WELCOME to another Monday Blog Post! The year 2026 is about to start — are you guys ready? I’m not, to be honest. XD Well, in any case, today is Monday, and you know what that means. Let’s do this thing!

THE SHOP. I added a new item to the shop. The decision to add this particular item was inspired by an AI pic based on a drawing that bro rfm914 shared on my Discord server (the one I used as the cover for this post). I thought it was cute, and it made me want to do more stories with Ginny Weasley in future episodes of SC34. For now, though, I’m just sharing the PSD files of that CG from the game, with all the layers intact. Go check it out. :)

THE PIN. I’ve been staying in touch with MrLazare over the past week. He’s mailed out around 20 pins so far, and there are still some pins left. If you want one, you need to be on a $5 (or higher) tier and contact MrLazare on Discord.

SUMMON NIGHT 3. I decided to give Summon Night 3 a try. It had been sitting on my backlog for a long time, and a few days ago the mood finally struck me. The game has an EASY and a NORMAL mode, but there’s no explanation of whether EASY just makes enemies weaker or if it locks you out of a good ending or something (which is a thing in some JRPGs). So I went to GameFAQs, and most of the posts there were made about 13 years ago… Whenever I see stuff like that, it always makes me feel things. Like I’m reading messages left behind by my predecessors or something. I start to wonder what became of all these guys. Did they start families and live happy lives? Are they still gaming? Are they still fucking alive?

OmegaVideoGameG. One of those threads stood out in particular. It was by a guy who was supposedly working on a translation patch for the game. He had been posting small updates for about four years. Then he made a post saying he’d gotten married, things were going well, and he was close to completing the patch. And that’s it. Two years of silence since then. Did his wife kill him and bury his remains in the backyard? No, seriously — did he actually die? What could have happened? I suppose we’ll never know. Uff… for some reason, when people online just go offline for good like that, it always makes me a bit depressed. It’s like that meme…

THE MEME. This is the one I meant. Memes are supposed to be funny, but every time I see this one (or its variations), it hits me over the head with a metaphorical bag full of existential thoughts…

MOVING ON. I finally took my laptop apart. Properly this time. I don’t remember if I mentioned this before, but quite some time ago one of the cooling fans on my laptop began making noises it was never supposed to make. I opened the laptop up, but soon realized that getting access to the fans wouldn’t be easy, so I closed it again and started wondering if I should maybe get a new laptop — which I really didn’t want to do for a whole bunch of reasons. Well, last week I decided to give it another try, and after watching a couple of teardown videos on YouTube, I was able to do what needed to be done.

MSI GP63 Leopard / GE63 Raider. My laptop is quite old (in laptop years), but it was a beast back in the day and still performs admirably, so I’m glad I’ll be able to extend its lifespan now. I’ve already ordered a replacement, which was surprisingly cheap, by the way ($30). All I need to do now is wait a couple of weeks for it to arrive.

FOR THE TIME BEING, I put it back together — including the faulty fan, which I cleaned thoroughly (though it didn’t reduce the noise in the slightest). I left the back cover unscrewed because it’s a bit of a pain to take off. The screws are easy enough to remove, but it also uses those little plastic clasps that I hate dealing with unless absolutely necessary. Plus, leaving the shell half open like that provides additional ventilation, and half the time the fan doesn’t even turn on unless I do something that demands a lot of resources. ^^

THERMAL PASTE REPLACEMENT. That phrase always sounded so scary to me whenever I heard it. But after doing some research, I realized it’s actually a pretty straightforward process, so I decided to take care of that as well. Since my knowledge on the subject is limited, I decided to play it safe and bought a paste that was on the pricier side. For now, though, I’ve just put it aside. I need to wait for the fans to get here first.

