New Year's Resolutions 2021

I'm always a little hesitant to do new year's resolutions, since really thinking about what I've accomplished and what I want to do is really a thing I do all the time. That being said, I get a little bit of breathing room each December, so it's a nice time to think about life and it's pretty fun to look back at these a year later*.

via GIPHY

With that being said, here are some things I want to work on in 2021:

1. Relax - I'm realizing just how badly my own stress is sitting on me and making my life harder, so I'm hoping by the end of 2021 that I'm able to get chill a little better than I am right now.
2. Go on More Adventures - This was one of my resolutions for last year, but then 2020 happened so now most of my adventures are trips as far away as my local coffee shop once or twice a month. Hopefully by the end of next year I'll be able to go more places and see and do more things that are a little out of the ordinary.
3. Read More - I read more in 2020 and I want to keep reading more and more types of things in 2021.
4. Write More - A lot of the projects I'm working on involve writing and certainly writing more would help get those done. Additionally I've been writing a journal since the beginning of pandemic and it's caused me to spend a lot more time thinking about the written word and now good it feels to craft sentences well.
5. Do More - This is a bit of an expansion on my resolution to Move Projects Forward last year. There's a ton of little things in my life that I'd like to get done and so I just want to remind myself that I can do a little bit each day and make really great progress.

* I like when podcasts do a predictions / predictions review show, but I really have no interest in predicting anything.

Looking Back at 2020's New Year Resolutions

 Uh. So. 2020. That happened ... a lot.

Back in the normal times of December 2019, I wrote down some resolutions. How'd those go?

1. Accept Life as It Is - The thrust of this was to try to be better about finding happiness internally rather than relying on outside factors or waiting for particular conditions to be met. In the first half of the year, I did okay with this, I think but I really fell off. I had some disappointments and ended up feeling very out of control. It's certainly the worst I've felt since the darkest days of my PhD.
2. Go on More Adventures - Uh ... fuck.
3. Read More - I did this. It was pretty good. I'd still like to read more and with a little more grace and control, but I read a lot more and a lot of cool things too.
4. Move Projects Forward - I almost did this, but by equal measure my Fall semester completely beat most of the project thinking out of my mind. Hopefully I'll be able to be more on track in 2021.

At the end of the day I'm not unhappy with 2020. 

I think I made some choices that held me back as the year went on. I got hung up on "need to" and "should" and struggled keeping with the day-to-day and finding my own happiness. I also struggled with my identity quite a lot and how to balance that with things that need to be done and what I want to do or be (and how what I want to do affects who I want to be). 

Still I learn a huge amount, about myself, about teaching, about making do and how done is so much better than perfect. So even even though 2020 was a pretty rocky year, I think I'm coming out of it stronger.

via GIPHY - and now for a 2020 nap.

Blog: Games of 2020

2020 has worked out to be a pretty good year in terms of games I've played. I managed to play six games released this year. They were all pretty good, but I certainly like some more than others. In particular I have been absolutely blown away by Hades and I'm pretty sure you should go play that right now. Then you can come back and read the rest of this post later.

For this end of the year post, I've broken my list down into: games I didn't play much, games I thought were okay, games I thought were good, games I thought were great and games that were outstanding.

The Ones I Didn't Play Much

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

I played the Demo and about the Demo again after the game came out in full. (The fact that Zelda games almost always drop on my birthday make it pretty hard to avoid).  So I'm pretty clear on the first 2 or so hours of the Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. It's pretty good, I think it has a ton of interesting ideas and the quality of the game is very good. The thing that kept me from picking it up more was the fact that I just have no intuition for musou games. I've tried to play a few (including the original Hyrule Warriors) and every time I find myself baffled about what I should be doing. The gameplay always feels too loose and like I'm not involved with what actually happens. Age of Calamity feels similar, although they've definitely made things make more sense. I'll try to push into it a bit more in 2020.

The Okay

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance: Tactics

When I first saw a trailer for this I thought it looked a lot it had visuals that looked like Muppets. Sadly in the end, the graphics didn't wow me in the end and the game play felt very slow. My partner and I pushed through and watched the whole of the show, which I generally enjoyed, but I think the game did not come out as well as it might have.

