Actually managed to be productive today! Thanks to preemptive pain management, a good breakfast and about a gallon of tea I powered my way through some cleaning today. Not as much as I wanted to do, but enough to feel less claustrophobic.
Other than that I got a good chunk of animation done and played a tiny bit of Crash Bandicoot: Warped! Collected a few gems; two silver, one gold. Also did some time trials, managed to get gold status on a couple of them. I’m at 62% completion, one hour earlier I was at 58% Now that I’m a little over half way there I’ll probably visit a different game world tomorrow night. 🙂
Now that I’ve figured out how to disable the UI I’ve been able to take some really decent photos! This game has so many beautiful sights to take in, and we’ve barely scratched the surface.
I helped a bard and was treated to a private concert. We also helped a child escape a few annoying harpies at the beach, and even attended Burning Man.
Of course it wasn’t ALL fun and games… in Baldur’s Gate 3, anyway. I did refine some animation today, and even played a little bit of Neon White for the first time in months. 😛 Mainly trying to Platinum a couple of levels I had Gold Rank on. I might actually finish that game at some point this year! 😛
I decided to give my Steam Deck some attention today, just to kill off the rest of the battery before doing a recharge. Returned to BloodRayne after a long reprieve, and actually made it a couple levels further. The fighting seems a lot easier compared to the second game, but then again I am only a few levels in. I think in BloodRayne 2 I left off a few levels away from the end. I vow to return to it when I’m done being pissed off at it.
Towards the evening I met up with Yutram again to continue our long journey to rid ourselves of the dreaded cthulu parasites. We lost a couple battles, won some unexpected ones, saved a couple NPC’s from flames, and met my watermelon colored guardian and got a little digital shut-eye.
We had another fun evening venturing the world of Baldur’s Gate! This time at a more leisurely pace, though the glitched gods did smite Yutram with a game crash we did manage to persevere.
Of course, they did bless him with a charming performance.While my character was partaking in BDSM to earn a special blessing, the Dom was facing the wrong direction on Yutram’s screen, resulting in an extremely derpy dominatrix facing away from my severely albino half high elf. I actually kinda envied his POV. Other than that, we survived a few battles and freed a bard. Also emptied our collections of random junk to a trader for some extra coin. I’m already looking forward to the next session!
I got Race The Sun as a freebie I can’t remember how long ago, and I only remembered it when I started getting into Whisker Squadron Survivor when I realized they were the same devs. A few sales ago I even picked up the additional night flight DLC, it was cheap and given that I got the base game for free I figured, why not?
My day lacked much sun. It was a film noir kind of day, fit with the sound of rain and the perfect atmosphere for sloshing down warm beverages. So the idea of racing the sun was an illuminating idea to me. It takes some getting used to, especially since I’m used to the Whisker Squadron layout. But each round I always made it a little bit further! Each new attempt was a new chance to explore the vast landscape of blocks and collectables. It was a nice way to end the evening.
During the work week I like to try and give myself at least one hour of play time before bed. It calms my nerves, gets my mind off things, and gives me a chance of having some form of weird assed dream. Tonight Yutram and I did an impromptu hour of Baldur’s Gate 3. We covered quite a bit of ground, rescued a gnome and found some adorable animals.
Methinks I’ll probably play more of this when the weekend hits. 🙂 It was hard enough to pull myself out of it, but an hour is an hour. I need to sleep so that I may play another hour another day.
But only because it was leftovers from my New Years Eve Brunch. I made a rice pilaf with peppers, onions and cherry tomatoes. Then I placed a fried egg on top and added sliced olives and feta with some bacon on the side. As an added bonus I had plenty leftover to bring some to work today!I have a three day weekend coming up and I’m already brainstorming what my next batch of poison is going to be. I’m sure it’ll be fab either way.
Spent a little over an hour playing more of Crash Bandicoot Warped, and up’d my gem count to 22! Gonna celebrate by taking a break from the game and pondering a different one to play tomorrow. 😛 Maybe one of my new games? Or perhaps something with music? Either way I have options…
I doubt that I’ll beat my gaming streak from last year, but I am already making progress on one of the many adventures that have gone unfinished. I played the third boss battle in Crash 3 Warped, and I actually had a lot of fun with it! To be honest I wasn’t expecting Coco to take the helm and fight off N.Gin, but I managed to make it through without taking a single hit. I showed this screenshot to a friend, and they were surprised this was from a Crash game at all.