AKABUR SENPAI. Since I have Mia now, I have access to her personal story, and I’m happy to report that apparently even the localizers couldn’t resist her cuteness and decided to give up and let her say “senpai.” Here’s the thing: I play with Japanese dubs (the phrase “Japanese dubs” sounds a bit strange, since Japanese would normally be the original voice-over—but because this is a Chinese game, they are technically Japanese dubs). The characters constantly use Japanese honorifics, but they’re usually translated as Mr. or Miss, or more often just omitted altogether. So for me personally, it was a really nice surprise to hear her address me as “senpai” and then read the same thing in the English translation as well. Good stuff. <3

DID YOU KNOW? In Snowbreak (as of right now), you can marry 6 out of 20+ operatives under your command. And I mean all six of them at once. And it’s not some gimmick — it’s actually part of the main story and gets brought up often during both main and side events. What’s more, for every wedding you get a customized ring that you can equip (or not) on any finger you want. You can equip just one, or as many as you have, and they’ll show up on your character’s hands during cutscenes. I only have one, because weddings cost real money — and also because I only had interest in one of the six girls currently available. ^^

TO OTHER UNRELATED NEWS! I decided to buy an RG35XXSP. Fuck it. It’s New Year’s, and I’m 40+ fucking years old — I can do what I want! And it’s only like $50 on the official Anbernic page (on AliExpress). I know I don’t need it, but I want a Game Boy Advance–dedicated device that looks like a Game Boy SP! I want to put all the The Sims games on it! Also URBZ, Harvest Moon, Sword Craft Story, Fire Emblem, Golden Sun, Advance Wars, Comix Zone and that’s it. After that, I’ll probably just let it collect dust. But I still wanted it, and I bought it. End of story! It should be here in a week or so. ^_^

THE WORK. I have some good news to brag about. Last week was super productive for me. I didn’t mention this before, but I’ve actually been having some trouble with the Skatergirl character. I got her visual design right, but I just couldn’t nail down her personality in a way that felt right to me. I even had to rewrite some of her earlier events because her personality was all over the place. But finally, I was able to develop her enough to the point where I’m happy with her. Yay. I know this doesn’t really tell you much, but just take my word for it: Skatergirl will feel alive and exciting to interact with, and her ending routes will feature multiple events and be extremely distinct from one another.

QUICK QUESTION! In the game, there will be multiple A/B choices where your decision adds +1 toward one of a character’s endings. This worked well with Azalea in PT, where certain replies clearly pushed her toward either her public or private ending. For Reporter Trainer, I’m thinking about adding a short notice after each such choice, like: “Your choice pushed Skatergirl one step closer to her Bitter ending.” This would help players understand whether they’re progressing in the direction they want. However, I’m worried this might take away from making choices naturally and only seeing the consequences at the end. So the question is: should I add these notices, or leave things more ambiguous?

AND THAT IS all I have to say for now. Thank you for checking out another one of my Monday Posts! The year is almost over, which means the next Monday Post will be next year! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, cherished bros! Stay around for a few more days — we’ve almost made it through 2025!!!

Laterz.

-Aka-

A few links just in case:

buymeacoffee.com/akabur

subscribestar.adult/akabur

itch.io/profile/akabur

bitchute.com/akabur

HELLO there, bros! Remember last week’s LiveJournal-style post? Well, here’s another one just like it. At least this time around you know what to expect, right? Seriously though, I’m just going to say this from the get-go: I’ll be talking about random crap again. There will be no work updates whatsoever. Merry Christmas!

SNOWBREAK news. As soon as the update dropped, I assigned Mia a proper room. By the way, one of her idle animations is her listening to music on her headphones and dancing. Seriously, this girl is becoming my #1. I’m still a bit conflicted about her ginormous boobs — I don’t think they really fit her character — but other than that, she’s pretty much perfect. I also really like the fact that her room is designed like a regular schoolgirl’s room. ^_^

(MAIN) STORY TIME. As I keep mentioning, one of the major draws of Snowbreak for me is the story. It really goes harder than it has any right to. While waiting for the update to drop, I was catching up on the main story chapters I’d missed after not playing for about six months — and Tess getting fucking shot really caught me off guard. Of course, I knew she was going to be alright since she’s one of the operatives (waifus), but it was still nice to see the scene handled in a very mature way. I mean, the CG even had blood and everything. Good stuff.

