gamerdad The fifth book in the Bobiverse series showed up in my audiobook library the other day and I quickly moved it to the top of my reading/listening queue.

I’m still not sure if this series counts as humour science fiction or speculative fan service, but i’ve enjoyed every title in it, whatever it is. In only a couple chapters into book 5 tho, so more thoughts on the book and the whole series as I keep reading. Um, listening.

gamerdad I’ve continued to dive into this Australian campaign for another couple hour-long play sessions and have come to the ultimate conclusion that as much as I like this game I’m probably playing it far less strategically than the designers intended.

It’s not that I’m not strategic, but I’ve come to notice that my play style is way more casual than details-oriented. The game famously floods you with dozens of narrative threads all meant as tweaks and dials and knobs and gears to micromanage the course of a civilization thru history. That’s the appeal. That’s the game. And I’m sitting here thinking about how difficult it is to keep all those metaphorical plates spinning as I play. I’m clicking from turn to turn and building all the little pieces to grow my team wondering how some people keep track of it all. But I started to then think about how much I tend to rush it all. Click. Next. Click click. Next.

Then the obvious dawned on me: there’s no rush. I could spend hours on each turn if I wanted. I could read every option. Look at all the data before each play, each spend, each build. I could, but I usually don’t. I just click, click and click some more. Strategy never happens at pace, it is methodical and slow, and I just play “wrong” when I play casually.

I mean, I’m not sure if that changes anything at all whatsoever, but it’s interesting to notice and think about.

gamerdad No thanks to Youtube I found myself watching the latest in depth video about the next version of Civilization, the seventh instalment due early next year in February. Of course, my next best option to playing a game that won’t come out for six months is to dig back into some #ps5 Civilization 6.

Anyway. The last few times I’ve played I’ve been mucking around with the custom game settings. Call me a casual gamer, but sometimes I just like to play in a more creative way, so toning down the difficulty and the aggression of the ai is about the only way to turn this into a builder type game versus the all out campaign of military and religious warfare. Sometimes I just like to build big cities and explore, y’know?

Tonight I was randomly assigned to be the great ancient civilization of Australia, which disappointingly had nothing to do with the mighty aboriginal cultures but instead just the regular modern crocodile dundee aussies. I may need to find the mute button to keep up this save file tho—there’s only so many times I can listen to Waltzing Matilda playing in the background, ugh.

gamerdad Back when I was working full time I powered thru so many audiobooks that it word make your head spin. It probably accounts for why my library is in the 500s and’s I’ll never write or post about even a solid fraction of them. Since I’ve been downtown again a few days this week I’ve been back into the audiobooks again and that means I’ve picked back up on this Lord of the Rings history once more. With only a couple hours left I may even finish it off soon, though it seems appropriate with orchestra starting up again shortly that I rejoined my listen right about where they are talking about the music score from the film—a definite masterpiece to compare to, and be a huge part of, the film itself.

gamerdad Along with some user manuals (which are still weeks away from release as I write this) I’ve been inventorying my supplies for a basic D&D campaign. Dice. Map tools. A big kitchen table to play at. And apparently, tho maybe I’m jumping the gun here, coins are useful. And sure, I could be boring and just but a set, but I do have a #3Dprinter just sitting there in my basement calling out for reason and purpose. I downloaded a set of community-designed coins as a start and I figure I’ll just start printing and creating a collection of some kind. I don’t have any silver or grey filament tho, so I’ll see how they look in a couple hours and maybe lean into some painting to lock in the final look.

I started back at the beginning this week. We binge watched season four over three short days (there were only six episodes in this last round) and in a bout of “we should have rewatched season three to re-catch-up confusion, I got to thinking that I really didn’t understand it and it might be that I need to revisit the whole series again, in order, to get a better sense of the whole.

That said, I did pull out the graphic novels and flip through them too in an attempt to see if there were any hints, but it turns out that season four was seemingly invented whole cloth for the Netflix show and not adapted from the page like the first three seasons, so the slight change in vibe and tone I was sensing might not have been completely off.

