Looking back on the games I've played this year, it has been quite the eclectic mix. Critical darlings that I hate, critically maligned sequels that I love, plus the usual heap of weird old shit nobody else has heard of -- love 'em or hate 'em, though, they're all very pretty looking.

"Waah, waah, I can't think of a way to finish this side quest so I'll just procrastinate and fiddle with terrain instead." -> after five minutes of forcing myself to just fkin stare at the side quest "Oh I see here that I've just come up with way to finish this side quest."

Can't believe I managed to successfully deploy "How do you get Pikachu on a bus when he doesn't want to? Poke 'em on!" at GameDevEd last night. Archbishop of Banterbury right here! 😂😂😂

TONIGHT from 6pm until late is GameDevEd once again! Join us in OX184 for socialising among Game Developers in and around Edinburgh #scotgamedev

Just ordered myself a batch of old computer games to put under the tree. I suppose crimbo time _should_ be a time to treat myself to a modern blockbuster for80 quid or whatever, but it's not the same without a box to anticipate. Weird old junk it is!🎄

Remember when WordPress would automatically put snow on your blog during the festive season? I guess we're not allowed fun anymore. 😔🌨️

Whamageddon is a terrible thing. Why would you deny yourself one of the greatest pop songs ever written? I can't endorse GameDevEd if it's going to be like this. 😔

One day, I'm going to end up in a karaoke booth that has the Sonic Adventure Knuckles rap and I'm going to do something we'll all regret.

Since I've apparently been on an RTS kick recently, I decided to squeeze one more little one in before the festive season. Populous: The Beginning is an absolute classic that still shines despite its advanced years.

Frustum? Moar liek fustRATING. 😡

Primitive War is another absolute banger. I love it when a film takes a quantifiably goofy premise and plays it entirely straight -- best dinosaur film in years. Even the might of Gareth Edwards couldn't make Jurr-ass-ic Werld hold a candle to this. 🦖

Add drag-selection, you say? How hard can it be? 😰

Went to Majestic to stock up on wine for the festive season and accidentally dropped and smashed a bottle. 😳 On the plus side, my rucksack now smells _delicious_.

Obviously, the one weekend I am going to London for a gig, there will be railway engineering work. I'll get down on the Friday easily enough, but the ride back on Sunday is going to be _six and a half hours_. 😩

This got 10 Boosts and 25 Favourites on mastodon, seems like Bluesky is full of philistines. 😔

The existence of Pierce Brosnan suggests that there must also be Slashing Brosnan and Bludgeoning Brosnan.

For some reason over the last few weeks, I've been getting buckets of traffic from China specifically to the This Wreckage _scoreboard_ page. I guess somebody somewhere must have linked me, but it's not exactly a page that makes sense on its own so I can't imagine why.

Sometimes I overhear somebody mention an obscure old game and immediately set my sights on having it. Today's dive into the wilderness comes courtesy of Devastation, which is certainly an FPS from 2003.

That moment where you're like "and now I must reimplement the Unity editor's object selection system". Mainly because it doesn't play nice with mouse up/down events and that's clashing with some changes I need to make to my doodad placement system... Sigh.

Vue only have a single screening for Primitive War in the Omni Centre on the 28th at 2030, so I've booked myself in for that in case they never add any more screenings. I'm in seat D2 if anybody wants to sit next to me! 🦖

What the fuck is a Lorenz Crunchips X-cut (salted)? The only packet of crisps in the newsagent that isn't some kind of Ultra Blast Barbecue Bullshit flavour, that's what.

Went on my first ever protest march last night. Exciting! 🌱

TONIGHT, Tuesday November 18th, from 6PM until late at OX184 will be GameDevEd! Some of us might be late! There is a gathering outside Rockstar North's HQ just down the road at 5PM today to show support for the fired Rockstar workers. GameDevEd Bloc :) #scotgamedev

WordPress has just informed me that I've been using it for 16 years now. Coming up on Blog 1000 too. Eep. 😥

Tomorrow, Tuesday November 18th, from 6PM until late we will once again have GameDevEd at OX184! But before then you might find yourself, from 5pm for at least a little while, a bit further down the road outside Barclay House. Let's show the Rockstar North 31 some love ✊ #scotgamedev

Watched Fast X last night, and I see that the franchise snake has now consumed so much of its own tail that it's eating the back of its own head. The bottom of the barrel has been scraped so raw we're left with a film composed entirely of flashbacks, callbacks, retcons and empty spectacle.

That thing where you've finished your current game with only two weeks until Unreal Tournament season. What can I play that's long enough to fill the gap, but short enough it won't overspill? Erk.

I don't often play RTS skirmish matches, but when I do, it's... always Age of Empires II. But even AoE2 skirmished don't *quite* hit the spot. Could they be better?

Watched Godzilla Minus One again last night. Several years on and it still hits like a truck. 😭

You know, since I'm a bit red/green colourblind, I should probably stop trying to draw Red debug lines over a green grass terrain. 🙈

"Visual Studio 2026 is here!" ... no thank you, I'm perfectly happy with the unenshittified Visual Studio 2019 Community Edition. 😌

A yes, it's "I'm going to a concert next week so it's time to do the fucking ticketmaster app dance" day.

Steam Machine? Yeah, I use one to iron my clothes.

I went to meet the 'Rockstar 31', the developers who were suddenly fired from their work on GTA 6 for what the studio has described as gross misconduct. That's not what the workers call it though. They have another couple of words they prefer to use: union busting. www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9nO...

Hard to believe we're only three weeks from A Spaceman Came Travelling season.

Huh, I've just discovered how to make latter-day Windows 7 re-support some dead versions of SecuROM. I've got a new (old) game to play, but I wonder if this trick will work on the Sonic Mega Collection Plus...? 👀

Why make one game when you can make two? KnightShift is primarly an RTS/RPG hybrid, but it also comes with a dedicated action-RPG mode...

Predator: NotBad.jpg-lands Dimly lit but otherwise great fun. (Not as good as Red Sonja, but really, what is?)

Nice to see my game dev "how hard can it be?" to "oh my god it's so complex" pipeline is still producing results in a matter of days. 😌

You can get some very interesting patterns out of it when the pathing grid screws up, but I still have absolutely no idea why it's behaving like this. 😖

Remember, remember, the seventh of November!

I keep adding choices to side quests, and this is only making my life more difficult. Why do I do this to myself?

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within Final Fantasy: The Spirits Without Final Fantasy: The Spirits With-shake-it-all-about

Remember, remember, the sixth of November!

Fireworks? Yeah, it works really well for heating things up.

Rockstar union workers have set up a solidarity fund to help our fight after 30 of them were fired in an attempt to destroy the union. Help us fight back! Anything you can donate will massively help our efforts to hold Rockstar to account. actionnetwork.org/fundraising/...

Remember, remember, the fourth of November!

Remember, remember, the third of November!

If the prospect of a fantasy RPG/RTS isn't enough to get me through the door, then a punny title will definitely seal the deal.

BTVision box threw a hissy-fit last night, so instead of watching something I had recorded, I slammed Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within into the DVD player. What a film! 😍 (I know it's objectively bad in many ways, the dialogue is often clunky as sin, but I still love it.)