Quantum Break was really fun. I'd love some more time travel games like that.

While Remedy don't own the rights and it can't officially be "canon" to Alan Wake and Control, there are some things that the community has kind of put together which establishes how it's a part of the wider universe/multiverse.

Loaded up The Outer Worlds yesterday because I wanted some first person Obsidian RPG goodness after finishing New Vegas a couple of weeks ago.

Forgot how absolutely fucking saturated and vibrant the colours are. My old monitor must not have had the saturation turned up or something because, as someone super sensitive to bright or intense anything, I don't remember it immediately hurting my brain like it did last night.

Anyway, used ReShade and toned down a ton of shit. Then I realised I'm not actually feeling it all that much, so I'm going to start a new playthrough of New Vegas instead. I think this time I'm not gonna fuck Benny and kill him in his sleep. Well, maybe I'll still rock his world because it's hilarious, we'll see.

Edit: Oh, also I've been playing a bit of XDefiant. It's not terrible, honestly. Like, I'm not paying for their battle pass and I'll definitely lose interest fairly quickly, but it's not a bad distraction.

Too many fucking ants.

Getting some diatomaceous earth and we'll see what happens.

My only worry is the spiders.

I like little house spiders. Never really bother them and they don't really bother me, and I really don't want to kill any, so I hope whichever ones happen to be hanging around (if there are any) won't get too close to the floor.

Something is very wrong with me... I've been playing Overwatch and... enjoying it? Still a shell of its former self, but it's not always too terrible.

I need to get away from the computer desk and mouse/keyboard for a while, though, so I'm thinking of either giving Fallout 76 a shot or starting up a new playthrough of New Vegas and going for a different ending.

Got a few new mods to try, particularly new radio stations and other goodies, but I'm wondering if I should use that "make your own radio" mod to add some old time radio shows like The Shadow(*) and sci-fi podcasts that fit the theme.

Sure there are a bunch of mods with great shows like Dimension X already, but after hearing the same episodes over and over again, it might be nice to listen to other popular shows (e.g. The Shadow) or more obscure ones (e.g. Candy Matson).

Might actually just use one of the other radio mods as a base and make my own mod entirely. Did that with Skyrim to much success (power metal when dragons appear, bardcore in the taverns, all kinds of fun).

(*) (I mean, that's pretty much what The Silver Shroud in FO4 was, which I should maybe also try and get into my NV radio because I enjoyed that as well.)

Hah, I was actually considering Tunic! But I'm also a little mentally burned out, so I think I need to be in a bit of a different headspace, otherwise I'm going to ignore some of the more interesting parts like the little secrets and slowly revealing the instruction manual and all that curiosity-rewarding stuff.

It's definitely on my "to play relatively soon" list, though, and thanks for the suggestion!

Okay, just finished Chants of Sennaar. That was a lovely experience. Reminded me a bit of my time a few months ago with Jusant, along with a touch of Journey and Heaven's Vault thrown in.

Had to laugh out loud when I ended up playing a fucking mechanical crank handle version of Flappy Bird. That was pretty entertaining.

One puzzle completely stumped me, but some kind soul on the Steam forums (!!) had a really good explanation without giving away the actual answer to the puzzle, which I always appreciate.

Anyway, highly recommend for anyone who likes puzzle games, environmental and organic storytelling, languages and written script, and just an examination of history, culture, and how (ideally) we can all connect if we just listen to one another and find shared interests (there's a particular interest that almost every culture in the game shares, which is something a lot of people IRL bond over as well; I found it pretty interesting because it felt so... quintessentially human).

What to play next? No idea. I think I'm done with intense action games for a while, so might find something else relatively chill to play.

Chants of Sennaar and I'm having tremendous fun.

Lol.

Wasn't paying attention and it seems like I deleted some important folders in either the .config or .local/share/ directory.

drkonqi is having a field day eating up my processor and I'm too tired to figure out what exactly I fucked up (I don't even know how considering the folders were empty, but maybe I did something else, I don't know).

Need to do a fresh install anyway, so might as well get on with that.

Other than that, constant thigh pain and too many fucking ants in this house.

For all the shit it gets, I still love that game. It might be more heavy on the action than the RPG, but it still feels like Fallout, which is more than enough for me.

Plus it has some of the more interesting vaults, IMO.

Companions are also great. Nick Valentine in particular is a treasure to be savoured.

Oh, and there are like two sidequests I absolutely fucking love and don't want to spoil, but just keep an eye out for a ship lodged in a building when you're exploring around the city areas near the Eastern coast.

