I came to the conclusion that Cities: Skylines is too basic, and C:S 2 doesn’t really seem like it adds all that much, so I started playing Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic. The game offers a lot of difficulty options, so you can make it play somewhat like C:S if you want to, but it is an entirely different beast in it’s “realistic mode.”

In Cities: Skylines, you plop down a power plant, pumping station, sewage drain, run some cables and pipes, zone some residential, and unpause the game. In WR:SR, you must manage the logistics and construction of all these things. The sewage and water mains can only run from higher elevation to lower elevation, unless you install additional pumping stations. The electrical network requires you to build switches and transformers to step from 105KV to 22KV to 230V, and appear to observe Ohm’s Law with regards to current and voltage drop. You also need to build heating plants and pipe steam to your residences and public services.

All of this infrastructure must be built by workers and machines. All these machines have fuel tanks which need to be filled, wear and tear which requires maintenance. Even something as simple as road construction requires delivery of construction materials, workers, and machines, and while that work is being done, no traffic is getting through. If you are not careful, you can block your buses carrying your workers to the heating plants in the dead of winter and cause a death spiral. It takes several hours of gameplay to get to the point where your first citizens can move in.

It took me several attempts before I could even start settling people, but here is my first residential microdistrict. My infrastructure is already absolutely cursed. That’s the other thing. Once something gets built, you need a demolition crew to dismantle it, so if there is a power pole where you want your road to go, or an inconveniently located water main junction is preventing you from building a factory, you need to send more work crews and excavators and garbage trucks and haul the scrap to a dump. And that will shut down services for anything relying on that power pole / junction box.

Started Dragon Age 2. It’s immediately apparent that it was lower budget and lower quality than the first game, which I completed all 100+ hours of after all the DLC a while back. But I’m still having fun. I never played it because of the negative reviews around its release, but I’ve been done listening to gamers for a long time. They don’t actually read anything but RPG quest text and Twitter posts, so they can’t tell good writing from a dollar store novel. And too many of the opinions about these games revolve around character sexuality.

I’m here for the rock armor and pretending I’m an earthbender while I shoot stone fists at people. Working my way up to Veilguard because I tried to start it and was already lost at the descriptions of all the character backgrounds and choices that depend on what you did in Inquisition.

I beat Earthbound which is actually pretty good, the gamers were right for once.

Dragons Crown, a fun and mindless beat-em-up/looter from Vanillaware on PSVita.

Beat all decks on Gold difficulty finally for Balatro. The Black and Nebula decks were the last two and took a lot of tries. Now it’s on to beating each challenge and getting Gold on all jokers.

Picked up Metal Slug Tactics on the Steam sale. Been waiting 3 years for that game. It’s appropriately difficult, as those games used to devour my quarters in the arcades. My only real complaint is that they got Marco’s face all wrong.

Edit: Also Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. They just finished Shadows Over Bögenhafen and are in the process of sailing to Altdorf.

I’ve been playing a lot of Half Life 2. That shit is so awesome. I absolutely have fallen in love with it. Played it for the first time at the beginning of this month, beat it a while ago, and about to move onto HL2: Episode 1.

Gotta be Project Zomboid, with Build 42 unstable out, there is a wealth of new things to test out. Quite buggy, unsurprisingly, like the bowl duplication glitch or whetstones being uncraftable. But that’s peanuts to the fact that the map is expanded, animals are added, guns are totally different and crafting if much more interesting. And all the pieces of flavor! The randomized basements, novelty keychains, dice of all varieties, books and magazines have titles (and are no longer eaten by your character after reading) tons of new zombie stories (I found a silver ring on a “rude letter” on a kitchen counter, I guess a zombie apocalypse is a good time as any for divorce) it’s just so much and so good. And it’s not even all balanced or polished yet, it’s only up from here!

Combat is also totally different, with muscle strain and randomized zombie behaviour, its more difficult to cheese them, and now leveling strength and weapon skills are doubly important as it reduces muscle strain. And guns, yes, no longer are they “melee weapons with a really long range.” They actually spawn 3d bullet objects when fired and have to be aimed properly at the undead. Jams are too frequent tho, so I modded those out. The JS 200 shotgun is a real blast!

