Gaming Babble to note that I'm alive!

The first post for 2026 was not supposed to be coming out nearing the end of February, but here we are.

So this babble is probably going to be all over the place, but I am scatterbrained so it's fine.

What have I been playing on PC?

Aska

It is still in early access and definitely isn't a 'complete' game, but I really dig this game. I usually end up playing like an hour of it every two or three days and that consistency has meant that I've racked up quite a few hours of play time. People could argue that it is still very empty and I'd agree... that just means that there's more coming and honestly, I'm excited for it.

Foundation

I bought Foundation when it was still in early access and kinda forgot about it as they worked on their updates. It released it's 1.0 version in January last year and I decided to give it a go when a recent notification for update came up. I'm enjoying it. You have to think about how you want to build your town a little differently than one would in a game like Settlers and Banished. I play it when I want to relax and listen to music... which admittedly is quite frequently. I should be doing other things - more on that later.

StarRupture

Another early access game, this time by Creepy Jar - the makers of Green Hell which I've babbled about before. It feels like it took inspiration from Satisfactory as it is a factory-building and exploration game with a few other things that keep you on your toes. It's still early days and there are a lot of fixing that needs to happen to run the game smoothly, but it's going to be a fun one. The humour is there and the factory building aspect is fun. I always look forward to returning to my spaghetti-bowl base...

Battlefield 6

This is probably the game few people would imagine I'd play. I used to play the old single-player Call of Duty games and I didn't like the newer iterations and multiplayer. This is the first of the Battlefield franchise that I've played and there are elements that just spark a similar happy feeling. I'm not good at the game. My highest score is always how many times I've died. I don't know one scope from another or anything about gun stats, but that's not why I play the game. Sometimes it's just fun running and shooting the shit out of people while cackling a little crazily. This is my go-to game for that currently.

Don't Starve Together

After a very long break, I've restarted playing DST and playing it with friends even! It's still a brutally difficult game for me, but I love the art style, I love the humour, I love the characters and the challenge. And even though I die frequently, I find the game mostly relaxing. I have babbled about Don't Starve in the past, but basically it is a survival game where darkness means death and starvation is always around the corner. The beautifully twisted Tim Burton-esque art style keeps you entertained while you learn how to survive the different seasons, the different biomes, and the critters you encounter.

I've had this game for years, I've been playing it for years, I have yet to survive a game 'year'. I think my record was 48 days or something.... haha!

It is the game I turn to when I'm in the mood for a challenge with amusement laced in between. 

Satisfactory 

Satisfactory is a factory-building and exploration game that I've babbled about before. I've dumped so many hours into this game from early access to official release and it's almost always installed on my computer. My current playthrough is promising. I might just complete the game this time... but it's slow going. The problem is that it's about automation a lot of the time and while I understand that notion, I find it very difficult for my brain to really plan things in a way that makes it possible. So instead of being outside of the spaghetti conveyor belts and machines, my pioneer is one with the spaghetti, feeding into machines and making sure that everything works... well... reasonably.

That's a lot of gaming... what else am I up to?

Well, predictably, I've been running D&D and ToV (Tales of the Valiant) games. 

Oh! I'm so happy Level Up Store has begun stocking Tales of the Valiant books! As far as I know this is the first and only place where you can get these books in South Africa.

I currently have two dedicated campaigns that I'm running:

• My TNO homebrew for the North American crew is going really well. It's a big group of people, which can be a bit daunting as I've never had as big of a crew at one gaming 'table' but I love the stories that are coming from their characters.
• The Dragon Heist game that I started last year is still running. We're about a third into the game with the extra padding provided by the Alexandrian Remix. We've had a lot of player shuffling which does bring a challenge because now half of the people playing weren't there when the foundation for the intrigue-heavy game was laid, but we're navigating that alright. Fortunately I know the game so well after having run it so many times that it's not so much of a challenge to prep for it.

Along with running two dedicated campaigns, I also run oneshots of different games. I would like to do that more for systems like Tales of the Valiant, and Fantasy Age. But one thing at a time.... or a few (other) things at a time. haha.

Okay, that's a LOT of gaming.

Yes, I know. My plate is full up again. In among the games, I do life things - mostly consisting of work and sleep... haha. 

Streaming Thoughts and Plans

 It's been a while since I've done a stream on Twitch. I am planning to get back to it but I needed to take a break for a bit. That sounds dire, but honestly it wasn't for any negative reasons - all good ones, actually. Life just got very busy and there were things I've been waiting most my life to do which I got to do. So yay. 

