Come, fellow bloggers! Let us yell loudly at each other

Once upon a time, blogging (to me at least) meant signing onto Blurty and Female Doggoing about how life sucked and detailing a bunch of stuff no one really gave a damn about. This was the period known as early high school, and it fortunately started to die about the time I developed a real taste in music.

For the past several years, blogging has been my way of trying to organize thoughts and share ideas on video games and film with the outside world. In other words, I actually try to have something to say!

During this time, I find that I actually enjoy reading the blogs of others. I check places like Twenty Sided Tale and The Brainy Gamer frequently. If I'm struggling to get in the mood to write, these places will help me get in that mood.

However, sometimes it's tough to think of a good topic. Or perhaps you feel like you've written something awesome, but want to share it with more than the jerks on Facebook and/or Twitter (and all two people using Google Plus).

This thread is for sharing such things, critiquing other's work, and inspiring each other with new ideas. Not to mention the age old hobby of why we really blog: shameless self promotion. So feel free to post links to pieces you've written, Female Doggo about writer's block, share some tips for what got you through periods of writer's block, or even ask for advice on how to start a blog.

But remember to use a lot of exclamation points so we know how loud you're shouting.

Provide a link to your blog and I'll add your name and link to this post.


ccesarano - www.gamertagged.net - Video games, film, geekery
tanstaafl - 14kofginafpd.com - Various
gizmo - trappsrant.blogspot.com - Sports
WipEout - 16bitinfo.blogspot.com - Game art and design
bfiggins - bfiggins.wordpress.com/blog - Game design
groan - eatnutfree.com - Peanut allergy blog
groan - litlclic.com - Reviews fit for mobile devices
mudbunny - www.mudbunny.ca - Various
Seth - www.michiganbeerblog.net - Michigan Beer
ClockworkHouse - theclockworkhouse.blogspot.com - Card Game Development, Video Games
wordsmythe - digital-humanities.com - Academic blog on multimedia ; elementsofmeaning.blogspot.com - wordy's MA work
El-Producto - beerisafourletterword.wordpress.com - Beer, Home brewing
Parallax Abstraction - geekbravado.com - Tech, Video games
Xeknos - ingegralzero.blogspot.com - Random
CyberWizard - kandmtavern.com - Video games
Dreaded Gazebo - www.dreadedgazebo.com - Board Games
Momgamer - momgamer.weebly.com - Various
Kincher Skolfax - infinitelag.blogspot.com - Game criticism
Grubber788 - gamingculture.org - How games reflect society
Bruce - bruceinlaos.com - Bruce in Laos
TigerBill - MousePoe's Video Game Rants

Hideously out of date, but I'm working on catching up.

http://14kofginafpd.com

Mine is sports-related.

Feel free to tell me how wrong I am.

http://trappsrant.blogspot.com

Games, game design, game art, and other such things. I tend to focus on game design and game art, but I intend to write on other goings-ons in my life as well as music and other art forms. I've lagged a bit lately because I've been busy with another project. But I'll get back to my blog in a bit.

I blog on games and game design at http://bfiggins.wordpress.com/blog/ I try to have some kind of interesting insight every couple of days.

My son has a nut and peanut allergy which when he was diagnosed I dove in to blog all I could find about it. Was a pretty popular site for a while.
He is still allergic but I don't report the news much any more.

Eat Nut Free

I also have a review site that I don't do much with though I am trying to change that. I am hoping to get a developer to help put together an Android app to allow people to submit reviews.

Litlclic

I have others but those are the ones I am currently making use of, from time to time.

Oh wow, wasn't expecting to have such a variety. As such, I've included brief descriptions as best as I could in the list. I may alphabetize them later, as well as sort them into other categories to make it easier to look through.

I've had some free time at work lately, so it's been easier for me to find time to blog. I'll be working on putting a new one up tonight, but there was one in particular I wanted to share.

Stranger in a Strange World, an article I wrote after writing a review on Metroid: Fusion. To me, the reason Other M (and Fusion) failed to live up to the rest of the franchise while Prime succeeded is due to the simple focus on Samus rather than the world she was a part of.

I'd actually like to go back to it one day if I had more time and make a video series outlining moments in Super Metroid that illustrate my point a bit, but until then this article is what I got.

www.mudbunny.ca

Various things that cross my mind. Not very active at the moment, but I plan on trying to post more.

That private post didn't work, mudbunny.

I have free time at work, so I'll probably be scanning through a few of these blogs today.

My wife and I run a blog about michigan beer. It's www.michiganbeerblog.net.

http://theclockworkhouse.blogspot.com/ I sometimes talk about video games in general, but mostly I occasionally talk about the game I'm making.

