What Video Game Did I Play Yesterday?
May 2024
May 31st, 2024
It's the last day of May, and I think I did okay with games last month! I didn't buy any new games, which feels more important than it actually is, and I cleared five (admittedly shorter games) that I had on hand. One was on GamePass, which was great, but none were RPGs, so I missed the mark on that front. Still, I feel pretty good heading into next month, and am going to try for four games, with one RPG and one from GamePass, again. I kind of expect I'll miss the RPG mark, but the GamePass one seems super doable again.
As for last night, I am really fixated on Pokemon Snap right now! I meant to only play for a few minutes and went a little over an hour, which was fine. I hit a point where I unlocked a ton of new stuff, too, so I'm excited to dig back in and see more lil Pokemon doin' their thing!
I chipped away at achievements in Fitness Boxing 2, too, doing some free workouts with Bernardo, my current trainer, and seeing if I can square away the "play all songs on Fast" achievement while I'm at it. I only did 3 workouts, but that's about what I'd do selecting the daily workout option, too.
May 30th, 2024
I am not in an exciting spot with what I'm playing right now, but kept going with the same stuff I've been on pretty well last night. I plugged away at New Pokemon Snap, which was still very charming, but wasn't able to make any real progress.
I did a daily workout in Fitness Boxing 2, too, which was fine. I got an achievement while I was at it and felt somewhat accomplished.
May 29th, 2024
Today is this site's second anniversary, which is a somewhat exciting milestone! I didn't even think I'd make it a month, so two years seems like a lot! Thank you all for reading.
I don't have a ton to post about, though. Last night, I just played another hour or so of New Pokemon Snap, finding it very laid back and relaxing while also feeling mind-boggled at the number of times this game makes you repeat levels to move on. The day/night changes are enough to keep it from getting too tedious, but I'm surprised at what a grind this is!
May 28th, 2024
I didn't play many games yesterday, as I was tired and didn't really want to. Before bed, I started New Pokemon Snap, which has been on my shelf for ages. I didn't play enough to say much, though, other than that it is very pretty. I'll probably play more tonight, though.
I did another daily workout in Fitness Boxing 2 as well. It was still unpleasant, but better than the day before had been.
May 27th, 2024
I've got today off work for Memorial Day, and am very grateful for the day off! I was able to do some quick chores and errands before posting today, so I feel a little productive.
Yesterday, though, I was not terribly productive. I went to see Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, ate too many BBQ boneless wings from my freezer for dinner, and played XBox.
I hadn't explored GamePass for a little bit, so I downloaded a couple games to try them. First, I gave Little Kitty, Big City a shot, but it really didn't click with me. I'll probably give it another shot at some point, but cute as it is, the controls felt weird and it made me a little motion sick. To be fair, tons of games make me motion sick, so that's not really a mark against it. It just wasn't anything I wanted to mess with yesterday.
Later in the night, though, I downloaded Venba and played the whole thing in one sitting. It's a movie-length game, so that in and of itself wasn't an accomplishment, but I got really into it! It felt good when the solutions to the game's cooking puzzles snapped into place for me, and I felt like the combination of visual novel-ish and gameplay elements were paced really well. It stuck out to me as an extremely nice example of storytelling in games, and I might officially pick this up for Switch later.
Speaking of Switch, I did use mine for some utilitarian games yesterday. I did a short daily workout in Fitness Boxing 2, but felt kind of disoriented and had quite a bad time. I'm not going to give up by any means, and I'm glad I didn't give up halfway through. Still, working out sometimes sucks.
I tried to knock myself out with a few screens of Love Colors, too. It didn't really work, but it wasn't bad, either.
May 26th, 2024
I'm posting here this morning fresh off of writing up my to-do list for the week, and am maybe vaguely energized! Yesterday ended up being a day for tying up some loose gaming ends, which was very okay. I finished this month's event in Fashion Dreamer, and despite having really buzzed through it, I'm okay with setting it aside for a few weeks. The events lately have been just the perfect length to stop things from getting too tedious.
I did my third Fitness Boxing 2 workout for the week yesterday, too, doing another regular length workout and really regretting it by the end. Still, I felt at least somewhat good about myself afterwards, which is nice.
From there, I had a lovely time playing the next three levels of Yoshi's Crafted World, even though I'm not sure if this'll have my full attention next or not. Even on a game buying freeze, it's exciting to know how many lovely platformers I have stashed away to play!
Last, I just played a few screens of Love Colors before bed. It wasn't super exciting.
