Write Every Day or Bust

It doesn't matter what it is, a chapter, a drabble, a thought or a rant. One post every day or bust.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 1104

My birthday happened to land on a cold day this year, which isn't a bad thing (though my co-workers would disagree). While the temperature had dipped a few times over the course of that week, I think that day will be the last of the truly cold days. The kind where the cold remained throughout the day due to the steady rain.

Rain is another thing most would assume made for a bad birthday.

The thing is, it allowed that day to be the day for all the cold weather comforts that one does much less of (or not at all) once the hotter weather sets in. My mother had texted me asking where I wanted to go for lunch that day, to which I asked for beef soup noodle.

Soup noodle, rather than noodle soup, because it is they are noodles in soup, rather than soup with noodles. Sort of like ramen, but thicker, chewier noodles instead of the thin ones that ramen is well known for. As for why beef soup noodles, it's because there is a restaurant that specializes it in town. More importantly, on Fridays and weekends they serve (as long as supplies last) tendon beef soup noodles.

Tendon is a… not acquired taste, as so much it is an acquired texture, which depends on who is making it. While I did really love the noodles, I agreed with dad when talking about it that his was better. They hadn't quite stewed/slow cooked the tendon long enough so it was still a tad firm (dad calls it crunchy). When tendon is cook very well, it becomes more gelatinous in nature.

Both can be very off putting if you're not used to it.

This cut of beef is my dad's favourite, and he used to cook it a lot. Funnily enough, I didn't like it as a child, but like many of the dishes I love now, part of it is the result of homesickness back when I first went to university, and it just never left me.

But let me say, hot, spicy beef flavoured noodle soup on a cold rainy day is great. I would have never asked for that on a hot spring/summer day, so being able to have it that day was great, which is why the rain made for a great birthday.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 1103

It's rare that I run across a game that I truly liked, but couldn't care to really finish. This is because if you really like a game, you want to at least try to finish it. Even if you don't really finish it, it doesn't remove the fact you really liked the game, which generally means, you had a great time with it.

Craft Craft came onto my radar because of the demo, and because of the developers. The developers of this game are the same ones who created Death and Taxes, which was a game where you played Death, or you are a Death. One of many who review files and determines if someone's time has come.

It was a great game, fascinating it's design and a great story.

And Craft Craft is a great story, it actually pulled off what Death and Taxes couldn't, and that was to force the player to make choices they weren't quite sure if it was right or wrong. Death and Taxes couldn't do this due to the straight forward narrative and restrictions in coding.

I actually got the good ending in Death and Taxes, not because I purposely rebelled against my boss, but rather that I had deducted correctly that the game couldn't tell if I had fulfilled certain requirements. The coding required just didn't exist in that game, so I didn't feel bad about not listening to my boss.

Craft Craft resolves this issue by giving the player a complex narrative in which there are external and internal politics and relationships at play. You've moved to a new town, which accounts for you not knowing the lore of this section of the world you live in. You're then asked to provide information or advice to different people, but that requires asking the right requestions, and learning and remembering what you've learnt.

I'm pretty sure it's designed that you'll get a neutral ending, and then you work your way up from there.

The game is only supposed to be around 10 game days long (I think) and then after that you can play and craft to your hearts content.

The crafting mechanic is interesting, but I will admit I had quite a bit of trouble with the mechanic when I started out. And while I did get the hang of it eventually, I think that trouble made playing it feel like a slog to me at times. Even though I really loved the characters, eventually I just couldn't care to keep playing.

So, I unfortunately, stopped before  the time frame was up.

While the characters are colourful and quirky, I think there just wasn't enough in them for me to keep going.  Most of their stories felt very confined to their shop visit. There isn't much else to say about them it felt like at times.

As a result, when other games came onto my radar, I ended up putting the game away. I just… couldn't care enough to play.

I don't think it means it's a bad game, it could very well be that it wasn't the type of narrative I was looking for. Maybe, it just wasn't a good time for me to play. Perhaps I'll try to pick it up again in the future, but not at the moment.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 1102

There's a trio of soda cans in my fridge that I'm not sure what to do with, as I no longer drink soda.

Granted this is not a fast and hard rule, it's just… when you stop drinking soda for long periods of time, the sweetness and carbonation of sodas become a bit much. I don't really enjoy them like I used to, which is sad, because all three flavours are ones that I did honestly like to drink back in the day. With a favourite being Coke Cola.

This may beg the question, how did I end up with three cans of soda if I no longer drink the stuff.

