convergent evolution or something

a blog for getting one's life back together, or something

[downdrafts]

VERY IMPORTANT REQUEST: please help me name my summer cow in fields of mistria

this is what she looks like:

cows are generally named after batfam or gothamite characters but i am willing to expand to birds of prey more generally. also the sunhat is removable (+ replaceable with other cosmetics) if necessary for The Aesthetic but i left it for now because look at it. it's cute.

pls advise am at my wits end

[downdrafts]

fields of mistria update:

am now dating march. have unlocked date options "dinner at the inn" and "romantic picnic," the latter which i have not done yet because it's the middle of winter. apparently i can also purchase the option for a bathhouse date if i pay a truly exorbitant amount of money

speaking of, have now unlocked Annoyingly Haughty Chef and Literal Snake Oil Salesman at the saturday market

my jpv cow took first place in the animal festival. the only thing jpv will ever win. (he's called azrael because he's gold. he's at max hearts because gold is the highest tier you can get before the tier 6 seasonal cows WHICH I HAVE NOT MANAGED TO BREED YET I HAVE BEEN TRYING FOR LIKE AN IN GAME YEAR)

[downdrafts]

HAVE NOW ACHIEVED TIER 6 COWS AND TIER 6 HORSES AND I FINALLY GOT A TIDE SALAD FROM A CHEST TO GIVE TO PRISSY IRON CHEF. I AM INVINCIBLE. NO ONE CAN STOP ME.

[downdrafts]

fields of mistria update:

am now dating march. have unlocked date options "dinner at the inn" and "romantic picnic," the latter which i have not done yet because it's the middle of winter. apparently i can also purchase the option for a bathhouse date if i pay a truly exorbitant amount of money

speaking of, have now unlocked Annoyingly Haughty Chef and Literal Snake Oil Salesman at the saturday market

my jpv cow took first place in the animal festival. the only thing jpv will ever win. (he's called azrael because he's gold. he's at max hearts because gold is the highest tier you can get before the tier 6 seasonal cows WHICH I HAVE NOT MANAGED TO BREED YET I HAVE BEEN TRYING FOR LIKE AN IN GAME YEAR)

[downdrafts]

anyway i've gone back to fields of mistria and i'm finally hitting the level of friendship with all the dateable characters where, for the ones i'm not planning to date, i've started to feel like i'm leading them on

[downdrafts]

have been informed that you can actually date multiple characters but i really feel like a sleaze doing that. imagine living in a small town and the farmer next door blatantly goes on dates with multiple people every weekend. there’s one restaurant!!

[downdrafts]

anyway i've gone back to fields of mistria and i'm finally hitting the level of friendship with all the dateable characters where, for the ones i'm not planning to date, i've started to feel like i'm leading them on

[downdrafts]

today’s mood: watching last meals, but just the youtube shorts where they go through the actual food items and nothing else

[downdrafts]

i rotate my own quote-unquote Last Meal in my head a lot, but it definitely starts with double breakfast:

sheng jian bao (crispy, fresh-from-the-street-vendor hot, with sesame seeds sprinkled on top), turnip cakes, barbecue pork and custard bao. one of those korean seafood pancakes (classically it should be chong you bing, but i do what i want!!) savory douhua (a relatively simple preparation, with soy sauce and green onions) and a cool glass of sweet soy milk.

and then-- the tamale benedict i used to order from common bond in houston; french toast with whipped cream, berries, and maple syrup; a chocolate croissant; all with a tall glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice.

i'm thinking about this now. mmmm, i'm hungry.

[downdrafts]

today’s mood: watching last meals, but just the youtube shorts where they go through the actual food items and nothing else

[tiredadventurer]

[vethbrenatto]

GAME CHANGER 8.05 — “Count the Rice”

[downdrafts]

my saddest discovery of 2026 was that (excepting mondays right after episodes drop) the "#game changer" tag has become unusable for either the dropout game show or the rachel reid series of hockey smut romance novels

[haarute]

pov you are sent to hell

[downdrafts]

i simply do not think i should have to do anything when the heat index is 110 degrees fahrenheit

