I’ve still been working on my cold (or whatever it is) this week, and I was sleeping through most of the weekend, so no long walk for me this time, which is kind of sad, and it was kind of annoying having next to nothing of my weekend to do anything, but I slept a lot, so my body probably needed that. Feeling a bit better now which is good at least, hopefully that will keep on getting better, and that I will be fit for my vacation next week.

Books

I finished out Ancillary Sword this week, and it had a nice ending as well, I enjoyed the focus on this one quite a bit. I have found that I enjoy the drama almost more than the space battles, or fights, and it’s nice to have one at some time of the book, the mysteries and drama is what I enjoy more than the rest, there are also quite a few show places throughout the system they are in, so it’s not really getting boring, I enjoy this series more for the different characters and how they are interacting more than the real “story”.

Having that done I did continue on my murderbot read through with Rogue Protocol and it was very much like the other ones in the series that I have read, the story was fun and fluffy, quite enjoyable, and then it just ended way to early to really feel satisfying, I still have one more of the short ones before one that is longer, and then we will see, these are fun, but too short to feel fulfilling in any way.

And with that one finished I started on the last one in the Empire Radch series Ancillary Mercy and it starts off right after the other one ends, and seems to be more in the vein of that one than the first one, which I think is a good thing, I hope it will serve as a good end cap to the series.

Games

So this will be a longer one again, I’ve been experimenting a bit more with games and trying out, and getting some more games again.

I got Nonogram Katana for my phone, and it has a really quite good interface for solving on the phone, it has a lot of in-built puzzles, and a community that is creating more all the time, so it will be really a long time until I have solved them all. And there is also a fun meta-game with a lot of stuff that you get resources for by solving puzzles, so I probably will keep on with this one for a long time.

I have been talking with Amin about how I didnt’ like Dead Cells when I played it the first time, and he was encouraging me to try again, and to not focus on speeding through the levels to get the speed bonus, but taking my time, and I have been, and I’ve been enjoying it a lot more as a result, I got all the DLC too now, so there are quite a lot of stuff in there. It really does references exceptionally well, and having played as much indie stuff as I have it’s been so much fun just encountering rooms and weapons and things from other games. I’ve beaten the first boss a couple of times now, and it’s just a lot of fun. I think the conversations we had really put me in a different state of mind that let me focus more on the fun stuff in the game, and I think this one will be with me for a while.

I also got a couple of more metroidvanias this time, since I kind of felt in that mood, first out is Bloodstained: Ritual of the night I have really enjoyed the iga-vania games and getting this one that was made after Igurashi left konami has been on my mind for a while, so I finally pulled the trigger on it, and the first impression is rough, the graphics are kind of not great, it seems to lean on 3D elements in a way that makes things look cheap, everything looks overly glossy and kind of wet, which is not a great look, the enemies feel kind of stiff and some times just don’t look like they fit in. Movement is quite restricted, but that’s normal for this kind of game in the beginning, the thing is that in addition the optimisation for the switch is not good, just running through some of the environments makes the game chug, and it feels at times that the little thing is screaming for relief in my hands, and I also already had a crash in one of the boss fights. I think I will give it a bit more time, but it’s not the best so far.

The other one that I got was Ender Lillies: Quietous of the Knight And this is a way slower paced battles when I came from the quite fast ones in Dead Cells, focusing more about reading enemies, and getting through them. I haven’t played that much of it yet, but movement feels good, and I really like that they are marking rooms specifically when you have gotten everything in them. Graphics are nice, and it runs well, so I think this will be one that I enjoy quite a lot. It’s difficult when they add in groups of enemies, but I think I will enjoy this one, and if I do there is a sequel out as well. Let’s see how well I fare with this one.

I was also playing a bit of Piczle cross Rune Factory and I’m almost half way through the game, I got reduced a bit since they added a huge collage for promotion of Guardians of Azuma, but I won’t complain about more puzzles to solve.

Media

This has been kind of a mop-up week for listening to podcasts and watching youtube videos that I have downloaded, it seems there has been quite a lot of releases of stuff that doesn’t usually release, and I’ve been having fun listening to a bigger variety of stuff than what I usually have been. I’ll have to take a little break in my back log listening to videogame podtimism stuff, but I’m sure I will be back there.