What I Played Today: May 2

EVE Online, Don't Starve

I done screwed up! I was going around, doing this epic arc quest, and was blowing up a ton of drones. I was feeling confident, I had just quite easily taken out ten drones at once, and was told to chase down this prime drone or whatever. So I warp in, there's a bunch of drones, and I'm told that the prime drone is getting away. So I go through the gate and find an area crawling with a ton of drones as well as another gate. Well, I don't want to fight these other drone, I want the prime drone, and he just went through that gate. So I approach the gate. BAD IDEA.

Apparently there are modules that can turn off your warp ability. I had never seen one before. I imagined they existed, but why would a drone have them? Well, they would have them so that my ship could be blown up by 20 goddamn drones while I had no way to get away. So...there's about 15 million ISK lost. I will miss you, Rapture I.

Also keep trying to get back into Don't Starve. They keep changing things. I found a wormhole and this weird pillar area filled with evil flowers, and my sanity TANKED while I was standing there. Cool pillars, I guess.

What I Played Today: February 22

Antichamber, Fire Emblem: Awakening, Don't Starve, EVE Online

I made a bit of progress in Antichamber, which never feels like progress because you keep ending up in the same rooms over and over again. There is still a lot that I can't do, which is frustrating, and there are some things that I'm just not doing right, I've had to just muscle through a few walls because I did not have the patience to actually figure it out. But I can see the third gun, and I just need to figure out how to turn 8 blocks into 12 blocks somehow. Magic? I don't know.

Played some more Fire Emblem. I've finally opened up the Paralogues and the map and there is more than one fight available and this is much better. There's this weird barracks area in which a bunch of your character march in and talk to each other, and it feels weird and forced. I do need to remember that apparently pegasus are fucking allergic to arrows or something, as I lost Sumia in a match and I panicked and quit the game. Got to resist that instinct, they can't all make it.

Also dicked around in Don't Starve, my 19-day-old guy finally died, so now I'm setting up camp in a place that is not awfully close to spiders and ridiculously difficult to defend. Moved up north past the rocks, going to build my base up against the ocean, because nothing horrible can come from that direction...yet.

Then I got fucking dumb and restarted my EVE Online account. I don't know! I heard someone talking about it and I thought that it might be interesting, and...man, I'm sorry. The exploration system is kinda cool though, where you have to triangulate the location of these various things, and need a lot of devices to actually get anything from these hidden zones. Yeah, I'll probably forget about it in a month.

What I Played Today: February 15

Guild Wars 2, Don't Starve

Guild Wars 2! I routed a shitload of dredge! Fuck the dredge! Nothing else of importance happened! Will I ever go into a dungeon? Who cares!

Also a few minutes of Don't Starve. There are walls now. I tried to build a wall. I got bored! When will this character die?!

What I Played Today: February 12

Guild Wars 2, Don't Starve, Antichamber

Listen. You knew this was going to happen. Of course I'm playing Guild Wars 2. Of course I spent a good hour clearing out the daily achievements. Of course I thought about and then didn't manage to get into a dungeon (come on, GW2, almost every other MMO has had a easy dungeon portal for over a year now, get with it).

BUT, I did play other stuff. Don't Starve got another update, which adds a sanity meter, which is nuts. Now eating monster meat doesn't kill you, it instead makes you go kooky, which has some weird effects, like invisible monsters and eyes in the dark. It's kinda fun! There is also a story mode, and they have sunseted the old research system. Also multiple save slots, that's fun. Anyway, I still am not sure what I should be doing, all I know is that I am running out of wood.

Then made some significant progress in Antichamber. I have finally found out how to get that dumb gun I keep hearing about. The gun allows you to suck up blue blocks and then spit them out in the world somewhere, and there are a lot of puzzles built around this idea. It's pretty good! Although not nearly as trippy as previously described (although, I still keep stumbling into the same zones over and over again). I also found the exit, which is not really the exit, because of course it isn't.

What I Played Today: February 7

Don't Starve, Harvest Moon

I checked out Don't Starve, because I hadn't in a while, and there surely must have been some updates. There were indeed! Research is now completely different, so it is less easy to just grind that out and have everything you need, and there's now a way to escape the island! Sounds exciting. So I jump in, walk over to a bird, then shut it off. Yeah, I don't know.

Also played a day on Harvest Moon: A New Beginning. It's going to be a long winter.

What I Played Today: January 23

Incan Gold, Glory to Rome, Don't Starve

I eventually showed up to game night, and games were ending, so we played a quick game of Incan Gold, where the runs kept ending unceremoniously and nobody made any money. Stupid mummies.

Glory to Rome was played, and I think I get this game now. I managed to do quite well by playing a garden and completing it early, which allowed me to get a ton of clients and made winning really easy. I did do a cool thing where another player had build the forum, which allowed them to win if they got all six client types, and I built a building that allowed me to make it so a building counted for everyone. So...I used it on his forum, which got me that much closer to winning. Hurray!

Also built a Meat Effigy in Don't Starve. Hurray gross meat effigy.

