With a new year comes the obligatory deep breath and sense of a fresh start. The promise of a clean slate, freshly dusted chalk board, or whiteboard when you’ve used that special spray to really… really… clean it.

… setting aside the reality that the 3.154 x 10⁷ seconds starting on 1st January isn’t different to any other arbitrarily assigned similar period of time…  

As a blogger, it’s a time to look forward, announce exciting new projects, present this year’s big schedule change/YouTube Program/Podcast. In my own case this is no different, so here goes…. ahem…

For 2020 Hundstrasse.com plans to try and continue in pretty much the same way it has for the past four years. Thank-you for your attention, please resume coffee consumption.

Anyone who was in attendance at last week’s premier of #BloggerTalk (a LaterLevels initiative) over on Twitter will have noticed that my 2020 blogging resolution was just this; keep blogging. The truth is that with a growing family and increased work pressures I sometimes find it hard to game, write about it, and be the active and interested member of the community that I want to be. Sharp eyed readers will have noticed that my editorials have quietly slipped by the wayside as I don’t seem to be able to find the time to put out two articles in a single week. That isn’t to say that I’m not hoping to try a few new things this year (more on that later), but my main goal is to keep doing the hobby that I enjoy.

As a new parent my gaming habits have changed. The Switch, which I hadn’t given that much attention to in the previous 12 months, is rapidly becoming my gaming platform of choice due to its versatility and ease compared to my (now ageing) gaming PC. I tend to enjoy games in smaller bitesize pieces and I’m even considering taking my Switch with me on my daily rail commute to squeeze a little extra gaming in to the day. VR escapades are now a rare treat with the lounge/VR zone overrun with all kinds of playmats, swing-a-majigs, and a bouncy chair that, despite being essentially a wire frame with fabric stretched over it, is almost impossible to store in a space efficient way. In the middle of all of this is often a slightly resigned looking dog. I’ve also found myself leaning heavily towards retro gaming over the past year, possibly because those experiences tend to be a little shorter and more focused in nature… although it might just be what I’m in the mood for.

That being said, there are a few things that I’d like to do this year from a blogging/gaming perspective.

Community

I’ve been quite quiet on collaborations and community events recently but I would like to be a bit more active in some of these if possible. With that in mind LaterLevels and myself have cooked up the #BloggersWhoStream community event for the week of the 27th January where we’re asking bloggers to post an article showing off their technical setup and sharing an streaming tips they’ve picked up for other bloggers who want to break in to streaming – I will of course be sharing the details of my own super-janky-retro-streaming setup to prove that however you manage it the important part is getting involved, not the tech that you have!

Full event details are available here!

Streaming

So I did a few streaming events last year, although not as many as I would have liked to. Whilst I’m not planning on breaking in to streaming big time, my retro (PS1 era) streams were great fun to do and I’m so happy that people took the time to stop by and join me. I had been hoping to stream much more of my Resident Evil 2 marathon challenge, but the timing was just never quite right. 2020 will hopefully see a few more of these when the timing is right.

With the imminent remake of Resident Evil 3, maybe another retro-revisiting of the original would be a good starting point.

Fiction

It’s not a secret that I have a lot of fun with the weird fiction posts that I’ve written here over the years. From the first year of #BloggerBlitz to my various bizarre entries for QotM I miss just letting my imagination run wild. I’ve vaguely started and abandoned a number of side-fiction projects in the past year or so sometimes due to a lack of momentum, but mostly because I’m acutely aware that if I write this stuff then I should probably post it in some form… and if that happens then there’s a chance that someone will read it; an eventuality that I’m not quite prepared for.

It would be good however to indulge more in the occasional deviation in to the (probably gaming related) world of my imagination from time to time however so maybe more posts like my non-fanfic-fanfic take on Zelda or bizarre Wednesday working for Umbrella.

Other Stuff

Maybe there’s other stuff… 

So that’s it… what you have to look forward to is… the same as it was before… pretty much. I hope everyone out there had a very happy holidays and wish you all an amazing 2020 whether you plan to keep things the same, or make things different!