Bonus Blog – Break time!

When I started Games From The Black Hole in September 2020, I had one simple goal: Play an old game each week and then write about it. The appeal for me was the chance to sharpen my dulled writing skills, after about 12 years away from professional journalism, as well as the opportunity to actually play and finish more of the classic games in my ever growing collection. The thought that someone, anyone, might actually read my weekly ramblings didn’t really factor in. But I’m proud to have built up a nice little following over the past 15 months.

I’m staggered and humbled by the number of compliments I’ve had from respected peers and from total strangers who tell me they read the blog every Sunday out of ritual habit. This regular cycle – playing a great old game, writing about it, and interacting with readers – has been one of the great joys of my 2021. But now as the year ends and another joy enters my life, I’m afraid to say I need to slow down the output a bit…

On Boxing Day 2021 my daughter was unexpectedly born about three weeks early and transformed my life in an instant. Of course, we’ve known for a long time that she was on her way, and I’ve always known her arrival would have an impact on the blog. I just didn’t prepare for it to happen so soon.

Just before Christmas I wrapped up the Dangun Feveron post early and began playing Ys: The Oath In Felghana on PSP. With a couple of weeks stretching out ahead of me, I was excited to play a comforting Christmas game in a familiar series before the little one made her arrival, knowing that the resulting blog post would be my last for a while. Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA was the game that inspired me to start this blog and covering other games in the series has been one of my favourite staples of the website, so it only felt write to sign off for now with one last Ys game.

Well, as they say, life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans, and it just wasn’t to be. The Oath In Felghana is a very short RPG but I just haven’t had the time to finish it, and can’t now predict when I will. I guess it will have to wait, but I’m confident it will happen at some point. My love of games isn’t going anywhere; I’m just not going to be able to play them so frequently. I’m optimistic that I won’t be closing this blog down at all but rather that I can no longer commit to weekly posts. Instead, I’ll take my time and get something done whenever time and life reasonably allow it.

It may be that I actually manage to pump out more posts than I expected, but the important thing is that I don’t hold myself to the standard of playing a whole game each week. For that way lies madness!

So, rest assured, Games From The Black Hole will return and when it does it will be with a very passionate post about a fan favourite Ys game. What comes after that, and when, I cannot say, but I’d encourage you to keep an eye on the blog’s Twitter account for updates or subscribe via email using the form below, so you don’t miss anything under the sporadic new schedule.

In the meantime, if you really want to get a little bit more of that Black Hole taste, I’ll be running down my top 10 games of 2021 over on my personal twitter account on New Year’s Day – who knows, some of these games may inspire a blog post in the future – and I have a Game Boy Advance collector’s guide published in issue 229 of Retro Gamer magazine, on sale 20^th January 2022.

So it’s goodbye for now, dear reader. I have to go do baby things, possibly while trying to hold a PSP at the same time. Thank you so much for reading this blog in 2021 and for all your kind comments. It’s made a year of anxiously waiting for the safe arrival of my daughter so much more pleasant and bearable, and you’ve each played a key role in keeping my head together without even knowing it. Thank you and see you soon!

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