The last week or so, I've been logging on. Sometimes intermittently, other times hours at a time. Usually I don't see anyone, which isn't surprising. I've been gone a few months, but really, even before that, I rarely saw more than a couple of people. So maybe some of you actually check in here, maybe you don't, I just want to shout this into space, and see if I can hear the echo.

I really like video games, I'm sure I'm not the only one, but it's sort of a thing with me. An addiction, if I'm being honest. (Don't give me that look, if you can have a gambling addiction...) It's the feeling of excitement that surrounds a new game that gets me. I'm getting to the point, promise.

When I was younger, I played Akanbar a lot. I mean, like, 8+ hours a day, sometimes. It was my home, it was where my friends were. It was active, alive, and bustling. I miss it terribly at times. It was more than that though. Akanbar was the first game I'd experienced that gave and gave. There was never really an end to it, and I could keep playing it forever. Really, that was fortunate - I never really had any money of my own, and new games were exceedingly rare. Akanbar was really my whole world at that time.

These days though, I work a full time job. It doesn't pay a lot, but there's always at least a little left over, so I can buy my own games. Between having the freedom to buy things for myself, and having so little free time that I feel like I don't have enough time to do half the things I want to... well, I'm sure many of you feel the same. That's why Akanbar has so few players these days.

Akanbar has become the game I play, when I don't have any other games to play. When my mind is free of tethers, and I don't feel bound up in a dozen other things. That's when I play now. I don't play because I played the day before, I play because I really, deeply want to. Sometimes that means a month at a time. Other times I only play for a single afternoon.

I've found a new place in my heart for Akanbar, and this week, at least, I can promise I'll be there. Perhaps I won't be the only one?