Another year of experiences: 2022

Time flies. It turns out that it was 5 years ago that I presented you all with my year of experiences. Where I decided to stop buying games and books for the year, and actually play and read what I already have. Last time I did it I was quite low on money, so it was a whole lot easier then, than it probably is going to be now. Yet I’m committed. Mostly because I find that I get distracted by purchasing, rather than experiencing.

That said one of the biggest differences this year, is that I ended up buying a lot to both read and play just before the new year began, because I could envision them in my plan for the year. And probably overestimating how much I’ll get around to experiencing, as in typical ADHD fashion.

All the things meme image, from a comic
All the Experiences!

I will focus on telling you about the game side here, and I may post another post on my other blog about the reading, as I’m very likely to be writing my type of review to books over there rather than here.

Games, what do I want to experience this year?

Well, to be honest it’s a bit of a mix. We got a Playstation 5 in November, so I definitely want to keep an eye on the free games on there with Loa’s subscription to Playstation+ (that’s his subscription not mine, I just need to make that clear). But I did however fill out my library with a lot of old gems. Like some of my favorite games from my teens up until my early twenties before I stopped gaming for a few years and genuinely believed that I would never game again (that’s a story for another time).

I’ve been meaning to make a list, I meant to do it before the end of the year, but a lot of health stuff came up and in the way, as usual. Since I’m one of those disabled gamers, trying to work and make money on gaming feels like it’s a lot harder because of it. And there’s still a few things I need to balance. Different disabilities causes different hurdles. Mine are energy related. You may have read and enjoyed my Minecraft series? I have an unfinished draft, but after that I just stopped, partially because I got sick, and partially because I played something else. And there’s a mix of ADHD hyper focus and energy management which come in the way for me when wanting to and actually achieving any of the projects I want in the meanwhile.

Let’s start with some questions:

  • What do you think were some of me favorite games growing up?
  • What was some of your favorite games growing up?
  • And finally: do they still hold up?

Feel free to take your time with these questions, and respond to me on here or on social media.

The Goal of 2022

I want to play at least one “new” game every month. That’d be 12 games by the end of the year. I will be focusing on non-sandbox games where I can, with a few exceptions (I may have acquired Theme Park, which is one of the very first games I played as a kid outside of solitaire). Though I think there may be a story hidden in there somewhere, of conquering different places and setting up a functional theme park.

I want to complete some stories, that includes games that are half-played in my library that I still keep installed because I’m finishing it soon™, some of which have been there for 5-6 years.

I want to play at least 6 heavy story/narrative focused games. Even if they have good game-play too. My definition of heavy story narrative focused may be different from yours, and I can’t quite wrap my head around it now.

And lastly: I want to re-experience some of my youth, by playing games I loved then.

How am I going to share these experiences?

This is where it’s not entirely clear cut yet. I want to share my experiences in video format, but I don’t have the mental fortitude for streaming atm, because it takes a lot of energy. I am however considering doing a few recording sessions, and see if I can publish it with minimal edits in an enjoyable format. It would reduce work for my disabled ass, and it would still let me show you what I’m doing, and share my thoughts on the fly.

I also want to keep writing about games and my experiencing them. I’m still carving out my little corner of the gaming internet, in a way that’s healthy and sustainable for me. And I hope you’d be willing to join me in that.


Thank you for reading this entire post! And now, before you go there’s one last thing I’d like to ask of you. Consider supporting me on a monthly basis with $1 or more, via ko-fi. There’s only 1 tier, to rule them all, and you can add as much as you want to it. This money is predominantly going towards my student loan this year and the foreseeable future.

Played in March, April & May

Woah. I’ve not been updating this place have I. Sorry about that!
But, any of you who follow me elsewhere know why. Time to write a catch-up post!!

This post will not define exactly when games were completed, but just summarize all the games which I’ve played during the period, even the ones that did not get streamed, or could not be completed for other reasons.

Played but not finished:

Starcraft 2, We are merely at the beginning of the first campaign on stream, and I am unsure why we didn’t go back to playing more. I think it’s because we began playing Fable and got really stuck in it. Definitely want to get back to this, and I know you’ll all appreciate me playing it.

Don’t Starve Togetheranother game I play together with Loa. This unfortunately isn’t really a game you “finish”, but I love the Klei aesthetics, and the quirkiness of the game. You will probably see us play this on stream occasionally.

Faeria, a game which also can’t really get completed. It’s a “PC Card Battler”, which takes a pretty neat twist on the regular card games. If you want to add me, or try it out because you heard about it from me, add “maloki” as friend and referral.

Finished:

Fable – The lost chapters, we spent a lot of time on stream playing this game, but towards the end it was time to move on, and stream some other games, so I finished it off stream. I enjoyed the experience, and it was quite different, with a horrible UI! So, I doubt I’d go back for another play through of it.

Ducktales – Remastered, We played through this game almost in its entirety during my birthday stream. But at the last boss fight there was a bug which resulted in us not finishing the game. I have tried to find solutions for it, but none of them worked. From what I could garner the issue is related to which gfx you have.

Kith – Tales from the Fractured PlateusIssue 1, is a really cute little indie, casual adventure game. And it’s free to play! I found the game because it was shared by the developer on Mastodon actually. This game was also played during my birthday stream.

