So, I’m doing another one of these, I was unsure if I would even do it, but here I am. One day late this week as yesterday was a holiday here in Austria. That means I have a longer time to summarise, so let’s go.

Books

I Just finished off “Trader’s leap” yesterday, and I really enjoyed the book, it’s another chonker with 450-ish pages, but the pace and everything just really fit me well. It has the warmth that I seek from books, and the characters are established for so long that you know their family 2 generations back, you feel at home and grounded in the universe. Really a fun one, from what I gather from the next one, (I’m reading them in publication order) it seems to be from way earlier in the timeline, still kind of looking forward to it, as it seems to be another trading one, and those tend to be some of my favourites. After that there will be two more books of tying up lose threads, and then most of the series is done.

There also seems to be two other books in the subseries of my current one that I probably should read since they are also in a trader trope, I just have to get them first, and since they also is from earlier in the timeline it’s something I can read afterwards.

I’ve been reading outside again over the long weekend, and I really enjoy that, it’s something I should do more of again, it’s just nice to have some other place around me while reading, and I just like looking over the rim of my book and have a nice view, it kind of just makes the book even more enjoyable to me.

Games

For games this has been another week of not being completely sure what I want or don’t, so I got myself the first of the three Atelier Ryza games, which was on offer, I have only played a bit of the beginning, but it seems pretty nice so far, it’s a bit unclear where I can get the different ingredients for alchemy, and I’m a bit unsure where to go, but so far it seems pretty cozy and nice, I will get back to this one in between when I need something cozy.

The Etrian Oddyssey Originals collection also got back on sales, and I jumped on that one to get the two ones that I didn’t have on the switch, the automapping walls and the easier basic difficulty is kind of worth it to me, even though I have started the game on nds as well. Still working on the first stratum there, but just really enjoying it, it’s something about the ambience with that game that just makes me feel happy, and the soundtrack is amazing, I wouldn’t think the old chiptuny music would fit, but it really does, and it might be that it’s just being a bit nostalgic to me as well.

I got a new SD-Card for my switch a couple of weeks ago, and now with about 10x as much space as I did have I have before I have been downloading some games that I had before, but never kept installed to save on space, so I’ve been playing a little bit of “the Messenger” and the second Ori game, and probably will jump in and out of them a bit, as I seem to have gotten more into RPGs, but sometime needs something with some fun movement as well.

Podcasts

Podcasts have been a bit more routine this week, having listened to a lot of hardcore gaming 101 the last weeks to fill in the gaps I think I will take a little break from that backlog and listen to some more of the videogame podtimism backlog as that podcast really has gotten a nice place for me. I really like the tagline of “The okayest games of the yesteryears” and their positive outlook, celebrating games that weren’t always the best, but they had something worth celebrating.

For the new one this week they also did an experiment, but one that I enjoyed a lot more than the last one, a summary of the okayest games they have been playing so far this year, and it was a nice one, but then again I am a sucker for these kind of best of episodes of most podcasts.

Starship Iris, a podcast book that I’ve been following for years now is getting started on their last season this month, and it has been putting out some teasers that I have found really quite interesting.

I also restarted listening to skeptics with a K, I kind of feel that I have had a bit of lack of British podcasts, and it has been replacing Axe of the Bloodgod on my list since that one is a bit more hit or miss in covering things that I’m interested in, I still am subscribed to that one, I just will download episodes manually when it’s something I feel will be interesting, since they discuss a lot of things in lenght that don’t quite hit my likes completely.

Joel pointed me towards “the worst community report” as a replacement for into the aether, since they were taking a week off, I really enjoyed the Atelier discussion that they had, but kind of tuned out when they got to other themes, it seems to be more of a recap of the discord community which I’m not quite sure if is something I will be interested in in the long run, and it shows that they don’t have that much experience with podcasting and stuff since there was a bit much of talking over each other and stuff, but it will be another one that I will look at the topics of and downloading if I find the topic intriguing.

Stay forever, the German retrogame podcast that is one of my favourites also released an episode about Metal gear solid 2 which was a lot of fun, really looking forward to their Amiga episode that should come this month, this is just my comfort podcast, and it’s just something that is nice listening to.