gamerdad With my changing free time, I reinstalled Death Stranding earlier this weekend (after offloading it about a year ago because of shifting interests in other games) with the intention of playing something besides a perpetual game of Farming Simulator.

Of course when you don’t play a game for a year and your last save point was mid-mission there is the problem of jumping back into things and hoping for the best, but expecting the worst.

I survived.

But just barely.

Tho to be fair I’m still very early in the game and the difficulty is still pretty low as the narrative continues to just barely unravel.

I’m not a huge fan of the story. I mean in these wacky times, rah rah save america—as a Canadian—is like, um, ok. Sure, but jingo-bingo-bam. Who cares?!

The mechanics on the other hand are right up my alley, and the idea of building a persistent techno-ecosystem in the process of playing seems unique and curious enough to call me back to this back catalogue game. At least for a while…

gamerdad In my little farming universe it is mid-April, and having survived my first winter by doing soil cultivation contracts, chopping down trees, and speeding up time to 5x in the settings, summer is approaching quickly and with it new cycle of harvesting.

I am sure there is some play logic about it, but I do find it a bit interesting now that I am about sixty five hours (yeah really) into this first save that the game plops you down near the end of the year and just as you get into a groove for that first month or two of in-game time, whamo, you are dawdling through winter looking for ways to make money. I mean, for my own part I have been playing the game in just 2x speed with months set to two days—call it my 2x2 settings—so one day in game can take literally six to eight hours of real time to play through. Others definitely speed this along.

But, I mean, it’s a simulator and sometimes I will just sit here playing wondering what the point of the game is. Like, am I aiming for better equipment so that I can earn money faster to buy better equipment until I own everything and everyone in this small town—or am I just chilling out on a small farm?

Part of me kinda thinks that it might the latter.

That said, real time and no rush and just building what I can as the cash flow allows seems like the whole point. And I’m kinda ok with that too.

gamerdad I think I’m nearing level 30 on this playthru and the frequency with which challenging beast fight encounters has happened recently makes me think that either I’ve hit some critical waypoint in the game or just that I’m traveling further afield lately. I want to think that the game is throwing punches note that I’m ready, but also it just seems that wandering the distant corners of the wilderness is simply more dangerous than poking around the starter dungeons.

gamerdad There is a frustration I have with RPG games that comes in the form of the difficulty curve. Oh, sure. You may be one of those people who likes tough games, but here in my late-40s I’ve realized that I play games for the zen story and flow vibe and not the epic monumental challenge.

That said, I still enjoy games like Fallout and Skyrim for their vast worlds and complex mechanics.

So, back to that frustration. The frustration is the early game when your weakaf character is constantly getting his backside handed to him and I, as the gamer, needs to revisit dungeons or fights or quests that I’ve already attempted six times but have failed because I don’t have a strong enough bit of gear or high enough stats to deal with some random boss at the end of an hour of effort working through a challenge. I call this the early game reluctance of replaying a game: knowing I’m gonna need to grind through both the tutorial stages and the weakling phase until I get to the fun beefed up phase where I can just push through and only suffer character death occasionally. It usually lasts about ten to fifteen hours in these games, a time through which I punch with impatient grind trying to up my stats in any way possible (without amping up the difficulty too much) so that the balance is better for all that zen vibe flow yadda-yadda.

I’ve been replaying Skyrim for what seems like, I wanna say, the sixth or seventh time and last night it finally started to feel like I was creeping out of the early game phase. Better loot. More manageable fights. Fewer surprise death scenes. Scumming my way past this is never my proudest of achievements, but I’m just too old to want to trigger crunch an enemy to the redline of mutual death. I just want to sit on the couch and listen to a podcast while I effortlessly thump a few baddies. Is that too much to ask?

gamerdad I’m reluctantly optimistic that my first year on this farm will be productive. During the tutorial the game encouraged me to plant for crops of canola. I did. And now in later November with the threat of snow just one game cycle away, I’m not sure the canola will do much more than wilt in the field.