It will probably be awhile before I release any video content. I’m still toiling away at two particular projects with no end in sight, at least for a couple of weeks. I ended last year with a game video, and now I think it’s only right to begin it with something more polished. 🙂
2023 was by far the most productive year of gaming I’ve ever had. During the work weeks I would always find time to at least play anywhere between an half an hour to a full one at the end of each evening, just to unwind a little before bed and MAYBE entice my imagination a bit for dreamland. Here is a list of games that I FINALLY got around to finishing, and possibly some ideas for any readers that happen to pass by.
Commander Keen: Episode 1
I’ve been wanting to play this handheld style for almost as long as I’ve been alive, and I only had to wait my whole life to finally achieve it. What’s really interesting is that it has Steam Cloud Support, meaning you can play this in between your other gaming PC’s. I made a custom config for saving, and using DOS commands with the touchpads. I’ve put this one off for far too long, but at least after all this time I can say that I finally finished it. I recommend it for those who have an interest in old school DOS games.
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
Some adventures are best with friends – Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light is amazing both for couch co-op or with a friend elsewhere in the world. Apart from a few bugs it was fun to play! To celebrate finishing it we even made a video about it:
Shadow Warrior 2
This was another game I put off playing for a long time, but I savored every moment of combat and the large selection of weapons and elemental combinations you could put together. They added Photo Mode to showcase how beautiful the game is, something they would take away in Shadow Warrior 3… Overall I enjoyed it just as much as I did the previous installment. It had all of the elements of the Shadow Warrior reboot, with a little bit of Borderlands sprinkled into the mix. If you’re looking for an FPS with a mix of Hack n Slash you need not look any further.
Sayonara Wild Hearts
A birthday gift from a good friend! It was short, but sweet. It tells the story of a girl who fell out of love and goes on a musical journey to find it again after fighting all of her demons that prevented her from wanting to love. I had fun playing this one in between Desktop and Steam Deck. I still go back to it from time to time, the music in it is perfect to vibe to. It’s basically an interactive album.
Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands
Bought in 2023, and finished in 2023 in a matter of months. This was one that scratched an itch after finishing Borderlands 2, and gave us the incentive to puck up Borderlands 3 again after we completed it. The ending was anticlimactic, but the journey along the way was as fun as it was photogenic.
Okami HD
Another game that took me forever to finish, mostly because it originally released on a platform I didn’t have. When Okami was announced for PC I was there on day one for it! But due to going between too many game worlds at the same time I never got around to finishing it until the Steam Deck. Thanks to Steam Cloud Saving I was able to play this delightful title between Desktop, TV and on the go. At the same time though, I’m glad I didn’t rush it. It’s an extremely large game, especially for the era it released in, but once I finished it I felt that melancholy sensation knowing that the adventure was finally over after all this time. One of these days I’ll have to return to it to get straggling achievements.
Cloudpunk
A gift from another good friend! This one I finished pretty quickly. It’s a great game to play when you just wanna chill, fly around and absorb an interesting story. It was also another fun game to play between the desk, couch and Steam Deck.
Abyss Odyssey
Another one I had fun with between Deck and Desk. When I first played this in the beginning I found the controls to be clunky, but after spending some quality time with it on Steam Deck, and playing other Metroidvanias I finally up’d my game enough to finish this one! At least on the Katriana playthrough. This one was a fun grind to play during my lunch breaks.
Shantae: Half Genie Hero
I mostly played this one on Steam Deck, and I even got the good ending! Shantae has been one of the Metroidvanias to really help get me into the series. I love the art, the sense of humor and overall creativity this one brings to the table! I even started Shantae and the Seven Sirens not long after finishing this one, maybe I’ll finish that one in 2024! 😛
It was a wonderful year for finishing games ranging from old to new, indie to AAA, and all from the comfort of wherever I happened to be at the time. What games will I finish next year? I can already predict a few…
Other than that I got a good chunk of animation done and played a tiny bit of Crash Bandicoot: Warped! Collected a few gems; two silver, one gold. Also did some time trials, managed to get gold status on a couple of them. I’m at 62% completion, one hour earlier I was at 58% Now that I’m a little over half way there I’ll probably visit a different game world tomorrow night. 🙂
