A very long time ago, while I was at sixth form college, I took a GCSE in photography. I loved it. I learned how to develop film, taking out a roll from my camera in the pitch dark, all by feel, and winding the film onto a reel. I learned about aperture and shutter speeds, using an old Nikon SLR that my dad gave me. I learned how to expose photo paper and burn in and dodge areas to make them darker and lighter.

I took a few rolls of film on a First World War battlefields trip and created a highly original piece of coursework featuring a lot of graves. Then I went to a local cemetery and took some more pictures of graves and made a piece of coursework which included the lyrics of the Smiths song, Cemetery Gates. I doubt I was aware of its pointed message about making original art.

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A moment’s sadness at a passing of an object that’s accompanied so much of my life. Actually, I don’t know how long I had my old wallet. I don’t know where I got it, or where, so constant that for the past decade - two decades? - it’s seemed always near.

Almost always. I know I lost it twice, first on a train. I helplessly remembered just as it left the platform. But I reclaimed it at the lost property office at Bristol Temple Meads with the heady sense that calamity had been averted.

The second time I lost it for good.

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The leader of the Roaches’ preeminent labour union lies gutted in an alley, trying to work out where it all went wrong.

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Two children encounter an unsettling visitor to the alleys by their home.

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A lowly arbitrator travels to the darkest part of the hive and unwittingly serves an evil that lurks in its shadows.

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I’ve written a new book. It’s called Making Videogames and it’s about the art and the tech behind 12 of the best-looking games of today. From Half-Life: Alyx to Return of the Obra Dinn; Control to Thumper, I talked with their lead developers to tell the stories behind their visual design.

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This is Roddy. He’s our dog. He was born on Tuesday, June 15, 2021 in Hitchin, and now he lives with us. He’s a working retriever, which means his fur is a little darker than a regular golden retriever and it won’t grow to be quite as thick and long. He’ll also have a lighter build. His mother is Maple, who is owned by our very dear friends, David and Jess, and is the best-natured dog you’ll ever meet.

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A couple of months ago, Edge published a feature I wrote about the MiSTer project. I’d been wanting to write about MiSTer for a while, because it’s such an exciting platform for retrogaming – I’ve been spending many happy hours exploring shooters on the PC Engine, messing around with a 486 PC, and revisiting the SNES classics, all in fantastic fidelity and feeling just how I remember them.

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I’m no poet, but I found myself writing a poem. I listened to Blur’s song Oily Water, which I’d ripped years ago from my CD of their album Modern Life is Rubbish, and heard in it a little audio aberration which I’d forgotten about but was immediately familiar. For me, it’s even part of the song, since I’m not sure I’ve ever heard Oily Water that hasn’t originated from that CD.

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It’s pretty well-established that 2020 was “a weird one” and also “bad”, and my line of work has been affected by it in various ways. But I’ve been incredibly lucky to have been able to continue working throughout on various books, articles and other projects. Here’s my year in work.

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