@surfsterre: A few days ago, MrLazare sent me a link to a real-life skater girl’s profile. I almost never use Instagram, but maybe I’m missing out on something good? (Hm… no, probably not.) Still, this girl’s account was definitely interesting to browse through — especially considering that I’m currently working on a skater girl character for the game. ^^

ANBERNIC RG35XXSP. Good news, everyone! I found another console that I don’t fucking need! But it looks so good! T_T I want to buy it and use it solely for GBA games! But sadly, I need it even less than my current #1 obsession, the AYN Thor, because I literally own a DSi in great condition that runs GBA games perfectly. But… but… fuck, I don’t know. A few years ago I was dreaming about an emulation machine that could run every retro game imaginable, but lately I’ve been drifting more toward the idea of having dedicated consoles for older systems. I mean, my Retroid 4 Pro is my dedicated PSP emulation machine, and I love how it feels. Ugh… stupid RG35XXSP. Why is it so awesome and so cheap? If I buy it, it’s just going to collect dust on my shelf. Probably. Definitely. Most likely… -_-

AND THAT’S IT. Yep, that’s all the news. I warned you right at the very beginning, so if you read all the way to the end, this is entirely your fault (and I salute you! Thank you!). I realize I’ve been neglecting the shop lately, but it’s been hard to find the time to do anything at all. IRL stuff is on the offensive again. I mean, I barely even have time to log into Snowbreak and do the dailies. You see how serious things are?

ANYWAY! Thank you for your support, and I’ll see you all next Monday! Enjoy the year 2025 while it lasts — it’s about to expire!

Laterz!

A few links just in case:

buymeacoffee.com/akabur

subscribestar.adult/akabur

itch.io/profile/akabur

bitchute.com/akabur

HELLO there, bros. A sudden (and surprisingly late) realization hit me recently: my Monday Posts pretty much count as blog posts. Or LiveJournal posts, even. Remember how, in the early days of the internet, completely random people had blogs, and other random people would read and comment on them? This was long before corporations figured out how to monetize everything. Good old days. Anyway, since all I do in my Monday Posts these days is talk about anything but my work, I guess I should accept the truth: my Monday Posts have become my blog posts.

THE GAME AWARDS happened recently, I think. I honestly don’t care about that circus anymore. Although, I suppose I do still care at least a little bit since I’m bringing it up here. Anyway, here’s me doing the healthy thing: accepting that I’m not the target audience anymore and quietly moving on.

NEW LARA CROFT? So a new Tomb Raider game was announced? Or is it a remake? Again, I don’t care enough to look it up. The only reason I’m writing this is because it irritated me slightly to see phrases like “gaming is healing” pop up several times in my news feed—followed by an extremely ugly new Lara. They call it a new unified design. Unified indeed: the middle ground between the supreme design of the original and the modern garbage that came after Underworld. Again, I’m not the target audience, so it’s all good.

PALATE CLEANSING time. The Witch Trainer asset library still exists. It was put together without my knowledge and contains a lot of art assets that weren’t created by me, but I’m still glad it exists. I can’t give you a direct link here in the public posts, but it should be easy enough to find if you’ve never heard of it before. (I’m talking about it because I completely forgot it existed, then somebody on my Discord brought it up, and it made me all warm and fuzzy inside to know that the page is still up and running :).

Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma. After complaining about this game’s visuals extensively in last week’s Monday Post, I still wasn’t able to keep it off my mind, so I decided to give it a try. I didn’t want to waste my money just to prove myself right, so I downloaded a buccaneer version, put it on my Steam Deck, and (sadly) proved myself right. Since I don’t think any of you have played this game or have any interest in it, I won’t go into the details. Instead, I’ll leave this review I grabbed from Steam (feel free to skip it):

By SHADOW DARWIN "I played the Rune Factory series growing up, and it had a big impact on me... loveable characters, charrming towns, interesting world + character design. There was a veiled mystique in all that was done, there was a draw to the relationships. The subtleties of OG Rune Factory are here made profane. Character design lost all spark. The OG rune-factory aesthetic has been washed out by a Genshinesque excessiveness. Where previously one would look into the personality of a character on screen, here one sees a collection of distractions and absurdities that obscure (but fail to hide) a profound lack of soul."