Well… takeout happened. Not all at once, this collection has been building since probably Fall of last year. There's a restaurant that serves really, really good boneless, Korean style fried chicken. My mother, the sweetie that she is, whenever she goes out to that restaurant with a friend will text me to ask me if I want take out at all.

Me, despite being in my 40s, immediately say yes like I'm a university student who can't (or remember to) cook. Even though I most likely at this point had prepped at least one meal, and have the capacity to male other smaller meals. It doesn't even account for the fact that this fried chicken is sold by the pound in a meal set.

That is a enough chicken for two meals if you add vegetables to it.

Since it is a meal set, it also comes with a drink. Judging by the fact that the soda flavour has been different each time, I suspect mom has told them  a drink wasn't required and they added it anyways. I really should tell mom that if they insist on adding a drink to at least make it iced tea. The restaurant was where I was introduced to the Fuze brand iced tea, which turns out to be really good.

It still doesn't resolve however the fact three soda cans. A part of me wonders if I should buy chicken wings or something, and use one of them for a marinate with soya sauce, garlic and chili oil. At least then it will get somewhat used. Otherwise it's all going down the drain.

I don’t think university me would have ever believed I'd leave a can of Coke in the fridge without even thinking about it once, but here we are.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 1101

InKonbini is a narrative point and click game about running a convenience store. It is under the category of games I have that is very enjoyable to me, but I wouldn't call it 'fun'.  It's not that the game mechanics are terrible, it's just what drives the game is the investment into the narrative.

Which is important when your full name is InKonbini: One Store, May Stories.

In this game you play Makoto, a college/university student who is helping your aunt Hina who runs a Konbini convenience store by taking over the night shifts for a week. Konbini takes place in 1993 in a small town that is slowly dying due to the trains not running as often as they used.

The 1993 thing is important for the context of the story. The Internet has not yet left the labs of universities, and CDs are only starting to gain footing as cassette tapes are still king. It is also, as a reminder, an era before both smart phones and cell phones. Well… cell phones do exist, but they're terribly clunky things that only business men own to show off, everyone else uses a payphone if there is one nearby.

In this period of time, Makoto, every night, quietly restocks the shelves, fixes what has been stocked improperly, helps incoming customers and notices life's little moments.

As the game suggests, there are many little stories, happening both on the screen in the form of the customers she helps, and off the screen in the form of the day shift workers and what they leave behind. There is an unseen in-game clock that is always running (though I'm not certain if it's on pause when the store is not open). However, the length of the shift is very generous, to the point where the player does have the opinion of hanging out in the washroom if they need to kill time.

However, you're encouraged to use that time to explore the store, and study every detail (more than once across several shifts). It's through this exploration that you find out more about the dayshift workers and aunt Hina.

Meanwhile, you take the time to go through every shelf, explore every item and make sure everything is put back in its proper place. Doing so will influence the dialogue and reactions of the customers who come in. There are four whose stories you get to learn, take part in and see resolutions of, all while creating a story of your own.

While the game is very generous with its time, and the game mechanics are not difficult, you will never play optimally 100% on your first go around. There will be things you'll miss, or forget, perhaps even a timed event that doesn't happen because you didn't call the delivery people quick enough… There may be even little mysteries left unresolved because you're not sure how to find out more about them.

There's no punishment for not doing a particular thing, instead it just changes the story. Like I missed that somebody (probably 'Charlie') put the rice with the canned goods, instead of the essential cooking shelf where it normally goes. This causes one of the customers, to compliment you on your business knowledge, indicating by putting the rice with the canned goods, items that are most likely to be eaten with rice, you've created a pairing in which someone is more likely to buy your rice.

It then raises the question of, other pieces of dialogue could you trigger by making some alternative choices.

And those choices are not spelled out for you in anyway. For example, you have a child customer who buys groceries for the elderly as delivery service. He notes that many like natto, but it's often kept on the top shelf, and whoever stocks during the day continues to put it on the top shelf. However, if you remember to move it from the top shelf to a lower one, whenever he goes to buy it, he compliments you on remembering his needs.

As Makoto comments, it feels good to know that you've helped someone, and that is what this game is building by having the player make the choice of what to stock, and where to put it if it needs moving.

There's actually gives players a good reason to replay the game, though I think I'll wait a while before doing so.

