RimWorld

January Gaming in Review

January saw me playing a whole lot of games with “world” in the title. I started off the month strong, playing World of Warcraft – Shadowlands. Sadly, I don’t really enjoy the expansion that much. I find anima difficult to obtain, and there are far too many timegates put in place. There’s also a lot of new currency, and I think it’s needless. I did level up some alts through pet battles, and I had fun logging in weekly to obtain loot from the world boss, but I don’t find that that there is a lot of staying power, yet. Who knows if that will change. I’ve been flip flopping between a few characters, mostly my monk and my demon hunter. I also paid just over a million gold to move all of my horde characters from Argent Dawn, to Hyjal. I just wanted to have everyone together on the same server. I now have all of my alliance over on Argent Dawn, and my horde are all on Hyjal. I’ve always wanted to learn how to make gold better on a high population server, and Hyjal is most certainly that – especially compared to AD. I’m just better at making gold on AD and always have been.

I also played a LOT of Wurm Online. I started off playing on the Southern islands on my Indy deed, nothing really special just doing generic deed work. I expanded to a second deed because I wanted a mine, but now that I’ve had it a while I might just disband it. It’s some ways away from home and I’ve been waiting for buildings to decay that are going to take over a year. Worth it? Not exactly. After that I started playing over on the Northern (newer) servers with my Fo priest. I managed to find a 24/7 sermon going on, and I joined up and then subscribed a few alts. For the past month I’ve been doing sermons as often as possible, every three hours. I reached 100 faith for the very first time. This is a HUGE goal of mine. It means I can cast summon soul, and I can also cast lifetransfer without requiring extra characters.

While doing sermons over on Harmony, I met up with Arbi, a friend from Sklotopolis, the Wurm Unlimited server that I frequent. They told me about the fantastic work that the developers have been doing despite the fact that WU is no longer supported in an official capacity. I was drawn in, despite losing my amazing deed – when I logged in the exact location that I had deeded previously was still free. I took it as a sign, and now I’ve dedicated myself to building my place up the exact way that I had it before. I really loved that deed and one of my biggest gaming regrets is letting it fall.

Single player games? I didn’t play many, but I did delve into RimWorld for a bit, and some Sims 4. With covid knocking on my community door, I spent most of my time inside trying to avoid everything going on in the real world. I can think of worse ways to spend my time.

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

An Extra Life Weekend

This weekend was one that I certainly won’t be forgetting any time soon. The Combat Wombat Extra Life team did amazing, and almost reached our total goal. I had a pretty low threshold for my own goal, but I reached it and that makes me happy. After all, every little bit helps. I was raising money for the BC Children’s Hospital Foundation – a place very near and dear to my heart since Leo was in the NICU for three weeks after being born and if we had any issues he would have been sent there. They do great work. Anyway, I streamed some RimWorld and then my husband donned his Daddy costume and played Dream Daddy: A Dating Sim on stream. You can catch the videos of that over on my twitch page and my YouTube channel. It was hilarious.

I’m so proud of our community. We don’t always play the game games or have the same interests but it was absolutely amazing to come together for an event like this. When I wasn’t streaming or watching my husband be silly I tuned in to the other Wombats and friends who were participating. You all did wonderful and I hope everyone had fun.

There’s still time to donate over at my page, and you can also check out the Combat Wombat team page for progress. I’m already looking forward to playing next year. I did intend to get some Fortnite played but I had to quickly change my plans because my Llama Bean had other ideas. Ideas that involved him sitting on my lap, and typically that means one hand to hold him and the other hand to game with. Fortnite is one of those games where you need both hands.

Did you raise money for Extra Life? How was your experience? Let me know in comments, and as always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

Oh, and another HUGE thank you to everyone who donated. You guys, are amazing. This smile I have today is because of you.

How Streaming Helped my Mental Health

I haven’t been streaming for that long, but honestly it couldn’t have started at a better time in my life. Sure, I have a brand new baby boy, my husband is away at depot for 6 months, and I can barely form a single complete thought let alone carry on an adult conversation – but streaming has been one of the best things I could have done.

Why? Because it’s something I’m doing for me.

Four times a week, for an hour each time, I stream video games. I’m on a RimWorld stint lately because it’s pretty easy to play with a toddler in my lap or if I have to randomly AFK. I try my best to stick with a schedule which is currently 14:30-15:30 mon-tue-thur-fri. My streams are not long, and I’m not incredibly popular but I do have an absolute blast every time and I am incredibly thankful to those people who stop in, even just to say hello. At the end of my streams I have the biggest smile on my face and it’s because of each and every single person who has made an effort to be there for me. I really can’t express just how much this has helped me.

When I first started streaming I was in a pretty dark place. I was suffering from Postpartum, and I was very lonely with my husband gone. I tried streaming at night when logically I had more “free” time, but it didn’t work out because I’m on duty 24/7. I wanted to remind myself that I was MORE than just a mother. That I was an actual human being, with interests, friends, and passions. One of those passions is video games and even more than that one of those passions is other people and interacting with them to the best of my introverted capabilities. So I stream.

I feel really good when I stream. I love sharing what’s going on in my small home, I am proud that I’m able to remain calm and collected when something happens either in game or out. I feel like I’m able to transition between watching my llama bean and interact with my stream audience at the same time. I love having discussions with them, I love sharing my enjoying of whatever game I happen to be playing. I love that my little guy babbles into the microphone and shares his thoughts, too.

For that one hour I am something more than just a milk supplying caregiver. Don’t get me wrong, I adore my son, I love my family and I am incredibly blessed to have all of this in my life and I realize that, but you can get yourself caught up in a particular headspace where you’re not feeling very appreciated – and streaming makes me feel appreciated.

So even though I don’t have a lot of spare time, the streams are hectic, and some days I wonder why I’m bothering, I’m really glad to be streaming.

If you haven’t checked out one of my streams yet, please do! You can find me as Stargrace over on twitch and I upload my videos to YouTube after each one. If you happen to be a streamer let me know, I try my best to grow our community and catch other streamers when I can. I realize we should all be supportive of one another, and it really is a lovely community.