But seeing as this isn't a life blog, I shan't go into too many details of the above. Suffice it to say that I am on a break and will return to trying to stream on a weekly basis when I feel like it. Which at this point is probably November, but no promises.

It does bring the question: What will I be streaming? I have ideas...

One of the games I'll definitely be playing on stream will be Satisfactory. It finally got it's 1.0 release after many years of being a delightful Early Access game and I haven't had the chance to dig into it yet. So I'm going to excitedly play that.

For those who don't know, Satisfactory is a first-person factory-building and exploration game where you're set on a planet to gather resources and build factories for items that the people off planet are looking for. 

It's the only factory game I've really gotten into and I enjoy it quite a bit. I will be trying to build less spaghetti-like factory lines this time around but there are no guarantees. I'm far too used to just running and jumping and sliding around, over, and under my mess of conveyor belts. If I haven't gotten organised in the 285 hours I've already spent on it, there's is virtually no chance that I'll magically bring order to chaos this time around.

Another game I will be eager to get back to is Aska. Another major update is scheduled for 14 October and, from what I've played in the game in general, I'm excited to see what the developers come up with.

I haven't babbled about Aska yet, but will in time when I've formed enough to say something about it. In short, it is a third-person settlement builder with strong Viking themes. There are some micromanaging things that need to be smoothed out. I can't jump every time a villager doesn't have a tool. But other than that, the bit that I've played it has been really good.

There is and always will be my D&D prep of creating maps on stream. Those will come in on sporadic bursts but I always have something I need to desperately work on, especially since running D&D games also was something that took a break. And I'm very glad for that break. But I've also become quite lazy because of it so catching up to the pace I need to prep things at to continue my DMing spree is going to be a challenge.

Another thing I want to do is a creative challenge. I don't exactly what I am going to do for this but I am leaning towards running a solo Starforged game. That's going to be super challenging because the setup prep is relatively easy to do. The actual playing, on the other hand, gets tricky.

Babble: D&D and a reflection on the year without (too much) burnout

 In October, I wrote a blog post about my tracking of hours I spend preparing for DM-ing D&D. I'd like to share the final tally in this post and babble a bit about 2023.

In many ways, 2023 was a shit show. So many things went wrong in life at and away from the D&D table. But there has been some highlights too: The successful conclusion of my longest-running Dragon Heist campaign, 43 sessions in my South African TNO campaign, and the fact that I may have skirted burnout but didn't actually hit it.

I think what helped was that I was more cognisant of the time I'm actually spending preparing, playing and running games. I logged as much as I thought was sensible, so not everything, but mostly everything. It showed me when I naturally slumped and shouldn't be hard on myself for not doing more. It showed me the times I have energy and made me excited to capitalise on it.

So while the year was awful, my experiment in being mindful about how much time I'm dedicating to this game I like was a success.

Of 142 hours spent prepping/working on D&D-related things, I spent a total of 123 hours prepping my homebrew in 2023. Adding my time DM-ing to that 142 and I spent 228 hours prepping and running D&D games. This is not all the time I've spent on the game - I've played in other people's games too (and yes, I logged that as well) - but this is the time where I was basically being creative. It tallies up to about 10 full days, though I don't find that final stat particularly interesting.

The Homebrew that keeps Growing...

The year was 2016. 

I had only been playing D&D for about two, maybe three years at this point and something interesting occurred.

I. Had. An. IDEA!!!

It was very vague still. There were going to be these heroes who have lived long lives and then died. Then they're going to come back while only slowly regaining their memories and it's going to be a big, great thing. I had only two settlements in mind, no pantheon, no map and it all was... not quite glued together. 

It's from this half-assed campaign that I attempted an email story game. It didn't last long but it began solidifying the things in my mind. And then it faltered in the same year... turns out time zones suck. Plus I had never run a play-by-post game and never been in one and it probably sucked. haha 😉

As the years moved on, the idea grew and reformed. Why take away their memories when you have that backstory to mine from? Why not have a character in a level 1 body with a level 15 mindset? 

I started running Dragon Heist online and the idea kept percolating in the back of my mind.

And then I started playing on Inkarnate and Roll20 and the Cartographer's Guild icons on there and a half-assed map was born.

The early version map of Rheas (2021)

I started documenting the progress here on this blog and yeah... it's spiralled and grown into one helluva ride. I feel my map making skills have improved and the story also began shifting into something more concrete. I attempted a couple of game runs (going on four so far, with only two surviving) and throughout, the lore kept accumulating and I haven't scratched the surface of this world that I'm creating. 

