What Video Game Did I Play Yesterday?
January 2023
January 31st, 2023
This is a pretty dull note to end a month on, but last night, I built a Gundam model instead of really playing games, then did an image in Calm Colors before I went to sleep. I'm still super set on getting the Christmas images over with, hence the candy canes.
January 30th, 2023
I was very correct that my focus would be poor yesterday, but that's okay. I did manage to beat the last dungeon and final boss in Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion, but I'd like to beat the secret boss and find all of the hats, so I'm not counting it as cleared quite yet. The final boss wasn't nearly as bad as the one I fought on Saturday, though, and having tried it, the secret boss doesn't seem to be, either. I'll get this done in the next couple days.
Before bed, I ran through five hearts on Disney Tsum Tsum, too, which was an okay way to shut my brain off.
January 28th, 2023
Yesterday was solidly okay! I'm still not 100%, but work went decently, and I was feeling good enough to cook and eat a real meal. It was a big boost.
I also met my stated goal from yesterday morning and sat down to clear Salamander County Public Television! I'd brag about getting the platinum trophy to boot, but the full game wasn't actually mapped to trophies, meaning I got that with about a third of the game left to go.
I thought that Salamander County Public Television was funny, if not mildly janky in a couple unintended ways. My game crashed between the second and third stages of the final boss, which was a uniquely infuriating experience! It also seemed to constantly run videos in the background while I watched DVDs. I'd turn it back on to see the in game channel loop at a different spot from where I shut it off. which was more weird than bad. It got me to laugh a few times, though, and the variety of minigames was pretty good. I'll probably go back to play Mitosis Bowling again- if that were on my phone, I'd have a dark day where I sat and played it for hours on end.
I also played StrikeForce Kitty for a few minutes before bed, still feeling like I have a path to clearing this game. I just haven't wanted to level grind in it for too long at a time.
It's a super snowy day, so I'm probably going to stay in, play games, and do crafts, barring any emergencies. I'm looking forward to it!
January 27th, 2023
I got stuck on a troublesome late call last night, so couldn't get off work on time. Then, I went to the grocery store to pick up some food before it snows again and crashed hard. I played a little Disney Tsum Tsum and went to bed earlier than normal. The fruit shop missions are really fun and cute, though, so it was enjoyable game time.
Over today and tomorrow, I want to clear Salamander County Public Television.
January 26th, 2023
I got feeling a little better last night, and got a bit into the XBox Game Pass library. I ended up downloading and trying Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion, which I'd been interested in on Switch. Knowing how short it was, though, I couldn't justify the purpose. With Game Pass, I don't have any real reason to worry about that, so I went for it. I actually think I'm super close to the end after one play session, and expect I'll have it cleared in one or two more. Ripping up documents is super satisfying, and everything has a good, cute face, but the weapon switching is so clunky! I died in one boss because I was too clumsy swapping between the sword and the watering can, and I didn't feel like it was something I improved at as the game went. Still, I've made it pretty far and basically am enjoying the game. I expect I'll see Turnip Boy through to the end.
Right before bed, I played through a set of five hearts in Disney Tsum Tsum, too.
I still don't feel great today, but if I work two more days, I can rest for the weekend again.
January 25th, 2023
Yesterday ended up being unpleasant and too eventful. I got to feeling somewhat better, so I went across the street at work to buy a taco salad, brought it back to my desk, opened it, and totally crashed. My legs were jelly, I couldn't eat, and I had a killer headache, so I went home and got a doctor's appointment. It was a really nice taco salad, too! It's still somewhat upsetting that I couldn't eat more than a couple bites of it. I got some advice, a prescription, and a note to take today off, too, which was nice, because I still feel somewhat zombie-ish.
In my spaciness and frustration, though, I impulse bought an XBox Series S, which, in the cold light of day, was a great and super cool move on my part. I got it all set up and nabbed Game Pass, but was way too out of it to do anything with it last night. Even today, I'm not sure if I'll play anything or not, but it runs Netflix super smoothly and'll be there when I'm confident in the power of my limbs once again.
