What Video Game Did I Play Yesterday?

March 6th, 2026

After work last night, I decided I wanted to finish Barbie: Ocean Explorer without accidentally triggering any major bugs. To avoid that, I just played each minigame once, not even thinking about getting 100%, and buzzed to the end in 19 minutes. It was anti-climactic, especially since a lot of the minigames are pretty tedious. There's one where you catch bubbles in rings that's so boring it would have stopped my 100% run dead if I'd gotten there without breaking things, and another where you very slowly drop cannonballs into a very slowly moving barrel that was also very dull. The background art is pretty, though, so I'm not sorry I played this. It's a chill little game with some sparkly stuff and a dolphin. I would have loved this as a kid.

After that, though, I was in shmup mode and got to doing some runs of Gunbird. The Steam port of this I've got has a hard three continue limit, which I don't mind unless it's late at night and I just got a game over one hit from killing the final boss. It's a fun challenge, though, and I ended up flitting around between characters and difficulties last night. It was a nice time.

I finally tried Earthion, too, pictured below with a very overbearing CRT filter that I was relieved I could turn off. This isn't really a style of shooter I'm used to, but it was cool enough that I'll give it more tries! It's fascinating to see what people can wring out of the Sega Genesis with a new, 2025 game, and it's handy to have it on Steam, too.

March 5th, 2026

I caught something wild, I think, because I'm still feeling crummy today. I'm a little more functional today, though, so I can post.

The day before yesterday, I got my Miyoo Mini+ out to play Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire. I then played Download for the PC Engine. It is a horizontal shmup with cool cutscenes and swearing on the game over screen. It also has reasonable checkpoints and infinite continues, so it doesn't feel so daunting to tackle.

I then played an unlicensed version of Solitaire for the NES, which was a lot of fun as a game on an emulation machine! As a cartridge, maybe it would have been dicey, but I enjoyed it as a modern scofflaw. I cleared both the standard and three-draw variants and called it good, which was nice.

Last night, I was zoned out and played Barbie: Ocean Explorer for the Game Boy Color because I thought it might have sparkling dolphins in it. It had some lovely, colorful pixel art, but by trying to 100% the game as I went, I bugged it out, leaving me unable to move to the last area while the game gave me passwords that assumed I'd cleared everything. It was a prime example of high quality licensed mini-game collection business.

March 4th, 2026

I am way under the weather after pushing through the day, so I am going to bed early and planning on a double post tomorrow! I played some interesting stuff last night and don't want to skip it, so please look forward to tomorrow's post! I mean, unless I wuss out tomorrow, too, but that doesn't feel super likely to happen.

March 3rd, 2026

I was sick overnight and for most of today, but I have no idea why. I was okay before bed, though, and played more of A Way Out. I lobbed swear words through discord while escaping prison, doing farm chores, and admiring a really good outdoor cat. I haven't played a game like this before, so I'm glad my friend pushed for it. It makes co-op gaming seem really fun.

I played a few rounds of Crowd City before bed, too. I got quite a bit unlocked and got to sleep well for a couple hours.

March 2nd, 2026

Yesterday, my only gaming was a couple mindless, relaxing hours in Disney Speedstorm. I had no goals and no focus, but I made some characters who seem very nonviolent bomb each other off the track.

March 1st, 2026

I think that for my dumb project where I'm trying to cross stitch every Pokemon, I'll post the previous month's work at the start of the next one. With that being said, here's the six I finished in February. This is below 1% of all Pokemon, which is a little discouraging. I'm happy with what I got done, though! The Fennikin is the only design here I did myself, with the rest coming from Etsy, Pintrest, and a Japanese perler bead site. I'll have links to all my pattern sources once I start a little hub for this project! For now, my March goals are to do that and to hit 2% of Pokemon stitched.

Aside from stitching yesterday, I just played hidden animal games from Steam. Find 100 Frogs was cute, and I liked how the whole game was on a vertical scroll. It gave it a unique feel.