What I Played Today: January 21

Guild Wars 2, Civilization V, Don't Starve

Video games. I had downloaded some mods for Civilization V, one named Civilization Nights, which does a weird reboot or whatever, and it's interesting, but also not that interesting. The changes to the culture tree seem unnecessary. Why does it make changes to certain buildings? That's weird.

Played a lot of Guild Wars 2, in which I managed to join a guild somehow. I'm in a guild, hurray. They do mostly PvP, so I don't know why I joined. The game also has this weird thing where you can be a part of the guild, but in order to actually get any benefits from it, you need to represent for them, meaning their logo will appear in your name. But...you can not do that, if you want. I don't know, I don't get it.

Also played some Don't Starve. I really need to rethink where I set up camp, because it is beyond incovenient. It's a day-long trip to get some poop, and I don't really need to be near these pigs.

What I Played Today: January 15

Dance Central 3, Don't Starve, Guild Wars

Dance Central 3's story continues to be insane. I was able to defuse mind-control helmets by exhibiting that I had swag. I think what I like is how just completely straight they play the entire thing. "Oh yeah, dance crimes are a real thing, and we use time travel to combat it."

Don't Starve has been updated, and now food rots. Because you didn't have enough problems. They also changed how your stomach works so it isn't so easy to eat your fill, three carrots will no longer do it. Well, the game probably needs to be a little harder, that's fine. Plus you can build a refrigerator, so that's fun.

Also did another clear in Guild Wars classic, for no particular reason. Just felt like doing it.

What I Played Today: January 8

Guild Wars 2, Don't Starve, Dance Central 3

I dicked around Guild Wars 2, played some of my Engineer, and I kinda like the Engineer a lot better than the Mesmer. The Engineer has, like, two weapons available to 'em, which is weird, but their range of additional spells, which gives them both a pretty good utility AND a skill on their utility belt, makes for an interesting dynamic. And there are utility skills that just completely replace their weapon set, which is also awesome.

But then I got bored, so I played my Mesmer for a while. Just doing my thing.

There was an update to Don't Starve, but it was super dull, only a cosmetic change that allows you to dig up the turf underneath you and relocate it. There'll be another update next week that'll actually add something.

Also more Dance Central, got through the 90's section. Guess what the dance craze of this era is? Don't guess, I'm going to tell you. The Macarena. Yep, I know how to dance the Macarena. Five stars.

What I Played Today: December 31

Don't Starve, Star Wars Epic Duels, Legacy: Gears of Time, Spaceteam

I played quite a bit of Don't Starve, and I'm doing pretty well at not starving! Knowing how to quickly grow food and this eggplant recipe are keeping me going, although the number of wolves that are showing up are starting to worry me. I am trying to build myself a meat effigy, so that will give me some freedom to explore a bit and try to kill something really scary.

Then a New Years Eve Party (?), in which we played Epic Duels, just like small times. It has been so long since I've played this game. It is a pretty simple but entertaining strategy game. I am not in love with this game anymore, but I wasn't in love with it when it got overplayed 10 years ago.

Also a game of Legacy: Gears of Time, which is still okay, but I was at that point in my drinking when I really didn't want to concentrate on a game, so I was pretty bored. The winner won by going back in time and placing pretty much all the fundamentals, which worked out pretty well for him. Good for him.

Then plenty of games of Spaceteam! I'm glad I finally got to play this. I like Spaceteam. The game basically is that each player gets a number of panels on their screen, and at the top is an instruction. The instruction might pertain to one of your panels, but likely it has to do with someone else's panel, so you have to shout it out, and it is pretty crazy. All of the instructions are non-sensical, like setting the Viboband to 4, but some are normal things that don't make sense, like Brew Coffee. It is crazy fun, although it is probably best with 3 or 4, since with two it's pretty easy to go back and forth.

What I Played Today: December 24

Don't Starve, Super Mario 3D Land

More Don't Starve, it is starting to get kinda dull. I don't know, it's the same routine every time. I finally last more than a week, and then I was suddenly attacked by wolves! That fucking sucks! Will it just spawn wolves to makes things shitty for me? Is this how this goes?

Also decided to finish up Super Mario 3D Land, got through a couple of worlds. It's...pretty competent.

What I Played Today: December 23

Don't Starve, D-Day Dice

Man, tried to play D-Day Dice again, after buying a couple of expansions. They really played up this "A Few Good Men" rule on the packaging, when really, all it boils down to is the resource you need to keep playing is harder to get. Thanks, D-Day Dice. I wasn't having enough fun losing constantly as it was.

Also more Don't Starve. I am getting into a good rhythm, finding myself parking my base in the same place every game. I broke and checked a wiki to see where all the stuff I needed was, and I'm okay with that, because how else was I going to figure out where to get poop? How hard could it be to find poop?

What I Played Today: December 22

Don't Starve, Mass Effect 3

After finishing Mass Effect 3 (see below), I listened to a podcast I was avoiding, and during that podcast, they reminded me about Don't Starve, and clarified that if you buy it now, you immediately join the beta and can begin playing right away. WELL! That's all I needed to hear, and I jumped right in. Chopping down trees, collecting grass, dying. It is a very focused Minecraft, and I like it.

Oh what's that? You remember me mentioning finishing Mass Effect 3 a paragraph ago? Well!