I hate to be nitpicking but this is just one of the little details in the game that could use some work from the developers.

About 32 hours into my save I’ve encountered a lot of great things, but a few other not so great features. The driving AI for example is laughably bad at navigating the town. If—big if—it accepts my request to drive from point A to a carefully selected point B often just roughly in the vicinity of where I need it to go—if—if—about half the time it will crash into a bridge railing, get hung up on a fence, or try to drive through an arch for which fitting would be an optimistic dream.

I get the little message—or don’t get any message—and drop what i’m doing to go supervise.

Ugh. Is like a management job or something.

gamerdad Another sick day and yet another day on the couch exploring the land of Skyrim. This one may almost think from looking at my screenshots today that I was in full on tourist mode.

In fact, I worked thru a good chunk of the opening act, made it all the way to a second major city, and bought myself a home in the first one. Even so, there were a lot of pretty sights along the way.

The last time I played this game was on the Nintendo Switch, a lesser console but very portable. And even that was an update from my first play thrus on PC and PS3. I knew there had been upgrades applied for current generation consoles, but while a lot of the little things blend in I do think the spectacular landscape showcases the improvements from that effort.

I’ve written this here before but I’m not a graphics-first guy. I will play graphically inferior games without hesitation if the gameplay is good. So, while a lot of folks lose their minds over frame rates and resolutions and such, those things are more of my cherry on top.

Even so, everyone loves a cherry. And between slaying rogue wolves and picking potion ingredients and sneaking up on bandit camps, it’s nice to get a great view too.

gamerdad In an effort to balance out some of the farming simulator stimulation I have been bouncing between the world of Skyrim for what I am going to call my sixth official attempt to play this game. I have made real progress in the past, but have actually never beat the game.

Can it be beat? I mean, does it actually have an end or do you just eventually run out of things to do? I honestly don’t know.

The Special Edition with a bunch of packaged DLC was on a crazy good sale a while back and I couldn’t resist a new attempt. So. Here goes…

gamerdad Ah, so between some sick time on the couch and a few days of I’ve kinda gone a big overboard with this game.

In fact, at just a week since launch I’ve logged a full twenty four hours in game and have made some serious progress in building out my little farm. Should I be proud? Or a bit embarrassed?

The dynamics of the game tweaks that have added some new features to the game, along with a few years of experience playing previous versions, has me digging in and churning through a lot of contracts and expanding my operation. I’ve set some basic rules for my game play and I’ve been trying to avoid cheats or crazy manipulation on the simulation aspect which a lot of people who post online seem to lean into maybe just to make their videos but maybe also to wheel past the slow grind of the agricultural simulation which can be a bit tedious if you don’t multitask and diversify your efforts from the get go.

On the other hand, I’ve also been leaning into the quirkier aspects of the game, like the fact that you can literally kinda sorta go for a trail run through the woods… call me silly but It’s a vibe.

gamerdad Ah, well. Call it a break from farming or whatever but between my efforts of school bus spotting and actually doing the farming bits, I may have accidentally gone for a run.

Backup. Ok. So I’m a runner. In real life. If you are just stumbling on this and looking for a short short bio. I run. It’s my other hobby.

Running is a vibe. All those other games make running look like effortless sprinting, you know? Run in No Man’s Sky for example and your avatar is bounding and striding and galloping It’s not realistic. It’s simply utilitarian and fast.

I didn’t expect much for Farming Simulator 25 but between the nature trails and the bird sounds and the sluggish and basically awkward jog by little Farmer Brad, this game has the vibe. You know. It feels like trail running. It sims it better than most. Call me crazy but there’s something there.

The video started as a gag, a bit, but there’s something there. Really and I had to share it up.

gamerdad I can’t honestly explain why I’m in such a vibing place for this silly game.