Besides here, I write weekly on Digital-Humanities.com. It's about digital humanities. I focus on games.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

http://theclockworkhouse.blogspot.com/ I sometimes talk about video games in general, but mostly I occasionally talk about the game I'm making.

I almost made a post similar the OP because of how much I enjoy your blog and ParallaxAbstraction's blog.

ccesarano wrote:

Oh wow, wasn't expecting to have such a variety. As such, I've included brief descriptions as best as I could in the list. I may alphabetize them later, as well as sort them into other categories to make it easier to look through.

I've had some free time at work lately, so it's been easier for me to find time to blog. I'll be working on putting a new one up tonight, but there was one in particular I wanted to share.

Stranger in a Strange World, an article I wrote after writing a review on Metroid: Fusion. To me, the reason Other M (and Fusion) failed to live up to the rest of the franchise while Prime succeeded is due to the simple focus on Samus rather than the world she was a part of.

I'd actually like to go back to it one day if I had more time and make a video series outlining moments in Super Metroid that illustrate my point a bit, but until then this article is what I got.

No RSS?

SixteenBlue wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

http://theclockworkhouse.blogspot.com/ I sometimes talk about video games in general, but mostly I occasionally talk about the game I'm making.

I almost made a post similar the OP because of how much I enjoy your blog and ParallaxAbstraction's blog.

Awww. Thanks.

wordsmythe wrote:

No RSS?

I used to have one, and didn't realize it wasn't up anymore. Unfortunately, I have to remember how to get an RSS feed properly functioning in ExpressionEngine. Currently it's just spitting back the XML tree.

I'll add new blogs in a minute.

Also: I actually read through Clockwork's and ParallaxAbstraction's blogs a bit before starting this thread. It's part of what inspired it, actually. I was curious who else was worth reading around here.

I have several, but I'm in the middle of a giant house-cleaning and moving to another blog service. I'll post a URL when I know what it's going to be.

Although I'm woefully behind, here is my Homebrewing/Food blog.

http://beerisafourletterword.wordpre...

momgamer wrote:

I have several, but I'm in the middle of a giant house-cleaning and moving to another blog service. I'll post a URL when I know what it's going to be.

I'd be really interested in reading your stuff. Please do keep me informed of when said house-cleaning is complete.

One of my friends really enjoyed my Bastion "review", which I am glad of since I wanted to make it stand out a bit. So I think I'll share it with you folks and get some feedback.

On one hand, I really like the idea of having written it with the voice of the Narrator in my mind. Having a voice that wasn't my own encouraged me to try writing in a different style, one that was a bit more prose like than me standing on top of a table waving my arms yelling at passersby. For those that have played Bastion, I feel like it would make for a nice read (hopefully).

On the other hand, looking back, it wasn't very informative. It gave my basic thoughts, but didn't really go in-depth. At the same time, going in-depth feels like it would have been boring. If I tried to break down every bit about why the combat was fun, I'd probably just end up telling the reader how you play the game, and I decided that's not what I want my writing to be. That's not a review, that's an instruction manual.

So I feel like I wrote a potentially entertaining piece for anyone that has already played the game, but for anyone that hasn't, it's not very informative. Which, in a lot of ways, means it is a failure at its goal. Even so, I like it a lot better than being just another review online.

ccesarano wrote:

On the other hand, looking back, it wasn't very informative. It gave my basic thoughts, but didn't really go in-depth. At the same time, going in-depth feels like it would have been boring. If I tried to break down every bit about why the combat was fun, I'd probably just end up telling the reader how you play the game, and I decided that's not what I want my writing to be. That's not a review, that's an instruction manual.

You won't be able to write everything for everyone about a game. That's the reason so many mass-market games reviews are seen as shallow--they aren't intending to be bundled into a hardcover between essays by Derrida and Barthes. So pick your focus, and keep to it. It's totally OK to write for a small audience, so long as you, the editor, and the reader all know it.

ccesarano wrote:

That private post didn't work, mudbunny.

Actually it did. If you are logged in and are a member of the right user group, you can see the content of the post. Otherwise, all you see is the title and the generic "you can't read this" message.

Oooh, I thought it was a test.

I blog about various topics (though mostly tech and gaming these days) at Geek Bravado. I don't get to update it as often as I'd like right now because I've been crazy busy but I do get at least a few a month in and they're usually long-form posts. Great thread idea, thanks!

I blog about random stuff. It's disorganized, like me, and not updated very often.

