Ramble about games

 Update: I'm still alive!

It's been a while since I said anything, mostly because I don't have a lot to say. This post is going to be a ramble about everything I've been up to... I think. 

PC Gaming - what have I been playing (a lot)

Satisfactory

I can't tell you how long have I been playing Satisfactory in my recent playthrough. Well, technically I could, I suppose, if I look at the save files. But I don't know whether I should. It's such an addictive game with a basic concept. It's been in Early Access forever, but the game is still a lot of fun to play regardless of its 'unfinished' state. It's fairly polished with only one annoying bug that I feel should have been fixed by now.

But, I digress...

Satisfactory is a first-person factory-building game where you arrive on a planet and it is your job to get its resources. If you are the slightest bit OCD, you might find yourself agonising over where to put what and how to get the squares aligned and whatnot. My character isn't that far gone though. She lives in a disorganised factory where she leaps over equipment constantly and shuns walkways. That said, I still reach my target in terms of resources submitted to the big sky via sky elevator, so I'm not doing all that bad.

I'm having a lot of fun with it.

Baldur's Gate 3

I have to admit, as much as I love D&D, I can't say I'm completely enthralled by BG3. It's good, no doubt. With the interactive world and poor dice rolls my character makes, it's almost a bit too real. But I've just never been able to get into games like it - from the original BG to Divinity: Original Sin. I think the game is brilliant and well thought out. I just don't know whether I can say I like it. Still, I'm open for correction, so I spend a couple of hours here and there mostly dying due to poor choices and die rolls... again art imitates real ttrpg...

Battletech

I've always liked the revamped XCOM-style top down tactical strategy games. Battletech is that with far more finnike parts. The problem is that, while I enjoy these types of games, it doesn't mean I'm any good at them. I'm not a master strategist who knows about bits and bobs that you put on mechs. Still fun though. I've lost so many hours on this game...

TTRPGs - DM-ing spree

At the death throws of a Dragon Heist Campaign

I've lost count of how many times I've run the Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. I think this would be my fifth time with only one of them having resulted in an early bailout. So three of the five were completed, one was a bail and now I'm literally waiting for the last session of the last Dragon Heist campaign (at least that I'm going to run in a while). Story-wise it's been utterly fantastic, but I am eager to get it done. I don't want to rush the finish, but I'm also ready for it to be finished.

Homebrew Babble

So I've had 35 sessions of the homebrew with the South Africans. It's going great. I got a little tired of churning out content, but it seems like, after a bit of a rest, I'm back at spending at least an hour a day working on / agonizing over the campaign. It's silly of me, but I still have a fight with my anxiety over the game. I know it's silly though, just performance anxiety and the desperate need for approval that I viciously stomp on every time it rears its head. :-P Nothing to see there.

But yes, I've been at it for two years and it's still going well. I'm ridiculously happy about it.

The multi-national group has had four sessions and they've already made very different choices than previous groups - which makes it both delightful and daunting to run for them. While these deviations aren't game-breaking, they do keep me on my toes as I learn what to cater for. The only negative I can give is that, when I prep for them, I constantly want to update my maps and make them better. This is a time-consuming process that doesn't actually yield as many rewards as I would want and I need to actually settle down a bit about it. I don't regret fixing the maps I have fixed, but I need to accept what I have already created as being good enough.