Today, I’m one year sober. Still feels weird to write that.
I’d love to say I planned for it. I didn’t. I had some (what has turned out since) minor health issues that I misinterpreted as major issues and told myself I’d stop drinking for a while. It wasn’t even planned because I missed Alcohol Awareness Week by one week.
I’m not going to present a “holier-than-thou” update on being sober for that length of time. In truth, I’m not arsed if other people drink. Please. Do drink around me. Really not arsed.
I have dropped about 20kg in the past year. I’ve still about 10 more to go.
I’m also not going to say that my health got immediately better. It didn’t. Sure the weight dropped but it took me 9 months before I began to feel noticeably better. I slept so badly for so long. Sleeping is still varied. I can’t guarantee a good night sleep, but I’m usually pretty good.
I’m not going to talk about how tough it was. In all honesty, I found it straightforward, being able to count on one hand the times I’ve missed having a drink. Usually in places that don’t have a non-alcoholic offering: stadiums in the UK are the worst for this.
I’m not going to talk about how I’m never touching alcohol again. I probably will. I probably have. I’ve had a few tiramisus that was going spare on holiday for example.
Said bastion of health now sees me waking up at ungodly hours of the morning.
I’m also not going to talk about how I’m the bastion of health now. The amount of ice cream I’ve eaten in the last year has shot up. My diet is better mind, but short of eating a lot less takeaways it’s not changed much. I still enjoy a full English, and can polish off a tub of Pringles depressingly easily.
I’m not going to say how supportive everybody’s been. I’ve drifted from a few people because of it.
Nevertheless. One year down. Feels it’s worth a celebration. You do lose things, but you learn to appreciate other things. I don’t miss the beer portal, for example.
A calm morning in Criccieth
I also appreciated the drive to Ruthin first thing in the morning on Christmas Day to do a Parkrun when the world was dead. The coffee I shared with my girlfriend in a car park van at 8:30am in Criccieth the day my brother got married (and 10 minutes before I fell in a pothole and twisted my ankle). Being at Pennington Flash at 8am to see the world wake up with a bacon butty.
Those are the moments I appreciate. Calm, peaceful moments for reflection where you truly get to appreciate the world in a way other folks may not. It feels like you’ve more hours in a day.
A bit of extra life.
Also, I’ve developed a craving for Salt & Vinegar crisps. Don’t know why.
I picked up Life is Strange earlier on this year to play it on streaming in conjunction with The Playthrough Podcast with the full intention to play it on stream. Alas, I never got around to playing it on stream, but opened it offline for a new game to play in the evening.
The problem with narrative games is me getting invested into the story. I try to set up my system to minimise distractions as I play, to stop my mind wandering when playing. I did the same with Life is Strange.
The game begins with a tutorial teach you basic controls of movement, framed as walking to a lighthouse in a thunderstorm to find shelter. After lightning destroys the tower causing it to collapse on you, the scene changes to a classroom: the protagonist – Max – wakes up. It was all a dream.
Another brief tutorial introduces you to Max’s camera and journal, and you’re thrusted into a chaotic sequence where you have to answer questions and you weren’t paying attention. Discussions and arguments take place, and then – the school bell rings. Max is free for a break, and walks out of the classroom, into an equally chaotic corridor where you’re asked to complete the first mission: go to the bathroom and freshen up.
At this point, the game really hit me, as the sound design is excellent.
As Max puts on her headphones, the outside world dies out, and Max – takes a deep breath – and walks to the bathroom. You can interact with everybody outside, or you can go straight to the bathroom. At this point the game hooked me. Here’s the scene in full.
I don’t know why. It’s something about the music that plays, to go from the chaotic school hall, to a calming introspective. It feels a bit Dawson’s Creek or The OC. I think the tune that plays – “To All of You (American Girls)” by Syd Matters – is from one of them. It just made me sit up and take notice, and had me hooked. Also the framing on the title screen and introducing the title and the development house is done in a non obtrusive way. It was wonderful, and – now on episode 2 at the time of writing – it made me want to see this game through to the end. (UPDATE: I’m now on episode three and I love it). Although the voice acting can be a bit janky at times and the way in which people speak can seem a bit disjointed, the ambient sound effects/music and the way it interacts with the dialogue is perfect.
