Blaugust 2023 – Participant Appreciation Post

And thus, after proclaiming that Blaugust is nigh… it has arrived. *duduun*

Blaugust is a yearly festival of blogging where many bloggers, veterans and newbies alike, are coming together to blog together. This is the tenth year that it happened… and it’s my fourth year participating, so I’m really excited to try and write as many posts as possible throughout August.

If you wanna check out more information on the event or if you’re interested in hearing more about it, go check out Belghast’s posts here and here!

Even though it has already started, you can still join in later by signing up over here and joining the discord. It’s never too late to start blogging and I can’t wait to read everyone’s posts.

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Speaking of which… Who actually is “everyone”?

Well, this year, there are a lot of participants and they hail from all over the world and are individuals that write about all sorts of topics from books to gaming to other topics.

It can be sort of overwhelming to check every single person out there, so I’ve been doing “participant appreciation posts” in the past few years, sharing a few words about all the faces, new and old alike, and telling y’all about who they are and that sort of stuff.

If you want to check out my Participant Appreciation Posts from 2022 and 2021, be aware that I apparently didn’t know how to hit “enter” after a few lines… so those posts are quite hard on the eyes.

I’ve been getting better at that, though, especially through the guidance of Jaedia, Naithin, Wilhelm, and some others that you’ll see on the Discord Server and in this post. So, hopefully, this post will be a pleasant read.

Note: If you’re unhappy with any of the content here, feel free to reach out to me on Discord and I’ll fix it or remove it depending on your preference.

The same goes for pronouns. I’ve been trying to browse the About sections of blogs to figure out pronouns and in cases where I didn’t find anything, I defaulted to they/them. If you want any changes done, just hit me up on Discord. My username there is “magiwastaken”.

Another note: Throughout Blaugust, there are people that will join in later. In fact, this post took me a long time because we suddenly had 30 more people join in. So, if I don’t end up adding those new people to the list and you’re one of those new people, feel free to reach out if you wanna get added to this post!

Otherwise, you can always find the full list over here.

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Happy Blogging (and reading)!

Yet another note:

Over here, you can find a Table of Contents that you can utilize to skip to specific sections. I tried to link to the homepage as well as a more recent post. I doubt you’ll want to read EVERYTHING in one sitting since it takes a long time, haha.

That said, feel free to Control F for any keywords you’re looking for, like “MMO”, “book”, “Indie Games”, “WoW” or other stuff. I tried to use keywords like that wherever possible to make searching for them easier.

1. [Blogging Intensifies]
2. A Green Mushroom
3. Aywren’s Nook – Gaming & Geek Blog
4. Beyond Tannhauser Gate
5. The Bibliollama
6. Bio Break and Mutant Reviewers
7. Bitterly Indifferent
8. Broximar
9. Calamity Jess
10. Capsulejay’s Tales from the Backlog
11. Casual Aggro
12. Chasing Dings!
13. Contains Moderate Peril
14. Cubic Creativity
15. Cynni’s Blog
16. https://www.thedragonchronicle.com/
17. Endgame Viable
18. EVE Online Pictures and The Ancient Gaming Noob
19. Frostilyte Writes
20. Full Time Casual
21. GamerLadyP
22. Gaming Diaries
23. Girl Goblin and Nomadic Gamers, Eh!
24. Heartless Gamer
25. History Will Say This Was Just a Book Blog
26. Hundstrasse: Rambles about games
27. Inconsistent Software
28. Indie Creator Hub
29. Indie Dee
30. Inventory Full
31. It’s the Bageler!
32. Juha-Matti Santala
33. Just Call Me Roybert
34. Kay Talks Games
35. Knifesedge Blogs
36. KONMAI Zone
37. Leaflocker
38. Lewis Luminos
39. LFGryph
40. Ludo Llama
41. Mailvaltar – MMOs and other stuff
42. Many Welps
43. Massack ~ Gaming, Life, and Misc.
44. McKenna Games
45. MDi of the M Disk Playlist
46. Midnight Reading
47. MMO Casual
48. Mobile MMO Review
49. Monsterlady’s Diary
50. Necoco loves Stuff
51. Nerd Girl Thoughts
52. Nerdy Bookahs
53. Neurofrontiers
54. Of Bones and Tealeaves
55. Off Fleek Geek
56. Oh-no.ooo
57. Overage-Gaming
58. Pugnacious Priest’s Warcraft Blog
59. Quintessence of Dust
60. Raindrop Blue
61. Ramble With(out) a Cause
62. Random Access Memories
63. Regeneration
64. Same Old Daph
65. Scopique’s Bunch ‘o Stuff
66. Shadowz Abstract Gaming
67. Sigmatic
68. Tales of the Aggronaut
69. Tanking Mage
70. Tart, Darling
71. TeaghanPlays
72. The Friendly Necromancer
73. The Gamepad Club Blog
74. The Ghastly Gamer
75. The Last Chapter Gaming Blog
76. The Lesser Key of St. Byleth
77. The Video Game Obscura
78. Third World Ecologist
79. TIL by Isaac Wyatt
80. Time to Loot
81. Unidentified Signal Source
82. Welcome to Saltville
83. Words Under My Name
84. Indiecator (hey, that’s me!)

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[Blogging Intensifies]

[BI] is a blog by Ramen Junkie who is starting over after having blogged for a long time and then burning out. The blog’s primary focus is technology as well as Ramen Junkie’s projects.

