Spring Newsletter
Greetings all, and happy May Day!
As the warm weather continues its course throughout the spring, this past month has been pretty hefty in and out of gaming. I've learned that your twenties are just a constant push forward and am learning every day to take that knowledge as best I can. That said, there won't be any issues of Tackling the Backlog this month, but rest assured that May will see the addition of a few new pieces. At the moment I have planned:
- A handful of feature articles lined up for both SUPERJUMP and Lawrence & Goliath
- a review of Red Thread's early access launch
- an interview with an accomplished writer
- a piece for a website that I haven't been published on before
- a section for my unpublished and academic works
- and a potential revision and re-publication of older pieces on Lawrence and Goliath
These are all in the works and I plan to jump on them after these next few weeks open up a good bit. They won't all release in May, but they'll definitely see some headway. I'm also debating on how to handle Tackling the Backlog going forward, as I have a stronger desire to publish individual pieces about games and fear being redundant in the seasonal issues. I'm going to give these all some serious consideration, so stay tuned!
In the meantime, take a look at my earlier works from the past few months.
FROM LAWRENCE AND GOLIATH
2025 started with a bit of remembrance for last year. In my End of the Year Roundup piece, I took a look back at nearly every game I played in 2024 and talked about the 12 games I managed to beat last year, giving them all a bit of analysis on what they meant to me as experiences.
Lawrence Adkins
Most of my gaming was done in January; both February and March were fairly dry spells for me. That said, all of the games I played in January can be seen in the most recent issue of Tackling the Backlog!
Lawrence Adkins
FROM BEYOND THE VEIL
Sorry to say it, but nothing was published on any exterior sites.
GAME OF THE MONTH
This month's Game of the Month goes to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
A couple of weeks ago, my girlfriend expressed an interest in the game because she saw somewhere online that it was a good game for beginners. As she spent her time creating her character, fumbling around with the PlayStation 5 controller layout, and eventually making her way to Riverwood, I quickly found out that she wasn't interested in this game because she wanted to go on a grand adventure - she wanted to play with action figures.
After finishing her quest in Bleak Falls Barrow, she was less enamored by the word of power that flourished around her and the mystery behind it, and more concerned with getting out of the cave and harassing the townspeople. Her favorite thing to do is put baskets on the heads of NPCs and steal their merchandise right off the shelves (or kill them if she gets caught...).
In my efforts to get what I had wanted her to experience, I went ahead and made my own save file for a first-time survival roleplaying playthrough; this has been one of the most interesting gaming experiences I've had thus far. I wholeheartedly believe (after around 25 hours of playtime) that this is the way Skyrim was meant to be played all along. I'm really enjoying the survival mechanics and having to constantly find a place to rest my head, and playing as a character makes my decisions feel much more impactful, despite some context being missing in some avenues. I'm going to dive deeper into these thoughts in a much larger post, but it's safe to say that Skyrim is my game of the month for April.
That's all for this newsletter! Wishing you all a pleasant May, and I'll see you again with my next published piece!