WINDS OF ANTHOS. One good thing did come out of me playing Guardians of Azuma: it made me want to revisit Winds of Anthos. Last year I quit playing it after about 40 hours because I had other good games to play. I had a good time with it, but its obviously low-budget nature always bothered me. But after playing the high-budget Guardians of Azuma, my perception has changed. Despite also running on the dreaded Unreal Engine, Winds of Anthos actually looks pretty. I mean, the night sky in Guardians is a fucking JPG with a still image of a full moon, whereas in Winds of Anthos not only does the night sky look nice, the moon actually has a proper cycle and looks different every night. If you’ve never heard of Winds of Anthos, it’s basically a low-budget mix of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Harvest Moon. It’s quite an enjoyable game—especially after playing Guardians of Azuma.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE? I hear a new Starship Troopers game is dropping soon. I didn’t do much research, but from what I’ve seen it looks good. I like the whole “retro” look they’re going for. I never liked hyper-realism—that’s one of the reasons it’s so difficult for me to enjoy modern games. The trailer gave me mixed feelings, though. On one hand, it was nice to see Johnny Rico; on the other, it made me just a little bit sad for several reasons simultaneously…

SNOWBREAK! I know nobody gives two fucks about it, but I don’t care! This is my blog and I will talk about what I want! (Thank you for your support, love you!).A new update for my precious SnowPEAK is dropping in a couple of days. The trailer shows off a metric ton of new content as usual, but to be honest I only care about two things: an actual room for Mia and the new main story chapter. Since the last update, Mia has just been wandering the base like a hobo, and that is something I absolutely refuse to stand for!

THE GENIE PIN. Sometime this week (maybe tomorrow) I’ll make a patrons-only post to discuss the fate of the batch of Genie pins MrLazare currently has in his possession. Stay tuned. ^^

THE WORK. I’m finally done with all the preparatory planning and coding stages and can work on the actual content in peace. Very happy about that. I’ll continue focusing on the Skatergirl storyline for the moment. I want to finish it fully before I jump back and work on other things, because when I juggle multiple storylines I sometimes start forgetting plot points and things can get stressful quickly. If all goes as planned, Skatergirl will have two endings (like Azalea did in PT), only they won’t be called Private and Public but rather Sweet and Bitter endings.

AND THAT IS IT. I must say, this was a pretty fun post to write. I only hope I didn’t turn off too many people by gushing over games nobody has even heard about. Thank you for your patience and your support, bros. Truly, you are the best. Don’t forget to leave a like, and if you feel like it, drop a comment — I read all of them, you know that. :) Laterz!

- Aka -

A few links just in case:

buymeacoffee.com/akabur

subscribestar.adult/akabur

itch.io/profile/akabur

bitchute.com/akabur

HELLO THERE, dear bros. I know you’re probably a little bit tired of hearing this, but I must call it as it is: today will be another low-on-news Monday Post. Time to show your resolve, bros! Suck it up and bear the harsh winds with me! Good times are coming soon*! But for now, welcome to another Monday Post.

THE POLL. Several days ago I made a patrons-only post that went like this: "SC34 had a dress-up wardrobe, but custom outfits only appeared in replays via the Holo-Archive, often clashing with story outfits. I added a CUSTOM/STORY toggle, which created extra work and bugs. Did anyone actually use this feature?"

THE RESULTS. Believe it or not, I was actually surprised by the poll results. I should have abolished that feature a long time ago — it would’ve saved me so much time. Well, it is what it is; better late than never, I guess. Thank you for taking the time to cast your vote.

THE GAMES. THE SHOP. THE WORK. I have nothing new to say. Nothing have changed for the past 7 days. If you don't mind I'll just wrap it up here, hit the publish button and get back to working on the game. As usual, thank you for your support, and I will see you all next Monday. Laterz.

