After a couple of challenging weeks for me, both at work and personally, I think things are finally starting to get together, I’ve got most of the most urgent things at work under control finally, I think I have managed to convince my manager again that I have no use for an LLM, and I have managed to get to some things that I really enjoyed in my spare time.

The weekend was annoying, since the 1st of November is a national holiday here this was a weekend with practically 2 Sundays in a row, which is kind of annoying since I usually stop by the grocery store for some food in the middle or so of my walk, at least this time I knew before though, so that I didn’t go out for a long walk and stand hungry in front of a locked store.

Books

This week has been a simple week, I’ve been reading through Network Effect by Martha Wells, the last one of the murderbot series that I have at least, and I really liked this one a lot more than the others, finally this one is long enough that you have time for story arcs and some more intrigue than what you get from an approaching novella length book. I enjoyed this one a lot, and now I’ll have to decide what to read next.

Games

For the beginning of the week I started playing Etrian Odyssey III again, or continued on where I left off the last time, and it was easier to get back into than what I thought it would be, after one little excursion in the labyrinths it all started to come back, and I still really enjoy the exploration of this game, it’s just a joy running through the labyrinth and slowly getting a better and better feel for it, having the map update as you get to know more, shortcuts, different places etc, it’s just a lot of fun. And it’s one that I’ve been playing for most of the week, and probably will be doing on and off, taking one ’nother dive down.

In the weekend I did fall into a shopping spree and got some games, first of all Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of dusk Which is a DRPG that I’ve been eyeing for a while, which was spurred by my deepdive into the genre in the beginning of the year, it’s one that I will focus on later after Etrian Odyssey III I think, from the 2 or so hours that I played of it so far it seems to have a ton of systems and things to fiddle with, so I’m pretty sure that will be fun.

I also got BALL X PIT which I tested out as a pirate copy for a while, and enjoyed it so much I found it was worth paying for, now I just have to replay to get back to where I was, and it’s a bit of an issue because my left joystick on my switch has some issues, but it’s not really enough to make it really bad, I just have to control it a bit counterintuitively for a while, it is nice to play on the couch rather than in front of the PC though, and it’s a really good podcast game, and a game for when I don’t really want to think to deeply, just have some fun with something that is quite engaging, it’s also a lot of difference between the characters which makes this one a really quite enjoyable game.

Moonlighter is another one that I have been eyeing for a while, and now it was on a really deep sale with the whole game with dlcs for 3€ so I did pull the trigger and get it this time, I’ve just played a tiny bit, but it feels like a fun little game.

I was listening to the post games podcast where Chris Plante was interviewing Xelavier Nelson from strange scaffold which really was great, and I decided getting one of their games, as all of their games it has a fun name, and it looked the most fun of the ones I looked at Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator and it’s one that I will probably jump into when I feel in the mood for something like that, humour and music looks really on point at least from the tiny fiddling I did with it.

So with having spent money and interest into these game, they surely are the ones that I played over the weekend? Ehm, not really, I ended up playing Backpack Hero for most of the weekend, and I really enjoyed jumping into this one, it really reminded me why I liked this one so much the last time I played it, it’s a fun roguelike that really eases you into the game, with the first runs being just the first part, and then slowly expanding. It also has a lot of small challenges that lets you learn how the different kinds of builds work, and it’s just a lot of fun playing with different characters and builds. It’s something that made me think again, something that I really enjoy in a game is when it nudges me into play with something that I wouldn’t consider in the first place, it’s just really enjoyable to figure out and deal with what you’ve got. I also really enjoy the art and the really cozy characters in this one, everyone seems to want everyone else to be happy, and the more annoying characters still want everyone to be happy, they just want to be the one that makes everyone else happy.

Media

Like I mentioned in the games section, I started listening to some episodes of Post games and it’s quite a good one, it’s kind of a guest heavy show, so it’s one that lives and dies on the guest, it’s good if they have a good guest, and not if the guest isn’t someone I enjoy, so I’ll leave this off autodownload and just grab the ones that sound interesting to me.

Apart from that I’ve been listening to the same ones as ever, and I’m still going strong on my catching up on Videogame Podtimism getting really close now, and then I have to find another one to relisten to.