The Kid had already dug into the reviews before we capped off the series (even though she did politely wait for me to watch the actual show) and the reviews of season four were right in line with what we sensed: a bit of meh, a bit of wtf, a bit of oh. The show was always weird, but sometimes nostalgia kicks in and the magic we glommed onto during those magical first episodes doesn’t float fully across the entire series even if the quality and story parallels. We can inflate stuff in our brains and make it out to be better than it was. But benefit of the doubt, I’m re-watching the whole damn thing now.

gamerdad It would seem that I made it thru the first chapter, and not without some considerable effort. I did some more reading and my impressions and impressiveness with the climbing mechanics were on track as this game seems to be 98%all about that exact thing. But as a puzzle game those climbing challenges are getting increasingly more complex as I progress—obviously, huh? Where Of left off last time turned out to be right at the start of one of those impressively challenging climbing puzzles so a couple days after playing the tutorial I had to give my memory a plunge into the depths of medium term storage to recall all the tricky bits and beat the stage. Somehow I managed, but not without some tired fingers from manipulating the climb controls. I can only imagine how tired the little dude clinging to the wall must feel—and if he could talk, how frustrated with my skills.

gamerdad I haven’t been buying many games but in celebration of some anticipated new income in the coming weeks I spent my first hour’s pay on a title that had been tucked away on my wishlist for a while. I don’t remember where I heard about this, maybe from a podcast? but it looked intriguing enough as a chill out zen game to have on the #steamdeck for bursts of quiet time play.

I didn’t quite make it through the opening act, but I think I’ve got the vibe. It’s like 95% exploration and climbing so far, and before you think it’s just pressing the arrows and moving around on a wall, think again. It’s strategic, and you need to be increasingly more thoughtful about placing ropes and leaping and resting and then of course the multi-button climbing controls where each hand is controlled by a different button. It’s deliciously complex. I think I like it.

gamerdad An odd chain of events led me to playing #flightsimulator on my #steamdeck this morning. Ultimately it kinda started with a power failure that borked an update on the deck and forced me after about four hours of effort to bite the bullet and reimage my device. It was one of those sacrifices that led me to have basically a fresh install and lots of room to install games—particularly when I’d been struggling with the motivation for a digital purge. When I first got the deck, FS2020 wouldn’t even install on it, only stream, and the lag was unbearable. But for some reason it gave me the option and since I had the room I, again, bit the bullet and endured a three hour 129GB download over wifi to get the game on there. Of course I had to crank down all the graphics settings to “medium” at best, and in many cases just off (I mean, you can’t tell on a small screen anyways) and I actually got some respectable performance out of the thing, even flying over a small city like my hometown. Now I just need to tweak the control scheme and maybe I can actually play on this thing, huh?

gamerdad Back at home after our mini vacation we kicked off a second campaign of this little tile game so we could both preserve the campaign we started with our friends and also kick off a new run with just us two now that we got our heads wrapped around the rules a bit better. There had initially been a bit of confusion around the scoring of tasks, particularly around the ability to build compounding tasks that multiplied or efforts per tile played while not breaking the resource count. See, the point of the game is to string together specific landscape resources to chain points.

Our initial read of the rules was quick (because we just wanted to play and we were sitting in a hotel lobby) but on a more thorough comb over the scoring we got our heads around some of the deeper strategy which is simple enough to learn but still has some depth and randomness baked in. Or new campaign got a couple game sessions checked off on the campaign sheet and we made a lot more progress now that we’ve figured it all out.

gamerdad We picked up a copy of this new game at a board game store in Calgary while killing time before a backcountry hiking trip, and our first couple rounds were sat in the lobby of our staging hotel.

As a #cooperativegame board game it was as much a social evening sorting thru the rules and chatting thru strategy as it was a focused games round.

