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As I've said before, I am not a programmer. Before OH JOES!, most of my exposure to programming was in elementary school, where I used QBasic and an ancient software called Story Tree to craft Choose Your Own Adventure–style text adventures. What business did I have designing an action-platformer with moving platforms, complicated collision detection, and randomized text dependent on global variables, to name but a few components? In my defense, when I started the project, all I thought I'd need to do was add one or two new objects and reconfigure a couple of menus. After all, OH JOES! was supposed to be little more than a bonus level for a game that had already been released.

After designing my levels for Mega Man Endless and Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest (MaGMML), I knew my way around the GameMaker program interface. The problem was deciphering what all the code meant. I had no desire to start from the ground up, following the tutorials to design a Breakout clone and become an Actually Competent Programmer; I intended to locate objects in the MaGMML devkit with specific behaviors, isolate the code that controlled those behaviors, and then adapt the code to create the enemies and special weapons I wanted to add. I was a code scavenger, not a programmer.

OH JOES! would have ended up much differently if I'd had any real programming ability at the beginning. The very first enemy I tried to add was Rider Joe, who would have patrolled the surface of the water areas I planned to design. I thought it would be a welcome change of pace to have a mobile, unshielded enemy to break up the monotony of Sniper Joes everywhere. I lifted some code from Mousubeil, a mouse enemy that moves back and forth and turns around when it hits a wall or ledge. When I ran a test to see if the code worked, Rider Joe piloted his Marine Bike in reverse, through a wall, and out of my game forever.

My next attempt went much better; creating the Machine Gun Joe from Mega Man 9 was mostly a matter of making the Sniper Joe from the original Mega Man fire more shots and jump on a schedule. Granted, it took a few evenings to get a firm handle on things like alarms, image_xscale (bullets came out of his blaster facing the wrong direction), the difference between image_index and sprite_index (when the appointed time came for him to jump, he turned into a frog), and the importance of gravity (the first time he jumped without a ceiling overhead, he peacefully ascended to the sky and never returned). I also spent some time playing and reviewing gameplay footage of Mega Man 9 to ensure I got his timing and behavior as accurate as possible. I was incredibly proud of the result, and it was the confidence boost I needed to press on with the project.

I opted not to include the Returning Machine Gun Joe from Mega Man 10; his differences from the regular Machine Gun Joe weren't enough to justify the extra programming effort for the short game I had in mind, plus I was intimidated by the prospect of making his shield breakable for full authenticity. I did want to include more Joes than were in the MaGMML devkit, however, and fellow fangame developer Blyka volunteered the Crystal Joe code he developed for SuperDanny 2. Altogether, I now had seven varieties of Joe to use in my glorified MaGMML level—technically eight, if you count Cannon Joe, but he no longer fit with my design plan. Without Rider Joe, it made less sense to make a game about Joes in general; my main purpose was to showcase how the most obnoxious and overused Joes (ie, the shielded ones) could be used in creative new ways.

For the record, I regret not trying harder to get Rider Joe to work. I think I would have produced a better game while still getting my point across if it were just about Joes in general.

With the enemies finalized, it was time to get the weapon selection sorted. At the start of the project, I worked up a list of weapons that I thought would be (a) easy to program, and (b) specifically useful for dispatching Joes. The shield-piercing Laser Trident was at the top of the list, but I also had the rapid-fire Needle Cannon on there, along with Hyper Bomb and a few different barrier weapons. However, I also wanted to avoid weapons that had been used in MaGMML and Endless, which helped me narrow down what to include when I decided on giving the player only two special weapons. Proto Coil was always going to fill the utility slot; Rush Coil was already in the devkit, and changing the graphics required minimal effort. Call it laziness, if you want; I call it efficiency.

Laser Trident proved to be a bit of a challenge—the weapon accelerates as it moves, and I couldn't find anything in the devkit with acceleration code I could copy. Around the same time, I started manually adding the touch-'em-and-they-disappear Sheep Man blocks from Mega Man 10, which I thought would add a nice puzzle element without requiring too much programming skill. After all, they're just stationary blocks; how much trouble could they possibly cause?

Let me tell you: stationary blocks are devious troublemakers like you wouldn't believe. I could get them to disappear just fine, but making them reappear after leaving the screen and returning—that was some arcane wizardry that demanded outside help. Issues with Sheep Man blocks persisted up until the very last round of playtesting, and included everything from constantly flashing to leaving invisible spikes behind after disappearing.

This is where I started to pester other programmers from the Mega Man fan community. I was highly selective in my search for assistance: Do you know more than me about programming? Can you spare a minute? This rigorous interview process secured about a half-dozen programmers who each single-handedly rescued the project from utter disaster at one point or another. Blyka, SnoruntPyro, and Entity1037 all made key contributions toward the start of the project, but perhaps the biggest hero of early development was Renhoek, who tirelessly volunteered as my go-to programming consultant during those formative months. In hindsight, though, it might've been better for my programming friends to spend their time creating new objects from scratch instead of figuring out how to patch and polish my scavenged, often nonsensical code.

Here's another example of how programming limitations informed the level design: due to issues that were never fully resolved, Sheep Man blocks don't function properly in scrolling sections. You'll notice that every Sheep Man block challenge in OH JOES!, without exception, takes place on a single, self-contained screen. That's the entire reason why the Stage 4 route with this gimmick is predominantly vertical—although a couple Mega Man games feature vertical scrolling, it's not the norm, so it's less conspicuous to string together 12 non-scrolling screens in a vertical fashion. With any luck, you didn't even notice.

In fact, the entire premise of the game stems from a programming limitation. I knew I wanted a game about Joes, and Proto Man was already included as a playable character in MaGMML, so I thought it would be both different and poetic to have Mega Man's shield-toting brother take on a fortress of shielded enemies. Except...I had no idea how to program Proto Man's shot-reflecting shield, and it seemed like a hassle for the tiny scope of the project. At the same time, I wasn't about to use Proto Man's usual character sprites if his shield was merely decorative. The solution, of course, was to separate him from his shield somehow. Regular Joe steals Proto Man's shield because I couldn't figure out how to make it reflect shots.

Ironically, following the premise to its logical conclusion meant eventually fighting a Joe equipped with Proto Man's shot-reflecting shield. This is part of why it took so long to figure out a substitute final boss after the helicarrier idea fell through—I knew what the answer was, but I didn't want to deal with it. Naturally, once I had the code, I didn't let it go to waste. If Regular Joe could use the Proto Shield, so could Proto Man once he got it back. I even have one more idea in mind for the reflection mechanic, but there are still more pressing things to program, even now that the game has been released.

One thing I failed to realize was just how rough the foundation for my project was. Fangames in general are not known for their fidelity to the source material in terms of programming accuracy, and even the official games vary in subtle ways—the speed of screen transitions and the floatiness of Mega Man's jumping, for example, vary from game to game. I've played a lot of Mega Man, both official and unofficial, so I've learned to filter out these little differences unless they clash too much with my usual gameplay style to adapt to them. By using Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest (or MaGMML, for short) as the basis for my game engine, I was inheriting a host of glitches and inaccuracies that—at the time—were barely apparent unless I tried to use Rush Jet. The longer I worked on OH JOES!, the more apparent it became that the engine needed an overhaul.