[downdrafts]

anyway "count the rice" best game changer episode y/n

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i guess that's subjective but my personal favorite game changers are always the ones where they build a world for the players to get lost in (escape the greenroom, deja vu, beat the buzzer) and of those i do think "count the rice" is objectively the best. GREAT use of increased budget

side note: it was pointed out to me that one of the fake grants is actually named grant, which i find delightful for some reason

[downdrafts]

anyway "count the rice" best game changer episode y/n

[thej0ry]

What would you do if you were scrolling through recommended tumblr posts and one was from someone you don't know and it was just a picture of your dad captioned "fucking hate this guy" and it had hundreds of notes

[meshugenist]

reblog it

[downdrafts]

anyway i don't actually have the energy for a full red pearls of borneo review, but: it's free, it's fun, it's a supernatural detective game with some interesting mechanics, the game gives a warning for period-typical racism (and the option to turn off slurs) but i should reiterate: this is a game set in colonial borneo and all the characters are white brits or servants, but with that warning/caveat out of the way, i enjoyed it a lot, did i mention it's free? the dev has another game in the same universe coming out at the end of this year, and i will definitely be keeping my eyes peeled for that.

(red pearls of borneo on itch.io | red pearls of borneo on steam)

[downdrafts]

anyway i've been playing video games. LOVE video games. one of humankind's best inventions

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you know what, have a game log

tangle tower - investigatory vn/point-and-click adventure game hybrid about solving a murder in a mansion full of eclectic weirdoes. i was so charmed by basically every aspect of this game -- the art style and animation, the full-featured voice acting, the environmental and character design, the modernization of a genre i have a lot of nostalgic attachment to. the puzzles were enjoyable, and there were innovations on the ace attorney style "question suspects and present evidence" gameplay that i thought worked well. i had so much fun playing this game that it's almost enough to make me overlook the fact that it's a mystery game that fails to stick the landing.

without spoiling too much about the ending, this feels like an obvious case of the devs biting off more than they could chew: they had a very ambitious plot with lots of twists and turns, the scope of which clearly exceeded their small indie house's capabilities, and so in the interest of getting the game out in anything approaching a timely fashion, they shoved the entire second act of said plot into a series of expository monologues at the very end of the game. the ending felt rushed and unsatisfactory, which makes me sad because it really didn't have to be this way. there are more than enough puzzles and tiny sub-mysteries and endearing character moments in tangle tower to justify a full game. i understand wanting to get the full story out there, but i think it would have served the game better to tell a small mystery well instead of a large mystery incompletely. i hope the devs will take that into account for future installments of this series.

but like i said, i did really enjoy this game overall! it's currently 3.99 in the steam summer sale, and i would absolutely recommend it for that price; it was a really fun way to kill a few hours.

next time: the red pearls of borneo (another investigatory vn where you use your psychic powers to attune to past events); ritual of raven (magical farming sim where you program golem-like constructs to do the plowing and sowing for you)

[downdrafts]

ritual of raven - this was an enjoyable game to sink 30 or 40 hours into -- some fun variations on the general farming sim loop, a quirky cast of characters with sweet interactions, an appealing visual style. if i wanted it to be more than what it is -- a game with the mechanical depth of a stardew valley or even a fields of mistria -- well, we can't always get what we want.

i liked it. i liked it a lot! i liked programming my constructs to plant, water, and harvest magical herbs and flowers; i liked exploring and foraging the four different biomes; i liked meeting all the characters and doing their friendship quests (which are nothing crazy, but the devs did manage to put a variety of enjoyable scaffolding on what essentially amounted to different variations of fetch quests); i liked gathering plants for magical rituals to open new areas and (eventually) bring the main plot to a conclusion.

but at the end of 40 hours . . . i've set up an automatic loop to harvest every type of plant i can plant and every type of crystal i can extract, i've cleared the main quest and everyone's three character quests, and i've fully expanded and decorated my house. in other words, i've reached the effective limits of this game. there's nothing left for me to do. it's probably not fair of me to wish for more -- a crafting or potionmaking system, a wider variety of shops, some kind of extra mechanical layer that would let me justify spending another 100 hours in this world (i namedropped stardew valley for a reason!) it was everything i wanted in this type of game, except for how quickly it ended.

. . . i will wish for four-directional furniture rotation and the ability to put items on rugs, though. these are must-haves in decorating games!!!!

(ritual of raven on steam. it's presently $14.99, although i think i bought it on sale.)