Even Disney Tsum Tsum was way too much for me yesterday, so I played a couple images on Calm Colors and went to sleep hard.
For today, my games might not be any better, but resting, staying hydrated, and making sure I can eat both lunch and dinner are more important than anything. I have a pot pie in the over, so my hopes are high!
January 24th, 2023
I still feel pretty rough today, but don't have arm and leg pain, and don't want to pay $130 for a doctor's note, so I'm posting before heading in for a (mask on) office day.
My games yesterday were the same as the day before, but slightly less. I played Salamander County Public Television for a few minutes and got through a few more minigames.
Then, I did a few fairly badly played Disney Tsum Tsum sessions.
I'm going to see if the Sudafed I've got in my cupboard helps with anything at all; wish me luck today!
January 23rd, 2023
I called out sick from work today, and am finally up to drinking tea and dragging my "toy" laptop back to my room to post. The little laptop I use for this blog is super low spec and has a navy blue plastic case, so I always feel like it's more toy-like than a better laptop might be. That's not a bad thing.
Anyway, I wasn't feeling great yesterday, either, so I didn't play much. I did another minigame in Salamander County Public Television, where you make baskets by launching the hoop at the basketball. It was kind of fun, and I felt powerful once I got the hang of it.
I played Disney Tsum Tsum quite a bit, too, finally having some good characters under my belt and getting some satisfyingly challenging missions. Now that I'm playing this again, I expect that a full server shutdown is imminent.
January 22nd, 2023
I had a decent day yesterday, but alas! I got peer pressured into playing Disney Tsum Tsum at a family gathering. It was really harsh! The conversation went something like:
"[Miela583's real name], you should download Tsum Tsum and I'll add you on Line and send hearts."
"Okay."
It was a really hard press against my defenses.
I used to play Tsum Tsum a lot when I lived in Japan, especially the now dead Marvel variant, but I felt like it got to be too much to keep up with. The US server seems a little less intense than Japan's was a few years ago, but starting the game over sucks! The beginner missions are, understandably, very basic, and all my characters feel super under-levelled, with crummy abilities. It got a little better over the course of the night, and the game is still fun, but I still kind of bristled at the game thinking I couldn't hit fever time even once. Does it think that I'm some sort of amatuer!?
Anyway, it was fun, and I'll probably play more today.
January 21st, 2023
Everything felt like a major challenge last night, so I did not play games hard. I did download a sub-$10 indie game I'd been wanting on PS4, though, called Salamander County Public Television. It's a minigame collection glued together by a story about working at a public television station in a town where all of the residents have disappeared, and since (I am pretty sure) it's made entirely of stock assets, it has a pretty unique look and feel. I didn't play too much of it last night, but I thought it was funny and enjoyed figuring out how the weird minigame physics worked. If I don't play more of this today, I will Sunday.
I also did a couple more images in Calm Colors, with a weird, exhausted attitude of "well, I'm not thrilled about the Christmas set of images, but I'm gonna have to do 'em eventually, huh?" I don't even hate Christmas, I was just rude last night.
January 20th, 2023
Lunch break post today! I have no steam, so I'll get into it. Last night, I wanted to see if any of the games I got in the Switch bundle with Calm Colors has the same relaxing effect. I tried Stencil Art, and it does not. It's not bad for the toy that it is- you spray paint images one stencil at a time to see how they come together- but it's not quite enough to keep my attention. Choosing patterns is cute, but it's a major missed opportunity to not allow for color choice. I might play again if I feel super stressed, or to chip away at an easy game in my backlog, but I didn't like it too well.
January 19th, 2023
Tonight, I am making a super late post, over a lovely dinner of salad and frozen chicken strips! Nothing is wrong today, I just couldn't focus this morning and didn't want to rush through something that I enjoy doing to get a post done before work.
Pretty directly after work last night, I huddled down to finish up Cube Escape: Arles which I ended up being able to clear without the walkthrough that my coworker texted me. I do have an index card of scrawled puzzle notes to show for my efforts, but that's how point and click games go. This was the first of the Cube Escape games that really clicked for me. I felt like the game length was good, the puzzles were hard in a satisfyingly solvable way, and the Van Gogh stuff was a neat twist on the series themes and motifs. I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next.