For starters, the Joes in the devkit were largely inaccurate to their official counterparts. Hitboxes were off; animations were incomplete; attack patterns were varying degrees of completely off the mark. I was willing to allow for some discrepancies, given the aforementioned variations from game to game, but I at least wanted the regular Sniper Joe to fire the right style of projectile. I started cross-referencing the official games to make sure my Joes sufficiently resembled the ones that drove me to make this game in the first place.

Working on the Sniper Joe from the original Mega Man was an educational experience, as it was probably the first time I needed to do any real programming. This particular enemy is renowned for being obnoxiously unpredictable, but after careful observation, I discovered a sort of elegance in its randomization. The number of shots he fires depends on his relative position to the player—positioned above, he'll only fire one shot; anywhere else, it's 1-4 shots. He jumps at random, but never more than twice in a row. The time he hides behind his shield varies, but the timer resets every time you hit his shield—in other words, he won't start firing until you stop. I did actual research, not just code scavenging, to figure out how to emulate this behavior. While the Sniper Joe in OH JOES! is not wholly accurate—I made a few deliberate changes that hopefully preserve the general behavior while toning down the annoyance factor somewhat—I was proud of my accomplishment.

The other Joes received some tweaking, but they were eventually replaced with the more accurate ones Blyka developed for his SuperDanny games. Admittedly, I should've thought to ask for them sooner, as a large portion of the challenges at that point had already been designed around the old MaGMML enemy behavior. Most notably, Sniper Armor used to be less selective about when to fire, and Skeleton Joe previously had a very different throwing arc. I tried to redesign any challenges that really didn't work with the updated behaviors, but if a few areas still don't feel quite right, that might be why.

I want to clear up a widespread misconception about Blyka's Mega Man engine, which MaGMML (and, in turn, OH JOES!) is based on. People treat Blyka's Engine as the punchline to any joke about bad programming, the "Thanks, Obama" of the Mega Man fangame scene—and I'm tired of it. MaGMML is notorious for being buggy, and multiple players managed to break OH JOES! within 10 minutes of its release; none of this is the fault of Blyka or his engine.

I've worked with Blyka on two projects and have had long discussions with him about his other game development endeavors—this is a guy who has a keen eye for detail, cares a great deal about authenticity, and puts a high priority on game stability. If MaGMML is buggy, it's because everything created from scratch wasn't playtested thoroughly enough. If OH JOES! is buggy, it's because I taught myself how to program as I went, declaring the game to be "good enough" when I finally burned out on trying to get things as perfect as I wanted them to be. If you're going to blame Blyka's Engine for anything, blame it for not including an example of how to make a moving platform that actually works correctly.

Indeed, trying to recreate the jet sled from Mega Man 2 was a terrible idea. Item-2, as the utility is known, was supposed to be easy—after being summoned, it accelerates to its top speed (which I now knew how to do because of Laser Trident) and travels in a straight line until it hits a wall. First, I couldn't get it to be solid on top but pass-through on the bottom. Then I couldn't get the hero to stay standing on it while it moved. Then I couldn't stop the player from getting lodged in walls when it came to a halt. Almost every programmer involved in the project contributed some code to improve Item-2, to the point where no one (least of all me) really understands how it works anymore. Despite it seemingly working fine upon release, I'm still receiving reports of players taking up permanent residence in a ceiling somewhere.

These are the kinds of issues you run into when you've learned just enough about programming to think you know anything. As my confidence grew, so too did the list of features—things like multiple difficulties, a second playable character, a third playable character, and an option to save and quit in the middle of the game. Fortunately, these fared much better than Item-2 did. As long as movement wasn't involved, I was surprisingly capable of implementing anything I wanted. I may have started out by tinkering with someone else's project, but by the end, I was the lead programmer of my own fangame. That's amazing to me. Especially because I am not a programmer.

I will emphasize that this game wouldn't have been possible without all the help I got. I can cite plenty of specific elements for which other programmers were responsible—Entity1037 rewrote the enemy collision code; WreckingPrograms overhauled the way resizing the game window was handled; Renhoek sorted out the logistical difficulties with Stage 4 being one stage and multiple stages at once; SnoruntPyro got the victory animation to animate when the game itself refused to allow it; Blyka resolved a baffling issue where players would randomly fall through the tops of ladders; and so on. One benefit of working with so many creative and talented programmers is that some of that ability rubs off, so I've learned a lot from these people about how to write decent code, plan for future expansion, and troubleshoot a game.

I may not be an Actually Competent Programmer—I'm more like a Not Entirely Incompetent Code Manipulator—but I definitely feel like I earned my programming credit on this game. At best, programming was a rewarding experience where I claimed honest-to-goodness ownership of the game while pushing my problem-solving skills to their limit. At worst, it was a waste of entire evenings and an infuriating exercise in banging my head against the wall. Unquestionably, it was my least favorite hat of all the ones I wore for this project. But I'm glad I tried it on.

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Ever since I was a little kid, it's been my dream to create a video game of my own—particularly a Mega Man game. In the last few years, I've had multiple opportunities to make that a partial reality; I've designed levels for multiple Mega Man fangames, and I even have my name in the credits of an official Mega Man game. Yesterday, my dream was realized in full with the release of OH JOES! (A Proto Man Adventure), a scrappy little platformer that took 2 years and 35 people to make. Working on this game has been a fun, infuriating, soul-crushing, uplifting, and highly educational journey, and I've got plenty of stories to share. Some of them may even be interesting.

If you've seen any of my YouTube videos or Mega Man fangame livestreams, you know that I harbor a special grudge against Joes—an iconic enemy type that has, in my estimation, long overstayed its welcome. Nothing sends the pace of a game to a grinding halt like a durable, shielded enemy blocking the boring hallway you're trying to walk through. There should be some obvious irony, then, in my decision to design a game centered entirely around Joes.

It all started in the wake of Mega Man Endless and the first Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest (MaGMML, for short), two fangames featuring levels with overly familiar configurations of overly familiar varieties of Joes. At the time, I was riding high on the exhilaration of designing publicly playable Mega Man levels for the first time in my life, and I was eager to create more. On May 17, 2016, I sent this message to Blyka and SnoruntPyro, the respective leads on Endless and MaGMML:

They tell you to start small when designing your first game. I had envisioned a short starting area introducing you to the different types of Joes, then a series of gimmick-driven challenges using Joes in unconventional ways, with an occasional branching path where you would choose one special weapon to add to your arsenal before proceeding. I recognized that programming anything from scratch would be a challenge, but I planned to keep the weapons simple and adapt as much code as possible from existing enemies. I was determined not to get bogged down by special features. "Maze of Death," my level contribution to MaGMML1, came together in 20 days; in my mind, this was just "Maze of Death" with Joes and a handful of new elements. In retrospect, there's no way OH JOES! was ever going to be just a single level, and there's no way it was going to magically come together in just a month.

