January 2019

Console Gaming

stargrace January 10, 2019 No Comments

My husband recently did some furniture adjustments (when I got my new desk for Christmas) leaving a lot of space around our main living room TV – and this allowed us to FINALLY set up some of our consoles that have been collecting dust – namely the PS4 and the Switch.

It has been years since we’ve had the PS4 plugged in because little fingers tend to ruin everything within range. The last game I bought was Horizon, and we barely got a chance to play that. Now that we have two kids the threat of destruction has become even more real.

I subscribed us to PS Plus for the free games you get each month to help temporarily grow our library (it was during their sale, so the price was nice) and I’ve been contemplating whether or not we want to add an XBox to the collection of consoles. What do I mean by collection of consoles?

It’s a dream of me and my husband’s to eventually have a nice games room where we can put our consoles (and games) on display. We have a nintendo, super nintendo, PS2, a nintendo 64, WiiU, PS4, Vita, 3DS, Game boy colour, game boy advance, and a few other things I can’t remember off the top of my head. We’d like to have a comfortable room with shelves to display everything and not have to keep it all hidden away from prying hands. Of course that will take some time, and we’ll teach the kids how to take care of these things properly. Right now they’re just busy being kids (which I love, even if it is a handful some days).

Anyway. In all of our collection we have no XBox or any version of it. I’d personally like to get an XBox 360 because I have a craving to play Fable 3 again. One of the few games I have ever finished (the ex got that when I moved out). Of course it would also be nice to get an xbox one, and use a VPN with it. We use a VPN here almost daily (hey, we live in Canada, it’s hard to find people who DON’T use a VPN) and we’re always looking for ease and simplicity when it comes to setting it up.

Whatever we decide, I know our collection isn’t going anywhere while we wait for the perfect time to get everything set up. We just need to have a little patience.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Gaming Schedules

stargrace January 9, 2019 No Comments

I make it no secret that my life runs by schedules. In order to help keep my agoraphobia under control there are days where I have to schedule the most mundane tasks to keep myself moving through the day. Not all days are like that, but they happen. It’s no big deal to me to schedule what games I’m playing because it helps keep me focused. I like to wander (I consider myself a nomadic gamer) and I could potentially spend all of my free time trying to think about what to play, rather than actually playing.

I created the schedule above for this week to help me spread out the games I am / want to play, and keep me focused. I have my comfort games, my misc games, the flavour of the month, and on Wednesdays I have a wildcard game. What that means is I’ve exported my steam game list to a google sheet, and I’m using RNG to decide on a game from my library to play. I have (at the time of this post) 367 steam games. I bet I haven’t even played 100 of those games thanks to discounts and humble bundles. I want to change that, and I don’t want it to be overwhelming so I’m starting with one day a week. Maybe I’ll find a gem.

The RNG rules are pretty simple. If it’s a game I’ve played before I’ll re-roll. I don’t have to play it for a specified amount of time, but I should make at least a solid one hour effort. Maybe I’ll find something new I enjoy. I tend to play games that are seated deeply within my comfort zone – and I want to change that.

Schedules can be flexible. If I don’t play the games in the schedule that’s fine, nothing wrong with that. It’s just meant as a fence to help guide me during moments of blindness, if that makes sense. So I don’t just wander down the side of a mountain for an hour straight before all my gaming time is gone.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Dwarf Fortress

stargrace January 8, 2019 1 Comment

Dwarf Fortress is a special type of game. You either love it or you hate it. There are menus upon menus upon menus and for beginners like me, a tileset is necessary to make sense of what the heck is going on.

PlayerVShobbies started up a game last night and was asking for Dwarf names. Of course this piqued my interest especially because I saw she was using a tileset that made things so much easier to see. I asked her what she was using, and she mentioned something called the lazy newbie pack.

These starter kits are specially made for beginners to get up playing the game with a minimal amount of fuss, and she also had some great suggestions on YouTubers to watch.

The starter pack I’m using is this one here, and right now since I’m completely new I’m just getting used to the basics. I was able to name my Dwarves and get a room in a mountain mined, and I was figuring out zones when I had to call it a night and take care of the baby then get some sleep. It’s still more progress than I’ve ever made in the game, and I can’t wait for my dwarves to die a horrible horrible death.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!