Another week has come and gone and oof this post is taking forever to write. So yeah, mega late… Oh well! At least I can say that I did stuff this week, despite being pretty tired and generally out of it. Oh, and the power went out for most of a day (which happened to be my prime game time), but thankfully we were able to work things out so it wasn’t as awful of a day as it could have been.

While I didn’t get around to playing everything that I wanted to (sorry Trails in the Sky!), I did dabble in a lot of things this week, so let’s get into it!

Watching Stuff

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968)

I know it’s a classic, but I don’t think I’ve seen it before watching it this week. I’m not 100% sure though, since some of the scenes felt familiar while I was watching… Regardless, I’ve certainly seen it now!

It was a goofy, light-hearted, and fun time. Don’t think too hard on the plot though, cause it can’t really decide what it wants to do and goes all over the place. It’s also a lot longer than I think it really should be. Still, I enjoyed it! Some of the scenes were pretty impressive looking (for the time at least), and I enjoyed almost all of the songs (I could have done without the kids singing by themselves though). I needed something more light and cheery, and this certainly did the trick. I’d watch it again!

Book Stuff

No progress with The Tea Enthusiast’s Handbook.

DNF: Carrie (Stephen King) - 45pgs (ish)

I’m often looking for ways to branch out in the various media I consume. One of my more recent interests has been dipping my toes into spooky/horror stuff. The first thing I think of when it comes to horror books is Stephen King, so hey I thought I’d try one out! Carrie was one of the recommended books to try out, so I went with that.

Unfortunately, it didn’t really work for me. As far as I got, it was just really, really slow with not much of interest going on. I can be fine with a slow moving plot if I find the characters interesting, or if there’s little hints around that might lead to whatever the big thing is, but I didn’t feel like Carrie had that. Also, I can’t put a finger on why, but something about the writing style was really unappealing for me, so that didn’t help.

I might try another King book, but I’m not sure yet. I think this was his debut work, so it’s possible that isn’t a good example for how he writes. That will be something for me to look into I guess.

Art Before Breakfast (Danny Gregory) - 28/159 pgs

Got through a few more pages this week! Just some prompts to do a few quick observational drawings :)

The prompts were do draw what you’re going to eat for breakfast (hence, drawing before breakfast lol), but mornings are weird for me. I don’t tend to eat much in the morning, and lately I’ve been beyond tired regardless (like not normal tired but mega tired). Instead, I just took a few random objects and drew them instead. I’m sure that fit the spirit of the prompt just fine. I think the point is more about carving out small bits of time when you think you have none, so I think that works. That’s what I’m sticking with anyway lol.

Game Stuff

Added (Purchases/Gifts):
Harvestella (Switch)

Subscription Addition Highlights:
There were quite a few subscription additions this week, but not many of them really stick out for me.

Nioh 2 was one of the big PS Plus additions, and I know that a lot of people like it (or at least they like the first game?). I probably want to try it out at some point, but it does look a bit overwhelming for me at the moment.

Lego Harry Potter Collection is another one of the bigger additions this week. I do really want to play these games at some point (honestly I pretty much want to play all of these Lego games lol), but it’s not something that I’m hyped to play ASAP.

Subscription Games Leaving Soon (Nov 15th):
Art of Rally - I haven’t played too many racing games, but I’ve enjoyed them in the past and have been wanting to play more of them. From a quick glance, this looks like it could be my jam. Very chill looking. Haven’t played a rally racer before but I doubt that will matter much.

Fae Tactics - I can’t say that I have much of an impression of it right now… It’s pretty colourful looking I guess? I’m still a big noob when it comes to tactic RPGs though, so I’m not sure if this will be a good one to play for me or not. Could be worth a try at the very least (and if I have the time).

