games

Games I’m Playing

Hihi! How’s it going guys? Yes, I do intend to start most of my blog posts that way… It’s how I start my youtube videos and even some of my twitch streams. Speaking of, if you don’t watch my twitch streams, you totally should. I’m having a ton of fun streaming a My Time at Portia play-through. But that’s only one of the games I’ve been playing a lot recently. So, since my mind has been on games a lot in recent days, I thought I’d tell you all about some of the games I’m playing.

As I already mentioned it, let’s start with My Time at Portia.

My Time at Portia is an amazing game. You play as a new builder in Portia, gathering, crafting, and helping out the community with your skills. The story takes place in a world that has already seen an apocalypse once, and is very wary of one happening again. There’s a lot of different opinions on technology from the olden times- some believe humans reached too far with it, others think it was unrelated and it would benefit our daily lives to have it again. That said, your opinion doesn’t really matter. You’re going to have to work with designs based on old technology as you help build Portia up as a city, to complete side quests, and even more.

This isn’t a review of the game, mind you. I’ll do one of those later, since it’ll take a lot more space if I do a review for every game here. If you’d like reviews on any of the games I mention or any you think I’d like, please let me know in the comments! (I promise you, even if it says the comment didn’t go through, it did!)

Another game I’ve been playing on my computer frequently is called Littlewood.

Littlewood is an interesting game with old style graphics. The story is that you are the hero that saved the world- but, now you have amnesia and are in charge of rebuilding the town you woke up in. There’s all sorts of quirky characters, and you can do all sorts of things: you can chop wood, quarry ores, catch bugs, fish, and even cook! There’s all sorts of interesting fruits and veggies to grow the further your levels get. You can even have livestock! The layout is completely up to you, including where cliffs are vs. rivers, and what houses are close to or far from each other. All in all, it’s a pretty fun game. It takes time to get used to, though.

I’ve restarted playing minecraft, but there’s not much to say about that, so let’s move on to some mobile games I’ve been enjoying, shall we? I’ll skip Pokemon Go for now, because while I have stuff to say about it, I don’t think there’s much to tell that people don’t already know.

So, let’s talk about Elnea Kingdom instead!

Elnea Kingdom is a game I’d consider a mix of simulation and RPG. You start off as a traveler who comes across the kingdom. Through quests, you become a citizen, and have a lot of things you can do! You can farm, fish, go into the dungeons scattered around the kingdom- you can even make friends and fall in love! I think the coolest part of the game, that I haven’t gotten to yet, is the ability to switch characters after you’ve had a child to play AS the child. Sometimes I find the controls a bit glitchy and difficult, but everything is pretty straight forward, and there’s all sorts of quests you can do and accomplishments you can complete. The characters are colorful- well, some of them are. But what I think is especially neat is your child can marry into the royal family potentially! You can literally try any profession, and you can do what you want at any time even when you get one. Sounds neat, right? I love it.

There are, of course, other games I play- but most of them I’m not playing as regularly as these ones. I play a lot of kairosoft games at random, and just recently got back into Fate: Grand Order on my mobile. I’ve been gaming way too much though lately. I’m not getting much writing done this way! So, I need to work on limiting myself more… But until I figure out how to do that, I’ll just play as I like and try to keep my writing moving in the downtime.

Oh! One other thing I want to discuss regarding playing… I’ve gotten back into roleplaying, at least to some extent! I found a pretty relaxed looking site to play on. I decided I’m not going to do plot specific sites for a while, but I wouldn’t mind finding another generalized site like the one I started using with a friend. I only have one story going on right now, but I’m really enjoying it and have high hopes I’ll find more people to play with as my time there moves further and further.

Well, that’s all I’ve really got to say today. Thank you for reading about my favorite games. Next, why don’t you tell me some of yours? What are you playing, or what games are there that you want to play? I’d love to hear all about them!

Throwback Thursday: The Game I Feared The Most

Welcome to the first post of 2020, guys! Today, since people are still probably busy with the new year rush, I’m going to make this another short but sweet post. Today, I bring you an anecdote from my teenage years: an anecdote of coincidence, anxiety, and…. Video games!?