Overall, I really love this game, and am really interested in seeing what the community discovers as they replay the game. Especially since I don't think the game achievements necessarily spells out everything that the game is capable of doing.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 1100

Maybe it's because I have a lot of hobbies and things I like to do now, or maybe it's a sign I've been overworked at work, but lately I've been getting kind of sad when holidays end. More over all the things that I want to do that I wouldn't be able to dedicate as much time to.

Or haven't gotten around to doing.

However, besides the need to earn money; the routine, the constant interaction and problem solving that work provides is required for my on-going mental health. Interestingly enough, I no longer think I would be aimless if I ever got the chance to retire. The lists in my journal will continue to guide me I think if I ever was suddenly without that consistency in my life.

Unfortunately, I know how I am. I'm still, after all these years not really the type of person to seek out interaction unless reminded of the need to do so. It's not that I don't enjoy interacting with people, but I do find it exhausting, sad to say.

But I am going to miss the long hours of crafting in my journal just cause I want to. As well as the ability to delay meal times or tasks as I see fit. Even though, I probably shouldn't do that, an even better reason for getting back into the routine of things.

Still, I can't complain. My mom and I went out to several restaurants while I've been off. I've gotten to a crafting project, and play a lot of video games. Even got to read some of the fanfiction I've been putting off.

Well, the last one isn't quite true, I happened to be very lucky and had two of the stories I really am into recently update while on holidays.

Best of all, I have a lot of things to write about, as long as I just spend the time to do so.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 1099

When I designed my journal for the beginning of 2026, one of the major changes I had done was put all the medical/wellness logs at the beginning of the journal instead of remaking them on a month to month basis. This was purely for data gathering reasons.

Last year had been terrible as far as my chronic condition was concerned. While being on heavy medication nearly every quarter had been the norm since 2022, it had ramped up last year to the point where my treatments were lasting nearly a month instead of a week or two.

It had actually gotten so bad that my doctor and I had to come up with a testing plan to ensure it wasn't something else on top of the usual body bullshit. I even decided to do some maintenance treatment that I had not done since I was fourteen years old, and didn't think I would have to do again.

Since I highly depend on my journals now for data gathering, it made more sense to keep everything in the front so it was easier to see the changes from month to month.

I also stopped putting in certain monthly memory keeping pages because every time I got sick, I wasn't filling them out, since I was too sick to do my usual things. Those pages, I am still figuring out what to do with them, because it's clear that keeping them in the front of the journal for a full 6 months isn't encouraging me to fill those out.

However… one of the unintended by products of this though was that it made my monthly set up, a lot faster, since there were several pages I wasn't setting up anymore. This is actually very nice, because it gives me time back.

You'd think time back would mean I'd do other things, like the other types of crafting and journaling I've been meaning to do, but not gotten around to it. This is apparently not the case.

While on holidays, I decided I would set up the other journal. By other journal, I mean the other journal meant for the second half of the year. It is end of May, as I'm writing this, and the half way point doesn't start until July.

The reason why I wanted to do this, is because I had thoughts about how I wanted the journal to be completely in terms of theming. I don't normally choose an overarching theme for a notebook due to my (sometimes) wide variety taste in stationery theme.

But a part of me wanted to make a journal that invoked the sense of someone writing in a journal, if that made any sense. I wanted it to seem kind of old timely, cozy, full of nature, and as if someone was logging their day, which I am… but what it meant was that all the themes were going to have some sort of plant or nature base to it, and more importantly I am using only two pens for all the writing. The first is the black brush pen which will probably have to be replaced by the time this is done, and my reuseable black fineliner.

The only spot of pen colour are from the Tombow brush markers because I seem to hate white space.

Originally, I was just going to do the journal collections, and wait on doing the monthly set ups, but the result of using only three pens in total, and the exact same set up for decoration meant an even faster set up. And weirdly, very enjoyable.

Who knows… maybe once I get it out of my system I'll start working on my other crafting projects.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 1098

One of my bad habits is thinking that I have to get work done right this instant, instead of taking time out for self care actions like movement breaks. This makes movement breaks harder and harder to do as time goes on.

I was already having a bad time of trying to get myself to move more due to the amount of times I've been sick in the past several months. There is also that weird thing where my focus has not been a 100%, but it's hard to tell if it's a leftover from some sickness or a lack of capacity since I started working on site twice a day.

(I still need to remind myself that when I was on site every day I didn't do shit after work.)

As a result, I view stay at home vacation differently than my co-workers. My co-workers tend to think of vacation time as a time to sleep in, and just relax. And while I do relax, since, frankly, any time I don't have to work is relaxing, it is also a good time for me to reinforce habits or routines.

