What Video Game Did I Play Yesterday?

Gold's Gym Cardio Workout (Wii)

July 23rd, 2025

I played quite a lot of games for a work day yesterday, but I'm maybe most interested in talking about a weird little "brick game" console I bought at Miniso. I had one of these off brand all-squares LCD games in junior high, so the Miniso version, though it is now being sold as cute and trendy, made me feel nostalgic. When I was a kid, I liked it because the games were abstract and didn't make a lot of sense. Last night, though, I went straight for Game I, which turned out to be a version of Tetris with an area clearing piece and garbage blocks that shift every time you get a line. It was mysterious, but a bad version of Tetris is still pretty fun in that it is Tetris. I want to pick a "goal score" in this, beat it, and then move onto another game on here.

I also tried Pokemon Friends, the new minigame/puzzle/edutainment Pokemon game that surprise-launched yesterday morning. It is definitely a game made for kids, and nothing I've done in it has been challenging. However, while playing it, I didn't think at all about dying from climate change or nuclear war, so I bought in to the full game and look forward to playing it for a zillion hours. Anything that can shut up my bad brain is magic.

I did my first daily workout in Gold's Gym Cardio Workout on Wii and really enjoyed it. It mixes mini-games in with the regular boxing, giving it a more varied feel than most of the later Fitness Boxing games.

Before bed, I finished off the day with two rounds of Vampire Survivors. I'm getting close to the end of the Garlic Paradise adventure!

July 22nd, 2025

Today has been lame. It's super hot outside, and I had and repaired some car trouble. All through work, I had a very distinct malaise that I haven't been able to shake off.

That aside, I did have some fun trying Gold's Gym Cardio Workout for Wii, which is just the first game in the Fitness Boxing series. The branding is a bit weird, but the bright, round Wii-era look to everything is very charming! I really enjoyed that.

I played Yoshi a little before bed, too. I don't really like this game, so this was a weird choice on my part. It's kind of boring for a puzzle game, and not in a way that helped me sleep, and trying to complete the eggs feels too random, too. Maybe I'm not giving it a fair shot, but I have so many games I like better to play that I'm not so worried about it.