#sparky vs

[sparkylurkdragon]

I FOUND THE ULTIMATE KITTY!!

[lurkdragonstuff]

It is 2023, and there is time for South Scrimshaw: Part One.

I played through tonight, and I heartily recommend it to anyone who loves speculative evolution, visual novels, aliens, nature documentaries, and/or whales. It's a visual novel about the calfhood and adolescence of an alien whale.

It's on the very low-interaction side of the visual novel scale. Most interaction is clicking to advance the story, but there are, essentially, footnotes that you can click on to learn more about the wider world and universe this little whale lives in.

The hints at what humanity is like at this is just enough to whet the appetite for more, written to an in-universe audience that doesn't bother to explain things everyone should know. Reminds me pleasantly of The Crucible of Time, in that sense. But even more tantalizing for me is the beautifully detailed speculative biology, centred of course on my favourite animal group, the cetaceans. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it.

It made me cry really hard at The Usual Trigger and I had to take a breather in the middle because of that, but it was well worth it. I've listed some content warnings under the cut. Give it a try! It's free on Steam and won't take more than an hour or two!

Animal death, infant death, parental death are the death ones. The Brillo whales that star in this visual novel also have adaptations that may make folks with trypophobia very uncomfortable.

[sparkylurkdragon]

I could tell my first run was spiralling towards disaster by the first week of Autumn, so I restarted Grimshire. (I hadn't lost anyone yet but Hoo Boy! Prosperity the cheetah did not have a prophetic name, unfortunately.)

Things at least appear to be doing much better, now that I know what I'm doing and also have a cheat sheet for critter lures. Playing as a Mustelid this time so i can get the occasional tree meat. Vidra is some kind of otter.

I'm playing on Unsteady, which is one bump below the game's "normal" difficulty, and having a lot of fun with the most stressful farming sim I've ever played. <3

Really good stuff. I know the broad strokes of how Autumn and Winter play out, but I'm excited to see for myself!

[sparkylurkdragon]

Feenie heard me cheering when I beat the Roaring Knight and immediately declared it Snuggle Time with a side of Grooming Mapa. He didn't know what I was excited about, but apparently he understood the idea of Time To Celebrate.

Him nap from this morning.

He and Urist actually shared sleeping on me last night, too - her on my legs and him up near my chest, the opposite of how they usually cuddle when sharing Mapa. Haha, I even got up at one point to use the toilet, and when I came back to bed, Urist was back on me within two minutes with an attitude of "very good, back to business."

[sparkylurkdragon]

Picked up Grimshire and it ate my brain after work tonight. It will probably continue to do so, from the feel of it!

[sparkylurkdragon]

Attempting to fight the Roaring Knight, Day 2.

[sparkylurkdragon]

This morning's Pokopia shenanigans: Making a nice berry grove at Bleak Beach. <3 This involved tearing down a bunch of cliffs.

The Pawmot family lives by the grove now and are officially the berry caretakers. :]

Currently the Wasteland, the Beach, and Reedville have groves. I think I know where I'm putting it in the Ridges, and the Skylands will present an interesting challenge.

[sparkylurkdragon]

Beat Echoes of Wisdom and I loved it so much! Definitely going to 100% it. :D