In fact, it took about 4 months just to lock down the programming. I wanted to ensure everything essential was programmed and stable before starting work on the level design—and because I am not a programmer, I wanted the most onerous part of the project out of the way as soon as possible. Along the way, I scaled back the weapon roster, gave the player the Energy Balancer and all weapons by default, and ditched the helicarrier boss idea—which is totally going to be the final boss of HERE WE JOE AGAIN! (A Completely Unnecessary Sequel to OH JOES!) if I ever have a large enough lapse in judgment to do this kind of thing again.

With most of the technical prep (supposedly) completed, the next big step was the level design. I like to map everything out with placeholder tiles, adding real graphics toward the end of the process when the design is more or less final. For me, this keeps the focus on the gameplay, and it minimizes the wasted time and room for graphical error associated with repeatedly redecorating a level while it's constantly changing.

By the beginning of October, OH JOES! looked like this (click to embiggen):

Ostensibly, this was the framework for the final product: a linear intro section, followed by four pairs of split paths. The interior square in the top right was meant to become the boss chamber (replacement boss for the helicarrier still TBD at this point). This would've kept the game to 30 screens from start to finish—not including the alternate paths, which would still clock in under 50 screens—which is completely reasonable for a Mega Man stage.

The colorful Sheep block path in the middle was still in progress; I programmed the gimmick from scratch and was having trouble getting it to function properly in the scrolling section up top. Most notably, there was a Yoku block path in this iteration. Although I was pleased with how deviously evil it was to use these disappearing/reappearing blocks as an unstable bridge, a temporary cage, and an underhanded lesson about making assumptions, the whole path ended up being more mean than fun. On top of that, I kept getting stuck inside the blocks as they appeared, instead of being shunted to the side as is customary. It wasn't long before I swapped out the gimmick for the one ultimately used in the game.

I don't remember the exact thought process that extended the length of this project from a few more weeks to a year and a half, but I was having fun with the level design and had no shortage of ideas for new challenges. By mid October, the game had grown enough that it made sense to split it into two stages—one to introduce the Joes, and one to introduce the gimmicks. By early November, I was working on a third stage that combined pairs of gimmicks from the second stage. Admittedly, some of the pairings were awkward—I ran out of good ideas for combining Chill blocks with fake blocks after the first screen—but that's what happens when you stray from the design plan. I had selected those gimmicks because they were already programmed (or straightforward enough to program), not because I was thinking about smashing them together later.

By December, a fourth stage combining all gimmicks was underway. I was happier with the "sampler platter" approach of the fourth stage than I was with the "maybe these will work together" approach of the third stage—I even briefly considered cutting the third stage altogether. Unfortunately, math was not on my side here: 12 substages (one for each gimmick) times 12 screens each (one for each other gimmick being combined, plus an intro screen) plus hub screens connecting all the substages equaled 150+ new screens to design. The entire game was originally only 50 screens. So much for OH JOES! being "basically a glorified MaGMML level."

It took me until the middle of January (now 2017) to design something for all those new screens, and by then, I had found yet another way to make more work for myself. I'd finally gotten around to programming a final boss—a mech that broke off into a helicopter when destroyed, which dropped the Joe who stole your shield (who, now defenseless, would just waddle around the room until destroyed). Any normal developer would've been satisfied with that kind of boss fight, but I had let the gimmicks become as much of a focus as the Joes.

At the end of the fourth stage was a teleporter with a display overhead that cycled through pictures of all the gimmicks in the game. When you jumped in, you were teleported to a boss chamber featuring whatever gimmick was pictured. I only designed a handful of boss chambers before I realized that this idea was just not going to work. Too much clutter—not to mention that the helicopter portion of the boss fight was obnoxious, broken, and not really in line with the rest of the game's challenges. The boss fight was promptly revamped to be the simplified one seen in the final game.

It was April before I had tested and finessed my level design enough to feel comfortable applying real graphics to the game. Unable to leave well enough alone, I had also added Break Man as a second playable character, despite my initial resistance to special features—and despite the fact that I hadn't been designing the game with his unique abilities in mind. Multiple difficulty settings weren't far behind, but these were much easier to implement. What I consider normal Mega Man difficulty is actually hard for most people, so I just took the existing game and called it Difficult mode. For Normal and Easy modes, I gave the Joes easier attack patterns, removed some Joes in particularly tricky locations, and added safety platforms for the latter mode. Boom—multiple difficulties.

This is where OH JOES! crossed the boundary from "longer than originally planned" to "exactly the kind of overcomplicated game I was trying to avoid." I started spriting a third playable character in June. I added the Proto Shield and all its projectile-deflecting complications as a postgame bonus. I started sneaking in more and more Easter eggs, many of them almost too obscure to be worth the effort. And that's to say nothing of all the coordination I was doing with the composers, artists, programmers, translators, and playtesters who had become involved in the project. For months, I had thought about OH JOES! as this little solo side project, but that was no longer remotely the case by the halfway point of 2017.

I can't even begin to explain where the next 3/4 of a year went. That's when playtesting kicked into high gear and bug-fixing became a top priority—a lot of time was devoted to waiting for playtester feedback, watching people's playthrough videos, pulling my hair out at the sight of outrageous glitches I didn't know how to fix, retooling one thing after another in response to feedback, banging my head against the keyboard because I couldn't figure out how to fix something, and waiting on responses from the people I solicited to fix my game. The last 48 hours leading up to the game's release were spent replaying the game on different difficulties as different characters, fixing last-minute issues, re-testing everything to make sure nothing else broke in the process, and getting everything in order for the big announcement.

Now begins the long process of incorporating feedback from the largest group of playtesters I'll ever have. OH JOES! may be released, but it's almost like the project is just getting started again.

I am not a diehard Star Wars fan by any stretch of the imagination. Yes, I've marathoned Episodes I-VI in a single sitting, I own several lightsabers, and I can tell a Sullustan from a Selkath, but I didn't grow up on Star Wars the way everyone else did. I was a Star Trek kid; I'd already been exposed to iconic sci-fi characters, weird aliens, cool action sequences, and unforgettable soundtracks by the time I finally watched A New Hope all the way through. For me, Star Wars is just another sci-fi franchise, no different than Firefly/Serenity or Mass Effect. I can geek out about it, but it's not my franchise.

That's why I can tell you with total seriousness that, despite their horrendous flaws, I enjoy the Star Wars prequels at least as much as the original trilogy. That's why I can say with a straight face that I like the Special Editions and don't mind any of the changes that were made—well, except in Return of the Jedi; Prequel Anakin and his creepy smile have no place at that bonfire, and angels somewhere are still weeping about the removal of "Yub Nub." Whether we're talking Clone Wars (the movie, the TV series, or the good TV series), Rogue One, The Force Awakens, or Caravan of Courage, I'm pretty accepting of Star Wars in any format. With no deep personal attachments to this universe, all it really takes to make me happy is stuff blowing up real good.

I think I may need to revise my standards. For years, I've made people wince when I talk positively about the prequels; now I finally have some understanding of the pain they must have endured while watching Phantom Menace for the first time. Never before had I spent nearly two and a half hours wishing a Star Wars movie would either get better or end already. Never before had I seen The Last Jedi.

This is where the spoilers kick in, and where I start running from the angry mob that's starting to form outside.