After that, I wanted to keep playing games rather than do much else, so I went back to Wild Arms, which I just kind of forgot about! I cleared the dungeon I'd been in, the Maze of Death, super quickly, and went back outside for a ship-bound boss battle and some plot points. NPCs are very clearly telling me where to go next, so I guess I'll pay attention to their little text boxes and head north!
From there, I crocheted and watched Youtube for a little bit before heading to bed and doing another puzzle in Calm Colors to knock me out. It is weird to discuss how I feel about this as a game, because there's hardly anything to it, but it genuinely is relaxing.
January 18th, 2023
Today, I'm doing a super, super fast post, since I realized how late my scheduled lunch break was today and went and got a Wendy's breakfast instead of posting before work! I'm knocking this out during my first break instead.
Last night, I worked a bit late again, and then ended up doing a lot of plant care stuff after I got home and ate dinner. After that, though, I started Cube Escape: Arles, felt it was a bit beyond me so late, and quit for the night. I asked my coworker who recommended the series if she'd had trouble with that one this morning, and she flat out texted me a hint site, so I guess I'm not alone on this one! I'll try more tonight.
January 17th, 2023
This'll be a quick post, since I feel down about getting back to work today, with all the non-voluntary late work I've been getting, and had trouble getting out of bed.
Yesterday there was a super sudden tornado warning, complete with sirens going off outside and my phone sending alerts inside. I don't have a basement, and there was no watch beforehand to get to one, like usual, so I kind of huddled away from a window and played StrikeForce Kitty for an hour to distract myself without actually having to think. It was actually great EXP gathering progress, too.
The tornado stuff turned out to be a dud, but still kind of blew my plans for the day. Before bed, then, I played Pokemon Violet for a while, doing some trainer battles and Pokemon catching along one of the routes.
Then, from there, I put together a few easy puzzles in Calm Colors and went to sleep.
January 16th, 2023
Today, I've regained some energy, which is a super nice feeling on a day off. There's thunder outside, though, which is very strange for January! I thought I'd misheard, but no. There's just some classic midwestern January thunderstorms today.
I still wasn't very energetic or thoughtful yesterday, so I tackled one of the bigger images in Calm Colors and nothing else, draggin' those shapes across the screen. It actually did help me relax and get to sleep well, which is nice, but it was slightly tedious, too. Zooming in on the image, which is almost required, as tiny as the shapes got in this case, made it hard to see everything at once, which is kind of frustrating in a place-the-pieces puzzle game. I tended to keep it zoomed out, which meant that for the smaller pieces, I just kind of wooshed them around the screen until they invisibly snapped into place. It's not a deal breaker for me, and thinking about it this morning, I'm not sure how the developers could have better balanced this issue.
Today, I'm hoping to play something a little more involved, but don't know what yet. If I don't end up doing so, that's fine, too.
January 15th, 2023
I lived yesterday in a somewhat fluff brained haze, crocheting, doodling, and terrorizing my online friends. It wasn't a bad day, but it wasn't great for games, either.
I kind of wanted to play a music game last night, but my neighbors were super loud, so I couldn't hear my own tv well enough to play effectively. Instead, I ended up digging through my ultra cheap Nintendo Switch impulse buys until I found Calm Colors, a simple little game that's somewhere between tanagrams and color-by-number. I turned all the hints and highlight features off to make it more of a game, and less of a meditation style app, and it wasn't so bad. Last night, I was mostly doing the easy images, as my powers of advanced comprehension were shot. Today, though, I might try one of the more complicated ones, just out of curiosity as to how long it takes to snap together.
January 14th, 2023
Last night, I got another late call and ended up working a 12 hour shift. I ate dinner at 11 pm and stayed up too late because it was the wrong time for food, then overslept and have super sore arms and legs today. I am gonna try to take it super easy this weekend, which shouldn't be too hard.
