Greetings. I am Stebloke, and I am a bit strange. This website contains my blog, where you can read about the things I create, the games I play, and any other things I get involved in.

I make this blog mostly because I like to look back on the things I do and feel nostalgic, but also because it keeps me motivated to keep pushing on with my backlog of nerdy little projects and tasks.

The "Filters & Pages" button in the top right will give you more control over what blog entries will be displayed, or the following quick links can be used:

News Computer Games Wargaming Board Gaming Old Stuff

Stebloke's Website ©2008-2026

As I've been on a bit of a Batman kick the last few weeks with all the Arkham series footage I've been watching on Twitch, I thought back to a game that I bought all the way back in 2015.

At the time, I tried a little bit of it in co-op with Scoob, but we didn't get very far, and had very little urge to get back to it.

After playing through it recently, I have discovered why we did not go back to it. As it's just not that great.

The game in question is Lego Batman.

On paper, this should have been a lot of fun. You get to play as Batman and Robin in a silly Lego version of the DC Universe, in a beat-em-up style game where you explore the levels, clatter bad guys, and build weird inventions and contraptions out of Lego bricks.

In reality, it turned out to be quite a frustrating little beast to play.

Primarily, for whatever dumb reason or reasons, I actually found the controls really bad. This was especially true when you are controlling vehicles, and ultra especially true when you have to tow bombs with vehicles and release them so that they hit something you're trying to damage or destroy.

Even getting into the vehicles was a pain, as the button to do this was the same button you use to switch characters, so nine times out of ten I'd just change character rather than jump into the vehicle. It was infuriating.

I know it's a silly game, but several characters, especially Robin, are portrayed as complete idiots. Now I'm no Robin fan, so I didn't mind all that much, but it just seemed odd that Batman always came across as calm and competent, when so many other people around him were behaving in very childish ways.

I do have a couple of other Lego games, though one of them is Star Wars, which for obvious reasons will never be played.

The other one is the sequel to this game, and if it's anything like this one is, then I doubt I'll be playing that one either.

Much like with my Terraria shenanigans from a couple of years ago, I was again motivated to play a game thanks to the chaos experienced by streamer Preach recently.

The game in question this time is Prison Architect, a game I've owned for many years and never touched. The closest I got to playing it was when the multiplayer update came out, and I installed it back then hoping that Scoob and I would give it a try, but it never happened.

So it's been pretty cool to finally get some use out of it.

After a bit of research, I learned that the developers of this game changed a few years back, and a lot of people have not been happy about it. Luckily, I'd still got my old downloads from GOG, so that is the version I've played.

Like with Terraria, I didn't really want to "play the game properly" as such. I just wanted to build something. To this end, I allowed myself infinite money, and turned off failure states. Unfortunately, like Terraria, I couldn't just build something without actually having at least some gameplay, as things had to be unlocked through game progression.

Now, you might think this would make the game very easy, and in some ways it was. But the fact that I was just diving straight into a big sandbox build with no tutorials was still pretty intimidating. It didn't help that the controls of the game are bonkers, and there are no rebindable options, even through config files and such.

I suppose I could have looked at using something like GlovePie to remap everything, but whatever.

I started off with a small build for a few minimum security prisoners, and just kept adding rooms and cells until I'd got 24 settled in and seemingly happy.

It was during this time that I learned all about the regime, programs, deployments, logistics, patrols and all of the other little things that were required to keep things running smoothly and with as much automation as possible.

While all that was going on, I started building a second cell block, this time to take 40 prisoners, who would be a slightly rougher bunch and would be placed in medium security. This included an extra perimeter fence and extra dogs to patrol among them.

I didn't add them slowly like I did with my first bunch of hoodlums, and instead opened the prison up to all 40 at the same time. As you would expect, chaos quickly ensued, with these prisoners beating each other up and leaving blood trails all through the cell block as well as in the cafeteria.

Absolute savages, ruining my nice clean floors. How dare they! And ruining my 29 day no incident streak to boot. Just rude.