We had a few curious gazes as other guests made their way past over the hour and a half but no one looked too far askew at what four middle aged hosers were doing playing a weird game at a random hotel in Calgary on a Wednesday evening.

gamerdad I watched this back in January and reviewed it here but the post was lost in the great hack of ‘24. So…

I could strive to tell you something smart about a twenty-year old superhero movie other than that it intersected through my life in a string of coincidences over the last month so much so that I opted to open up my Disney account and watch it again all these years later. I could strive to have some kind of intellectual commentary this movie, or ask if it has stood up to the test of time or has competed in a film landscape of a million other more modern takes on the superhero genre. I could even strive to say something about the quality of Pixar animation, especially considering that not three months ago I was standing at the gate of their main campus in Emeryville, California snapping pictures through the fence and longing to be on the other side. I could, but rather I’ll just say that there is always going to be something timeless about a parenting story, a story about a dad in a mid-life crisis, or a story that lurks on the fringes of social commentary about the role of exceptionalism versus inclusivity. I was more drawn into this movie than I thought I would have been, again, even twenty years later (having seen it in the theatre on the big screen nearly two decades ago now.) It’s not perfect, and Moore’s Watchmen comic will always have tackled this plot in a more nuanced, adult way, but for a movie which is now known as much for the rollercoaster themed after it as for the story, it's not a bad rewatch.

gamerdad There is a grim sort of horror to be found in the depths of toxic relationships that is amplified the victimhood of the invisible trauma unwitnessed by friends and family, cutting a sometimes familiar path across ancient memories repressed by time and distance. Not everything, mind. Not even most of it, or even a lot of it, but enough that after four episodes I needed a break for some weeks to process and work up courage to cap off the series. Weird, huh? You don’t even think about these things for goddamn thirty years and then pop you’re all like well, now shut the front door.

gamerdad It took a couple short first seasons, but the writers have now managed to disentangle the two main characters from their pre-show romantic partners. The long distance engagement fell off a cliff at the end of season one, while Maggie’s dude was crushed by falling space trash at the conclusion of season two. I know the will they won’t they trope is pretty common these days, but I suppose it wasn’t anything new in the 90s either and the same writers likely had some plans about making the central couple struggle for a couple seasons (albeit short seasons) with their connection despite existing romances. I may have mentioned this in a previous post, but I don’t recall much of either these early seasons back from when I watched it if I ever did, nor did my early viewing ever have much respect for order or continuity through my re-runs on cable approach to 1990s television. That is to say, this binge through is all pretty new to me.

gamerdad As often happens when I game, I followed a rabbit hole of interest and was soon thereafter installing something new on one of my devices. I’ve played the first chapter of The Witcher twice before and both times I feel of my horse and went on with other adventures. I’m not sure this time will be any different. But just in case, here is a marker in time to note when such adventure begins anew.

gamerdad A cartoon television show based on a card game based on an internet comic named after a breakfast cereal. Mmm Oatmeal.

I was having some blood drawn the other day and the nurse with a needle plunged into my arm asked me about the cartoon on my shirt. The tee was a relic from when I ran the Beat the Blerch virtual half marathon back a decade ago. Try explaining The Oatmeal and his comic sensibilities in race form to a random human. Now I’m here trying to explain a tv show on netflix with the same premise.

I’ve been vying for the centre of the galaxy for a long time. I mean, for starters it’s just a big tease, isn’t it? The centre of the galaxy? It’s just calling out for you isn’t it?

And for seconds, it shows up as a perpetual navigation destination on the galaxy map, your waypoints always kinda nudging you closer and closer. Go towards the core!

Well. I reached it today. I didn’t even realize it was that close. It suddenly was just: there you go. Click to travel. And it turns out it’s kinda a disaster. My ship is crashed and I’m kinda stuck at the moment. I’m gonna need to play me some macguyver to get back to civilization, I think.

Screenshots capture some of the vibe, but I thought I would try posting some video as well.

gamerdad Onward. I seemed to get sucked into this game with some regularity, usually after an update or something inspires me to load it up again and push forward on my save. That’s not a bad thing. [read more...]

gamerdad Do you ever play a game so much that you start to feel like you need to switch up your style a little bit? I had that vibe this evening. With the latest Worlds update to NMS I was feeling a bit like I was missing out on that feeling of a BIG change because, frankly, I’ve done so much exploring and building and questing that it’s just more of the same but nicer, see? But how do you switch it up, you ask? Well, my approach was really stupidly simple. I’ve been playing in first person view for most of my play time. In fact, I started this current profile as a #vr playthrough and then just got over the hassle. I mean I still VR it, but there’s something chill about just picking up the controller and no-fussing it. So, yeah. I switched my view into the over-the-shoulder third person perspective, summoned the space station so I could change my appearance a little, and then wandered over to the roulette portal and transported myself blind to a rando planet. The result dropped me into a pretty nice, near-paradise world by sheer chance and there wasn’t a sole on it save for what seemed like an auto-generated empty base. So I flew around for a bit, built a new base there, and just—played. This little screencap series is all from that session.

