bugarup

And now I'm vaguely interested to play only to find out if the miniature door on that lady's head has a practical purpose or just a decor.

I somehow sank over 500 hours into Kenshi without noticing it, because it's emergent stories are so, so to my liking and I think I only explored, like, half a map yet. What mods I recommend would be "Less foliage and rocks" and some texture compression mod, because Kenshi is not exactly optimized, SCAR's pathfinding, Let's Talk (because by default everyone only says something once and game gets too quiet). I also use and love Map Borders mod, one that makes your base gates bit sturdier, one that scatters about more potential recruits and one that allows for really big parties plus a bugfix or two.

It reminds me of DA2. Also I really want to clock that Pixar smirk twąt mage in the face with a grandfather clock.

I'm trying out local hipster brews and one of them is "Pickle sour ale' which sends most confusing and mixed messages into my brain. On one hand, it's very refreshing and breezy, so good on a hot evening, on the other...well, it tastes like pickle marinate, i.e. the very thing you are giddy to find and drink next morning after heavy party.

I found one of those! Daedric dog to be precise, I'm sure he can take on a dragon seeing how he shredded random vampires and wraiths to, well, shreds. But he was really pushy - like, literally, whenever I stopped to pick a lock or sell loot or just because, he'd bump into me and yeet 5 metres away which got old really fast even if I imagine that's how big dogs are IRL. What's worse, he messed with my sneaking and had a psychic link with every guard of Skyrim which he diligently used to report any transgression. So I really rushed to finish that quest and get rid of him. His Daedric master was an **** though; really missed the option to say "What?! Hell no, f†ck you and also I'm keeping your pushy dog!" Ah. I was wondering why there's a dead draugr in the herb garden of my homestead. "It is quite buggy" is a phrase that could be used with anything in Skyrim.

Skyrim. It appears that you can get pets now. Well so my mage did find one. Looks like a something born out of love between a spider and a mantis, sounds like a tank when walking. Which is kind of grating especially when you try to sneak, but as soon as I found out it messes with enemy pathfinding I'm more than happy to tolerate it in exchange for draugrs doing nothing but very intense eye contact while I pelt them from behind of my spider-mantis mini tank. Elsewhere in Skyrim, I went werewolf. They have their own skill tree and everything now. So I went on some official Companion Guild quest, turned the wolf on, cleared the dungeon, gained a few perks, cool, but it would be pity to let the wolf timer expire without doing some more maulin', I thought. Could come back for loot later, I thought. ...probably half a map later I'm still a wolf. See, wolf timer gets prolonged every time you eat someone and I've forgotten just how many bandits and necromancers are there everywhere in Skyrim. Eventually it should expire some day because I avoid towns and undead are inedible, but I'm keeping the wolf on out of sporting interest now - I want to see that trail of destruction on the map. When I'm allowed to use it again, because werewolves cannot read maps. I do hope my companion is okay, I lost him, like, 30 dungeons ago.

TGIF

You guys are depressing. Here's a not Tom and probably not even a major, but who definitely did come home.

Vanilla for now. Really miss my "Not Completely Horrible UI" and "Highlight unread books" mods, but, you know. There are cheevos and I'm weak.

Playing Skyrim reminded me of one pure 100% Bethesdian trademarks - Needlessly Belligerent NPC. You know, the one that upon meeting you for the first time greets you with "Hey f†ckface, the f-- you doing here?! Tell me RIGHT NOW you useless piece of shoit or I smash your ugly face in!" Fallout 3 has them, Skyrim has them, Fallout 4 has them too. Usually your reply to them consists of 1. (meek explanation of what I am doing here), 2. "Try me, b†tch" and you can guess which one I always take. Unfortunately, Bethesda loves to troll players with making the most insufferable ones essential and thus unkillable, though sometimes just temporarily and then you see videos of people launching nukes at that one settler in FO4. I now recall that cathartic feeling I had from going to town in Riften when I was finally allowed to; cannot wait to repeat the experience.

