Friday, October 06, 2023

Games of September 2023

I'm trying to focus on other stuff and be intentional with my play time, so my play time was down overall for September and most days I didn't play more than an hour. In trying to be intentional I'm trying to play things I find fulfilling and so I took a deep breath and installed Steam on my Mac Book. I'll eventually get my gaming PC fixed back up, but this will do for today (assuming the laptop survivies, it is a 2016 model).


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

  1. Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - I spent a lot of my time in Tears of the Kingdom wandering around and finishing things up. I'm not sure that hunting almost everything down on the first playthrough has been that good of a choice, but as always the moment-to-moment game play is good so it's usually fun.
    Screenshot: Link dressed in desert garb runs past a giant dragon standing on a huge rock.

  2. Pikmin 4 - Pikmin 4 is a solid game. The only complaint I really have is that it's menu is on a different button than Tears of the Kingdom. It's a little bit conflicting because I *like* Pikmin 3 more, but as I said last month, I'm so glad to have this much more pikmin to play.
    Screenshot: Red and yellow Pikmin are blasted out of a dark cave. Their faces remain vacent.

  3. Final Fantasy XII - I didn't touch this much and I kinda didn't miss it. There are parts of FFXII which are pretty good, but it's slow and grindy and playing it never really feels that rewarding. I enjoy the concept of the game a lot more than I really like playing it.
    Screenshot: Ashe fights a dinosaur at the beach.

  4. Hades - Uh, so, I can play games on my Mac Book. I maybe *shouldn't* play games on my Mac Book, but I can.

    Scrrenshot: Zagreus arrives in Asphodel, flooded with lava and he stands by a large engraving in the floor of a skull holding a bone.

    Uh, please ignore the melting Mac Book.

    But seriously, Hades is still really good.


  5. Super Mario World - I'm not quite sure what's wrong with me that there are so few games that I really love the controls in, but I'm kinda fussy and sometimes Super Mario World is still somehow the game that fits.
    Screenshot: Mario swims down into a tunnel surrounded by grey stone.

Here's my total play time for September:



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




Sunday, October 01, 2023

Books of September 2023

Reading

Here is my updated infographic for the books I've read in 2023 - September Edition.

Stats in September - (Year to Date)

Reading Stats

Books Read - 10 (82)Pages Read - 3827 (28359)

Books Read

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky A Lonely Death by Charles Todd
The Janus Stone by Elly Griffiths Marple: Twelve New Mysteries by Agatha Christie (and a dozen more)
Planetfall by Emma Newman The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
The Stars, Like Dust by Isaac Asimov Ambition by Yoshiki Tanaka
The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas

Collage of the covers of the 10 books listed above.September 2023 Covers

Authors - 10 (42)

Adrian Tchaikovsky - 1 (2)Agatha Cristie - 1 (1)
Alexander McCall Smith - (2)Angeline Boulley - (1)
Ann Leckie - (2)Becky Chambers - 1 (1)
Brandon Sanderson - (1)Carlene O'Connor - (1)
Charles Todd - 1 (9)Connie Willis - (2)
Dan Moren - (2)Daniel O'Malley - (2)
Ed Yong - (1)Elizabeth Bear - (1)
Elle Cosimano - (1)Elly Griffiths - 1 (2)
Emma Newman - 1 (1)Fatima Ali - (1)
Hiromu Arakawa - (2)Ilona Andrews - (6)
Isaac Asimov - 1 (2)Jim Butcher - (1)
Louise Penny - (1)Martha Wells - (1)
Mary Robinette Kowal - (1)Matt Parker - (1)
Mur Lafferty - (1)N. K. Jemisin - (1)
Patrica Briggs - (4)Rick Riorden - (1)
Robin McKinley - (1)S. A. Chakraborty - 1 (1)
Scott Hawkins - 1 (1)Sherry Thomas - 1 (1)
Stephen King - (1)Tasha Suri - (2)
Timothy Zhan - (1)Tomohito Oda - (14)
Ursula K. Le Guin - 1 (1)Waubgeshig Rice - (1)
Xiran Jay Zhao - 1 (1)Yoshiki Tanaka - 1 (4)

A word cloud of all the authors above with Tomohito Oda in the largest size.2023 Author Cloud - September Update

Publishing


Publication Range

Earliest Book - 1951 (1951)Most Recent Book - 2022 (2022)

Publications by Decades

2020s - 1 (33)2010s - 7 (27)
2000s - (13)1990s - (4)
1980s - 1 (2)1960s - (1)
1950s - 1 (2)

Books

Source

Borrowed From Public Library - 8 (53)Borrowed From Friends - (2)
My Audible Library - (3)My libro.fm Library - 1 (6)
My "Kindle" Library - (5)My Kobo Library - 1 (14)

Formats

Audio Book - 5 (40)eBook - 5 (25)
eBook (Comic) - (16)Hardcover - (1)

The Books I Read - November 2024

November was a bit weird. The Hands of the Emperor is long, but excedingly good. I'm continuing to find Anna Lee Huber a very engagin...