When Zork I was originally released in the early 80s, it sold for around $30-40 in 1980s money (according to a few online sources I forgot to save a link to). That’d be $118-157 in today’s dollars according to internet calculators. Since…

StoryGraph summarised my year of reading as: _You chased clues down winding paths, chased horizons and daring escapades, and wandered through tales tinged with shadow._ That does seem pretty accurate. I read a total of 119 books (up from 102 the year before) with a total of 32,181 pages (up 5%), so all in all a good improvement (although the page count was very much driven by the two _Lucifer_ graphic novel omnibus editions I read). I've been pretty steady though the year, although April did see quite a spike upwards. I'm still using Goodreads, but mainly as my Kindle is linked. That only shows 84 books as it struggles with small press and roleplaying books in many cases. Martin J Dougherty was my most read author, completely driven by the **Deepnight Revelation** work for **Traveller**. Martha Wells was the fiction author who I read most of, thanks to the **Murderbot Diaries** , which were also very short. Adrian Tchaikovsky came next, with five novels with Mick Herron (Slow Horses books and novellas), Samu Rämö (the Hildur series) and Christopher Fowler (Bryant and May) coming in next. I really enjoyed the **Murderbot Diaries** and have preordered the next instalment; I may find myself digging inti the fantasy books that Wells wrote that were also in the Humble Bundle I picked up. Likewise, I suspect that Adrian Tchaikovsky will continue to feature heavily as I picked up most of his fantasy fiction that I haven't read in a Humble bundle. I do intend to continue with Christopher Fowler's **Bryant and May** series through 2026 as well. There were two notable series I started to re-read but have only read the first book - Michael Scott Rohan's **Winter of the World** and Mary Stewart's **Merlin** trilogy. I do intend to read more of both of these, and I think that the Pendragon RPG books that are sitting in my to-read pile can only help with the Mary Stewart books. I joined Elle Cordova's Sci-Fi Book Club this year to try and make sure I didn't get into a rut. I've certainly read a number of books that I wouldn't have otherwise; I've not liked all of them, but they've definitely been worth the time. My favourite so far has been **Klara & the Sun** by Kazuo Ishiguro, and the one that I've least liked was **Slaughterhouse-5** (which drew me through but wasn't really my thing). I enjoyed William Boyd's **Gabriel** spy novels, and will explore more of his work next year. I've found myself reading more thrillers and literature novels than previous years, and hope to keep some of this breadth going forward. My favourite fiction novel of the year was Derek B Miller's **Radio Life** , with Nick Harkaway's **Sleeper Beach** a close second.My favourite non-fiction was a tie between **Borderlines** (Lewis Baston) and **Vertigo** (Harald Jähner), both of which taught me new things and were well written. **Tales of the Old West** was the best roleplaying game I've read this year (although **The Hooded Man** deserves a honourable mention). It wins as an extremely playable game set in the period of the Western. It is gritty, focuses on community and avoids the need to draw on horror or the weird. It was a delight at the table. My reading streak hit 1,088 days at the end of the year. 2 January 2026 _ _ _ _