I went into The Last Jedi more out of fanboy obligation than genuine interest. Entertaining though it was, The Force Awakens failed to get me overly excited about a new trilogy. It isn't a proper sequel to Return of the Jedi, and it isn't a strong foundation for future movies to build off of; it's a nostalgia-drenched reboot that happens to introduce some characters and ideas that could be developed in a sequel. Too many mysteries for the sake of having mysteries; too many important details left unexplained so you'll go buy the book that fills you in on the backstory you're missing. I had no real hopes or expectations for the next episode, because frankly, I had no idea how anyone should follow up on a movie like The Force Awakens.

It should be gratifying, then, that The Last Jedi looks at the plot threads it's been handed and proceeds to tangle or burn every one of them. Luke's first words to Rey? Don't care. Rey's parents? Don't care. Who is Snoke? Don't care. Ben Solo turning to the light side? Let's make it interesting. Captain Phasma? Let's make it a running gag that she's an afterthought who keeps falling down holes. I could go on. This is a movie that revels in subverting expectations, and I respect that—but at the same time, it feels less like an attempt to delight the viewer with surprises, and more like a big middle finger to JJ Abrams for providing a lousy foundation for a new trilogy.

"You are no Vader. You are just a child in a mask." That's not Snoke speaking to Kylo Ren. That's a scathing commentary on The Force Awakens, delivered with a subtlety worthy of Star Trek. As someone who enjoyed the spectacle of The Force Awakens but was disappointed by the derivative story, I find The Last Jedi to be refreshing in its efforts to clear the slate and give this new trilogy a better identity. Unfortunately, that makes it abundantly clear that this was not the direction the trilogy was intended to go. When the plot twists and dialogue so frequently feel like one writer/director trying to undo or criticize the work of another writer/director, it's hard to stay fully immersed in the story. I want to be engrossed in the power struggle between the First Order and the Resistance, not the power struggle between JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson.

Lack of immersion is the single biggest problem I had with The Last Jedi. From the very beginning, the film drives home that it is not to be taken seriously. The first problem is that I misheard "General Hux" as "General Hugs," which instantly gives your villain zero credibility, especially when his superior has a doofy name like "Snoke." The second problem is that Hux is a caricature of a villain—and his interaction with Poe Dameron drives home that not even the heroes take him seriously. "LOOK AT ME, I'M SO EEEEEEVIIIIIIILLLLL! YOU WILL RESPECT MEEEEEE!" Then Snoke's ridiculously large head shows up and eats Hux, further demonstrating that these villains are to be mocked, not feared. NOM NOM DARK SIDE NOM NOM. The first scene of a movie sets the tone for the entire thing, and the beginning of The Last Jedi is outright goofy.

Except...it's weirdly serious, too. Suddenly there are ships exploding and heroes dying in droves. But also Finn lumbering down the corridor leaking fluids everywhere. But also the Resistance getting slaughtered. I found myself having extreme difficulties settling on a mindset for this movie; this was not "serious, with forced comic relief" like Phantom Menace, nor was it "serious, with well-timed organic humor relieving the tension" like Rogue One or Empire Strikes Back. This felt disjointed and inappropriately irreverent, especially following The Force Awakens, which was reverent to a fault. Compare this with Thor: Ragnarok, which expertly uses its opening scene to reset expectations for the series before juxtaposing its newfound sense of humor with anything of weighty consequence.

Another issue with The Last Jedi's opening scene is that it's completely unbelievable. Who flies their bombers so close together that they can all be taken out in a chain reaction because of one stray TIE fighter? Who designs bombers so slow, ungainly, and poorly defended that they can't even reach their target? Who the heck thought it was a good idea to put the bomb deployment button on an easy-to-lose handheld device instead of on a freaking control panel where it belongs!? I'm on board with Poe's poor leadership decision getting the whole Resistance into trouble, but the way it's handled is incredibly contrived. Still struggling to wrap my head around what kind of a movie this was supposed to be, I started to settle on the only answer that made any sense: "poorly written."

For the next two hours, I fought to suspend my disbelief long enough to get immersed in the film. It never happened. I started noticing all the nitpicky holes in the story that you're not supposed to notice on a first viewing—like how our moron heroes never bother to ask Maz Kanata for any personally identifiable information about the codebreaker they're pinning all their hopes on. "The dude is probably wearing a flower" is the kind of clue you settle for in a Carmen Sandiego game. And don't get me started on the whole "let everyone think we're going to run out of fuel and die" plan, which is more about creating drama and setting up a plot twist for the viewer than it is about the characters actually trying to stay alive.

If it wasn't the story taking me out of the moment, it was the visuals. Yoda looked fine at a distance, but strangely terrible and fake close up—a problem I never had with him as a puppet in the original trilogy or as CGI in the prequels. None of the Force-enhanced movement looked natural; when Leia returned from the cold void of space and when Rey got pulled across the throne room, it looked like someone was dragging clipart around a PowerPoint presentation. And for as awesome as that fight sequence in the throne room was, I couldn't get over how the room itself looked more like some planet from the original Star Trek than the inside of a spaceship. Does it look cool to a movie audience? Yes. Is it plausible that Snoke would have chosen to decorate the room that way if a movie audience weren't watching? I'm not so sure.

Time and again, I was reminded that I was watching a movie. After I gave up on trying to get immersed, the movie started looking ridiculous and childish, and it hurt to disengage so brutally from the experience. Sci-fi has always been my favorite form of escapist fiction, and I've never wanted so badly to escape from the fiction. The Last Jedi left such a sour taste in my mouth that I've started skipping Star Wars music when it comes up on one of my playlists. I don't want to be reminded of how uncomfortable and detached I felt watching this film. I don't want to think about what a terrible mess this latest trilogy—and by extension, the whole franchise—is turning into. I'm already bracing myself for Star Wars: Episode IX: Let's Reboot This Trilogy One More Time.

Say what you will about George Lucas. Rian Johnson ruined my childhood, and JJ Abrams made him do it.

I have forgotten how to slow down and relax.

All throughout school, my pattern was to keep adding side projects and extracurricular activities to my weekly schedule—I'd start by joining a choir, then a theater group, then a church group... By the end of three or four years, I'd be so overburdened with activities that I'd burn out and vow to wipe the slate clean after graduation. Then I'd move on to the next phase of my life, be it a new school or the "real world"...and slowly start the process all over again.

For the foreseeable future, there is no "next phase" of my life. No more school, no grand plans of life-altering significance on the horizon. No natural stopping point where I can gracefully walk away from my commitments. "As soon as I finish what I'm working on now," I keep telling myself, "then I'll take some time to myself." But I never seem to finish. Projects that should only take a weekend end up taking weeks, if not months. Whenever one commitment starts wrapping up, another tantalizing one presents itself. I thrive on being productive and feeling like I'm making a contribution to society, so I want to do all these things. Yet one after another, every commitment in recent years has gone on so long that it's more like work than fun. I've learned to devote all my free time to powering through projects so I can finish before they stop being enjoyable.

Which, in turn, makes them not enjoyable. And they still take forever.

