Plasterblog Overhaul 2019

Posted July 5, 2019

#site update

I mostly started this blog to talk about freeware indie games. I still love the genre and play those games sometimes (I introduced a friend to Irisu Syndrome! the other week!), but when I started college, I began to feel more comfortable with spending money on frivolous things like PC games¹, so my tendency to download and gobble up obscure free titles by the bucketful has dwindled quite a bit. The topic is also esoteric, which presents its own challenges — it’s hard to write about and always felt out of place on a blog that had my personal branding.

In trying to share less of my life and focus on what’s important to me, I’m aiming to wrap up such perpetual to-do list items s not letting my blog lapse into too much disrepair. Focusing on reviews I feel creates an expectation of consistent updates. It’s my hope that abandoning semi-regular² game reviews and re-purposing it as a collection bin-slash-diary will fix this problem. Therefore while my old game-related blog posts haven’t been deleted, they’re no longer online. I may make a separate blog for them someday³, styled like those inexplicably-Spanish freeware horror Blogspot review sites, where they will feel more at home and where I can invite friends to contribute.

In the meantime, the plasterblog will mostly be for personal garbage, including dreams I remember and feel like writing about⁴, as well as stuff you might actually like to read, such as my thoughts on writing music and other semi-professional artistic endeavors.

The other big change is that I’m trying out Patreon’s official WordPress integration. My list of freeware instruments and music-writing glossary are still freely available, but more specific music tutorial posts are now visible to Patreon subscribers only. Subscribe for $2 or more a month to access this tiny treasure trove, or pledge $5 a month or more to request which tutorial topics I cover next.

Changelog

New theme and branding. It is Japan. Japan is the branding.
No more reviews. I may dabble in media analysis and stuff on film but idk.
Shitty dream posts for my own amusement.
Some personal essays but they’re password locked.
More music postmortems and tutorials which are sometimes Patreon exclusive.
Squid Ink Cookie in the sidebar provides protection and comfort

I don’t know if swapping the freeware game scene for the bundle game one is an upgrade or a downgrade. Probably the latter, but look how many keys I have!
(Humor me here.)
Honestly, I have to talk about Grappi somewhere. What was that game?
I have evolved from writing about Yume Nikki to being a yume nikki.