Community Game-Along 2023 Stream Line-up

 

Image Credit: MDi from the Community Game-Along

Making good on a promise from my recent status update, I've put together an outline for my Community Game-Along streams for 2023. If you're new to this blog or the game-along concept, I take part in an annual calendar of events where participants play games from a different genre or theme every month.

Below are the games I already have locked in for each theme. These are games I either selected myself or were chosen via Capsule Creds (channel points) redemptions. I also have the number of slots available for games requested by viewers or sent to me by publishers for review. I'll be updating this throughout the year to keep it current. 

January: Puzzle Games

• Case of the Golden Idol
• Entropy Centre
• Return of the Obra Dinn
• Back-up games: Tunic, Lego Builder's Journey
• (all slots filled)

February: Dating Sims

• Stardew Valley
• Love Plus
• (all slots filled)

March: Music Games

• Metal Hellsinger
• Hi-Fi Rush
• Giraffe & Annika
• Muse Dash
• (all slots filled)

April: Platformers

• Curse Crackers
• NekoTako
• Sayonara Umihara Kawase
• Lunistice
• Klonoa Door to the Phantomile
• (all slots filled)

May: Metroidvanias

• Ore ga Omae o Mamoru
• Wonder Boy Dragon's Trap
• Metroid Prime 2
• The Mummy Demastered (moved to October)
• (all slots filled)

June: Roguelikes

• Downwell
• Dead Cells
• Hades
• Shiren the Wanderer
• (all slots filled)

July: JRPGs

• Alterium Shift
• Ys 5
• (all slots filled)

August: Games from Asian Countries (excluding Japan)

• Xuan-Yuan Sword 3
• Anno Mutationem
• Raji an Ancient Epic
• (all slots filled)

September: Shmups

• Cotton Boomerang
• Sin & Punishment
• Earth Defense Force 4.1: WingDiver the Shooter
• Escape from Terror City
• Dimension Tripper Neptune: Top Nep
• AK-xolotl
• Raiden 3 x Mikado Maniax
• Nova Strike
• Zero Wing
• (all slots filled)

October: Horror

• The Mummy Demastered
• White Day: A Labyrinth Named School
• (2 slots open)

November: Visual Novels

•  Norn9 Var Commons
• (1 slot open)

December: Simulators

• (4 slots open)

Status Update

Considering it's been over a year since my last post, I figured I was long overdue for a status update. In short, I'm still having a blast playing games and creating content about them. However, that content has taken on new forms:

• My Twitch channel: Over the past three years, I've gone all-in on streaming. I've been doing 3 streams per week lately, and at 3-5 hours per stream, this has taken up a considerable amount of my free time. If you've never caught one of my broadcasts before, they've very chill and cover a wide variety of games (just like this blog has). In addition to streaming games, I also occasionally build Gundam models on my channel.
• Geek to Geek Media: While I've been affiliated with the Geek to Geek Media Network (GtG) for many years, I was more recently invited to become a member of their writing staff. At this point, I guess you could say I've transitioned from being a blogger to a game journalist? While it's not a paid position (GtG is entirely run by volunteers), I get provided with review copies of all the games I cover, which is pretty nice. Regardless, the types of articles I write for GtG are pretty similar to my posts here: succinct game reviews, impressions, and recommendations. Since it doesn't make sense to be writing about games like this in two different places, you can now find all of my latest articles over there.
• The Community Game-Along: This annual schedule of gaming events has been near and dear to my heart since the very beginning of this blog. It has also served as a great source of inspiration for blog posts. Nowadays, I mostly use their calendar to plan my streams... but that's not all! I now serve as a member of their planning team and provide input about which events should be added to each year's game-along calendar. In fact, the newest recurring theme on the calendar, Shmuptember, is largely there due to my influence.

So what does all this mean for this blog? In short, I don't entirely know (which is why this site has been dormant for a while). At a minimum, I'm going to keep the site up to serve as an archive of everything I've written up until this point. However, I also have a few new ideas that I hope to implement this year:

• Stream planning - This blog could serve as a good place to organize which games I'll be streaming for each game-along theme. I think this could be a handy reference for anyone that wants to redeem channel points to add a game to my stream schedule.
• Gunpla photo gallery - Outside of Twitter and Mastodon, I don't have a good place to share photos of the Gundams (and other model kits) I've built. This idea still even fits my original "tales from the backlog idea" since I have a considerable stockpile of unopened model kits in my cabinet!
• Miscellaneous musing - While my structured reviews and impressions for games now live over at Geek to Geek Media, I might try to use this blog for more free-form thoughts on games, anime, etc that don't really fall under the banner of "games journalism". It's iffy if I'll actually follow through on this idea, but I at least want to give myself the option if the mood strikes.

With all that being said, I want to give a big thanks to everyone who's been reading this blog over the years. It's been a pleasure sharing my thoughts on games and discussing them with you all. Keep your eyes peeled for the occasional sporadic update here and be sure to check out my new stuff over at GtG and Twitch!