gigantic Butt Ahead" at the entrance to one particular dungeon — a message that I now see every time I happen to wander back to that area.

But anyway. I'm rambling on about nothing much in particular and it's getting late. As such, I'm going to leave that there. Here's hoping that tomorrow is a more positive day.

1557: Got the Number Right This Time

Can't believe no-one told me that I'd done three posts with the same number (1554, if you were wondering) — it's an irrational and largely not-terribly-important fear I have that one day I will completely bollocks up the numbering system on this blog and celebrate, say, my 2,000th post when I've actually written 2,003 or something.

Not that it really matters, obviously; the original people who were following this blog as part of the #oneaday movement have almost certainly long since moved on as I've continued to babble on for somewhere in the region of 500-1,000 words per day for the last 1,557 (that's 1,557, not 1,554… I think… I hope) days and I remain here largely talking to myself and the few people who stop in regularly or semi-regularly. (Thanks!)

After yesterday's rant, I saw a few things today that kind of made me want to go off on one again, but I'm going to resist for now since it's one of those subjects which will almost certainly be wilfully misinterpreted by certain people on the Internet and shared with the inevitable "THIS IS NOT OKAY" in an attempt to attract the usual crowd of shamers. (And I'm not talking about members of the Squadron of Shame.) It's kind of disappointing to sometimes feel like I can't truly speak my mind on certain subjects for fear of inciting the wrath of the Moral Outrage Committee, but having seen a number of friends fall victim to said Committee on a couple of occasions, I'm in no hurry to join them in being publicly shamed for saying something that, frankly, was absolutely fine in the first place. (I guess I'm kind of ranting here again after saying I wouldn't. Apologies.)

Anyway, the upshot of feeling like I've had my lips zipped like this is that I feel… I don't know, "backed up" for want of a better word, like I need some sort of release. It's a stressful feeling, and it's not a pleasant one, but at the same time I don't want to really let rip because I know it will be ultimately unproductive.

So when I felt myself getting stressed out earlier, I booted up Final Fantasy XIV and escaped for a little while. It worked. I wasn't alone; I got to hang out with the friends I've made in that game and even play some stuff together. (I'm getting quite good at Garuda Hard Mode and slightly better at Titan Hard Mode, but I'm still not great.) It was a nice means of getting away from it all for a little while, and when I was done I was able to log out feeling a little bit calmer about the world. Which was nice.

Anyway, I'm aware this has been a largely aimless post but I didn't have a lot of things worth talking about happen today, frankly, since my mind has largely been occupied by being stressed and trying not to explode. Which it hasn't, so that's good. But anyway. Tomorrow is another day, and, more to the point, the end of another week, and I'm looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend. Apart from the part where I need to go and shout at Novatech because my laptop's battery has died again for the third time in a not-very-long period of time. Sigh.

Anyway. That's that. It's 1:20 and I need to sleep, so that's precisely what I'm going to go and do.

1539: Winding Up

The weekend is coming to a close, and another week of work beckons. After that, there will be another weekend, and the whole cycle will repeat over and over and over again.

This weekend has been quite nice despite the fact we haven't really done all that much. Andie and I paid not one but two visits to a nice local restaurant/bar/lounge type place called Trago Lounge that we were first introduced to for a friend's birthday a while back. We went there on Saturday for one of their excellent burgers — the "Hero Burger", which also features chorizo, some unidentifiable green goo that tastes nice, chipotle mayo and a pickled chilli in a toasted, crispy brioche bun is delicious — and enjoyed it so much we decided we'd drop in for breakfast today.

Trago Lounge has a substantial breakfast menu, largely inspired by the sort of stuff you'd typically get in an American breakfast-specialist place such as the Half-Day Cafe in Marin County, CA that my parents always insist on going to every time we go and visit my brother. (To be fair, they do do amazing breakfasts.) Today, I tried a stack of eggy bread with crispy bacon and syrup — predictably yummy, though the bacon was a little overdone — while Andie had what was called "dirty beans", which was essentially a bowl full of home-made baked beans (three different types) with a healthy dollop of barbecue pulled pork and some lumps of toasted ciabatta to dip. It's not what I would have called "breakfast" per se, but Andie enjoyed it. (It was a little too oniony for me, however.)