Bound by Flame, This game I’ve been playing myself for the past few few months. A little here, and a little there. It  is a single player action RPG. I’ve been using my steam controller, but there is a bug in the game where it wont recognize the controller if you have your keyboard connected on startup, which means it’s a bit fiddly every time you want to play the game. All in all? It’s fun and engaging story, they make a lot of fun of each other, and curse a lot. The combat system did have quite a learning curve, but I played through on casual so it did not matter too much for me until the end of the game, when it may have mattered a bit too much.
When I completed my Casual play through I immediately wanted to have another go, not so much for the achievements, as the fact that I could have taken quite different choices along the way and I am curious to see what that part of the game looks like. This time is being played on normal.

Borderlands, Shooter looter, is this what they are called? Me and Loa had been playing it on and off for the past year. And we just completed the Clap Trap DLC as well. I quite enjoyed the entire game, and the silly humour in it. Looking forward to playing Borderlands 2 with Loa. Probably on a “co-op Thursday”.

 

So, looks like we completed 5 games, not bad, not bad. Speaking of games, if you are curious about my streaming you can check it out on twitch.tv/kinkymal

 

Played in February

I made a resolution, and I have begun working on it.

For January I never really updated which games I got through, so I will just bundle them into this post.

We began by completing Day of the Tentacle – Remastered, a puzzle game. This was challenging for me, mostly because I haven’t been playing puzzle games for years, or barely at all. It was time to get into a new genre.

In the end of January I launched my Patreon, and at the $5+/month tiers you would get to help me choose what to play, a few different games were voted on, and we ended up with Edna & Harvey – the breakout, Lone Survivor, and Scribblenauts. And we actually played them all during February.

First, we played Scribblenauts, as a bit of comic relief. After the inauguration we all needed a break and something to laugh about. I wish the story was more prevalent throughout the game, but unfortunately it was mostly just in the beginning and while returning to the sister of Maximilian you don’t really get reminded of the story much. So, since I had already begun the game in an early stream (last spring), we all kinda missed that part of the story. The game was finished, at least the normal story bit, and there is still a lot of achievements to get, which I may return to in times of need.

Second, we began playing Edna & Harvey: the breakout. Which is another puzzle game. While playing through this one I did feel like I got more understanding of how puzzle games are laid out, and I could get through them a bit easier. Or Edna & Harvey is just easier towards the end, I did kinda feel like the puzzles towards the end of the game were a bit too simple and short, when they weren’t incredibly stupid and kinda incomplete. (Speaking of incomplete, if you play through the game in English you will encounter a bug at a semi-late point in the game, which can be fixed with this bug fix)

Last, we came to Lone Survivor, which is a beautiful, psychological, horror (?) game. we haven’t completed it yet, and one play session my boyfriend (LoaGames on Twitter) played instead of me. Unfortunately because I am not at full capacity yet, I will have days when I’m incredibly uncomfortable in my own skin and those are not good days to play scary games on.

All in all, we’ve had a good month and I’ve enjoyed playing through a few different games.

On the side, off stream, I’ve also been testing a Sole Survivor challenge for RimWorld, which is something I am considering making a stream-series off, maybe on “off days” when my energies are low. Just to keep consistent with streaming. We’ll see.

Anyways, 2 months almost done, and we’ve gotten through 3-4 games. It’s a good start. Going to be interesting to see how long the journey is going to be.
March is almost upon us, and it is time to vote for where we’re going next. I have a straw poll up which I will take results from tonight, and add to the final vote for my Patrons.

Year of Experiences: A Resolution

During the fall I found myself in a situation where I was gaming a lot, but not really experiencing a lot. I would be playing games which were more leaning towards sandbox games, and having no real end, unless you made yourself one. Examples of this is Guild Wars 2, RimWorld, and Sims 3. Don’t get me wrong, I love all these games, but I felt stuck, and like I wasn’t getting anywhere.

So, I began a new journey. Slowly, and as a process, I would ween off the sandbox games and venture into entirely new experiences. I played through Seasons After Fall, which is a magical game. I even ended up finishing all the achievements in my first run. I played Drop Alive, after it was mentioned in new releases on the Co-optional Podcast, a short platformer game. And I spent a good while playing the Banner Saga, after a recommendation from djWHEAT.

As I was getting closer to the new year, I wanted to expand on this a little bit. I am not only an avid gamer, but I also read a lot (2015, 44 books; 2016, 33 books). Loving games and books, I end up buying way too much especially if it’s on sale. Or if it’s in the local thrift shop, which also happens to be across the street (come home with a stack for books, 5-6, and only having spent $2.50 was a great deal I just couldn’t resist, over and over). One day I came home with a book it turned out I already owned. It was time to stop.

Having piled up some games, and books, it is time to actually experience them. So my resolution for 2017 is to play through as many games as I can, do achievements as I feel I want to/have energy for, and not spend any more money on games. I already own a steam controller, and I have a library of 176 games (33 are in my live-in boyfriends library). I am completely set for this year!

They say that the best resolutions are when you have some kind of accountability, in my case it will be the following tweets,

which were also brought up during the Twitch Weekly broadcast yesterday.

But to expand on this, I will be streaming my journey and update the blog on a monthly basis with which games I’ve been playing through. Do you want to join me?
and if you are interested in the progress with reading books, you can follow my other blog.