The other factor is that I need to finish my projects more quickly if they're going to remain relevant. I've got a blog post about the latest Star Wars movie that's been in the works since the week the film opened. I completely missed the boat on my annual New Year's Resolutions post. My stalled playthrough of Mega Man 8 surely would have gotten a boost in popularity if I could have released it in sync with the second Mega Man Legacy Collection. I'm frantically trying to get my Mega Man fangame released before the next big level design contest opens—because as I found with my Super Mario World ROM hack that should've been released a decade ago, even the most creative ideas will get scooped up by somebody else if you take too long to show them to the world.

But I'm also racing against myself. Five months after playing Chrono Cross for the first time, I still haven't finished the angry article I started drafting for GameCola about it...and at this point, I'm not sure I want to bother finishing it. Writing about the game was cathartic at one point, but now I've moved on with my life. Do I really want to reopen that wound? I think the only reason I'm still considering going back to it is to preserve this sentence, which took way too long to craft:

And with that, the sentence has been preserved. Now eliminating "The Ten Reasons: Chrono Cross."

Well, that's one less thing on my to-do list.

I'm taking this weekend to recover from self-inflicted stress. I'm not thinking about what I should do. I'm not pushing myself to finish anything I may start or resume. I'm going where the winds of relaxation take me. That I've spent today folding laundry, transcribing a dessert recipe into my recipe book, and reviewing fan-submitted captions on my YouTube videos might make it seem like I still have no idea how to relax...but these are things I want to do. It's making me happy to tidy up the all the physical and mental clutter I've been neglecting in my life. Now, if you'll excuse me, I want to go redeem this coupon code I found inside a cereal box.

"Neelix, would you tell me another story?"

"Why, Naomi, I've already told you so many stories tonight. Don't you think it's time to sleep?"

"I can't sleep. I'm too scared. I want to see the stars again."

"Well, Naomi, you're not alone. I think everyone on Voyager wants to see the stars again. Captain Janeway says it's going to be dark outside for a very long time. If you want, we could paint some dots on the windows and pretend they're stars."

"I don't want to pretend. I'm scared, Neelix. What if the Borg attack us? Or the Hirogen? What if we run out of dilithium and get stuck here in the void?"

"We always make it through, don't we? Voyager is a tough ship, and the crew is even tougher. In fact, Voyager is a lot like another ship—one that went through something far worse than a patch of empty space. One that went through a war."

"Do you mean the NX-01? You promised you'd tell me about the Earth-Romulan War, but then you jumped ahead to the founding of the Federation, and I'm pretty sure you started making things up. That last story didn't make any sense."

"You're a tough critic, Naomi Wildman. But a lot of people don't like the adventures of Captain Archer, so I thought we'd skip the Earth-Romulan war."

"I'm not a lot of people. I wanted to hear that story. Things were just getting really good."

"Maybe some other time. I'd like to tell you a different story this time. A story about when the Federation went to war against the Klingons."

"Another war? You told me about the Xindi, and the Temporal Cold War, and about what's happening in the Alpha Quadrant with the Dominion—and I liked those stories, but it's hard to hear about war all the time. Especially when Voyager keeps making so many enemies. If you won't tell me about the Earth-Romulan War, then I want something happy."

"What about those stories I made up about Captain Kirk in another timeline? Those were happy, right?"

"Those don't count. I didn't like how you changed the characters, and I didn't learn anything like I usually do from those stories. Besides, they all had a bad guy trying to kill everyone with some big weapon. I miss the story about the whales."

"In the story I'd like to tell you, the crew comes across a space whale. Will that do?"

"That sounds fun."

"Good. So, this is the story of Michael Burnham."

"There was a space whale named Michael Burnham?"

"No, Naomi; the space whale comes later. Michael was a human serving in Starfleet around 100 years after Captain Archer."

"I thought you said this was the story of a ship that went to war?"

"It is. But Michael was on that ship, and this is her story."

"Her?"

"Yes, Michael was a woman. In fact, Discovery—that's the name of the ship that went to war—had all sorts of different people on board. Now, you've said that you'd like to see more female role models in the stories I tell you, and I think you'll be very happy this time. In addition to Michael, there was a female vice-admiral, Discovery's chief of security, and Michael's former captain, to name a few—all of whom came from different racial backgrounds, too."

"I like that a lot. Did they all help to win the war?"

"Not...exactly, no. The vice-admiral was captured by Klingons and left for dead; the security chief was killed when she intentionally let an indestructible space bear out of its cage; and the captain was eaten by Klingons."

"Eaten!?"

"Klingons, as you know, are hairless, purple-skinned cannibals. They—"

"Neelix, that's weird. I know what Klingons look like, and B'Elanna has never tried to eat me. Stop making things up."

"I'm serious! That's exactly what Klingons were like a decade before Captain Kirk took command of the Enterprise. Starships were a lot more advanced then, as well—the hulls and interiors were elaborately decorated, and they had technology like holographic touchscreens that floated in midair and a spore drive that could teleport a ship anywhere in the universe."

"Neelix, I told you to stop making things up! Now you're just making fun of me. I know what ships looked like back then, and not even Voyager has that kind of technology. Tell me the real story already. And leave out the Klingons and this spore drive thing for now; I want to hear about Michael."

"Ah...all right. Well, Michael was the first officer of the starship Shenzhou, and—"

"I thought you said she was on the Discovery."

"Yes, but she was on the Shenzhou first. She committed an act of mutiny against her captain, which led to the destruction of the Shenzhou, the death of her captain, and the start of a war with the Klingons. Michael was arrested and transferred to the Discovery as a prisoner, where she served dutifully under Captain Lorca."

"Was the captain evil?"

"It depends how you look at it. On the one hand, he cared so much about his own people that he would do anything to protect them. On the other hand, he didn't behave at all like a Starfleet officer, he caused a lot of damage for the sake of peace, and he tricked or coerced the crew of the Discovery into doing all sorts of morally questionable things."

"I meant the captain of the Shenzhou."

"Oh. No, she was an upstanding officer who had been a friend and mentor to Michael for several years. But Michael thought the captain was making a bad decision, so she knocked her out and took command."

"I don't think I like Michael. Is there anyone in this story who's just nice, and smart, and doesn't get eaten or try to mutiny or anything? This doesn't sound like a happy story, and I wanted something to cheer me up."

"Cadet Tilly is very cheerful. I think you'll like her. And Lieutenant Tyler is a very nice man who falls in love with Michael."

"Tilly probably gets hurt or dies, doesn't she? All the other girls I'd like had something bad happen to them. And Tyler sounds too good to be true. I bet he has a deep dark secret."

"Naomi, don't go making wild guesses."

"That's what grown-ups say when they don't want to tell me I'm right. When does the space whale come in?"

"Ah, yes. Do you remember Harry Mudd?"

"He was...the swindler with all the crazy business ideas, right?"

"The very same. When he was a little younger, Mr. Mudd snuck on board Discovery inside a space whale so he could steal the ship and its secrets and sell them to the Klingons. Discovery was a science vessel, you see, and they were doing experiments with space mushrooms and space fireflies and hundreds of other things."

"What kinds of other things?"

"Well...I'm not sure, exactly, but...but they're not important to the story."

"Why not? You said this was a science vessel, not a warship. Couldn't you make it a science story instead of a war story?"

