I spent most of my weekend streaming and trying to get back into The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. It wound up working, thanks to me stumbling from what I thought was just exploring something that looked interesting into recruiting a new sage. I sat down at just before midnight on Saturday with the thought to take an hour, work out how much ground I’d maybe need to go over again thanks to playing my first eighty hours without the sensor, and then do my actual best to reinvest myself in my existing save file. The deal I’d made with myself was that if I put in a genuine effort and still couldn’t get myself caught back up in the game, I’d allow myself to start the game over and then spend most of my stream time doing major quests and storyline stuff while my offline gaming would be exploration, shrine hunting, and resource collection. About four and a half hours later, as I blearily looked out my window at the lightening sky while I finally shut my Switch off, I knew I was back in it for good. Being back into the game felt nice enough that I didn’t even mind royally messing up my sleep schedule during what was supposed to be a proper recovery weekend.

Likewise, it felt nice to finally be able to put together a streaming schedule. It’s currently pretty busy, with me streaming on Mondays and Wesndesays from 7:30pm to 10:30pm, Fridays from 7 to 11pm, and then Saturdays and Sundays from 1 to 5pm (all in Central Time), but I’ll probably shift it around as my schedule changes. Currently I’m playing in an in-person Dungeons and Dragons game on Tuesdays, an Elden Ring themed D&D game on the occasional Thursday, and a Pathfinder Second Edition game every other Sunday evening. If any of that shifts or if I wind up adding another regular tabletop roleplaying game to my week, my streaming schedule will probably shift around as well. It’s also currently my backup activity, for when other plans get cancelled, so I might stream more than I have scheduled, but I plan to at least stream during the time’s I’ve scheduled (or post in my various social media accounts that I will be taking the day off).

Currently, I’m doing a New Game in my brand spanking new PS5 version of Ghost of Tsushima. I’m a few hours in at this point, but still very much in the early game. I’d tossed a few options at my discord server, to see what they’d like to watch, and they all picked PS5 gaming rather than watching me potentially restart my Tears of the Kingdom file, do more Wildermyth Story Time (which I’m guessing wasn’t super popular the few times I did it), or play a new popular game (Diablo IV, which I’ve been enjoying in my personal gaming time). Since I am trying to focus on things that are restorative or at least rewarding with little emotional complexity, I decided I’d restart streaming with one of my favorite games of all time, which I’m also fairly decent at when I’m not fumbling the controls like I was on Sunday (mostly thanks to being up until dawn, but also partly thanks to trying to adjust to a new controller shape). So far, it has been a lot of fun, though I think I’m mostly missing the visual upgrades because I’m playing via the display of my game capture program (which keeps the quality a little bit lower in order to be less taxing on my PC) rather than my TV or the stream.

While I plan to largely stick with Ghost of Tsushima, I might mix in some other stuff. Maybe a little bit of D4 here or there, so I can enjoy the game myself. Maybe some Wildermyth when I’m feeling more narratively focused. Definitely a bit of of Valheim, or maybe some Minecraft or Animal Crossing, when I need something simple to unwind. I haven’t really figured out what games will be played when, in terms of my new schedule, so I’ll probably just wing it for a while since it’s not like any of this gaming is contingent on other people, days of the week, or minimum time commitments. I can do just about anything in any of my scheduled streaming times, since they’re all at least three hours or more. Who knows, maybe I’ll even work some TotK in there, if I’m feeling particularly focused on it. It feels weird to me, though, to have people dropping in and out of a streamed game since there’s always plot and stuff that happens when they’re not watching. I always feel like I should be attempting to catch people up on what they’ve missed or at least summarizing what I’ve been doing during the stream up to that point. Maybe this is an inclination that will shift or go away with time, but right now I keep explaining what’s going on to every new person who shows up and comments. At least that’s better than that time I forgot I had muted my microphone when I went to go take a bathroom break and spent an hour talking to myself afterwards.

Anyway, I’m back at it again, finally. Playing fun video games, streaming fun video games, and trying to find ways to fill my time that are personally rewarding. I’ve got about a month before there’s anything on my calendar and a 4-day weekend coming up (the first through the fourth of July), so I should have plenty of time to rest up before things potentially get hectic again. That said, it’s not like I predicted most of the hectic periods of this past year. I guessed at a couple of them, sure, but most of them where a complete surprise. I’m just hoping there are no new surprises anytime soon. It’d be really nice to just have a calm month for once, especially now that I’m finally sleeping without earplugs again.