Released in early access on 14 November 2025 on PC, Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault arrives as a confident, ambitious sequel that keeps the charm of the original while branching out in all the right ways. The most obvious change hits you straight away: the series has shifted from its cosy top-down pixel-art look to … Continue reading Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault — Early Access Review
Writers are often told to keep every scrap of writing, every half-finished idea, every abandoned paragraph, no matter how insignificant or directionless it seems at the time. For years, I did this almost compulsively, stuffing note apps with fragments, saving hundreds of stray files on my laptop, keeping dialogue snippets on my phone, and hoarding … Continue reading Writing as Archaeology: Unearthing the Story Buried in Notes
I’ve just finished the first draft of my current work-in-progress, a biography-horror hybrid that’s consumed more of my thoughts than I’d like to admit and is sure to consume more. It’s a strange, unsettling project that blurs the boundary between truth and fiction, and somewhere in that blur, I’ve found myself trapped between the two … Continue reading The Ghost of the First Draft: How the Earliest Version of Your Story Haunts All Revisions That Follow
Dying Light: The Beast launched in mid-September 2025 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, and it immediately feels like a homecoming. Stepping back into the role of Kyle Crane is genuinely satisfying—almost like the series finally remembered who its heart belonged to. After the shift in focus in Dying Light 2, having Crane back … Continue reading Crane, Chaos, and Comfortably Familiar Carnage – Dying Light: The Beast (Review)
The Operator launched in July 2024, first on PC and later making its way to other platforms like the Switch. It’s the debut game from indie developer Bureau 81, a small team that clearly poured a lot of love into crafting a tense little thriller. Gameplay & Story You play as Evan Tanner, a rookie … Continue reading The Operator: A Conspiracy Thriller with a Few Loose Ends (Review)
Every writer has scraps of stories lying around. Half-started drafts, notebooks full of beginnings, that one chapter you wrote years ago that you still kind of like. I’ve got folders of the stuff. Ideas that caught fire for a few days and then fizzled. Stories that seemed like the best thing I’d ever come up … Continue reading The First Story You Finish Will Change You – Celebrating the Importance of Finishing, Not Perfection
Research at University: The Foundations When I think about research at university, I picture myself surrounded by open books and tabs of academic databases, scribbling notes in the margins of articles while glancing at the clock to make sure I stay on track. The goals are usually clear and structured: find a handful of reliable … Continue reading Digging Deeper: Research Beyond the University Walls
Thank Goodness You're Here! is an adventure video game released on August 1, 2024, for PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5. I’ll tell you what, I’ve not played owt quite like Thank Goodness You’re Here! in years. It’s one of them games where you sit down, thinking you’ll just have a quick go … Continue reading Barnsworth Bliss: A Daft, Brilliant Slice of Northern Comedy Gaming (Review)
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Lamb by Lucy Rose is one of those books that creeps under your skin almost from the first page, and once it’s there, it refuses to leave. It’s hard to believe this is a debut because the voice is so assured, the world so fully realised, and the atmosphere so thick with tension … Continue reading A Feast of Darkness, Beauty, and Motherhood
Every writer has a graveyard. It might be a drawer, a folder, or a hard drive, stuffed with stories that didn’t make it. Some sputtered out after a promising start, full of energy but unable to sustain themselves. Others ballooned into sprawling, unmanageable forms, leaving me tangled in their ambitions. And a few simply refused … Continue reading What It Feels Like to Kill a Story That Wasn’t Working – The Graveyard of Drafts
Gareth Ellis - Author 