In my constant adventure to find games I can play while nursing or holding my 2.5 month old bundle of joy, I noticed quite a few people I know had picked up Stonehearth again and were playing it. I got the game back when it first entered Alpha, and I found it really difficult (at the time) with not a whole lot to do. I decided to try it out again and I’ve been pleasantly surprised.
My town is 18 days old, and I have 14 villagers. I’ve named them all after people I know on twitter / the blogging community. I started the town over a few times while I got comfortable with the controls and decided what I wanted to do. A few invasions have happened, nothing that I couldn’t handle though. I’m playing on normal mode, and I debated kicking it up a notch because it seems pretty easy. My little citizens are thriving, lots of traders come to the town, and while I don’t have every job yet (I’m hoping for a shepherd soon) there’s always lots of work to go around.
The game couldn’t be installed on my MacBook Pro which is what I use to play lately because I spend 90% of my time on the couch / near the bassinet, but I stream it from the PC without any issues. It’s easy to pause the game or just let it run while I get real life things done, and I don’t have to worry about letting others down in a situation where I need to randomly go AFK.
I foresee 2017 as the year that my steam library gets far more use than it ever has in the past. Besides Stonehearth I’ve been playing a lot of Civilization (the latest one) and I’ll have a post coming up about that before too long.
I do still have my subscription to EQ2 – and my subscription to EVE Online which I reactivated, so in between I’m still playing multiplayer games (even if I am playing them alone). I’m also on discord as Stargrace if you’re looking to chat or if you have a channel suggestion for me please don’t hesitate to let me know. These days there’s not a lot of ‘social’ I get to do, so even just watching chat scroll by helps keep my sanity.
This week has been especially difficult as far as real life goes. The car died and it’s -24C out (that’s -11F for you in the US), the doctor had some weird news about Leo that I need to take into consideration now, and the house is out of groceries, but with no car it’s difficult to get any. Not that I need to whine about my personal issues here on my blog, but I’m just saying that hanging out in discord channels, watching twitch, and trying to at least connect on some level with other gamers still helps me to keep my sanity when everything else is going down the pooper.
Here’s to 2017! Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.