What Video Game Did I Play Yesterday?

January 2025

January 6th, 2025

I'm still under the weather, but did a telehealth appointment last night and am doing my very best to get back to normal! Yesterday, I did still keep up with my stupid fitness games, which felt good. I took the opportunity to play Walk It Out! while it was still daylight, taking in the crayon bright green grass and blue sky full of fluffy clouds. It's so cheerful and nice!

I did a 12 minute free workout in Fitness Boxing feat Hatsune Miku, too, getting quite a few achievements as a result. This was more due to some in game meters filling up than it was to any great effort on my part, but I'll take it!

I started in on Sweet Survivors, a game I'd picked up for 19 cents in the Switch eShop, as my next cat game, too. These Vampire Survivors-alikes certainly make me appreciate Vampire Survivors itself more than I did when I tried it out for myself. This is a cute imitator, though, and a heck of a lot better than Catlord was. It has permanent upgrades to help make progression seem a little more concrete, but the upgrades within runs are intact, too. It also forces you to fend off cats while standing still to brew and serve coffee, which is an unexpectedly intense wrinkle in the formula. So far, I don't know that I love this, but I'll stick with it at least a bit longer.

January 5th, 2025

Yesterday, I didn't start any new games, but I did finish Farm Kitten: Puzzle Pipes. The pipe puzzles in this game were just okay, and it took me a while to get used to the camera. I am very charmed that this was a game about doing farm work for the world's most demanding and oddly specific kitten, though. No people are in sight, but I got them a car, a house, a tractor, some utility buildings, and even their very own windmill! They're a great little CG bug-cat, and they deserved all of it. I hope that the little cutie was somehow a cog in an elaborate money laundering scheme.

With uncharacteristic determination, I also left Jujutsu Kaisen: Phantom Parade running for most of the morning and a good chunk of the afternoon, determined to get a good start on the long term goals in the current story event so I'd have a better chance at getting Nanami's new SSR in the long run. I then got him in my second pull of the day, gracelessly gloated about it to a family member I play with, and didn't touch the game for the rest of the day.

As for my ill-advised adventures in fitness gaming, I popped a bunch of Ricolas and pieced together 30 minutes of exercise in Fitness Boxing feat. Hatsune Miku. In hindsight, it would have been a lot less effort to just do the longer daily workout session, but my brain wasn't there yesterday.

Though I considered starting a new cat game last night, I just ended up playing a bit of Hole io to put myself to sleep. It's a long grind, but the destruction makes me feel powerful.

January 4th, 2025

Much like a boss battle, my current cold has many stages, so I am bereft of pep today. I kept going with some game stuff yesterday, though. I did a longer workout in Fitness Boxing feat. Hatsune Miku, which actually gave me enough energy to press on for a couple more hours.

That didn't quite take a full half hour, though, so I played a couple of songs in Just Dance 2014 after that. I hadn't played any Just Dance games for a while, but I have somewhat conflicting feelings on them. They're fun, and I think they're a decent way to get a spot of exercise, but they also kind of barely feel like games to me. I'm not good enough to be confident in saying so, but the controls feel very loose and imprecise to me, and even with the "next move" bar at the bottom, I feel a bit like what you need to do isn't telegraphed well. I like pop music, though, and it's enjoyable to flail around like a dingbat. It's a good placeholder game.

I did a few more puzzles in Farm Kitten: Puzzle Pipes, too. I'd like to finish this tonight, but if I don't, that's fine, too.

January 3rd, 2025

I'm so sleepy today I almost forgot to post here today! I played some games yesterday, though. I did a couple exercises in Fitness Boxing feat. Hatsune Miku, long live my streak!

I played Walk It Out! more, and the little girl announcer in it was really rude that I played less time than I had the day before! I love this game, and it's really relaxing, but the announcer in it is so irritating! Being mean in a fitness game is not encouraging.

As for normal gaming, I started a new cat game called Farm Kitten: Puzzle Pipes. The kitten is pretty incidental to the game itself, but it's a decent little pipe connecting puzzle. I'm hoping to finish it in the next couple days!

January 2nd, 2025

I'm still under the weather today, and having some internet issues, too, so this is kind of a late post. I've slept a lot so far today! Yesterday, though, I played the first cat game of the year, 100 New Year Cats. Disappointingly, the title is a lie and this just featured more Christmas cats. For a "find 100 cats" game, though, this was fine. Being able to switch between color and lineart for the image was nice, helping me find the full set of cats pretty quickly. It was on the easier side for one of these, but not as low-effort as some have been. It got 2025's cat games off to an ok start.

I was pretty happy that even not feeling well, I managed 30 minutes in fitness video games last night. Fitness Boxing feat. Hatsune Miku was a bit much for me yesterday, but I managed 6 or 7 minutes before giving up.

I got the rest of my half hour done in the more easygoing Walk It Out on Wii, which only required me to walk in place. I tried to unlock a lot of music along the path last night, but want to try to find and unlock some of the time change options tonight. Since it's linked to real time and I tend to exercise at night, I don't get this game's island in the virtual sunlight that often! It'll be nice when I can.

Other than that, I just played mobile games. I cleared the map event I was working on in Jujutsu Kaisen: Phantom Parade and pulled the limited SSR that goes with the event with a free ticket. My gacha luck is so good in this that it makes me worry I will face a bad luck reckoning in a part of my life that actually matters.

I zoned out a lot with Love Rebirth, too, moving the story forward very incrementally while matching tons of stuff. It made for perfect head cold gaming.

January 1st, 2025

Happy New Year, everyone! I'm starting 2025 with a nasty head cold, but also with some enthusiasm. I want to play a lot of games with cats and keep up better with fitness games this year. I don't know how successful I'll be, especially with fitness games today, but it's worth a shot!

Yesterday, I was extremely tired, so I mostly played mobile games. Years ago, before starting this blog, I played Superstar JYP, a K-pop rhythm game, a bit. Last night, I was somewhat surprised to see the game series was still running and wanted to play a bit. I'm on an aespa kick right now, so I went with Superstar SMTown this time, but it's just the same game with a different tracklist. That's probably fine, and I imagine I'll chug along doing dailies for a little bit, get bored with it, and quit. Sometimes it's fun to peek in on a game like that.

Over in Love Rebirth, my protagonist got murdered last night and travelled back in time to her college days. Being the good sport that she is, she's still ok with spending hours matching tiles because her peers need tiny purple shorts. I'm glad I am not in grad school anymore because I would be very tempted to write a thesis on narrative dissonance in mobile games.

I started the current map event in Jujutsu Kaisen: Phantom Parade, too, but don't have a ton to say about it. It's still satisfying to clear all the little stages that pop up, but it's not different from past map events at all. It is gaming that is simply just there.

I did a daily workout in Fitness Boxing feat. Hatsune Miku, too. I was a little distressed because I wasn't feeling well and it gave me an extremely difficult and tiring song exercise. I don't know if I have the power to keep my streak up in this today, with yesterday's experience in mind.