"It is a science story. You see, Mr. Mudd had a device that kept the ship in a time loop until he accomplished his goal. Of course, he kept murdering the crew each time, but they eventually stopped him."

"That's awful! You told me Harry Mudd was a liar and a cheater, not a killer. I don't like the people in this story."

"I'll admit, they're a bit different from the characters you're used to hearing about. The crew of the Discovery didn't get along very well, at least not at first. A lot of bickering and mistrust and nasty comments. They swore sometimes, and got angry at each other, and did things behind each other's backs. But I promise you'll grow to like them as you get to know them."

"Could you tell me a story with normal people in it?"

"What do you mean, Naomi? These are normal people."

"No they aren't. They sound like what people used to be like a few hundred years ago. I can't relate to those people. They're so different from everyone I know on Voyager and everyone in all the stories you've ever told about Starfleet. I want a story about good people who work together to solve problems. I want a story that gives me hope."

"But you wanted something that would teach you a lesson, right? This story is one big lesson about learning to trust people, doing the wrong things for the right reasons, and finding out who you are. You'll have a lot to think about by the time the story is over."

"I don't want to wait that long. All the other Starfleet stories you've told me have had little lessons along the way. And they weren't so violent."

"I haven't even gotten to the Klingon side of it. There's a lot of blood and gore, and even some...adult things that I probably shouldn't tell you about."

"I don't think I want to hear any more about Michael Burnham or Discovery or the Klingon War. None of this sounds like fun."

"Now, Naomi, you can't judge a story until you've heard the whole thing. Sometimes it take a while for a story to find its footing or set up all the important details. You ended up loving the stories I told you about Captain Picard, but I remember more than a few times early on that you were ready to abandon ship. And sometimes, people have false expectations that get in the way of enjoying the story. You barely gave my stories about Deep Space Nine a chance, because you thought they were too serious and didn't have enough space exploration for a story about Starfleet. But you stuck with them, and now those stories are some of your favorites."

"I guess. But those stories felt like they fit together. This one doesn't feel like it belongs. Tell me a different story, please. One that feels like a Starfleet story, and makes me smile, and gives me something hopeful to think about."

"If that's what you really want, Naomi Wildman, then we can take a break. Maybe you're right—maybe we could use a little more brightness in this dark part of the Delta Quadrant. I've got just the story, too. Have I ever told you about the Orville?"

On this day, 20 years ago, savage war engulfed the world and civilization was destroyed. An evolution took place—the Earth's axis shifted and all creatures became mutated. Life was never the same. Those surviving vowed not to repeat their mistakes of the past and erected a great tower in the sky to oppress evil forever. You remember all that, don't you? No? Too young? What do you mean, "That never happened"? Of course it did. Obviously you've never played Crystalis.

Whether you've never heard of The END DAY or are looking for new ways to celebrate, I invite you to peruse what I've written and recorded over the years to commemorate one of my all-time favorite video games:

- Reviews of the NES version and GBC version of Crystalis
- A livestream of the first part of the NES version and a full video playthrough of the GBC version of Crystalis
- A six-way race of the NES version of Crystalis, in which I act as one of the commentators
- A podcast in which GameCola staff members play through a tabletop adaptation of Crystalis that I created using loose Dungeons & Dragons rules (also available on YouTube)
- A podcast in which I and other GameCola staff members do a dramatic reading of Crystalis fanfiction that we all wrote together

Happy The END DAY, everyone!

The general consensus among my friends is that 2016 was one of the worst years in recent memory, marred by a seemingly endless string of celebrity deaths and characterized by a viciously divisive election that was more personal than political. For me, 2016 was an emotional rollercoaster that served as an unlikely getaway vehicle from 2015, AKA the worst year of my life.

The highs and lows of 2016 were so drastic and unevenly spaced that the whole year feels almost surreal in retrospect. There were incredible highs, including Star Trek: The Ultimate Voyage, seeing my name in the credits of not one but three new Mega Man games, and starting work on a Mega Man game of my own. I made one of the biggest decisions of my adult life, walking away from a stable (but undesirable) situation in order to take a risk on a new job and a new home in a different state (or, as I prefer to say, finally moving back to Earth after five years of exile on the moon). I confronted a few personal demons, not exorcising them completely but making invaluable progress. I celebrated a milestone anniversary with my wife, and we helped each other weather one physical or emotional storm after another. I had the weirdest Christmas of my life, filled with twists and turns that had me cycling through the entire range of human emotions for the better part of a week. I actually paid attention to world news for several months, attempting to keep myself informed about topics, such as the Presidential election, that were oppressively unavoidable and that demanded I have an opinion about them. I became an active part of the Mega Man fan community at Sprites INC, and I received their Spike Award for my sporadic gaming livestreams. I informally said farewell to GameCola after 8 years on staff. My mother and I went on a memorable road trip to attend the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN. A brief trial of EnChroma glasses gave me a taste of what it's like to see color the way the rest of the world does. I (mostly) stopped picking tomatoes off my sandwiches. It's been quite a year.

Importantly, I made an effort to follow through on my 2016 resolutions (or, as I prefer to think of them, goals). Here's how I did:

Goal #1: Start and finish a YouTube playthrough of Mega Man 8.
Hah! I had every intention of this being the one goal I would definitely achieve, but I ended up spending almost the entire year working on designing Mega Man levels instead. Having spent too many years working on multiple projects and finishing none of them in a reasonable amount of time, I made a conscious decision not to split my focus between projects, and so MM8 remains on hold (but partially recorded) until people stop giving me excuses to make more Mega Man levels.

Goal #2: Make serious headway on the video game my wife and I are planning.
See above. I've at least made serious headway on OH JOES! (A Proto Man Adventure), which hadn't been conceived when I came up with these goals, so I'd call that at least a partial success.

Goal #3: Run at least one D&D campaign, then learn a new tabletop RPG system and run another campaign.
Failure! I played in a number of Pathfinder sessions, but I didn't run any games of my own or learn any new systems. I did at least jot down some ideas for a D&D one-shot that I've been wanting to try for several years. Once again, my creative energies were directed almost entirely toward making Mega Man levels.

Goal #4: Read 12 books.
Failure! Probably. I lost track toward the end. However, I got pretty darn close. My conservative Christian friend sent me a care package of books early in the year, relevant to some conversations we'd had, and they constituted a good portion of my reading list. I have a terrible habit of letting his gifts gather dust for several years before putting them to use, so it was good to delve into these books right away. I may write a separate post discussing everything I read in some kind of detail, but for now, here's what I read in 2016 in the order I read them:
1. Every Good Endeavor by Timothy Keller
2. Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
3. The Ultimates, Vol. 2 by whoever wrote, drew, and inked it; the book's in the other room and I'm too lazy right now
4. And the Good News Is... by Dana Perino
5. William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, a New Hope by Ian Doerscher
6. Firsthand: Ditching Secondhand Religion for a Faith of Your Own by Ryan and Josh Shook
7. Memories of the Future, Volume 1 by Wil Wheaton
8. Spock, Messiah! by Theodore R. Cogswell and Charles A. Spano, Jr.
9. Some Ultimate Spider-Man graphic novel, I think; once again, too lazy to check
10. Star Trek: The Next Generation: Indistinguishable From Magic by David A. McIntee
11. Things That Matter by Charles Krauthammer (about 3/4 read by the end of 2016)

Goal #5: Get my Backloggery progress index into positive double digits.
Success! Even with so much of my leisure time spent reading instead of gaming, I managed to achieve not only double but triple digits—a progress index of +200, to be exact. That means I played or removed from my collection way more games than I added. Granted, there was that Backloggery revolution halfway through the year, so my real progress index is probably more like +2 than +200, but who's counting? Wait, I am.