Weather being what it is, reinstalled Skyrim. Made a couple builds to roleplay someone other than stealthy archer who's a vampire werewolf fighter Arch-mage of thieves guild (though you'd have to pry kleptomania-for-everyone trait from my dead sticky fingers, that's one thing I'm not ready to not roleplay). Learning new things, such as how to kite when you play a mage. Anyways, there is a lot of things to do in Skyrim, but I'll have Cryostasis and Frostpunk queued in case hell-on-earth season lasts longer.

I'm technically, what, youth of nineties, but I'm somehow not nostalgic for majority of its music, as for eighties, methinks its music is only slightly less goofy than its fashion. Seventies and sixties are my decades through and through.

...well I don't know what I expected when I clicked on that link above. Must've been momentarily

All the pressure is in your own head, mate. You don't have to do everything at once right away and perfectly. There's always another day, just chill.

It's very on theme for Disco Elysium to go down in blazes of war between corporate greed and creative collective. I'm okay with it never getting any sequels, it was obviously a lightning-in-a-bottle kind of game.

Hey, The Sisters of Mercy is the Goth band. Listened to them a lot in my formative years. Anyway, here's the lady who belongs in the 70-ties in the best sense of the world. (The video almost makes me wish for a nuclear winter for some reason though)

DA2 had its dark moments, but most of them were hidden in optional lore tidbits you wouldn't come across if you didn't know where to look (like origins of Kirkwall city). Now Inquisition, that was a lukewarm bowl of unseasoned oatmeal, but even it had memorable moments and companions were the highlight (though I still think Varric had no plausible reason to be there). Sometimes I remember those moments and briefly think of replaying DA:I, but then remember vast empty plains littered with respawning groups of three dudes, lootless titanium bears with homing systems, random collectibles and...yeah, nah. From what I saw about BG3 companions + extrapolating from D:OS2, I'd probably want to toss them all into Skaen's blood pool as soon as possible.

Very hack'n'slashy. Eh, not gonna go upgrade PC just for this, but some day on 75% discount would.

Watched Berserk, 'cause wanted to see what inspired the game I seem unable to quit recently. None of that horror at the end would have happened if only Griffith had courage to ask Gutz out.

Woot I can see videos again!

Wonder how long till they start flaunting corpses of their kills.

I had some ~*Dark Souls experience*~ with Fear and Hunger for myself over a weekend, that is, played a number of sessions without the savescumming mod and just let bad luck take me wherever. It went like this: † Won three Necronomicons in a row, won the coin toss to read them all without going mad and consequently dead, lost the toss to a monstrosity next door, died; † Had a lucky streak with good armor and weapons, won the coin toss for successful rest, but it appears that if you don't kill this one really weak enemy beforehand, he drags you to his torture room where you, well, eventually die; † Forgot to give the little girl I rescued from the cage her whiskey and opium, she got too sad and left; † Some **** of a mage sang my limbs away, fortunately was able to will myself into suicide; † Defeated some monstrosity surprisingly easily, it dropped a thing that would cancel annoyances like bleeding, infection and worms away, couldn't equip it because of cursed item in the slot; † Okay, "What if I jump into the latrine?" is entirely on me. And that's with mercifully brief combat. If I had to experience all this plus a drawn-out twitch-based fight before kicking it? Gimme that sweet Necronomicon. On the savescumming runs, one party failed forward straight into their goal, unfortunately the dude I was hired to rescue turned up dead, so hauled my arse all the way back to see if I were allowed to leave since what's the point of staying there anymore? Indeed I was allowed to leave, got "Ending E", which implied endings A, B, C and D. Went to game's wiki and it appears I missed, like, 90% of game? Okay good. Wasn't planning to quit it any time soon anyway.

Black Hawk Down. It is kinda amusing how a film about American event involving very American dudes has a cast with half, if not more, British actors. Also an Aussie and a Dane. Probably because the director was a Brit too.

Now when I think there's quite a number of games with great worlds made by solo devs. Fear and Hunger, Kenshi, RImworld, Stardew Valley...I probably should pay more attention to indie scene. If only itch.io weren't an embodiment of Sturgeon's law.