So I sit here mulling over where constitutes a good introductory post. Many of you already know Pike and enjoy her writings on many things, but this “friend” she speaks of is a rather more nebulous proposition. But maybe I’m overthinking it. After all, how many people will be hooked by this compared to how many will come across actual blog posts that they find interesting (Or, alternatively, so completely deranged that they can’t help but read more)? Nevertheless it’s better to make a good impression here than not. So. Yes. An introductory post. I suppose it would be germane to talk about my gaming past and preferences? This seems like a sensible line of discussion.

I don’t remember what the first game I played was. I don’t recall ever not playing games, and I can’t tell you the first one any more than I can tell you what my first solid food was. I’ve been gaming my whole life, now a quarter of a century, and I’m yet to grow bored or disaffected with them. It is by far my preferred use of time, and if I’m not playing games I’m usually reading about or talking about them – although I’ll probably still have something turn-based running somewhere or a flash game or the like. I don’t like not having a game of some sort going on.

I’ve owned a fairly wide array of systems, beginning with the Amstrad CPC and continuing until the modern day. I have an especial fondness for the PlayStation, which I played many many games on. In fact, I played more PlayStation games than I didn’t! I also have a very soft spot for the Dreamcast. Currently I am mostly a PC gamer, not out of any serious choice but because that is where the games I currently like tend to be found.

I have a great fondness for strategy and management genres. I don’t avoid any particular genres, but I do have my preferences, so you can probably expect to see a bulk of my posts oriented towards them. What I have a real interest in is the systems that games create. How the AI interacts with other AIs and with the player, how it reacts when you put a cat among the pigeons, and so on and so forth. You’ll see quite a bit about that subject as time goes on I would wager.

As for the blogging side of things, I’ve never really done it before outside of a dusty old LJ, so I am essentially a neophyte. However, my good friend Pike does know what she is doing and I am following her lead. I can only hope to do her justice in sharing this platform with her. As a final note, I ask that you forgive my profligate overuse of semi-colons; they are such beautiful, overlooked, and misunderstood pieces of grammar and I cannot help but insert them at every available opportunity.