A portion of Rheas (2023)

And now, as the year 2023 too quickly draws to a close, I've hit the milestone of 40 sessions with the South Africans... I don't know how that happened. We've explored maybe 30% of the island/continent(?) of Ocruan. I'm both excited and daunted by the thought of churning out more content. I have it in my head somewhere, but getting it to spill onto paper is sometimes quite challenging. Maps are easier to make, I've found. 

Anyway, I felt to document it here. I am excited at my little homebrew that could. It keeps going despite setbacks and is growing into a rich experience that I am enjoying thoroughly.

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.

Card game babble: Arkham Horror LCG

 For the past couple of months, I've been part of a trio of friends who play Arkham Horror LCG (the living card game) on the weekends. As I fell into the lore and the story and the mechanics, I felt myself being consumed by this game - enough so that I've decided to make the financial commitment to get the game for myself.

What's it about?

Each player takes on the role of an investigator who is thrown into various scenarios that need to be uncovered and resolved. For those familiar with the Cthulu mythos (be it the books, other games, etc.), you'll know you're in for a tangled web of crazy cultists, monsters and a sleeping ancient one (or ones... who knows?). 

What do you get?

The first box, gives you the rules to play the game, the tokens, the cards (of course) and a booklet with the first three-part story, or three scenarios, to get your feet wet. You're given five investigators - each with their own unique strengths and weaknesses - and decks that you can either build yourself or trust the initial assembly as given in the book by the creators. 

As someone who has never played a deck-builder game before my venture with my friends, this is an awesome help.

How does it work?

I'm not going to go into the exact round order and phase order because I will confuse myself and, in turn, confuse you and make this game inaccessible. But I am going to ramble about some things in the game.

The scenarios each have an agenda deck and an act deck. The agenda deck shows you the bad thing that is happening and what needs to happen in the game to make it worse. The act deck shows you what you need to do to try and keep the bad thing from happening - usually this objective is something like gathering a certain amount of clues or discovering a particular area.

Each investigator gets three actions on their turn which they can use to investigate, draw a card, fight, evade, get a resource, etc. There's a really handy card with each investigator pack that lists the phases of play as well as all the actions an investigator can do. I think this is a wonderful addition.

Each investigator has statistics for Willpower, Intelligence, Strength, and Agility and will, through the game make tests based off of these four stats. You can add to the skill check by playing cards or having other investigators who are with you in that particular location give you a card to enhance the skill. 

Then you draw from the chaos baggie! The chaos bag contains chaos tokens which are either numerical modifiers or pictures which means something unique in each scenario. This is a very interesting mechanic for me as the 'auto fail' token seems to be magnetically attracted to my fingers whenever I try to pull a token out of the bag *harrumph*.

The bad of the game

Arkham Horror: The revised core edition has a lot going for it. But the truth is, it is only a taster. To truly appreciate the depth of this game, you're going to have to play a campaign, which is more money that needs to be spent. 

The mini-campaign provided only consists of three scenarios, that's about... four hours of gameplay. Granted you can play multiple times with different investigators, there's flexibility in things not ending the same way every time, but it's still only just a taste. A full campaign has between six to eight scenarios packed into it. That's a lot of hours of gameplay with each scenario having multiple endings and so the branching out of the game is huge... but expensive. Well, at least in South Africa it's expensive. 

I guess it brings the whole debate of what you're paying for. The quality is excellent, the game is well written and thought out. There's a lot of replayability and you're definitely going to want to infect someone else with this addiction so there's that. But it's still an investment.

What to get?

If you're also interested in getting this game, be careful. You'll see that there are a multitude of options out there and you have to do a little homework.

Arkham Horror The Card Game was originally released in a blue box (below).

Don't buy this one.

Then came the revised core edition.

Buy this one.

Note 'campaign expansion'.

You'll note that the cover is the full picture, not cut off by blue. It's the better one to buy. So get the revised core edition.

As I said, in it, you'll find the five investigators cards, the chaos tokens and other tokens, and the mini-campaign. Now, if you want to buy more campaigns be aware that they were initially sold in little bite-sized packets, but now you can get each campaign in one box. BUT, if you want more investigators and investigator cards, you may need to consider also buying the Investigator box for that campaign.

Yeah, that's part of the bad stuff, right there.

In summary...

... do I regret my choice? No. Do I think it's a bit of a money scheme? Yes.

But I also know that I thoroughly enjoy this game and am going to play the stuffing out of it. Especially because you can play this game solo. And that really wins it for me.

Gaming Babble: Sons of the Forest

So it's been a while. Not much to say in terms of what's been going on. Work, work, work, work, work, D&D! Sleep, Grounded, sleep, work... rinse repeat.

