January 2026 Archives
Project: Gorgon Launches into 1.0!
Posted on January 30
This past week, Project: Gorgon, a quirky old-skool type MMO that has been in development for quite a while, finally launched to 1.0! I Kickstarted this game almost a decade ago, and first blogged about it later that year in the pre-Alpha state.
Playing Quest Calendar 2026: The Souls of Saraku
Posted on January 29
I’ve been playing the solo, DM-less, RPG quest calendars created by Sundial Games since 2022. This is a D20 tabletop game that comes in desk calendar format. Every day, the quest story progresses a little and you have tasks and choices to make, just like a tabletop RPG – but, you can play it completely by yourself.
FFXIV: Learning How to Make the Obscurum
Phantom Relic Weapon in Patch 7.41
Posted on January 28
Final Fantasy XIV patch 7.41 dropped yesterday bringing a new step in the Phantom Weapon relic questline. Much of this echoes the previous step in terms of how to complete it with a crafted portion and a grinding portion. Here’s what we’re looking at!
Posted on January 27
So, the astute eye may have noticed that I’m updating the layout of Aywren’s Nook. I know this comes on the heels of having finished moving the site into this HTML format a few years back, but I’ve been thinking long and hard about what I want to do with this site, and I landed on this.
FFXIV: Finishing Dawntrail 7.4 (Again)
Posted on January 22
I’m somewhat back on my alt kick in FFXIV, working to move more of my characters through the Dawntrail MSQ. Now that I have the ability to gear alts up with the ilvl 770 crafted pieces, I’ve been somewhat motivated to buckle down and get some gaming done while I still have the time.
VR Gaming: Across the Valley Farming Sim
Posted on January 21
The first VR game that I tried out this year was a farming simulator called Across the Valley. I got this on sale when it was only 99 cents, and was excited to try out what a farming simulator experience could be in VR.
Learning How to Fish in Enshrouded
Posted on January 19
Back in November, Enshrouded launched the Wake of the Water update which added water and water mechanics to the game. Syn and I were quite excited for the update, for adding water environments to our base would make for something lovely! Not to mention including the concepts of fishing and swimming in an already sizeable exploration game.
Blogiversary: 12 Years of Blogging
Posted on January 16
Twelve years ago on this day, I launched this blog! This is the yearly post in which I reminisce a little about this long-term writing project I started all those years ago, not knowing how far into the future it would stretch. In a time when blogging isn’t as popular as it used to be, to have a blog last as long as this has is a pretty exciting milestone!
Steam Quickplays: January 2026 Part 2
Posted on January 15
I’ve been pretty good at playing through some of the shorter games in my Steam Backlog lately. I even spent time breaking out the super short games based on data from How Long to Beat into their own folder. While this is a Quickplays post, I’ve actually played through an entire “round” of all of the games I’m going to talk about today, and even finished one of them!
Steam Gaming - Squeakross: Home Squeak Home
Posted on January 13
I’d never played a Picross game before I played Squeakross, but now I’m absolutely hooked. And probably spoiled, too, by the looks of it. I’m not sure if there’s another game out there that merges so many lovely elements together to make such an exceptional and addictive experience.
FFXIV: Ranking Up in Achievements First 2026 Update!
Posted on January 9
Last September, I wrote about becoming more aware of the achievement log in FFXIV, specifically the low-hanging fruit achievements. These were, in particular, the class hunting logs that dated back to the original ARR in 2013. Much to my shame, I realized there were a handful of classes I never completed the hunting logs for.
Steam Quickplays: January 2026
Posted on January 7
Welcome to the first edition of a series that I’m calling Steam Quickplays. As I’ve noted in previous posts, there are a number of Steam games that I picked up either through free giveaways or as part of bundles that sit in my backlog but aren’t priority to play.
FFXIV: Gearing Alts, Ready to Go!
Posted on January 5
Last night, I finally geared up Zuri with the full Courtly Lover’s Set – the newest crafted gear, which is ilvl 770 for level 100 jobs. While I’m not a huge fan of the way this set looks, it’s been a goal of mine to kit out this character for her path forward.
Posted on January 1
While I have a lot of IRL things to work on for the new year, I’m going to focus in this post on creative and gaming achievements I hope to accomplish. Last year, I found rounding up all the blogging, coding, gaming, and hobby focuses worked well, and that’s what I’m going to do again this year.