May 25th, 2024
I'm still in the midst of feeling super sleepy today, despite having hit the ground running as far as being awake goes. It's the first day of a three-day weekend, too, though, so maybe that's okay.
I finished off Takorita Meets Fries last night, and, finding that it only took 15 or so minutes, felt that I should have just gone after the last two endings the night before. This was cute, though. I respect a french fry themed game, and even though it was very short and silly, that's kind of what I wanted. Plus, it feels good to have another of my sale-price Switch visual novels cleared.
After that, though, I wanted to experiment with "games that could put me to sleep" and got out my Japanese Playstation for a round of Simple Characters 2000 Series Vol. 14: Nante Tantei Idol: The Jigsaw Puzzle. I bought it on a whim on eBay with some other cheap games years ago, mostly because I thought an anime girl jigsaw puzzle game was a funny thing to have. In theory, it is still funny, but I also played it for two hours last night, doing a couple of hundred piece puzzles on Endless mode and making good headway in Time Attack, where all the unlockables are held. The controls are slow, and I don't really know anything about the characters on the puzzles, but I still got weirdly into this last night.
May 24th, 2024
I feel somewhat unsettled this morning because I slept through a tornado siren and my first thought was, "yeah, way to go, me!" I guess I'll order a weather radio today, as a break from counting down the work hours until my three day weekend.
As far as games go, I started a very cute and silly visual novel from my stash last night, Takorita Meets Fries. It's about an undersea princess who goes to land in search of new foods, and it has a very charming DIY feel to it. There's a little grammatical weirdness, and the story has felt slapdash in parts, but I'm enjoying it. I got two endings last night, and it looks like there's two more to chase tonight. It shouldn't be very complicated to get them.
I did pretty well at Fitness Boxing 2 last night, too, getting a couple of achievements and making it through the normal length daily workout rather than the light one. It made me feel powerful.
To end my gaming day, I got the fifth of sixth photo frames for the current event in Fashion Dreamer, too. I'll probably finish this month's event today or tomorrow, which I'm fine with.
May 23rd, 2024
Yesterday was not a bad day. I got sushi last night, which is always a lovely treat, and spent more of my post-work time after that reading manga and doing crafts than anything. I did get through the next set of missions in this month's Fashion Dreamer event, though, scoring myself the next photo frame. There's only two more backgrounds left this event, so I might just get this cleared out in the next two days.
May 22nd, 2024
Lately, I'm feeling too tired to be keyed into much of anything, games or otherwise, but am still having fun playing super casual stuff to relax. I played quite a lot of Fashion Dreamer last night with that mindset, getting well over the halfway mark in this month's event and unlocking the third of this event's six photo frames.
I want to at least play one of the short visual novels in my stash over the next couple of days, for my weekly "quick sense of accomplishment," and imagine I probably will. If I don't, though, that'll be okay, too!
May 21st, 2024
Today's post'll be quick due to my oversleeping! Too many new prescriptions at once is not fun!
I did some more missions in Fashion Dreamer until I unlocked another photo frame.
I tried Cooking Mama Cookstar for PS4 because I was tired and was surprised, as much as I've heard about it, that it was actually a functioning game.
I did a daily workout in Fitness Boxing 2 before my work day started, which felt very productive.
Finally, I had an extremely boring time with Merge Pixel. I might take a break from this soon.
May 20th, 2024
I'm doing an early post today, and it feels quite strange. I had a doctor's appointment hours before I usually get up, and am now working hard to not go back to bed, so I can go to the pharmacy before work. My strange late shift schedule is making it easy to get things done today, but I'm so sleepy!
Anyway, yesterday I went to the Ghibli Fest showing of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, so I didn't do any big weekend level gaming. I did finally start up the new event in Fashion Dreamer for this month, a few days after it got going. The photo frames are really cute this time, so I'm looking forward to buzzing through this.
I played a little more of Bucket Crusher, too, but in the daylight, it makes me feel slightly dead inside. It was still okay for right before I went to sleep, but there's a specific time and place for games like this, I suppose.
I kept Merge Pixel running, too, making okay progress between craft time tasks. Even so, I'll feel more relieved than anything else when it's over.
May 19th, 2024
I wasn't my most interested in games yesterday, but I did get on a "making stuff" kick. There's some pretty utilitarian crochet unpictured, but I built this little Tepig model, because I love snapping the easy Pokemon kits together, and a not-lego fruit shop. Tepig longs for fruit, but alas, they are too large for any of these bits and bites to be filling!
