What Video Game Did I Play Yesterday?

Bookbug Book Club Posts

February 29th, 2024

Today's post is my last one for February, and I don't feel that I had my most successful month. Bookbug is what I'm most frustrated with myself about screwing up this morning. Even though I'd been seeing posts come in about Giovanni's Room, this month's book by James Baldwin, coming in all month, I forgot to read it myself. It's pretty short, so I thought I could shotgun it in three days, and by raw page count, I still think that was a plausible plan. After one day of that, though, I felt so weighed down by the protagonist's regret and self-loathing that I decided it's better to pace things and just finish it a few days late. It's beautifully written, and I am going to finish it, but the emotional weight of it is so heavy that I can't do it as a speed read. Even if I had finished it on time, I think I would have needed to sit with it a few days to sort out my own feelings.

I don't know if I'll post about Giovanni's Room when I'm done reading it, since, despite being out of school for many years, I still have the dreadful feeling that I missed an assignment and am going to get a zero on it. My big takeaway from this, though, is that I'd best start reading The Left Hand of Darkness this weekend.

Gaming-wise, I fell short of my goal for the month, too, but I don't feel too bad about that. I started February intending to play four games over the month, and I got three instead, which isn't awful! Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore and Costume Quest were both somewhat substantial, and I hadn't enjoyed any game as much as I did Arzette for ages. Plus, I cleared both my "beat an RPG" and "beat a game on GamePass" side quests, which felt good, too. For March, I'm going to shoot for four games cleared again, but if I once again don't make it, that'll be fine.

As for the actual topic of this blog, I cleared the current event in Fashion Dreamer last night, raking in some prizes and giving myself a mild sense of accomplishment. There hasn't been any word that there'll be another in-game event, but I'm certainly hoping for one.

January 21st, 2024

Even though I was very tired yesterday, it ended up being busier than I expected! I did some real bowling, which meant I didn't have to play a workout game, and was just generally out and about.

Before I get into game stuff, though, I want to post about the book of the month over at Bookbug, a Neocities book club. This month's book was Convenience Store Woman, by Sayaka Murata, which I buzzed through pretty quickly. It's been a couple weeks since I finished it, but I wanted to think about it a bit before posting on it. Structurally, it felt kind of short story-ish to me, with a limit on subplots and a pretty foregrounded focus on self-acceptance versus the acceptance of society, which isn't a complaint at all.

A lot of my impressions of the book, though, came from the fact that I got a Thriftbooks copy loaded with notes from someone who judged the characters very harshly. Seeing a critique of the heroine's lack of emotion in sunny bright blue letters in the margins was kind of like having a Greek chorus with very cute handwriting standing in for the society she couldn't fit into. It was an interesting reading experience, and I think it highlighted the protagonist's bafflement at what people wanted from her. Of course, that means I'm judging the book on more than itself, but since I'm not being graded on this, I'm not going to worry too deeply about that.

Overall, I did think it was an interesting character study, and one that left me curious to read more of Sayaka Murata's work. It was cool that the heroine was outside of societal norms without inviting pity, and I felt like, at least in translation, the quick, unadorned style provided a very readable reflection of her inner voice. Reading this made me glad I jumped on the Bookbug bandwagon.

In terms of games, I didn't play a ton yesterday. On my XBox, I started Turnip Boy Robs a Bank, which I'd been looking forward to quite a bit. I'm not sure how I feel about the rougelike structure yet, but I was able to grind out enough upgrades to beat the first boss and get a bit more into the story. Also, I got to do graffiti with a big crayon, and that was good stuff.

After that, I did not want to play Fashion Dreamer, so I dug through the Nintendo Switch Online apps and ended up turning on Kirby's Adventure. This is a replay for me, and since I came to the NES really late, in the 00s, I think it might be the only game I've ever beaten on real NES hardware. It's really cute and pleasant to play, though, and the graphics are so bright for the console! Since it's a late release, it's not so strange that it's impressive, but I still love the look of it. I'll probably run through this pretty quickly.

This was a longer post than I expected to make, and today will be a little busy again. I'm sure I'll play something, though, and'll be back tomorrow either way.

December 17th, 2023

Yesterday was a very lovely family Christmas, and I was gifted many lovely building toys. Right now, I feel super motivated to do legos and models, so they may have an outsized presence here for a while. Last night, I tackled a Nanoblock of Cinnamoroll, a Sanrio character that, like most Sanrio characters, I am quite fond of. This was my first Nanoblock, and I was pretty impressed with it! They were decently generous with extra parts, and the blocks clicking together had a good feeling. It's so cute, too!

On an inside-baseball kind of note, pertaining to Neocities, I found a book club on here, Bookbug, and thought it might be cool to join. I'm not sure yet if I have the wherewithal to buzz through a re-read of Crime and Punishment to jump in for this month, but I'll give it a shot- I've got a couple weeks! For next month, though, the book is Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, so I got a copy on Thriftbooks to hop in and join the fun.

As you may have guessed from the rest of this post, however, my gaming for last night sucked. I played Fashion Dreamer for about 10 minutes and passed out. All things considered, that was perfect.