I did play Pokemon Violet some last night and had fun just zipping around and fighting random battles. Tarountula is levelling up so slow, though, that it's driving me crazy. I could, like, just not do a bug trainer run, but I don't get the same amount of joy from good in-game choices, so I'm going to keep level grinding here.
January 13th, 2023
I got stuck working late last night, and wasn't feeling great to boot, so last night, I replayed the third world and third boss in StrikeForce Kitty. This was not helpful in my quest to gain EXP, nor was it that interesting.
January 12th, 2023
I'm not very energetic this morning, so this'll be a short post. Yesterday was a pretty good movie day- I watched Escape From New York in the afternoon, then went to see Shin Ultraman that night- but not such a good games day.
I played StrikeForce Kitty a bit in the morning, since my Switch was just next to me after I posted here, gathering more EXP.
Then, I played some Pokemon Violet, giving a Tera Raid a shot and buying some new accessories for my trainer. It was fun.
January 11th, 2023
Right after posting yesterday, I did clear Cube Escape: The Lake, and was shocked by how little left there had been to the game! I do think, having played just two of these, that it's an interesting approach to serialized storytelling in games, and am curious to see where it goes in the next few. This game was so unexpectedly tiny, though, that I felt a little disappointed.
After work, though, someone slammed into the back of my car at a stoplight and zipped away when the light turned green! I was too surprised to get the license plate in my rear view mirror, and since the car is fine, I guess there's no point in having it. My neck feels weird, though, and I keep getting really bad on and off ear pain, even this morning.
Because of that, I ended up abandoning my plans to play Pokemon Violet for a bit before bed, due to being irritated and sore. Instead, I did ten or so minutes of EXP grinding in StrikeForce Kitty and went to sleep. It was disappointing, but that's how it goes.
January 10th, 2023
After work last night, I got really set on doing some distressed bathroom cleaning (and no, there was not really a reason for this), so I burned myself out.
I did decide, though, to start in on Cube Escape: The Lake, figuring that even if I didn't get very far out of sleepiness, I'd still be well on my way to clearing my game for the week. I got to a "difficult" puzzle and shut it off, but it clicked with me this morning! I'm super tempted to throw my tablet in my purse and try to finish it off during my work breaks if I can't get it in the few minutes before.
I just need to make it through today, and tomorrow is off work!
January 9th, 2023
I was a little peppier than I have been yesterday, but game wise, only played a few minutes of Pokemon Violet, beating the first gym.
This morning, I'm zero energy, zero pep again, but since I took Wednesday off, I'm hoping the split work week gives me another quick chance to recharge. If not, there's probably not a lot to be done.
January 8th, 2023
Today, I am going to try to regain some energy! I had a fun morning and afternoon yesterday, but when I got home, I crashed like I have been and couldn't do anything. Watching movies was too much, but I couldn't focus on Youtube or streams, either. I got through a little bit of crafts and a very basic drawing, but it was unimpressive progress for the amount of time I had to myself.
Because of my sleepiness, I just ended up playing StrikeForce Kitty for a while last night. I actually am making some noteworthy progress in the final level, so I still think I can beat this game- it's just going to take mind numbingly more EXP gathering to do it.
January 7th, 2023
This is a very low intensity post this morning! I had to work late, though not by much, and rush to do all my errands before the stores closed last night, so in the end, I only played Pokemon Violet for twenty minutes or so before bed. I'm thinking of playing with a majority bug team, so my goal for the night was to catch a female Combee. It had been a hassle in earlier games, but this time, I walked out of the town I was in, and there one was, in a cute little swarm. I caught it, wandered around the town, saved, and shut the game off.
January 6th, 2023
My hands are shaking really badly this morning! It's a bit of a yikes situation. I'm doing a little better today overall, though- I got the ice pre-scraped off of my car to run errands later, and did a little bathroom cleaning before sitting down to post.
Last night, though, I was so tired and burned out feeling that I didn't play much. I did about half an hour in Pokemon Violet and evolved my Spewpa into a lovely Vivillon with pixel art flower wings. A Pokemon being cute easily sways me as to determining its worth in battle.
January 5th, 2023
My energy level is still at absolute zero today, but I should be able to fake being cheerful on the phones at work.
