It's finally time.
The blog is ready to return in full. The itch to get writing again is getting too strong for me to put it off any longer. Also, seeing that this past month has been the best ever for the blog in terms of views (somehow, despite my absence) also encourages me significantly. While this is still just a hobby for me, I love doing it and combining my love of history and video games together. Seeing even the smallest bit of growth is both validating and gives me the continued motivation to push on.
I've been doing a fair bit of thinking and planning over the last week or so in preparation for my return, and there's going to be a few changes coming in terms of what my content is going to look like going forward.
In short, there's going to be some more variety in article topics, and the frequency of posts is going to increase. Allow me to explain.
When I say "variety," I mean that there will be some expansion of the "gaming history" idea, in that I also want to write about the broader world of games. Most early video games are based off some kind of other game - a board game, pen-and-paper game, ancient logic game, etc... Usually, when these sorts of things show up, I'd include in the regular game article a short history of that game's real-world inspiration. Now, I want to separate that bit of history into its own little series of articles.
Starting with the release of the Game of Hangman article this Friday, each following Tuesday, there will be an article on the real-world game that the Friday article's game is based on. Meaning that, next Tuesday, I'll be releasing a brief history of the real game of Hangman. Not every game has this real-world counterpart, so in those instances there either won't be a Tuesday article, or I'll post a thinkpiece on some other topic if I get the inspiration for one.
Due to the recent development I made in old computer emulation, as outlined in my previous update, there will also be some changes coming in actual game coverage. For the foreseeable future, I'll be alternating between "new" games and revisiting games from past years. The revisits are for a couple of reasons. The first is to do with the aforementioned emulation progress. I now have the ability to cover most of the BASIC games I had to skip over previously, and so that necessitates revisiting previous years to cover what I missed.
The second reason for revisiting past years is that I want to redo my oldest articles. I've said on a few occasions that I'm not happy with my treatment of the early video game history from when I was green and new to blogging. I skipped games, missed a lot of information, new information has come out since I did those blogs, and I had no idea what I was doing at the start, and so the quality of those articles is not up to my current standard. I do have a bad tendency to start things over and over again, but I think it's important to slow forward progress and do so this time to fix my mistakes.
To boil it down into a simple summary, here's what OGC will look like going forward:
- Weekly Friday game articles will return. I'll be alternating between a new game and revisiting past years of gaming history for these. Videos over on YouTube will still release in tandem with these articles.
- Tuesdays will bring an article looking at the broader world of games, based on the real-world origins of the Friday game. Or, if there is no real-world game basis, a thinkpiece may be posted instead.
- While the past revisit is happening, I'll be doing a quiet score revision. I won't be making a update post for this. The first one I did was enormous, and was far too much work for something that isn't even the main focus of the blog. This will just be an ongoing background process, but I'll add in editors notes on old posts where scores have changed.
With that, I'll end this update. Stay tuned for my first article back on Friday, with Game of Hangman. To old readers, I hope you will continue with me on this journey through history. To new readers - maybe this is the first article of mine you've seen - if you like the sound of what you've read here, I hope you will join the adventure.
May God bless you all,
OGC
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