As 2025 comes to a close, and it looks like I've played my last game of the year, here's a summary of my roleplaying adventures. Overall, I played eight less games than last year, mainly driven by the fact that my own campaign finished recently and I've not got back into a second game since**Eternal Lies** finished. I played 50 sessions, 26 of which were face-to-face at conventions. I attended an extra convention this year (Airecon) which was fun, and I hope to go again in 2026. The Garricons remain in good health, although it continues to be a challenge to get enough GMs for the smaller conventions. Furnace's twentieth anniversary was a delight, and it was nice to open up a different space at the hotel. The big change for me this year was the return of **Traveller** as dominant game with 20 sessions in total. This was a combination of the one-shot _Far Horizon_ game in the Orbital 2100 setting, then several games run at TravCon and North Star, followed by _The Jägermeister Adventure_ , which was great fun but needed me to think on my feet as the players frequently got ahead of me. I intend to continue with Traveller as a big part of my gaming in 2026, probably offering the _Singularity_ campaign once it's finalised and I've read it properly. The start of the year saw my _Shadows of Atlantis_ game for **Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20** finish. Overall, it was a great World War 2 daring pulp romp, but I've had no urge to go near anything using the 2d20 game engine since. I think I may have played too much of the Modiphius engine over the last few years and the inconsistencies in it are harder for me to deal with than the changes in Fria Ligan's Year Zero Engine. One of my longer term campaigns finished this year and I miss it sorely. This was _Eternal Lies_ for **Trail of Cthulhu** (8 sessions). We've spent multiple years and a lot of time on this game and it is probably the best Lovecraftian game I have ever played. Of course this was helped by the quality of both my fellow player, Dr Mitch, and Rich, our Keeper, who runs a superb game. The ending was poignant and challenging and emotional. I played a full weekend (equivalent of 6 sessions) of **The One Ring** at LongCon, with Graham running a fantastic Tolkien based game running through the _Tales from the Lone Lands_ campaign; his deep knowledge of the lore was clear, but it was never suffocating, and I felt completely immersed. A shout out to my other players who also made this an unforgettable game. The final system with multiple game sessions was **City of Mist** , a perennial favourite of mine. I ran this at Airecon and Revelation. It's a favourite and I have no doubt that I will play again. _Powered by the Apocalypse_ remained a strong part of the games I've played, but no _Forged in the Dark_ for me this year. I've used **Roll20** as my preferred VTT most of the year, mainly as **Traveller** is well implemented, and I ported my **Achtung! Cthulhu** game there when **Role** temporarily lost AV. It's worth noting that **Roll20** has come on in leaps and bounds over the last two years, but AV remains its Achilles Heel. Towards the end of _Jägermeister_ we were doing audio over Discord to ensure we had a stable connection. I'm intending to experiment with **Role** and **Owlbear Rodeo** next year. Of course, our _Eternal Lies_ game was run over zoom, with character sheets on Google Docs and dice rolled physically, so it does show that you don't need all the bells and whistles! Outside of the usual running and playing, I have continued to enjoy helping organise the Garricons and that is something which will hopefully continue going forward. Part of my return to **Traveller** was creating a one off Double Adventure for **BITS** using two of the scenarios I wrote that have been out of print for a very long time. That was really satisfying, and I have already prepped them to be released, but we're currently wrangling with the request by Mongoose to release via the community TAS programme which doesn't support publishers doing this. Hopefully they'll be released in the New Year. This won't be my final project like this; I'm also finalising off another adventure that I'd hoped to get out this year, but it will slip into 2026. I managed to get the **BITS** website up and running again, which was nice. It turns out that there was a server side issue that was blocking redirections. Now that's sorted the site is live. I would like to give it a full refresh, but that's a way off. Overall, it's been a fun gaming year, and I'm hoping that next year will be as good! Game System| #| GM| Play| FTF ---|---|---|---|--- Traveller/Cepheus| 20| 17| 3| 8 Trail of Cthulhu (GS)| 8| 0| 8| 0 The One Ring| 6| 0| 6| 5 Achtung! Cthulhu (2d20)| 3| 3| 0| 0 City of Mist (PbtA)| 3| 3| 0| 3 Otherscape (PbtA)| 1| 1| 0| 1 Comrades (PbtA)| 1| 1| 0| 1 Monster of the Week (PbtA)| 1| 0| 1| 1 Cartel (PbtA)| 1| 0| 1| 1 Fading Suns| 1| 0| 1| 1 John Carter of Mars (2d20)| 1| 0| 1| 1 The Electric State (YZE)| 1| 0| 1| 1 In Nomine| 1| 1| 0| 1 Blade Runner (YZE)| 1| 0| 1| 1 Dragon Warriors| 1| 0| 1| 1 29 December 2025

Steve Holt and John Kelly say it was 'stupidity' that saw them sit in the flooded garden with pints.

Attached: 1 video Series A, Episode 13 - Orac BLAKE: Zen, hold it there. Now then, play it back, slowly. There! That's it, that's what's been bothering me. VILA: I don't see anything special. AVON: It's in the wrong place. https://blake.torpidity.net/m/113/21 B7B3