All Aboard The Flying Train

> Hello

Choo choo, berks. Hello, I’m Rob. I write, write about and doodle videogames. Sometimes, if I’m feeling especially saucy on the day, I might even play a videogame too. Shut up! I know it’s wild! I know! Such is the exciting middle age life I lead.

Love you.

> Here’s some videogames I like

• 31 Jan, 2026 Sorcery Plus

  Sorcery Plus Virgin Games, Amstrad CPC

  🍒Sorcery Plus On Mobygames

  I tend to think of the early years of home computer games as largely a series of “wow, look what people are doing”, a feeling for me that rises and wanes in slight degrees over time but has never really gone away throughout the entirety of video games. The difference, of course, is that for a rather short while, it was a concentrated barrage of holy fuck moments as people worked out what we could even begin doing with these damn things.

  I had little awareness of Sorcery Plus for a fair while. When I could get the damn thing to load, I’d enjoyed the hell out of the Speccy version of Sorcery but it was a rather compact thing. Nice, enjoyable (I am always a sucker for flying wizards) but incredibly, incredibly slight. So it was only when my chum showed me Sorcery Plus for the CPC a while later that I truly understood why a couple of folks I knew were like “Rob, you have to see this” about it because it is fucking beautiful. I look at screenshots of it now and I’m still “this is fucking beautiful”. I am a sucker for the CPC palette anyway, but regardless… gosh.

  It’s an absolutely remarkable looking thing and a great little arcade adventure to play through too, and really a lot bigger than the tiny Speccy version I was already comfortable with. It’s also one of quite a few games that makes me laugh when people present their modern homages to old video games and they all look like the NES or something, as though games that looked as good, as vibrant and distinct, as Sorcery Plus weren’t being released on the regular.

  Bless. Nostalgia is a funny old thing. The modern window into retro games often bizarre. But anyway, Sorcery Plus is dead good so whatever.

• 29 Jan, 2026 Fallen London

  Fallen London Failbetter Games, Browser

  🍒 Fallen London official site

  I’ve been playing Fallen London since it was Echo Bazaar, which is a long time ago now, and at some point I ended up losing my original character down the sofa somewhere (I can’t remember now if this was on purpose or I just lost the email address I signed up with, it was a confusing time) so I’ve had this character meandering around the glorious gothic underground London (and beyond) for eleven years now.

  Built on the principles of storylets, where stories unfold in short paragraphs and present the player with choices of what to do at that moment in time, it’s been the perfect game for me to dip in and out of a couple of times a day, no stress, no worries. There’s a limit to how much you can play a day regardless and that suits me down to the ground. I like a game that says no, that’s enough.

  I tend to play often but largely just ambling about, occasionally I find myself filled with the urge to maybe do something of use or note. After eleven years then, I finally achieved my ingame ambition to complete the Vake Hunt (yes, I know) this week, a tremendously indepth and sprawling quest to bag the head of a beastie. And you know what? I’ve loved every minute I’ve spent in this game, every minute I’ve spent on this quest alone, because the prose is an eternal delight and the stories are, at their worst, highly enjoyable. At their best, they’re stories I’ll find a place in my heart for.

  Can’t ask for much more than that and yet, Failbetter keep giving me even more game to play, which seems somewhat excessive but I can’t really complain.

  Here’s to the next eleven years or whatever.