My current goal is to reinforce my exercise routine. This means building up my stamina and strength, while working on exercises that have fallen by the wayside due to a variety of reasons.

It's much easier to do this when I'm not working, not just because I have time, but because not working seems to give me back capacity I didn't know I was missing. Even though I'm aware since last year that this is how my brain works, it's always strange when tasks that was so hard to follow through on while I'm working, becomes very easy when I am not.

Like I’m actually following through on writing this right now, as per my timer, instead of staring into the ether for 20 minutes.

Granted, it also helps that I've been able to indulge in what interests my brain throughout the day, which makes it easier on me to transition to tasks I really want to do.

A statement that makes sense to no one who has a functioning brain.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 1097

One would not think a rainy day would be good for an outing. Especially not the kind of rainy day where the rain is steadily falling, which means an all day affair rather than one that lasts for a few hours or minutes.

But my mother asked me where I wanted to go for lunch today as I've turned another year older, and I decided I wanted beef noodle. There is a restaurant near the local university that specializes in  beef soup noodles, and on Fridays and weekends they will sell the bowl with beef tendon instead of their normal beef slices.

It's kind of funny, as a child I didn't really like beef tendon. When cooked long enough beef tendon is tender, but the tendon itself tends to have a gelatinous texture that some may find off putting. The texture was not why I didn't really like the dish, rather my father's tendency to make the same dish over and over again when the mood struck him.

And he really loves beef tendon.

However, like many things concerning food in my life, when I no longer had easy access to it, I missed it. It's not a dish I would make myself, it takes far more preparation work than I have any patience for. So when asked on a rainy day where I wanted to go, a place that serves noodles soaked in beef broth sounds like a fine idea.

Besides, we're at the near end of May, from here on out the weather will only grow hotter (and more humid). It'll be the last time until winter hits that it'll be cool enough for something as hot and warming as food in soup.

Which was why, despite the constant rain today, I went out. To sit with my parents over a hot bowl of soup noodles, scooping small spoonfuls of chili oil in between bite because I didn't make it spicy enough the first time.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 1096

Since I had done an inventory back in December of my stationery, I already had themes planned out for the rest of 2026. Generally, they were plans for stationery I really wanted to use, or get around to using. However, when you plan that far in advance, well… best laid plans and all that jazz as they say.

I happened to have finished my June set ups early (the reduction in complex several monthly collections helped speed set up along). It made sense then to start considering the journal set up for the second half of the year. Especially since new journal set ups take the longest to do.

Maybe it was because, as per tradition, I was moving from a very large journal into the smaller (but standard) A5 journal. Perhaps it was because the cover had a delicate sleeping fawn on the cover, or maybe it was because the first two collections were going to be decorated by flowers and other elegant things.

Whatever the reason maybe, I had decided, I wanted every single theme to be elegant in nature. Emphasizing flora, and elegant designs. This meant that nothing cute was going to get chosen this time around, and it wasn't enough for the tapes and stickers to be 'pretty'. However, this meant that at least half of my original theme ideas were going to have to be shelved for a while.

I had originally wanted a seafaring themed layout for July, and finally get around to using The Cat Knows Halloween and Christmas tapes. However, the seafaring layout, as elegant as it was, had no flowers in it, and The Cat Knows brand is currently well known for their cute cartoony animals with equally cute themed food. Not the vibe I wanted for my journal.

As ridiculous as it was, I had to shelve ideas and comb through my collection again to see what I could use instead. Fortunately, I have a lot of tapes, but I certainly notice that I lean heavily towards elegant vibes that wouldn't look out of place in a traditional journaling journal. As if a part of me wanted to create the atheistic of someone who is sitting at an old timey desk journaling.

So, I have a new, and yes I will be starting set up stupid early, but that's because I really enjoy the act designing layouts with a particular look in mind.

Though, it does bring up an interesting thought, because I have other journals in my bookshelf that I sort of feel like I would also want them to be very pretty and elegant. This is clearly a design element I'm leaning more towards, even though I really, really do like tapes from brands like The Cat Knows. In fact my May set up is very cute, and I enjoy it.

But I wonder… should I maybe for the first half of next year, get a journal with a cute cover, or something that invokes adorable so I am more inclined to use my other stationery? Thoughts?

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 1095

I am slowly making my way through my ridiculous backlog of games. While I do play more recently released games (often because I can’t help myself), I also am trying to play games that are quite old.

One of those games is a point and click adventure game called Call of the Sea. This was because one, I have so many shop simulation games and would like to play something different, and two, Call of the Elder Gods is releasing this month.

