Tonight I finally summoned enough patience to finish all of the advanced test chambers in the original Portal. I only solved two of them back when the game was new, and eventually got distracted by a sea of other games and worlds. Fast forward to today and I finally got both the Fruitcake and Vanilla Crazy Cake Achievements! Huzzah! I did end up having to complete the last test chamber on my Steam Deck. Apparently when Portaling up and down it’s difficult to turn yourself when playing at a higher refresh rate. I suppose I could have forced a lower framerate, but figured I could just whip out my Steam Deck and finish the job.
All that’s left is to beat the challenge maps. I wonder how many decades that’ll take me? 😛
Cerberus is set ablaze by Nathan’s endless whipping.
We had a lovely summer like day today – too nice to waste at my desk, so it only made sense for me to take my Steam Deck from its case and venture into the Castlevania Advance Collection!
It’s kinda funny to reflect on, when I was a kid I didn’t really think much of Metroidvanias. As a child my Gameboy Advance mainly received Mario platformers, and one Mario Kart game. Apart from my GBA I didn’t grow up with any Nintendo, the closest I ever got to Nintendo consoles was through visits to friends and families houses who were lucky enough to have acquired them. Even then, they never had any Castlevania or Metroidvania games. It was always Mario Games, Final Fantasy and Mortal Kombat.
It also didn’t help that back then Metroidvanias weren’t really as common on PC, which had plenty of other genres going on, but very little in the way of Castlevania/Metroid likes. It would be several years later when I really begin get into the Metroidvania genre. Better late than never I guess?
Learning to double jump.
Thanks to Metroidvanias like Dust: An Elysian Tail, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night and of course, the Shantae Series; I’ve started to appreciate the genre and have come to understand it enough to brave the old school. In platformers you’re used to getting from Point A to Point B, whereas in a Metroidvania there is a lot of backtracking after you acquire different abilities and equipment. Tonight in Circle of the Moon (Castlevania Advance Collection) I learned to double jump, possibly one of the most satisfying abilities to learn in a good few of the Metroidvanias I’ve played thus far. There’s just something awesome about double jumping to areas that seemed unobtainable before, and in Circle of the Moon it felt like I was able to get this ability faster than the other Metroidvanias I played where it took me a good while.
Which one is Mummy Dearest?
Another thing that took me a good while to get was the control scheme. Tapping the D-Pad allows you to dash (if you have the dash boots), and holding down the action button lets you twirl your whip around like a fan of destruction. Until I figured that out some of the monsters felt cumbersome, but now that I’ve learned how to properly navigate the game even the poison worms are easy to avoid. The bones from the bone throwing skeletons on the other hand…
I had just scratched the surface of the castle before calling it a night. But I’m glad to have made a nice dent in the game. I’ve made Nathan stronger with extra hearts and jugs, uncovered a good few secret walls and even bested Cerberus himself. Overall I’d say a jorb well done! I’ll have to see about playing more of these during Spooktober! 😀
Another evening spent playing with the site… I didn’t like the lack of widgets when looking at blog posts, and while I’m on the fence about this current template it does at least get a better load score than the previous one. I’m comfortable leaving it like this for now, and I can start looking at other themes and plugins at a more leisurely pace. So far the only thing I don’t like about this one is the lack of banner options. That can be saved for another night. I also did some database pruning, got rid of a bunch of entries from all the templates I’ve been checking out.
Now I can spend the remainder of my evening chilling out.
If you can’t tell (or you’re reading this from your subscriptions) I’ve been giving the ol’ place a makeover. I haven’t decided if I’ll keep this appearance or not, but so far I’m digging it. If I do end up finding something better though I will be switching it out. Looks nice on all my devices! The current banner is a placeholder until I decide to change it to something else, or if I decide to delete it in place of a background image… decisions decisions.
There has been a lot of Resonite this weekend! Releasing a Resonite video, making a new one, exploring more worlds for future potential Resonite videos, watching a future Resonite video IN Resonite, etc. We went to a few worlds perfect for groovin’, and a couple that were broken but just as entertaining. We’ve mapped out a few locations that would be great for listening to music together. One of them is a literal groove train, but in space! So far I seem to have a steady pace of creating and deleting footage for this game, as I need it. Currently sitting at a few hundred and a half gigs with plenty of room for more adventure!
Once again I’ve completed the first DOOM campaign, always a classic to play! I’ll be ready to achievement hunt in the second episode the next time I get to play. I can’t wait to hear what the soundtrack for the second campaign sounds like!
For tonight’s Resonite adventures we decided to visit a Monopoly world. We actually got to play on a giant Monopoly board! Well, kinda. The world was pretty broken, but to its credit it is in the beta phase. That, and whatever coding the game had probably got slightly damaged when it was brought over from Neos VR. We still got to play, though more-so with the assets than the actual game.
Been playing around with blog configurations this evening, thinking it’s time for another update on appearances, and eventually a complete revamping under the hood. The latter will need more time to put together, might make a autumn/winter project out of it. In the meantime I’ve been looking at newer themes to run that fit what I’m doing. This one has been nice, but I might do better with something more modern, will continue my wordpress adventures with fresh eyes tomorrow.
Gave my Steam Deck some much needed love tonight after I got home. I haven’t been taking it to work much, and even when I have I haven’t really been playing it. I either don’t have time during lunch to play, or have been so interested in reading on my tablet that all gaming activities can just wait until I get home. It just felt nice plopping down on the bed and playing a bit of Outland. The last time I played was back at the start of the year, my how time flies…
I gained a couple new abilities, and even thwarted a boss battle. I only died a couple times, then continued to die multiple times more during my adventures. Tonight I finally unlocked the launchpad ability! I’m looking forward to visiting past areas to see what I’ve missed. Might find more hearts and orbs to make me stronger, who knows?