Currently, there are quite a few music posts there that I’ve enjoyed reading a fair bit. This post here on Aurora was a really good read summarising a lot of my feelings on the newer EPs by the band, so I recommend giving that a read.

A Green Mushroom

Void from A Green Mushroom writes about games primarily as well as other topics that catch their attention. It’s a passion project about all sorts of things where they share their thoughts on the internet.

Their latest post was from December of ’22 and is about their “Games of the Year” series that they don’t want to continue into 2023. Void shares some interesting thoughts about the way they feel about the medium of blogging as well as some points on microblogging.

Aywren’s Nook – Gaming & Geek Blog

Aywren aka Wren is lovely! She writes about a lot of cool stuff from MMOs to technical posts on moving her blog back to a static page. She also writes fiction, having successfully completed over ten years of NaNoWriMo, on top of also working on a long-term webcomic project called Wayrift.

More recently, she’s talked about horses acquired in BDO, starting Ukulele again, and other smaller posts… as well as this one here through which I learned that apparently WP and Jetpack are limiting social shares per month.

On that note, Aywren was very vocal a while ago about some changes WordPress had planned for the paid plans… She shared that info with others on the discord server and we all banded together giving WP hell (and feedback) for the changes… and they backpaddled in the end which was really great.

Beyond Tannhauser Gate

Rambling Redshirt is a blogger who has also been at it for quite a while and previously, I’ve enjoyed talking to him a fair bit. It’s been always rather fun to hang out with him and thus, it’s quite nice to see him returning this year.

Generally, you can expect a lot of rambling posts over there… who would have guessed? He also talks about video games, MLB and sports in general. His most recent post, for instance, is about Baseball… and I have no clue about that but I like his style a lot, so give it a read sometime!

The Bibliollama

Cassie from BiblioLlama is a book blogger that (according to their bio) doesn’t necessarily review books but rather just reads them and then talks about them… and I respect that. That’s really cool. Clearly, they’re very passionate about books, so I’m sure they’ve got plenty of recommendations for anyone in need of book recs!

Their most recent post is part of a tag of sorts called the “Book Blogger Hop”, and here they discuss their favourite types of plot twists. Good read!

Bio Break and Mutant Reviewers

Syp from Biobreak and Mutant Reviewers is a pretty amazing individual that regularly talks about MMOs and other video games. On Mutant Reviewers, they publish reviews on cult movies whereas Bio Break is about MMO gaming goals and Retro Gaming stuff.

On top of that, Syp also often links to blogs in the community when they publish articles on MassivelyOP… and that made my day once when I was having an incredibly shitty day. So, I’m forever grateful to Syp for that time because they made me incredibly happy back then.

My favourite posts to look forward to each month include the “gaming goals” series that Syp has going on. Here is their most recent post from there!

Bitterly Indifferent

Peter M.J. Gross from Bitterly Indifferent is a writer, editor and game dev that has a very impressive blogging history. Their earliest posts date back to 2006 and checking out the Archive, you can see how they talk not just about games but also about other topics.

As for their interactive fiction, you may wanna check out the demo for their upcoming game, Tonciven, and when it comes to posts, I’d highly recommend checking out this recent post on Exploration in games – a post I found quite interesting since it also talks about Fit for a King (a game I bought in May) and Ultima (I played some of those games ten years ago), too.

Broximar

Jesse or Broximar is a full-time dad with a passion for video games, streaming, and being a Dad.

His blog feels very homely (if that makes sense) with short posts centred around the content he consumes and creates, games he plays/played, as well as whatever is going on at the moment.

More recently, I’ve enjoyed reading this post here where Broximar is noticing his limitations as a person. If you juggle a lot of things at the same time and try to make it all work, it gets rough. Jesse’s thoughts on the matter hit close to home. Good read!

Calamity Jess

Jess is a blogger and mother who has been blogging since 2002. Over the years, many things happened, resulting in her needing a new start – Calamity Jess is that new start. Jess appears to write about MMOs, video games in general, life, the army, and other topics.

I really liked Jess’ post over here on taking a while off WoW where she mentions how much the MMO is almost raid-oriented to the point where it gets hard to enjoy the game as a casual after hitting the level cap. I really liked her approach to solving this issue, so give it a read!

Capsulejay’s Tales from the Backlog

Capsulejay is a Twitch streamer and games writer for Geek to Geek Media that focuses on his backlog and games he has yet to play. Pretty cool stuff! I briefly checked out his most recent VOD from the other day and I like his voice a lot.

Recently, Jay has been giving updates on stuff… but I just kinda ended up looking through his reviews here since they are very concise and I honestly just loved hearing his thoughts about games I personally played somewhat recently… like Devil May Cry and Monster Hunter Rise. Check out this post for Capsulejay’s “Capcom Month Round-Up”.

Casual Aggro

Mike aka Ocho from Casual Aggro is an MMO blogger who writes about MMOs and other video games, and who’s been gaming for a much longer time than I have been alive… and that’s really cool because that amount of experience shines through in his posts.

My favourite post among the more recent ones is this one as I just love reading what people have been playing, and I love the little transitions and tangents he’s got going on in his posts. At one point, he’s talking about LotRO and then he jumps into Division 2 before going into a political tangent which I really adore. I hope Ocho will share more posts this time around as well!

Chasing Dings!