Well, not experiencing the “proper” game rn tho. Computer is very weak, so I reduced zombie count a lot. Still keep getting scratched tho, I blame lag!!

currently started playing Ys: Memories of Celceta, now that I beat Ys X: Nordics. it’s the next Ys game chronologically.

asides from Ys 2, you can play any of the Ys games in however order you like, but I decided to follow a chronological order… mostly. after I beat Felghana (next chronological game after Celceta), I’m going to play in my own order: SEVEN, VI: Naphistim, V: Kefin. Then I’ll move onto the more darker/emotionally charged Ys games like VIII: Lacrimosa and IX: Monstrum.

anyway, Celceta’s nice, just as Nordics was nice. might play another game alongside Celceta, who knows. i might start one of the Atelier games i got lying around, or continue playing this typing adventure game called Nanotale at least until I can find a save point. fucking hell, games should come with fromsoftware’s “the game will resume where you left off” philosophy, or let you save pretty much whenever you want like the Ys games do.

I think I might be getting into a boomer shooter mood. Right now I’m playing Prodeus again and I just love this stupid game. I play on easiest mode so I can turn my brain off and just mow down baddies. It’s really becoming a comfort game to me lol.

I also redownloaded a few others I’m hoping to get to. I never gave Forgive Me Father 2 a real chance so I think that might be next up unless I grab something on the Steam sale. Right now my cart, after adjusting some, has Selaco, Dusk, Cultic, and Amid Evil. Still waffling over what to get. I really can’t afford a lot and Selcao on there being $18 really weighs down the cart page. Been looking up reviews by G@mers on reddit trying to help me decide.

I also have the Blood and Powersl*ve remasters on my radar but I think I’m after something a bit more modern for now.

E: went with Selaco, Dusk, Cultic, and Amid Evil.

I bought cyberpunk 2077 to see if they ever made it a good game

I’m playing Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia again, and it’s making me remember just how much I enjoy that game. I mean, it adds up, considering I’m in the middle of Fire Emblems Awakening, Fates, Binding Blade, Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, Genealogy of the Holy War, and The Morrow’s Golden Country (romhack). Where did all of that bring me? Back to SoV.

I’ve also started a Fire Emblem Warriors playthrough with my sister, and it’s so fun to see what characters she gravitates to. I never knew she liked certain characters until now, and it’s also interesting to see her reactions to certain strange characters (Camilla). I never knew Corrin was her favorite Fire Emblem character until this, and this has given me the impression that she would be a Fates-head if given the chance.

Trying to stay motivated to finish Final Fantasy 6, I’m really loving it but my brain is ready to move on to something else. Otherwise I’ve been playing a bit of the full release of Halls of Torment. I gave Dungeons of Blood and Dream a try, it’s got a cool aesthetic but I don’t know if this one is for me. The game itself didn’t really hook me, plus the controller support isn’t great and playing on m/kb was hurting my hands. I tried Balatro too, it’s pretty fun. I think I was expecting more because so many people were talking about how amazing it is.

Friend came over so we played more Silent Hill 3 (like 1/2 through now maybe?) and then we started Metal Gear Solid Integral and did the first 2 bosses. MGS1’s kinda’ janky, honestly, but outside that it’s super good. I really like it.

On my own I’m playing Captain Toad Treasure Tracker on the Nintendo Switch (hacked) since I never played the Switch-exclusive levels and that Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics thing Nintendo also did. Which is actually a cool way to introduce someone to a bunch of board/dice/card games. Never played Hanafuda before (could probably dig it if the cards were marked more visibly like standard playing cards). Mancala is really fun, might actually get a physical board of that sometime soon.

Wanna’ finish Far: Changing Tides and the Elden Ring DLC which I recently got back into at some point after stalling out since October.

So close to 100%ing Unicorn Overlord. It’s kinda fun but gets pretty same-y 2/3 of the way through. Fun overworld to run around on and quests. Battles can be skipped so that’s nice too!