LadyCrimson

Reminds me of me jumping onto grocery store shelves.

Stray - Two things I really like about this casual/chill game: ---sound design. From water/environment noises to enemies to yes, the cat's padded cadence footsteps and sporadic meowing when it lands, as well as the overall "silence" or bits of music. To the point when there are verbal language noises I feel like it disturbs it all. Thankfully there is little of that you must listen to. ---using visuals to set an emotional mood. Game made me feel a bit of sad early on, pensive and curious, and I have a feeling it's not going to be especially happy in the end. Not saying it's depressing, but it's not sunshine and rainbows either. Two things I don't like in this game: ---even using a controller, avoiding the zurks in those segments is annoying as all get out. Controlling the cat's movement at run/trying not to die-screen speed is very stiff/limited feeling, with some sense of too much input and game action delay (like, runsweverrunrun wait for an "x" to appear, try to jump) and It takes me several tries every time - (edit: if you mess up/don't figure something out, it's death-screen, not forgiving at all) the 2nd time you encounter them is a rather long extended sequence. Supposedly you get some auto-weapon thing to deal with them later and I hope that'll make it better. I think the game could have not used/had a direct enemy threat element at all and been just as good and/or eerie a game. ---there are cute cat things to do, but they mean nothing in terms of gameplay. As a cat person, I still enjoy them, but it would've been nice if such things were more incorporated into actual gameplay vs. just decorative. Like, you can drink out of water puddles, but there is (so far) no reason to. Maybe there should've been at least a minor thirst/hunger survival aspect.

The game is artistically very nice, imo. The environment is very atmospheric/dystopian. ...with occasional almost horror atmosphere. Also, more "zurks", because while they're not cute, I do find them sorta funny. Even moreso when animated and making their weird squeaking noises.

Technically/ultimately, just to survive, probably not. Practically/health-wise, it could shorten lifespans by being more prone to certain conditions/diseases that would weaken us over many years. And I'm sure human tech could create artificial lights that would minimize such. Also, underground cities to avoid a worldwide 120F+ environment doesn't mean we couldn't go "outside" occasionally. Or have "sunrooms" as upper-level parks, for example. You don't need very much sun exposure at all - we're not plants.

If that D&D film is at least 30% better than that one that starred Jeremy Irons, it'll probably be counted as a win. Although that trailer does nothing for me. Something about it looks cheap or cramped for some reason, not sure why, feels more like TV sets, and while the cast is maybe ok and it has that Guardians humor vibe, dunno. Looks very generic. Also, is there something about D&D that make rogues/thieves desirable as the core hero bunch? Didn't the J. Irons movie feature two theives too? Trap disarming maybe? Gotta have those I guess.

Occasionally I read articles re: economic and other world issues re: human quality of life/anger etc and feel like we're in the beginning of our own "fall of (random name choice) Empire", so to speak. Then I go back to some cute game like Stray or mindlessly loot hunt in some action game, and ignore it all again. Also, I heard it was really hot in Great Britain recently (still?). World weather heat maps recently make most of the world look like it's on fire. Time to start working on those underground cities?

Have bucket, will travel. Paper bag on head, because of course you can cat. Took me a while to notice that (a tiny robot) B-12's eyes were visible from the backpack on the cat. Which is cute. These things are not cute. They're like a cross between alien ticks and those head crab things in Halo.

Yeah, it's not a traditional platformer. I could tell that from the videos, because I dislike most of those almost instantly on sight. I'd call it more of a story driven visual walking and ... not puzzles, but look for items/find the solutions to progress story type of thing. Example, need a # code to open a door, have to find the code somewhere in the area. Need to get up somewhere, have to do something with something to be able to do so. It's not difficult but occasionally I was hunting a bit before I noticed. Since everyone plays at a different speed, not sure how far you are in an hour. Game says I've done 2.5 hrs. and I probably spent a lot of that in the Slums area, leaping around trying to find all the items and figure out what I was supposed to do. I quite enjoy it. It's really simple and yeah you just follow "x" prompts (there are many "x" marks that lead nowhere, too) but I like the hunt for the music sheets for example, and I'm curious about the history/story. Edit: I like B-12, too. So far, outside of "cat, well animated, cute stuff" and the moody/eerie visuals and atmosphere, I'd consider it a good/fun but not great casual game. I don't think I'd play it more than once, unless there are different endings or something. The only thing I haven't liked is the save system. It seems to save at checkpoints (single slot), and while I was going thru the slums, I thought about exiting a few times but the game would say "last checkpoint 12 minutes ago" and I didn't want to lose progress so I kept wandering and doing stuff, trying to find a point where the game would save again. I'm not clear yet if it saves on exit regardless and I didn't want to risk it. So that was kind of annoying. >.>

Just wanted to postscript, that through the power of the internet (and my trying it with another chr, myself) I've learned that even on repeated playthru's you cannot skip the credits of Tiny Tina Wonderlands - but you can hold the down arrow key to make them scroll much faster. Or on a controller it's pushing one of the toggle angles (this supposedly works the first time too, wish we'd known that, hah). On my PC it took about 3-4 minutes that way vs. 30 minutes. I'd guess hubby's PC would take a bit longer. So tape the key down and make a sandwich I guess. Edit: not the "typical" way of rushing credits, it's no wonder many players missed it/didn't realize, after ESC, spacebar, etc. didn't work.