Cassette Beasts was a real treat. I'll be finding it very difficult to go back to other monster taming games after playing that.

Yeah, I enjoyed the whole background narrative with the Survivalist, and there's some great loot as well, but I think maybe I was a bit burned out and having a bad day because I just couldn't really get into it.

Thinking back, it seems like my only real issue with it was just navigating the map. Maybe I was just tripped up by the sudden change in landscape and didn't adjust well to it.

Could also be that I just finished OWB and the immediate change in tone and pace gave me a bit of narrative whiplash. Lol, probably should have done some more stuff in between instead of rushing it.

Anyway, a nice break should do me well. Then I can come back with fresher eyes and appreciate the little things without feeling too overwhelmed.

Still on New Vegas, but going to take a bit of a break.

Last time I played (over a decade ago, at this point), I only did the Dead Money DLC. So, over the last couple of days, I've been doing some of the other DLC and ignoring much of the main quest.

Old World Blues was super fun (and reminded me of Outer Worlds a lot; I wonder if they took inspiration for OW from their earlier work here), but it kind of took a fair amount of energy out of me.

I probably should have taken a break there, but decided to try Honest Hearts. I really didn't enjoy it, but at least it wasn't too long.

After that, I realised I'm burning way out here, so I'm going to get back to the game in a few days.

Wii U gamepad was a lot more comfortable for me. I'd play Windwaker or Mario Maker or 3D World or Splatoon for hours and never feel all cramped up with half-numb palms. I play Ace Attorney for an hour and it just hurts.

Plus the charging port location makes it annoying to play while charging. It makes sense for the dock, but it ruins it in handheld mode.

I'd love to just get a Steam Deck and be done with it, but Valve won't be shipping here anytime soon and the cost of importing it along with our shitty forex rates end up with the base model hitting PS5 cost territory for me (which is also more expensive here than in most Western nations).

Fallout: New Vegas, because it's been like a decade and I want to play again, especially after watching the series.

Took a while for me to get back into it (and figure out the right mods and settings for me), and I'm still feeling a little bit of that overwhelming "fuck, there's maybe too much shit to do", but I'll just chill with it for now.

Edit: LOOOOOOL. Legion already hates me and I haven't even met (and killed) Caesar yet. Barely even started the main quest at this point, which I suppose is tradition with Fallout, to be fair.

It's the same with "hack and slash". Originally also referred to games like Diablo, but now we all use it to refer to stuff like DMC, pre-2018 God of War, Bayonetta, etc.

Got a new router. Frustrated. I hate networking shit.

I live in a shitty part of the world where it's not uncommon for power to go out, so I have a backup UPS/power bank for my current router.

When new one is plugged into power bank, it powers on fine, but for some reason won't register the WAN cable as connected. Plugged directly into socket? Suddenly the cable is connected.

I legitimately don't fucking understand this. Even tried another power bank with more juice, and same result.

It's very annoying. I've needed a new router for years because the one I've been using is like a decade old, has zero firmware updates, and feels insecure all round. It's also really low on features and I can't even change the fucking username for logging into the device.

So this has been a fun two days of troubleshooting.

Sometimes I hate technology, if I'm being honest.

Edit: Lol, fuck all that shit. Turns out it had trouble keeping a stable connection with the cable regardless of power source, so seems I was just "lucky" the first time I switched them.

Weird that the cable works fine and is locked in on my other router, though. Finicky on this one. Return it, I shall. Still, technology has been having a lot of fun fucking with me over the last two years. At this point I'm afraid to buy any new tech.

Very tired still due to my overexertion, but I feel like I'm finally back in the headspace where I can hopefully pay more attention to the spoons I've got.

Already feel better than I did earlier, so horizon looks good right now.

/r/all was a fucking nightmare on reddit, and I don't think the equivalent here is that much better either, if I'm being honest.

I find that life is more pleasant when I stick to local and/or my subscriptions, block the communities I'm not interested in, and filter out whatever remains.

What kind of art and writing do you do? Are they always separate, or do you sometimes write and illustrate a single story (i.e. comics or scene illustrations between paragraphs/pages, etc.)?

While I can go with the cliché "just do it for yourself" line (I do think that's an important approach, though), I'm sure people here would be more than happy to see what creativity you've cooked up.

And I bet there are plenty of people here who would enjoy your art and writing as well.

Yes please! I'd personally love to see/read it.