But then, on Thursday came something new...

... which was promptly interrupted by loadshedding and apparently a crashed Steam. But yes, Sons of the Forest, sequel to 'The Forest', is out on early access.

How is it? ... Pretty good. The first few hours was really rough as I took a while before figuring out things. I've not gone spelunking too much - creepy mutants creeping me out! - but I've run around the new island, and around cannibals who didn't like me running through their camps, and the game is very pretty. And good. So. Pretty good then.

The premise is that you're part of a squad who gets sent to an island to find a billionaire and his family. Soon after your helicopter takes a tumble in one of three locations on the map and you start off to continue your mission and survive and not get eaten by cannibals, not be killed by mutants, not starve, not thirst to death, or not find other horrible ways to expire.

There are a number of similarities to The Forest. Crafting has expanded but basically works the same way: Gather ingredients, combine them, boom. The difference is that there at least seems to be a lot more items available than before. Your inventory expands quite a bit and you have to swing your cursor around left and right to make sure you spot everything that you've accumulated so far. Being early access, there are a number of things subject to change. Currently some plants are hugely overpowered while others are pointless to gather. Some weapons are effective, others are like using a fly swatter on that big lady's ass in Resident Evil - meaning: pointless but amusing.

A big difference is how building works. There are a few pre-fab buildings that are built in similar ways to the original game: gather logs and lob it in the blueprint area. But the developers have decided to make free building a thing. It takes some getting used to and, as with all things, there are bugs, but I managed to craft a cabin for myself with a ramp and I'm currently working on a palisade-esque wall to surround the area. It's a lot of work but it'll be worth it, I'm sure.

Then there are the additions of companion AI. The first you encounter not far from where start. Kelvin is a useful companion who can't hear you swear at him... which is probably for the better. ;)

The other companion I've encountered so far thinks she's a gazelle. She runs her ass off the moment you swing your axe at a nearby tree, or when the baddies arrive. She eventually warms up to you if you do the things she wants you to do - like not swing weapons around her, not follow her or "chase" after her, etc.  

But this isn't Mass Effect. You're not here to interact with your companions to maneuver them into a er position. They seem to be helpful additions, but I haven't gotten far enough to see how helpful that is. I've only played 10 hours of the game, which is honestly not much but to get an impression of the game. From what I have gathered, I can say that the game does need a lot of work, there are still quite a few adjustments, tweaks, and bug squishing that needs to happen. But with that being said, I'm having fun. 

Still not keen on spelunking though... don't want to fight the mutants, eeeeek!

 

Geeky Babble: Fun at Con.ect 2022

Con.ect is a geek convention held in Gqeberha, South Africa almost annually. I say almost because this year was the first time since the pandemic that the convention was held. It was down-scaled somewhat with it being held only on one day (as opposed to the usual two), but up-scaled in terms of the variety of things that were going on. They had their first LAN arrangement, which was an interesting development. They also had an actual play D&D session running in another room... Which is a little strange for me, but I'm happy for the TTRPG exposure it offers. Beyond that, they had the standard geeky fare: stalls, geek quiz, cosplay, some demos, etc.

Every year, I save a small, monthly amount in a little money jar for the convention. With the pandemic, that amount grew a bit more than usual, yay. Tradition holds that I buy at least one set of dice at the convention. That tradition was broken as no one was selling dice. My mom, who usually gives me grief about my dice buying, noticed this lack before I did. She proceeded to give some stalls a hard time for this lack. They took it good naturedly - especially the book sellers who never have dice to sell to begin with, but did have some board games on display. (Sorry, Bargain Books!) I directed her to the right stall to exert her customerly annoyance at and the dude simply shrugged. Apparently they didn't have stock in so they didn't bring... A bit weird, but okay.

So instead, I bought myself something else.

My mom decided to get some things. I tried to buy a hat, my head was too big for it. I thought of buying a plushie bat but decided I'll try to win the raffle first and then maybe bug the lady later if I wasn't successful. We bought very nice chocolate croissants, then left the convention to stop at a food place for a nice meal.  

In the end, I'd call that a successful outing. 

A ramble that involves talking about video gaming

 So. Been a while, hasn't it? My silence has mostly been a lack of being able to report anything fruitful happening. So I've been playing my tabletop games and, when I'm not doing that, escaping through video games.

Which brings me to what I have been playing these past couple of months.

The time has mostly been spent on guilty pleasures. I was not familiar with My Time at Portia before discovering My Time at Sandrock. Both play out in the same world and has the same basic concept so I'll talk about them together. 

