About Freyashawk and this Site

I created the name Freyashawk back in the old dial up AOL days and used it first for a wonderful side scroller named Claw.  Monolith had its own board for Claw and more significant, the game came with a Levels Editor so players could create custom levels for the game.  I created

a number of levels of my own and wrote little stories to go with them.

It was a few years later that I began to play my first Harvest Moon game.  It was Friends of Mineral Town.  

A little girl named Freya was playing it and wanted to marry Ann.  She was frustrated because she could not find Ann always and Ann too often did not care for the gifts she gave her.  So I began to play FoMT and keep a journal as though it were my life...

Freya was able to court and marry Ann and even have a child.  I think she was about 8 at the time.

Somehow I became aware that IGN had published a guide to the game.  It had errors in it, so I reached out to them to point out the details that were not accurate.  I was asked if I wrote strategy guides.  I told them about the journal I had written and then was asked if I wanted to write guides for them.  

I had become very fond of Harvest Moon and I was willing to receive advance cartridges from Natsume so I could work on a guide and tell them about any glitches before the official release.

As the years passed, I wrote over 250 guides that were published on IGN.  I wrote one printed guide for another Harvest Moon game.  I did not like having to organise tables and spreadsheets and that was a big part of the Penguin Brady guides.  It makes sense as information is readily available but I enjoy writing and am not very good at formatting because frankly I hate it.

I absolutely loved the compact tiny GBA Advance system but the DS became my favourite.  Moreover, I discovered quickly that Rune Factory catered more to my passions than Harvest Moon.  I loved going into the wilds to defeat Monsters and find rare materials.  I Ioved forging weapons and accessories.  In the so-called 'real world', I had designed both edged weapons and jewellery and I practiced fencing and martial arts when I was quite young.

There were three different reasons why I stopped writing guides for Rune Factory and Harvest Moon.

1. My contact at IGN left.  I wrote the guides but he always formatted them for publication.

2.  All my sites were hacked by one of my oldest friends and I was diagnosed with cancer and went through the awful treatment during the same period.  (Hacking is an invasion of privacy and to me constitutes rape.  Nothing less.)  Incidentally, some one else stole my name of Freyashawk and went about in Animal Farm during the pandemic being rude to other players.  It was NOT me and I would consign that person to every virtual hell for doing that.  I was no even aware my accounts had been hacked for a long time.  Cancer and its tratments can do that to a person... one just tends to focus on survival for awhile.

3.  The Switch was introduced and Rune Factory and Harvest Moon games then were released for the Switch.   I absolutely hated the controls and the navigation.  Playing even a game I knew well that originally was released for the DS was frustrating.

My health was poor and pain levels interfered more and more with my enjoyment of anything I loved.  I developed problems with my vision to the point where I lost all depth perception and was almost blind.  Surgical procedures finally restored and even improved my vision.  

When Guardians of Azuma was released, a friend who liked my guides back in the day asked if I wanted to play it.  I was reluctant because she had sent me other games for the Switch that ultimately I had not played.  

I owe her a great deal for continuing to tell me about Guardians of Azuma.  She said she was hoping I would write a guide for it.

The moment I began to play it, I fell in love with it.  It reminds me most of Rune Factory Frontier but I think it is better.

At the moment, I am writing casual posts that are notes for myself and another friend whom I hoped would play this fabulous game.  I would like to transform them into detailed walkthroughs with posts that are devoted to specific aspects of the game.  Whether I complete this project or not depends on physical health probably more than anything.  Whether any one actually reads or uses them is irrelevant.

This is my record of a life that currently is far better and more beautiful than my real life.  It is one of the most empowering experiences I have had in a long time.  

I do not encourage any one to run away from life.  In my youth, I was fearless.  I was willing to change direction and explore new places and paths without hesitation.  There were ordeals and heartbreaks but my life in my youth was both interesting and exciting.  I was invested in human rights as well, and that meant it was never all about me.

Now, however, I have experienced so much loss in terms of much that was dear to me as well as my own physical being.  If Guardians of Azuma can keep the 'black dog' from my door, it may be the greatest blessing possible here and now.

If it can be a little window for others into a world filled with beauty, romance and ultimate victory against the forces of ruin, then this effort on my part will have a little more value than serving simply to amuse me.