The Video Games I Played - February 2024

This is the second new monthly games post.

I'm not feeling very settled in what anything means. The book posts have some basic stats about the books which don't really get into the nature of what I'm choosing to read and why. For January and now February I've tried to divide games into "Games I've played intentionally" and "Games I've played to feel something moving" -- which has gone by a few different names. Given that I'm trying to do everything more intentionally that makes it harder to see what I'm doing and also leaves me in a strange place with games like "Final Fantasy XII" which I seem to be playing mostly to get through it.

You'll also notice this update is coming kinda late into March and that's largely due to me not really having a good feeling for what tracking the games I play means to me in 2024. Still I won't to remember what I've played, so we'll keep going and see what's next.

The Games I Played in February 2024

I had planned to focus on playing Final Fantasy XII, as the game I'm playing to enjoy the story and chill out with. The problem with this is that I'm finding FFXIII to be profoundly boring. I just don't really want to play it and it doesn't seem to have a ratio of story-to-gameplay that pushes me to keep playing. (I'm not sure what the ratio of story-to-gameplay is nor where it pushes me to play games, but it seems like a workable metaphor, is there something good enough to make you want to play even if something else makes you not want to play.)

I also trailed off Hollow Knight, as I often do. Honestly February was not a month where I wanted to play games much.

Wildermyth I played a bit of and think it looks interesting, but I think it's a think I could play with my partner and we could have a lot of fun with it, so I've been holding off looking closer.

The games in green have all been games I've played for the joy of making stuff move -- as I constructed above -- and they've all done that admirably. I'm regularly struck by just how good Pikmin 4 is.

The Video Games I Played - January 2024

So this is the new monthly games post.

At this point I've captured two things. Which games I've played and which games I've played "intentionally". I'll probably expand this as I go, but I wanted to do something a little different and give myself a bit of an interesting look. I'm not quite sure I've achieved a look I like either, but again here's a starting point.

Which games I played is self explanatory. Which games I've played "intentionally" is a thing I'm not that clear on myself, but Sea of Stars and Final Fantasy XII are the two games I made time in the evenings to sit down and play. Other games on this list, I didn't choose as an intentional activity, so much as thing to do to rest for a short or long moment. That's a thought I'm still working on and I'll see what makes sense as we go. Games are more-or-less in order of when I started playing them from top to bottom.

I finished and "completed" Sea of Stars, so I tried to add some iconic indicators; an end dot (from sequence diagrams) to signify hitting credits and a "golden" glow to show "complete". 

(Complete goes in quotes because I could probably do more, but in this case I found the "true ending". True Ending goes in quotes because what is truth in a video game.Golden goes in quotes because I'm not great at finding colours and faders in Omnigraffle (which I used to make this).)

The Games I Played in 2024

As I mentioned, I finished Sea of Stars and wrote up some things about it. I've played quite a bit of Into the Breach especially as a background thinking game. It's (sort of) easy to dip into and out of, especially while I'm working on a project. I've really picked up the rhythm of it and I'm really having fun with it. As always Mario Kart is great to sit down and quickly jump into something to redirect your brain and your hands. ... Also "Vroom".

Like I said, this is evolving, but I kinda like the shape. Does it make sense? Is it interesting? Is there something else that would be good to know? Feedback is appreciated.