I have long sought to develop a metric to determine whether or not a video game was “worth it” other than the extremely subjective “it felt worth it” scale. A lot of proposed scales use things like “dollars per hour” using the average hours to completion for the game. Other metrics try to tie it to replayability or how many times per week you play the game. One metric proposed by Brian David Gilbert when he still worked for Polygon involved creating his own units and figuring out what was the best game of the year because it had the highest score after being run through his incredibly complex equation. All of these are certainly useful metrics to some people or at least funny to try applying, but I am beginning to think that it might be impossible to actually come up with a true metric for if a game was worth the price in cases where it isn’t clear one way or the other.
Continue readingMonth: January 2022
The Perfect Grocery Hour
There are times when I feel like my hunt for a good time to go grocery shopping is like hunting a mythological creature. You are certain it exists (why hunt for it, if you’re unsure?) because of the experiences of others or because you’re certain you once saw it yourself. You try to find patterns in its appearance, but the moment you think you’ve nabbed it, it slips from your grasp. Science and logic and reason are no use, largely proven useless by their failure to produce results but still tools you rely on since you tried randomly searching and that didn’t help either. And then, just when you’re ready to give up, to pack it in and join the group that claims it doesn’t exist at all, something happens to renew your certainty.
Continue readingWithholding Information At The Table
There is a seductive delight in knowning something someone else does not and wishes to. As studies of behavior on the internet have taught us, most people’s motivation for engaging with people on the internet outside of their social circles is to feel superior to other people. Is it any wonder that some people find it difficult to share information that they alone lay claim to? Is it any wonder that some people fall prey to the delight of withholding information someone else wants in order to drive some tension and drama into what might otherwise be a calm, peaceful moment? Even I am not immune to the allure of gently taunting someone with knowledge I have the power to share or withhold.
Continue readingMusings of a Valheim Architect.
My main Valheim-playing associate, the same person who hosts our server when it is running, and I built a nice castle on the side of a mountain. It sits right at the edge of where the “Meadows” biome meets the “Mountain” biome, so we had to do a lot of work to keep it properly heated and safe from the various nefarious beasties of the mountain tops. There are a few exposed areas, but all intentionally so. One is the top portion of half the structure, set up as a landing with decorative crenellations looking over the approach up the side of the mountain to the castle’s main door. Much of the view is obstructed by trees or the rising slope of the mountain behind us, but it is a comfortable place to stand and greet anyone who might approach.
Continue readingWatching The Hype Train Pass Me By (Except for Kirby Games, Apparently)
I am not a great follower of video game news. I find hype of all sorts odious when it is manufactured to create a buzz for something that does not yet exist in the hands of the audience, and that seems to be almost the entirety of video game marketing these days. As a result, I’ve grown accustomed to finding out about the release of games I’ve been anticipating in the last week or two before their release. Most of my friends even know not to include me in their hype events or discussions unless there’s something concrete for us to discuss like a release date, an actual gameplay trailer, or a demo. I’ve made my peace with living on my back foot like this, to finding out about games sometimes long after they’ve released, and I feel now that it isn’t a bad way to live.
Continue readingThe Horror Game Is Off To a Great Start!
After approximately a month and a half, I got to return to my main weekly D&D campaign and run the next session (the first full session) in the extra-universal domain I built way back in 2020 when I was bored due to only working alternate weeks. I set up a whole mystery thing I was going to unveil for a different campaign since one of my core players loved mysteries, but she wound up withdrawing from the campaign because only doing stuff online became too much for her, so I recycled it into a different D&D campaign. Now, one kidnapping and a side character later, my players have fully immersed themselves in a world of betentacled eyeball sunrises, screams instead of clock chimes to mark passing hours, and a massive mystery to solve before the constant wear of terror and nothingness grinds down their very souls.
Continue readingI Needed A Rest
Turns out the last post that went up was my 600th post. It feels very appropo that it was about trains and death metaphors, but I do wish I’d realized before it went up. I’m pretty sure I could have come up with something specific to 600 even as exhausted and foggy as I was last week, and then I’d have had an extra post and a smaller gap between blog posts.
Continue readingThere’s an Old Black Train A-Comin’
I’ve rewatched Over The Garden Wall again. This time, I watched it with two of my siblings and got to enjoy the “I hate you but thank you” experience of introducing people to something they wind up loving. It was good to be able to enjoy things with people again, and then talk about it afterwards. I’m still looking for someone who has also listened to the latest season of Friends At The Table as well, so I can talk about trains, death metaphors, and near-death experiences, but I thought I could meet at least part of that need by reflecting on death in literature here.
Continue readingRambling About Stress, Student Debt, and The New Year
Well, it’s the new year. Officially and completely. Both as I’m writing this and as it goes up. I am definitely not past writing the wrong year, yet. I rarely write the year on anything other than journal entries and I’ve been too busy to spend time sitting around journaling. Which isn’t technically true, I suppose, since I had time for other sitting around. I haven’t chosen to spend time journaling yet, is more accurate. And my blog schedule is a bit off kilter since I took a few days off for the holidays and this past work week is unusual, so I will be low on energy and might miss a few more days. In truth, I have no idea when this will go up, since I’m not sure how many blog posts I’ll get done and how I’ll sort them all out. Or what days I might decide to skip.
Continue readingThis, The Year of Our Pandemic, 2022
It can be difficult to nail down a change in perspective. Sometimes, you know the change was within you. You see the world a different way now. Some part of how you interact with and perceive the world is different. Sometimes, the world has changed, either gradually or suddenly doesn’t matter since you tend to notice it all at once regardless. What is within your view has been altered and now things look different to eyes that have largely remained the same. Sometimes, the world hasn’t changed and you haven’t changed, but you’ve noticed something for the first time.
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