T w e n t y S i d e d
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “DM of the Rings Remastered CXI: You Can’t Take it With You”
DM of the Rings Remastered CXI: You Can’t Take it With You
Wednesday Action Log 03-19-25
This week is more of the same, Deep Rock Galactic, and R.E.P.O.
nothing new with Deep Rock Galactic, just bugs and minerals.
R.E.P.O. on the other hand continues to be delightfully silly. The game has remained spooky despite its silly nature, and there is a lot more skill involved than I previously thought. It turns out you can get significantly better at hiding under tables and throwing lawn gnomes
Anyway, what’s everyone else doing this week?
Spring 2025 Around My Gaming World
General news update. Probably one or two other things. The latest Galactic Season has started in Star Wars: The Old Republic. As expected and understood, there is no real story for this season and no voice acting; a facet of the game that has been a prominent feature until the last year or so. There is an ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike against performing in video games, and a handful of attempts to “go around” the strike have been caught by the strikers. It has been interesting to watch Reddit discussions on this feature, as it shows how many people are actually noticing the lack of voice acting AND how many players of the game seem to know *why* there is no voice acting already. The primary functionality of this season is playing “Uprisings” with new stimulants that have unknown effects. SWTOR Uprisings are four-player, existing-open-world short missions that essentially work like those “survive X waves of assault” and/or “while moving from point A to point B.” They are meant to be kind-of “short” Flashpoints for multiplayer content. I don’t play them myself, although I don’t rule out maybe trying them in the future. I have a couple of characters geared up and playable enough to not embarrass myself, I think; but I just don’t do hardly any multiplayer. The biggest prizes of “beating the season” so-to-speak seems to be the same combination of mounts, pets, appearance armor, Cartel Coins, etc.; so I’m taking part of course. It’s free appearance stuff!
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Spring 2025 Around My Gaming World”
DM of the Rings Remastered CX: Roleplaying, at Last
Wednesday Action Log 03-12-25
This week I’ve played more Deep Rock Galactic. I kind of assumed I would be done with it by now, but it turns out shooting bugs takes a lot longer to get bored of than I thought.
I also played R.E.P.O. there’s something so delightful about being silly little robots, trying not to break every valuable item, while running away from various things that want to kill them.
What’s everyone else doing this week?
Final Fantasy 1 (part 005) – The One Where We Finish Elfheim
It is finally time to finish out the Elfheim story and prepare for the next quest. Although technically, the next quest is the prep quest for accessing the rest of the map. It’s hidden behind A) completing the game to this point, as you have to finish this story to get access to a quest item you don’t know you need to finish a quest in an area you’re not sure the location of but have heard about. Technically you have access to this place, and could have got pointers to the quest item you will receive soon, but then again; you may not have gone that direction yet. B) Figuring out that all that stuff is connected…it’s obtuse, but *not impossible*.
We stopped last week by returning to Elfheim City, the possible location of Elfheim Castle. The Elf Elf King in the Dark Castle to the Westnorth claimed his castle was ruined, and if we returned the crown to him from where it was hidden in the third level of Marsh Cave, he could restore it and fix all the other various problems with his kingdom. This didn’t 100% jive with everything else we saw and heard, such as the citizens of Elfheim City not really being aware at all of the Dark Castle. The Elf Prince is magically asleep in the Castle near Elfheim City, so I don’t know for sure what’s going on. But we were about to tackle the lowest level of Marsh Cave last time, so that’s where we’re going.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Final Fantasy 1 (part 005) – The One Where We Finish Elfheim”
DM of the Rings Remastered CIX: Give Peace a Chance
From The Archives:
Game at the Bottom
Why spend millions on visuals that are just a distraction from the REAL game of hotbar-watching?
Mass Effect Retrospective
A novel-sized analysis of the Mass Effect series that explains where it all went wrong. Spoiler: It was long before the ending.
Are Lootboxes Gambling?
Obviously they are. Right? Actually, is this another one of those sneaky hard-to-define things?
Internet News is All Wrong
Why is internet news so bad, why do people prefer celebrity fluff, and how could it be made better?
Rage 2
The game was a dud, and I'm convinced a big part of that is due to the way the game leaned into its story. Its terrible, cringe-inducing story.
Project Octant
A programming project where I set out to make a Minecraft-style world so I can experiment with Octree data.
Free Radical
The product of fandom run unchecked, this novel began as a short story and grew into something of a cult hit.
Steam Summer Blues
This mess of dross, confusion, and terrible UI design is the storefront the big publishers couldn't beat? Amazing.
The Plot-Driven Door
You know how videogames sometimes do that thing where it's preposterously hard to go through a simple door? This one is really bad.
In Defense of Crunch
Crunch-mode game development isn't good, but sometimes it happens for good reasons.