Though knowing me, I probably won’t play Call of the Elder Gods for at least two years even if I bought it upon release. It is what happens when a lot of your preferred games are in the 20 dollar range, but you budget like you’re still buying a 3DS game. By the way, I have not bought a traditionally priced AAA game in years.

The thing that really grabbed me about this game, and the reason why I had to drag @wereah into watching me play the first two chapters is that the game has very tight visual and sound design. It is clearly invoking movies that were published in the 1960s/1970s. The opening cinematic when the main character, Norah, arrives on the island has sound design and a pan view of the island with the title of the game that reminds me very much of an old Universal Studios ride.

If you’re old enough, you may know what I mean, the kind of movie ride that makes you feel like you’re in the scene of the movie, complete with swelling soundtrack music coming from the ride speakers.

For my skill level, the puzzles made me think, and I only had to look up the solution once. Granted, that solution checking was more due to one of the journal updates not triggering rather than me being completely dumb. In short, the puzzles were hard, but not impossible, and were completely solvable if given enough time to think.

I have mixed feelings about using an updating journal to provide more context to a game in terms of world building. This is because not everyone will take the time to open up the journal to read those worldbuilding notes. By the end of the game, I also forgot to continue to read the journal entries.

Speaking of world building, I should point out that while this game is supposed to be Lovecraftian, the themes really aren’t. Yes, it uses eldritch horror to tell a suspenseful tale, it is not a story about the universe being so much greater than one could imagine, but rather about self-discovery about an unknown past.

Still a great game though, and if you’re not into horror but still want the suspense, this may be much more up your alley. 

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 1094

I originally was a literature major, for no other reason than the fact I had nearly taken every single STEM course in high school and did not fare well. 

I’ve spent high school and university learning about authorial intent, taking into consideration the time period of which the work was written, learning about different eras of writing, and all sorts of things in which I had to consider when taking apart any piece of text.

I even, for a term, took a film class, because I had way too much time in first year literature, and not enough required courses.

What I was never taught, and later taught myself as a hobby, was how to take into consideration what the audience may have thought, why they may have thought it, and who was the intended audience. A particular skill that I cannot fault the institution completely for not teaching.

As an adult who studied literature in an ever connected world, I wished there had been at least one literature course of works that had been translated into English. The skill to recognize when the narrative may be very culturally loaded is important so we know when we’re imposing our own cultural values onto something that may mean something completely different.

However, as someone who has grown up with dial up internet, and watched the rise of Youtube and other social media platforms, I understand why the focus was not on the audience. Before the internet, other people’s opinions about literature were not easily accessible. This meant that your reading of a piece of literature was supplemented by people who were in the same room as you. Whether that was your teacher, professor, peers or book club reading friends.

Those people could give you, in real time, context to how they viewed that text. It could have been additional background information your teacher was giving you, or if you were confused as to why your peer felt a particular way about a text, you could question them, in real time. And those people in the same room with you, generally will have similar experiences to you, so their readings won’t (most of the time) be too far out of your own.

This is not the case with the internet, people who write about their opinions about any piece of media are not going to be in the same room as you. You do not know their age, their media literacy, their culture, their background, their experiences or their knowledge base. You may read an opinion piece and think it’s so far out of left field that it makes you want to reply back that they are wrong.

But… you don’t know why they think that way. You don’t know why they read, watched, or listened to that information in that particular way. This is, by the way, particularly true if there is a generation gap, and I’m not even just talking about education.

There are freedoms I’ve had growing up that I know folks younger than me have never experienced due to shrinking third spaces and the rising fear of people outside your immediate family. There are pieces of standardized knowledge for my generation because the internet as an information highway did not exist during our most formative years. There are fears we had growing up that are now replaced with newer (sometimes scarier) ones.

In an age where anyone can make their opinion known, no matter how old they are, it’s always worth asking yourself when reading a media opinion piece, how old is this person, what are their experiences and why was that their takeaway.

The answer can sometimes be a bit surprising. 

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 1093

The funny thing about every time I miss several days of posting is that there has always been something to post during those times, I just forget to get post it.

It doesn't mean that life hasn't been kicking my butt as of late. My current medical issues, no one knows what is going on, and all the really serious things that were of concern has already been ruled out. However, I have not been a 100% during that whole time if my focus issues are of any indication.

