As I’ve been trying to make my job less mentally taxing and find ways to reinvest myself in the work I’m doing that actually pays bills, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to test software and what it means to play video games in beta or early access. I’m not going to go on another full rant about it, not so soon after the last one, anyway, but given how much of my life is given to testing software and how much is given to video games, it’s difficult to avoid considering the place those two things intersect.
Continue readingVideo Gaming
I Never Wrote About Valheim
I have been updating my blog for two months and eleven days. A more merciful schedule means that I have posted sixty-one times in those seventy-two days. Things have progressed to the point where I no longer feel like this is something I need to do every day. This isn’t a task to fulfill, though writing and editing are on my daily to-do lists, but so is making my bed, washing my masks, and driving to work. Updating constantly, unless I need a break (and I guess I’m just taking Sundays off, since that is the pattern that seems to be emerging), no longer takes up psychic space.
Continue readingThis One’s a Mulligan
I want to write about interesting stuff. Fun games I’ve played, cool D&D moments, problems I’ve overcome, things I’m working through, etc. The problem is, my life is kinda stagnating right now (or at least it sure feels like it!) since the only thing I’m really doing is listening through all of Friends At The Table and playing video games. Few of my D&D games have actually occurred lately and not much major has happened in any of them. The only interesting parts of them I could mention are things that I shouldn’t mention because some of my players might read this blog. I can’t reveal too many details here until after they’re no longer relevant. And all I have to say about Friends At The Table right now is that it is absolutely lovely, some of the best storytelling I’ve ever heard, and y’all should be listening to it if you like Actual Play experiences.
Continue readingI’m Tired and Sad, So Let’s Talk About The Legend of Zelda: Episode 6
This time, I’m not as sad as I am tired. I got my teeth fixed up the day before writing this, after over a year of problems that are (maybe) finally resolved, and I made myself a nice dinner of food I’d been avoiding because of the chewing involved. And promptly gave myself food poisoning. A saga fit for a sitcom, truly. It kept me up late into the night and I’ve spent the day as a largely useless lump doing his best to keep up with the world around him, so let’s talk about something I could almost literally write about in my sleep: the music of the Legend of Zelda franchise.
Continue readingWe All Float On A Raft
I’ve recently started playing Raft again. The original crew I got into the game with no longer plays it, and it’s not exactly fun to play alone once you’ve progressed through most of the plot (or even as you’re progressing through the plot, given that fighting a bear alone sucks). Recently, though, I managed to convince some friends to give the game a shot and while the tedium of early survival sure hit hard, it was fun to hang out with my friends and play a cooperative game.
Continue readingIt Was Worth It, Just To Pet The Foxes
So, there was this game, yeah? Ghost of Tsushima? Seemed pretty neat, cause you could ride around, explore, fight people with swords, and sneak around killing people. Lotta people kept saying it was a “Souls-Like” and that kinda pushed me away ’cause I dislike Souls-Likes. Wow, you rolled away from damage and were invicible for two frames and then got curb-stomped by some random mook during your fifty recovery frames because who gives a shit about fun when you can prove to the world that you’re a real badass by punishing yourself via video game? Just not my scene, ya know?
But then I learned you could pet the foxes.
Continue readingDawn of the Second Play
After over three years, I’ve finally returned to Horizon Zero Dawn. I bought it back in 2018, started playing it, and then stopped because of some overly critical comparisons to Breath of the Wild (which I had just finished replaying) and a significant frustration that it LOOKED like I could climb anywhere if I did it right, but the game wouldn’t really let me do that. I never really got back to it because one of my roommates played through it and I dislike playing anything that he’s played where he can watch because he is terrible at not spoiling things. Just the worst. He makes a lot of comments and they’re all revealing rather than clever, plus he has very particular opinions about plotting and world building that I don’t necessarily agree with.
Continue readingSo Interesting It’s Fun
So, I’ve been playing more Satisfactory. In fact, I spent an entire weekend doing nothing but playing Satisfactory (I mean, I also ate meals, did laundry, slept, and so on, but I didn’t do any other leisure activities). I’m still not sure if I can say I’m having fun or enjoying myself, but the game definitely keeps me engaged and focused in a way little else does these days. Sure, part of that is that I’ve been incredibly stressed by work–and life in general–lately, to the point of needing to just escape at all costs, but part of it is the huge appeal of logic puzzles and managing to scrape order and efficiency you can actually see out of a chaotic mess. Or, sometimes, exulting in the chaos that has order only in your eyes because you built it, block by block.
Continue readingI’m Tired and Sad, So Let’s Talk About The Legend of Zelda: Episode 5
I really ought to rename this entire series to reference Breath of the Wild since it’s the main game I’m going to be talking about. I considered it during the inception of the second “episode,” but I didn’t want to take any options off the table so early in this series. Maybe I’ll eventually write about the music of the franchise or the way that loss and self-sacrifice play a part in every iteration of this story. Or maybe I’ll just forever write about Breath of the Wild because there’s just so much to say about this huge game. Like the introduction of falling stars and the somewhat mystic mechanics that exist around them (at least until you look them up online, anyway).
Continue readingA Very Satisfying Game
I love a good survival/building game. Played a lot of Ark when it first came out (even ran a server for half a year), I’m constantly going back to Minecraft, I’ve gotten a lot of fun out of Raft, and Valheim was a great diversion for a while and continues to be with each major update they put out. These days, I’ve started getting into SatisFactory which seems less focused on the survival thing and more focused on the endless production thing. I don’t need to gather food (though food-like things can be used to make stuff that isn’t food), monitor my energy, or even be too wary of natural predators. I can just endlessly pursue production and efficiency.
Continue reading