-Aka-

A few links just in case:

buymeacoffee.com/akabur

subscribestar.adult/akabur

itch.io/profile/akabur

bitchute.com/akabur

HELLO there, dear bros. Welcome to another Monday Post. First things first—tell me, how awesome is that Lara Croft "illustration" I used as the cover art this time? Personally, I think it’s really, really, really, REALLY awesome! And it’s super detailed too. But don’t take my word for it—check the attachment to this post and see for yourself. (Shared by: MWayne.)

SNOWPEAK. With that out of the way, let’s move on to discussing the really important stuff: my gacha waifu adventures. A couple of days ago, I finally caught up on all the main story updates and then (with zero effort) pulled Mia from her 100% gacha thing. Now I can finally relax and get back to my regular retro gaming until the next update.

Fate/EXTRA CCC. Sad news: I’m kind of getting bored with my precious Fate/EXTRA game. I’m not even sure why, but while playing I suddenly realized I’m not enjoying it anymore. I’m 20+ hours into the story and just beat the Passionlip boss. I still love the writing style—with all its dirty jokes—I love the visuals, and I absolutely adore the art direction, but as a whole the game has gotten boring for some reason. I think it might be the nonsensical story… Everything is taking place in a simulation inside a simulation, and I don’t even know if my character is a real person connected to a computer somewhere, or how this whole thing is supposed to work. I don’t know. I’ll probably keep playing, but it honestly made me really sad to realize I’m not having as much fun with the game as I did in the beginning. T_T

iiSU. On to other equally important news: the whole iiSU drama. I won’t go into the details—if you know, you know. If not, the whole thing is a nothing-burger anyway. On a personal note, I just want to say that I would act the same way if I had a team working on my project and somebody came after me: announce my retirement, nuke all my social media, and basically kill off Akabur. Disarming the mob is the smartest move here. And after that, I’d just continue working on my project under a different alias.

PRINCE OF Per-eew-sia. I’m only mentioning this because this news popped up on my feed a few days ago. Since I have zero interest in modern games, it doesn’t even upset me that much. Let me even get a little cocky and say this: if you keep playing so-called “remakes” these days instead of the original games, this is exactly what you deserve. IMHO -_-

Marvel Rivals. On to other super-important news: the new Venom skin in Marvel Rivals. I know everyone seems to love that game, but I’m that one weirdo who doesn’t. I appreciate that it’s being made by the Chinese bros, but when I tried it several months ago, both the gameplay and the art direction felt off—not necessarily bad, just definitely not aimed at people like me. That being said, that new Venom skin kind of makes me feel like I dodged a bullet there.

GUARDIANS OF AZUMA. And here we are, finally getting to the truly important news: the new Rune Factory game is out. After the whole RF5 fiasco—where the devs basically lobotomized the game to please Western fans—I kind of gave up on any newer installments of the franchise, so I didn’t even know this one was in production. It got good reviews and seems to be an OK game at least, but OH MY GOD, what is this art direction? I absolutely hate this modern no-textures look. I hated it in Breath of the Wild (despite loving the game overall), and I hate it in every other game that uses it. It always looks lazy. Look at the screenshot above—you can’t even see where her tits end and her arms begin. The entire skin is just one color: no shading, no texture, no lighting. I do appreciate that they included a busty girl you can marry in this one, but there’s no way I can play a game that looks like that. -_-

WORK. Now let us discuss truly great games without a single flaw: Akabur’s games. Right… so, urm… dammit, turns out there’s nothing to discuss again. I’m working on the game and that’s it. I really hate how lame it sounds—every week I just repeat the same thing—but it is what it is. Oh, and there’s no shop update this week again. Sorry—too much work, and IRL stuff is nagging at me as well. Anyway, thank you for your support, and I’ll see you all next Monday. Laterz!

-Aka-

A few links just in case:

buymeacoffee.com/akabur

subscribestar.adult/akabur

itch.io/profile/akabur

bitchute.com/akabur