See, I’ve always loved video games. I’ve been playing them since I was five at minimum, often joined by my male friends in my basement playing Sega back in the day. However, as mobile games for things like GBA and other such things became more prominent, I too spent long hours with a mini console in my hand. And one day, the game I’d put into that mini console gave me the fright of my life.

It was a DS game that promised to be an interesting series of puzzles. Its name? Trace Memory. But what scared me wasn’t the ghost hero- it was the very human heroine. Let me tell you why.

It started off as a fluke to me. The heroine, Ashley Robbins, had the same first name as me (in case you forgot, Jaluna is my pen name!). Big whoop- Ashley was the most popular name for girls in the year I was born. There were plenty of girls named Ashley, right?

Then, we found out Ashley’s birthdate. It was the same as mine! Looking back, I know it was just reading the data off my DS, but for the longest time I almost felt like I was being stalked. Especially when the story began to unfold.

The story starts with Ashley going to look for her father on a mostly deserted island with her aunt J. She was under the impression for a long time that he was dead. It just so happens that, for my 14th birthday, I was living with my own aunt J. And, my dad was in and out of comas when I moved there- I had no idea if he was going to survive or not, and it scared me. So, the aunt’s name and my dad’s health made me feel more and more like this game was not about just any Ashley- it was making a mint off of me.

To be fair, I do have schizoaffective disorder, which as my doctor explained, means I have a mood disorder while having notable schizophrenic tendencies. That includes paranoia (well, that and my generalized anxiety disorder). Mixing together my anxiety and paranoia, I began to struggle to play the game. It was enthralling, so it was hard to stop- but every fiber of my being was terrified I’d find more personal information in it.

Eventually, I stopped playing it. I regret that decision now, as its always haunted me- both the game’s effect on me, and the fact that I never found out the ending. But now that I lack the game (I lost it like I do sometimes)… Well, I miss it, and wish I’d just been a trooper and stuck to it.

Have you ever felt like a game was similar to your life? Or maybe a book? Share in the comments your spooky tales of something hitting too close to home! I don’t want to think I’m alone in this… I’m not, right?

Topical Tuesday: Apologies and Stuff

Hey everyone, sorry for skipping Saturday’s post! I had no idea what to write and have been having really severe migraines the past week or so. My migraine is more manageable now that I’ve properly taken my specialty medication just for them- I thought they could be other forms of headache and didn’t want to take my migraine meds if it was potentially the wrong type. Triptans are heavy duty and lower your blood pressure, which is a natural cause of worry for me, since, well… I already have low blood pressure. That said, dad got me to take it and kept an eye on me and I didn’t seem to have any problems with it, so all is well with the world! Well, maybe not all of it, but… my migraines are better. So yay!

A few life updates for now. First off, I completed the main storyline of My Time at Portia. I decided to make a third save (my second save is for streaming) and made the character the hero from my primary writing project, Kieran. I was even able to give him purple skin to match his reality in my story! It really is fun to play games as one of your characters. It’s a great way to experience different play styles and just get to know them better. So yeah, that’s been happening the past couple days now.

In other news, I finally wrote a poem I like enough to have three to enter into the poetry contest I’ve been excited for for weeks. I made my donation to get my three free entries, and am now waiting for an email from the company to tell me how to enter my three poems and whatnot. I’m a little worried since it’s the holiday weeks now, and waiting for the email is making me fairly impatient, but I’m just so excited! I ended up not on the short list for the short story contest I entered, but I’m trying, and that’s what counts… for now.

I intend to start writing my goals for next year over the next week. I also need to start setting my binder up for the new year. I haven’t decided what to do with old months yet- I may keep them or throw them away. But my first goal is to make a nice cover for it, and then start setting up the front section that’ll have things like my year in pixels mood tracker, amongst other things. I’m doing a total readjustment. It’s gonna take time, but it’ll be fun!