Games-wise, my game buying freeze is forcing me to reach back into shovelware I bought in the past, rather than scouring the Switch eShop for new garbage to buy. Last night, this led me to Bucket Crusher, one of my fifty 20 cent pickups from the April Qubic Games sale. My idea when I threw that ten dollars to the wind was that, if I played each 20 cent game for 20 minutes, I'd at least get some interesting posts out of it. I've already breezed past that with Bucket Crusher, which is a fine knock-things-down-until-I-fall-asleep game. It does bother me that the structures you knock down are just pixels rather than having physics to them, meaning you can take a stripe out of the middle and the top doesn't collapse. It's still kind of satisfying, though. I will come back to this.
My Merge Pixel saga continued, too, but I did not make a lot of progress because I didn't care enough to run it for a lot of the day. I'll keep going today, since it feels momentous to be over the halfway line.
May 18th, 2024
This won't be a very exciting post today. I was sleepy and my stomach hurt yesterday, so I only played casual-style games. Fitness Boxing 2 probably got the most focus out of me, and that wasn't a ton. I did a few free workouts just to get my third fitness game session for the week under my belt and called it a day.
I officially hit the halfway point of Merge Pixel yesterday, though, and am perhaps now even more determined to see this mind-numbing idle grind through. The daily login bonuses have really been carrying me here, in terms of currency boosts, so going back to the start of that 7-day cycle has been a temporary slowdown. I might leave it running across the room while I do crafts and chores later, just to get some sweet imaginary gold.
To finish the day off, I played Love Colors until I passed out again. It didn't take long.
May 17th, 2024
I'm scumming a quick post before work this morning, with a lot of relief that it's Friday. Last night, though, I cleared Super Mario Land! It gave me a lot of satisfaction to beat a game as an adult that I could not clear as a seven year old. It is a charming, strange little game, and I like how different the worlds are from normal Mario games. The horizontal shooter final boss had me swearing like crazy, though!
I kept up my quest to 100% the achievements list in Fitness Boxing 2 as well, switching trainers to get started on a new set of daily workout rewards.
Before bed, I also did a few screens of Love Colors, which knocked me out fast. I did wake up a lot from there, but getting to sleep was nice.
Lastly, I have my daily update for Merge Pixel. I made minimal progress yesterday, but might leave it running a bit more today. It's not like there's a lot of actual gameplay to engage with.
May 16th, 2024
Today's game report won't be very exciting. I played a few more levels of Super Mario Land last night, but decided it was getting me too pepped up when I wanted to sleep soon and stopped. I was really enjoying it, but got tense about clearing levels!
After that, I worked on some screens in Love Colors, since I needed the help relaxing. It was fine.
I kept Merge Pixel running while I did other stuff as well. Currently, I think this is going to take a few weeks to clear, but since it's really light on actual play, that still feels like nothing.
May 15th, 2024
Being awake is still proving to be a big challenge for me, so this'll be a quick post.
First, I played Super Mario Land for a few minutes, since it hit Nintendo Switch Online and I hadn't played it since I was a kid. I like the world 1 music in this game quite a lot.
I kept on with a few more chapters of Destiny's Princess: A War Story, A Love Story, too, but I don't actually like the character whose route I targeted first very well. I'm halfway done already, so it's fine. The affection meters are way touchier than I expected, too! I might need to start taking notes.
I didn't do much in Merge Pixel yesterday, but still made some progress. I'm getting close to the halfway mark.
May 14th, 2024
I wanted to keep playing Altered Beast last night, but I was too dizzy and couldn't sit in front of my TV. It was unpleasant.
Instead, I had been wanting to try an otome game for a while, since I keep reading novels where girls die and get reincarnated into them to dramatic effect. I had a couple of lower-tier looking ones from deep sales stashed on my Switch, so I tried Destiny's Princess: A War Story, A Love Story.I only played the first 15 minutes or so of this, though, so I have no real opinion on it yet.
I plugged away a bit more at Merge Pixel, too, making another big jump at the daily login bonus.
May 13th, 2024
I was knockout level sleepy yesterday, but still tried to do quite a lot. My biggest accomplishment was a Wal-Mart run, where I picked up a super cute Brickcraft tape deck, in neons with some MTV branding. Some of the non-Legos I've had feel a little funky to build, like they take too much effort to snap together. This was really nice and click-y, though, and I was so pleased that the little tape fits in the deck for display! For less than five dollars, I was pleased with this.
Games-wise, I didn't do anything too exciting. I think I have a consistent path through the second level of Altered Beast now, since I was getting to level 3 with a lot less effort last night. I'd still like to be taking less damage in level 2, but I will get there.
