It is all too soon, but here’s another one of these “where have I been” update posts. In short, I have fallen way behind on my writing again. I used to have several drafts written ahead of time and then polished them up with screenshots and everything just before posting so that I more easily stay on a regular schedule. Now I’m not even doing that like I used to. I have just barely started the next review. I think I am learning that I am not as excited about the writing as I used to be, at least in terms of getting motivated to get started. At the same time, I’ve come so far that I don’t want to give it up either. So I won’t quit! But things may still be slow for awhile as I struggle to get caught back up.

There are a few things I have been doing instead of writing blogs. The biggest thing is that I have been practicing for the Big 20 speedrun race. The fine folks at Best of NES have been putting on regular events for several years now. One is a speedrun marathon of all NES games, and the other is the Big 20. This is a speedrun race where contestants all run the same series of 20 NES games in a row. I have been very interested in these ever since I learned of them, and this was the best possible time for me to hop in and give it a try. The theme was Viewer’s Choice where NES games were voted on and the Top 20 made up the overall list. This means that virtually all the classic NES titles everyone loves is on this list. I had already beaten 17 of the 20 games so learning this list was going to be much easier for me than any other race they could have. I have kind of become obsessed with learning and practicing these games for the race, so that has been where the bulk of my time has gone. You can see the game list for the Big 20, and you can watch me speedrun these games on my Twitch channel on Saturday, 9/12 at noon CT. I am hoping for a four hour time in total, which will not be among the top racers but ought to be somewhat competent at the very least!

As far as NES completions go, I was splitting time between Big 20 practice and soldiering through Days of Thunder. Now until the race ends, I am suspending any more playtime on Days of Thunder. That game has been a struggle, to say the least. Racing games were never my strong suit anyway, and in some ways this one might be the hardest one so far. I am confident that I will beat the game, but I am not sure how much more effort or how many more attempts it will take. I say this will give me time to help get caught back up with writing, but we all know how that has turned out in the past. Maybe it will stick this time!

This year has been far from normal. I just hope I can get back to normal pace on my project here real soon, preferably long before the year is out. Once the Big 20 is over I expect that I will have more time to dedicate to the blog again. Thanks for reading and putting up with some of my new antics!

I just want to put out this quick blog post to say that this blog is definitely not dead! It has been three weeks since my last post and I’m just not ready yet to put the next one out, so rather than let the blog lie dormant until then, I’m putting out this small update instead.

The biggest development for me is that I have started streaming my NES playthroughs on Twitch. This is something I had dabbled in a little in the past, but until recently I couldn’t find a streaming and recording setup with the quality on both that I would be happy with. I have been working from home full time since the pandemic shut everything down, and so I have been able to keep tabs on Twitch streams that I like. I suppose that gave me the motivation I needed to figure out things on my end. Now that I’m all set up I am really happy with things. I think the recordings are turning out better now that I switched to streaming software to record gameplay. So far I have streamed six completions including one particularly long racing game. This is going to be the way I play going forward.

The other exciting thing I’ve been working on is speedrunning. I have decided that my long-term speedrunning project will be TMNT. I am mostly doing this just for fun. I have no aspirations of getting a world record in this game, or anywhere close to one really, but just to have something else to play from time to time and have fun doing it. Another positive aspect of doing speedruns is it will allow me some buffer time while I get caught up on my writing. In theory this will work, however it hasn’t proven itself so far. I am already nine games behind as of this writing and have actually fallen further behind since incorporating speedruns. Oops! I have a lot more fun playing games than I do writing about them. I have every intention of getting caught up and can hopefully get back on a more regular schedule soon. I expect to have the next review ready for next Friday, and the next few games after that should be much quicker to write about and should post faster. Please look forward to more regular reviews soon!

If you want to follow along with this new streaming endeavor, check out my Twitch channel.