Tipa from Chasing Dings is pretty darn cool and writes a lot about Final Fantasy XIV Online and other games… but she also does other cool things. A while ago, she taught me how to play Majong… and I still don’t really get it. Last year, she wrote about 31 video game ideas using AI-generated text prompts.

More recently, Tipa’s published a few reviews that are really, really nicely written in my opinion, including this one on White Knight Chronicles – a game I have never really heard about.

Contains Moderate Peril

Roger from Contains Moderate Peril is a gem of a person that I really look up to. He’s just such an eloquent blogger and whenever there is a blog post – no matter whether said post is about games, politics, his life or English Breakfast -, I always learn new words, things, and it just kinda feels inspiring to read one of his posts.

As such, you just can’t go wrong with following Roger. He’s great. He also has a podcast over here that you should also check out while you’re at it.

Cubic Creativity

StalkingVengeance from Cubic Creativity is a blogger that mainly writes about video games but they also have a column on budget deckbuilding that I personally found really interesting. I loved reading their Yu-Gi-Oh! Archetypes posts when I got into Master Duels… and nowadays, I really enjoy reading their reviews.

Speaking of… Here’s their more recent review on Banners of Ruin. Go check it out! Great game, and great review!

Cynni’s Blog

Pixy from Cynni’s Blog is a blogger and streamer from the Netherlands that is probably a cool person. They write a lot about their life, their health journey, the music they’ve been listening to and some games they’ve played.

Here’s a post they did on Bugsnax – my game of the year 2022.

https://www.thedragonchronicle.com/

Jaedia from Dragons and Whimsy is a really cool person from the UK that writes a lot about games and books! She at times talked about tabletop games, music, mental health stuff, and other topics. Something I admire a lot is that Jaedia has a Review Policy on her blog which is really cool… and she’s an incredibly kind person, in my opinion.

More recently, she wrote about Steam NextFest demos back in June… something I didn’t do this time because of just how overwhelmed I was. It was nice, though, to see that she also is recommending a few of the demos that I played, too, so I can vouch that they’re good games and that you should wishlist them after you check out her post!

Endgame Viable

UltrViolet from Endgame Viable is a blogger that has been blogging since 2012 and who more recently started microblogging which is pretty interesting. UV mostly talks about games he’s playing, programming, blogging, life stuff – so, basically everything.

More recently, I enjoyed reading this post by UV where he talks about Pathfinder: Kingmaker, a game he’s recently been playing, as well as his health and wellness, some tech stuff and Blaugust. I love how his posts sometimes sound a bit snarky as if he can’t be arsed to work on them but he still does it… which is a bit tsun. Really fun.

EVE Online Pictures and The Ancient Gaming Noob

Wilhelm from TAGN writes primarily about MMOs, such as WoW and Eve Online, and he also does these monthly posts where he looks back on what he’s been up to in the year(s) prior.

This is sort of a double-entry because he also posts screenshots on his other blog, Eve Online Pictures. This one, in particular, is kinda cool because I don’t know why those bubbles are a thing or what they do.

Frostilyte Writes

Frosti is a good friend of mine who’s really good at fighting games and he’s very passionate about them. He also writes reviews and in some regards inspired me when I struggled with the decision of whether or not I should write 3k word reviews or try to keep it a bit shorter (spoilers, it’s the latter!).

I like his reviews a lot and enjoy his insights into a plethora of topics, especially as I’m not really into fighting games (although I really wanna get into them!).

More than anything, I highly recommend checking out this post in particular on Chicory – which btw is an amazing game!

Full Time Casual

Kevin from Full Time Casual took a somewhat long break and is now back, more motivated than ever to blog more again. Huzzah! They appear to blog about a plethora of things from gaming to software dev and Star Trek…?

I’m not really into that whole universe but I enjoyed reading Kevin’s thoughts on different Star Trek podcasts that they like. I’m looking forward to reading more posts!

GamerLadyP

GamerLadyP is a pretty lovely person that blogs about gaming, books and other topics. They’re pretty great to talk to on Discord and I’ve enjoyed a fair few of their posts quite a lot. Also, their dog is super adorbs.

This more recent post here was pretty fun to read with plenty of insights into games they’ve played, acquired and checked out. I’ve heard good things about Solasta but I don’t think I’d personally enjoy it. On another note, reading GamerLadyP’s thoughts kinda makes me wanna dive into No Man Sky again… but it was also really overwhelming when I last played it.

Gaming Diaries

GD from Gaming Diaries is a lovely blogger that started back in 2017, and who also streams. GD plays a plethora of games, writes about trophy hunts and also shares screenshots and diary entries on their blog – and they’re a ton of fun to hang out with!

In this recent post here, GD shares some facts about themselves – which probably is a good way to get to know them.

Girl Goblin and Nomadic Gamers, Eh!

Stargrace is an absolute gem of a human being. She writes about all sorts of gaming-related topics, her life, yarn, her creations, and MMOs. On top of that, she has great taste in games!

Funnily enough, for a long time when I started out, I thought that Girl Goblin and Stargrace were two different people, so I eventually was kinda surprised that people have more than one blog, haha.

Anyway, on Girl Goblin, you’ll find very casual posts that are quite informative about WoW. I don’t play WoW, but I still enjoy checking out posts there from time to time – like this one. But I also found this post here rather intriguing where she talks about Wurm Online… a game that I dabbled in, a year or two ago.