I mean, maybe it’s the prospect of a game with low stakes flow, you know? Like, nothing to kill, nothing to evade, nothing to quest, nothing to skill-based reflexively button mash. Just, like, build a farm from scratch and chill.

I rarely #preorder games. What with the whole game industry releasing beta junk and patching later thing that has been going on, and as much as initial reviews are complaining that this is yet another incremental update to the series, that’s kinda what I wanted. The latest version to replace the one in my library that will be going away when my PSPlus subscription deliberately lapses next month.

We were on vacation when this went live, on our way home though, and so I remoted into my PS5 and installed it anyways and then played it using the Remote app on my iPad to push through the #tutorial level—which honestly I didn’t need to play but figured, y’know, just in case something changed that was important enough to put in the tutorial.. gotta play it. The controls via the app are a #pita though so I finished the recap of the skills and I’ll dig in properly when we’re home and in from of my big screen. Until then, here we go…

gamerdad Almost exactly three months after picking up our copy of this game while on a vacation in the mountains, we’re back in the mountains at the same hotel, playing yet another round in our ongoing campaign.

This time the weather is a little cooler and our “romantic village” is as much a distraction from the cold and rain outside as it was a reprieve from a long hike those months back.

That said, as we progress through our campaign we’re starting to get a vibe for the strategy and being a little bit smarter about playing tiles. Our game this evening netted us our best score yet and advanced us along yet score sheet a few extra steps over usual.

gamerdad I keep logging in because I keep seeing news and posts about new content, but when it settles I ultimately just end up spending an hour grinding resources and exploring.

The value of a relaxing game like No Man’s Sky is that after a long day of work or writing it is awfully nice to just run around and not worry about anything but just dabbling and dawdling through a procedurally generated planet never previously seen by human eyes.

It’s been a crazy week at home, at work, and around the world. I needed some chill time so between tending my virtual farm in Farming Simulator and collecting ferrite and salvaged data in the infinite multiverse of No Man’s Sky I’ve needed some down time, offline time, and time to progress in something that is indifferent to the universe being screwed up.

gamerdad Now that I’ve paid my pre-order for the updated version of this game, I’ve been itching to play. But FS22 is still sitting there in my game library (tho only for another couple months) with a save that I’ve got about 20 hours of progress on.

Two play sessions ago I had started a big contract—and I do mean big, like $85k worth of work, which for those in the know is a solid ten hours of simulator grind—and I had made my way about 75% of the way thru whilst listening to an audiobook. And for all the times I’ve left off half way thru game quests in my life, for some reason this hanging contract was nagging me to finish before I moved on from the game in nine days. That, and it was the evening before daylight savings and I needed some motivation to stay up en extra hour and time shift my brain. Three more long his of digging potatoes later, and I was getting asked if I was coming to bed anytime soon—but I got it done and got paid.

As goofy as this game premise is, there is something about farming sims in general that speak to a primal kind of urge to build something into the world and to grow, well, anything. Online, as the release of the new version draws near there are guys lamenting the bittersweet transition: a new game but an old play left behind. They are posting screenshots of their accomplishments and digitally weeping for the change In not quite that far sunk, but I get the vibe. It is something.

gamerdad I realized that the previous version of this sim game was probably one of the last reasons In have been hanging onto my Playstation membership (being the only monthly game giveaway I still play and haven’t purchased outright) so having made the decision to cancel that when it comes up for renewal in January, I put the money instead into pre-ordering the next edition—which comes out in about 2 weeks.

I figured out the general vibe of the game on version ’22 and I think this might be a game I can really see myself sinking into for some casual playtime. Really. I must be getting old huh?

gamerdad What with my first stab at something resembling an actual tabletop RPG last night—and what with the Dungeon Masters Guide (2024) releasing in about two weeks—I figured it was finally time to tiptoe into the first steps of Dungeons & Dragons.

