Brian Bloodaxe

We didn't really do a end of year thread, so I'm just bundling that in here too.

Played '25
2025 was all about playing my favourite ever videogames. I started the year playing Mass Effect Legendary Edition, it's janky in places but it's still great. Then I replayed all of Celeste (erm, except for some of the crazy difficult bonus levels) and I think it has to be the best videogame ever made. Then I closed off the year getting absolutely engrossed with Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I had played BotW before but I didn't finish it, it is now one of my all-time favourites.

I did play a few other bits and pieces, but not a lot. Paper Mario Origami King was way better than it needed to be. Citizen Sleeper was pretty special.

Play '26
I'm almost finished playing Ocarina of Time 3DS. I've been enjoying it but mostly for nostalgia and curiosity - I wouldn't call it "good". It is interesting to see how much of it was reimagined in BotW.

I will be jumping into Tears of the Kingdom and Majora's Mask at some point soon.

I think Persona 4 is next to play.

Want & Bin
Please can 2026 be less stupid and far less fascist than 2025?

Here's a couple of interesting blogs doing the rounds just now. They are trying to dig into what RPG rules actually do and why people are seemingly quite content to use "wrong" systems for the games they play:

https://seraphim-seraphina.itch.io/my-blog/devlog/1200662/what-do-we-mean-when-we-say-a-game-supports-play

You can tell us how it went tomorrow afternoon.

I've run Offworlders a lot for both kids and adults, I think it's basically the perfect SF RPG for one shots.

I've even written four adventures for it, although not to the extent that I could publish them.

It's worse than that. In the original PS1 you had the first story then the second, which were different stories, but also they both changed depending on which character you selected to play first.