Heartless Gamer

HeartlessGamer appears to be a blog about primarily MMOs and other video games. They appear to be very into MMOs and provide a lot of nice information for anyone interested in New World and other games… and they’re very enthusiastic about Blaugust which is pretty cool.

This more recent post reveals their plans for Blaugust and I’m looking forward to their Steam backlog post!

History Will Say This Was Just a Book Blog

Jacqueline aka Fatale_distraction is a book blogger that is very passionate about books. Their favourite genres are Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Horror and Historical Fiction, and they have been writing book reviews informally for quite a while.

Fatale appears to have cats on top of a great sense of humour. I like their writing style in this post a lot, especially with how open they are with them being sapphic. And since I love Sci-Fi and Horror novels, I can’t wait to dive deeper into this blog in particular, so you should, too!

Hundstrasse: Rambles about games

I wanna say that it’s Hundstraße since the double-S makes the “a” short and thus it sounds weird… but I’m sure that that’s intentional and it’s not supposed to be German, at all. Not in the slightest.

Anyhow, Hundstrasse or Dogstreet is someone I know through Kim from LaterLevels as well as the SupportRole folks. They write a lot about games with many rambles… and I like their comics I see from time to time. This one is about the one BL game I haven’t played yet.

Inconsistent Software

Judah or FoxisDragon is a software developer that writes about inconsistent software and other topics. He’s worked on games previously, including an MMO project, and likes dragons.

I enjoyed reading this loot post that Foxis wrote on his Return to Comic-Con quite a bit. I also tried to understand this post but I’m not smart enough. Still, it looks cool!

Indie Creator Hub

2TonWaffle is a content creator who writes posts on the Indie Creator Hub which is a place that functions like a support network for independent creators and live streamers. It’s a bit confusing when you check out the page itself since it asks you to join or explore but the explore option functions as a feed where creators share articles on a plethora of topics.

One of those articles is this one by Josh/2TonWaffle where they share their concerns for the live streaming platform Trovo (which is owned by Tencent) and a lot of the issues they describe here seem to hail from over-gamification, as well as some other factors, many of which were already an issue when the platform just came out. I streamed on there a few times but was very much against how it tries to force people to interact with streams even when they’re just lurking. Good read!

Indie Dee

Dee is an enby artist from the US that just started blogging and who plans to write about their interests, concerns, life, and opinions. They appear to enjoy Indie Games, Metal, and walking. Honestly, I really liked their introduction post over here and I can’t wait to read more of their stuff!

In terms of other posts, I liked this piece that kinda goes into the stigma of enjoying cute things. Great read!

Inventory Full

Bhagpuss from Inventory Full is yet another gem from the blogosphere that I got to know through the Blaugust community. They talk about all sorts of topics from gaming to MMOs and music. I love their music posts a lot. They inspired me to write some of my own… and I gotta get back into that habit because there is just so much music out there that I want y’all to listen to.

Anyhow, one of those music posts from last year introduced me to Horsegirl, a band I wish I had known sooner. You can find that post here. More recently, though, I really liked yesterday’s post about a few shows Bhag watched… including one about dicks? Give it a read!

It’s the Bageler!

I’m not sure if I’ve had a bagel before but despite that or maybe exactly because of that I’ve been more than excited to hear what The Bageler writes about… and well… It’s the Bageler. Of course, they’re gonna write about shows, games, comics, podcasts and other stuff. I like their style a lot. This blog is great. Idk if it’s just the name that has me this intrigued but they like Dredge and I like Dredge.

But I also kinda wanna see Psych now because of their post. The Bageler got me quite psyched up about this show – and their jokes are better than mine, so I’d recommend giving this post a read!

Juha-Matti Santala

Juhis aka Hamatti is a community builder and developer that primarily writes about programming and at times about other topics. I’m sure they’re a cool person but I haven’t found enough time to check out more of their blog just yet.

This post over here highlights their good taste in games, though!

Just Call Me Roybert

Roybert is pretty darn cool and writes a lot of interesting posts grounded in stories he wants to tell or experiences he made. I like his style a lot because it reminds me of some of my favourite authors in a very abstract way. I’m not sure what it is but I like to binge-read Roybert’s posts once I get into them, haha. The posts themselves are pretty well-written, easy on the eyes and light-hearted in nature and even though he hasn’t been blogging for all that long, Roybert has not just become a pretty good friend of mine but also one of my favourite bloggers out there.

More recently, Roybert shared this post over here where he wrote some pretty darn nice things about me and a friend of his and talked about other things. Go give it a read!

Kay Talks Games

Kay is a blogger that… well… talks about games. Last year, they did utilize the Blaugust prompts quite well, in my opinion, and a lot of their posts were a joy to read. I’m looking forward to what their blog posts this time around will bring!

Something I love about Kay’s blog is how the spoiler warnings are very easy to spot and hard to miss. I wish I was that good with them, haha.

That said, if you don’t mind spoilers for My Friendly Neighborhood and if you’re interested in a horror game that isn’t too scary and that features Muppets… check out this post! It’s a great game and a great post!

Knifesedge Blogs

Knifesedge is a blogger that writes about Gaming, Gardening, Indie Horror Novels, and there are also reviews to be found on their blog. They participated in years prior but kinda stopped after the month of August, so I’m glad that they’re back again.