I finished Cube Escape: Seasons despite getting weirdly stuck on a puzzle that turned out to be pretty simple. I don't know if I think this was super special in and of itself, but am still curious to see where the next few games in the series go.
In Pokemon Violet, I managed to actually look at the map and made my way to the next town, catching many Pokemon along the way.
Plus, I did a bit of idle levelling in StrikeForce Kitty, raising a couple of stats and hopefully getting closer to the power required to finish the game.
January 4th, 2023
I'm so tired that it feels hard to post today, despite sleeping ok, but I don't have anything too complicated to say, so it's ok.
One of my coworkers yesterday recommended a series of escape room games she'd spent the weekend on called Cube Escape, and made it sound interesting enough that I wanted to try it. There was a free hub app with 9 of them free to play on the Google Play store, so it seemed super low risk. I started with the first one, Cube Escape: Seasons last night, and played about half of it. I'd never played an escape room game before, though! Are they all just small scale PC style adventure games? It's kind of interesting.
I played Pokemon Violet for a bit, too, exploring and catching a Magikarp.
January 3rd, 2023
Today is a super fast post before an office day, because I don't feel good and don't have my stuff together.
I started playing Mansion of Hidden Souls on my Genesis Mini 2 last night, which was interesting and strange. I went to dinner before I could get very far, though.
I also spent some time on Pokemon Violet, getting to the point where the game opens up for me to actually go fight gyms and stuff.
January 2nd, 2023
I'm posting today on a glorious day off of work, in which I plan to do very little and enjoy it. Last night, I tried playing Clay Fighter on my Genesis Mini 2, which I did not enjoy. I used to have the SNES version, and remember feeling super indifferent towards it then, but since there's only 8 characters, clearing it as everyone seemed like a doable game to polish off for the week. However, I could not get myself to care enough to clear it even as one of them. The dithering on the digitized models looked super sloppy in motion, the music was weird and tinny, and when I was fighting the final boss, I got bored rather than pleasantly frustrated. I don't really mind a mediocre fighting game, but Clay Fighter is not for me.
I'll probably turn it on again, though, because I feel like I ought to be able to beat it as at least one character.
Pokemon Violet was actually enjoyable, which is always a good feature in a game. I backtracked and did some trainer battles and Pokemon catching that I'd skipped out on while heading to the first city. There's so many different Pokemon already that I feel like I've got a nice amount of team building options ahead of the first gym.
Of course, I continued my fruitless quest to defeat StrikeForce Kitty, too, clearing two secret levels and getting roundly demolished by the third one I tried. It was still kind of fun, and I can't believe how much I'm playing this for a free game. It's nice!
January 1st, 2023
Happy new year, everyone! I don't know that I feel it's special to have started 2023, other than that my calendar for this year is much cuter than the one for last. I'm excited to keep this blog going for another year, though. In 2023, I'm hoping to clear a game a week, even if the majority of the games I clear end up being 20 minute long kinetic novels from itch.io. There's no big reason why I have this goal. It just seems fun, and like a good way to get through some of the shorter games I have around.
I also want to clear a full game in Japanese this year, which is slightly more daunting. My vocab is good enough that I think I can do it, but my confidence is the issue. I'll see how it goes!
Last night was pretty fun, but my power started flickering close to midnight, so I retreated to my room to play Switch. My rushing to the salon in Pokemon Violet paid off for sure, and I got a player character I'm happier with. (The game can't render her freckles unless it's a super close up of her, though! Isn't technology grand?) Now, I get to backtrack and do some battles and catch Pokemon in my next section, for the prize money to buy her more hats and shoes. That's what this game is about, right?
I continued my endless levelling in StrikeForce Kitty, too, with a wiki helping me out with some of the character teams. I don't know Mortal Kombat very well, so it was a super helpful assist! I'm tackling some secret levels rather than the final standard level, just to mix things up a bit.
From here, I think I'm going to try to go to the craft store in the strip mall next door and get a new sketchbook for the year. It's a really big plan; I'll have to walk nearly 500 feet! I hope all of you have such adventure at hand, too.
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