It was always my intent to build a third block for high security prisoners, with armed guards and sniper towers, but soon after adding the second bunch of prisoners, and getting them to settle down, I've decided to move on. Believe it or not, I actually spent quite a bit of time over 6 days just getting to this point, so it's had enough time out of me for now.

If I come back to it, I might even try the more up to date version. I mean, I know people have commented on how buggy it has been since the devs changed, but it's not like I was free of them using this version.

Primarily, I had constant issues with the graphics flickering at the top of the screen that just kept happening at random times. For some weird reason, taking a screenshot would not show the flickering, so I had to snap this issue with my camera.

I've never seen weirdness like that before, and hopefully never again.

It's 2025's time in the spotlight, as I look back at whether I've managed to get enough done this year.

Even though I've been just as active with blog updates this year as I was last year, for some reason it feels like I've let myself down. It just doesn't feel like I got as much done.

This is due to the fact that I've had some good time off because of being between jobs, so I definitely think more of my little tasks should have been completed.

Moving forward, progress may dip further, as 2026 brings with it a new job, with potentially some weird shifts, as well as the occasional need to be on call.

However, this is a look back, not a look forward, so let's reflect...

Computer Games

Things started and ended very slowly in my effort to tick off games.

I felt like I was going great guns in June and July, but those were the only months where I really knuckled down and got some good gaming done.

While there were some important replays, like FF7: Rebirth and FF9, as well as Arkham Asylum, my number of newly completed games stands at just 7 for the year, plus one expansion in Winter Assault.

Sure, I finally got RE0 done, but overall this is certainly not good enough. I just have not had the motivation in this area. Maybe I'm getting old? Well, yes, I'm getting old. But maybe my age is finally having an effect?

I hope not.

All year I was wondering whether to subscribe to WoW just for one month through November. This was because it was the 20th anniversary of when I first started to play it, and I love me a big anniversary.

However, two big reasons held me back:
1) I just couldn't afford to spend all of my free time that month playing a game I don't really like.
2) I just can not bear the thought of giving Blizzard any money. If the game ever goes free to play, which is highly unlikely, I may revisit my old characters. But other than that, something very bizarre would have to happen for me to journey to Azeroth ever again.

Into next year, my main goal is to play FFX for the first time, as the game will be 25 years old. I'm also part way through the final Amiga marathon, as well as having the next random game installed and ready to go.

Outside of that, who knows?

Tabletop Games

What a weird year it's been for this little hobby as well.

Board gaming was very sporadic all year. We would have a few weeks of feverish gameplay, then not do anything for a couple of months, and then go again.

I finally got to play my own copy of Whitehall Mystery though, with the wait being because there's usually too many players on game nights.

This is good for some games, and good for the social aspect, but a lot of the games I want to play are more complex games for smaller numbers of players, which take a bit longer to play, and therefore are way less likely to hit the tabletop. Dune Imperium, Resident Evil 2, Detective and Twilight Imperium are all examples.

I've even studied the Resident Evil 2 rules and have made a summary sheet for if we ever play that again, which is something I've also done for Doctor Who. Hopefully these games will be much easier to pick up again in the future.

The main game I've been quite into playing this year is Alibis, a little co-operative card game where you have to try and link words. Hopefully, it's shunted Codenames off the play list going forward.

Wargaming also went through a drought, with no games at all until the last few months, triggered by the completion of Scoob's new game room.

I did however get some decent painting done, with quite a few models finished that have not shown up here yet, as I need to finish their entire armies first.

I also got some good terrain building under my belt, with my new boards and forests now being usable. I've also got some big 28mm defensive structures almost done that have been made out of polystyrene packaging. I just need some better weather so I can take them outside to begin the final steps.

Strangely, by far the most time I've spent on this hobby this past year has been sat in front of a computer, buried in spreadsheets and lines of code.

Not only have I redesigned the 40K-S army builder and point calculator, but I've also made my own method for digitally setting up games of Secret Hitler. This meant a re-introduction to MySQL, something I hadn't touched since 2012.

There was also a lot of computer-based studying for my first little dip into 3D printing. Though this is something that I will need to spend even more time on if I'm going to get the best quality out of my printer at any kind of consistent level.

It's certainly been a strange year. But now, onto the next...