Oh look it's everyone's favorite type of post here, a website code update! Really though, you should be happier about it because it makes browsing this site much simpler.

Before, you'd click on a category toggle and it would populate a grid with the related items. Then you'd click on one of those items to open a pop-up with information about and links to that item. You could populate multiple categories together and it was animated and all very technically impressive to look at. It was also an overwhelming and confusing blob of vague info when you had more than one category open, and sometimes even if you only had one open. There simply wasn't enough room in the grid boxes to clearly communicate what you were looking at. Even if you knew exactly what you were looking for, good luck sifting through the truncated descriptions when they're chessboarded among and all around each other.

In the new setup I've done away with the grid entirely. Now you open a category and there's a list of all the related items with far more room to describe what's being represented. You find what you want, click on it and you're taken to that item's information and links. It's also far friendlier to a Control-F if you've got something in mind you're looking for, it uses way less Javascript overhead, and it's immeasurably easier for me to update and edit, so hooray for everyone. Over the next few weeks during spare time I'll clean up the underlying code, improve the presentation (font sizes, etc) and fine-tune the categories for the new approach.

Oh hello there! I didn't see you come in. I've been busy building a room behind my house the last eight months, it's done now. There's about to be waaay more new stuff getting made and put out for you than I've been able to for the last few years. Actually there already is some! Let's catch up.

Under the hood, the website's been migrated to a new host after almost 20 years of living as a sub-site of my friend's Worlord.com server space. I'd been meaning to do that for years now and finally got around to it, because I always felt bad bothering him every time there was an issue or needed to upload a database. Much of it will remain up on the server for legacy links (mainly old Black Lodge 2600 coverage), but the site you're currently soaking in is all on A2 Hosting now, who I can recommend so far in case you were checking the market for a host yourself.

To figure out how databases work now that I have access to them here, I've brought back the forum which has been around in one form or another since 2003. I migrated all the posts from the different incarnations of it too, even the ancient Proboards ones, so old-school members will have access to those sections if you somehow still remember your password (if you don't, just email me and I'll change it to something you can sign in under). I have no idea if there's even a use for a tiny forum like this in 2023 but I've never been shy of sprinting at potential dead ends, so for anyone who wants to post something that the whole audience will definitely see for a change, there it is.

If you didn't know, Abrupt Analysis Arcade is a collection of very short (140 or less characters) game reviews I started doing on Twitter in 2013, originally as a way to have a record of what I thought of a game after I'd finished playing enough of it to have an opinion, prompted by one too many instances of remembering I'd played something once upon a time but having no memory of if I had enjoyed it or not.

As the number of them grew I put them on the website in the Arcade section, then later give them their own dedicated website. It was unwieldy and I've been meaning to upgrade the layout of Abrupt Analysis Arcade for a few years now. A couple of weeks ago I finally got to it and today it's done! While it's not perfect, trust me that it's far more functional than it was before.

As with all my sites, I'll be refining the design here and there as time goes on and of course adding more reviews as I play more -- I'm about to finish out Playdate's first season and there's 650+ games on my to-play list at the moment. For now there's more than 850 reviews to check out, so if you like other people's opinions, get to it!

Twenty-five's a big number for a website's version!

Today marks the release of the most drastic overhaul in this website's history. Under the hood it had become an unruly rat's nest of competing legacy codes from various design paradigms and experiments, some of which had somehow made it through a couple dozen sieves since 2001. I finally had enough, so it all had to go. Then I started from a blank page and over the past 20 days built the current version with new approaches and a strict focus on simplicity, clarity of operation, and logical grouping. No more endless guideless scrolling, no more vague hovering menus, no more "This doesn't really belong anywhere on the site so here it is" sloppy apologia headings -- but don't worry, I kept the pixel-art icons I made in 2002.

The majority of the site's content now operates on a uniform three-part system: buttons, grids, and modals. Push the button to see that category of items you want to see, then pick an item to open a modal window with all the information and relevant links to that item. To my reckoning, it's as simplified as it could possibly be to handle as wide a span of disparate media and projects as I try to have this site serve. While I know way better at this point than to say it's the final form of the site forever, it's way closer to what I've always wanted it to be functionally than it's ever been before. Go, see for yourself! I'll be over here, looking at anything that isn't HTML, CSS or Javascript.