What are your goals for the coming new year? I know for mine, I want to enter more writing contests, find an IRL DnD game I can take part in, and maybe attend more writing groups throughout the year. I also want to work on my hygiene and general health. I want a lot of things, basically. It’s gonna take a lot of work, but I’ll manage to get through it somehow! I just… Haven’t planned it all out yet.

That’s all for now. Comment with your plans for the holidays, your goals for the new year, and some tips and tricks you might have that can help people (namely me) conquer their barriers and fulfill their great desires. Or, just share your desires you’ve made into reality yourself- sometimes, an anecdote is just what we need to learn from!

I’ll still be posting throughout the holiday season, but for now… Take care!

P.S.: Should I change up the look of the blog for the new year?

Topical Tuesday: For the Love of Video Games

Hello, hello! It’s already the second day of the week, but I feel like talking about something fun. And for me, what’s more fun than video games? Well, I’m sure there are other things, but that’s a topic that came up when I asked my friend to help me choose a topic for today, and it sure as well is hard to get more fun than that for me!

I’ve always enjoyed video games. I played them a lot when I was in elementary school, often with the neighbor boys or my cousins. I remember my Sega Genesis quite easily, and I’m sure I put many hours into Sonic games way back then. But while a simple game was all I needed as a child, my growth in years has also changed my point of view about what makes a game fun for my tastes. And for me, I think what really impacted that is when I gained my love for writing.

You see, I consider the most vital thing to a good game the story. I want compelling characters, interesting plot twists, and just a general story I can really immerse myself in. This goes just as much for pretty much any game genre nowadays. I can’t handle playing bullet hells, but one with a good story at least doesn’t feel like a bad thing to try for me. Sure, I mostly prefer RPGs, but simulation games with a storyline adds to the fun when I’m building a town. Or, at the very least, features that make the town feel more real.

It’s because of my love for stories that I tend towards certain creators and franchises when it comes to games. On android, I’m particularly a fan of Kairosoft simulation games (I especially love Oh Edo! Towns and Pocket Academy). They have a wide variety of simulators, where you can build anything from a school to a water park. They usually include some form of quests or character engagement and such in these games.

Also for android, my favorite RPG maker is definitely Kemco. My dad got me one of their games when there was a sale years back, and I’ve been obsessed with their games ever since. Though the stories all have the same main theme, they vary in how the concept is used, and there’s a variety of settings that just makes it hard for me to get bored of them. My very first game by them was Symphony of the Origin, which includes both fantasy and robotic characters.

Finally, I love the Rune Factory and Harvest Moon series, many of which have had wonderful storylines. Some were certainly better than others, but seriously… Rune Factory 3 you get to turn into a Wooly, and in Harvest Moon: Magical Melody, your daily tasks can lead to helping undo the petrification of the Harvest Goddess! How is that not at all interesting?

Of course, a good game needs more than just a good story and characters. I am very particular in the systems a game has and how easy it is to work with. For example, Harvest Moon: A Tale of Two Towns was interesting because it had a feature to let you move between the two towns in the game, and each of them has unique features to them and focus. I preferred Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life over it’s predecessor, A Wonderful Life, because you could actually ship your fruits and veggies, not just the produce from your livestock. In Rune Factory, you have to tame monsters to become your livestock. That’s just a few examples. I could probably give you an endless list with Harvest Moon alone!

As someone who is trying to learn game development using a variety of tools, I often have to think about what makes a game good to me, so that I can try to implement those things into my projects. But what makes a good game varies from person to person, I know- some people focus heavily on the music (which especially makes sense to me with Eternal Sonata). Others are very keen on the graphics. Video games are amazingly personal as a subject, I think- and that’s why my projects are so personal and important to me, even if I’m working extremely slowly on them.

Now that I’ve given you my two cents, why not give me yours? Tell me what you think is most important in a game, or tell me the things in games you didn’t like that made you turn off from them. What sort of games do you play in general, if any? I want to know more about you, and know more for my craft, so please comment and tell me just about anything related to video games and you! I look forward to it!