Ruining It For Everyone Else Since 2004
Returned to the battlegrounds of Trick & Tear! Finished a couple of levels before calling it a night. I’ve spent so much time Quakeing and Castlevainiaing that I haven’t given myself time to go over this deadly wad of deadliness. As usual there are more pictures in my post over at Mastodon, or your choice of Fediverse.
After last night’s long ass battle in Castlevania I wanted to take a break from the series… kinda. I’m still in a Metroidvania type mood, and when scanning my library of infinite entertainment I landed on Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon. Unlike Ritual of the Night, Curse of the Moon stays closer to the old school.
In Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon you play as Zangetsu, a demon slayer who doesn’t take too kindly to demons or anything/anyone inhabiting demonic energy. He bears a deep grudge and seeks a powerful demon in an evil castle. As Zangetsu travels the unforgiving lands he later meets up with characters that also hail from Ritual of the Night.
Curse of the Moon is neither a sequel or a prologue to the first game, but rather a spinoff. At the time of writing I’ve only beaten the first stage, and now that I’m playing a more modern retro-like game I’m not able to rely on save states. I’m not sure how long this will take me to finish, I can’t help but admire how much effort they put into making this look and feel like something that should play on an NES. If I put my mind to it I’m sure I can beat it!
I was determined to kick Dracula’s ass… and after a few hours of bitching out the screen in constant failure I succeeded! The worst part was Dracula spawning on top of me, but eventually I psyched him out until I got him to show his final form. The second part was actually pretty easy to do compared to Dracula’s teleportation bullshit at the start of the boss battle. But now I can finally say that I BEAT CASTLEVANIA!!!… and I have the achievement to prove it! Sooooo glad I could use save states.
One day while doomscrolling through the Fediverse I came upon Indika; A game about a young girl named Indika, who happens to be a nun in an alternate 19th century Russia. She goes on a journey of self discovery, and meets an unlikely companion along the way. Indika is an indie title with a team so dedicated to finishing their project that they (10 out of 14) had to flee their homeland of Russia in order to finish it. That alone made me curious to see what this game had to offer.
When you start the game it doesn’t take too long to realize that Indika is an outcast amongst her own. She’s forced to reside along a coven of bitchy babushka nuns, and performs tasks her sisters give to her. All the while she is narrated by The Devil himself, who is also a voice in her head. Eventually Indika has to leave the church to go on a journey of self discovery. When Indika isn’t wandering the frozen lands looking for items for basic puzzle solving, she relives childhood flashbacks in a more pixelated environment.
When the game starts she actually falls through space, and later she has a flashback with her father and their oven powered bicycles. The game also gives you the option of collecting points that don’t do anything… or do they?
So far it has been a interesting, unique adventure. Like if classic Resident Evil centered around a nun who goes on regular acid trips. It has the right level of intrigue and horror for me to recommend checking out during Spooktober!
My latest go-to for nursing a sour stomach is a hot bowl of rice and some miso soup. I cracked an egg over the rice, and some toasted nori and soy sauce for added flavor. It also doubles as a quick and easy breakfast, so I’ve been making sure to make some extra rice just in case. It seems like my stomach gets irritated every other day. We’ve been having more processed food lately, mostly due to time constraints and fatigue from working at a corporate hell hole.
That’s a story for a whole other post, preferably when I find another job.
Put a little bit of time into chipping away at Castlevania. I’m really glad they allow you to save whenever you want via the emulator, because if I played this back when it originally released I probably wouldn’t of had the patience to complete it. I had to watch a video to get some tips on how to “git gud” and it seems Holy Water is the perfect weapon. There are only 18 stages in the game, and so far I’ve made it to stage 13 before saving and calling it a night. I might consider grinding it more tomorrow, or if I’m too irritated with it switch to another Castlevania/Metroidvania. I’m so glad the newer ones have save rooms…
Not really feeling it tonight. I came home from work feeling on the slight opposite of good, and I have a bad feeling it will pour over into tomorrow. Gaming just didn’t sound good tonight, even titles that wouldn’t cause motion sickness had to be left on the table. Instead I focused on videos for next month and a New Year’s video for December. Just going through the footage, any other ideas will have to wait for a day when I’m in less pain. Time to sip some tea, read for awhile, and maybe work on something computer related before bed.
Open Thread!
Returned to modded Quake and successfully finished a couple of maps in the 2019 Quake Jam. This one had all kinds of Halloween vibe, tough and fair overall. I think it’s time for me to take a break from this universe though, it has consumed my weekend and it’s time to move onto something else.
Thanks to our collaborative efforts we successfully beat Quake together! It’s the first time for the both of us. I’ll still have to complete the game alone to get achievements, but it was great to finally experience co-op for Quake! Next time we play we’ll have the expansions to tackle, and maybe even some addons. I’ll have to see how possible it is to play custom maps together. We’ll probably need vkQuake to pull it off properly.
I’ve had Quake so much on the brain today that I added the maps to SFM. Unfortunately they didn’t have proper HDR lighting, which SFM needs for it to load properly. So I ended up learning how to decompile Valve maps, and then learning how to recompile them with HDR. It’s actually easier than it sounds. Next time I find a map that I want to use I won’t have the lack of HDR to stop me!
Introduced a friend to the world of Quake this evening! We made it three episodes in before calling it a night, had a fun time blowing things up and finding secrets. We played the Remastered Version just so they could get a feel for the controls. One of these days I’ll have to see how well we can co-op with mods! Speaking of…
I finished up the 2018 Halloween Jam, so it only made sense to see what the 2019 Halloween Jam had to offer. It starts off very similarly to the 2018 version, but it has even more maps. I’ve only played a few of them so far. The level design is incredible, if not even better than the previous year.
My current favorite is The Outhouse. It features a shitter that takes you to another dimension. Traverse the void and interrupt a Satanic ritual, and eventually fight the outhouse after it transforms into a demon. Amazing what people can come up with for a game that was released decades ago.