Time to try something.

I have tons of games – games I play somewhat regularly, games I play for a bit and then forget about entirely, games I’ve gotten in a bundle that I forget about instantly, games that I tell myself I’ll always get around to playing. I never do; I never get around to playing the games I’m waiting to get around to.

So here’s the deal. Every week, I’m going to let the random number generator over at steamroulette.net pick a game for me. I’m going to sit down with that game for a minimum of 3 hours over the course of the week. And I’m going to write a coherent bit of faff about it on this site that either uses my game design knowledge and skills, my general world view, or – if I’m really feeling saucy – my funny bone. [Note: I just looked up faff and it looks like it’s only supposed to be used as a verb and not a noun, but I don’t ascribe to that sort of restrictionist faff.]

I don’t know what kind of writing this will bring. Insightful, I hope. Random, I’m sure. At times, certainly quite mediocre. But it’ll get me playing games I may not otherwise play and writing words I may not otherwise write, so the whole things seems like at least a 0.75 win proposition.

After some initial thought over the process and “rules” – if there’s one thing I really do enjoy about learning new games, it is indeed process and rules – I’m going to lay out some rough guidelines.

1. Pick a game on Fridays. This gives me the weekend to indulge and the workweek to let my thoughts ruminate. New posts up every Thursday (or earlier if the game or vacation plans or inclement weather moves me).
2. Play the game, no excuses. Well, a few excuses, I suppose. Like: it doesn’t run on my machine because I was a moron who didn’t check the requirements before buying it. Or it’s an online multiplayer-only game and the servers are shut down. Technical impossibilities aside, I’ll play the game that’s picked.
3. Screw RNG if I actually have a new game I really want to talk about. I buy other games – console games, non-Steam games, the occasional board game. If I’m heads down all week in another game that just came out and I really want to talk about it, I’m just going to do that instead. This site is partially just to get me writing every week, so half-promise fulfilled and I’m making up these damn rules anyway so who cares.
4. 500 words or more. The writing is to inform, explore, and criticize. It’s not a tweet. I’ll try to take my time.

I’m excited. I always like embarking on new adventures. I do find that I have a harder time pushing through to the end – or in this case, keeping up with the weekly timeline I’ve set myself. But let’s let my future self worry about that.