BEST. GAME. EVAH.

"They can't see me, right? Yeah, no one saw me..." https://youtube.com/shorts/AzESo8KzCgQ (I guess YT's "shorts" don't always embed very well...link it is)

Other stuff: Other house, neighbor had avocado tree (altho it's currently dying, ::sadface::). This house, neighbor has grapes that entwine among the other bushes/trees. They're small, like raisin-size, but good/sweet. What you do when your knees are "bad" and the backstep is too deep/high. The floor threshold to first step was about 8 inches high making for a jolting forward-landing and I was side-crabbing it, which was straining one hip...now it's 3 inches and the other two steps are shallower/ok. I'm such a joint-gimp now. >.> The home-to-garage door stairs needs a plank/ramp over the stairs, too. Pfft. "Awesome, a lot of these are labeled with nice labels!" "...never mind, many of them are wrong, apparently." Why is this almost always true.

Yeah, I've been looking forward to that one. I thought it was going to release last month but it was this month, and then we bought Tiny Tina so not sure if I'll play it right at release day (which I think is tomorrow?). I'll definitely be buying/playing it soon, tho.

Haha. I remember Diablo 3 would tell you this, complete with a picture of a sad lonely looking old man (maybe Cain?) ... *google* ... this thing. ...probably became a meme or something.

Tiny Tina Wonderlands - We still have lots o' little sidequests or "completionist" type stuff, but we hit max clvl (40, currently) and went to do the campaign end boss. We killed him and the loot shower started ... and the credits rolled right in the middle of that. Not allowed to click out of/skip them. Fine, they've done that before, 5-7 minutes or whatever right. We waited. And waited. And waited. 25 minutes later we were still waiting. 30 minutes later it was finally over for me, but hubby's PC for some reason was 5 minutes behind showing them so we waited some more. When they finally dumped you back into the game, the loot shower finished etc, but .... ....way to kill the player's play-mood. By the end I was wishing I could have my chr. shoot all the credits as they scrolled endless by. Maybe you can skip it if you do it a 2nd time, but that was an overly excessive length for forced game 1st-time credits watching. >.> Like, after a few minutes of main credits a "press to skip" could have popped up then, with the "play credits" in the main menu to view later. We tried the end game routine briefly - similar to the Overworld instanced "encounter" mini-map sequences, with a new currency drop for item enchantments. Then we tried one of the short DLC's and while the areas were unique, it still runs like a small multiple-arena goal-gauntlet, with yet another currency to gather and the added factor that you cannot die/2nd-wind. If you die during the whole trip, you're put back in town and would have to start all over. eg, not much of an "endgame." At any rate, we still had a fair amount of fun overall, despite some later mild annoyances here and there.

Also - you can still cast spell/s (like a big, huge AoE, or anything else) while in "fight for your life", which makes getting a 2nd-wind a lot easier/faster. Just sayin'.

The (more demanding/newer) stuff I play it's mostly 50-70fps w/the 2080ti, which to me is perfectly playable, but I'd like the lower number to be more like 80+ for headroom and all of that. The way I'm going re: gaming, I could probably wait until the 50xx and it'll be even better. But that might require a PSU connected directly to the sun or something.

Yeah...no kidding. Tempts me to just get a 3080ti since they're "normalizing" now, for less power-spike considerations...with my reduced gaming desire that would get me some boost to/for 4k/60 performance (all I care about at the moment) for my uses and probably let me skip all the way to 60xx. Or longer, who knows. Then again, maybe I could wait/skip to then regardless. Edit: oh, the evga ftw3 Ultra 3080ti is now "only" $1100 on Amazon. Hm....will it get to $1000...

There are apparently large rats around here, especially in summer. Seen one a few times outside, eating my wildlife sunflower seeds and just scurrying around the fence. They physically look like a cross between a very large dwarf hamster and a squirrel when they're eating, it's quite adorable. Mostly only saw the very occasional tiny rat/mouse down South. Some people might see such and call a poison/exterminator or something. Me, just like with everything else, as long as I don't see them indoors, all I wonder is if I could trap/catch one and turn it into a pet*, because they are a lot cuter than the typical breed/ones they sell at pet stores. *edit - no I'm not truly "serious", but they sure are cute.