I often think about the openings of games that stuck with me. I have the nostalgia of watching Super Mario World, Sonic the Hedgehog and Street Fighter 2 on demo mode in Tandy. The first notes of “Baba Yetu” (Civilization 4) and “Vigil” (Mass Effect) make my heart skips a beat. But I struggle to think of a better opening segment of a game. Batman: Arkham Ayslum is decent (but only becomes important later in the game). The best I can think is Final Fantasy 7. The close up shot of Aeris’ face, zooming out to Midgar, only to zoom back into AVALANCHE’s exploits as they smash into the reactor is the only thing that comes close.
Although that came out 18 years prior, it shares the same publisher: Square Enix. I wonder if somewhere in Dotnod they were aware of Final Fantasy 7 and wanted to create a similar opening. If so, they nailed it.
What is your favourite opening to a video game ever?
My latest game – Gone Fission! – has been released and is available to play on itch.io.
How To Play
⬅️⬆️⬇️➡️ – move cursor
❎ (mapped to X/C on browser) – place atom
🅾️ (mapped to Z/V on browser) – next player (2+ human players only).
The goal is to eliminate all other players from the game by causing chain reactions of 4 or more atoms. Probably the game is best explained in animated gif form.
You can play up to 4 players local multiplayer, or you can play with up to 3 computer opponents with 3 different difficulties.
Why I Made It
Been a real labour of love this game, working away on it – as it was the first game I largely developed in public. Working on it publicly when for many years a lot of my work has been behind NDA’s has been equal parts refreshing and terrifying: I’ve had a bit of an inferiority complex when it comes to showing off my work, but learning things like particle engines and programming my own difficulty curves has been rewarding. In the world where AI slop seems to be king, humanly crafting something with love for other people’s enjoyment does feel great.
Anyway, would love for you to play it and see what you think. You can play it in browser and made the PICO-8 cartridge free (which means you can play it on retro devices such as the Anbernic). Donations of $2 or more means you get the executable to play on devices such as your Steam Deck. If you do like it, please share my Itch.io page with details on the game on, and leave a review and a comment: it really helps the algorithm.
I was happy to see that Homestar Runner, a web toon, celebrated their 25th anniversary of their website going live in their usual style that resonated in the same way it did when I was a student. Surrealist humour with enough satirical nostalgia touchpoints to make a bearded Welshman with high blood pressure smile.
Their content is syndicated on YouTube now, rather than Flash cartoons, but the website is still present, and although it’s output is a lot slower nowadays (cartoons are now at best quarterly), they’re still must watch.
I got into Homestar Runner during university, I’d say my third year – when Yahoo! Music would be my Spotify, and I’d use the University T3 connection to browse the internet, read blogs, moderating the forum of the university’s ten pin bowling team and dip my toes into website building. Wednesday mornings were dedicated to consuming the latest Strong Bad Email. My girlfriend at the time for my 21st birthday got me a Homestar Runner T-shirt. I probably still know all the words to “The Ballad of the Sneak”.
It’s fair to say that my fortieth trip around the sun was overly quite eventful, and I’m in a very different place to where I was on my 40th blog post, in every sense of the word.
July of 2024 my world was largely turned upside down and saw huge changes. After years of abusing my body with alcohol and crap food I was severely overweight and was diagnosed with raised blood pressure. I needed to make lifestyle changes. I began running (read my Couch to 5k App experience here), knocked booze on the head and generally decided to take better care of myself. I’ve been sober for around 7 months, and in that time I’ve dropped 3 stone in weight (about 20kg). As I write this in mid February I’ve absolutely flatlined with my weight loss. I am still larger than I should be, but a lot better than I was.
My weight loss over the last 7 months
Everybody says I should feel better about it but…I think I do? It’s self doubt creeping in a bit. I worry about my blood pressure and said worry raises my blood pressure. Turns out I have the worst white coat syndrome. I also bought a Garmin which has both been incredibly useful and a pain in the arse. Garmin basically is telling me on a daily basis that I’m a rather pathetic human being. Seriously. I watched 3 episodes of The Traitors back to back and my stress levels went through the roof. Similarly to my blood pressure being raised when I worry about my blood pressure, Garmin’s sleep tracking is single handedly the one thing that prevents me from having a good night’s sleep. So I only wear it during the day. Cracking for tracking my running, mind.