Granted, it could also be, because going back on site twice a week has been kicking my ass. I've been reminded by several people that I have a lot going on in terms of medical self care, capacity issues due to the ADHD and wanting to do it all that it's natural for it to be hard. This is probably complicated by the fact that this is roughly the third year of journaling, which means I'm also probably burning out a bit.

As much as I would like to continue to vigorously clean my place on Saturdays, go to gameboard meet ups on Sundays, write for Chimera, do journal set ups and everything else the rest of the week, it is a lot in the fact of medical self care and on-site days. I may have to accept that I need to slow down.

I'm still writing, though not as much as I'd like, but days like these were my brain is settled and I have time to just exist are as good of a time as any to write.

But I do honestly have things to post, I just have to remember to post them.

Or maybe I should just finally queue or schedule my posts. I do this for my other two blogs, but for I don't do it for this one. Even though I don't really write for this blog specifically every single day.

But that is a future me problem.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 1092

I finally got around to ordering white card stock, even though technically I had ordered some back in December last year. However, last year, for reasons unknown I was just sent the envelopes and not the cards. Fortunately, I did get a refund for those, and the company never asked for the envelopes back, but I'm a bit at a loss of what to do with those.

But I still wanted white card stock. This is because my preferred stationery to make cards with tend to be image tapes, specifically washi because they lack the glare plastic PET tapes tend to have. Though I have learnt more recently PET tapes that have holographic or shiny images tend to be more forgiving in terms of the plastic glare.

The thing about washi though, is that it's mildly translucent, so the vividness of the coloration of the images  depend on the whiteness of paper. While kraft paper is lovely to work with since it makes the negative space less snark, it will desaturate the colours of any washi stickers.

I've also learnt over the past two years that I don't like working with the full sized cards. There's too much of a need to fill in the space and I tend to not know what to write sometimes. Working with a smaller card is much easier in the long run.

The thing I didn't consider though was that due to having only kraft paper cards left to work with for nearly two years, it meant I wasn't as inclined to design cards. When the cards came in the mail, my first thought was… I want to start designing cards around the stationery that I have. Even if I have no use for those cards in the first place.

This is also a problem, because I also tend to forget I have these cards, but more importantly, I don't really need that many cards outside of Christmas, and I wasn't making Christmas cards at the moment. Card making is really a hobby to use up stationery, and it's not the most professional looking cards (in my opinion) so I'm at a loss of what to do with my extras.

A part of me wants to dump them into the staff room and see if anyone is willing to pay a dollar or two for a card, but I'm not sure if anyone would buy. It would be much easier to just give them away, besides, it's a lot of card stock and I could afford to buy them once a year. It would also help me move through more of the washi portion of my stationery collection.

On the other hand, a dollar or two isn't a big deal compared to how much actual professional cards cost and I even managed to get half of the card stock sold, it would be enough to buy more card stock in the future. Not enough to buy more washi tape, but honestly I'm not allowed to buy more tape until I somehow move much of the old tape out of my collection.

And the ability to buy more tapes from places like the Washi Tape shop or Papergames would be well worth it…

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 1091

As a media, video games are kind of weird.

In any other media, whether they be books, plays, tv shows, songs, and so forth, you can try a genre you’ve never tried before and the worst that can happen is that it’s just not your jam. Maybe it doesn’t grab your interest, maybe you don’t like the writing style, or the music style, or what other style that is within that media. However, most of the time, unless your media literacy is particularly terrible, you’re able to consume media of a different genre, and sometimes, you may find you actually like it.

This is the reason why you can have break out shows, music or books that span across a wide audience. Most audiences have tried several different types of genres and even if it’s not their usual genre, they may find something within that media they will like.

Video games do not run by that logic due to the interactable nature of a video game. Especially since game genres tend to be highly influenced by their game mechanics.

As a result, skill, experience and play style become barriers for players trying to get into a new genre they might not have played before.

Skill is pretty self explanatory, if you’re very skilled in a particular game mechanic or genre of game, you’re going to enjoy those games. Especially if those games are tailored to your particular game mechanic preferences. However, this means that games that are tailored to your particular tastes will not be friendly towards newcomers.

And it’s not just about getting better at the game. I’ve mentioned this several times when writing about games I’ve played. Often, while I love the game, because I love that genre, I recognize that the tutorial is either lacking or the knowledge expectation is high. Modern video games, for genres that have been around for a long while, simply treat certain bits of information as common knowledge.

This has been especially obvious in popular games that have received a sequel such as Hollow Knight or Slay the Spire, where the sequel is far more tuned into the knowledge of players who had played the previous games. It leaves newcomers often struggling to get through the game.

