What Video Game Did I Play Yesterday?

Gris (XBox Series S)

March 19th, 2024

I finished Gris last night, and it's probably one of the most beautiful games I've ever played. The ending was very lovely, and I was glad I went back to it. I didn't feel like I got the feel of the platforming down until right at the end, though, so the excellent gravity puzzles made me feel like, on the gameplay front, it ended just as it was getting good. Story and atmosphere seemed more important here, though, so that's fine.

From there, I played a couple of unbelievably bad rounds of Balatro to get myself relaxed enough to sleep.

March 18th, 2024

I'm actually going to try to stick to no new game starts this week, like I was talking about yesterday. Since I've started and not finished dozens upon dozens of games, this shouldn't be much of a challenge.

One of the big benefits I'll get from this is a shot at finishing some of the shorter games I've started, gotten distracted, and not finished on GamePass. I picked Gris back up last night and explored for a little over an hour, finishing the blue levels and reaching the yellow ones. I have no idea what that means in the scope of the game as a whole, but an eel chased me and it was very dramatic. As sedate as this game is, it does not slack on the setpieces.

I played my daily chunk of the Fashion Dreamer event while I was making an unecessairly complicated lunch out of a 38 cent pack of Maruchan ramen. For some reason, I was really set on making my character a cute little St. Patrick's Day outfit, so I did.

Before bed, I played Catlord until I was bored enough to sleep, racking up a lot of the game's static upgrades. When I get every upgrade bought, I guess I'll be done with this, but since I don't play it often, that's not an imminent concern.

November 27th, 2023

I was unpleasantly zoned out yesterday, so I barely accomplished anything.

Game-wise, I got through another stage in Gris.

I also did a bit more pre-Misty's gym levelling in Pokemon: Let's Go Eevee..

I'm hoping to feel better today, games or not, which'll be a super low bar to clear.

November 26th, 2023

I had an extremely relaxed yesterday, where I wasn't feeling my best, so I ended up playing a lot of games.

First off the bat, I got out my shiny new Switch to get going on my eShop backlog. I have it in my head that I'm not going to buy any new games until April, when Princess Peach: Showtime comes out. I have some stuff on order, both preorder and slow shipping, and five of those six games are JRPGs, so I'm plenty set for that goal on both the "woo, new stuff!" rush and playtime alone.

As part of that, though, I want to work through some of the games I've got, so I started in on Planetarian, one of the shorter visual novels I had sitting around. I don't know what to say about it here yet, since it's legitimately just reading, but in my first play session, it seemed to be imparting the message that nothing helps with PTSD like cute robot girls. I'm okay with sad-robot-sci-fi, and this is ok for that so far.

After that, I tried Gris, as hearing a friend talk about it reminded me that I'd abandoned Game Pass for the month. The wordless storytelling was a sharp contract to the chatty visual novel I'd been playing earlier, and the platforming felt really excellent, so I played a lot longer than I'd intended. I'm looking forward to getting further in this today.

From there, before bed, I did some basic level grinding in my Nuzlocke run of Pokemon: Let's Go Eevee, too. I am conflicted on catching Pokemon being the main way to level grind in this game, as it gates levelling behind money, but it's kind of an interesting play mechanic. It doesn't seem like it'll become a problem. It was just a thought that I got fixated on while I was half asleep.

I'm looking forward to a relaxed, and hopefully craft-filled Sunday today. I hope there are nice days ahead for the rest of you, too.