In this post here, KE dusts off the blog and gets back into the swing again, talking about their goals for this year’s Blaugust.

KONMAI Zone

I don’t know much about them but I’m sure KONMAI (I keep misspelling that) is great! They’ve published three posts so far and all of them are easy to read and pretty good on the eye. I like the mauve-purple-ish colour palette on their blog and am looking forward to some of those “bizarre reviews and snapshots of jargon-stuffed gaming subcultures” that they’re promising.

Check out this post here on game dev trends and other stuff. It’s a great read, honestly, and to a degree I relate to a lot of it.

Leaflocker

UnwiseOwl from Leaflocker is honestly a great person to talk to on Discord and they talk about so many different things that it’s hard to sum it up in just a few sentences. Either way, though, Owl had a great idea the other day: They called for Reviews on Humble Choice games, something that Krikket has kept alive while Owl has been battling with their sleep and kid.

Anyhow, here’s their review on Shotgun King which was part of last month’s Humble Choice! Huzzah!

Lewis Luminos

Lewis Luminos from diasporg is an amateur writer, artist, fantasy fan and geek who publishes a bunch of different posts from gaming-related articles to fountain pen stuff and journaling. They seem pretty cool and I’m looking forward to reading more posts by them.

This post over here features a nice image of a very elegant-looking fountain pen and for whatever reason, I thought that I need to highlight this post. I’m a sucker for fountain pens. They’re so slick, idk.

LFGryph

Gryph from LFGryph is a blogger that is passionate about writing and gaming. She is working on a fantasy novel, enjoys gaming and live-streaming, has cats apparently (pics pls!), love animals, and like Fantasy, Sci-Fi and Horror novels. Yay! Her about section is pretty well-written and I highly recommend checking that out if you wanna know more about her!

Her blog is now active again after a bit of a break and in her newest post, she’s dusting things off to get started again. Yay!

Ludo Llama

Cassie is a somewhat new blogger that participated last year, too, I think and they’re pretty cool. They write about games primarily and most of the posts I’ve read by them have been absolute bangers.

Just like Stardew Valley’s soundtrack. An absolute banger. See what I did there? No? Well, Cassie wrote a post on SDV’s soundtrack. Go read it. It’s really good.

Mailvaltar – MMOs and other stuff

Mailvaltar writes about games, primarily MMOs, as well as other stuff. While I haven’t played much Lost Ark due to my internet issues, I’ve read a bunch of their posts over here, and in the past I’ve enjoyed their posts on Hunt: Showdown – mostly because I can’t play that, it’s too scary after all, so reading about it is as close as I can get to enjoying that game. Honestly, great blog.

This post on finding the best pace for oneself in games is a great read!

Many Welps

Kluwes from Many Welps writes about gaming-related topics and MMOs and their backlog. It’s a pretty great place to check out if you’re into good games. I like reading Kluwes’ thoughts on many different games in the past. Oh, and he was also part of the XCOM Succession Game series we did ages ago, although he was much better than me at the game.

More recently, I’ve enjoyed reading this post here on an Audio Drama called Red Valley, and there’s a spoilers section later on in the post that you can’t miss. So, go ahead!

Massack ~ Gaming, Life, and Misc.

I’m sure Massack is a cool person but their newest post is only for subscribers and I don’t want to subscribe to a newsletter for the purposes of this post. Check them out yourself!

McKenna Games

McKenna talks about games, primarily Indies and Nintendo stuff – but they also talk about other stuff out of their lives, including their trip to Chicago somewhat recently.

I’m sure they’re a great person as they’re into Skyward Sword and other games… and clearly, that’s a mark for great taste in games as well since Skyward Sword is among the better Zelada games. There! I said it! Right after Minish Cap, Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks!

MDi of the M Disk Playlist

MDi is a content creator who makes videos and who documents their thoughts on various topics over here on CoHost. Check out his first Blaugust post over here!

I’m sure that MDi is super cool since they like Isaac and some other interesting games but I kind of didn’t understand anything in their posts as someone that is completely new and doesn’t know anything about what their site is about.

Midnight Reading

Renkotsuban or just Renko from Midnight Reading is an enby blogger who writes about all sorts of topics. They code their websites by hand instead of using CMS and it looks incredibly stellar. Honestly, I really enjoyed clicking on things on their website. It’s really, really cool. Also, they’re a fourth gen “日系人” or “nikkeijin”, meaning a non-Japanese person of Japanese descent – which is a concept I wasn’t aware of until now.

While I haven’t dived too deep into Renko’s posts and the games they make, I found an interesting post here that deals with how Japanese games are being treated by sites like Verge, as well as their progress on a game that a friend made and some other progress on personal projects like NaNoWriMo. Honestly, Renko’s super cool. Go check them out!

MMO Casual

Joar from MMO Casual is a returning blogger who’s participating in Blaugust for the fourth time this year, similar to me, and they write about MMOs and maxing alt-characters and stuff.

I’ve previously enjoyed their posts a fair bit and I’d recommend checking them out as they go into stuff like how splitting time between MMOs can be challenging or their progress on maxing out alt characters.

For a site called “MMO Casual”, it feels very much un-casual to max out characters but I kinda like that gap. I’m not sure, maybe my definition of “casual” is off and maybe I’m thinking of MMO-tourism instead.

