Note to reader: This summary was written in late June of 2014, so the tone of the page is based on what I was all about at the time. Maintaining the blog for all these years has shown me that what I’m about at any given time always changes.
For most of 2011, the blog was dead. Not on a hiatus, just dead.
I got badly sick at the end of 2010. I got out of the hospital in late January and kept feeling the consequences for several months in more ways than one. I played games, but I didn’t feel like writing, at all.
This stopped in July, sort of.
July
I played through Final Fantasy I: 20th Anniversary Edition and Final Fantasy II: 20th Anniversary Edition on my PSP Go while the blog was dead. In July, I decided to write a review for each game, just to have something on the blog. They were poor reviews and there’s no around it. Not poor as in “this game is poor”, just poorly written.
There’s a peculiarity in the structure of the tiles in these postings, how some words keep repeating throughout. I was learning about SEO at the time and I got all the wrong lessons out of it. This is noticeable in the months to come.
August
August was more of the same. On the PC, I played through Bastion, among what’s probably many other things, and on the PSP, I decided to mention my playing of Brave Story: New Traveler. Bastion is a game everyone knows the quality of, but Brave Story was something that pleasantly surprised me. It’s a JRPG with a classical feel. It brought me back to my time with the PlayStation.
I’ve since played through Bastion more than once.
September
In September, there was less of the same and more of something else.
I decided to write about what gaming was like in the Balkans, when I was a kid. It’s not an amazingly written article, but it was something I was proud of at the time and it’s still something that brings me back to those times.
I also wrote a review of Terraria. I wasn’t playing the game at the time, so it was more of a belated review, but it’s the only thing I wrote about a specific game during September.
October
In October, the blog finally woke up.
Firstly, I decided not to pirate games anymore, even though the notion gave me some trouble for a while.
Then, I discovered Avadon: The Black Fortress. It was the first game I bought directly, not as part of a bundle. Why? Because it was a brand new Spiderweb game. It wasn’t a sequel or a remake, it was a brand new franchise with a brand new engine. I loved it.
Somewhere along the way, I also mentioned getting and playing a bit of Cardinal Quest, but it was hardly worth that mention. I basically started up the game, played for a few minutes and ended it. It’s still somewhere on one of my hard drives, I think.
I decided someone was interested in what I think about the various bundles that started getting popular at the time, so I wrote about each one I bought, and I bought a lot of them. How could you pirate when you can get games so cheaply. October had Indie Royale, so I wrote about that.
From this Indie Royale launch bundle, I got Sanctum, so I’ve played it for a bit. I talked about how great it is at the time, but these days (2014), I don’t think I’d like it very much. It’s an interesting idea, just not for me.
November
In November, I kept playing Sanctum for a bit, but soon gave up on it.
Then I discovered the Binding of Isaac and it became one of my favorite games ever. I got it from the Humble Voxatron Debut and expected absolutely nothing out of it. I kept playing it for years to come and probably will keep playing it in the future. I managed to get through the first ending of the game by killing mom in November, but it would take me a while to get through all of the bosses.
I also kept playing and completed Avadon: The Black Fortress. It was a Spiderweb game, no doubt about it. There were some things that were better than in other Spiderweb games and some that were worse.
December
And then the blog died again, all the way until March of 2012.
Conclusion
2011 was a bad year for the blog, but it was a great year for me as a gamer. I gave up on piracy and it was the best gaming decision I ever made. There were times when I was tempted, but overall, it made me appreciate games so much more. It simply changed my perspective in more than one way.
I dread writing about 2012, though. Looking through the archives, I see months with more than 50 posts. I really went overboard there.