I did some free exercises in Fitness Boxing 2 as well, pushing myself over the 51% of in game achievements earned line. The second half is going to be super time consuming, though. It looks like it requires 100 exercises with each trainer. Since I do 2-4 a day, that will take a bit.
I kept Merge Pixel running, too, but thanks to daily login bonuses, had a major progress bump. I suspect that I'll be stalled out a bit on that front today, while my per-second earnings catch up to the upgrades I can afford.
May 12th, 2024
I didn't feel my best yesterday, and my efforts to take it easy ended in my having a lot of stuff to post about here. Right after making yesterday's post, I bounced over to my XBox and finished off Adios, which only took 20 or so minutes. I felt like the Cooking Simulator style controls on the last bit kind of undercut the seriousness of the game's tone. I'm done now, though, and am glad I took the time to play this.
For the first time in a while, I did a couple off brand Lego kits, too. Both of these are from FiveBelow, and ignoring the scale issues, I think they make a cute pair. The flower shop had a misprint in the instructions, so I was glad this was simple enough to reverse engineer from the box photos. The Hello Kitty ice cream truck was ok all around, though, and I think the block colors are really good.
From there, a friend mentioned Altered Beast, and since I'd never messed with that much before, I got my Genesis Mini out and played it quite a lot. I definitely feel like I can beat it, especially if I crank up my lives and HP on the secret options menu. I'm pretty terrible at it, though, so it might take a while. Right now, I'm at the point where the first level is pretty breezy, but the second boss's patterns are still eluding me.
I also let Merge Pixel run for a while, and am documenting it here just to see how long clearing it will take.
May 11th, 2024
I didn't quite get back up to where I should be, but I was able to catch up a little on sleep last night. It meant I didn't want to get up, but when do I ever?
All things considered, I probably spent most of my gaming time idly swiping at Merge Pixel while I did more important things. I'm very determined to finish this, despite the fact that it is mind numbing, and have over a fourth of the little pixel people collected now. I've already half-heartedly been at this today, so it'll make another appearance here tomorrow.
I wanted to finish off Adios last night, but even a first person game this slow and low on action has the power to give me motion sickness. I'm interested enough to finish it off today, but if my stomach gets wobbly again, finishing it Sunday will be fine, too. I just can't abandon this quiet little character study.
To finish the day off, I went back to Love Colors before bed, too. I actually got quite a few screens cleared and felt a little accomplished. No, coloring in the little pixels does not take any skill, but it is still satisfying.
May 10th, 2024
Yesterday, I had to take my asthma inhaler a couple times, which makes me very peppy and almost totally unable to sleep. Breathing is worth it, but today is gonna be a challenge. It's Friday, though, so it's okay.
Buoyed by pharmacuetical pep, I had a pretty good session of Fitness Boxing 2 last night. I'm starting to put together a long term plan to hit all of the game's achievements, and should get about three of them in my next session. It'll take ages, but since they're more of an endurance test than a skill one, I've got this.
I played a couple more scenes in Adios, too, impressed by both the genuinely conversational tone and the fact that I got to feed a horse an apple. The horseshoes minigame was confusing, though- I played the whole thing and am not sure how the controls worked.
My final game of the night was Merge Pixel, an Android play-in-browser game I was hoping would put me to sleep. It did, eventually, which was an accomplishment. All you do in this game is wait around and drag little pixel buddies on top of each other to form more "valuable" little pixel buddies, but it seems to have a clear ending and isn't very nasty about ads. I'll come back to this one.
May 9th, 2024
Today's post'll be another short one, since I'm trying to get it done before running for some before-work errands.
Last night, I started playing Adios, an old Games With Gold download that had been sitting on my XBox for a few months, as it sounded interesting and I wanted a quick sense of accomplishment. So far, it has big relax-and-watch-things-unfold-vibes, but there's a lot of ways things could go wrong for a guy trying to stop working with a hitman, so I'm not sure it'll stay chill.
I also played a tiny bit of Threaded last night, but only made it through a puzzle and about a fourth of the next one. There's nothing to brag about here.
May 8th, 2024
I had an internet outage this morning and a busy day, so this post is super late! I'm within two hours of midnight in my time zone. Last night, though, I just played a couple puzzles in Threaded to get to sleep, though, so at least it's a low intensity posting situation. Hopefully, tomorrow will be an internet outage free day- that was my second one this week!
May 7th, 2024
I'm doin' a quick post today, because I did a poor job of getting out of bed today! My main game yesterday was Yoshi's Crafted World, and I buzzed through three more levels.