Next Space Rebel - Hoo boy… Complicated mechanical engineering rockety stuff. While I’d consider myself to be pretty tech savvy, I’m good at software; NOT hardware. That’s just beyond my brain capabilities at the moment so I doubt this one will work for me. Sure it’s a game and it should be a bit simpler than normal (I assume anyway), but just looking at some of the screenshots make my brain hurt. I would certainly like to get a better understanding of hardware/mechanical sort of stuff, but I won’t be diving into that through this game, at least not now. Nope nope nope.

One Step From Eden - Aw, from the cover image thing, I thought that this was a rhythm/music game. Oh well. Looking into it, it’s a deck-building rougelike (YAY) with a real-time action battles (BOO). This sort of strategy and real-time mix in one game is a really unappealing combo for me. It sounds like a recipe for my brain turning into a pile of mush as I’m constantly bombarded by STUFF. If I get a chance, I might try it out though. Who knows? It might not be as complicated as it looks…?

Removed:
Project Wingman (Game Pass)
Bassmaster Fishing 2022 (Game Pass)
Nongunz (Game Pass)
The Forgotten City (Game Pass)
Alan Wake’s American Nightmare (Game Pass)

Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to try any of these out… Oh well.

Games Played

DEMOED: Please, Touch the Artwork (Switch eshop)

Sometimes I will browse around through either the eshop or PSN and download a bunch of game demos that catch my eye. It sometimes takes me a while to actually getting around to trying them, but this week I checked out two of them.

Please, Touch the Artwork was the first demo I tried and I’d say that it’s interesting, but really not for me. It’s a puzzle game where you interact with a bunch of things to recreate famous pieces of art (I think it’s all abstract art?), which also seemed to be accompanied by little story segments. I really love the idea and I wish I could love it, but unfortunately the puzzles are a little too difficult for me to enjoy them properly. They just don’t work very well for my brain I guess :/

DEMOED: Picross S8 (Switch eshop)

I did not need to play the demo for Picross S8, since I already know that I like this series of picross games, but hey I tried it out anyway lol. I’ll get it at some point, but I don’t really have the funds at the moment. Probably a good thing since I would like to make a dent in my RPGs lol. Oh and one thing that was nice about this demo, was that I was able to complete a 30x30 puzzle with no hints! Usually the max size is 20x15, so I don’t get to do such large puzzles very often. I think it took me over a half an hour to finish, but overall I’m super pleased about that.

RETIRED: Soul Hackers (3DS) - 2:45

I finally got around to playing this (after sitting on my list untouched for a while), but after a bit more time with it, I decided it would be better to retire it.

Story has already kind of fizzled out to basically nothing, and the combat & dungeons are both a bit too annoyingly old school for me. It makes sense that it’s old school feeling, cause it’s mostly a straight port of a PS1/Saturn game, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m not really enjoying it. It’s hard for me to point out what exactly that I don’t like about the gameplay, but I guess for me it feels very obtuse? Combat is annoying to work around (it’s super random if you’ll recruit a demon and plus they don’t always listen to commands) and already some of the dungeon layouts are super tedious. I got out a strategy guide, which sometimes improves a trickier game enough for me to enjoy it, but it just wasn’t working out here. Still just tedious.

Oh well. Can’t win them all I guess. I’m still excited to eventually play Soul Hackers 2 though! They’re obviously very different games, so just because I didn’t like this one, doesn’t mean that I won’t like 2.

RETIRED: Stray (PS5) - 1:31

Stray was another game that had been sitting untouched on my list for a while, and unfortunately I decided that it also needed to be retired.

I want to like it cause cat! I liked running around and doing platforming stuff as a cat! Unfortunately, it’s gone down the path of more combat stuff which I really dislike here. I don’t want to run around, fighting alien things with a flashlight that keeps dying while the same aliens keep jumping on the cat which slows him down and ughhhhhh dead. It’s not what I wanted in the game I guess :/ It does look nice and I like the various cat things you can do, but it doesn’t hold the game up enough for me to continue.

NEW: Harvestella (Switch) - 2:21

I was way too excited for this so I HAD to play it right away lol.