I played a couple stages of Cats Hidden Around the World, which is now titled Travellin' Cats Around the World, too. The individual levels are not crazy or innovative, but it feels like a good deal to have a handful of these in one package. I simply forgot I owned it until yesterday.

February 28th, 2026

My post tonight is late because I'm right on top of things and started watching Cherynobyl. I'm not very good at watching TV.

I played several games yesterday, but only for ten or so minutes each. During my lunch break at work, I was in a shmup mood. I went and hid away from my desk, playing a couple of stages in Darius Burst: Chronicle Saviors. It was too fun, so I turned it off, worried I'd run out my 30 minutes.

Counter-intuitively, I played a credit in DoDonPachi Daifukkatsu from there, and was lucky to play badly enough to get back to my desk in time. It seems really cool, but tough, from the few minutes I played!

Much later, I finished cataloging my Evercade/Super Pocket games on a Backloggery page, and having only cleared one out of the 77 I have between my cartridges, I decided it was time to tackle that mess. I started with my Super Indie Heroes cartridge, as at least some of the 14 games on it seemed pretty breezy. I went through about ten minutes of Quest Arrest, a swearing-filled cop RPG built like a Pokemon game, but decided 1 in the morning wasn't the right time to be dealing with all of that.

I also played some of Doodle World, a super cute 8-bit platformer, but it was too late for even something so cheerful and breezy. I will come back to this another day.

February 27th, 2026

At the start of the month, I decided I was going to cross stitch every Pokemon, and this morning, they just went and announced new ones. My plan has many flaws. I'd like to get ten smaller Pokemon stitched this weekend, though, to at least hit 1% done. I might post some here, but am not sure how to best show them off.

Anyway, last night I played Killer Instinct Gold a little, because I planned to play Super Valis and forgot what I was doing when I turned my Switch on. It was a very ok gaming experience, even if I only played for ten minutes. Sometimes, my heart's just not in it.

February 26th, 2026

I played games quite a bit last night, but wasn't having a great time. I got an actual household going in Tiny Life, but I felt like I couldn't get anyone to do anything. Achievement hunting in this'll be a chore if I can't even get any of my tinies to drink a glass of water. At least one of my tinies is a chaotic party boy, though, so there's plenty of fun ahead.

Before bed, I felt kind of overwhelmed by all the stuff in front of me in Disney Speedstorm and just jumped into races at random. It did help me relax, but I felt so scattered as I played.

February 25th, 2026

I am trying to clear some of the games I already have to save money right now, so last night, I tried Tiny Life, a pixel art life sim that I got in a bundle a couple of years ago. I only played for ten minutes or so, so I don't have much of an impression so far. It seems ok, though. I'd kind of like to get all of the achievements in this, but if I do, it won't be on the little file I started last night.

Later, before bed, I played a few races in Disney Speedstorm. I was excited to have unlocked Megara as a driver not due to any great fondness for Hercules, but because I have held tight to a McDonalds plate with her on it since I was in grade school. It's an amazingly long lived plate! I had a decent time playing, but playing as a character from my dish cupboard was definitely the most interesting part of the session.

February 24th, 2026

Last night, despite last week's Tony Hawk connection failures making me think it wouldn't go well, I played the start of A Way Out with one of my friends from work. It's a co-op prison escape game, and it was really enjoyable! I was kind of a wandering dolt, but everything is well synced and orchestrated enough that even my dippiest moments didn't cause a ton of trouble. Our guys still aren't out of the prison, but I'm looking forward to playing more next week.

I played some more of Disney Speedstorm, too, during my lunch break and before bed. It was something nice and mindless to play before bed, and I unlocked a new racer I'm interested in trying tonight.

February 23rd, 2026

I didn't want to think at all yesterday, so I enjoyed some spacey driving with Disney Speedstorm. I didn't do well at all, but the game still chucked XP and prizes at me, which I appreciated. It made me want to play something non-gacha, though, which I have achieved and will have more about tomorrow. I don't hate that it does have free to play bits, but bouncing between events and online and offline just feels so unfocused.