Ori and the Blind Forest

Now For Something Completely Different

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Hey look! A game that isn’t Horizon Zero Dawn! Decided to give my Steam Deck some love while doing an SFM render. I got 100% in Hollow Grove and Thornfelt Swamp, now I’m uncovering new ground in Black Root Burrows, or I was just starting to… but it’s getting late for me. My iced tea is ready for tomorrow, a nice Watermelon Oolong with enough caffeine and flavor to wake me up tomorrow.

Speaking of work, a co-worker of mine has been delving more into Linux lately, and he’s actually been taking a liking to it! Although I’ve had to help him with a few things. On Saturday he was complaining to me about how much gaming sucks under Linux still, and it turned out he never even enabled Proton, the compatibility layer for playing Windows games and a large chunk of why the Steam Deck is able to rival so many other handhelds. I’m sure he’ll give me an update the next time I see him. 🙂 It’s nice seeing more people tinkering with Linux, and I own a good portion of that to the Steam Deck! Now gamers will slowly learn Arch commands! :v

A Walk Through Nibel

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My desktop has been rendering the last chunk of animation for the Skyrim video, so I’ve been making some more progress in Ori and the Blind Forest on Steam Deck. It’s actually kinda funny to think that last night I was playing a Playstation game, and now I’ve shifted over to an XBox game, and I don’t even need to own both consoles! 😛 I mostly ventured through Black Root Burrows., and doing what you would typically do in a metroidvania and circle back to older areas after learning new abilities. Mostly finding life and ability cells, and opening up sealed off areas. Fun stuff.

Was actually having a conversation about this at work the other day with another co-worker bud. One of her fave genres is metroidvania, we actually talk about Bloodstained Ritual of the Night on a few occasions, and I’ve also shared other ones with her like the Shantae series and recently Dust. She plays on Playstation, though we do like to dish out on games in general, among other subjects. It’s nice having a few work friends to help the day feel less hellish.

Into The Fire

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After work today I decided to unwind with just me, a controller and a TV – where I would go on to die a couple hundred times and STILL somehow move the plot of Ori and the Blind Forest. Making my way through Mt. Horu, which has taken much patience and even more teeth gritting. It was either going to be this or Horizon Zero Dawn, but I figured I’m getting closer to the end and wanted to push things in the right direction, enough to give myself another break from it. 😛

Obtaining Clarity & Achievements

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Had a relaxing session of Ori and the Blind forest on the couch this afternoon, made it to 63% completion! I cleared the fog from the misty woods and earned several achievements. There was some backtracking and map following for finding energy, ability and health cells. All the while sipping on cherry blossom green tea and snacking on a bit of Orange Mochi.

Of course, while lounging on the couch, my desktop was hard at work exporting the SFM project I worked on yesterday. I’ve been mentally going over how to animate the next scene, it’s a bit different from what I usually work on, but I have some ideas… either way it’ll be crazy.

Finding The Light

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Tonight’s game kinda keeps with last night’s theme. I did have problems remembering how to climb, and then there was timing the parry jumps and other obstacles, but I did cover more ground in the Misty Woods. It’s fortunate that they made the game extremely beautiful, it makes up for all the F bombs I threw tonight while fighting some of the monsters.

This area was fun. When you jump in this area it toggles mushroom platforms, but if you jump out of sequence you’ll jump towards a closed mushroom and inevitably die in a pit of spikes. You just have to remember not to double jump before jumping towards the platform. Next month is Maytroidvania, if I don’t give it more playtime this month I’ll have to keep it in mind for May. Of course, it does compete with the other Metroidvanias in my collection that I’ve yet to finish, though I am pretty close on Dust, and not much further to go in Shantae and the Seven Sirens. In my library you just never know. 😛

She Hated The Darkness

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Made a large amount of progress since last night’s adventures on Steam Deck. I moved along to the living room and played a good few hours on the TV, then eventually on Desktop. Learned a lot of new abilities! I can double jump, glide, dash and deflect… even swim!

But after several hours of adventure, Ori will now be camping in the Misty Woods until I decide to return. I was thinking tomorrow evening of trying to get more relics in Crash Bandicoot Warped, and the next day the Remastered Tomb Raider Trilogy releases! So the next couple days are going to be Playstation vibes! :v

Returning To The Blind Forest

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When I wasn’t Bauldering tonight, I did make sure to set some time aside for my Steam Deck and a bit of metroidvania mayhem. It’s been a couple of years since I tried to play Ori and the Blind Forest, but my skills that I’ve picked up from other Metroidvanias helped me get further than my previous attempts. The hardest part for me was always the beginning of the game, so much raw emotion in that first part. Now that it’s on my Steam Deck I’ll have to make an effort to finish it! So far it’s worked with the other Metroidvanias in my collection. I’m only a couple breaths away from finishing a couple other ones I loaded onto my Deck, why not re-start another?