It starts off VERY slowly, so I’ve barely gotten any where so far. There’s been some very brief introductions to the world, farming, combat, and crafting. Lots of random mysteriously named things being thrown around without too much explanation. Mysterious people and amnesia! Combat seems very basic so far, but I’ve only just unlocked a second job (you can switch between jobs in dungeons) so I’m pretty sure there’s still more stuff to be introduced. Can’t do a whole lot with farming yet though, other than just planting and harvesting. I know there’s a lot of other stuff to buy/unlock/build though, but a lot of it is expensive so I’m still saving up.

Right now I’m making my way through the first “dungeon”, an autumn themed area, and just plodding along to whatever the story feels like doing. Something about crystals I guess? So, typical Square Enix I guess lol. I’m enjoying my time with it so far, but I’m not quite hooked into it yet.

NEW: Pocket Card Jockey (3DS eshop) - 6:45

I started up Pocket Card Jockey for something quick and easy to play (it’s also one of my goal games so bonus!) and well… Did you see that time??? I somehow spent over 6 HOURS this week playing this??? HOW?! I haven’t played it before picking it up this week, so it’s not counting any previous time played or anything like that. I guess this game is just scary addicting…

Anyway, it’s solitaire type game with a horse racing theme. If you do better playing solitaire, then the better you do in the race. There’s also a bit of strategy with positioning your horse, as there are helpful items to pick up and certain places on the track will have better bonuses if you successfully clear out all of the cards. However, to get those better bonuses, you have to play a game with more cards, which makes it more difficult! Also they’re timed so you can’t go slow. There’s also various abilities your horse can acquire which can also affect where you position your horse or how you play your games.

However, you can’t ride the same horse forever! You start off a horse in what’s called “Growth Mode”, where they can gain EXP and learn skills until they are a mature horse. Then, you can ride them in “Mature Mode” where you focus more on trying to win as many races as you can. Lose too many though, and the horse has to retire. You can breed retired horses, so the idea is to get the best horses you can, and make new horses to go through the loop again, hopefully getting incrementally better as you go.

So yeah, while it is certainly something that’s quick and easy to play, there’s a surprising amount of layers to it. It also has that sort of addicting quality like Civilization has… Just one more race, just one more race, just one more race…. I think I’ve cooled off a little bit after that initial addicting burst, but I’m still enjoying it! I don’t JUST want to play this game though so I’m trying to be a bit mindful of how many races I’m actually doing lol.

Genshin Impact (PS5) - 158:43 (+?)

Honestly I can’t super remember what I did this week in Genshin Impact, but I decided that I’d start keeping track of the time played. I’m just curious I guess?

I just took the time played so far from whatever my PS5 said, so not sure how accurate it really is. It’s the best I can do though and it sounds like it’s the right area, so I’m just going with it. I did take the time in the middle of the week though, so I’m not sure how much time I actually spent playing this week. Next week I should have a week time played though. Also maybe I should scribble down some notes so I can get a better idea of what I actually did lol.

No Progress

Astro Bot Rescue Mission (PS VR) - 0:45
Everybody’s Golf (PS4) - 36:51
Horizon Zero Dawn (PS4) - 50:08
Trails in the Sky FC (Steam) - 3:42

Backlog Update

Backlog: 2312 (+5)
Time to Beat: 47,234 hrs (+95 hrs)

Numbers, numbers, numbers. Technically the numbers are off by some amount though, since Harvestella just came out and won’t have proper data for a while. Not sure how long the game will be, but I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if the numbers took a big jump sometime in the upcoming weeks lol.

And yep that’s it! Since I’m finishing this post up in the middle of the next week to be posted, it’s a bit weird to say what I hope to be playing in the next week lol… I have been playing stuff though, and I’m hoping that I’ll have some time over the weekend to play some more Trails! Oh I do have a COVID booster scheduled for today (as of posting) though, so we’ll see how I feel after that.