Alrightgames: Minecraft

Minecraft (Creative Mode)

2011 / PC game / 1 player

****

Long delayed by my hysterical parental concern that it would spell our daughter's irrevocable descent into crippling screen addiction (I don't want her to end up like me), it turned out to be relatively harmless. As long as she stays quarantined in offline Creative mode, anyway. But if she starts seeing the world around her as destructible blocks, I'm yanking her out of the matrix.

Alrightgames: Monster High – Skulltimate Secrets

Monster High: Skulltimate Secrets

2024 / PC game / 1 player

**

It turns out my new laptop can play modern games, at least undemanding 3D platformers, though for sanity we may have to upgrade to a proper mouse and controller (I typed 'joypad' first, before remembering what the 21st-century kids call them).

This game offers nothing if you're not already a fan of the franchise and young enough to be placated by the familiarity, but what else is new? The young fan hasn't asked to play it a second time yet.

Alrightgames: Basic Fantasy Adventure – Taming the Flames (Adapted)

Basic Fantasy Adventure: Taming the Flames (Adapted)

2011 / Roleplaying game adventure / 2+ players

****

A toasty dungeon for a winter evening, I kept the cosy burrow layout (which the player efficiently underutilised as usual), but saved the ill-fated sibling and over-emphasised the theme with fiery baddies drafted from Sylvion and lessons in the folly of combining elemental magics, that should set her straight.

Alrightgames: Basic Fantasy Adventure – Shepherds of Pineford (Adapted)

Basic Fantasy Adventure: Shepherds of Pineford (Adapted)

2008 / Roleplaying game adventure / 2+ players

***

A simple and well-mapped rural scenario that was easy to adapt to our junior pony game after drafting in forest encounters and species-swapped adversaries from other adventures to play hostile vegetation, changing the sheep to pigs because Carcassonne doesn't have sheeples, and tacking on a sickly happy ending where the missing livestock was recovered safe and sound and we all made friends because she's six. Plenty of time for violence and bloodshed later.

Babyliography CCXXX

Heather Nuhfer and Brenda Hickey, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Volume 4

2013-14 (collected 2014) / Ecomics / 106 pages

***

A generic pirate story with a sweet twist ending. We'll get around to the others eventually.

Louise Spilsbury, Collins Big Cat Phonics for Letters and Sounds: Blackcurrant Jam

2019 / School book / 24 pages

**

Comprehensive instructions, phonics practice and '90s primary school hair.

Isabel Thomas, Collins Big Cat Phonics for Letters and Sounds: Living in the Clouds

2022 / School book / 24 pages

***

Valuable lessons in biodiversity, environmental protection and how to pronounce annoying words. I liked how it explained various creature's intuitive adaptations, then concluded with a crazy giraffe weevil without explanation, like they should be able to work that out for themselves.

Various, The Usborne Book of Christmas Carols

2005 / Paperback / 32 pages

****

If you're looking up your childhood Christmas carols book for nostalgia in 2049, it was this one. We got out the Christmas things and the six year old was really taken with these timeless hits, as I remember being at the same age. The downside is that I have to sing her to sleep now, rather than sticking on the My Little Pony music box video while I watch subtitled telly. I bought one with sheet music included, because the idea that I might actually learn to play the piano during her childhood somehow seemed feasible at the time.

Benji Davies, The Storm Whale

2013 / School book / 32 pages

**

Anticlimactic story that turned out to be about feelings rather than adventure. We spent most of the time finding all the cats on page 1.

Babyliography CCXXIX

Danny Pearson and Christian Cornia, Collins Big Cat Phonics for Letters and Sounds: Dark Unicorn

2022 / School book / 24 pages

**

What? Her mandatory phonics book is one she'd happily choose to read anyway?! This is like that time my English teacher got us to write an RPG. Green Day instrumentals provided the backing.

Nick Sharratt, Super Silly Museums

2022 / Library book / 24 pages

**

The Pooseum is the main exhibit, of course.

Nicola Parsons and Karen Sapp, Catch It, Kitty

2015 / School book / 26 pages

*

This is why she shouldn't be allowed to pick her own books.

Samantha Montgomerie, Collins Big Cat Phonics for Letters and Sounds: Sticking Power

2020 / School book / 24 pages

***

The photos were too disgusting for her at first, but she got used to it, like when I finally touched a slug at 18.