What I had not mentioned was that my Players Manual appeared on our doorstep a month ago, thereabouts, and though I’ve spent some quality time thumbing through it and reading the processes and rules and charts, none of it actually started to make much sense until I did the hard manual printed paper and pen approach to building a character from scratch.

Sure, I’ve got the Beyond app downloaded and sure I eventually messed around and created a second character using that, but as soon as-called-simple as it is to use that tool, I will grant myself the +5 Wisdom that comes from taking the time to puzzle it out from the print edition first, because that app would not have made as much sense before I did that—or maybe—who can say? Either way, I’ve now got a couple of rawly generic characters built that seem like they might be worth putting through some kind of game—if only I knew how to do that.

gamerdad We were a couple people short of a proper crew for a #ttrpg but Chris put on a game of Mansions of Madness for us. The game uses an app-based Dungeon Master to lead a cooperative crew through a mission and solve a mystery that unravels with each turn.

gamerdad I got a string of annoyed comments from the Kid who wanted to watch something on our main television last night that wasn’t me playing an obtuse card game.

The problem with #roguelike games (in this particular context, at least) is that, no, I cannot give you an estimation of when I will be done and we can turn off the playstation so you can watch netflix, sorry.

To make matters worse I was having a great run, had made it further than I had to date, and kept pulling great hands to match my collection of multiplier-joker cards.

“I thought you said you were almost done.”

No, in fact I specifically said I couldn’t tell when I would be done, only that I had never made it this far before and there was no way this lucky streak could last. Which—it didn’t, and soon enough I had put down the controller and we had got on with family-tv-watching night.

Now, usually I wake up in the morning, make a coffee, feed the dog and thumb though the news on my ipad. This morning I made my coffee, fed the dog, and booted the playstation back up making sure to mute the television in the quiet house while everyone was still sleeping. I didn’t quite recreate my lost lucky streak, but—hey—the day is still young.

gamerdad A confluence of events and stuff meant that I cashed in my Playstation Stars and bought a reward points copy of this #roguelike card game. I had been listening to one of my favourite video game casts a couple weeks ago and they had mentioned this with enough enthusiasm that it made its way onto my #wishlist and’s spoiled my curiosity. Who doesn’t need a chill sit on the couch and play a low stakes card game game? Huh?

I’ll report more when I come up for air again?

gamerdad I actually wanted to play Tropico on my console, it was that kind of afternoon, but alas the video game sale gods thwarted my ambitions and that title was not on sale. What is the next best thing, and doesn’t involve buying another copy of a game I already own on Steam? How about Anno 1800? I vaguely recall hearing something about that previously.

They all start to blur together tho don’t they?

The real blur after playing all these top down, #realtimestrategy #citybuilder type of games is that in my forty years of gamer experience I’ve honestly lost track, and playing a game like this should be like riding a bike—but with a control pad, blah blah blah, you get my point. I don’t want to put too many black marks on my initial two hours with Anno 1800 but this was not exactly the case. In fact, I lost my first 30 minutes of play because the game not only let me paint myself into a resource corner, it egged me on while I did so. That’s to say, it gave me two goals for which I only had the resources to do one, and when I did the first and obvious one I couldn’t make the resources for the second because the outcome of the second was a building that manufactured those resources. I restarted rather than trying to puzzle it out—which i’m not even sure puzzling it out was possible.

In the end I played a lot further, fought a few more control and interface puzzles that really should have been better (read: more conventionally) designed and will probably start this whole level/campaign over next time just because I’ve actually learned a bunch more about what’s going on with that first couple hours: a common complaint online which usually was hit with the caveat that is a good game after the learning curve.

But again, um Ubisoft, why are you reinventing the wheel here, huh?

gamerdad I’ve been playing this game in a very specific way, and I’m not one hundred percent sure it is the most standard way of approaching the game.