In short, these two games are Stardew Valley on drugs, but you're not a farmer, but rather a builder. You're given different commissions that you need to complete that increase in difficulty as you research better equipment. You have the same relationship dynamics with the people of the town as you do in Stardew. 

You can eventually win over some of the folk, make friends, get married and whatnot. I haven't really explored the relationship dynamics much as that's frankly not something I'm interested in. 

So, if that's not why I play, what is it that compels me to give these two games so much of my time? I think it's the sense of accomplishment. Like you're building things and the town begins to improve around you and you feel like you've had a hand in it. That and it's kinda cutesy... which I am not always drawn to but sometimes you just find these things that kinda suck in my attention.

While your character is a builder and not a farmer, there's quite a bit of farming options available in the games. You end up being very much a Jack-of-all-Trades. I dare say it has a little something for everyone be it combat, farming, building, relationships, etc.

My Time at Sandrock is still in Early Access. I finished the content available for it in thirty hours. It still has quite a ways to go before we're looking at a release date, I think. They say 2023, but I'm a little doubtful about that. Not because the game is poor or anything. Simply because its current content doesn't scratch the surface of My Time at Portia. They still have a long, long way to go to get the two on par in amount of content, IF that is what they're aiming for.

I've spent almost three-hundred hours on Medieval Dynasty and only recently felt like I've had my fill even though I'm not actually finished yet. I've babbled about it before, I believe. You start off with the clothes on your back and some food in your pocket. The castellan gives you permission to build a home anywhere and so you start off your journey to become a village elder. 

This game is a first/third-person village builder and manager. I would say the AI is still a little iffy. So if you're in it for the combat aspect it sometimes offers or want to really interact with the town folk, you might be disappointed. However, the managing aspect is rather solid.

There's a lot of 'make work' in this game, which is probably why I have so many hours invested into it. At the same time, it's one I can sit and play while idly watching a tv show or try to catch up with Critical Role (don't ask how that's going).

For the longest time, The Elder Scrolls: Online didn't work on my computer. It was an internet issue, that much I knew. And so I've been very annoyed at it and railing at it because technically it is supposed to work with the internet speed I have. It just didn't want to.

Until it suddenly did. I don't know why, but suddenly I can play this game. It wasn't because of the new PC (because it was giving me this issue with the old AND new PC). But for whatever reason, it is working now and so I've started playing it. I've heard that it's great fun to play ESO on multiplayer and I'm awaiting the opportunity to try it out. For now, I'm just happy the bloody thing works. 

As to gameplay, it's interesting. I'm still trying to figure it out. The world is big and I'm confused as to what I'm doing within it. But the game still deserves an honourable mention given that I have spent a couple of hours running around in it.

I've also tried a bit of Starwars: The Old Republic. I have done the tutorial homeworld bit and am now hitting level 14... and I'm not all that impressed yet. There's much about it that is impressive, don't get me wrong. The areas are pretty, Corusant is insanely impressive, but as quests go, it's very fetch quest centred. Not quite my bag. Combat is okay it's an Old Republic combat system, so there's not much to do but hit a button, wait, hit a button, wait. 

Then comes the "of course I played it" and some other honourable mentions. Grounded is a game I play at least two hours a week, sometimes more. I'm very excited to see what the story release will be. I'm not necessarily very good at the game, but it has all the elements of a survival game that I love so how can I not be rooting for it? 

I attempted Starbound. One would think that it would click with me but it hasn't. I'm still waiting to try it on multiplayer. Maybe with the guidance of a fan I'll be able to get it. But at the moment my character dies. A lot. And I don't see the point of it.

Then there is Raft which I started playing last night. Still trying to figure it out, so I don't have a lot to say about it yet. Looks pretty. The concept seems simple enough. The seagulls are annoying. As is the shark chomping on the boat (and me). But I need to play it a lot more before I can form an opinion on it.

 

Gaming babble: Icarus

 So the new PC arrived, the parts have been successfully assembled, and it runs like a dream. The most tedious part of the setup was/is waiting for games to download. I have horrifically slow internet and it's not unusual to wait between 10-20 hours for some games if not longer (I'm looking at you Elder Scrolls Online...).

So I downloaded Grounded because that would have been the first game I'd play with friends. I downloaded Valheim because that would be the second game I play with friends.

And then I downloaded Icarus.

The premise of Icarus is that you're a prospector sent down from the station onto a planet which somewhat failed terraforming and now requires you to wear a suit to survive. Each mission, or prospect, has its own goals (scanning areas, killing beasts, harvesting food) and has its own time limit in which you need to complete the task and get back to the spacestation before it loses contact with the area you're prospecting in.