I think my general lack of skill at tactics games (despite my love of them) is holding me back some and then I think compared to other games like Final Fantasy Tactics or XCOM it just feels a little stilted. I might come back to it at some point but it's not really calling out to me.

The Good

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

I'm sad this is only good. I think New Horizons had a lot of opportunity to be exceptional and instead Nintendo played for the Instagram shot. I like the game, it certainly has moments where it's fun and charming. Other times it ends up feeling lifeless, like it's designed to take a good photo but not much beyond that.

New Horizons modernizes a lot of things with other Animal Crossing games and generally makes playing very easy and comfortable. Customizing your own island is fun. Unfortunately it's missing enough personality in the villagers and the factors outside your player that it just isn't great.

Mario 35

I liked Mario 35 quite a lot. Especially when it first came out, I found it to be a huge amount of fun. It forced me to learn a lot about Super Mario Bros and then to learn a lot about how to play this competitively. I'm not great, but I'm certainly good enough on any given day that I have a session last 10-15 minutes.

It has slightly different mechanics than other Super Mario Bros ports, so I found trying to go back and play those harder than it might have been. That being said other than in trying to get better at learning the game, there's no real need to go back right now.

I've found having played for a few months that it's a little less exciting than it was when I first picked it up. I will say that Nintendo's plan to stop letting people play in March seems anti-consumer, but I think shaking up the game play over time is going to be necessary to keep my interest.

Paper Mario: The Origami King

I wrote up a Things About post on this game, but generally I found that this was a good and well executed game. I also found that it was so highly polished that it slipped off my mind. I may have just not been in the right place when I played it, but generally I think I remember Color Splash more and enjoyed that game more.

This game is worth playing. It's beautiful and fun, with an interesting and fun combat mechanic. However, the story is not very interesting and the characters are somewhat forgettable.

The Great

XCOM: Chimera Squad

I really enjoyed XCOM: Chimera Squad. One of the primary problems with the original XCOM was the that the missions were very slow. Xenonauts is possibly even slower with it's large map size.  New XCOM definitely struck a good balance and XCOM:2 tried to shorten times by limiting the number of turns you were allowed to take (which I didn't love).

XCOM: Chimera Squad takes the whole XCOM formula and then asks what if we just did the setup parts. In each mission you "breach" into a space and then spend a turn or two fighting the bad guys you didn't take down on your way in. It speeds the whole game up and makes every mission quick and fun.

I also like that you play as a police force rather than a military force. The investigation game play between missions is minimal, but it's a nice flavour change and I like that the game directly rewards you for disabling enemies rather than killing them. I think they could have pushed it a little farther, but overall it's a really nice experience.

The only thing I'm sad about with Chimera Squad is that there are only 3 and 1/2 real investigations. Even though those have a little bit of variation on replay, I could really happily take on a whole bunch more game.

The Outstanding

Hades

I am absolutely blown away by Hades. It is immediately and continuously fun. It feels good to play. The story is interesting and the characters are deep and engaging. 

I started playing after watching a few Let's Plays and streams. I found I wasn't great at it, but there was always enough progress each time I played and I felt like I was learning to get better each time.

Later I watched some of those Let's Plays again and was fascinated to realize just how carefully constructed the tutorials were. From the order in which boons are introduced, to the way enemies are introduced, to the way the story is introduced it's all extremely carefully structured to guide new players into understanding each mechanic and how to really take advantage of each idea. 

Despite the menacing look, it is very hard to actually hurt yourself in this room.

I watched a video about the game's dialog system and was really impressed by how carefully constructed that is. Having a pool of reasonably interesting things for each character to say, prioritized by the things that are the most pressing.

I absolutely love this game and feel like I could play it for years to come. Probably it'll fade a bit, but I think this is a true classic and absolutely think anyone should play it.

 

Blog: Games of November 2020

Sure, you could read this or you could go play Hades. Have you gone to play Hades yet? Seriously. Go. Play. Hades.

