Stage Clear: March 2026

Save State is now a one-year-old, which means it's well ahead of its age developmentally. (Most toddlers can't even do basic CSS styling.) To celebrate, let's run down the things I got up to in March: a month where I finally got rid of the cough from the cold I caught in January, only to catch my second cold of the year. Not that I'm bitter about that or anything. I love being continuously ill.

Podcasts

I resurrected the first three podcast feeds of 2026: CGW Radio, GFW Radio and PC Project/LAN Party, which form the entire history of 1UP's PC-focused audio and which are still held in high regard. The audio for the first two podcasts was already on archive.org, but the third one wasn't; I tracked down all ten mp3s in the Wayback Machine (across several different hosts) and uploaded them as a new item. So this set of podcasts wasn't just a straightforward act of feed reconstruction, it also involved some digital archaeology. Historylicious!

I also recreated the cover art in 3000x3000px, compared to the tiny 300x300 iTunes images that were used at the time. These aren't upscales, they're recreations made from scratch in Affinity, as close as I could get them to the originals. This is the hardest step of the process, and I kind of wish I hadn't committed to it...

My goal is to resurrect 12 podcasts in 2026, so with these three feeds I've caught up to where I was supposed to be. Expect more over the coming months, including, I hope, some slightly more obscure than 1UP's.

Writing

The bulk of my writing in March was focused on the still-tentative chronogaming project:

I've been watching interviews and old TV shows from the BBC archives, and have continued to build a research spreadsheet and work on the first few scripts. I'm also close to pulling the trigger on a couple of books and a few inexpensive eBay purchases.

I'll repeat what I said last time: despite putting hours into this, I'll more than likely never produce this series. It's a challenging project on all levels, it'll absorb an almost unlimited amount of time, and the audience for it is practically nonexistent.

But even if I abandon the overall project, there's one chunk of it that could easily be turned into a standalone video: an explanation of the British home computer scene in the early-mid 1980s, and the ways in which it was significantly different to what was going on elsewhere in the world.

So I'm going to continue to work on this thing for as long as I'm motivated, partly because I'm finding it a deeply satisfying challenge to figure out, and partly because I've learned from years of experience that I need to harness impulses while I have them, and that there's no such thing as wasted creative effort. Even abandoned projects give ample opportunities to learn and practice, and very often from the remnants of one that didn't work out, another five ideas will sprout. And despite my better judgment, I'm still not cured of the desire to do this for real.

Scanning

I've fully scanned, but have not yet finished editing, the June 2000 issue of PC Strategy Games. It should be up in the next few days; I didn't want to delay this update further by waiting until it was finished.

In all honesty, I'm not satisfied with Affinity as a tool for this job. It's fine. And it's free. And it's probably the second best option. But cleaning up and straightening scanned pages is much more laborious than it was with Photoshop, and I'm wondering if I should just re-up my Adobe subscription.

I'm still waiting for Retromags upload rights, but the PCSGs (and future scans) should also end up there when I'm approved to do so.

Magazine Indexing

Database stats at the end of March 2026 (delta from February):

Titles indexed: 60 (+1)
Distinct issues indexed: 5,442 (+106)
Pages indexed: 770,569 (+18,730)

The sole addition this month: Practical Computing.

(The index isn't public, but if you're a game historian—pro or amateur—and you'd like me to run off a query or two, let me know! Time permitting, I'm happy to do it.)

Playing

I'm actively playing as of this writing:

• Ghost of Tsushima
• Dead Island 2
• Escape Simulator 2
• CiniCross
• Zelda: A Link to the Past
• Assassin's Creed: Unity
• The Division 2

Really need to close the book on some of these. I'm stretched too thin, but I love starting new games. Damn those enticing initial hours!

Credits rolled in March:

• Hostile Volume (web)
• Rogue Light Deck Builder (Steam)
• Conspiracy! (Steam)
• Khimera: Puzzle Island (Steam)

Acquisitions

I, uh, bought a new kettle...?

Onward to April! I'm hoping to rack up some more wins next month, since I'll be taking my one big holiday in May (and skipping that month). March was fine—it certainly went better than January and February—but I'm hoping I can take the energy I have, focus it more, and bang out a whole list of stuff.

Thanks for reading. See you again in the past.