The game is beautiful and challenging, and it's a game that I enjoy playing...

But there are some things to consider before buying it.

The game, while having been fully released, isn't exactly a fully finished product. Looking at the trailer to Icarus you see some very lofty promises, most of them kept, though the fauna in the game is a little... confusing. The trailer shows alien lifeforms. The game has deer, bears, wolves, boars, and rabbits. Hm... They're also still consistently updating the game. So it's not that the game has been made and left to be what it is, which is incomplete, but it's definitely still a work in progress. You also need a somewhat beastly PC to play the game. I've heard that it's really hard on some graphics cards, running them hot.

There's also something a youtuber pointed out (either Z1 or GameEdged, I can't remember) but essentially you have like thirty missions. Every mission starts you off with nothing. So you arrive on planet, build a base, build tools, do what you need to do, get back to your shuttle, blast off. And you have to do that for every mission. This can become tedious. I'm only three missions in and I can feel the bit of strain on the idea. Granted it has kept me occupied for over 10 hours so far, so just that makes it worth the reasonable price I paid for it. I think it just means that it's a game you'll play piecemeal as opposed to binging on it for several missions. That's going to tire you out.

So all-in-all Icarus is a mixed bag. It's gorgeous, but it has its flaws and riddles. I'm curious to see what the developers are going to do with it. I'm certainly enjoying it but I realise that it's not for everyone.

DM Babble: The dreaded metagaming

 A number of people have been talking about metagaming lately. Someone was even nice enough to give a definition of it stating that 'it's the player's real life knowledge that influences the character's decisions when the character wouldn't have had that knowledge at all'... or something like that. Close enough.

Some metagaming is to be expected, I think. If you sit at a table with decades worth of collective knowledge, it's impossible not to see a skeleton and reach for a bludgeoning weapon, or swear when you don't have one on hand. And mostly I'm okay with that. It means a bit more work on my end if I'm DM-ing to get monsters that have a few variations that the players haven't seen and mostly they appreciate the variety.

I'm also very guilty of this kind of meta-knowledge. And it's hard for me to switch off and go "my character wouldn't know this." I get so excited about knowing that I forget I'm supposed to not know.

But this is not the metagaming that I've been recently challenged with. What do you do with someone who actively reads the material prior to a session so as to gain maximum benefit?

I've asked a couple of people and most of the responses I've gotten is to "confront and kick out". Or to actively change the game so that it's different from the book. That's fine and well, but it's a lot of work to do for someone who is effectively cheating. Do I reward them with my additional time and effort by actively working against them? Or do I admit defeat and have them spoil the game? 

I'm currently running a game of intrigue. So the secrets aren't necessarily where the chest is hidden or where the secret passage leads. It's people who have very deep and dark secrets. It's having to interact and not know whether you're really encountering the truth. It means that if you spoil someone with additional knowledge, it's not limited to a room, but to the entire game, all the politics.

Couple of years ago I played a game of Dragon Heist with a group of people. One player innocently looked for pictures on google for a particular character they encountered in the game. She's an artist and I don't believe she meant any harm or went out to read up on anything. But, as these things go, wiki was able to supply her not only with the pictures she desired but the secrets I was keeping from the party. While she didn't say anything to the group, except for admitting to me that she fucked up, it tainted the game entirely. Because she couldn't switch off this meta-knowledge. And so every time they encountered that NPC, she would behave in a peculiar fashion, which made everyone suspicious and so they took the route of caution and were denied the direction of interest.

That is what I'm worried about with this particular game I'm running now. And that is why I don't know what to do about it. I enjoy the player's interactions, mostly. I have no qualm with the person and, while it's still very early to shift from 'acquaintance' to 'friend', the potential exists. But I also know he's not going to stop. And that is a problem I don't have a current solution for.

Gaming Babble: Some games I've been playing

Time flies. 

Granted, I have been keeping busy with D&D and such, but it's still pretty alarming. My country is still in some state of lock down, so I guess I could have called this Lock down list II or something. Anyhoo. Here are some games I've been playing.

Grounded

Yes, I kid you not. I'm still playing this game. I've talked about it multiple times, raved about it, bemoaned the lack of updates, and now I'm playing it on multiplayer which is loads of fun. We even have unofficial roles. One is the builder, one is the scientist, and I tend to play the scout/tank. Still shouting at the spiders, but the screaming has subsided somewhat. 

