What Video Game Did I Play Yesterday?

The Tale of Food (Android)

August 2nd, 2024

I'm doing a late and underwhelming "lunch break" post today, since I didn't have time to comfortably post this morning.

I kept going with Earthbound: Beginnings for about ten more minutes last night, walking back to Podunk, but forgot to take a screenshot! I was dead tired, so this isn't shocking, but I am annoyed at myself over it.

After watching Olympic gymnastics and seeing the athletes do some truly superhuman feats earlier that night, I went and did a light workout in Fitness Boxing: Fist of the North Star. It was somewhat less impressive than anything at the Olympics, but I really aced pretending to punch things for a little bit.

Aside from that, a lot of my gaming yesterday was using mobile games as fidgets when I needed to focus on what I was doing. I autobattled my way through an entire event in The Tale of Food, albeit a small one, and felt rather powerful for it. It was brain dead, but kind of satisfying.

I kept on clicking in King of Prism Sparkle, too, getting more "rare" cards and becoming ever more curious how the company running this game intends to make any money off of it. It's nice that I can play and succeed for free, even if it is mostly just a clicker game, but it makes this all rather mysterious.

I also had the urge to run Merge Pixel for a while, letting it run for a bit without making any real progress. At this point, the daily login bonuses are going to be more key to winning than actually letting the game go. I will defeat it yet.

I'm off to tackle the last couple of hours of work before the weekend from here! Hopefully, it'll go quickly.

July 25th, 2024

I'm finally starting to wake up a little today, but was still lazy enough this morning to push this post back to my lunch break. It's not the worst thing, though!

I just played tablet games again last night, feeling baffled by the narrative complexity of Mary's Mahjong. The plots and subplots that unfold between stages feel like they have the potential to get out of hand, with backstabbing coworkers, pirate treasure, and a child at camp who doesn't know his father has left the family. The tile matching is solid, so there's nothing to complain about there. Mobile games just have such a weird vibe sometimes.

My other game last night was, yet again, The Tale of Food, and I actually did move one stage forward in the story mode! Small progress is still progress.

Aside from playing games, I've had it in my head that I want to draw some fighting game characters. I'm not very talented, so it's an interesting desire on my end, but I might format them as a zine or something and post them here. I'll see how it goes!

July 24th, 2024

Last night, I felt exhausted, so I just did a tablet game night. I think it's worth posting about and documenting casual and gacha games, just so there's a record of "here's what the day to day gameplay in these was like" out there. Last night, I wanted to play some mahjong solitaire, so I tried Mary's Mahjong, which is bright, sunny, and throws some city cleanup drama between the mahjong levels. I did ten stages before bailing for the night.

I went a little further than my daily missions in The Tale of Food, too, and feel like my character's little house is starting to come together. I need to get back to playing the story stages, though, so I can unlock other features. Maybe tonight!

July 19th, 2024

I didn't have a bad day for productivity yesterday, and felt like I did a decent job at work. I didn't do great with games, though. I did a regular length workout in Fitness Boxing: Fist of the North Star, which wasn't so bad. Since I'm still feeling tired, though, I ended up feeling really sore and burnt out afterwards.

I couldn't decide on a normal game to play after that, so I fussed with The Tale of Food for a bit before bed. My party is still way too weak to take on the timed events, so I'm just going through the main story right now. The translation is very funky, with even basics like character names having some inconsistencies, but it's a relaxing time.

July 15th, 2024

Yesterday wasn't a very big game day for me, since I did a movie and Trader Joe's run. The movie, Robot Dreams was good, and I'm going to eat like a very lazy princess all week, so my choices were the right ones.

I did make more progress in The Mysterious Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and think I must be getting close to the end. Now that I've investigated Mr. Hyde's favorite puppet shop, I don't see where else this story can go.

I've also finally started unlocking some of the restaurant management features in The Tale of Food, as well as the daily quest stuff, making it a lot more fun. I made decent story progress alongside my daily quests yesterday, and am looking forward to playing more. I want my characters to have a very lovely home.

Today, I want to get back to playing fitness games. I'm kind of disappointed with myself for abandoning them, but I know I can get back to it!

July 11th, 2024

Yesterday was so bad that I think today has to be better by default. I skipped playing a workout game and doing Japanese reading practice because I had to rebuild a shelf upon coming home from work and finding it broken. I'd been thinking about submarine themed games at work, though, and started Dive Alert: Matt's Version last night, because it's very cool to play Neo Geo Pocket Color RPGs in 2024. In the early parts of the game, the submarine is so slow it's almost torturous, so I've gotta grind out money for some new parts in my next play session. The story was interesting so far, though, so I wanna see where it goes!

The Tale of Food was up in my mobile game rotation last night, but I got to it so late that I only played a few story quests before just folding and going to sleep. I need a better healer for my party for sure, so soon, I'll have to take a look at what the food boys in my reserve ranks are capable of doing. I just wasn't up for it last night.

July 8th, 2024

Today, I am trying to stay cheerful and optimistic that a good week is ahead.

Yesterday, I definitely spent the most game time on Honkai Star Rail, even if I played for a bit less than an hour. I liked seeing how retrofuturistic a lot of the interior design on the train itself is and went to a very story heavy ice planet for my next set of quests. In fact, I got caught up in some story events that made it hard to quit right when I wanted to, but that's just how JRPGs go. Even a gacha game can fall prey to the curse of cutscenes!

I tried the last of the gacha games I downloaded while getting my new tablet, too, The Tale of Food. I don't know a lot about Chinese folklore, so I'm interested in that part of the story in and of itself. It seems fine other than that, too, and like progressing without spending might not be too bad here. Now that I've started all three of the new-ish gatcha games I downloaded, my next goal is going to be getting to a spot where I can spend out my energy in one play session in all of them, rather than having it topped up with constant levelling bonuses.

I played Samba de Amigo: Party Central as my workout game again, too, and really did wear myself out again. The "story mode" missions are fun, but I played too long and really wore out my arms. I might do something with a more traditional workout structure tonight.