gamerdad Another hundred or so klicks to the south east and another leg of the #flightsimulator adventure landed me at Hector? airport in Fargo. A sunny Saturday afternoon skooting across North Dakota was about as interesting as flying across Saskatchewan, save for a few extra lakes to look at. I’m really gonna need it find some cool scenery soon or this adventure is going to start to fly straight into dullsville international. My landing guidance did spice things up and gave me two terrible options for my approach, so I made my own and (as you can tell from the audio I recorded) it was a little rushed and a little rough, and it didn’t help that the joystick driver borked mid-flight so I was left flying by keyboard for part of the trip. Donk!

gamerdad We went to the theatre last night in an effort first and foremost to escape the heat into somewhere we could sit in there in an air conditioned building for two hours. I like #pixar films. I mean, a few weeks ago I was walking around Pixar Pier in Disneyland and high-fiving costumed characters, so there’s no sense in denying it, right? Those folks have clung onto the storytelling vibe that made them famous. I mean, people think it’s the computer animation aspect, but let me tell you—they are really a storytelling company with a unique animation approach: the CGI thing would have been a gimmick and it would have blipped by with less notice had a movie like Toy Story not actually been first and foremost a good story. Inside Out was a good story. As a parent, it was like, these are the feels. I went to the sequel thinking it was gonna show me the next set of feels, appropriately so because I’m now the father of a late-stage teenager and it’s all about the feels these days. So that was my bar. Me, a dad, sitting there next to my sixteen year old daughter, wondering was this story about girl bodychecking into puberty and the storytelling the swirled around that: was it handled with the care it needed? Did it feel the right vibes? And—yeah. It did. I think. It was a good story. Was I sad that the parent role was so realistically side-lined in this: minor spoiler, but the bulk of the movie takes place at a weekend hockey camp so all these things the kid is going through happen in the absence of her parents and it becomes this battle inside her own head between her classic kid-emotions and these new confusing and sometimes irrational teenager emotions who just kinda take over. And the parents—the character who I most personally related to—made a wink-wink sex joke to his wife as they sped off ditching the kid, and was then absent in the plot until the end credits. The growing up aspect didn’t quite hit me as hard because of this—and that’s fine, but it took me some time to roll that around in my brain. It is a kids movie for kids after all. My kid loved it.

gamerdad I hate that I get distracted by this notion of new content. I mean, we’re all seekers of exciting novelty, I get that. We have these games that make our #comfortplay list, the stuff where we zen out to not think about it and just sit there and grind through tasks or crafting or whatever. Minecraft did that for me for a while, and there is a totally different vibe playing through a story like in Final Fantasy and needing to pay attention to details and plot beats versus loading up an exploration sim and just drifting in the wind seeking out something interesting. I mean, ultimately that’s the curse of it tho, right? Newness temporarily negates the zen because the universe where the unexpected has become normalized suddenly is unexpected in a different way so the curiosity gets piqued and you can’t just sit there and waddle through it. So that’s what kinda bugs me, that I take that bait and since I’m the kind of guy who doesn’t do jump scare movies that translates right over to the kind of guy who wants to poke around the universe making sure there is nothing creeping in the dark corners as I’m putzing along building bases and refining ore and being zen. So I take the new-content bait and walk around with my metaphorical flashlight to see what they dropped out there in the darkness.

gamerdad Getting over the supposed subtlety of the latest update, I’m just revelling in the fact that it distracted me from my other adventures. While I should be down in our cool cool basement where my computer is flying a virtual plane across North Dakota, instead I find myself upstairs in my hot hot living room where the #ps5 lives so that I can add a couple more hours to my NMS playtime tally. Of course it never fails to awe me that I can spend a couple hours in this universe and discover this near limitless variety of colours and shapes and sights just by flying a spaceship from planet to planet. In fact, sometimes just waiting a few minutes for a storm to clear or for the time of day to shift, the whole feel of a place will change.