My top five games (by play time) for November were:

1. Hades - Wow. Just wow. This is by far, the best game I've played so far this year and I think it's one of the best games I've ever played. The game play is fluid, easy to understand and feels really good. The story telling is beautiful, brilliantly paced and dynamic enough that you feel like you're in charge. The game is also a masterclass in tutorialization and so I think anyone who's trying to teach anybody anything would be so well served to play this game. (At a minimum watch Dan Floyd picking it up for the first time).
   
   


2. Animal Crossing: New Horizons - The slow drip of Animal Crossing continues. They say they're going to keep supporting the game for a long time to come, but really it feels so far behind where I'd like it to be.
   
   


3. Luigi's Mansion 3 - Kinda mixed. I picked this up and wanted to get through it before Hyrule Warriors came out. I wanted to finish something I hadn't finished yet. Some of this game is fun and charming and some of it is very moon-logic frustration.
   


4. Civilization VI - I don't know what brought this to my mind, but I picked it up again and I'm feeling surprisingly bad at it. Still Civ VI really fires all of my nostalgia flares (it *feels* like the original Civ) and so off I went again.
   
   


5. Ogre Battle 64 - I played on my birthday. It was great.
   
   

Here's my total play time chart for November:

And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month:

Blog: Books Read in 2020

Uncertainty. Brains. Life.
Rockstar. Human. Birth.

I'm on Good Reads

Blog: Books Read in 2020

Fatherhood. Investigating. Evolution. Boys.
Grouchy. New England. Mind. Goodbye

I'm on Good Reads

Blog: Games of October 2020

October was pretty busy. Keeping two classes in the air while teaching remotely has been a bit of a struggle. So I've been playing more of the bite sized things. I can jump in to and out of really quickly.

My top five games (by play time) for October were:

1. Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Getting some seasonal, halloween, things to do did perk the game up a bit. I'm still finding it a touch bland.
   
   

   

   I'm mad they won't let me pick my own costume...



2. Ogre Battle 64 - Did it snow? Yup. I described Ogre Battle to my partner the other day as "my favourite spreadsheet".
   
   


3. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Again and again this remains a classic and my favourite game to just relax and play.
   
   

   

   He must dance.



4. Mario 35 - This has been a ton of fun. I've always been a little embarrassed at how I never learned the first Super Mario Bros. This has been great motivation to actually get good (even if it isn't quite the same game from 1989). It's also bite sized
   
   

   

   I seem to have died. Again.



5. XCOM: Chimera Squad - I tailed off playing Chimera Squad a little just because sessions can be a little long and I've had a ton of stuff I need to keep working on. There's also the drawback of going back to the desk you've sat at all day to play more games is sometimes a bit hard.
   
   

   

   Sometimes the fighting goes bedroom to bedroom.

Here's my total play time chart for October:

And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month:

Blog: Books Read in 2020

Angry. Vietnam. Baby-making.
Family. Baby. Father

I'm on Good Reads

Blog: Things About Paper Mario: Origami King

Paper Mario: The Origami King is a pretty interesting game. It's the most recent result of the crafted world games Nintendo has been working on and the latest Paper Mario game. As such I found it to be beautiful, but also a little over polished.

Honestly it 's a game that was fun while I was playing but thinking back on it a few months later, I'm finding it a bit bland. Still it has some interesting elements and I think it's worth talking about.

Please be aware of spoilers right up to the ending for Paper Mario: The Origami King.

Things I Liked

The visuals of the game are pretty awesome. The designers have put a lot of effort into constructing a world out of paper and crafts. The game feels very natural and also like the kind of idea they were looking for in the early Paper Mario games. 

That said, I liked the "real world" style more than the origami style. I think they did a lot of really interesting work in the origami creatures and settings later in the game, but somehow the lacked a little of the charm of the crafted style. Totally impressive, but I think not just the thing I really liked.

I liked the two new combat systems that were introduced for Origami King. I think the card-based RPG-style battle system used in Colour Splash was enough to keep the game interesting, but it wasn't a draw to the game. Both of the two systems used in Origami King are much more engaging. I like the minion fighting system, where you have to group enemies together to hit them either with an attack that's the right shape. It's not a knock out, but it's certainly enough to make you sit up an pay attention to every fight in the game.

