Foreword – One Year of 「RISINGSUPERBLOG」!
Holy hell, a year already! Thank you all for taking the time out of your days to read my (occasionally depressing) writing! I don’t think I’m the sharpest writer or critic out there by a long shot, but it’s always heartening to see how many of you like reading what I put down.
When I began the blog a year ago, it was in large part a way for me to feel like I could still put things out in the world while I was struggling to get a game project off the ground. I think I’ve mentioned it a few times, but I’ve bounced across prototypes for a few years now and it’s been really disheartening. Making games is super hard, and I’m too much of a perfectionist for my own good. The blog was really helpful in making me feel a bit more self-worth, even though I know that none of us are defined by our work output (do as I say, not as I do, etc, etc).
It’s crazy to look back on the early months where I was writing two or three articles and a foreword piece on top of it! I was really enthusiastic about it, maybe overly so! I don’t even make any money on the blog (heck, it costs me money to operate) so it’s kind of nice seeing how hard I threw myself at it. HOWEVER.
Time has passed, and I’ve been working more and more on game projects and practicing some other skills. I’ve found that it’s been a bit hard to keep up as easily as before! Some of you may have noticed that the “JUNE 2025” post lacked a foreword article, and last month I didn’t even put up the monthly “JULY 2025” page. Sadly, I think this is a small change I’m going to make permanent going forward. Writing the forewords and monthly articles has made for a few tricky situations of my own making, where I felt that the foreword article necessarily had to come second because the main article images were used for the monthly headers. At the same time, I feel that the articles relegated to forewords kind of get second-billing in terms of presentation, which is a shame! Keeping the pace has been tricky in general as well, and it always drives me crazy that these monthly pages feel bound to having a foreword to be allowed to launch, so they end up launching really late in the month. I think this really will be a change for the better in my life!
On the other hand, I do like the monthly recommendations section I added on these pages… I’d like that to persevere in some way, so I’ll keep you posted on that. Maybe a yearly recommendations page that I update periodically? I’m not sure yet! Either way, monthlies are sadly out from here on as I try to refocus my energy on game and art projects.
Once again, thank you all so much for your time and your interest. The many kind and caring comments have been a balm for my soul, and I have every intention to keep writing on here for the foreseeable future! Ahead to year two!
-Liam
August 2025 Articles
Garden Guardian Retrospective PART I – Starting from the Start
The first part of a multi-part overview of Garden Guardian’s development. This one is particularly rich in nostalgic memories of where I gained my appreciation for LCD games!
August 2025 Recommendations
20 Small Mazes
The title really says it all. 20 Small Mazes is a collection of twenty small mazes with a stylish presentation, all contained in one screen. You’ll use your mouse to choose your maze and interact in various ways, and the keys to move your player (hopefully to the ends of the mazes). By dragging the mazes around, you can thumb through them and proceed nonlinearly through the 20 tasks, which each have gimmicks of varying levels of cleverness. The game is completely free, and it took me less than an hour to clear. Highly recommended!
Universal Paperclips
I recently fell in love with UFO 50‘s idle/action game, Pilot Quest, and I began to do some research on other idle games. My friend is a fiend for these things, so she was my first stop. Above all other games, she recommended Universal Paperclips, calling it her “platonic ideal of an idle game” and praising the storytelling, of all things. High praise! Sure enough, she was totally right and I became helplessly addicted to the game’s great mobile port. What begins innocuously as a paperclip manufacturer simulation escalates amusingly to a scale that’s hard to conceptualize. The browser version is free, give it a go!
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