After that, we wandered into town for an idle look around and I ended up buying a new television. I recently came into a bit of money, you see, and while I'm intending on saving most of it, Andie quite rightly suggested that it was probably worth spending some of it on something nice that I'd enjoy. After a considerable amount of umming and ahhing — there really wasn't all that much I want to spent a considerable amount of money on right now, aside from, you know, the house we're buying — Andie suggested replacing my current TV, which is now a good few years old. It still works perfectly well, I might add, but the new one is significantly bigger, has an almost bezel-free edge, is an LED screen (as opposed to my current TV's LCD), has optical sound output instead of analogue and has a lot more options to tweak for optimising performance when watching TV, watching movies or playing games. Oh, and it's 3D, too, because it's apparently impossible not to buy a 3D TV any more, despite 3D TV not really being anywhere near as much of a thing that everyone tried to convince us a year or two back.

Anyway, that's turning up on Wednesday because John Lewis apparently don't stock anything above 50 inches in store (it's 55) so we're both looking forward to that. And that, really, was my weekend. Oh, I found two Atmas in Final Fantasy XIV earlier on, but I'm sure you don't want to hear about that. And people got angry on Twitter earlier on (not at me!), but people always get angry on Twitter and I'm frankly beyond giving a shit about any of it any more.

So that's that, really. Night night.

1363: Near Miss

Whew. Made it. Nearly went to sleep without writing something. Doing so wouldn't really matter, of course, but it's a matter of personal pride by this point. It has been 1,363 days of daily posts (of wildly varying quality) after all.

So now here I am at 1am trying to think of something to write and, in my tired-out state, struggling. So I'll just do some sort of babbling on about what's going on this weekend and hope that's vaguely interesting to at least one person out there somewhere.

Actually, pretty much nothing's going on this weekend. We went out to town earlier, mainly for me to go and look for a course book for my Japanese evening class, but Waterstones failed me so I'm going to have to turn to the Internet, as ever. I don't know why I'm surprised.

Then tomorrow we are taking Lucy the rat to the vet. You may recall a while back that Lara the rat wasn't very well and I was worried about her — thankfully she seems to have made a full recovery thanks to some medicine we were given for her, so that's good. Lucy, on the other hand, has suffered with a snuffly nose for quite some time and it seems to have gotten a little worse recently, so we're going to go get her checked out just to see if there's anything we can do. Said snuffly nose doesn't actually seem to bother her all that much, since she's still as energetic and mischievous as ever — she's very much "the childish one" compared to the older, lazier Lara — and so I'm not too worried; I just hope it's not been causing her too much discomfort.

That's about it, really. Andie and I played both Flash Point and Guildhall earlier, both of which are board/card game acquisitions from our trip to Canada a while back. I contemplated teaching Andie the full rules for Agricola, but by the time that was a possibility it was already getting late and my brain wasn't up to the task of medieval German farming, so that's something to save for another day.

Played a bit more Beyond earlier, too. Still very impressed with the whole thing and intrigued to see where it goes. I have a lot more patience for David Cage letting loose than most other people, it seems, but it's been nice to talk to a few people who have also been enjoying it and don't feel the need to ridicule and mock Cage at every opportunity.

That's definitely it now. I'm going to bed because I should have been asleep half an hour ago, so now I'm going to go and do that. Yeah.

1266: Hotness

It's still massively warm, but at least our Internet is back. (It came back briefly shortly after I wrote last night's post, actually, but by then it was too late.)

Our flat is like a fricking oven at the moment. All the hot air in the whole building rises, making our place on the top floor unbearably warm, even with all the windows open and fans running. You can feel it as you come up the stairs; pass by our first floor neighbours and ascend the stairs to the second floor (third if you're American) and you can feel yourself pass through a wall of heat. It's really quite unpleasant.