Or in the really rare cases where a niche game breaks out to a wider audience because it did their niche very, very well. 

But the other barrier is play style. Sometimes, the way a player prefers to play a game does not mesh particularly well with certain genres or game expectations. Like, despite the fact I love Two Point Museum, it is a bit grindy for me, but that is a me problem. I am a very safe player, I don’t like to take risks if I think I will be punished for it. As a result, resource management games, which do have some form of risk if you want to get through the game quickly, tend to be grindy for me. The reason why I continue to play Two Point Museum is because I like to decorate things, so there’s always something for me to do even if it takes forever to get through the game itself.

On the other hand, I am also a player that does like to explore and feed into curiosity as long as I think I won’t suffer for it. This means point and click adventure games like Blue Prince are a lot of fun for me. It feeds into my curiosity, and rewards me for exploring even if that reward isn’t something I can use right away.

I was actually one of the players that enjoyed Blue Prince a lot. The game never felt grindy to me, and I didn’t suffer from the ‘bottleneck’ problems that other players did. The only reason why I stopped playing the game is because I recognized that I didn't have the skill to solve all of the post-game puzzles.

And that recognition is key to my enjoyment when playing video games. Knowing when it is a skill, experience and/or play style barrier allows me to decide when it’s worth my while to actually play a game. 

For all the popularity of games like Hollow Knight and Slay the Spire, I will probably not pick those games. I might pick up the first Slay the Spire, because I am relatively decent at deck builder games, I am not the brightest person when it comes to that game type. Though I do feel very clever when I make a very good combo.

Exacting platformer games though are well out of my realm of both skill and experience. I am relatively more experienced with 3D puzzle platformers, so I am more likely to play the ones that emphasis more on exploration, because that is my jam, but not likely the ones that require a lot of fighting.

In the end, the reason why I am writing this is to remind people that video games are not like other mediums. There are much higher barriers to getting into a game that might not be your usual fare. And if you decide to try that breakout game even though you’ve never played that type of game before, more power to you.

But… if you don’t enjoy that game, ask yourself honestly, is it the game, or is it me? And if you really, really want to get into that genre, I’d recommend asking for recommendations for games that are for newcomers, or ask for recommendations for Let’s Plays of people who will gladly narrate their thought process, I find it helps when understanding where I am going wrong.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 1090

This is roughly the third (?) year I’ve been using a fountain pen as my primary writing tool. While I haven’t been using the pen for that long in the grand scheme of things, it’s hard to imagine not using it.

While it takes a bit of care to clean and refill these pens, they are convenient to me. As long as it’s the right ink, it always feels comfortable to write in. I still haven’t found a brown ink that flows well, not that I’ve been looking hard due to the fact I have a lot of brown ink in my collection.

It’s kind of weird when I think back on it, because before that I was really nervous about writing with a fountain pen. Being left handed meant that I ran the risk of the nib not feeling good to write with, or smudging my ink. Something that does happen on coated paper. Though, often that just means I need to be more careful when writing.

I really enjoy writing with fountain pens, not only do I always have a really nice pen with me, but I can change out the colours whenever I want. Every month is a different colour according to what the theme of my journal is for that month. Honestly, it’s only when I have to remember to refill my pen or change out the colours am I ever really aware of the kind of pen I’m using.

In fact, occasionally, if someone asks me for a pen, I absently hand them my fountain, not thinking about how they may use it. On the very rare occasion when it is filled with less than ideal ink, someone may have trouble writing with it, but I also forget that people consider fountains as very fancy.

And yes, one of my pens is very fancy, it was expensive, but as I am gearing up to buy a cheap pen so I don’t feel bad if I clog it up with shimmer ink, I realize it’s about perception. There are cheap (under 20 dollars) pens out there, even less than that depending on where you go.

It is strange to think about how my perception on fountain pens have changed.

It’s also probably a bit horrifying that I am even thinking about buying another pen.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 1089

I once told someone that I didn’t use AI in my daily or work life. This wasn’t a brag, or some holier than thou statement, it was just, as I had admitted at the time, not much use for AI in what I did.

This may seem odd to some people because there is a portion of my job that requires me to compose emails and fax cover sheets, several times every single day. At least one of those times (every single day) will be a completely unique request or answer instead of the can-spam scripts that are rattling around in my brain.

Yet, I still don’t use AI to compose them.

Not because I am stubborn, but because of odd auto pilot habits born from my particular skill set.