I also did some free exercises in Fitness Boxing 2, getting a fitness game session in while working towards some in-game achievements.
For a sleepy-time game, I tried Threaded again. The puzzles aren't bad, but shortly after this screenshot was taken, I accidentally found the "erase all your progress on this puzzle" button. It's not a feature I loved.
May 6th, 2024
I didn't have a very major gaming day yesterday. I did, as I'd wanted to, play a few levels of Yoshi's Crafted World, though! It was still very cute and nice, and I got the first of five gems I'm supposed to be after. It felt like something of an accomplishment.
I played a little of Calm Colors, too, which was fine. I might dig through my backlog and see what other before-bed possibilities I've got, though.
May 5th, 2024
Right after doing my post here yesterday, I went over to my craft table and finished off Tiny Number Hunt. I actually liked this, even if the "find 1-9 in 30 pictures" concept made for a very short and simple game. It was relaxing, and a lot of the art was really pastel and cute. In the last 10 puzzles, the art style did totally change, which was jarring, but not terrible. I liked the first style better, but that's personal taste.
The control scheme for it was very strange, though! I'd actually gotten this when it came out to play before going to sleep, but the recommended control scheme is popping off the joycons and popping the Switch stand to play vertically. There's touch screen functionality, too, but that felt a little awkward to me. In and of itself, this isn't bad, but needing to get things set up made this a little harder to play on a whim.
Later in the night, I started Yoshi's Crafted World and ended up playing for over an hour longer than I'd intended. It's so cute, and since my family had an SNES when I was in grade school, I always have room for Yoshi. Chucking an egg at a Shyguy gives me great satisfaction. Getting through a few more levels of this is my only gaming goal for today.
Right before bed, I then switched back to Calm Colors as my "come on, let's pass out already" game. It's still a color-by-numbers, from the same developer as Love Colors, no less, but I just don't like it as well. It's fine, though, and I'll stick with it a few more days.
May 4th, 2024
Yesterday, I played casual games only, but not in casual amounts. I spent a lot of time last night playing a cute little hidden object game I had stashed on my Switch, Tiny Number Hunt. One of my goals today is to finish it, so I'll talk more about it tomorrow. The whole game is just finding the numbers 1-9 in drawings, though. The numbers aren't super well hidden, but the art is cute and I felt like I could zone out nicely playing it. Since I was irritated about my internet being out, a laid back game was good.
I did a daily workout in Fitness Boxing 2, too, which went well. I unlocked some new clothes for my trainer after the session, which was very satisfying, so I'll toss her in them next time I play. Plus, this means I met my fitness game goal for the week!
I also played Love Colors for a few minutes, and my interest in it hit a sudden wall. Oh, well! I have other games to play when I need to get myself to sleep, so I'll switch to something different for a bit.
May 3rd, 2024
Lately, I've felt overwhelmed by having too many games to play, so I am considering a game buying freeze until the end of the year. I buy them way too often, leaving me with more games than I'll ever play, and since this wouldn't block borrowing games or anything on GamePass, it's not even bad. I do think it'll be hard, since I shop way too much, but since I've successfully been able to cut down on getting crummy takeout for dinner, this is next.
As for actually playing stuff, I did a couple of missions in Mega Man Zero last night. I feel like I should start over and be less wasteful with my subtanks, or even just play normal mode. I'll decide in a few days, though.
My fixation on Love Colors continued, too, and I've become set on filling in all of the images in the base game. It's not an exciting goal, but it is an attainable one.
May 2nd, 2024
It's a stormy morning, and I feel sleepy and slow. Last night, though, I started in on Mega Man Zero, on a series compliation on Switch. I picked the "casual scenario mode" with no shame, as I'm not getting graded based on my ability to play Mega Man games, but just giving players all the unlocks and upgrades from the start seems like a super lazy way to balance things! I'm still having a great time, appreciating the interesting level design and some lovely sprite work, but I was a little surprised to see how Capcom handled that.
After stopping Mega Man Zero for the night, I played a bit of Love Colors to go to sleep, too.
May 1st, 2024
My May is not off to an auspicious start here. Last night, I played somewhat utilitarian games. I did a daily workout in Fitness Boxing 2, since it just seemed like it would be good to exercise. I'd like to try harder to play fitness games a couple times a week. They're kind of a time sink, with warm-up and cool down stretches included, but they're good for me.
I also continued to use Love Colors as a shockingly effective sleep aid. At this point, it's fine if it's all placebo. Being able to go to sleep easily is great.
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