It's times like this that I wish air conditioning — or indeed any form of cooling — was more commonplace here in the UK. Heating is fine — the heaters in our flat are great when it's cold — but when it gets too warm? There's really very little that you can do save for sit around in your pants and drink lots of cold drinks. We have been plying the poor rats with bowls of iced water, which they seem to appreciate; Lara, our slightly older rat, particularly seems to be suffering somewhat in the heat. Poor girl.

I'm heading down to Brighton tomorrow to work in the Eurogamer office for a change. It's nice to have the option to work in an actual office with other people — this is something I've not had the luxury of doing in previous games writing gigs, so I intend to take advantage of it every so often, if only to break the monotony of working from home. (Also, hopefully the EG offices have air conditioning, which will save me gasping for breath in this oven of a flat. Also, I owe Chris Donlan a sandwich.)

One thing I'm actually quite looking forward to about the trip to Brighton is having a commute where I don't have to drive. Finally — finally — I have a commute long enough to play some handheld games on. There will be some Animal Crossing, Velocity Ultra and possibly some Persona 4.

For now, though, there will be a large glass of something cold and wet in an attempt to cool off a bit, then sleep. Or, alternatively and more likely, very little sleep and instead a lot of sweaty tossing and turning as I attempt to get comfortable in an environment which is not in the slightest bit comfortable.

Moan moan moan, I know. At least Andy Murray won the tennis earlier. Supposedly that's important or something.

1181: 1:20am Blogging

It is 1:20am and I haven't written anything here, nor do I have any particular idea as to what to write about. So I'm just going to write any old crap that comes into my head right now. I hope you'll forgive me for that. This isn't going to be a "freewriting" exercise as my brain is not awake enough for the mental agility required for that (though doing freewriting when absolutely exhausted is probably an interesting exercise in itself) — instead, it's just going to be… stuff. All right? Good.

As I was logging in to write this post, I happened to see what my "top searches" are. I find these interesting to look at every so often as they provide a curious insight into how people are finding me here. And it's not always in the manner you might expect. (Those bloody stickman GIFs I made a while back attracted a lot of people, but that seems to have died down somewhat now.)

My top searches at present are "My Girlfriend is the President Irina Route", "Candy Crush Features on PC that Aren't on Mobile", "You Have Earned a Trophy" and "Cis Male Guilt". I think that about sums things up nicely, doesn't it? If any of those things have brought you here, allow me to address them in order: Irina's route in My Girlfriend is the President was my third favourite route after Ell-chan and Yukino but ahead of Ran-neechan; Candy Crush Saga is a mug's game whatever platform you play it on, so go and buy a copy of Bejeweled instead; well done, you have earned a trophy; and cis male guilt is one of the most irritating blights on the Interwebs of 2013. Happy? Good.

I've had a fairly dull day today, which is why I don't have a lot to talk about, really. I've done a fair amount of work on my game, though nothing significantly more interesting than the stuff I talked about yesterday. In terms of how far through the "plot" I am, though, I've officially finished the first "day" in the story and got the structure in place for the next five in-game days to branch off in several different directions and lead the player towards one of the endings. So progress is being made — noticeable progress — which is exciting.

In other news? I had a little play on the piano earlier, but given that the B key above middle C is sticking and making it very difficult to play at times, doing so is an infuriating experience. It is doubly infuriating because I have just come into possession of the piano scores for the Nier and Final Fantasy X-2 soundtracks along with a bunch of fan-arranged sheet music for a selection of tracks covering everything from Ar Tonelico 2 to School Days HQ. I would very much like to play all these and record them to share with you, but without a working B key I can't do that to the standard I'd like to. So next week I have to take my keyboard to a scary man in Ringwood who will hopefully fix it without too much difficulty.

That's about it, really. I think I'm going to go to bed now. Andie's having a night out with her friends and isn't back yet. I have no idea when she will be back, but I will almost definitely be awake when it happens. Or perhaps not. I have no idea. I'm quite tired. To such a degree that I'm babbling nonsense out through my fingers, so I think it's probably best for everyone involved if I just cut my losses, click that Publish button and go to bed now. Good night!