After considering purging the site and going back to basics, I’ve decided against that option as the site has character. Perhaps at some point ambition will arise and I will change the page layout. Perhaps I’ll even revert to the brighter, cheerier yayawesome style. Let’s go back to the original yayawesome mission statement though:

This site is essentially naught more than a repository for all things Gurt.

And that is indeed what I intend to do. I will stick to the central role of being funny. The ideas I had last time were fine but rarely worked. I think I’ll avoid having a plan and simply just use this as a vessel, and make sure whatever I post is funny. Although this isn’t because I’m tired. My wit is on holiday. But let’s see what I have to work with here, all right? This is what you may get:
- A minor site layout redevelopment. I might change this font from blue to orange or tan, for example.
- The video link will redirect to my Youtube account probably. Perhaps Viddler.
- The Wiki link will be updated. Or the Wiki will, rather.
- Forums? What forums? I’ll redirect that icon to a real forum, or wave goodbye to it. In the age of Web 2.0, it is unnecessary.
- The blog will be updated daily where possible. I may redirect it too.
- An articles link is needed. As is articles, obviously.

I’m off, hope that is worthwhile information.

I reset things a bit because I figured they could be used better. Unfortunately last year’s launch coincided with a myriad of very, very bad things. Rather than sully the site with emo crap, take my word for it that it would have been wrong of me to work on the site at the time, and I just didn’t have the strength after all of it.

Traditionally I open a site with two things. One is a rediculously long disclaimer, the other is a list of quotes from previous site iterations. I’m too tired to do the disclaimer, but here’s the other bit:

“[…] can I throw rotten fruit at you? I specialise in Mangoes.” - Emutech
“I wonder what I’d look like in hot pink?” - Emutech II
“[…] when I woke up, a spider had built a web on me!” - DDR Stadium
“Enjoy, I’m a blogurg.” - Bemani Order of Madness
“When I was a kid I thought haemoglobin was an evil goblin made of helium who had a high pitched voice who would rip all the blood out of you.” - BOM underground
“Oh dear, it’s that time again!” - Legion of Sound
“Oh crap, here we go again!” - Legion of Sound and Emutech Deluxe Combo
“Sorry, I passed out.” - Bemani Blue!
“All-in-all, Captain Power.” - Yay! Awesome!
“Mr Wino is, although I scarcely believe it, a drunk.” - Gurtopolis

Now that’s out of the way, I’m going to tell you about the site.
tl;dr version: It will be entertaining (not just funny), there will be bad games, there will be hard games, there will be games you’ve never heard of, and videos of both.

The Medium Length Version:
1. We want site visitors to be entertained. Often sites confuse funny with entertaining or become bogged down in text. I hope to avoid that.
2. The initial idea behind this website wasn’t a website: It was to put up Youtube videos of video game challenges. There were several types of challenges:
(a) Hard Game Challenge (no, not Hard Gay Challenge…although…). Video gaming for sadists. To use an example most can relate to: Beating a Megaman game with only the mega buster, except where you can’t progress without another weapon (eg Dr Wily).
(b) Tacky Game Challenge. This consists of having to play a bad game until completion, a certain score, a certain time or other achievement. Sometimes, this might consist of a gauntlet of games rather than just one.
(c) Extra Game Challenge. This would be adding realism to a game. Such as taking laxatives and playing Oregon Trail. I might add the game is distinctly American and not well-known outside the US, and since I’m outside the US…not only would it be my first play, but it’d be a first for a lot of readers, too.
(d) WTF Challenge. Taking gaming to the masses. Not in a Mega64 way, but as in if I gutted a Pikachu doll and put something explosive inside it, or if we had a Super Mario Bros challenge where somebody had to eat some rather suspicious mushrooms.
…these four concepts together were identified as “1-DOWN: Anti-Scrub Gaming League”. This name will likely stick.
3. This website will include Hardcore Gaming Spotlight. I look at games that aren’t often looked at because the regular sites spend all their time doing the dirty over Nintendo, Shigeru Miyamoto, Zelda/Mario/Metroid, or Squaresoft. I anticipate spending as little time on any of those subjects as humanly possible because it’s frankly really, really repetitive and overdone. This will be done with a human element to not just say a game is good, but to say WHY a game is good. There’s practically zero gaming sites that do this - their motives just aren’t clear. Mine will be transparent, and if I enjoy a game just because you can shoot old ladies (Deathwish 3?), then I’ll go into great detail about shooting old ladies to illustrate my point. Hopefully with animated GIFfage. Note “Hardcore Gaming” here really means to convey it’s not mainstream crap. It will likely more often than not be hardcore as in unless you’re a serious, serious gamer you won’t know the games. As a benchmark, I’ll use the example - if you know of Treasure’s games, that would be more mediumcore. They’re not undiscovered classics, they’re cult games. Something rarely documented on the web, yet significant enough to write about, is a candidate.

Basically, I aim to do what other websites SHOULD do. Instead of whacking off over Nintendo or Square constantly. It’s amazing how often somebody “discovers” something “funny” about a Nintendo game, be it something like the bizarreness of Monster Party, Megaman 1’s cover, or homoerotic artwork in Nintendo Power magazine. Not to mention the other generations of gaming! I am going to do what should have been done long ago: Show you what you don’t already know.

The end, for today.