I know a few followers of this blog get a bit fed up when I praise Video Game X, hate Video Game Y and don’t understand Video Game Z. Well, after the disbandment of Nidzumi, this became a temporary place to crap out thoughts about games. Well for those who don’t mind reading the results of those mindshits, I’ve set up Parley Up. For everything else there’s Blogizzle.

It’s where me and fellow Video Game Thoughtist, Daniel Lipscombe, can deposit our experiences onto the internet. You should visit it. Also I’m quite proud of the term ‘mindshit’

Ever since Nidzumi was sold I’ve had a lot more free time. While as much as I would like to convince myself that Football Manager is a worthy way to burn that time, it’s probably not. So, call it a summer project with long term ambitions but I’ve recently launched my next project.

You see, ever since Nidzumi was sold and subsequently closed (apparently) I’ve been listening to more music. It’s been great really. The only problem is, and I’m trying not to sound like one of those people, that not many people are aware of the cliché-free hip-hop I’ve been listening to. Now I’m going to stop there because we’re entering pretentious music listener territory, which is the opposite of what I wanted to achieve with the site. So instead of rambling on I’ll let you visit Lesson Six.

This is probably something I should have done a long time ago and for anyone left in the lurch, I apologise. I don’t know why it has taken me this long to do it but I guess it’s justified my choice in the first place. Let me explain.

I’ve spent the last two and a bit years of my life constantly updating a site called Nidzumi. Me and a couple of friends started it while in college but I still couldn’t tell you exactly why but I’ll do my best. I wrote a few articles for a site called MSXBOX-World and the more I got involved, the more I wanted to do. I kept pushing for new features and content but I was frequently rejected. Hindsight tells me that they weren’t just being tough for toughs sake, it’s actually difficult keeping the basics of a site running before you can run off doing podcasts and columns. I didn’t know that and left to start my own site

Admittedly none of us could write at that point – I still probably can’t now – but that didn’t matter so much, we had fun doing it. The truth is, we were just doing it for fun, at this point I had no idea about review copies or perks like that. I still remember my first review copy, Euro 2008. I was chuffed, like we had made it or something, I didn’t know that my 360 would keel over and destroy the disk but that didn’t really matter.

As the friends moved on, Nidzumi was solely left to me. Again, with hindsight I would have scoured the net for staff to keep the site constantly updated but I didn’t. I reviewed every game, wrote every article and edited everything as well.

Really, it wasn’t until late last year that I started to get some new talent on board. The problem is that by that point I was already burnt out, I just didn’t know it yet. I mean if you want to turn something you love into a chore, open a website about it and try to run it by yourself day after day. Chore is probably too strong of a word, if it was really a chore I wouldn’t have done it for two years but you get the idea.

At the risk of sounding like an awards speech, I would like to thank everyone who wrote for the site at one point or another. Daniel Lipscombe, Ewan Aiton, Jen Allen, Steven Wright, Matthew Maharaj, everyone who signed up originally, everyone who wrote features towards the end and anyone else I’m probably forgetting. Oh, and I’d like to thank god, I’m not religious or anything but I think it’s the law to mention him in your award speech.

I guess I should get onto what eventually happened to the place. Well after my last birthday I decided that focusing on my Graphic Design course would probably be more helpful. For those who don’t know I also study Graphic Design down in Falmouth. Now Graphic Design isn’t your normal type of do a bit of reading every now and then degree, you have to constantly be thinking and working on projects. I’m not saying that a Design degree is harder, but if you want to do well it’s constant work, and I want to do well.

So that’s why I sold Nidzumi.

I have no idea what’s happening with it now. I don’t know who would buy a site and then not use it, but that is what’s happened to it. I wanted to still write for it in some capacity but that’s looking less and less likely with every day the site is inactive. It’s a shame, but surprisingly I’m not so hung up on it.

The past few months have allowed me to make so much progress at Uni, have more free-time to cook recipes on BBC Good Food and for the first time in nearly three years, play a game for what it is. Not that I’ve been able to play a game like a normal person yet, I’m still doing the odd freelance job.

So that’s it really. Thanks for reading this long and overdue post that could have been summed up in one sentence; Nidzumi was a fun couple of years but I’ve sold it now.

Any questions?

*UPDATE* I’ve had a few e-mails asking where their articles have disappeared to. While I’m not sure how long I should have waited before restoring a mirror of the site, the four months and no response gives little indication of anything happening soon. So why not visit Nidzumi with all the spelling and grammar mistakes you remember at http://nidzumi.blogizzle.co.uk/

I’m not sure whether this is a big accomplishment but this is my 100th post of the year. For Blogizzle it’s something that’s never happened before – in actuality this is Blogizzle’s 207th post ever -  but it only goes to show how far is left in this ludicrous challenge.

Not even a third of the way through but despite having to play catch up and abuse the scheduling feature of WordPress every step of the way, it’s still going well. Here’s to the next 100, thanks for reading.

Now that the veil has kind of been lifted on Daniel Lipscombe’s (Former Reviews Editor at Nidzumi) upcoming project, why don’t we blog about it? Naturally I’ll be covering the design of the whole process but I’m actually more excited about the prospect of writing for the site.

Back in the early days of Nidzumi I occasionally wrote features called Back In Time. Now BIT were short retrospective reviews of old games – basically just an excuse to indulge in a little nostalgia. I only wrote a few of them but the time spent going back with a critical mind on games like Blade Runner, Omikron and SimCity were some of the most enjoyable moments while running Nidzumi.

I’m really relishing the opportunity of going back through the years and reminiscing with some classics, digging out some diamonds in the rough and having problems getting old games to work. Alright maybe not that last pint but it’s an exciting time, a brand new site and all.