Mobile MMO Review

GrooTheOdd from Mobile MMO Review/Addict who writes about mobile MMOs. There are currently five articles on the site, and all are relatively short with some text about Mobile MMOs. Interesting.

On that note, here’s their post on Dragon Next 2 Evolution, a game they made a video on as well!

Monsterlady’s Diary

Monsterlady from Monsterlady’s Diary is a blogging veteran that, I believe, is participating in Blaugust for the second time. She’s a PC/Nintendo gamer who writes reviews on her blog and I think I know her through Belghast and a Facebook Meta group. Ever since then, I’ve had a blast reading her reviews.

On that note, while this post does contain spoilers for Hades, I do recommend checking it out! It’s really well written, in my opinion, with a lot of insights into what makes Hades so great.

Necoco loves Stuff

Necoco is someone I actually know through Twitch and I didn’t know that they also blog, so that was a nice surprise. On their blog, they write about a lot of different topics from Sci-Fi love to video games. In the past, there was a post titled “Do Androids dream of electric love?” that I more recently enjoyed reading a good bunch, especially due to the obvious reference, and I also enjoyed reading their DOOM Eternal review.

More recently, they wrote about what they say to people when they say that they enjoy writing, and in many aspects, I saw myself in there. Great read!

Nerd Girl Thoughts

On top of being a great friend, Krikket is also a wonderful blogger who writes a lot about Indie Games and other (types of) “Geekery”. On Nerd Girl Thoughts, you can expect a bunch of reviews, first looks, and other gaming-related topics. I love reading those and whenever I see a post by Krikket, my wishlist gets fuller.

On top of that, Krikket also organized the “Just One Percent” project and she takes care of the “Humble Choice Reviewers” project on the Blaugust Discord. It’s pretty cool!

She’s a very kind person with an amazing writing style and it’s hard to highlight any post here, so let’s just go with her August Release Radar post over here.

Nerdy Bookahs

Paeroka from Nerdy Bookahs writes mostly about MMOs (like ESO and GW2) and Indie Games, and she’s another great person that I got to know through the Blaugust community who has been at it for super long.

Generally speaking, I like her taste in games a lot. I play a bunch of city builders and colony sim games, for instance, as well as some strategy stuff – so, reading some of her posts also contributes to the ever-growing wishlist I have on Steam.

More recently, I enjoyed reading this post over here on Highrise City where Pae shares her impressions on the Early Access… and I think I actually remember the demo for this one, and it’s interesting, to say the least.

Neurofrontiers

Neuronerd from Neurofrontiers blogs about neuroscience with the goal of making it more accessible to everyone, which is an interesting and admirable idea, especially as they feature both English and Romanian versions of their posts. It’s a cool feature, for sure. Keep up the great work!

In this post over here, Neuronerd features a book review on Alzheimer’s disease, titled “How Not to Study a Disease – The Story of Alzheimer’s”. It’s a good read!

Of Bones and Tealeaves

Rini is someone I know through Jaedia and apparently, they’ve started a new blog that currently doesn’t feature much but I’m sure more will be added over time.

What I do know, however, is that they’re an incredibly lovely Finnish person living in Sweden who loves tea, books, video games and other stuff, and their Twitch Channel is pretty great!

Off Fleek Geek

Off Fleek Geek seem like a great person that has just started their blogging journey and who is planning on writing about games and other stuff.

This more recent post features a lot of chaos and I’m here for it. They wanted to start writing their post and instead ended up procrastinating with the colours of their blog. I feel that, way too much.

Oh-no.ooo

Lucia aka Mahdava is a Lead Frontend Developer living in Finland who enjoys web-related things and is very passionate about accessibility, video games and fantasy books.

A lot of their articles are programming-oriented and we already established that I don’t understand programming because I’m a goober, so, I was very happy about this article here going into detail about Notion, a tool I should use more!

Overage-Gaming

Static from Overage Gaming is a content creator that focuses on no-commentary videos on YouTube showcasing Indies, as well as written reviews and first impressions style posts!

Over here, you can find their post on Mega City Police, a retro wave action roguelike about cops.

Pugnacious Priest’s Warcraft Blog

Pugnacious Priest is a WoW blogger who talks about their adventures in WoW and their main character, Shadow. They seem pretty cool but I haven’t played enough WoW to understand many of their posts. I’m sure if you’re into WoW, you’ll have a great time reading their posts, though!

This post over here about the Wandering Inn’s Innkeeper Erin, though, was a very great read and I liked the amount of emotion and passion that it shows.

Quintessence of Dust

“Quintessence of Dust explores science, society, and human nature, focusing on genetics, development, evolution, neuroscience, systems biology, and topics related to scientific literacy.” – quoted directly from the Bio.

Stephen seems like a pretty swell person and I enjoyed their thoughts on the death of social media in this post.

Raindrop Blue

Natrix from Raindrop Blue is a queer parent that journals on their blog. I don’t know much about them but they’re probably great. Their most recent journal entry mentioned Cultist Simulator and I’m happy that another person out there knows that game, haha. So, they seem pretty cool!

I can’t link to any specific posts because it’s a journal but you can find Natrix’s other stuff over here.

Ramble With(out) a Cause

Bayta from Ramble with(out) a Cause rambles about a lot of things, including not being able to sleep well or worrying about not waking up or other things.

They seem great! I liked this rambling post, too.

