01/01/2022
PokéBattles Sandy version rises from the ashes. View the first battle of a new era of sand on this page. On the navigation bar you can find several links already.
The Sandy Dex contains bios of Sandy's thus far limited cast. The Vault contains links to archives of past incarnations of Sandy Version and other PokéBattles versions I contributed to, along with memories of the experience of writing them, in case your curious. The About page contains a brief rundown of what lead to me starting Sandy again, along with basic information about PokéBattles. Foxfire Version is an external link to Foxfire Version, which is pretty much the main version of PokeBattles as it currently exists, containing both new battles and an attempt to document everything we were doing over a decade ago.
The aim will be to update once a week, mostly Saturdays but if I'm away that might shift forward or back a little. Will I be able to keep it up? Well, I've never had a buffer quite like this before so while I don't know if I'll be able to keep it up long term, there should wind up being a decent chunk of Battles on it even if it falls on its face sooner than I'd like.
08/01/2022
Second battle is now up, and there's now an archive page on the navbar where older battles can be read, along with minor amendments to content in About page and Sandy Dex to reflect these changes and the contents of Battle 2 respectively.
15/01/2022
Third battle is now up.
22/01/2022
Fourth battle is now up.
29/01/2022
If this has actually worked, fifth battle is now up. If it hasn't, bear with me while I figure out how to fix this. On paper this should work, but... We'll see.
05/02/2022
Battle 6 is now up, the first set of five battles now have a title in the archive, and there's been a slight change to when I'm archiving things - The latest battle is now being put directly into the archive rather than waiting until it leaves the home page. This is primarily to make things easier for me to update the Sandy Dex.
12/02/2022
Battle 7 is now up, and there's been a small change to the layout of the past updates - A subnav to jump straight to the month you want, and only using horizontal rules between months. Additionally, a minor change has been made to the Sandy Dex - Horace Hunter should have been before Joanne Bloggs rather than after her.
18/02/2022
Battle 8 is now up in an early update this week, in case storm induced power cuts prevent me from updating on Saturday.
26/02/2022
Battle 9 is up, and we're back to updating on Saturdays, as the weather has returned to relative normalcy.
05/03/2022
Battle 10 is now up.
12/03/2022
No new battle this week. Instead, Sandy Version presents a piece of interactive fiction - Choose Your Own PokéBattle: You Are The Player. A link to which can be found on the main page this week, and in future will be present in the Archive. I've also made a very minor adjustment to the layout of the main page, which might stick around or might just be for occasions like this where the content on the main page is super brief.
19/03/2022
Battle 11 is now up, and a small inconsistency in 'Battles' vs 'Battle' in the archive index has been corrected.
26/03/2022
Battle 12 is now up.
02/04/2022
Battle 13 is now up.
09/04/2022
Battle 14 is now up.
16/04/2022
Battle 15 is now up.
23/04/2022
Battle 16 is now up, and there are some minor changes to the archive index to get all titles onto one line each (also, its no longer inconsistent on if the titles end with full stops or not)
30/04/2022
Battle 17 is now up, and a very minor typo in Battle 16 has been corrected.
07/05/2022
Battle 18 is now up, and Battles 16 and 17 now use 'Published' rather than 'Date' to make them consistent with first 15 Battles.
14/05/2022
Battle 19 is now up.
21/05/2022
Battle 20 is now up.
28/05/2022
No new Battle this week. Sort of. Instead, over in the Vault, you can now find 4 lost battles, written in 2018 and typed up over the past few weeks, or use this direct link to them.
Additionally, the first episode of Digital Sands has been written, and can be accessed from the new submenu on the main page, or just use this direct link instead. What is Digital Sands? A prose Digimon fanfic set within PokéBattles Sandy Version.
But that's not all! A sort of 'author commentary' has been written for Choose Your Own PokéBattle: You Are The Player. That can be found here if you want a quick link. You also now access Choose Your Own PokéBattle: You Are The Player from the index page's submenu as 'Interactive Sands', and reach the commentary that way instead, rather than via the Archive menu.
04/06/2022
Battle 21 is now up.
11/06/2022
Battle 22 is now up.
18/06/2022
Battle 23 is now up.