Yeah, those are a couple of my favorite episodes. It does take a while, but I loved how that anime slowly built up their chrs and their relationship, the small humor moments then the dramatics....in that action-anime story telling way, ofc. It's also one of those where the Eng. dub is overall very good. I've watched both dubbed and subbed and I don't really have a big preference, except to my ears I might slightly prefer the Eng. VA's tonal/inflection, slightly more OTP interpretation of Mugen better.

Tiny Tina Wonderlands - TLDR: I like the more concentrated maps and sense of idle discovery vs. lots of empty space designed for driving cars, re:map designs. It's tons better than BL3 by far, with plenty to do beyond the short main campaign and that Tiny Tina BL2 DLC flavor, but the lack of NG+ or lengthy replay value (eg, BL loot grinding obsessions) hurts it. Still, it's the type of game most might play thru once or twice initially and have quite a bit of fun for that first run or two, and many only want that anyway, so in my mind it was "worth" buying. But I think they should've release-priced it at $39.99-49.99 vs. $60+. Oh, and "normal" difficulty has been mostly a little too easy, so some might want to start off with the harder setting right off the bat. EditEdit: I think hubby and I have about 40 hrs. on our chrs - we are fairly slow players, however. We might finish "everything" in another 24+ hours. =========================== We are, I think, at the point where the next main quest/small area forward leads to the last boss fight of the campaign. So we're ignoring it and cleaning up other areas and the Overworld stuff as well. There are still quite a lot of side quests we haven't done and we haven't done the supposedly very short DLC missions that came with the edition we bought, nor the end-game rift-like grind. Two gameplay mechanics that I was disappointed in: ----While you can dual-class, you still can only have one Action Skill active/usable at a time. So if you dual class, you have 4 total possible Action skills and have to pick only one at a time. eg, if you're the spelllcaster class, you're unlikely to want to use anything but the one that lets you have two spells equipped (vs. Spell+ attack Action Skill), thus making the dual-class only for, say, a npc companion partner, or a few 2nd class skill bonuses that might synergize well, just like putting points in other trees in previous BL games. ----the whole "find all lucky dice"/luck chance bonus is credited account-wide. So you do not have to "find" them again with any new character you make, the spots they're in are just empty. I mean, once you know where most are, the fun of first-finding them would be gone, but I still find that a bit annoying, since they also acted like small loot chests which is nice for a new playthru. No other stat/puzzle/chr stat-record stuff carries over like that. I've seen no way to disable it for new characters.

Since we have room for one now, we found a store that sells used/refurbished (or whatever) gym/and higher quality home version of exercise machines. Because I still refuse to pay $3k-10k for such a thing. So we got this older Precor elliptical that's taller than I am for $675. Pros: both hubby and I felt comfortable enough on it despite our height/size difference, the motion is very smooth, it is VERY QUIET/build quality seems great, it doesn't make my knees hurt, and it has a spot to hold the tablet/phone. Possible cons: the lowest incline setting is still an incline (although I think I personally prefer that anyway) and the leg "stride" length might be a little short for some ppl's desires. The motion feels like a cross between a stair stepper and a stand-up cycling motion, if there was such a thing. We just want it for 20-30min. at a time sessions, nothing major. Anyway, for the price. even if it breaks in a few years, or it turns into a clothes hanger half the year, we won't cry about wasting thousands. More importantly, now I don't have to go outside, even more.

Tiny Tina Wonderlands - ---the Overworld map is a tad more integrated into the main questline then first thought. Nothing major but occasionally to reach the next "main quest" map you have to do a minor quest via the Overworld to gain initial access. --a lot of Overworld stuff is done in like random encounter maps (just a tiny instanced combat arena you have to clear to finish) or tiny bits in Overworld itself, but at least one (maybe a few or more?) of the quests open up a whole new giant map that has nothing to do with the main quest, with its own sidequests. We are enjoying that aspect a lot, because even if the main quest is kinda short, you still have plenty to explore/do. --all side quests seem to level up with you, so no outleveling them. But if you try to do only the main quest, you will be quite underleveled at certain stages as it seems to ramp them up at points. ---the biggest con for me is still that you're often standing still waiting for an npc to finish talking/doing their cutesy/meta joke routines before you can click on whatever it is to progress a quest. Can't hit spacebar to make them finish/stop talking. And ofc, too much meta sometimes. Other than that, I might like this BL - in terms of game and combat play+map design at least - almost the best vs. all the previous. BL2 is still the best plot/villain tho. Oh, and for anyone who doesn't like Claptrap, he's seemingly hardly in it. One side-quest had him, so far.