Hey there everyone. Clay here with a short(ish) update going over where I have been, my plans going forward, and so on.
First, I want to thank everyone. I am at 217 subscribers here on Substack now which is hog wild to me. I figured linking a few things for many of the new ones would be helpful! First, you can view THIS POST to learn about me, personally, and you can view THIS POST if you want to know what I do on this substack specifically, as I imagine a few of you are from the Castle Grief interview.
Ok, that’s out of the way now. So where the hell have I been and where is the content?
Well frankly, real life and my day job have burned me out again. Like a lot of people, I work a 40 hour a week day job, and mine in particular is mentally taxing as I work as a Quality Analyst in Healthcare...in the USA. I spend a lot of time working my brain, and I due to my wife’s stroke back in July all my PTO / Vacation time is gone. Basically I don’t get breaks now. In fact most weeks I work 2 Four Hour days and only get 1 full day off. So yea, I am burned out and frequently stay burned out for a while.
This puts a damper on posts here, because its hard enough for me to get the energy to do much of anything after work, let alone cover games and think critically about them.
Its this exact situation that has me always say there are no schedules, and no timeframes to anything. I need breaks occasionally.
I do have things I do to relax. For instance, I built a LEGO Gameboy (my first LEGO set since I was a kid) just a few days ago, which was a blast and now I got two more Brick Building sets on the way. I have been playing PS2 games and also Persona 3 Reload when I have the energy for it. These things are to let my brain turn off and vibe more then anything else.
But I still fully intend to keep putting stuff out on here, but with some very minor changes.
The first big one: Actual Plays are going to be a bit more infrequent. Basically, if a game doesn’t make me go “Man I want to play this right now!” I most likely am going to either skip playing it and move on, or just plan to play it later. This means most of what I am going to focus on are overviews / breakdowns / reviews of games that I get a hold of. Eventually I will run out of games to cover in this manner so at that point I might go back and do Actual Plays of the ones that interest me, so that is always possible.
I am also going to put a hard rule on interviews, as I was honestly not really proud of how the Castle Grief one came out. I am hard on myself generally, but I really felt like I phoned that in. So going forward, if you, a reader, want me to interview someone then you need to contact THEM and have them reach out to me. I am not going to reach out myself to devs to interview them unless I have a personal connection with them like I do Alex and Alan.
So that’s the “negative” stuff out of the way.
I do have some cool stuff coming though. For example, I got a 3 person Collab project planned that is in the works. I have tons of games to still cover, for instance Marching Order 2nd Edition Overview which I HOPE will up by Friday the 10th depending on my energy. Especially since I work 13 days in a row starting on the 12th.
Anyway, I just want to say thank you again, and let everyone know I am still alive.
Only very badly burned out.
Adulthood is greaaaaatttttt.
Till next time.
Burnout is a bitch. Take care, Clay, we'll all be waiting.
Ack! That sounds stressful! Hey, I'm all for quality over quantity, so take it easy on posting. The whole reason I subscribed is so I can get notified when you post, whether that's this week or in a few months. We'll be here.