Crossing the 500 posts mark!

 

Hullo, dear fellow gamers! I think the title is pretty self-explanatory: I published 503 posts on That Extra Level! — counting this one. I wasn’t planning to write a celebratory post about this milestone at first; That Extra Level! will be ten years old in 2023, and I wanted to wait until that milestone. But then I thought that: a) I don’t know if I’ll still be blogging in 2023, or even if I’ll still be there; and b) I want to reminisce and look back on my blogging and gaming journey right now, as I’m entering a brand new, fresh and shiny phase of my gaming career. 

 

   

Like 99% of blogs of that era, TEL! was born out of impulse in late 2013. I was playing Avalon Code at the time, and loving it so much that I just needed to share the love; incidentally, I was also living in a matchbox appartment to save money, and I just needed some escapism. These two needs combined, and voilà! That Extra Level! was born. 

 

Not only has TEL! become inextricably tied to my gaming activity, but it also mirrors the evolution of my gaming career over the past eight years. The early days were a flurry of giddiness and enthusiasm: I was diving back into gaming, and there was no shortage of post ideas and feature concepts. I used to play RPGs extensively at the time, leaving no stone unturned and no extra boss alive; and my posts were massive walls of text, in which I tried to tell everything about a game — from its developer to the effect it had on me, without forgetting that minute detail that struck my fancy. I honestly cannot re-read posts from that era: they are too enormous, even for me. 

 

   

Then came the middle days — a.k.a. ‘The Honeymoon is over’. There were recurrent schedule issues, and gaming was losing its freshness and becoming business-as-usual; and my blogging reflected that. I officially declared TEL! was over at some point, before coming back some days later with second thoughts and the will to work things out. Following that low(est) point, I tried different blogging avenues to jazz things up. I started writing about my collecting, backup systems and special editions; I launched new features that didn’t stick, such as ‘Bits and Tidbits’ and ‘Play in progress’; and I generally tried my best to stay afloat, waiting for the storm to pass and for my gaming & blogging mojo to come back.

 

It did come back all right; and that comeback launched the late(st) era of both TEL! and my gaming career, a.k.a. ‘The Glory Days’. I realised that playing games only brought me happiness, and that I should really make it a fixture in my life and proudly claim my love for all things gaming. Coincidentally, I reached a new level of mastery in my blogging: I found my own style and cemented it, and I became able to commit my feelings about a game to paper faster and more smoothly than ever before. I have no reason to stop gaming nor blogging now; both feel totally natural and effortless — not to mention deliciously fulfilling.

 

   

A new phase is opening right now, as I’m tackling the New Classics project. Switching between games at such a fast pace is incredibly refreshing, stimulating and entertaining; allotting two hours maximum to each game prompts me to get straight to the crux of the matter and to sort out my feelings right away. As a result, my posts also are getting shorter, sharper and more condensed — and given how verbose I tend to be, this is totally a blessing.

 

Long story short, I’m on a roll right now. My next major move may be to give TEL! its very own URL and domain name; it’s been on air so long that I think it deserves it — and so do I. At any rate, I’m incredibly happy of what I accomplished already; there were highs and lows, but that blogging journey was incredibly fun as a whole — and still is. It’s not over yet, oh no precious; there is much, much more to come! Thank you for following my modest blog all these years, dear fellow gamers; hopefully we’ll keep cruising together! Take care, and see you soon with plenty of gaming goodness!