Goal #6: Write like I used to.
Partial success! My criteria for this one were to write regularly, write positively, and write for myself. I've obviously failed to meet the first criterion, but the second and third are well in hand. Articles like this one and posts like this one capture my passion for blogging and critical analysis, and even if they're not all sunshine and puppycats, they don't come across as the "general bitterness commentary" that characterized my writing for too long a period. I'm writing the way I want to write—the way I used to write—and it feels wonderful.


Now, then. Let's see if I can't come up with some goals I might have a better shot at achieving in 2017:

Goal #1: Spend more weekends at home.
For the last decade or so, I have done an out-of-state road trip at least once every month. Often at least twice a month. Usually at least three times a month. With so many friends and family members living close enough to visit regularly, but far enough away that a day trip is out of the question, I find myself giving up as many as 10 hours every weekend just to get where I'm going and back. Departing on a Friday evening or first thing Saturday morning, and not coming back until Sunday afternoon or evening, leaves me with insufficient time to work on my creative projects and keep on top of the housework and kick around and relax. It also leaves me with insufficient funds to live as freely as I'd like to—road trips are expensive. For the sake of my sanity and my wallet, I intend to set aside at least one weekend a month for going nowhere.

Goal #2: Finish OH JOES! (A Proto Man Adventure).
Everything is on track for the game to be released in early 2017, so I really hope there aren't any awful surprises here.

Goal #3: Finish a YouTube playthrough of Mega Man 8.
As long as I'm not designing Mega Man levels the entire year, this should be doable.

Goal #4: Read 12 books.
I was very close to accomplishing this in 2016, and I only fell short because of how Christmas vacation turned out. I'd like this goal to become a staple, because it's good to be reading again.

Goal #5: Maintain a positive Backloggery progress index.
Likewise, I'd like to make this goal a staple. My video game wishlist has shrunk dramatically in the last year, and I'm quicker than ever to identify when it's time to stop playing the game I'm working on.

Goal #6: Get involved in my community.
It has been eating as me for several years that I'm not involved in church and volunteer activities like I used to be. I want to join a choir or a small group or something, and I want to find ways to live where I'm living. Hopefully, spending more weekends at home will allow me the time to do so.


I've got a good feeling about these goals. I'll let you know in a year how things go.

Hi. I...uh...I haven't been around for a while, huh? I can explain that.

I've been busy. Not necessarily any busier than usual, but my focus has been elsewhere. I recently moved, and now I'm close enough to friends that I might be busy any given weeknight. I started a new job, and there's a "no blogging" policy that's curtailed my lunchtime writing breaks. I've thrown myself into developing a small Mega Man fangame, which has consumed almost all my free time for the last several weeks. Most importantly, I've taken stock of all my activities and obligations, and I've started turning my attention away from the things that don't energize and fulfill me the way I used to. Blogging, much to my surprise, is one such thing.

To be clear, I still love to write. I still intend to update my Series Opinions when I have the time and inspiration, and I'm not abandoning blogging altogether. But I look at the last several months--heck, the last year or two--and I can't consider myself a "blogger" anymore. With rare exception, my only posts have been my monthly Retrospectives--a holdover from my days with Exfanding Your Horizons, when we relied on regularly scheduled filler posts (which, ostensibly, were also of some benefit to our less-regular readers) to meet our blogging quotas. Until recently, I didn't stop to consider whether I wanted to keep going with a recurring summary of my online deeds. It was simply something I did. I never thought much of it because of how little time it took, in the grand scheme of things. Not like the GameCola articles that took me weeks to assemble, or the YouTube videos that took months. But when I assessed everything I was doing with my life, I came to realize that even the small effort it took to keep up with a monthly Retrospective was still an intrusion on how I wanted to be spending my time anymore.

If you're following an obscure blog that never updates, then you're probably following me on Facebook and Twitter and YouTube and maybe even The Backloggery, where you'll get updates on my online deeds in real time. Neither of us needs a Retrospective anymore. (Apologies to the one person who misses the Retrospectives.)

That's how I operate: I accumulate more and more obligations and join more and more activities until I'm completely overburdened, then I clean house and start over again. I never want to let people down, and I often feel guilty backing out of a commitment (no matter how good the excuse is), and I'm also a creature of habit. Once I start something, I'm disinclined to stop. This is why I've played through so many video games I haven't enjoyed. Even that has changed, though; you may recall my Backloggery Revolution earlier this year, and I haven't looked back. I've lost all patience for things that should be fun but aren't. I have so little time to myself anymore that I can't afford to waste a second on anything that doesn't build me up.

That's a little unhealthy for a perfectionist, mind you. I already want the things I do in my free time to go smoothly; now I'm pressuring myself to choose the best possible activities and make sure they go off without a hitch. I'm making myself unhappy by trying to be happy. How messed up is that? The solution, or at least part of the solution, is to free up more time for myself so I'm not so pressured to make every moment count. To awkwardly employ a metaphor, they say there's no use crying over spilled milk, but I'll still cry less if I spill the same amount from a fuller glass.

Regardless, no matter what I do, I will always question whether it's the best thing I can do. Suppose I volunteer to be a friendly visitor at a nursing home. Great, right? But then I'm not helping out at a homeless shelter, providing disaster relief in the wake of the latest hurricane, mentoring a troubled teenager, or doing any number of other important things. And let's be honest; the activities I'm choosing between are playing AM2R and watching an episode of Anthony Bourdain Goes Somewhere You'll Never Visit, At This Rate. Maybe that's not all bad, though. Giving of oneself is arguably the highest pursuit there is, but giving is hollow without someone to receive the gift. By being a consumer of entertainment, I'm validating the time and effort that countless people have spent on trying to make me happy, however indirectly. Maybe, with the right mindset, whatever I'm doing is the best thing I could be doing. At the very least, I can aim to make the most of any situation, however trivial and wasteful it may seem.

It feels good to write again. I missed this. I missed you, dear reader. Even if I'm only writing for myself, this feels worthwhile. Even if this wasn't the best thing I could have done with my time, this feels worthwhile. Maybe perfectionism is the fear of things being less than worthwhile. Well, then. Things are going perfectly.

I've been lurking around the World Wide Web since the days of dial-up, but it wasn't until my first post with Exfanding Your Horizons in 2008 that I established any kind of online presence. Before then, you'd never find anything of mine by accident—if you had my e-mail address, it was because I knew you in person and gave it to you; if you were on my Angelfire website (about which I remember nothing, other than that it was as much an eyesore as anything else from the Web 1.0 era), it was because I sent you the link. I had a brief flirtation with AOL chat rooms in the '90s, but such a presence is ephemeral at best.

