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.

8r4d Night and rain and November make for a quick trip to the mountains for the weekend. Also: #beer

pixelazy #abstractions in nighttime #roadtrip photography

8r4d can’t see any of the #mountain yet but they calling. #roadtrip

8r4d When on the road, stop for a #doughnut

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.

8r4d A hilltop #silhouette at #sunset is an #autumn speciality.

bradsalomons I have been making extensive headway on The Underfoot this past couple of weeks and I’m comfortable with thinking about my next steps with the novel. In that mood I’ve been contemplating taking another serious stab at an #audiodrama version, produced with some music and sound effects. I found myself down in the #rivervalley this morning then recording some #foley and wandering through the woods trying to find the quietest place in the city… which was not easy. In fact I hiked from the dog park over across the bridge to the wilderness on the way to fort edmonton park, and hid in the bushes with my recording equipment. All of that was in service of capturing some autumn sounds of the woods and birds and leaves as background fill. Who says the life of a part time writer is dull, huh?

bradsalomons Despite the shartyness of the week so far, I have been making significant progress on my #writing and specifically the #editing of the novel. I’m hoping to have all of part one to the next stage by the end of the day, and this #sunrise view and a #coffee is certainly going to help with that effort. [read more...]

8r4d How can one little gumball make such a big smile? Adventures at #westedmontonmall

8r4d Our days of snow-free #walk adventures are getting fewer and fewer as we creep into November.

pixelazy The November #sky saved a bit of daylight this morning.

8r4dsfeets Post-run the fallout from #halloween earlier this week is evident in the parking lot.

8r4d Thanks to a minor foot injury I haven’t been out #running in about two weeks and sadly missed the last couple #autumn run opportunities of the season. Now the first snow has arrived and the temperatures have fallen and it seems like winter running season is here again. We locked in a simple #10k through our fallback winter route. Sigh.

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.

8r4d Oh sure, the #snow may have held off to leave the kids alone long enough to trick-or-treat, but now that it’s November the white stuff has finally arrived. It pretty much all melted by mid-afternoon, but still—a harsh reminder that #winter is due soon enough. [read more...]

adventuredog The #snow arrived for the season on the morning of the second day of November, and guess who was excited to sniff around in the cold and wet.

adventuredog #halloween

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?

8r4dsfeets The #halloween decorations cover a lot more surfaces at the kids school than expected.

8r4d Just a #sunset from the mall parkade.

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.

8r4d Just grabbing a quick #sunrise on a Saturday morning trek to do some serious typing.