Like me.

http://integralzero.blogspot.com

Here's a bit of self-pimping: I wrote a series of posts this week about how I accidentally removed what I thought was a vital mechanic from my game: I Accidentally the Whole Game Mechanic, Part 1; Part 2; and Part 3.

I actually came to the site today looking for this exact thing. I have a site I've been working on off and on for the last year or so. I've decided to finally buckle down and start writing more regularly. I also wanted to find blogs written by gamers to compliment the list I have that are more news/review site. I know I need to be a more active part of the community both here and on other sites.

My site is K & M Tavern. I'm a hardcore PC gamer so that's it's focus. You can read about my FPS Blitz and see the first couple videos of my Super Meat Boy playthrough.

I will be checking out the other sites listed here. Thanks for giving me something to do besides work!

Alright, updated the list.

I'm trying to consider topics for people to write about and get things going, but right now my brain is all up on PAX East. That's what I've been blogging about lately, and afterwards I'm probably going to move on to doing a post on Resident Evil: Revelations (finally).

Do you guys actively go looking for something to write about, or do you just wait until you have something to write about?

Normally I try to post something at least twice a week (one art post, one design post), but have been pretty busy lately with other projects outside of work. I'll be getting back to my usual musings on game designs and art in the next couple weeks, though.

Mine is in my sig, but here it is:

Beware the Gazebo

It's my board game blog. Unfortunately I haven't posted anything in several months now, which I really need to rectify. I've generally only wanted to post somewhat substantial reviews and impressions, but I really don't have the time to do that on a regular basis, plus I rarely have games I want to talk about that in-depth all that often. I'm also gaming quite a bit less these days which makes it even more challenging.

I've thought of switching to a more casual "here's what I've been playing" every couple of week, but I really don't know how much people even care. Or, I guess more importantly, I don't know how much I care. I like writing, which is mostly why I even started the blog in the first place, but I don't know if I'm excited about doing basically status updates every couple of weeks.

I dunno. I go back and forth on the point of me having a blog. Don't really care if anyone reads it, but it is nice to get comments from people every now and then. Maybe I'll try shifting to slightly more casual updates and see how it works out.

I've got the structure built, but I'm having trouble coming up with a look and feel. Time has been a problem. Now that PAX is out of my hair for a couple months it'll get better. I have hopes.

Dreaded Gazebo wrote:

Mine is in my sig, but here it is:

Beware the Gazebo

It's my board game blog. Unfortunately I haven't posted anything in several months now, which I really need to rectify. I've generally only wanted to post somewhat substantial reviews and impressions, but I really don't have the time to do that on a regular basis, plus I rarely have games I want to talk about that in-depth all that often. I'm also gaming quite a bit less these days which makes it even more challenging.

I've thought of switching to a more casual "here's what I've been playing" every couple of week, but I really don't know how much people even care. Or, I guess more importantly, I don't know how much I care. I like writing, which is mostly why I even started the blog in the first place, but I don't know if I'm excited about doing basically status updates every couple of weeks.

I dunno. I go back and forth on the point of me having a blog. Don't really care if anyone reads it, but it is nice to get comments from people every now and then. Maybe I'll try shifting to slightly more casual updates and see how it works out.

I'd say just repurpose the blog to be about any topic on your mind. I use my site to primarily discuss video games, but occasionally I'll dive into other topics like film or television.

In particular, I want to start doing videos for board games since I can actually record those (with the crappy camera in my tablet). I just need to get everything together and the time to do it. First game: Halo Interactive Strategy Board Game.

EDITUS:

Now here's an interesting topic, I think. I'm taking a more in-depth look at my Google Analytics page, where I am faced with the horrible facts that I have an incredibly high bounce rate (about 80%) and average time spent on a page is 45 seconds. Whee!

But I dive into some of the more deeper items to see which pages are getting the most traffic, and lo and behold my most popular article is actually one from 2010 that has nothing to do with video games. SleepingBeautiy is a Terrible Film continues to generate hits, and it looks like it's primarily from Search Engines. Usually these sort of hits aren't surprising and have a high bounce rate, but this one has an average time on page of 2 minutes.

Considering the average for my whole site is 45 seconds, that's pretty bad ass.

But it's got me wondering about how I might wish to restructure or redesign my site. Should I have a section for new readers? Most of the time my Project Wonderful ad box is pretty empty (as of this writing it has an ad, yay!), so I was considering replacing that with a box for newcomers. Should I do a complete redesign? Or should I just keep as is and add a new page?

And most of all: should I write more deconstructions of my hate for Disney movies? Because it's a topic I can definitely go on and on about.

It is a curious thing, analytics...