Getting Excited, Making Things

Tuesday, April 07, 2020

Well that was a month. I went from a fairly normal semester, if one where I was struggling with workload a bit, to working from home and transitioning all my teaching to online. That caused a pretty radical restructuring of my life. Interestingly it hasn't really changed how much I've played, but it has adjusted how I've played. I'm trying (I guess as always) to be better about playing mindfully, and it is a bit of an effort to not pick up EU4 when it's available on the same desk I'm working on. Also making sure I can play for some escapism is important.

On top of that, the new Animal Crossing: New Horizons came out. That's been an interesting addition to the mix, because, as with all animal crossing games, it flows in real time and so it's worthwhile to play several different times in a day. That's tied in nicely with working from home and I've done a fairly good job of keeping it down to short stop ins on coffee breaks.

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

Europa Universalis 4 - I'm continuing to enjoy the game, now that I actually understand what I'm doing to some extent. I've also started checking in on the Eu4 reddit from time to time and I'm starting to understand the game a little more broadly. It certainly fits the role nicely as some escapist entertainment and it's nice to have when I want to go somewhere else for a bit.

This was fun while it lasted.

Dragon Quest XI S - I thought I'd try to finish this up before Animal Crossing: New Horizons released. I didn't although I think I'm fairly close to the end now. I did finally reach the point where I was finding some interesting challenge and some interesting opportunities in the combat system to do interesting things. I still find that I don't like this as much as Dragon Quest VIII, but it certainly has a lot of upside.

Sassy Bunch

Animal Crossing: New Horizons - I realize that I was a bit dumb trying to finish Dragon Quest. This is an Animal Crossing game, and that means that it really doesn't benefit from going fast. I've been trying to limit the amount I play a little so that there's always something else new to think about and look forward too. It's a nice follow up to New Leaf, which I dropped a few years back, and it has some great game play and quality of life improvements. I'm not sure it's everything I'd hoped for, but it's a wonderful game and exactly the game everyone needs right now.

Welcome Home

Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival - The standard continues and still feels good in the New Horizon era. I'm actually putting together some thoughts about it, which I hope to post soon.

Always Together

Cursed Treasure 2 - And to think I thought the end of Adobe Flash was going to be the crisis of 2020 I was going to have to think about. As it happens IriySoft released a remastered version. Although I've discovered I don't like the remaster nearly so much as the original. Still it's nice to see that the game will live on. (And I'm sure I'll get used to it.)