25/06/2022
Battle 24 is now up.
02/07/2022
Battle 25 is now up.
9/07/2022
Battle 26 is now up, and I've added leading 0s to Battles 1-5 and 6-10 in the main archive menu because the lack of alignment at the start of that list when it naturally became aligned later on was starting to bug me.
16/07/2022
Battle 27 is now up, and the Sandy Dex now has an alphabetical submenu which I'll likely adjust if names change and/or new trainers get added to try and keep each segment between 4-8 characters each. This is mostly so I can check I haven't screwed anything up when I update it each battle easier.
23/07/2022
Battle 28 is now up.
30/07/2022
Battle 29 is now up.
06/08/2022
Battle 30 is now up.
13/08/2022
No battle this week. Instead, Sandy Version presents the Battle Fest Opening over in the archives. Additionally, instead of a battle going up on the 20th, Battle Fest: When Youngsters Collide will be going up over the course of the next week - Five battles, uploaded daily, Monday 15th through Friday 19th. Tune in daily, or wait until the whole thing's over and read as a batch when you usually would next week. Either's good.
15/08/2022
Battle 31, the first battle in the Battle Fest - When Youngster's Collide - is now up. Due to how frequent the uploads are this week, the index page will contain links to the exact spot in the Battle Fest of the battles rather than the battles themselves since it's going to be easy for people to accidentally miss an update.
16/08/2022
Battle 32, the second battle in the Battle Fest - Guardians of the Sand Castle - is now up. Additionally, there were a couple of recent battles (24, 28 and 31) where I forgot the 'youngster' in Joey or Ben's trainer class in the battle header. This has now been corrected.
17/08/2022
Battle 33 is now up, the third battle in the Battle Fest - To be a Master - is now up.
18/08/2022
Battle 34 is now up, the foruth battle in the Battle Fest - Stealing Oneself for Battle - is now up.
19/08/2022
Battle 35 is now up, the final battle in the Battle Fest - Epilogues and Portents - is now up. Normal service of weekly updates on Saturdays will resume on the 27th.
27/08/2022
Battle 36 - Dinner and a Dance - is now up.
03/09/2022
Battle 37 - Shooting Stars at Problems - is now up. Also, the letter categories for quicklinks in the Sandy Dex have been adjusted.
10/09/2022
Battle 38 - Iconic Sounds - is now up.
17/09/2022
Battle 39 - Forms and Shadows - is now up.
24/09/2022
Battle 40 - Sharing Notes - is now up.
01/10/2022
No new Battle this week. Instead, over in the archive there's now author commentary on the first arc of this incarnation of Sandy Version - A Tail of Two Youngsters.
08/10/2022
Battle 41 - Sticks and Stones - Is now up.
15/10/2022
Battle 42 - The City's Flame - Is now up.
22/10/2022
Battle 43 - Spirited Brothers - Is now up.
27/10/2022
Battle 44 - The Voice in the Forest - Is now up.
05/11/2022
Battle 45 - Knotty Problems - Is now up.
12/11/2022
Battle 46 - Centaurs and Sentries - Is now up.
19/11/2022
Battle 47 - Poached Eggs - Is now up.
26/11/2022
Battle 48 - A Sting Operation - Is now up.
03/12/2022
Battle 49 - Plenty of Fish in the Sea - Is now up.
10/12/2022
Battle 50 - One Shall Return - Is now up.
17/12/2022
No new battle this week. Instead, the Vault now contains commentary on Classic Sandy Battles 1-9, including the tournament.
24/12/2022
Battle 51 - One Has Returned - Is now up.
31/12/2022
Battle 52 - Delaying Tactics - Is now up.
And that marks a full year of weekly updates for this incarnation of Sandy Version - Not always with a battle, sometimes with bonus content instead (although I hit 52 battles in a year as well thanks to also having a week of updates each weekday instead of on the Saturday) - but 52 updates. Considering when I started writing these in the final three weeks of 2021 I was expecting to be passing the 3-4 I wrote over to Hiber as fan battles for Phantom when I realized I didn't have it in me like I did in 2001, I'm extremely happy with this level of output.
I've been trying to get back into a rhythm with writing for about five years now, and I've clearly managed to this past year.