See, I’m from the generation that knows how to touch type. While touch typing is primarily a skill born from the need to transcribe written words into digital ones it is very useful with my other skill… being able to spit out words without a second thought.

Or… back when I was a university student, the ability to write bullshit.

At least, that’s what I (and all my peers) thought it was when we were young and foolish. However, I realized as an adult, what I was demonstrating to my professors was not the ability to bullshit, but the ability to take what I knew and present it in a way that was unstandable within a short amount of time. As students, we knew way more about our subject matter than we gave ourselves credit for.

Compounding this ability is the fact I have worked my job for a decade and a half, and write outside of work as a hobby. 

There is also the really weird ADHD thing I do in which I self narrate, and I’m a fast enough typist that I can type what I say aloud. 

The combination of all these things means that whenever I compose anything, I am already narrating what I am about to compose aloud, which means all I have to do is start typing. This thing comes very naturally after all these years. As a result, to pause in what I’m doing, open ChatGPT, and then consider what information I want to put into the prompt takes so much more effort.

Also… knowing me, I am far more likely to just type the whole thing I need wholesale into the prompt, to the point where writing the prompt would be pointless. Hence, I don’t need to use AI, it’s just an extra step I don’t need.

And if that does sound like a brag, let me repeat one of the greatest reasons why it is not.

I have worked my job for a decade and a half, and write outside of work as a hobby. 

In the words of my mother (as much as I hate to admit it) practice makes perfect. It is all about practice. As much as I can get away with, even if I’m not feeling my greatest. Like I had done my last round of journal blogging and Infinity Nikki blogging while sick with a cold and tired as fuck.

In short, what I am really trying to say is, and I assure you, with enough practice, you can be far more effective than the time it takes to pull up an AI to do your writing. It just… takes a lot of practice.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 1088

I think I’ve gotten to the point where I will probably leave Coral Island alone (at least until the next update). I haven’t seen everything the game has to offer, but I think I’m at the point where I’m comfortable enough to leave it alone for a while. Normally, this would bother me because trying to jump back into a farming game after you left it alone for a long time is very daunting.

However, most of my farm is automated, so the farming portion isn’t a huge deal. I probably would just run the risk of missing a seasonal bug or fish because I will forget that is what I was doing.

But I will say for the time I was playing it, (which was a ridiculously long time, longer than any other farming game I’ve owned on Steam) I really, really enjoyed it. Coral Island is clearly a love letter to the farming game genre started by Harvest Moon, even though it takes a lot of its game mechanic cues from Stardew Valley.

This makes a lot of sense even though it makes me feel so goddamn old.

Stardew Valley recently had its 10th anniversary back in February this year. If you were a teenager when you first played this game, you are now a young adult. So it’s not really a surprise that Coral Island borrows a lot of islands from Stardew Valley, from the ability to place objects outside your farm to the offering system that revives the island.

And yet… I feel like Coral Island is primarily taking a shot at the Harvest Moon series. See, even though Harvest Moon is most well known for being a farming game, what always got fans of the franchise excited were the people you could get to know and date within the game. Dating and marriage has always been a component of these types of games, and Harvest Moon really leaned into that as the years had gone on.

However, as the years have gone on, the love interests have started to become less interesting, the townspeople even less than the love interests, and it’s very noticeable when the franchise has not had a successful release that wasn’t a remake of much older properties.

Coral Island’s strongest feature is the writing, interestingly enough. Not necessarily the overall plot, though the general plot of Coral Island certainly does the job, but the stories of all the characters living on the island. Their stories are incredibly down to earth and relatable in a lot of ways. As Were-Ah had mentioned when I told her about the goings ons of the island, it sounded like a typical small town where everyone was in everyone’s business.

More so, because a lot of them are related to each other in different ways other than the immediate nuclear family. There are cousins, nieces, and nephews, as well as adopted family, found family and step families involved in this little town. They all get along in their own way, but not perfectly. There are characters that I don’t agree with their actions, but I think they are at heart good people.

And the developers have done two very smart things in the design of these characters. First, they’ve given every character (as far as I know) their own story arc, unlockable as you become better friends. The second is they don’t give you all the information right away.

You actually have to figure out everyone’s relation to each other on your own through their dialogue. It’s great because it gives them far more depth. Though I do imagine there has to be something similar to a detective cork board in the devs’ office to keep track of all those relations. These are characters who don’t just exist, they have histories, feelings and preferences that go beyond just item likes and dislikes.

It is incredibly refreshing, and the thing I like the most about this game to be honest.