The only public trace of my online existence was a website I created for a high school history project, which was ostensibly about the American Civil War, but which was secretly a playground where the popup text for hovering over Roger B. Taney's portrait was "Would you buy cookies from this man?" and where clicking on the conspicuous blank space at the bottom of the last page would make a picture of Boba Fett appear. It looks like the site has finally been taken down, but I was able to Google and Yahoo! my way back to it for a good many years after I graduated. Other than a stray photo or guestbook signature on someone else's site, you'd never know I was around before 2008.

Or so I thought.

On a whim, I did a web search for "Flashman85," my default handle for general geekery online. Don't ask me what possessed me to do this—I'm not even sure myself. The first several results were no surprise—my profiles on Twitch, YouTube, The Backloggery, Sprites INC, and a few other sites where I felt the urge to comment that one time. But then there was a review of Mega Man for the NES written by a Flashman85. Funny, I thought to myself. I've only ever reviewed that game on GameCola, under my real name. Let's see who this other guy is.

"To paraphrase a friend of mine," the review began, "Capcom's idea for Megaman was 'Mario with a gun.' Indeed, few would suspect how popular a franchise the Blue Bomber would become. The original game was similar to other NES games of the time, but it also had laudable properties that would help it to endure into the next century."

That's an odd coincidence, I thought. I also had a friend who described Mega Man as "Mario with a gun." And I'm definitely the only person on the Internet who uses the words "indeed" and "laudable." Who is this guy?

As it turned out, that guy was me.

Now, I've written a lot during my time with a keyboard in front of me. I may not be able to readily call to mind every post and comment I've virtually penned, but show me something I've written and I'll at least be able to recall a few details about it. Staring at this review—dated 2002, well before I really existed on the Internet—I had no recollection whatsoever of it. I didn't even recognize the website it was on. But there was no mistaking that this was my writing.

The shockingly low word count is what initially threw me the most. The whole review weighs in at a downright economical 231 words, which is barely enough for me to develop an introduction these days. However, it would be totally like me to spend almost 50% of the review complaining about Ice Man's stage. "'If you can beat Ice Man's stage, you can beat any Megaman game' is my motto." A little hint of Dave Barry there. I used to read a lot of Dave Barry. There were signs everywhere that this was me, notwithstanding Past Me's insistence on writing "Mega Man" as one word. Silly Past Me.

I looked around the site for other reviews that I had apparently written, and I found that I had covered all six of the NES Mega Man games. MM3 was no surprise: "My only real qualm is that many of the weapons go unused for most of the game." If I hadn't already caught on by then, my gushing praise for MM4 would have been a complete giveaway that this was me of 14 years ago writing all these reviews: "There is almost nothing for me to complain about in this fantastic game. Buy it. Now."

I've reread enough of my old material to know how far I've come as a writer since 2008, but it's surreal to jump back to 2002. There's little elegance to my old writing, but there's character. You can tell exactly how much I care about each aspect of each game—there's no veneer of objectivity and no time wasted describing anything that doesn't significantly impact my enjoyment of the game, no matter how important it might be for the reader to know. Most of the opinions expressed have remained unchanged in the last 14 years, but the way I express those opinions has evolved dramatically.

I still think MM1 is a classic, I still think people are too quick to label MM2 as easy, and I'm still a bit lukewarm about MM6 in the context of the rest of the series. I had forgotten just how wild about MM5 I used to be; my enthusiasm has cooled somewhat, but it's still one of my favorites. I'm less fanatical about MM4 as well; "Pure Excellence" is not a review title I would ever use anymore, even if the game remains my favorite. It's almost unsettling to hear myself describe MM3 as "one of the best Mega Man games ever." Perhaps you've seen my videos?

It's fascinating and almost a little bittersweet to read my own opinions from an era when I could like or dislike something without putting too much thought into it. Clearly, I was already attuned to certain aspects of game design, but I was capable of both zealotry and indifference without having to provide exhaustive support for my feelings. I've become so analytical that I need to understand why I'm having fun, and I clash so much with the mainstream nowadays that I need to be ready to defend my unpopular opinions at the drop of a hat. I'm too much a champion of separating fact from opinion to be able to share my feelings so unequivocally anymore. I envy Past Me for his ability to play something, enjoy it, write a quick blurb about it, and get back to having fun. He can keep his expository writing style (all the criticism I got from teachers about my essays is starting to make sense), but I wouldn't mind if some of that carefree enthusiasm were to come back.

If you'd like to open this time capsule for yourself, I present to you my old reviews of MM1, MM2, MM3, MM4, MM5, and MM6. Watch for the part where I continue complaining about Ice Man in a game where he doesn't even appear. That's so me.

Hoo boy. After five years of exile on the moon (as I frequently referred to it), I finally found an opportunity to leave. July was spent packing up the moon base and looking for a new place to live, but I managed to fit in a little time to keep some of my side projects going.

This Website:

I started writing up Series Opinions for two more Star Trek movies, and I performed some long-overdue maintenance on my Series Opinions pages in general. I introduced a new section for Mega Man fangames...or maybe that was in June. I officially need to add a "Last updated on..." tag to each opinion so I can keep track of what to list here! I guess you'll have to settle for a single blog post.

- Retrospective: June 2016

Games:

Hot off the heels of Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest is another fan-made Mega Man game featuring a level by yours truly—or, in this case, two levels. Cool stuff.

- Mega Man Endless

GameCola:

Although I haven't made any official announcement on the site itself, I've scaled back my GameCola contributions to the point where I'm more of a cameo-amenable former contributor than an active staff member. Our long-delayed year-end awards finally surfaced in July, and I contributed writeups for Chrono Trigger and the original Super Mario Bros., which won Best Game of 20 and 30 Years Ago, respectively. It should come as no surprise that I, a man perpetually behind the times, had nothing to do with the writeups for any of the games released in the year we were actually celebrating.

- The 2015 GameCola Videogame Awards (Part 2)

YouTube:

One last spurt of livestreaming before the moon base relocation yielded one of my better crops of fangame sampling.

Flashman85LIVE:
- Mega Man Fangame Sampler #11: Battle, X Night Shade, Atari, 9000
- Let's Play: Mega Man Endless (Blind, Live)
- Back for More: Mega Man Endless (Live)

The Backloggery:

GOG sale + a PayPal balance I keep forgetting about = time to pick up a couple discounted games I've had my eye on. I also gave SuperDanny Powered Up another shot, following a conversation with the game's developer, and I put enough effort into beating the game to warrant adding it to my backlog.

New:
- Day of the Tentacle Remastered  (PC)
- Mega Man Endless  (PC)
- Resonance  (PC)
- SuperDanny Powered Up  (PC)
- The Shivah  (PC)
 
Started:
- Mega Man Endless  (PC)
- SuperDanny Powered Up  (PC)
 
Beat:
- Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze  (WiiU)
- Mega Man Endless  (PC)
- Star Trek: 25th Anniversary  (PC)
- SuperDanny Powered Up  (PC)

I expect August to be similarly sparse, but hopes are high that I'll be able to kick my side projects into high gear once my wife and I have finished unpacking everything and have finished jumping through all the other hoops involved in moving back to Earth from the moon.