Green Hell

I have a love/hate relationship with this game. Mostly love though. You play Jake, a researcher, who has come to the Amazonian rain forest for a specific reason. It's another first-person survival game though the emphasis is a lot more on survival than on combat. This lists both the strength and weakness of the game. You learn to listen to your surroundings, avoiding predators and creepy crawlies, treating wounds with various bandages, building different kinds of armor and most likely a home base or bases. But you also have an enemy AI that's not quite up to snuff as compared to The Forest. It's still a very interesting game. The game has a story mode, a survival mode, and challenges. Green hell has a co-op multiplayer mode as well, which I haven't tried out yet, but would probably be fun too.

It also now has a free DLC prequel, Spirits of Amazonia, that's a bit of a mix of story, survival and largely exploration. Bit of a completionist trend though with the prequel, which isn't quite my taste, but I can still recommend trying out.

Medieval Dynasty

I've sunk a surprising amount of hours into this game, but it's difficult to really narrow down what it is.

 Medieval Dynasty is to some extent a first-person medieval town builder with some survival and a lot of crafting elements to it. You are a village leader who starts off on their own, building, crafting and completing quests until your settlement grows. You can marry, have a son, and build a dynasty. Each season is divided into three days wherein you can build, hunt, craft, farm, etc. 

At first the time feels too little as there is so much to do, but the more help you get in terms of villagers, the more it frees you up to do other things. It is a game that's more in the line of a simulation and I find it just generally relaxing. It's a great game to just switch your mind off in.

Valheim

I've clocked almost fifty hours in this game, so it deserves honorable mention. 

Valheim is a third person
survival-crafting game wherein you are a deceased viking dropped into the world of Valheim by Odin to kill monsters. The game is challenging, the art style is interesting, crafting is good and building is fun. It should have all the elements that pull me in, but I struggle a bit with it and haven't played it in months. Still, I'm sure I'll come back to it.

So what have you been playing?

DM Babble: When players surprise you as people.

An update on things regarding my epic journey in my first homebrew campaign(s).

I've been playing my homebrew campaign for a couple of weeks now with the two groups - the South Africans, and the British. Things have been interesting. Both groups took to the concept of the campaign vastly differently. The Saffas took the epic hero route. They took the NPCs at their word and was determined to make everything right again. I got backstory and so many lore questions and just a enormous platform to work from.

The British, on the other hand, not only questioned everything, including the sanity of the NPCs, they also just... didn't play ball. When told not to do something, they'd do it - repeatedly. When asked 'how are you going to save us?' they basically shrugged and said 'sorry, you went through all this trouble for nothing'.

I found myself challenged, certainly, but also frustrated. Not angry but confused... flabbergasted. The campaign hinges on the premise that the players want to be the heroes in the tale. They don't necessarily have to be completely proactive, but they need to at least try and that was just not happening in the latter case. So, after 6 sessions... 18 hours... of trying (and I don't know how many hours of prep), I decided that perhaps I should just admit to myself and the group that maybe this campaign just doesn't fit. It would not be a defeat for me or an insult to them. It's just a matter of oil and water. For a first homebrew campaign, I'm quite satisfied with what I've created for them in those 6 sessions. Like, I felt somewhat disappointed, but I didn't feel like it was a waste as it's material I can reuse in future, after all. 

So I slept on it and decided to go ahead and throw in the towel. 

The response I got from the group, or at least two of the group, was... surprising. They were bemused, not understanding where this was coming from and not wanting to end the campaign at all. I had to emphasise and explain that this wasn't a "You're shit and I don't want to play with you anymore" type  of situation. It was just that I honestly don't know how to progress the story in a way that would fit this group's dynamic. Reassured that I'm not thinking poorly of them, they again reiterated that they want the campaign to continue. And the suggestions they made were definitely helpful, but I found them surprising. Suddenly they were completely willing to play ball. They would change their character's attitudes, they would take action, they would become heroes. They even reshaped the Discord server that we use so that they could take action - creating multiple channels for discussion and character notes galore.

It's left me a little stunned and a little unsure. Unsure because I don't understand... but I'm happy to see them trying.

I've heard many times that you need to touch base with your table and let them also know where you're at. This was my first opportunity to do that and it's been confusing but good. I mean, I can totally work with people who want to do stuff. I still have a lot of thinking and a lot of preparation I need to do to get everything going, but if they really do shift their approach, I might be able to take them for several sessions more.

DM Babble: Outright death in the second session, whoops?