Random Access Memories

Lylee aka x1101 from Random Access Memories is a blogger that just started out and plans to blog about all sorts of things from video games, books, tabletop games, horror movies, Disney, coffee, fitness, technical stuff, and other things.

Looking forward to it!

Regeneration

Asia Ristow is a blogger that writes about modernizing the look of Second Life characters and it’s an interesting idea. I’ve had it plenty of times in other games where I’d log on after months and didn’t like the look of my character and the armour and stuff – Digital Regeneration seems to play into that.

So, the project is cool and providing a source for that sorta information is interesting but I frankly don’t know where to start and a lot of the stuff felt a bit NSFW.

Same Old Daph

Daph from Same Old Daph appears to be a life/ramble blogger that talks about a bunch of different topics from food and nutrition to their travels and other stuff. After six years, they return to the blogosphere and they seem pretty nice.

In their last post (titled A Solid Half Dozen), Daph talks about their return to the blogosphere as well as the fact that they have a hard time describing themselves.

Scopique’s Bunch ‘o Stuff

Scopique appears to be a blogger that talks about gaming, motion graphics, development and Star Trek.

Their latest post kicks off their Blaugusting Adventures and I found that post to be quite entertaining, a very good read, you could say. It’s filled with banter and well-worded calls to action and the like. Scopique’s great, probably.

Shadowz Abstract Gaming

Shadowz from Shadowz Abstract Gaming is a blogger that writes about games and their life, primarily. A lot of their content revolves around mental health and dealing with issues, as well as video games like World of Warcraft and Second Life.

Shadowz and I had a few bad interactions in the past which lead to some bad experiences and a huge falling out. I ended up not interacting with them at all afterwards and even noted their entry in my Blaugust Participant Appreciation Post with “Shadowz exists” in the past. That was quite childish of me, at the time, for which I apologize. Either way, they eventually reached out and apologized for a bunch of things and I think I kinda moved on from it. They seemed to have grown a bunch as a person and turned a new leaf. So, go check them out!

Sigmatic

For a long time, despite not knowing Sigmatic, I was wondering what it’d be like if Sigmatic did have a site… and lo and behold…

Sigmatic now has a site and it’s pretty a great site. You could say it’s a great sight.

Tales of the Aggronaut

I mean it in the most respectful and admiring way possible when I say that Belghast is the type of person to organize an amazing event such as Blaugust for years and to then forget to put themselves on the list! Bel is an incredibly chill and lovely person to chat with who doesn’t just blog about MMOs and other video games but also about his day-to-day stuff, from his amazing cats to recent obsessions like Ghost Investigation YouTube, something I at the time also coincidentally got into.

Bel also is part of the AggroChat podcast and they’re amazing and I love listening to them a lot. Honestly, I’m incredibly grateful to Bel for putting together an event such as this and for bearing with me as a relatively new “mentor”. He’s just such a gem of a person.

Also, here’s an interesting post that Bel wrote on Path of Exile!

Tanking Mage

The tanking mage is a mom, ex-wife and avid gamer that writes about all sorts of things from their day-to-day to their experiences in games, ramblings, and even fiction.

I really like this idea they have over here for an RPG utilizing the “One Page Solo Engine”, where they wanna organize the event and then let people go with it for as long as they want. It sounds chaotic and fun… and I’m all for that!

Tart, Darling

TartDarling from “Tart, Darling” is a book blogger, I think? Their site may have only been created which is why a lot of the older posts are filled with Lorem Ipsum and the like.

Anyhow, they plan on writing bookish posts, crafty posts, cosy game posts, and whatever else pops up in their drafts. I’m looking forward to some cosy games!

TeaghanPlays

Teaghan from TeaghanPlays is an avid MMO blogger and streamer who plays a lot of Wurm Online, LotRO, Guild Wars, WoW and other games. Previously they’ve blogged under the name of “Moxie” on their blog battle Priestess, then they started streaming, and now, they’re dusting off this blog again which is pretty cool.

I love how many people are turning to the blogosphere this year and I’m looking forward to reading some of Teaghan’s posts.

The Friendly Necromancer

Stingite from The Friendly Necromancer is not only a great blogger but also a fellow necromancer. That means he’s a great guy! QED.

He primarily writes about MMOs and other games and his writing style is pretty darn nice, so go give him a read! More recently, I enjoyed reading this post on his journey in Diablo 4 which I found pretty interesting to read!

The Gamepad Club Blog

I wasn’t sure how/where to link this since I tried to group people’s blog into each person’s section but this blog is run by Gazimoff, Belghast, Aywren and Scopique, from what I can tell, and will feature updates and news about the gamepad.club fediverse/mastodon server.

The Ghastly Gamer

Ghastly from The Ghastly Gamer is participating in Blaugust for the second time now and writes primarily about games and other hobbies. I remember reading a post on Astrologer a while ago which was pretty interesting given that niche games like that don’t see a lot of coverage, usually, so I sometimes check out this blog for more games to add to my wishlist.

Anyhow, more recently, Ghastly talked in this lovely post about their return to the blogosphere, the burning dumpsters full of social media networks, and a lot of other things. Go give it a read!

The Last Chapter Gaming Blog

Atheren from The last Chapter Gaming Blog blogs about a lot of different topics from MMOs and Adventure Games to their day-to-day ramblings.

They’ve got super cute doggos and this incredibly adorable chalkboard aesthetic!