The star for me, though, is really the system for boss fights. You have to create a path for Mario to travel to the boss, picking up power-ups and magic along the way and then hit the boss with the right kind of attack. These turned out to be interesting puzzles and sometimes really dynamic and interesting fights. I found it took me about half the game to really figure it out, but once I did I really enjoyed the puzzle and fight-control aspects the game offered.

Another thing I really loved is that the game has a quick help mechanism to get you through combat. You can choose at the start of a turn to spend some money for support from your audience of Toads. If you spend a little money you might get a point or two of damage to the enemies (pretty much useless but maybe lets you finish up a battle). If you spend more they might refill your health. If you spend at least 100 coins, they'll actually help solve a step in the puzzle. This can really help sometimes when you just can't see the solution. The game throws more than enough money at you that there's no real penalty to using the system.

The only downside to this is that the game does a terrible job of explaining how the system actually works. I spent a while frustrated with the game especially when I was really tired or stressed trying to win a boss fight before I lose and have to start over. Once I understood, it was nice to be able to choose if I felt up to tackling the puzzle myself or if I needed some help.

#PaperMario #PaperMarioTheOrigamiKing #NintendoSwitch pic.twitter.com/lWaLbNzwOf

— Games TJ Plays (@GamesTJPlays) October 28, 2020

Things I Didn't Like

Honestly as a game with this level polish, there's not much to not like about it. The story is a little linear, but that's not too uncommon for a jrpg-style game and it doesn't have quite the same level of personality as I though Colour Splash had. 

I think the thing I disliked the most about this game is that it's as polished as it is. I recently watched Tama Hero's video on the evolution of Animal Crossing villagers, and she discussed the transition of the villagers from somewhat frustrating, but realistic characters to very smooth town decorations. 

Paper Mario has a somewhat similar trajectory as a series, with a very rough first outing on the N64 to an sprawling but esoteric adventure on the Game Cube to the smaller and more streamlined games that followed. At the end of the day this feels a bit like a pretty view and funny quip dispenser. 

Oh. One more thing. This is a Paper Mario game that doesn't end with a parade. What the fuck?

Things I Noticed

The Paper Mario games are known for the their excellent writing. They tend to have a charm and wit that gets left out of a lot of Nintendo's other games. Recently, Treehouse has really added a lot more personality to the games they translate (such as Animal Crossing: New Horizons), but the Paper Mario games have had a strong identity right from the start.

That being said, I think that Origami King didn't have the same level of attention as Colour Splash. There's a moment late in Colour Splash where you meet a troop of 50 Red Rescue Toads. They all look identical, but every single one of them has unique dialog, not just once but trees of dialog that lasts to the end of the game. Origami King lacks a little bit of that, there's just a little bit less life in the NPCs and in the world. 

I also had a bit of a hard time with the music. It's very good music, but it's completely unmemorable. Honestly every time I started playing I was surprised that it didn't have the theme from Colour Splash. 

Things I'd Put In a Game

Paper Mario games also inspire me to focus on those details that make the world really feel alive.

I like the general innovativeness of the combat system. The Paper Mario series is well situated in allowing for different kinds of combat that doesn't necessarily relate to the rest of the game. I'm not sure that's a thing that works smoothly in every game but it's still a fun thing to keep in mind for the right moment.

One this I definitely like is the low/no penalty system to make combat easier. There's been a lot of discussion about how to adjust difficulty and game play to accommodate players of different skills and players with different abilities. There are a lot of important parts to that discussion and different ways to implement it but I think making it a straight forward part of the combat is a really good way to be accommodating to all players. 

Final Things

Paper Mario: The Origami King is a fun game. It's pretty, it's charming, it sounds nice, it's worth playing. I finished it as much as I wanted in about 25 hours. There's more you can go back for to get collectables and such, but I was pretty happy just to get to the end of the story. 

Not every game has to be a ground breaking epic, sometimes it's nice just have something bright fun and quick to play and Origami King is that to a t. I really enjoyed my time with it.

Blog: Books Read in 2020

Person. Rhyme. Self. Life.

I'm on Good Reads