It finally happened. I reached the end of Horizon Zero Dawn! It was a fun journey with a story as rich as the games graphics. I’m glad Sony made this available for PC players. I’m going to give this a glowing recommendation when I’m capable of not being sleepy. Next time I play, it’ll be for NG+. Until then, the Forbidden West is next on the Horizon.
Riders High: Palworld
Went paling around tonight to kick off the weekend! This was probably our most crashiest playthrough, but after the first few crashes things seemed to stabilize. We caught a few more pals, killed some for leather… and as a means of survival. Will have to science out why the crashes occur. There was an update that may have made a mod or two unstable.
Late Night Open Thread
Too tired to write anything of note. It’s been an exhausting last couple of days, but after tomorrow I can get some proper rest. I might have to treat myself to some more Ruby Sunrise. 🙂 That recipe was so good that I wouldn’t mind treating myself to it again! Maybe I’ll even have time to make some Blue Light Pudding for dessert!
Open Thread!
Some Like It Hot
Yesterday Ex-Zodiac received an update that introduces their 10th level: Caldera! I did two runs in it but haven’t found the hidden data chip. This is definitely a harder world, and it will take some practice to conquer. I might practice on my Steam Deck during lunch tomorrow if I don’t get sucked into what may or may not be one of the metroidvanias I need to finish. :v
In The Palm of Their Hand
Don’t have much to write about tonight. I poured today’s angst into the Hydra boss battle in 9 Years of Shadows. Took me awhile to time it right, each time I died I always lasted a little bit longer. Though there were a couple of times where I would be near the end of the boss battle and still manage to choke. I almost rage quit, but I rampaged until I achieved what I came for, despite flubbing up a few times during battle. I would post the video, but it’s a bit long-ish and I don’t feel like adding it to my YouTube channel.
9 Years of Shadows: First Impressions
I know… I have multiple metroidvanias in my never ending collection of entertainment that I meed to finish. But after watching a friend play this one evening I KNEW I had to give it a go! The game is called “9 Years Of Shadows”. A tale about a land and its people who are cursed into shadow. You play as a young woman named Europa, who befriends a ghostly teddy bear and proceeds to kick all kinds of ass throughout the castle holding three elements you have to find in order to dispel the curse and return the land to all of its colorful glory… or something.
As you play through the game, you find different relics and armors that will help you move about the castle a bit easier. So far I’ve only unlocked The Grace of Zeus and the Poseidon Armor. Then I found a relic that could be used with the latter armor I found that allows me to assume a siren form, granting me the ability to swim about the underwater mazes. You can also use the armor to swim up waterfalls!
My adventure started off a bit rocky. I played on my desktop and for whatever reason the camera refused to follow Europa. To make sure I wasn’t missing anything I launched the game on my Steam Deck where everything worked just fine. Then after quitting I started it again on my desktop and everything was peachy. I’m not sure if it had something to do with my screen resolution, or that I had a high frame rate. At a glance I had read that this game does have some bugs. Hopefully I don’t have to run into anymore of them. My friend who is much further into it hasn’t run into any issues with it yet, so fingers crossed.
Despite some off the issues I mentioned above I really like the game so far. The visuals have a retro-ish touch to them, the music is beautiful, and the cutscenes are not only well done, but do a good job of telling the overall story. So far I’m impressed with what I’ve seen!
Modding Palworld!
It was inevitable, but we broke into modding territory in Palworld. We’ve mostly done some tweaking to make some off the survival mechanics less annoying. Items no longer need to be repaired after long use, carry weight is no longer a problem… and off course some model/clothing replacements here and there.
We did have to remove a couple of mods that caused the game to crash directly to desktop, but after we deleted a couple mods it was smooth sailing for the rest of the night. Out of all the mods we looked through I really enjoy Photo Mode. I kept asking myself why this game didn’t have one, given that it’s an Unreal Engine game. Then when we explored the terrain a little deeper I understood why.
We found caves that lead to the outside of the world, trees floating where they shouldn’t and other atrocities beyond the 4th wall. It’s moments like those that reminded us that this is still an Early Access title. Even with the glitches we are still having fun though!
Taking Cooking To New Horizons
It’s been awhile since I’ve made a cooking post, hasn’t it? Last spring I pre-ordered the Official Horizon Cookbook as a nice birthday present to myself, and now I finally broke it out and made a nice breakfast with it! They have a recipe in the book called Ruby Sunrise, which is basically a Shakashuka recipe.
Poached eggs in a tomato sauce with onions, bell peppers and warm seasonings. This particular recipe called for anchovy paste, which to me just tastes like salt. Instead I swapped out for a chipotle paste I have on hand. Not only does it have enough salt, it also gave it a smoky taste that paired well with the paprika.
To make it a little more filling I made some quinoa, and served the tomatoey goodness atop a bed of it with some sourdough slices on the side. The best part was that I made enough leftovers for tomorrow! I might have to make this a reoccurring weekend breakfast. I’m always a fan of eggs and tomatoes in one form or another.
Tom(ala) Catting Around
I’ve been playing Little Kitty, Big City and thinking to myself this masterpiece is missing a Photo Mode. Then tonight I unlocked it in a side quest! Also got a large selection of achievements while exploring tonight – only 19 more and that’ll be it. Still have much to find, items to break, and so many other cat things to do. :3
The Great Maketh Over
After sleeping on it last night, or attempting to sleep rather… I ended up having enough inspiration to tackle the blog. After looking through what felt like endless corporate type templates I decided to go back and look at the selection from Cryout Creations. I’ve used their templates for years, and had to part away from the old template after it hadn’t been updated in over a year. The good news is they finally updated all of their templates within the last couple of months! Which means fewer security issues and an Overlord giving their site a makeover.
It still needs some fine tuning in a couple places, but I think I’ll keep this one for awhile. Or at least until I find a template that doesn’t look like it’s for an e-commerce or business site. It feels like those are the majority of WordPress templates these days.