Zanna Davidson and Nuno Alexandre Vieira, Fairy Unicorns: Treasure Quest

2022 / Hardback / 112 pages

***

I was pleased to see that one of her favourite literary sagas was treated to a brief revival, even if it meant strapping in for more repetitive and predictable chapters each bedtime, but then it turned out to be a pretty good blend of Knightmare and The Crystal Maze.

Babyliography CCXXVIII

Harriet Muncaster, Isadora Moon and the Shooting Star

2021 / Library book / 150 pages

**

We didn't get far with the superficially similar Amelia Fang, but adding fairy heritage into the mix did the trick.

Various, Rebel Girls 5-Minute Stories

2025 / Library book / 192 pages

**

I sold it on the Taylor Swift entry and she wasn't interested to try any others. Sorry, girls.

Dana Simpson, Punk Rock Unicorn: Another Phoebe and Her Unicorn Adventure

Collected 2023 / Paperback / 176 pages

***

She already likes the Distillers, so you'll have to try harder to shock this six year old.

Alex Hunter, Where's the Poo?

2019 / Paperback / 40 pages

*

This was all my fault. I told her to pick it up from the Morrisons book swap for the sake of it, despite her lack of enthusiasm, and that we'd swap one of her old books or give it back next time. We gave it back.

Ted Anderson, Jeremy Whitley and artists, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Volume 6

2014 (collected 2015) / Ecomics / 106 pages

***

Mostly on brand, with the notable exception of the dialogue-free pet feature, which she conventionally wasn't interested in.

Alrightreads: TV XXII

Mark A. Altman, Captains' Logs: Supplemental – The Next Generation 6th Season Guidebook

1994 / Ebook / 128 pages

***

There isn't much need to read these old books when the best interview quotes are compiled in more comprehensive and up-to-date online equivalents, but sometimes it's nice to pretend I'm 12 again and treating Oracle Books as a library. There's only one season to cover this time, but they make up the page count with unabashed repetition.

Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross, Captains' Logs: Supplemental II – The Next Generation 7th Season Guidebook

1995 / Ebook / 128 pages

***

Amusingly inaccurate cover aside, this is another fine supplement to the other volumes, if weirdly separate.

Paul Leonard, Doctor Who: Genocide

1997 / Audiobook / 281 pages

****

Are we the baddies? If only Doctor Who was all about these convoluted time and moral paradoxes, but I appreciate them when they come around. It strikes a tasteful balance of hopeless morbidity and inappropriate levity and it's a good outing for Sam too, though I could have done without the past companion's extended cameo.

John Peel, Doctor Who: War of the Daleks

1997 / Audiobook / 277 pages

**

Almost a decade after their last redemptive TV appearance, the terrifying salt cellars return for a tedious continuity fest that re-establishes the status quo in the hope that other writers will think of something interesting to do with them.

Chris McDonnell and artists, Steven Universe: End of an Era

2020 / Ebook / 240 pages

****

The essential second half of the documentary artbook.

Alrightreads: Comixxxxxxxxxxxx

Walter Simonson and Sal Buscema, The Mighty Thor, Vol. 4

1986 (collected 2014) / Ecomics / 237 pages

***

I didn't think I needed more Asgardian antics, but Simonson pulled an irresistible gimmick for a few issues, before it gets back to normal, or the closest thing.

Everette Hartsoe and Rick Lyons, Razor: The Suffering

1994-95 (collected 1996) / Ecomics / 80 pages

**

Girl Crow for pervs. Put a cloak on, love.

James Tynion IV and Gavin Fullerton, The Closet

2022 / Ebook / 104 pages

****

The creature wasn't scary, but the anxious child and incompetent parent were disturbingly familiar.

Masaaki Nakayama, PTSD Radio 1

2012 / Ebook / 160 pages

***

If The League of Gentlemen were horror manga.

Abby Howard, The Crossroads at Midnight

2021 / Ebook / 320 pages

****

Graphic creepypastas with effort.

Fave: The Boy from the Sea

Ranking the Agalloch albums & EPs

Everything they did reminded me of other things, but their hodgepodge of blackened neofolk post-metal or something or other was still probably the most iconic soundtrack to my early wanderings in the harsh post-education world. And thanks to a premature break-up, their discography remains distinctive and digestible. Here are my The Top 11 Agalloch Things.