See, I’m really into contract work.The game has this aspect where rather than spending energy and time planting and waiting and harvesting and selling, you can instead jump into the guts of the farming on land that you own in-game and do one off contracts for other farmers. You rent the right equipment right there in the contract screen and then, wham-o, you are off and cultivating. My wife was watching me play and after making fun of me (lightly teasing, really) for playing at all she asked about the mechanics of the play system…and I explained contracts to her.

And as I worked thru it that not only that it is simpler to jump into and harvest someone else’s crop but that you make a buttload more cash doing it that way, too. So win-win, right? Right?

Right?!?

gamerdad I’ve stumbled into this sim again.

No, I haven’t previously written about my forays into virtual farming with the Farming Simulator series, but occasionally I do find some quiet time to pick away at a contract and harvest some wheat or bale some hay and sit quietly doing something that seems deeply productive while being absolutely video-game-style pointless.

Don’t judge.

No, but seriously, the truth of it is that in the vast world of simulator-style games, Farming Simulator has found an interesting enough niche that piggybacks off a long history of mobile and freemium games like Farmville, and steps one step closer to realism than a lifestyle sim like Stardew Valley, for example.

I have dabbled in three or four generations of this franchise now, and I do find a bit of a flow state now that I’ve figured out how to just work away at the fun bits and not fret the deeper end of the business sim stuff.

I did some writing earlier this evening and so kicked back with the Playstation opting to dive into something that didn’t require much brain power.

gamerdad Don’t ask me why I never bought this book when I saw it on the discount rack at Chapters, but I didn’t and so ultimately (after it stuck in my craw for long enough) I bought the audiobook version and have been diving into the strange parallel reality of this little science fiction meets dramatic character story.

I honestly don’t have a great sense of where this story is going yet. While it is technically a science fiction novel, the sci fi aspect is light in favour of the deep dive character drama that tells the story of this odd fellow named Belt who is either deeply troubled by mental illness or has some unique talent that is unappreciated enough by the world that he comes across so. The construct of the world is that there are these little fuzzy hamster-like robots that are as ubiquitous as an iPhone might be in our world, and people carry them around and perform all manner or complex ritual that is alike a metaphor for social media and technology addiction.

I will read on and try to decipher the puzzle, though, before I proclaim to understand more.

gamerdad I finished book five about a week ago and I’m already onto another read, but I figured I should at least give Bob and his clones a proper send off.

These are decent books and I do like them, but I will say that book five was a bit more scattered than the previous four. There was a solid plot, yeah, and the story progressed in a long arc sort of way, but the whole thing seemed a bit more like there were a half dozen short stories shuffled together like a deck of cards into a single novel-sized package. The series had already been about a guy who (spoiler alert) digitally clones himself and propagates across the galaxy, so there are increasingly more stories to tell as the bob-iverse expands and branches and subdivides infinitely onwards.

So I guess if the author really is aiming for a teen book series as he claims in his blog, he’d better figure out how to focus the story—at least in my opinion.

gamerdad It kinda strikes me that at some point someone was bound to get a little tired of the graphics are king style of game design and look back fondly on those days of simple blocky games with an easy-to-understand premise. Like SimCity. Remember SimCity? The classic SimCity? Remember? The one where you just built the three zones and connected roads together and made a giant zen-state city that had a few simple metrics to follow.

I mean, oh sure, SimCity got big and then Cities Skylines took over and now with the second edition getting mixed reviews all over the place the PS5 version is seemingly delayed indefinitely or something. AWOL at best, I guess. What do I know? But whatever, those games got immensely complex and crazy and you were juggling so many things it just seemed like work. Like, if they could just put in a little slider-knob at the start that says something like “make it play like in 1993” and I’d actually use that on occasion. Those old versions were simple and fun, and I do like the complexity, but sometimes I like the simple stuff too.

Little Cities seems like someone got my vibe check and was like, yeah, let’s make the old SimCity but—since someone already made it—let’s build it in VR so that we have a gimmick to sell it under and—yeah. Old school SimCity. I’ll be back.