As life would have it, I would end up running the homebrew with two different groups at around the same time. Session 1 was fascinating to experience in both how both groups responded to the game as well as their general disposition. With the Brits, there was a surprising amount of suspicion of their benefactors and daring when it came to interacting with people they should have been careful with. With the South Africans, there was wholehearted belief in their benefactors and firm resolve not to get themselves killed within the first session.

Then came the second session which I've just run with the Brits. (South Africans are only playing again next week). I managed to get them to where I wanted to go - with some paddling and bullshitting and they entered an extensive cave system... and one of them died. The creatures they fought weren't exactly scary. Maybe the problem was just that they didn't play it cautiously enough. Or maybe it was just bad luck. 

The lad got struck with a spell, got rot grubs thrown on him and hit zero hit points before anyone could get to him, which with the rot grubs means that he became dinner.

While the party took it in stride and started speculating one what character he should draw up next, I did come to the sinking realisation that I had not planned for character death and don't know how I will be introducing this new character to the group. 

I had figured there would be some time before I would have to worry about it. Silly me.

Gaming Babble: Lock down list

 I did this a while back and kind of liked it. Instead of focusing the post on a single game, I'll instead mention a couple of games I've been playing this past couple of months. I can (hopefully) always expand on an individual ramble at a later time. The majority of the games I'm going to talk about are still in Early Access, so they're not the finished product, but still enjoyable. 

Grounded

So I've talked about it before, but I've been playing Grounded quite a bit. I'm now at the stage where I need to wait for the next update to see what they bring in next, but I'm patient. The game is worth it. For those who don't know, Grounded is essentially Honey I Shrunk the Kids meets a survival game. You run around in the back yard, the size of an ant. The game is fun in single player, but I have no doubt multiplayer could also be a blast with the right person(s).

Subnautica Below Zero

I have a deep love for the original Subnautica and the sequel looks very promising. Set a year after the events of the first game, you play a new character who is out to follow her sister's trail through a frozen, aquatic world. Survive, build, but most importantly, explore. Where the first Subnautica kept you mostly in the water, Below Zero encourages you to explore the surface as well. In moderation... you might otherwise freeze to death.

Eco

The premise of Eco is interesting. A meteor is about to strike the world, build from scratch and develop the technology to avert the disaster, but be aware that the world you're trying to save has its own balance. It's very easy to wipe out the very thing you're trying to save. The game is designed for multiple people to work together - each going into a different specialisation. You can play single player and you can play without the meteor - which is what I've been doing. Eco is relaxing in a strange way, but very very grindy. 

Satisfactory

Satisfactory is in some ways the exact opposite of Eco. Here it's about using everything the world has to offer, build factories, automate and ship off planet. I've only spent a few hours stripping a particularly lush world bare so I can't say much yet, but I'm enjoying it. It runs the risk of going over my head, but so far so good.

No Man's Sky

I've only recently purchased No Man's Sky and I've already invested 40 hours into the game. That said, I feel as if I'm still only busy figuring it out. The story is interesting: You crash into an unknown planet with no memory of who you are. Following a bread-crumb trail, you learn about the mysteries of the universe you're in and make some pretty big decisions while you're at it. Or maybe you don't. Maybe you just go in whatever direction you please. No Man's Sky leaves it up to you to decide how involved you want to be. The only gripe I have with this game is its waiting/loading times. I've taken to reading a book while playing the game and I'm surprised at how far I got in the book!

Game Ramble: Grounded - or the game in which I scream a lot

Grounded has a very simple premise. You wake up in the back yard, only you're the size of an ant and the yard is vastly bigger than ever before. You collect sprigs, pebbles, grass fiber and fashion yourself tools and weapons to combat the creatures that share this space with you.

All of this is very appealing to me. Even in early access, the game shows a lot of potential to be a great game. I daresay, it's already great. There's very little story as of yet. It's taking a similar route to The Long Dark in giving you the world to play in while it sorts out the story bits in the background. And that's fine. There's already so much to do and it's just delightful.

I just have one problem with the game. 

I do not like spiders. Not even a little bit. 

The game features an arachnophobia mode in which the spiders appear as circular blobs instead of the long and hairy creepers with large fangs, but that doesn't really help me. My mind can fill in the blanks and a part of my pride refuses to turn this feature on. 

So I scream in this game. A lot. And die. A lot. But Grounded is relatively forgiving when it comes to death. It expects you to die and die frequently and so you can set up respawn points in the world so that you're popped back into existence at that particular point. Then it's just a matter of fetching your gear... 

Grounded's atmosphere is gorgeous and lush. This is a very pretty game. I'm excited to see what else the creators cook up.

That is, if I can get over my screaming fits...