The Lesser Key of St. Byleth

Byleth from The Lesser Key of St. Byleth is a video game blogger with the occasional other post, apparently. Their about section calls this a “tome lost to time, now found. […] Oddly enough, the pages are blank after a certain point… What shall the future hold?”

One of their favourite games, according to this post, is FFXIV, so I’d imagine there will be posts on that, probably? Their interests also include writing original fiction which shows in a lot of their first post, so I’m really looking forward to reading more of their posts in the future, as their style is pretty darn pretty.

The Video Game Obscura

BogusMeatFactory from The Video Game Obscura dedicated themselves to the “chronicling and critique of lesser played games from all eras of video game history”, according to their about section, which sounds pretty darn interesting to me. I’m really looking forward to seeing what sort of games and developers they’ll showcase on their site – and they also stream on Twitch apparently!

One of their posts that I found rather interesting to read was about Game Values aka things that a reviewer or just person values in games. I liked the post a lot and I probably should maybe have a “values” page that goes in-depth about what I value in games, as a reviewer, and how I kinda rely on the absence of spiders or at least a sufficient arachnophobia mode.

Third World Ecologist

TG from Third World Ecologist is an ecologist and nature educator based in Malaysia that writes about the ecology in the “third world” (duh I guess?). There are quite a few interesting posts here, probably, but I can’t deal with insects and the like, even if the images are quite pixel-y.

I love what they’re doing, though, and I wish I wasn’t as squeamish as I am. Perhaps, I’ll slowly try to get into this blog to face my fears but I’m also scared that I might encounter spiders, so… not today.

TIL by Isaac Wyatt

TIL by Isaac Wyatt is a project to share content on passion areas they like. I love the idea and can’t wait to read some of their posts in the future.

On that note, Today I Learned (heh) that PKM isn’t Pokémon but Personal Knowledge Management and Isaac has an interesting post on that!

Time to Loot

Naithin is a great friend to me, as well as someone that I very much admire in terms of their blogging journey, and there were a ton of things that I learned from him. Anyhow, Naithin writes about a plethora of games from MMOs to stuff he’s currently playing and he also organizes “Play-Alongs” and “Succession Games”, like the XCOM Succession Game Series I mentioned previously. He’s super cool and I highly recommend checking out his blog!

In this more recent post, Naithin talks about why people should/do blog for Blaugust and I found it to be a rather intriguing post and an incredibly interesting read. I love his style, and again, I highly recommend checking Naithin out!

Unidentified Signal Source

RachelWolf from Unidentified Signal Source is someone who writes about all sorts of things. Her blog is a treasure trove full of great topics and posts, and I genuinely loved all the posts she wrote in the past, and I’m super glad that she’s participating again this year and that she’s posting more frequently, too.

I haven’t been reading many blog posts from her blog in the past few months because I enjoy going on a binge and catching up so much with USS.

This post, in particular, talking about her new identity that she’s exploring moved me quite a bit and I loved reading it.

Welcome to Saltville

Molly from Welcome to Saltville is a Warcraft player, newbie blogger and Goth that writes about all sorts of things from their life.

I can really relate to this post here and left a lengthy comment on the matter of losing a long-time friend after an argument. I’m sure they’re pretty great.

Words Under My Name

Blockade85 from Words Under My Name has quickly risen to one of my favourite blogs over the past year or so. A lot of their posts on life are incredibly raw and amazing, and I relate to a lot of the things they talk about. On top fo that, we’ve played games together a few times, so I know that they’re a pretty cool person… And they also stream!

More recently, Blockade published an Introduction post on this page that their brain leaks onto – and I’d recommend giving it a read!

Indiecator (hey, that’s me!)

At last, me.

Heya! I’m Dan or Magi or MagiWasTaken and I use he/they pronouns. I technically write about Indie Games but I’ve been trying myself at longer posts in these past few months discussing topics that are very important in my opinion. I’m a Lich living in Germany with a lot of interests, and I talk a lot… like a whole lot… especially on this blog and <a href=”http://<a rel=”me” href=”https://masto.ai/@MagiWasTaken“>Mastodon on my Twitch channel. You can also find me on Mastodon if you wanna chat or whatever.

On Indiecator, you can find a bunch of different posts, from Indie Game reviews (Indietail) to gaming-related topics and just my usual ramblings. I’ve been blogging for four years now and published way too much on all sorts of stuff, so chances are that hitting the “Random Post” button will either bring you to a post I’m proud of that barely anyone has ever read or to something that I don’t even remember writing.

I’m very fond of giving warnings when a post is political or contains spoilers but I’m still learning.

On another note, I’ve been planning a series of posts on toxicity in games and gaming spaces that I’ve not published yet. For Blaugust 2023, I plan on finally publishing those… at the same time, I also want to get out of this slump that I’ve been in and finally publish more reviews since I love showcasing and highlighting Indie gems.

So, yeah, Indiecator is technically about Indie Games but in the end, it’s my personal blog, so I ramble a lot about the things I like and I try to sometimes share some of my values and try to shine a light on issues that I find important with the hope of making a difference.

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So, yeah, happy Blaugust! This post took ages. Sorry for the delay and sorry if I made mistakes. Reach out if anything needs fixing! Much love! Happy blogging <3

This post was originally written by Dan Dicere from Indiecator.

If you see this article anywhere other than Indiecator.org then this article has been scraped. Please let me know about this via E-Mail.