What Video Game Did I Play Yesterday?

Sonic Drift (PS4, Sonic Origins Plus)

June 26th, 2023

I got all of my work stuff done yesterday and then had a major crash, really only managing to make a soup from a vintage cookbook and half-heartedly fart around from there.

After I went to bed, though, in the absence of work to worry about, I started to feel very concerned about my meal planning for the next two days, and how I was going to balance leftovers and cooking if I'll be eating out every meal on Wednesday and Thursday. This was not good at all, so I searched the depths of the Google Play Store and downloaded an anime girl dress-up auto-runner, Slash & Girl. It's fine, with some awkward voice acting and baffling currency systems, but it controlled well and succeeded in helping me shut my brain off.

During the day, I also did quite a bit of grinding for coins in Pikmin Bloom, but despite the good exercise, I'm still not very close to my hydrangea goal. I'll likely keep up with this today, but I'm not sure I'll bother to say much about it again tomorrow.

I also got in my run of Sonic Dash, with my biggest obstacle now being figuring out how to safely pass other drivers. Once I get that, I think I'll be able to come in first in the Green Chaos GP.

I don't know what I'll do today, but I'm sure it'll be fine.

June 25th, 2023

Yesterday, I let the burden of my catchup work weigh me down, even though it's honestly not very bad. I didn't finish it, nor did I let myself have much fun doing crafts or playing games, either. The day wasn't a loss- I made some delicious pork chops in mushroom soup with roasted garlic for dinner, and watched a very entertaining old Sherlock Holmes movie- but I'm kind of frustrated with myself and am hoping to do better today.

Sonic Drift was definitely my main procrastination tool yesterday, and I'm satisfied to be getting a little better at it with every run. On Friday night, I was swearing because I didn't understand how to stay on the track, and while I'm still doing that to some small extent, I'm coming in second in the green Chaos GP pretty regularly now. I definitely want to do at least one more run today.

I played a lot of Pikmin Bloom between rainy spots yesterday, too, trying to make headway in the chess piece Pikmin event. I hit a roadblock that I ran into during the last event, too, though- the requirement to plant a certain amount of hydrangeas. Hydrangea flowers are in super short supply in the game right now, and I don't have awesome access to big flowers on foot, so getting the petals to succeed at this feels very pay-to-win.

Since I do Google Opinion Rewards to fund my mobile game nonsense, I could spend a couple dollars on this game, and have done so before! In the past, though, I've just done it for stuff I thought seemed cute or fun, like Pikmin storage or Mii outfits here and there. With the hydrangeas, I feel like the game is trying to force me to spend, so I'm digging my heels in and refusing despite having the available funds. Instead, I'm grinding out flower planting to *earn* coins and killing mushrooms right and left in the hopes that I'll get a few petals as a reward. Of course it's not reasonable, but I think it fits the "get walking and do your best" spirit of the game better than tossing money at the problem would.

I messed with Soul Calibur 6 a bit more while I was on a voice chat, too. Mostly, I was messing with the character creation and feeling distressed at the number of dreadfully uncomfortable looking boob armors in the game, but I did a bit of fighting, too. My approach to this game is extremely inefficient in a fun way.

There's still a little bit of work to do today, but I am going to do my best to get it done and not let that bother me. Today will be a good day.

June 24th, 2023

Even though I am on a current "clear 10 games before you buy any more" run, I preordered Sonic Origins Plus before setting that goal, and my copy of it arrived yesterday. Because of that, instead of doing my pre-break catchup work immediately, I played some Game Gear games, like a responsible adult. My first victim was Sonic Labyrinth, which I didn't really give a fair chance. Trying to figure out why I was either hitting or not hitting the first boss was too much effort for the level of brainpower I had going last night.

I was equally dingbatty trying Sonic Drift where the controls frustrated me until I reached the third race and it dawned upon me that my little hedgehog was shooting off the track at every turn because, as the title subtlely implies, I needed to be drifting around the corners. Once I figured that out, I still sucked at this game, but in a way where I think I can improve. I'm hoping to play this a bit more today.

Lastly, I hit a few sidequests in Libra of Soul mode in Soul Calibur 6. I picked this up just to mess with briefly before the new Sonic game showed up, but I'm actually really enjoying it. If I weren't on a game buying freeze, I don't think I would have gotten back into it, so I maybe need to prevent myself from shopping more often.

Even though I do have a bit of work left to do, I'm counting myself as on break now, and am hoping to relax and enjoy some games as part of that. I'd like to clear at least one, and have a candidate that might suffice just during transportation wait times next week. Other than that, though, I'm not going to stress myself out over any hobby stuff. It's not what time off is for.