Yes. Running. Running has become a new hobby, and I love seeing the world through the eyes of a Parkrun. Seeing the world on a Saturday morning before folks get up has been a joy. I also did the Aintree 5k just before Christmas, and I’m happy with the time. I don’t think I miss alcohol really. I think I can count on one hand the number of days I can say I’ve missed the booze. Usually when I’m in a place that doesn’t have a non-alcoholic beer option is the worst. So far, the worst offenders are the football stadiums and gig venues in the UK, and the entire country of Italy.
Away from health stuff, one thing I have done lots of is travelling. This year I managed to go to Barbados, United States, Germany (Berlin and Dusseldorf), Romania (twice), Italy, Austria and Poland. Within the UK I’ve made significant trips to London, Cardiff and Blackpool. A lot more travel has been outside of the UK so I’m fortunate in that regard. Barbados and the United States was to see the Cricket World Cup (I was in the stadium when USA beat Pakistan), and the Germany trip was tied with the London trip, in that I went to AEW All In (watching an excellent Brian Danielson vs Swerve Strickland match) and Bash in Berlin a week later. Just a proper fun old school wrestling weekend. Blackpool was for Play Expo, which is one of my favourite weekends of the year.
The rest of the travel have been due to another large change in my life. For the first time since 2017 I’m no longer single. My partner doesn’t live in the UK, so we’ve been trying to meet up in easy/cheap/convenient locations every few weeks. So far it’s working pretty well, so please keep your fingers crossed. Right now as I hit publish I’m being whisked away for a evening or two somewhere close to Bucharest, I can’t wait! She’s been a massive rock and – along with 2 other people – been the constant source of strength with my health issues last July.
Work wise 2024/25 has been consistent. Largely one or two clients have kept me busy, which has meant I’ve not really had to look for work. However, that is coming to a change in the next few months, and I’m actively looking for projects now, so if you do need a WordPress developer, please do get in touch.
Side projects wise they’ve been ticking along. All Rumble Stats has been great, albeit it’s incredibly seasonal. A month or so of incredible traffic and then a baseline of a couple of hundred visits a month. It was nice to be cited in 411 Mania’s website which was a nice traffic bump. I’ve got an idea which I need to get on in Q3 which will hopefully work well. Retro Garden and Drive in Cinemas are also doing okay. Retro Garden it’s getting to a nice place where I can turn articles out pretty quickly, so looking to expand that. I’ve also been working on the shop as well which is doing well. Drive in Cinemas is still doing well. They’re pretty much my three sites at the moment.
Being able to play a game I made on a handheld system was a bit of a highlight.
I picked up video game development as a hobby, and I’ve made a number of video games. MonoScale, Frosty’s Snowed Under and Mari Lwyd’s Festive Rap Battle were the games I made this year. They were all done for Game Jams (read about the 1-Bit Game Jam and Pico-8 Advent Calendar Game Jam entries in those links). I’m playing around with another game (which I’ve been sharing on BlueSky). I think I’ve a pipeline of about 3 or 4 games I want to build. Whether they get done this year I’m not sure, but it’s something I’m keen on exploring.
Cricket was a bit of a nothing season, but training for the new season has started well (still bowling with a tendency of bowling leg side). Still the Sponsorship Secretary of Earlestown Cricket Club.
Twitch Streaming has been up and down. I begin in earnest and then get bored. I have been able to stick to somewhat of a schedule on Sundays (it helps not drinking to be fair), and also been streaming my game development stuff. They have been popular. I am looking to do more of those!
I’m a wee bit behind on my 50 before I’m 50, but I’ve ticked 2 off. I finally finished that list of 50 things too!
My 40th year feels like potentially one of the most significant years of my life. It had it’s fair share of challenges, but it feels like things are beginning to solidify and crystallise in some sort of place as I continue the next phase of my life.
Which seems rather dramatic when I say that.
And now the yearly comparison!
As you all love it so much. Here’s my updated comparison with you know who.
Rhys (With a Spoon)
Reese Witherspoon
Age
Nearly 41 (Up 1)
Nearly 49 (Up 1)
Oscars (Nominated)
0 – No Change (0 – No Change)
1 – No Change (2 – No Change)
Books Written
1 (No Change)
4 (No Change)
Marriages
0 (No Change)
2 (No Change)
Children
0 (No Change)
3 (No Change)
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