Most of the month has gone, and I’m in a very tight situation; as I feared in the last update, it doesn’t look like I’ll be close to finishing the full queue, despite my attempts at crunching myself hard to do so before the end of 2023. Still, productivity as a whole has gone up lately and I’m making lots of headway, so I still have some milestones for the end of 2023 to aim for. Thus, let’s go over a few things before the year ends!
End of Year Roundup
Despite me juggling a bunch of writings at once, I’m indeed planning on going through with the usual end of year roundup. Last time I noted it will be a 4 part series, and indeed, that’s what I’m going with. The usual drill; day 1 will be reflecting on the year as a whole, day 2 is the worst of 23 list, day 3 being the GOTY list, and day 4 being musings on the future and what I aim for once the queue is finally, completely finished off. These are huge articles and likely will take a bunch of time to do, but some of these are already nearly done so i’m confident I’ll hit my goal of releasing them on time.
Queue Musings
Said queue, has been my white whale to conquer ever since 2019 derailed my life, and led me to pick up the pieces and my mental health. While I’ve had ups and downs that kept me busy or outta focus in the years since, (last year I was just bluntly occupied on the Tomie video, for better or worse) this has been the first year I’ve felt fully energized to write at full capacity in a long, long time. Doubly so after the fall started. You can tell because of how my output has been lately, despite my continued full time job.
All in all, i’m pretty satisfied with this, and even dusted off my keymailer to prep for when the queue is near finished to see what other indies to check out next, but I definitely have some changes in mind for how I’m gonna cover future titles once the queue wraps up; never again will I let a game languish for years on end. Hell, even a month will be too much for my liking. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I truly, sincerely apologize for the delays.
I could probably knock every game out in the queue if I ditched my usual structure and made like, 3 paragraph impressions on each of the games with a score, but out of stubbornness and me wanting to detail my game experiences as much as possible to inform readers and potential buyers on what to expect, I stick with the same formula. It’s been one I’ve only slightly improved since 2014, and I’m not gonna ditch it just to shove out lower effort content. I never ever want to stoop that low, ever.
Still, whether you’re here for the newer stuff like the Valis Collection III review or the overdue but hopefully in-depth and fun to read anyhow Citizens Unite review, I hope you appreciate the work I try to pour into each one. And hopefully as I knock out the Steam queue and slim the Switch one down more, that work will be more apparent. Lord help me for when Shenmue I/II gets my 5+ year overdue review, as I still feel like that one’s been too tough to crack due to the way I wanted to handle that duology.
Luckily, in terms of what I’m focusing on now, I’m still doing pretty decent at getting Rico/Bertam reviews worked on again, so those should be out soonish. RCG2 is gonna get a much needed look, though my co-op situation continues to not look good for arranging a session with my usual local co-op teammate, so it’ll likely be a solo focused review so I dont stall on it forever. And of course, the big focus of the rest of the month is Fuga 2, which I’m a good chunk into and plan to spend my upcoming five day vacation from work binging the heck out of. I’m so excited to see if this makes it on my GOTY list at the last second, and I’m pretty positive on the early portions. If I get it knocked out early enough, I may clear the last Steam game as well before 2024 (IFI leftovers I’ll dig for later nonwithstanding)
For non queue stuff, I really wanted to put out EGGCONSOLE and Theatrhythm reviews, but since I’m dedicated to slimming this queue and there’s nothing retro compilation wise on the horizon for me to poke at, I think i’ll hold those off until the queue is slimmer. Hopefully EGGCONSOLE games don’t get too crazy by the time I get to covering them. I maaaaay cover the analogue duo since I got one and I really would like to give thoughts on it as a PCE megafan, but that’ll have to wait and see too.
Conclusion
So uh yeah, that’s my usual ramblings and saying “hey things are tight but i’m working on it sorry for delays” for the billionth time, but I think with how things have been this week you can hopefully see why I feel as confident as I do. I don’t wanna jinx it and give a “this is when the full queue is clear!!!” timeframe again, but at my current pace I’m confident the Switch Queue will be dealt with in time, and being super close to having 2/4 of the systems fully caught up is also a huge accomplishment. I still plan to cover newer stuff that’s short or retro adjacent if I see them, but otherwise I’m still holding onto my plan to be very picky with taking in new keys and accepting review requests until I sort this out.
For other plans and ideas… Stay tuned for New Year’s Eve! That’s when I’ll go all in on my future ideas for SFG as a whole, post-queue and beyond.